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gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot · 1 year ago

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Chapter 7 Part 2: Videre sine videri (Seeing without being seen)

Warning: people die

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47442772

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It wasn’t until right before dawn that they made their final stop, covered by a patch of trees and overlooking a small dry stream bed. Per the path traced with the rugged tablet, there were still about two kilometers left to the coordinates Laswell had provided.

‘‘There should be light if there’s a camp there…’’ Riot commented, barely loud enough for him to hear, and he nodded in agreement.

‘‘We might be able to see better when it dawns, but that would mean it’d be harder to sneak in’’

‘‘Laswell said there were no satellite images, but in the topographical map it shows that there is a small mountain range more or less in the same area’’ She whispered, consulting the tablet while Ghost covered the surroundings, and then she looked up, trying to make out the outline of the woods further down from where they were. ‘‘It’s a long shot, but could it be that they are using the mountain to cover from sight?’’

‘‘We’ll have to get closer to…’’ Ghost turned to look at her sharply when she gripped his arm all of a sudden. ‘‘What?’’

‘‘Smoke’’ She whispered, her eyes fixed on some point over his shoulder. He followed her gaze and then saw it. A weak volute of smoke further down the dry stream they were perched upon. ‘‘A patrol?’’

‘‘Maybe’’ He grunted. ‘‘I don’t want to leave behind anything that could raise the alarm. Let’s go see’’

Riot nodded. Her heartbeat was steady. Her breathing was still normal. She had feared she would be terrified, petrified, paralyzed, useless. But she was almost looking forward to it. Her hand gripped harder her M4, her finger on the trigger.

‘‘I’ll watch your six’’

Ghost turned to look at her, and she could swear there was amusement in his eyes.

‘‘You lead this one, Sergeant. I’ll watch your six’’

‘‘But, sir…’’

‘‘I’m not going to repeat myself’’

Infuriating bastard, I know what you’re doing

Her eyes narrowed, and this time he knew it wasn’t a smile. But she moved, brushing past him to head their path towards the place from where the smoke was coming from, giving it a wide berth to better observe the surroundings.

If he hadn’t been looking at her, Ghost wouldn’t have been able to make out where she was. He was quite stealthy, but with his size, he was bound to make even the smallest noise, a leaf crunching under his boot, a stick splitting, anything. She was shorter than him by quite a bit, and although muscular, leaner than him, and she seemed to glide above the ground.

Riot moved carefully, trained eyes at times on the ground and at times at the front and one side, leaving the other side and the back for Ghost to watch while she guided him among the trees, stopping to listen from time to time. As they approached the zone, they could hear rustling sounds and voices.

It was a small camp, of only four tents, with a small group of six men dressed in fatigues sitting around a makeshift fire, laughing and drinking. Ghost and Riot shared a disapproving look, seeing how close the tents were to the trees, how distracted the men were, how badly defended was their camp, that none of them were keeping watch.

‘‘Ghost to Base’’ He growled into the comm, his eyes again on the camp while she lifted her head slightly to look around, scanning the surroundings.

‘‘Looks like they’re alone’’ Riot sighed, smirking under her balaclava, the situation was so stupidly funny. ‘‘Wind is favoring us.’’

‘‘Reckless’’ Ghost grunted. ‘‘What is their officer thinking’’

‘‘Base to Ghost’’ Gaz’s voice came out of the comm, and they both could almost imagine his smile. ‘‘Good to hear from you. Soap has gone to get Price. How is it going?’’

‘‘No problems so far. We’ve found a small camp with six idiots in fatigues getting drunk’’

‘‘Have you found the camp Laswell talked about?’’

‘‘Not yet’’

‘‘Price is here. Good luck’’ Gaz’s voice was replaced by the Captain’s. ‘‘What’s the situation?’’

‘‘We’re two klicks away from the coordinates. No lights or vehicle sounds. There’s a small camp with six potential hostiles getting drunk around a fire’’

‘‘Are they Russian or Belarusian military?’’

Ghost looked at Riot, who shook her head without looking at him, using her binoculars.

‘‘Nothing on their uniforms, but they are all wearing the same fatigues. A mercenary company?’’

‘‘Understood. Engage. Try to interrogate one or two of them’’

‘‘Roger that. I’ll contact you when we’re done. Over’’ Ghost switched his comm off and looked at Riot again. ‘‘Knives’’

He saw her nod, and noticed she already had one knife in her right hand, her left one tracing the throwing knives in her belt, tapping the blades silently. He started to notice a pattern, like when they were resting and she was doing the same on the butt of her M4.

‘‘For what I’ve seen, all of them are wearing the same plain uniform with no stripes…’’

‘‘It’d be better to get an officer, but it’ll have to do’’

Riot nodded silently again. She had to tell him. In the field, they could just count on each other, and it wouldn’t be fair.

‘‘Ghost…’’ She started, but he interrupted her right away.

‘‘I know’’

What?

She turned her head to look at him, and found Ghost staring at her. His eyes under that mask, under the grease and in the ligering darkness they were in before dawn, piercing through her, pulling her apart and then sewing her whole again, as if he could see every doubt, every thought, every nightmare.

Like a shark’s eyes, she had heard one of the recruits say. But she didn’t think so. There wasn’t emptiness there.

‘‘You do?’’ Her voice came out weaker than she would have liked, but she didn’t care anymore. ‘‘What if…?’’

‘‘It won’t happen’’ Ghost said gruffly, his eyes turning again to stare at the camp. ‘‘I could. You will, too’’

What happened to you?

She was surprised at the sudden rage she felt. A cold, piercing, venomous rage that gripped at her heart as tightly as when she revived Transnistria night after night.

Who made you like this?

His eyes were on her again, waiting for her decision. He was more than capable to continue alone, of that, she was completely sure. That he was having the patience to wait for her was… unexpected. But welcomed. She would try. She, at least, owed him that.

‘‘Say the word, Lt’’

‘‘The three on the left for you. I’ll take the three on the right’’

It was like riding a bike, her old evaluator in the 22 Regiment had said. Once you know, you can do it blind.

He had been right.

The knives had felt heavy at first in her hands, but now she couldn’t feel the weight of the handles, moving slowly between branches and bushes, the leaves brushing on her face and helmet, the sound drowned by the men’s guffaws and drunken singing. Two of them had even started fighting and were rolling on the ground, cheered by the rest.

Ghost appeared from the shadows, grabbing two of the men by their throats and throwing them to the ground forcefully, taking out the air from their lungs so they wouldn’t scream before stabbing them. Riot pounced in that moment, taking advantage of how close two of the remaining soldiers where sitting to slit their throats. The two men that had been rolling on the ground while fighting found themselves with a knife to their throat each when both Ghost and Riot grabbed at them.

Ghost stood up slowly, looking around while cleaning his knife, Riot remained crouched on the ground, doing the same on one of the fallen men’s uniforms. She wasn’t even nervous. Her breathing was normal. Like a walk in the park. Like riding a bike. Normal.

‘‘Ah, shit’’ She sighed in dismay, and Ghost, towering over her, chuckled darkly.

‘‘Got a bit carried away’’ He shrugged, returning his knife to its sheath. ‘‘You’re fast. I barely saw you move. Precise and stealthy.’’

‘‘I’m not as strong as others, I have to make do’’ She was smiling under the half balaclava. Damn, she wanted to holler. She didn’t freeze. Maybe she was not that broken.

The Lieutenant looked around again, and walked over one of the tents to start registering the inside.

‘‘Let’s see if we find anything useful before we contact Price’’

She started registering their pockets and examining their uniforms while he rummaged through a couple of the tents.

‘‘None of them have ID cards or tags, and their uniforms have no labels’’ Riot rose to her feet and walked over the remaining two tents to check inside, keeping an eye on the surroundings just in case.

‘‘Found a tablet here. Full battery’’ His tone was so dry and disapproving that she had to hide a chuckle. If one of the recruits took a tablet to a training drill they would be dead before morning, with a hole in their heads just from the Lieutenant’s eyes.

She was still chuckling when she realized something.

‘‘Ghost, how many cots have you seen?’’

‘‘Four, why?’’

‘‘Because in this tent there’s two, but in that one there’s only one’’

Six bodies and seven cots.

‘‘There’s one more’’ Ghost huffed, the tablet looking tiny in his enormous hands, and she nodded, thankful for her balaclava because she was smiling excitedly.

Time to hunt

‘‘Maybe someone’s taking a shit’’

He looked at her, intrigued by her tone and her uncharacteristically cheeky comment. Her blue eyes had the same mischievous glint he had learned to identify in Soap’s eyes.

Two peas in a pod indeed.

‘‘Go’’

He followed her with his eyes until she seemingly vanished into thin air when she reached the treeline. Boudicca, Soap called her while laughing when she had beaten the mouthy recruit. Johnny trusted her completely, or so he said.

She’s the one you want to come for you if you’re in deep trouble, Lt. She’ll bulldoze anything in her path to get to you. She demolished a prison wing once to get me out.

You trust her, Johnny?

With my life and without doubt, Simon

He trusted his friend’s judgement. Now, if only she did.

Ghost was still trying to unlock the tablet when she appeared among the trees, pushing a terrified man, one of her knives threatening his throat. His uniform was different, with an insignia on his chest, but no stripes whatsoever. If the man had been terrified by being snatched from the forest by an enraged valkyrie, now that he was facing the Reaper, skull mask and all, was almost too much and fell to his knees.

‘‘He’s Belarusian’’ Riot informed, her pulse firm while keeping her knife on the man’s throat, standing behind him while Ghost was looking down at them, arms crossed with the tablet in hand.

‘‘Did he give you problems, Sergeant?’’

‘‘Nah, he was too focused in keeping his willy in his trousers. Think he soiled himself again though’’ The mischievous glint was still there, and he felt a warmth inside that made him confused, and shook it off quickly.

‘‘What force do you belong to’’ Ghost asked, and waited while she translated it to Russian. The prisoner started to babble, his terrified eyes transfixed on the skull plate.

‘‘He says he was in the Belarusian army but now he’s working for a private military company, they are stablishing a base in the area’’ Riot toyed with her knife on his throat, making the man shudder. ‘‘I asked him the location of their main camp and it coincides with our coordinates’’

‘‘Why here?’’ He waited again while she spoke to the man.

‘‘The mountain is an old soviet base from before the Cold War. They are using it to store weaponry…’’ She looked troubled for a moment. ‘‘He says that tablet you’re holding should have photos and intel, they weren’t supposed to take it to the field but they wanted to play music… We found the idiots of the group it seems.’’

‘‘What’s the matter?’’

‘‘He said… Donny told them to not go out and that he should have listened… the password is 664455’’

Ghost typed the password and grunted in approval when the tablet unlocked, starting to browse the folders.

‘‘We’re taking this, it seems he’s telling the truth with the photos, there’s even videos…’’ He clicked on the last one, it was a video of a training drill with a group a soldiers and an officer speaking to them in half English half Russian.

You stupid fucks, will you ever do this shit right?

Riot’s head shot up to look at him, eyes wide, her hand gripping harder her knife and her other hand clawing at the man’s nape. Ghost tensed up instantly.

‘‘Sergeant?’’

‘‘I know that voice’’ She whispered. The glint was gone, and her eyes were back to the cautious, guarded look from before. He turned the tablet to show her the screen, the video paused on a frame that showed a tall, lanky man with a dark moustache and dark hair, in the middle of screaming at someone. ‘‘That’s Donny Floyd’’

Ghost wanted to ask who was that, but the man under Riot’s grip decided to try and free himself, only to find the Lieutenant’s fist, knocking him out.

‘‘Ghost to Base’’

‘‘Base to Ghost. What’s the situation?’’ Price answered almost instantly, as if he had been waiting by the comm all that time, and surely it had been like that.

‘‘We’ve neutralized six hostiles and are interrogating a seventh. He stated that they’re a PMC. We’ve found a tablet with photos and videos, the camp seems to be an old Soviet base inside a mountain. Riot has recognized a man in one of the videos’’

‘‘Who?’’ That was Laswell’s voice. Ghost looked at Riot, whose eyes were now cold and distant again, and her voice when she answered was equally cold.

‘‘Lieutenant Donald Floyd’’

‘‘Shit. Well, it’ll have to do’’

‘‘You knew’’ Riot accused. The venom was back, bitter in her mouth, coating her tongue and palate, constricting her throat, rotting her teeth. ‘‘You knew he was here... that's why you sent me here, because I would recognize him’’

‘‘I had a lead but it wasn’t reliable’’

‘‘Now what, Kate? They can’t get inside a mountain all alone’’

Ghost kept looking at Riot, who was avoiding his eyes. One step ahead, two steps back it seemed.

‘‘What would you have us do?’’

‘‘Riot knows what I want’’

‘‘You… You knew I would kill him for you even without you asking’’

‘‘I want him in one piece and able to talk’’

‘‘If I put my hands on him there will be nothing left for you’’ Riot snarled, rising to her feet.

‘‘If I have to call it, I will, Riot. You owe me’’

‘‘You promised!’’ The Sergeant sounded offended.

‘‘Your orders are the usual. Infiltrate the compound, find the target, and bring him back for interrogation. Confirm, Wolf 7’’

The usual. Wolf 7. Ghost’s mind went back to all the times he had been sent on solo missions to do the same. He should have guessed. In a way, he was strangely glad.

She would understand. She could understand.

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cipheramnesia · 7 months ago

Text

The sun, the horizon, and some of the stars vanished into darkness as the sun set on the far side of the moon. Laika could see everything from the screens of Genghis Khan, and what little she couldn't she felt thumping in her heart. The goddess and single system of many aspects, Luna was lit up to her in starlight alone, big in her heart as it was in the sky.

"According to Captain Loren's map, we should proceed with landing at these coordinates," GK said. "I have verified its accuracy against the surface scan, and it is safe to continue."

With few extra prompts from GK, Laika connected nerve and bone switches, bringing them once again to rest on the surface beneath the sky. "Sorry, GK," she said. "When we're fabulously wealthy maybe we can get a hopper."

"There is no need for the accommodations, I am capable of surface landings," it said, although Laika detected a hint of relief in its tone. She wondered if she could buy a beater, just to have something.

Doc slung the satchel Loren had given them over her shoulder, adding to the weight of her shoulder bag with little difference. She had her envirosuit on already, save the helmet. "So this is Paris," she said.

"Well we're not hanging out for long in this tourist trap," Laika said, picking the map of the Ghostlands up from the two heavy duty cases Loren also provided. She had it folded over to topographic side. "You sure I'll be able to reach you on the phone? One crater looks like another to me."

"I will provide direction. In future, you should ensure I have access to your communication devices for sufficient time to create a secure link."

"Where's your sense of adventure," said the Doc. "Where's your sense of trust in me? Where's your sense of direction?"

"Listen, uh, Doctor... Blake?"

She rolled her eyes, "It's Slooooane. Sloane!"

"Well we aren't here for like, fun hijinks or whatever. We're paying your prison tab and gettin' GK all fueled up, and then we're leaving earth in the..." She felt a pang at the thought of leaving the moon. "In the dust."

"You must have grand ideas for such a future," Doc exclaimed with a joyful smile.

"I'm-" Laika crammed a sudden thought, barely complete, down in the back of her brain's sock drawer to unpack later. "I'm not planning any further ahead than the next meal. Let's get this show on the road, see if these Ghostlands actually exist." She began strapping into the improvised breather and insulated clothing Michele and Cat hacked together from spares on the Paperclip.

"Of course it's real," Doc said, "We've read it with our own eyes." Her expression had the same ferocity as it had when Loren proposed the idea.

● ● ● ● ●

Nguyen said, "How long have you been planning this?" as she looked at the map Loren spread over the floor on GK's bridge.

"I guess, since I was a kid, you know the ghost stories."

"Yeah, stories. Just stories."

Dandridge was sulking by the entryway. "I'm not listening to any more of this shit," he said, grabbing his helmet. He looked over to Laika, with the firearms laying in a pile behind her. She looked back, confused. Dandridge sighed. "I'll be in my quarters after you're done being idiots."

"Does he seem unusually pissed to you," Loren asked.

"I'll explain later. So this is the plan of Michele, age five?"

"Finely aged like a fossil record," Doc said, gleefully looking at the map. It was the usual topography from the far side of Luna, with hand drawn notations of landmarks, paths, buildings, an entire small town.

Laika was halfway reconsidering GK's suggestion they eject everyone into space as Loren continued. "I mean, a hobby but then we got the word down that Sloan there-"

"Doctor Sloan if you please."

"Doctor Sloan there was coming up to a crew change, and then our doctorate bit it, and... it just started clicking. She's been there, the Ghostlands In Thousand Eyes."

Laika said, "So your whole deal here, it's riding on the promise of an alleged mass murderer, or something, like no offense, their words."

"None taken!" Doc said. "Is there tea?"

"All we have is burritos and water," Sy spoke from where he was propped against the wall. "I'm a little skeptical too."

"Right, like, the word of, whichever name... I mean she seems, maybe, less than reliable?" Laika shrugged.

"I'm relieved!" Doc's tone grew fierce. "I read it, I have reading glasses."

"That's what I mean," Loren said. "Have you ever looked up close at them?"

"Kinda scared she's gonna bite me," Nguyen said, rubbing the back of her neck.

"They're glassworks. Real actual glassworks. I ran spec on them at one of our stopovers. Literally no other element like them, and the way they interact with photons doesn't follow any laws of physics."

Doc smiled, "They're my reading glasses."

"Some of her beads are from the Ghostlands too. If what she's told me is right, we have a shot at godseye. Which, well, we could set our own price. We could buy a whole system with just one particle. The only real sticking point is Doctor Sloane is the only one who seems to know how to get there and she's not-"

"Blake, puh-lease! And I told you, it's just a reading rainbow, everything is between the lines."

Nguyen nodded. "Uh huh. So why are we suddenly pulling out the stops?"

"I think I know," said Laika. "It's-"

"She's a werewolf," Loren said in a rush, grinning.

"Okay?" Nguyen shrugged.

"Luna's system is synced to Laika's werewolf species. I mean, lots of shifters aren't like that, but she is. As long as we go after dark, she can shift into a wolf and walk right in." There was a childish enthusiasm in Loren's expression.

"Scott's gonna shit."

"Dandridge doesn't have to know the details."

Sy spoke up, "So we just, what, walk into a mythic half world and say hi, can we have your magic space dust, and you're all good?"

"Sy," Laika said, "it doesn't sound that... uh, actually this sounds pretty sketchy."

"Obviously that's not what we're doing."

Nguyen looked relieved. "So, what-"

"Laika is going to walk into a mythic half world and steal the magic space dust. And I have it all planned out."

Part 4: A Midnight Summer Dream

a story by @rox-and-prose and @cipheramnesia

Luna was a pale sliver of paint in the stars, a slip of the brush in the forever of the sky.

"That's it," Michele Loren said. "This is where we head our separate ways for the moment."

Laika took her hand of the control vines for Genghis Khan as she stared wordlessly. The earth civ moon, original version, a system unto itself. She had devoured all she could find about Luna, the multifacet god, in hopes to understand the call she felt in the days after leaving home. She'd put the hope of seeing Luna with her own eyes at the bottom of a box and buried the idea. Her muzzle hung slightly agape as she searched for something momentous to say, to share with GK how much it meant to be in the here and now.

She noticed Sy was watching her, and the dryad smiled and glanced away when he saw her seeing him. She blushed and her face felt hot, and she forgot her train of thought.

"I never imagined I'd rob the moon," she said.

"You're only robbing a very, very small part of it," Cat Nguyen corrected.

The crew of the Paperclip were sharing the bridge of Genghis Kahn, with varying expressions of perplexity on their faces watching the werewolf executing the peculiar movements and footwork involved in manipulating the various switches and nerves and pedals essential to a Pilot. Even Doc seemed entranced, silent through all the system jumps, or structure solutions, or whatever GK liked to call them. All except Dandridge who returned to the Paperclip immediately in a sullen huff, vowing never to set foot on GK ever again. Laika was going to need to find out what exactly GK had done to piss him off so bad.

Now they were gathering up helmets and and gloves for their envirosuits, looking around for just the right way to excuse themselves from the room which Laika had seen enough of before she was eight to recognize. "Okay," Loren said. "Well, you know. This should go fine, just stick with the plan, keep it simple, you know."

"I can do better than that," Doc (Laika still hadn't figured out if the woman was Blake Sloane, or Sloane Blake, or something else), pushing her bracelets along with the sleeve of her purple, double breasted, knitted suit jacket. "I can stick the plan to me." There was a mess of writing which Laika deeply hoped was meant to look smeared and half erased on Doc's forearm.

"That's, that's a great- Good job Sloane."

"Doctor Blake, why can't you ever get my name right?!"

"I'm sorry. Doctor Blake. Fantastic work as always." Loren turned to Laika. "Look, I don't know how to uh. You know how much work this has been for me. Well, just be careful. Make sure next time I see you, you have the godseye or Doc, or both. Or don't let me see you again?"

"Is that a threat," Sy asked.

"Think of it as friendly advice," Loren said.

"And also as a threat," Nguyen added, despite Loren's sharp look. "What?" she shot back at his frown.

"Do I have do go with these guys?" Sy looked at Laika who said "no" at the same time as Loren and Nguyen said "yes."

"We'll keep our end," Nguyen said, "along with your friend. You keep yourself along with Doc."

"Who you wouldn't be sorry to see killed, I gather."

"We'd prefer she come out of this mostly intact," Loren sounded almost apologetic.

"Okay, okay, fine. Let's not draw this out, I get it."

Loren breathed a small sigh of relief and Nguyen just smiled. "We'll get going then," he said.

"Take care of yourself," Laika gave Sy a shoulder pat as he walked by, then impulsively pulled him into a hug.

"I'll be good," he said into fur. "You have the hard job."

"Pulling off the heist?"

"Being alone with, uh, the Doc."

Loren and Nguyen waited at the entryway to the bridge. Laika set down Sy from the hug and stood her full height. "Oh," she said. "Before you go? GK, please threaten them."

Its voice coming from nowhere as usual, GK said, "Thank you Laika, for this commendable request. Captain Michele Loren of the Paperclip, please prepare for receiving a threatening missive."

"What?"

"Captain Michele Loren, Pilot Cat Nguyen, and the remaining crew of the ship Paperclip not present aboard myself, I am placing you under the advisement that should even the smallest fraction of an injury occur to Pilot Laika Blackwood, or Sy Drangea, electrical engineer, I will track you to the end of earth civilization space, and to parts unknown. You will never know safety or peace for as long as you remain alive. I will find your dreams, and take them from you. There will be no power up to and including the total heat death of this universe which will stop me from extracting your lives in payment. If you die, I will find yours souls. I will tear apart the essence of your beings. I will disperse the electrons of your bodies into every star of this universe. I will burn your souls to ash. Nothing will remain. Please ensure Sy returns safely to me upon our next meeting."

Loren stared, open mouthed.

"Uh," said Nguyen, "You're... really good at that."

"Thank you," said GK. "Your praise is insignificant to me. Please have a safe trip."

#gkw

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insomniamamma · 4 years ago

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Greenhorn: young!Ezra x F!reader

A/N: This was inspired by @opheliaelysia and our conversation about how Ez wouldn't be able to resist squishing an aurelac pod, but it ended up turning into something more. ALSO, though reader and OCs refer to Ezra as "the kid" I am picturing an early 20s Ezra. None of these people are minors.

Warnings: Language. Canon typical violence. Death. Slight gore. Angst. Hurt/comfort. A lil bit of fluff. Implied may-december romance. No beta.

___________________________________________________________________

This is a bad idea, you think, as your drop-ship hits atmo, small squarish windows limned in fire, deep vibration that thrums up through your spine, the ship trying not to tear itself apart, and the kid is still talking. No one can hear him above the vibrations and the scream of superheated molecules shredding themselves apart against the heat shield. Del sings out

"We're at max pressure--" "Copy--" "There was this one time--" "No one gives a fuck, Greenhorn---" "All of you shut the fuck up--" "We're through," says Del, "Drogue deploy in 15--' 'There was a whole fuckin nest of em--" "Oi! Shut it!" "3-2-1, deploying drogues." Del punches the button at his right hand and the drogue 'chutes fire out and the drop-ship does a sick lurch, its pace slowing from suicidal to absurdly dangerous. You've got the ability to soft-land, but so long as Del lines it up right you won't have to, the bog should cradle you. Fuel saved on the way down makes the lift safer. "Deploying mains," you say, and flip the toggle, a loud thump and another jolt as the main chutes deploy, sprouting out from the top of your lander, like the days of Apollo on Old Terra. And still the fucking kid is yapping. In writing the kid seemed half-decent, a big, raw boned boy with a rakish, dimpled smile. Had his own suit and kit and filters. Was polite enough when you asked questions of him, all yes Ma'am and no Ma'am, and three bags full Ma'am. Never would have considered his green ass if Marko hadn't bailed, or, more precisely, if Marko hadn't gotten himself in trouble with the locals and run with his tail between his legs, well, so now you had the kid, who could not for the life of him seem to shut up for two seconds. At first you thought it was just nerves, but he's been yammering away since you requested release. An uninterrupted, stream of consciousness narration. You are wondering if he is, indeed, brain damaged somehow.

"The thing about channel rats--" "For the love of Kevva no one gives a sweet jewel encrusted crap--" "Ezra! For the love of all that's holy, if you do not shut up I will shoot you in the face," you snap. "Clear?" He gives you a little wounded look. "Clear," says Ezra. And, for a brief, miraculous moment, there is silence. The drop ship lands, lurches in the boggy ground and is still. "How we lookin, Del?" "Nav dropped us right on the button," says Del, "We look great." The tight quarters fill with the sound of bodies unstrapping from the crash-couches. "Alright people. Let's suit up. Sooner we get our pull, sooner we get back up to connection orbit." You walk through the Green in loose formation. Del put you down not 3 clicks from the dig site, but the Green is tricksy and, lately, full of dangerous people. Del and Big Pete have rails. You and the kid have your throwers strapped to your hips. Del takes point, you and Big Pete hang back a hair. The kid is supposed to be bringing up the rear, but a look over your shoulder shows him entirely transfixed. This is probably his first time off whatever backwater sprung him, all shiny and new and dropped into the Bakhroma Green, his big brown eyes all agog, trying to look everywhere at once. And you feel this keenly, a spike in your chest that recalls your first time dirtside, the great, broad blue arc of the sky was enough to fuck you up, after only knowing smoothly curving station walls and blunted angles. You recall your wonder, setting foot on this lush and deadly ground, never had you seen so much life, never seen life that wasn't controlled and carefully cultivated. The Green is a truly wild place that obeys no rules but its own. "Is it all like this?" he asks, "So verdantly forested?" "Yep," says Del, "Once in a while you get a soft-spot like we landed in, but most of it's trees and roots." You slog along. The site is close, but it's already warm. And by the time you get there, the kid is mostly silent and that is truly a blessing, likely the effect of slowly poaching in his suit, not accustomed to the heat like you and the rest of the crew. "Should be getting close," says Del, brow furrowed, peering at a battered topographical map, a red x inside a red circle. You stop a beat and peer through the patterns of shadow and trees, the haze of winkling purple dust. "There," you say, hand reaching out to point without even thinking about it, a patch of dark, slightly sunken earth, devoid of brush. Plants don't like to grow over aurelac nests. You don't know why and it doesn't matter. "Right. We set up here. Trade me the rails, Del, you get to play teacher. Listen up, Ezra, Del is one of the best harvester's you'll meet. You listen to him, clear? You do what he says and nothing else." "Clear," says Ezra, grinning all big through his fishbowl helm. "Um...boss?" Says Big Pete, "Why we bothering with this boy?" "What if Marko can't get himself out of the shit this time, huh? We'll need another set of hands...we'll--" "PUT THAT DOWN!" Del's voice squeals loud and offended over the comms, "The fuck are you doin?" And before you can even think, you and Big Pete are running for the dig and would you look at that, there's the kid, gloves pulled out of their ring-seals and piled on the mossy ground beside him. He's got an aurelac node husk cupped in his bare hands, not even safely cut yet, it's umbilicus disappearing into the black dirt. "EZRA! WERE YOU BORN THIS STUPID OR DID IT TAKE YEARS OF RIGOROUS PRACTICE?" And, look at him, the kid smirks at you through his fishbowl helmet. "Sorry, Ma'am, " he says, "It seemed uncannily squishy. I just had to find out for myself--" You close the distance between you and grab his wrist, hard enough so that his idiot smile fades and you actually see some fear prick in those big brown eyes. Fear is good in the Green. Fear is your friend. Unlikely this kid has ever had cause to be afraid, but, by Kevva, you're going to give him some cause. You pull your knife from your belt and press the business end into Ezra's palm, right between the heart and head lines, just enough to dimple but not enough to break skin. He tries to jerk away, but you know how you hold him, grind those wrist bones together like marbles in a sock. "Ezra," your voice is soft, yelling does no good, this kid's probably been yelled at for most of his formative years, and it's obviously made no impression. "You see all this purple shit floating through the air? Pretty, isn't? Looks like fairy dust--" "Ma'am--" he tries to pull free. "Shut it, fool," you push the knife tip just a hair harder, feel him flinch, flinching is good, might save his idiot hide someday. "I break your skin, I give your the faintest kitten scratch of a wound and the spores will get in there and fest black. These spores will eat you from the bones out. You rot from the inside, clear?" "Clear." You let go and he scrabbles his gloves back on. "Fuckin hell," says Del. Big Pete just shakes his head.

Thank Kevva for small favors, the kid is a quick study. Those big hands are surprisingly clever, and even Del is impressed by his ability. The idea licks around your mind that maybe it's time to cut Marko loose for good, Ezra has plenty of raw talent even if he can't shut up. Your time in the Green is almost done, a half cycle to button up the dig, break camp and lift. You've given Del back the rail-gun, traded for harvesting. The thrill of splitting open those strange membranes has never gown old for you, the finicky work of dissecting the carom blisters away from the inner sac, the fizz of the fazer and then your prize revealed, in this moment your mind is fully on the pull, you don't notice anything off until you feel something thump into the back of your helmet, and hear the whine of a primed thrower. A voice crackles ever the common channel. "Drop your weapons boys, or this stupid cow gets one right through the brain pan." Big Pete already has his hands in the air, Petey always was a softy, Del still has his rails, looking at your face for a sign and you shake your head. Take the shot, you think, you try to think it AT him, but you see the rail-gun slide out of his hands. God Damnit. You would have expected them to act selfishly. You always expected you'd die out here and the business end of some thrower. And, of course, the kid is nowhere to be seen. Probably wandered behind a tree to take a leak or already caught a blast to the skull. "Right then," Your assailant says, he's got your air-hose doubled over in his free hand, "You open up that case so I can--" The thrower discharges and you pitch forward, there is no pain, just pressure, and suddenly you can breathe easier. You heave against the dead weight on your back, scrabble back down into the slick of dead leaves and needles and then the pressure is gone and you sit up. The dying man crawfishes over the loam, peering out of his helm with wide eyes and blood spattered lips, eyes that plead until they are obliterated. Ezra stands with his thrower smoking, his face pulled up into a rictus of fear and rage. "Del. Petey. Circle back. Comm channel zero. Anything flinches you take it out. Clear?" Big Pete :"Clear" Del: "Clear" "Ezra. Get his filter," "huh?" "Did I stutter? You get his filter and any other kit that's any good." You stand, but your legs want to betray you. You take a couple shambling steps and plant yourself on a fallen tree, watching the kid strip the corpse, peels the filters and o rings and hose like he's done it a million times. Your breath comes hard and ragged. Nausea grips you. All your time in the Green and you never get over that feeling of almost dying, the taste of it on your tongue like hot smoke, and here's the kid gripping your shoulder, helping you up. "We going back to camp?" "Yeah," you say, "Thrower out. There might be more of them." "I didn't want to--" You know where this is going. You remember hearing the same arguments spill out of yourself the first time you had to use a thrower, "I mean, he woulda--" You stop so you can look at him through the foggy business of his helmet. "You did right." You say, "he meant to take our whole pull." Ezra nods, but his eyes are still white-rimmed and shocked. You reach for him and give his arm a little shake. "Let's go. Eyes peeled, clear?" "Clear."

You keep expecting that shaky, nauseated feeling to dissipate on the walk back to camp but it does not. The suit seems suffocating, and you practically bolt for the tent, in and fumbling with your suit before Ezra can even turn on the scrubbers. You reach to doff your helmet, something you've done daily for years, but your hands shake and you fumble the catches, two attempts and you feel like you're drowning in your own exhalations, you need this fishbowl off your head right now, but your hands won't stop shaking. "Here," Ezra pushes your hands away and does the catches himself, lifting the helmet away from your face. His own fishbowl's gone, his sweaty hair sticking up in crazy quills, that little blond streak screaming up from his scalp like an exclamation point, and before you can properly process what's happening, Ezra pulls you into a hug, his arms wrapped tight around your shoulders. Your hands, which, by all means, should be shoving him the fuck off of you, turn traitor and creep around his middle. You're still shaking, but you feel him shaking too, the two of you vibrating with spent adrenaline like plucked guitar strings. His warm palm grips the back of your neck and nestles your head into the space between his neck and shoulder. You let out a watery breath. "Fuck. I'm getting to old for this shit." Ezra makes a dismissive sound. His fingers dig at your nape, pressing into the tight, cabled muscles there. You let yourself lean against him, lean into his warmth. You can't remember a time you've been this close to someone without expecting a backstab. Ezra murmurs. It's okay, we're safe, I've got you, we're safe, reassuring himself as much as you. "Ezra?" "Yes, Ma'am?" "Don't make this your life," You lift your head and look up at him, his brows are furrowed. "I'm afraid I don't understand." You poke his belly. "Get yourself maybe three solid pulls and then you get the fuck out of here," you say, peering into those big, dark eyes, "Get out and don't come back." "Ma'am?" "The Green changes people," you say, "And generally not for the better." He gives you a hard squeeze that you return and then he releases you, but only partially, one arm still slung over your shoulder. "You know," he says, "I have among my personal effects a bottle of Kanvian fire-water. Once we lift we could find a quiet place on yon freighter and share it." "Kanvian, eh?" You turn up your arm to look at your chronometer. "We boost in, what, a third of a cycle? Manage not to do anything catastrophically stupid between now and then and I'll consider it." His lips pull into a smirk, his dark eyes glittering, crinkling at the corners. He raises his hand to his head in a mock salute. "Yes, Ma'am." "Del and Big Pete should be done with their sweep soon. Start system checks on the ship, then help break camp." "Yes, Ma'am." He scoops up his discarded helmet under one arm and heads for the entrance. "Oh, and, Ezra?" "Yeah?" "You say anything about..." You gesture vaguely, "Whatever this was that just happened--" "Not to worry, fair maiden," he says, grinning, "No word of our tryst shall pass my lips, because I know that the second I let things slip you will undoubtedly shoot me in the face." "The fuck outta here, smooth talker," you laugh. Ezra jams the fishbowl back on his head and steps out into the sticky heat of The Green, zipping the tent behind him. He's a fool, you think as you set about grading and stowing the day's pull, he's a fool and likely to get himself killed. You just hope you're not the one who has to see it.

#ezra prospect #ezra prospect x reader #Ezra x reader #prospect verse #young Ezra

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nightingalefeminist · 5 years ago

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Scars

Dean barely recognized himself. His body was twisted and wrecked, unrecognizable even from just a few years ago. Hell, even a year ago Dean’s knuckles weren’t so scared up he couldn’t flex his hand without feeling the knots between the bones. His bathroom mirror needed to be cleaned, it was smudged with toothpaste and flimy water but it reflected his new self perfectly well.

His face was surprisingly intact although if Bobby or Charlie saw him they might do a double take. There were small lines of white criss crossing his throat; rivers of muddy pinks, and whites, and browns. His left nostril never grew back quite right after being flayed open by a werewolf’s claw and his right eye didn’t open a hundred percent of the way anymore, but besides that there was only one other visible scar above his neckline. The piece de resistance. A puckered canyon that ran from his left ear all the way to the corner of his mouth. Cas always said it was a miracle the hell hound didn’t rip off his beautifully bowed lips.

Dean couldn’t help but smirk as he ran a thumb over the peaks in his upper lip. “Those lips and lashes of yours,” Cas said once, “they keep your face frustratingly dainty.” He’d been pissed at the time because Cas said it in front of Sam and Rowena but later, when they were lying in bed, Cas kissed his eyelids and lips so softly it made his ache. Even with the tenderness the angel’s hands were never afraid to grip and scratch his scarred skin when rough is what Dean craved.

Leaving the bathroom with a freshly washed face Dean padded back to his empty room and tried to psych himself up for getting undressed. Every year it got harder and harder to move in certain ways, one of them being lifting his arms over his head to take shirts off. His largest scar, a mass of gnarled white webbing that branched out from a disc of smooth hard skin, sat just beneath his right shoulder blade. It made it hard to lift that arm above his head without the feeling of skin unzipping. He had to bend over at the waist as much as he could, without falling over, to shimmy out of the shirt, which was also hard because there was a newer scar on his lower back that pinched when he did.

They never seemed to hurt in the moment, with claws and bullets and god only knows what else coming at you, the adrenaline took care of the pain, but afterward… Dean shuddered and finally slipped the shirt off. He fell with a whump onto the bed behind him. If Cas was with them on the case he would just heal them, but there was always times when they were away from each other for too long, like if guilt-ridden idiots were doing stints in purgatory or something, and angel mojo didn’t heal scars.

Dean rubbed the divot in his upper thigh through his jeans and winced when phantom pain shot through his groin. He was sure a scar couldn’t hurt after this much time had passed but every once in a while he get a flash of pain. His second biggest scar, from purgatory, which he got right before meeting Benny. A Leviathan had sliced a good chunk out of him, exposing the shiny muscle underneath. A few days later, when Benny saved him, he felt fine, but a few days after that and the vampire noticed Dean was lagging behind. When they opened the flap in his pants they saw a severely infected wound. So, with Dean biting down on a piece of tree bark, Benny cut away as much bad skin as he could before sewing everything shut using thread from their clothes and a needle made from a plant thorn. The parts that couldn’t be closed were wrapped in large fronds and secured as tightly as possible with stips of Dean’s flannel. He honestly didn’t know how that wound hadn’t killed him. He was delirious with a fever for days after the patch job and at time they had to sit for hours on end, Benny keeping watch, while Dean hallucinated Cas, mumbling his name over and over.

After a few months it finally started scarring over, having spent countless hours dressing and redressing it, peeling leaves and bark off sticky skin. The skin remained bright red for a long time and his inner thigh muscle dipped sharply inward. Like he needed more bow to his legs, which is what Benny said before taking the last dressing off. It had made Dean laugh so when Benny did what he did next he was at ease despite the surprise of it. Many times during the redressings, a few weeks after the initial wound of course, Dean became hard while Beny worked on him. For a vampire in purgatory his finger oddly gently and soft. By the end of each session all he’d wanted was for Benny to put his hands on him. He got his wish when Benny took the last dressing off, after making his joke about Dean’s legs, when his fingers probed the almost fully-healed wound and then continued to caress up his thigh until they hovered over his crotch. Benny hesitated there and looked Dean in the eyes, asking a silent question. Dean remembered being scared of his own arousal but sure he wanted the handsome vampire to do something about it. The pain in his thigh was nothing to the feel of Benny’s hands and mouth around him. But even in those moments his mind wouldn’t let go of Cas.

Dean stood again, not very easily, and undid his belt, dropping his pants to the floor and stepping out of them. At least that part was easy. He sat and looked down at that chunk of leg missing and marveled at how he was still alive, how Cas and him were able to reconcile afterward. When they found Cas and he confessed to fleeing Dean had been utterly hollowed out. In order to feel something, anything, again he turned to anger and the anger bloomed grotesquely into resentment. The reason he could no longer run as fast or move as swiftly, the reason he almost died, had willingly abandoned him. When Cas saw the scar for the first time, while Dean attempted to wash the tattered remains of his clothes, he was overcome with shame and tears poured from his eyes. An angel sobbing was unheard of, but Cas stood there in front of him with his face twisted up painfully and tears cascading down his cheeks and it only enraged Dean more. Dean didn’t speak to him for weeks after spitting all the nastiest things he could think of at the weeping angel. Most nights, when Cas kept watch close by, him and Benny would fuck, neither of them trying to stay quiet.

Even now those memories made Dean’s gut get so cold it burned. It was guilt and regret that rotted inside him and if he thought about it too long he’d start to spin out. The angel did what he thought was the best thing to keep Dean safe and when the angel saw that he was wrong Dean took that raw, quivering vulnerability and cut it to pieces; intentionally doing as much damage as he could. Of course Cas didn’t come back with them then they found the portal. Why would he? All the angel knew of being vulnerable in front of Dean was being punished for it.

“Being in purgatory was easier than being around you,” he told Dean after miraculously turning back up. Some months later Cas told Dean it wasn’t true anymore, that he couldn’t imagine being without his closest friend. That time, when tears fell from Cas’ eyes, Dean held him and told him he was right there and always would be.

Dean stretched out his legs and started counting the scars in front of him. He stopped after a dozen. Too many times he’d been without Cas to heal him. Too often they were too far apart. His body was ravaged with thick, uneven tissue because of it and his soul was something even demons shied away from, not able to distinguish one piece of it from another, so knotted and ufsed together it must’ve been. Cas didn’t look away though. He rebuilt it back when he pulled Dean from hell and he knew what the true shape of it was under the scar tissue.

He lay down onto the bed and with a groan swung his legs up. He flexed his toes and noted that he still felt the pinky on his left foot even though it was gone. Dean sat up and looked at the foot and then once more at the map that was his skin. It reminded him of those bumpy topographic maps they used to play with in school, the mountain ranges rising like messy Braille to meet their fingers. His forearms and hands were the worst. His left palm was even etched with scars to the point where he couldn’t lay his hand out flat without a lot of discomfort. Why they always cut their palms he never bothered to question in the moment. Guess it was easier to squeeze blood into cauldrons that way. Man, if he had a penny for every time he’d bled over a cast iron pot or an open grave…

Dean huffed and found the Mark of Cain lightly outlined among a nest of more prominent scars. If anyone saw all these twisting veins of white they’d probably assume he self-harmed, which wasn’t very far from the truth. Most of the scars on his forearms were self-inflicted in the name of provins his humanity or giving up blood for a spell. Some, like the one that ran down the back of his right hand and ended in what would have been two missing fingers, were from pure stupidity. Luckily they’d gotten out of that goblin quickly, cutting into the stomach of the asty fucker that had bit them off, and hightailed it to the nearest hospital to get them reattached. Cas had been called but at that point he didn’t have a working set of wings and had to drive. Some of the scaring did go away and he ended up getting full control of his fingers back when the angel finally showed up to work his magic. Thank god for that at least. He wouldn't have cared so much as far as monster hunting went, if he could still pull a trigger or grip a knife he was fine, but being able to have all his fingers working when he fucked Cas was something he’d never take for granted.

The air in the bunker was still but it wasn’t stuffy. Dean held his breath and listened for a while but it was dead quiet which meant Sam was already asleep. EIther that or he was in bed reading all the news articles he could get his hands on. It was a good thing the kid was good at hacking into things or half of their fake credit card debt would be online subscriptions to newspapers.

He sighed and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. Anything to drown out the silence. How had they gotten here? How had he ever convinced Sam to leave his life in college to do this shit? If anyone had more scars than Dean it was Sammy. Most of them weren’t visible, which was saying something because his overly stretched body was riddled with the ones you could see. Plus Sam was actually missing two fingers on his left hand for cryin out loud. Another stroke of luck that it hadn't been his right considering it was his trigger and middle fingers. Dean would never get tired of making hang loose jokes whenever Sam started talking with his hands. Too bad he hadn’t lost the ring finger as well.

Utter stillness hung in the air. A small shiver went up Dean’s spin. He detested the silence. Slipping under the covers he reached for his headphones but not before checking the bottles on the nightstand to see if any still had beer. No luck. He settled for the old iPod Sam had loaded up with his favorite music. As soon as the first note was struck his nerves settled back down. Hell is For Children. He reflexively reached for his favorite but most faded scar.

Dean didn’t know why the handprint was almost completely gone now when at first it was so raised and knotted pink, like a fresh burn. Maybe as hell faded into the background the handprint did too. Cas used to say it wasn’t really a scar because it was made by angelic grace, which was, at its core, a benevolent energy. But Dean knew that wasn’t entirely true. He’d seen some of the worst things imaginable done with angel mojo.

He placed his hand over it and felt the slightly different texture under his fingertips. On most days he couldn’t see it unless the sun hit it just right and the shiny layer of skin would reflect briefly, like a silver coin at the bottom of a brook, winking as cool water flowed over it. When Cas gripped him there it put him into a kind of trance. Awareness would blue and warm around the edges; loose and floating just out of his reach.

Cas had done it in the middle of sex once on accident, grabbing Dean’s shouldn’t for stability has he moved hard above him. Dean can only remember the feeling. A non-memory of the euphoric release of pressure as everything he ever felt came rushing to the surface.

Dean touched that place on his shoulder with the tips of his fingers. It was hot but when he wrapped his hand around it, not nearly as big as Cas’ faded print, it was almost clammy.

Sometimes, if he closed his eyes tight, he could think on Cas so intensely that he could swear he materialized in the room. The cross between a half-dream and a hallucination; it paralyzed him with longing and for a few moments he might even feel the pressure of Cas’ arms around him. Every once in a while he’d curl up and bring on the fevered visions just so he could fall asleep. Tonight, with the music blaring in his headphones, he thought of the last time Cas held him and fell, barely, into fitful sleep.

From somewhere deep within his nightmares he felt the warmth pressed against the entire length of him and knew Cas was there--finally there-- before he even fully surfaced. The angel’s hands were cold and Dean gasped when they slipped under the blankets to find the scar on his thigh. He’d push them away, to be officially offended and all, but they felt so good on the hot skin there. Instead he receded in his angel’s arms as much as physically possible, to the sound of Cas chuckling in his ear. Those deep, mirthful notes were almost too much for Dean to handle. Almost. He slipped back into sleep and didn’t dream again until he woke.

#destiel #fan fic #there's also an A03 post for this if you don't like reading fics on tumblr #but yeah #I'm going to sleep now

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darkobsidianquill · 5 years ago

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Harry Potter and the descent into Darkness.

Chapter Sixteen.

Harry stuck his head through the study's door and glanced inside. Voldemort was sitting in his chair, but it wasn't behind the desk where it would normally be. Instead it was to the side of the desk, and he was working away on a very large piece of parchment. He was hunched over it, and scratching away at certain areas with a quill, and appeared quite focused on his work.

"Oh... excuse me, I'm sorry," Harry said quietly. Voldemort's head turned infinitesimally to one side so he could better see Harry out of his peripheral vision.

"Yes, Potter?"

"I got the items out of the Room of Requirement."

"Place them against the wall by the door," Voldemort said without looking up, as he continued on his work.

Harry nodded his head and slipped through the door, into the room. From there he could finally tell that the large sheet of parchment on Voldemort's desk was actually a topographical map. From what little he could see, he suspected it was a map of the manor grounds and surrounding area. He quickly focused on his task, crouched down, slipped his trunk from his pocket, enlarged it, and began pulling the items out of it while neatly stacking them in a pile.

The process took about ten minutes until he was sure he had removed every one of the strange objects, trinkets, and books he had pulled from the box in the hidden room. He sighed, closed the trunk, shrunk it, slid it back into his pocket, and stood to his feet. "They're all here. I'll just head back to Hogwarts, I don't want to bother you."

"Wait," Voldemort's voice called out through the thick silence and Harry froze. "I will be done shortly and I have a few things that need to be dealt with concerning you."

Harry blinked. "Alright. Where shall I wait?"

Voldemort's left hand rose and indicated that Harry should approach, so he did. "Sit. I am working on planning the manor's new wards. It will take me another twenty minutes to reach an appropriate stopping point. You will read this," he paused and dug a book out of one of the desk drawers, "until I am ready."

Harry quickly accepted the offered book before looking around, searching for a place to sit. There weren't any other chairs in the room at the moment. He wondered where the one he sat in the last time he was here had gone, but Voldemort, once again, was engrossed in his work, and Harry didn't want to bother him. Harry's mind quickly settled on the floor. The idea didn't really bother him any, the question was where on the floor to sit.

He eyed the open space between the door and the desk, but his body was yearning to be closer to Voldemort. Closer to the man's magic, and the pulsing invisible waves of his magic. Harry's eyes lulled closed a tiny bit as he lost his senses in the feel of the magic and found himself sitting down in a smooth motion, directly beside Voldemort's chair. He opened his eyes and furtively darted them up to see if the Dark Lord had watched him sit, and if there appeared to be any disapproval in his choice of spots. There was none. Voldemort was still engrossed in his work.

He sat cross-legged and hunched over the book. It was on creating false auras and false affinity signatures. Deceiving the Inner Senses, and other detection spells by Barat Facen.

Harry began to open the book and saw there was a small bookmark about half-way through the book. The chapter that was marked was about the counter to the affinitatem reveleo spell, so it was pretty obvious that this was where he was intended to start.

Quite some time had passed before he heard the scratching quill and ruffling parchments finally quiet, followed by Voldemort heaving a quiet sigh and shifting in his chair. Harry didn't even know when it had happened, but at some point he had shifted his position from sitting and hunching over the book about a foot from the side of Voldemort's chair, to actually leaning his back directly against the side of the chair, and stretching one leg out while the other was bent up.

Despite the fact that he was on the floor, he had felt exceedingly comfortable sitting there in the study, silently reading, while Voldemort worked. When he thought that the time was coming to an end and he would be leaving soon, he felt a pang of disappointment. When he let his rational mind think about it later, he would realize how utterly surreal that was. But at that moment, sitting in Voldemort's presence, he just felt calm and comfortable, and simply didn't want that to end. The quiet mingling of their magics also gave the room a wonderful taste to the air. At least, Harry thought so. He was still unsure if other people actually sensed these things like he did, and had to admit, he wondered why.

Voldemort leaned back and melted a bit into the chair. Harry wondered how long Voldemort had been working on the wards, and what all they would do. He wanted to ask, but was unsure if it was really his place to do so.

Voldemort's left arm fell down onto the armrest of the chair and his hand hung over the outer edge. His fingers dangled down and brushed against the top of Harry's head. Harry sucked in a harsh, startled breath at the intensity of the sensation that shot through him at the brief, direct, physical contact.

Voldemort's hand stiffened the instant after it had brushed against Harry's head, but Harry didn't know if it was in response to Harry's shocked breath, or if he had possibly felt something too.

Harry's mind was jumbled and confused. He couldn't quite put words to what he had felt. It had happened to fast, and been too brief. All he knew was that it was decidedly good, and he wanted to experience it again. Harry closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. It didn't matter what he wanted. This was the Dark Lord Voldemort. Asking the man to touch him was out of the question. More than that, it was idiotic.

Finally, Voldemort moved again and Harry quickly shifted his position so that he was no longer leaning against the chair, just in time for Voldemort to push it back and begin to stand. Harry quickly scrambled to his feet, as he simultaneously moved the book mark to the page he had ended on and closed the book.

"You will leave that book here. You can come back and continue to read it while you are here, but you will not be taking it with you," Voldemort said as he began to straighten up a few pieces of parchment on his desk.

"Oh..." Harry ineloquently replied with a bit of surprise.

Voldemort apparently finished up with what he was sorting through and turned to face Harry. Something flickered across his ruby eyes for a moment, but was gone before Harry could make sense of it.

"Come with me," he said as he began to quickly stride from the room, making Harry scramble to keep up.

Voldemort lead them down the hall to the staircase, and went up this time. Harry hadn't had any visions where he traveled to the third floor, so he really had no idea what was up there. At the top of the stairs, they took a left, and entered the first door on the right. As they entered the lights instantly came on. From what Harry could tell, it was a storeroom for various objects. He suspected that many of the things he had recovered from the Room of Requirement would probably end up in here. As he quickly glanced around, he realized he could hardly identify anything he saw.

Voldemort walked directly over to one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves and pulled out a medium sized, carved box with a hinged lid. He took the box over to the center of the room, where a bare table was sitting and set it down. He looked over at Harry with a pointed expression and Harry quickly made his way over to stand beside the man.

As he got there, Voldemort opened the box, and Harry saw that it was full of... wands. He blinked in confusion.

"You will need a second wand," Voldemort began, "All wands purchased for young children from Ollivander have a ministry trace spell applied to them. It automatically dispells when you turn seventeen, along with the trace spell that exists on your person. The secondary wand will have no such tracking charm in place. You will also need to make sure you only ever use your secondary wand for the dark arts. If you are ever in a situation where you have been accused of some misdeed or crime, they will check your wand before anything else. Are you aware of a spell called Priori Incantum?"

Harry shook his head.

"It will reveal the last spells you cast with your wand. They can keep casting it on your wand and reveal as many as the last fifty spells you have cast. There is a spell called Deletrius which removes evidence of previous spells cast by the wand, but you will not always have the time or opportunity to use the spell to clear your wand if put into a tight situation. Not to mention, a cleared wand history looks suspicious. If you have performed any dark arts recently, those spells will show up your wand if someone casts the priori incantum on it. If you only use your first wand for your classwork, and your second wand for your dark arts practice, you will be safe."

Harry was nodding his head in agreement. It had never occurred to him that any of that could happen, but he realized he should have. Now that he thought of it, Crouch Sr. had cased the priori incantum spell on his wand at the World Cup. It had shown that his wand had been used to summon the dark mark. Now that he fully realized what it meant, he definitely agreed that it was important that he get a second wand.

"I had a storehouse of supplies that was fortunately left undiscovered during my absence. I made it a point to collect as many wands as possible over the years during the war for just such occasions as this. Go through these until you find one that is acceptable," Voldemort said as he waved his hand towards the box and stepped to the side.

Harry quickly stepped forward and picked up the first wand. It felt completely wrong on his hand, so he didn't even bother giving it a flick before setting it down on the table. He just kept going from there; going from one wand to the next. Some wands felt cold, some just felt numb. Some were mildly warm and tingled a bit so he set them to the side as 'potentials' to sort through later.

He sighed in slight annoyance after he'd gotten through almost the entire box and still hadn't found anything that felt right... or even close to right. Voldemort chuckled and Harry looked up at him and felt himself smirk at the Dark Lord's amusement at his impatience.

"I was at Ollivander's for ages before he pulled out my holly and phoenix feather wand," Harry said as he continued to pick up wand after wand, and quickly discard them.

Voldemort hummed and looked off into the room.

Harry paused and a deep, thoughtful look crossed his face. "Do you still have the same wand you first got from Ollivander? Or was it lost?"

"I still have it."

"The one with the phoenix feather? Yew, I think?"

Voldemort narrowed his eyes and rose a single eyebrow questioningly.

"Ollivander told me about it because, apparently, your wand, and the wand I ended up with, are the only two wands that Fawkes ever gave tail feathers for. He said our wands had twin cores, or something. Said it was 'curious' in that annoying way he talks and that my wand was destined for great things or something."

Voldemort scoffed in amusement. "Sounds like something that man would say. I can even hear him saying it in my mind. That bit about our wands having twin cores is quite curious though. May I see your wand?"

Harry quickly pulled out his holly wand and handed it over. Voldemort took out his yew wand and held the two side-by-side, one in each hand. He shifted the holly wand into his wand-hand and acted as if he were getting a feel for it.

"Hm. This wand would work for me as well. They are quite similar. The holly doesn't conduct my magic as well, though. I can definitely tell the cores are almost identical though."

Harry couldn't help but eye Voldemort's yew wand with an air of intense curiosity, but suspected that asking to hold the Dark Lord's wand was probably a bad idea, so he kept his mouth shut.

Voldemort seemed to sense what he was thinking and smirked at him with an air of amusement. He handed Harry's wand back to him and Harry quickly pocketed it as he resumed his search through the box of wands.

There were only six wands left in the bottom of the box when Harry finally felt something right graze his fingertips. He paused and moved his hand back to the wand he'd just brushed up against. He grasped it, pulled it out and held it firmly in his grip. His magic coursed through it smoothly and easily. It seemed to magically vibrate at the same frequency as his own magic and the way it was in sync with him felt perfect. Harry was startled to realize that it felt like a better match than his holly wand.

"Found a match?" Voldemort's curious voice broke through Harry's stupor and he quickly nodded his head.

"Er... yeah. This one. Definitely this one."

"Let's see it," Voldemort said holding his hand out. Harry handed it over and Voldemort tapped his wand against it and some glowing text appeared over it that only the caster could really read. "Hm. Interesting," Voldemort said with an air of amusement and a smirk gracing his lips.

"What is it?" Harry asked, suddenly extremely curious.

"It is cypress wood. The core is dragon heart-string. Apparently from a Chinese fireball. You had to face that breed during the first task, didn't you?"

Harry blinked. "Oh. Yeah. Huh. Well, that's interesting, I suppose. I've never heard of a wand made of cypress."

"I don't think it's one of the types that Ollivander generally uses. I would guess the wand is foreign made by the core and wood type." Voldemort held his and and the cypress wand side by side. "Same length. So that makes this 13½ inches." He handed the wand back to Harry. "How good is the match?"

"Perfect," Harry said as he stared down at the wand in his hand. "Honestly, it feels like a better match than my holly wand does. I used to think it fit me perfectly."

"As I understand it, your magical core has shifted and grown considerably in the last year. It makes sense for the wand to suit you less now than it once did. Some types of wand wood conduct the dark arts significantly better than others. When Ollivander received only two feathers from Dumbledore's pet chicken, I imagine he intentionally used two contrasting types of wood for the two wands he created. One with a notably 'light' leaning wood, and one with a notably 'dark' wood. Yew, is more commonly associated with the dark arts. Performing the dark arts is easier with it as a conductor. Yew is a symbol of death and the hope for eternal life. Holly, in contrast, symbolizes holiness, consecration, material gain, physical revenge, beauty, and immortality."

Harry blinked. "Do you have an eidetic memory?"

Voldemort laughed. Literally laughed. He stopped quickly though, but smirked at Harry in amusement.

"As a matter of fact, I do. Although I didn't come by it entirely naturally. It is the result of a ritual I performed in my forth year at Hogwarts."

"Really?" Harry asked, with obvious interest in his voice. "I'll have to look into that one... Anyway, so what's the symbolism behind cypress wood, then?"

"The cypress tree is a symbol of death, because once cut, it never springs up again from its roots. It is also associated with the Greek god of the underworld, Hades. It is, like yew, more often than not considered a dark wand material."

"Ah... I see," Harry said as he looked down at his new wand with peaked interest.

Harry shifted his grip on the wand a few times, trying out how it felt in his hand. It was a few inches longer than his other wand and he wondered if the added length would mess up his casting any. The weight felt well balanced and the wood was smooth and polished. He found himself wishing he could start using that wand in class instead, and just drop the holly wand all together, but he knew that would defeat the purpose of getting it at all.

Harry turned to face the door they had come in from and cast a couple very simple spells. A lumos, a gentle breeze charm, and a localized warming charm; just to get a feel for it. He was grinning widely by the time he was done. He turned back to find Voldemort putting all of the other wands back into the box and then placing it on the shelf where it came from.

"Thank you for this... a lot. I mean it. It's fantastic. I never would have thought I'd find another wand that I'd feel more comfortable with than my holly wand," Harry said, earnestly as he looked down at the wand again with honest joy in his eyes.

Voldemort found himself almost uncomfortable with the words, and look of true appreciation and thankfulness in Harry's face. It wasn't a reaction he got often. It wasn't like he ever did anything unselfishly. If he did something for someone else, it was only because it would also benefit himself as well. Allowing Harry to get caught would only cause the Dark Lord's plans to come crashing down on his own head, so it was only prudent to start taking some precautions.

Voldemort gave Harry a dismissive wave of his hand. "Yes, of course. Just make sure you keep this one hidden from anyone else at the school. Also, this is only half of the precautions we need to take before I can let you perform any substantial magic while in the manor."

Harry stood straighter, taking on an air of serious attention.

"As an underaged wizard, you have a Ministry Trace spell on you. The wards that I currently have around the manor have prevented any of the magic performed in here from being detected by an outside source, which is the only reason the trace hasn't gone off on you already. However, we cannot entirely rely on that alone if you are to practice and perform any spells while here."

Harry's brow creased as he listened. "How does this Trace work?"

"It is a very rudimentary magic detection and location based spell. It cannot detect if you specifically cast any magic, but it can detect magic being cast. Once a spell is detected, the first thing it does is check to see if you are in, or near Hogwarts. If you are, it shuts down. If you are not, then the next thing it checks for is if there are any adult wizards around. If there are, it shuts down, assuming that the adult wizard cast the magic. If there are not any adult wizards, it assumes that you performed the magic yourself and the alarm goes off in the Ministry. At this point, it also checks to see if there are any muggles in the immediate vicinity and if there are, an additional infraction is noted, and a ministry obliviator is contacted."

Harry's eyes went wide as he took this in. "So, every time I perform magic, the Ministry can figure out where I am?"

"No. The spell cannot inform the Ministry of your location specifically, only if you are, or are not in Hogwarts. It uses the castle's wards to check."

"Oh... well, that's better at least..."

"Yes... in any case, we want it gone. There is a ritual that will dispell it quite easily, and you will return here tomorrow night for that."

Harry felt a bit queasy at the prospect of partaking in a ritual again so soon. The last one hadn't exactly been terribly pleasant for him, even if it could have been a lot worse. Voldemort could, apparently, see this in Harry's expression because he smirked and chuckled lightly.

"Do not worry so much, Potter. This will not involve any blood or knives. It won't even hurt for more than a minute and the pain is quite mild."

"You've performed it?"

"When I was fifteen, yes. I had absolutely no intention of returning to my summer living arrangements without free access to my magic, but I was also not willing to risk expulsion by getting caught."

"I can certainly empathize with that," Harry muttered darkly, as he remembered how many times during the previous summers, he had wished he could use his magic and not get caught. Suddenly he realized that was exactly what would come of this.

"Wait... so this... this will be permanent right? The trace will be gone from me, so even during the summers I can use magic and not end up expelled?"

Voldemort rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Yes, Potter, that is exactly what it means. Although, I suspect that there are additional magic detection charms built into the wards around that muggle hovel the old man sends you to each summer."

Harry scowled darkly and Voldemort could see his knuckles turning white from strain. "Why the hell should I even have to go back there?" Harry muttered, angrily.

"You shouldn't have to go back. And honestly, you don't," Voldemort said as he casually leaned against the table in the center of the room. Harry couldn't help the portion of his mind that thought the man standing before him looked incredibly regal, and enticing as he propped himself against the table with one hand, in such a confident and relaxed pose. Harry shook his head to clear it of the strange thoughts.

"That may be true, but Dumbledore still insists I go back every year. He won't let me leave until he says it's okay –"

"And what right does that man have to dictate where you spend your summers?" Voldemort broke in with a disgusted sneer. "He is the headmaster of your school, not your legal guardian during the summers. He handed those rights over to the muggles when he abandoned you on their doorstep. His authority over you ends the moment you leave the boundary of the school. The muggles dictate where you go during your holidays, and if you can convince them to approve of your absence, then that is all that matters. You inherited the Potter fortune, did you not? Take your money, disappear for a few months and give the old man a heart attack."

Voldemort said it in such a flippant and dismissive way that Harry actually laughed. "You know... I really should," Harry said through his chuckles. "The problem is that he would track me down where ever I went."

"Leave the country. Take a holiday. Keep moving. Never stay in one place for more than a day or two, and he will not be able to track you," Voldemort said, waving his hand and then standing up straighter. "He will see a rebelling, angsty teenager. Of course, as an alternative, you could simply stay here, and assist me. I certainly wouldn't mind having someone more competent than Wormtail around to aid me. I will have called back my other Death Eaters by then, but they all have lives, careers, and public personas to maintain, so they will not be able to stay here for any long durations. Additionally, once I have completed my wards, there is no way that Dumbledore would be able to find you, as long as you were within them."

Harry stared at the man in utter astonished disbelief for a very long minute. Had he just been invited to spend the summer with Voldemort?

"In any case, the choice is yours to make," Voldemort continued dismissively. "Now, It is late and I need my rest. I'm sure you could use some as well, seeing as how you have classes in the morning. Return tomorrow night at 9pm."

Harry stood straighter, sensing the dismissal, but was a little unsure about the time frame for his return.

"Nine o'clock might be a little difficult. Unless it's going to take less than a half hour. Seeing as how curfew is at ten... it's just harder for me to get away with my dorm mates not noticing that sort of thing unless I slip out after they're all asleep."

"It needs to be nine. Make sure you are not late. Getting back will not be a problem either, I already have arrangements made," Voldemort said simply as he began to leave the room.

Harry was uncertain, but if the man said he'd made arrangements, Harry could only trust he meant it. He quickly followed after the Dark Lord as he was escorted back to the entry hall where he used the portkey on his cuff to return to the school.

– –

The following day felt utterly surreal. It was Monday. Just a plain, regular, Monday. It was a stark reminder that the rest of the world was still utterly oblivious that everything had changed, and they just didn't know it yet. Monday morning brought Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, and then Care of Magical Creatures. Harry spent most of Lunch going over in his mind, different ways he might tackle his task of dealing with Trelawney. He was still utterly dumbfounded that it was her, of all people, who had made the prophecy that basically dictated his entire life.

On one hand, Harry suddenly felt like he needed to learn a whole lot more about this Divination nonsense, seeing as how it had managed to play a huge role the whole foundation of his life, and he had been utterly ignorant of it. On the other hand, he wanted to read Trelawney's mind, find out the prophecy, and never again set foot in her presence. And possibly find some way to horribly decapitate her later on without getting caught.

Hermione was talking about the Arithmancy essay that was due in her next class – a class that took place at the exact same time as divination. Harry paused in thought for a moment.

"Hey, Hermione?"

Hermione paused in the middle of whatever it was she had been saying, that no one had actually been listening to and blinked at him. "Yes, Harry?"

"Do you know if it's possible to start a new elective even if you're beyond third year?"

"No... I don't think so," she said slowly as she screwed up her face in thought. "I mean, a person wouldn't be able to join in with my class on Arithmancy or Runes next year because they'd missed last year and this year. It wouldn't be possible to get caught up."

"No, not join your class... if I did take up either subject, I'd be in with the third years, but I'm honestly okay with that."

Hermione looked a bit stunned, but then she looked a bit excited and curious. "Are you serious, Harry?"

"Yeah. I mean, if I started either subject next year, I'd have enough years to take OWLs in the subjects. I wouldn't be able to take the class long enough to sit my NEWTs, but even three years of those subjects will be loads more useful than ruddy divination."

Hermione had a proud, excited expression on her face. Ron looked horrified.

"Are you mental, mate! Do you have any idea how hard those subjects are?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Do you have any idea how valuable those subjects are? Honestly Ron – it may seem brilliant to take the light classes, and get an 'easy O' now while in school, just so that you can have more time to screw around, but it's only going to make more work for you later on when you get out of school."

"ARGH! You've turned into bloody Hermione!" Ron groaned in slightly exaggerated horror.

Hermione scowled at Ron for a moment before returning her extremely proud expression on Harry. "Oh Harry! I'm so pleased that you've started to realize these things for yourself! I definitely think you should go talk to Professor McGonagall and tell her about your idea. Which subject are you thinking of taking? Or do you think you could handle both, because they very taxing courses. It's a lot to handle."

Harry fought the urge to scowl at her. No matter how far he'd come, and how well he performed in classes, it seemed she would always think him inferior to her in the smarts department. He seriously doubted that Hermione could perform even half the spells he had mastered down in the chamber. But that was primarily because she just didn't have the magical affinity, or the stomach for that sort of thing.

"Yeah, I think I'll be taking both. If McGonagall is worried about the work load, I'll just drop Care of Magical Creatures. I mean... I know Hagrid will be upset, but I'm sure I could convince him that it's for the best."

"You'd drop Care!" Ron exclaimed in horror. "You can't drop that too! I mean... what about Hagrid? What about me? I'm gonna end up alone in both classes?"

"Hagrid will survive. And it's not like you're alone Ron. You can still partner up with Seamus or Neville in both classes," Harry said, only barely stalling his eye roll.

"But won't that be weird? Being in two classes with a bunch of third years?"

Harry shrugged and took another bit of the large turkey sandwich on his plate. He waited until he'd swallowed, and then said, "Honestly, I don't care if it is weird. I think that those subjects are too important to pass up."

"But why? You don't need either of those to be an Auror. Why bother?" Ron asked, with obvious confusion.

This time Harry did roll his eyes. "I don't want to be a bloody Auror. I'm still not positive what I am going to go into, but I know it's not that."

"What!" Ron and Hermione both exclaimed at the same time.

"But Harry... I... I thought –" Ron began, but his voice trailed off weakly in confusion and surprise.

"When did this happen? I thought you'd been set on being an auror since last year?" Hermione asked.

"I didn't exactly have any idea what my options were, honestly. Basically, I knew my dad was an auror; aurors catch dark wizards; and the whole wizarding world expects me to fight dark wizards. It was more of those 'this is what's expected of me, so I guess I'll just do that' sort of deals, rather than looking at my options and putting forth the effort to find something I actually want to do."

"Well, have you looked at the options, then?" Hermione asked.

Harry frowned and looked thoughtful. "Well, I'm only in my forth year, so it's not like I have to make my mind up already, and I've still got lots of time to change my mind later all... I think that I'd probably prefer to avoid the Ministry, all together, but if I did go to work for the Ministry, I suspect the only job I'd be interested in would be becoming an Unspeakable."

Ron blanched and Hermione gaped at him in shock.

"You'd want to be an Unspeakable!" Ron said in a harsh whisper.

"It's one of the things on my 'to consider' list, at least. But I'd need to get NEWTs in arithmancy for that job, so after graduating Hogwarts, I'd have to hire a private tutor, or do private study and eventually take the test at the Ministry on my own."

"You've really put a lot of thought to this, haven't you," Hermione said with that proud look on her face.

Harry wasn't about to correct her assumption. Truth was he hadn't put much of any thought to it. It was all stuff he'd read in other sources and was only just now putting together. It hadn't even occurred to him, before that day, to try taking Arithmancy or Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, and while he had been fascinated about the Unspeakables when he first read about them in one of Tom Riddle's books, it hadn't occurred to him before that very moment to consider that as a career goal. Now that it had occurred to him, it seemed obvious, and he wished he'd thought of it sooner. He could only imagine what sorts of things he could discover for the Dark Lord if he got in there. Although, ideally, by the time Harry would be old enough to get a job there, Voldemort would have already gained control over the Ministry, so it was possible this was all moot.

Harry shrugged at Hermione. "I suppose. I've been trying to think about a lot of things, more now, than I used to."

"Well, I'm glad!" Hermione said with a smug grin and a bob of her head. Ron scowled and rolled his eyes.

"Come on, mate. We've got to get to Divination," Ron grumbled as he began to grab his bag and stand.

Harry nodded, grabbed his things and stood as well. They bid Hermione farewell and began to make the long trek up to Trelawney's tower.

When they finally got there, they found that the seats had been rearranged so that they formed a very large circle around the center of the room, where a round, stone, fire pit was placed. Trelawney was standing over the fire pit, pointing her wand and levitating a bunch of rocks into a pyramid shape, and then placing white wooden driftwood around them in a circle.

Harry rolled his eyes at the woman, not even bothering to wonder what the hell she was on now, and sat down in one of the chairs, followed by Ron. A few minutes later, most of the class had arrived and Trelawney used an incendio spell to light a fire in the fire pit. Once everyone was present, she began a lecture on smoke scrying. Apparently, the first half of the class they would try to see... er, something in the spoke from the fire. Then, after that section was done, she would be dousing the fire with water. The water, poured over the hot stones, would create steam, and they would then try to see stuff in that.

Harry silently griped and wondered if she had performed something like this, only added some questionable herbs in with the burning stones right before making the prediction that destroyed the first thirteen years of his life.

"Do not follow the smoke up but rather allow the smoke to forms patterns within your spiritual gaze. In time you will see visions of many far off events," Trelawney was saying at one point and Harry heaved a sigh as he began to stare into the billowing smoke.

He saw... nothing. He imagined he saw himself strangling Trelawney, but he seriously doubted that was a prophetic vision, nearly as much as what he just really really wanted to be doing.

He tried, several times, to make prolonged eye contact with the teacher, but she was pointedly staring off into space, which made this rather difficult. At one point, Trelawney began to call on each of them so that they could describe what they had seen, and Harry quickly concocted a story to tell when she got to him. Finally, it was his turn, and as she focused on him, she looked him straight in the eyes.

He began to spout off the nonsense he made up, while at the same time, splitting off a bit of his consciousness to slip into her mind. He went digging through a disorganized mountain of memories and images, trying desperately to find something useful in what little time he had available to him. He tried focusing on the lines of the prophecy that he actually knew, but he was coming up with nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And then he was pulled out of her mind as she turned her head towards the fire pit again and began to recount how impressed she was with his progress. His inner-eye had apparently been developing nicely these last few months, since he learned how to be a better liar and a better actor.

He sat there and stewed in his own annoyance. He had known that it wouldn't be easy to find, but he had still harbored some hope that it would just work.

Frustrated, he sighed and sat back in his seat to wait out either the next opportunity to slip into her head, or until the end of the class so he could get the hell out of the smoky, stuffy, tower room..

#Harry Potter #Tom Riddle #Dark!Harry #Tomarry #Harry Potter and the descent into Darkness..

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brittanythescrivener · 5 years ago

Text

Behind Trinity Lines - Chapter Four: Apocalypse How

Tags: @embracetranquilityson, @eintausendschoen, @roxlovescommanderourke4ever

Two Weeks Later Cozumel, Mexico Rourke was pissed. No, he wasn’t pissed. He was fucking irate. He clenched his fist tightly as he held his phone to his ear with his other hand.

“You’re telling me that a hundred grand in equipment and two weeks’ worth of supplies just disappeared into thin air?” he demanded.

“No, sir. A small group splintered off the main camp with supplies in tow.”

Rourke clenched his jaw. “You’re in charge out there, fix it! Do what you have to do, Mendoza.”

There was hesitation on the other end of the line. “Once they were discovered, we were able to catch up with them and recovered the stolen gear. We sent in a clean-up crew, but it was a total bloodbath. We have attracted attention in the village.”

Rourke fought the urge to smash his phone against the nearest tree. “What’s the status of the other two sites?” he asked with an impatient sigh as he smoothed his hair back out of his face.

“Site A at Itixi Mitari was a dead end, sir. There’s nothing there. Site B at Trincheira Bacaja could be promising. Investigation is still ongoing.”

Rourke let out a sigh. “I am getting on a chopper to Brazil in one hour, and if I have to clean up your goddamn mess when I get there, it won’t be pretty. That clear?”

"But sir--."

“Is that clear?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

Rourke ended the call without another word and clipped the phone back onto his belt. He stomped back to the tent where his right-hand man was lounging in a lawn chair with his shirt off.

“Problems?” Winters asked.

“Yeah,” the Commander said with irritation. “Apparently we lost a squad. A bunch of incompetent bastards is what they are. Where do we find these fucking people?”

He remembered his first days with Trinity when everything ran like a well-oiled machine. Before everyone was at odds with each other, fighting over conflicting ideologies. The best of his soldiers had been picked off by Croft, and he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. His teams consisted of a handful of loyal men—military veterans like himself—and an overwhelming number of lazy millennials just looking for a paycheck and a story to tell their friends. Even his Deacon teams, whom he had personally trained since Day One, weren’t up to par.

Beau Winters was one of the few good men he had left. He had served in the Special Forces with Winters, and he was one of his first Trinity recruits. He considered him to be one of his closest allies, Winters was a cocky son-of-a-bitch if there ever was one, and Rourke believed that’s why they got along so well.

"I’m heading out to Brazil at 20:00. So that means you’re in charge until I get back.”

“Sure thing, Chief,” Winters said.

"I'm gonna go find Jo and see if she's speaking to me today," Rourke said.

Rourke was worried about her. They’d been in Mexico for two weeks, and she had been distancing herself from everyone, which was highly unusual for her. She’d always been an outgoing person and most of the guys saw her as just one of them. Jo had always had an innate, maternal instinct that the guys picked up on, so the nickname she’d earned over the years—Ma—was fitting. Everyone knew she’d take care of them and they could confide in her about anything. But as of late, she stayed near her quarters and didn’t talk to anyone. He knew she wasn’t sleeping at night. There’d been several nights he found her sitting by the campfire alone after everyone else was in bed for the night. Nights when she refused to talk to him about what was going on in her head.

Rourke found her at the edge of camp, lounging against a rock, staring up at the stars.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Rourke said. He sat down next to her with a tired groan, leaning back against the rock beside her. Feeling her shoulder pressed against him was a small comfort at that very moment.

Jo gave him a sad smile. “Maybe I didn’t want to be found.”

Rourke rubbed his beard and said, “I’m flying out to Brazil in just a couple hours. I wanted you to know.”

“Okay.”

“You gonna be okay?” Rourke asked protectively.

Jo chuckled. “I’m a big girl. I think I can handle myself. I’ll be just fine.”

“I don’t want you to think I brought you here and then bailed.”

“I’ll be fine, Jamie,” Jo said again. She patted him on the thigh. "I promise."

“I’m leaving Winters in charge while I’m gone. You need anything--and I mean anything--you tell him. You got that?"

“You’re leaving Winters in charge?” Jo asked incredulously.

“Yeah, why?”

“That’s like using a croissant as a fucking dildo. It doesn’t do the job, and it makes a fucking mess.”

Rourke smirked. “Why do you hate him so much?”

Jo rolled her eyes. “Because he’s an asshole.”

“I’m an asshole," Rourke said with a grin. "Do you hate me too?”

“Sometimes.”

Rourke swatted away an insect flying around his face. “Really, though. Why do you hate him?”

“He always talks down to me. And he's an idiot.”

“You know why he does that, right?”

“To be an asshole.”

“He likes you. He’s just roasting you because he knows he can get a rise out of you.”

"Anyway," Jo said, signaling to Rourke that she was done talking about Winters. "How long do you think we’re going to be here?”

“I don’t know,” Rourke said. “Why?”

Jo shrugged her shoulders. “There just doesn’t seem to be much going on. I don’t think I even know what we’re looking for.”

Rourke climbed to his feet and held his hand out. “Come with me.”

“Where’re we going?” she asked cautiously.

“There’s something I wanna show you.”

Rourke led her to a small structure at the heart of the camp. It was a brightly-lit space packed with books, maps, charts, and different pieces of technology he sure as hell couldn’t identify. Dr. Dominguez was seated at the desk in the corner of the small office and immediately looked up when he heard the door shut behind them.

“Good evening, Commander,” he said. He pulled off his glasses and said, “Dr. Wilkens, good to see you again.”

“Evening, sir,” she said.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he asked, folding his hands neatly on the table in front of him.

Rourke placed his hand on the small of Jo's back, directing her to move forward. “I wanted to show Wilkens what we’re doing here."

“Please, make yourself at home,” Dominguez said, gesturing with his hands.

Jo’s attention was drawn to the various maps strewn on the table in front of her. She rested her hands on a sketch of one of the dig sites. "How do you know where to dig when the island is covered with jungle? Drones?”

“Come, let me show you,” Dominguez said. He motioned for her to follow him and led her to the computer at the far end of the room.

“LIDAR,” Dominguez said proudly.

“What’s LIDAR?”

“Light Detection and Ranging,” Dominguez said. “We scanned the island with aerial lasers and were able to make 3D maps of all the remote areas that would’ve otherwise been inaccessible to us.”

Dominguez pulled up a photo that looked like a topographical map in varying shades of green, yellow, and red. “With LIDAR we are able to see through the jungle to see what’s beneath it. It’s like an x-ray of the human body but on a much bigger scale.”

“This is fascinating!” Jo cried. “There’s an entire complex hidden here in the jungle!”

“Yes, untouched for centuries,” Dominguez mused.

Rourke noticed the glimmer in her eyes as she studied the images on the screen. Since she had arrived in Mexico, he noticed that she seemed to have lost her spark. A small smile formed on his lips when he realized that she seemed to be excited about something again.

“There are dozens of structures here,” Jo said. “How do you know where to start?”

Rourke pointed to a structure on the map and said, “The key to our next phase is here. At the cliffside dig site. We just have to find a way in.”

“This is incredible! I had no idea archeology was so high tech,” Jo said. She turned her attention back to Dr. Dominguez. "So why all the time and expense? What are you looking for so desperately?”

Dominguez studied Jo for a brief moment. He caught Rourke’s eye, and it wasn’t until the younger man gave him a nod of approval that he spoke again. “I am researching a Maya myth. Two artifacts, the Key of Chak Chel and the Silver Box of Ix Chel, when united will yield the power to remake the world.”

"What?" Jo asked with disbelief.

"The artifacts--."

Rourke waved Dominguez off. “When the Lord gave His covenant to Noah, saying never again will He destroy this world, it can be interpreted as He has decided humanity has learned their lesson. There is also a different interpretation to be made, and that is that He has given the agency of destruction to mankind itself. We are responsible for every living soul. It has been four thousand years since the world saw purity, and we aim to end that. We will be the architects of the new world. We will pave the street to heaven for all. We will usher an end to this sinful, reprehensible world.”

“Commander,” Dominguez said thoughtfully, “are the contingency plans in place for when we breach the entrance to the temple?”

“Yes, sir,” Rourke said. “Before we enter the site, I will initiate Operation Blackout. Evacuation plans are in place and will be implemented before the dagger is touched.”

Jo laughed nervously. “So what are you saying? That these artifacts can destroy the world?”

Dominguez’s gaze fell onto the LIDAR images still up on the computer. “Yes . . . should they fall into the wrong hands.”

* * *

We know for sure it’s here. At the cliffside dig.

Konstantin stood just outside the door of the office building, hidden in the shadows. He could clearly hear the voices of Dr. Dominguez and Rourke inside.

So Trinity was looking for another way to reshape the world. He remembered the days when he was as devout as Rourke, when he was willing to do their bidding without question. Rourke was still young and had much to learn. Konstantin had seen Trinity rear its ugly head, and his blind devotion ultimately cost him his wife and the majority of his adult life. When Ana fell ill, he took no issue with using Trinity as a means to an end. He knew that, through Trinity, he would be successful in finding the Divine Source to save Ana’s life. His thoughts momentarily shifted to his sister. He wondered if she could still be hanging on.

The door to the office opened, and Jo flew out of the building. Rourke jogged after her at a brisk pace. Konstantin shrunk back against the side of the building, holding his breath and standing as still as possible.

“Wait up!” Rourke called. “What’s wrong?”

Jo stopped walking and turned around. “I’m creeped the fuck out, that’s what’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“Did you hear yourself in there? When you were reciting that manifesto about the destruction of mankind, you sounded like a crazed cult member or something. Is that what Trinity is now, a cult? You’re looking for more supernatural shit, aren’t you? After what happened in Siberia, you had the balls to get me here on false pretenses?”

“Technically I didn’t go into detail about the assignment,” Rourke said, his tone condescending. “I didn’t lie to you about anything.”

Jo cursed under her breath.

“Remember your Oath, Jo,” Rourke said sternly.

Jo scowled at him.

Silence fell between them, interrupted only by the sound of insects in the trees around them.

“So what’s Operation Blackout?” Jo asked. “Please don’t tell me it’s going to be like fucking Jonestown out here.”

“It’s our insurance policy,” Rourke said. He wanted to keep the explanation as simple as possible, but he knew Jo would push him for more details.

She frowned. “What do you mean ‘insurance policy’?”

“When we find the entrance to the temple, none of the local workers will leave the site alive. It’s our way of making sure nobody knows about us, what we found, or that we were ever at the site.”

Jo’s face fell. “So you’re killing innocent people?”

Rourke frowned. “It is a necessary evil.”

“Why is it necessary? So you're luring desperate people with the promise of good-paying jobs only to dispose of them when you’re finished? What if those people have families? Children? And why do we need to be evacuated before this dagger is even touched?” Jo demanded.

“Dominguez says that when the dagger is removed, the Cleansing will begin with a tsunami.”

Jo laughed scornfully. “So this village will be wiped off the map? Why even bother with Operation Blackout then?”

“You know, Jo, I’m having trouble remembering why you even joined this organization in the first place,” Rourke blurted. He glanced at his watch. “I gotta go.”

Konstantin watched Rourke walk away, leaving Jo behind seething with anger. So many things were running through his mind he couldn’t make sense of them. Key. Dagger. Silver box. Cliffside dig. Cleansing. Tsunami.

He knew what he needed to do.

* * *

Jo stared up at the roof of her tent, willing herself to sleep. She’d been tossing and turning for hours, as she did most nights. She raised her arm, and the face of her smartwatch lit up, blinding her momentarily. It was 02:23.

“Fuck my life,” she muttered as she threw the blanket aside and sat up. She pulled on her boots and emerged from her tent, planning to warm herself in front of the fire and collect her thoughts. As usual, she had to stoke the fire since the last of the men had abandoned it hours before.

She was sick to her stomach with anxiety. She hated fighting with Rourke. They were both equally stubborn, and they’d had their share of fights over the years. But nothing like this. The look of utter disappointment on his face when she questioned him was ingrained in her memory. He had long since left for Brazil, and she desperately felt the need to talk to him. She considered calling him for a moment, but he had enough to deal with. He didn’t care about her or their fight when he was on a mission.

A branch snapped sharply directly behind her. Jo whipped around, putting her back to the fire. Her pulse quickened as her eyes adjusted to the pitch black. She could only just make out the profile of a person walking along the edge of the treeline toward the entrance to the dig.

Croft? She’d heard gossip that she’d been spotted in town. What if she’d snuck her way into the dig on the very night that Rourke had gone off to Brazil? Jo scrambled to her feet and crept behind the person walking briskly away from the camp. She stayed in the shadows until she had nearly arrived at the guard shack that would remain empty until daylight.

Jo’s fingertips dropped to the AB .45 holstered at her hip. She ducked behind a tree as the figure passed beneath a spot light.

It was Konstantin.

What was he doing sneaking around in the middle of the night, and where the hell was he going?

Few things: 1. Some of the details in this chapter are tied to Trinity documents found throughout the game. 2. I am not an archeologist. 3. If Shadow of the Tomb Raider is ever made into a movie, Keanu Reeves must be cast as Rourke. 4. Croissant line is courtesy of Veep.

#shadow of the tomb raider #lara croft #tomb raider fan fiction #konstantin #rourke #behind trinity lines

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eurazba · 6 years ago

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Some great things said by my college astronomy professor over the semester:

“If you consider “the big whack” feminine-” *exasperated “why did you make me say that?”

“...Due East, due-fricken east”

*stops writing on board* “Do you have a question? I hope it’s not to read what’s on the board ‘cause I don’t know what it says.”

*in reference to the copernican solar system model* “We’re going to call this the disgusting model.”

““Chronic” means “all the time”, and “putrid” means “putrid””

*in reference to kepler’s mother* Student: “she fit into a laundry basket?” Prof: “she was a whore, she could do anything.”

“...maybe if I give it a lot of energy. This little blue guy- mmmmMmmmmMMMMmmm”

“In Newton’s texas accent, I don’t know if he had a texas accent but if he did, he would have said “Ya’ll are idiots.””

“Don Wells, that’s Don Wells. I have her cookbook.”

Student: “So all these lenses you use are-” Prof: “Cheap, yes.” Student: “...Concave”

“So what we can do is de-twinkle, okay it’s called adaptive optics but I like de-twinkling better.”

“It’s pronounced mah-kee mah-kee, even though it’s spelt mah-kee mah-kee.”

“A jovian planet is not a jovial planet.”

“Uranus has 5 piddly little moons-excuse my french, they’re just pathetic.”

“You throw enough balls out your butt, you’re gonna go really far.”

“You get a big ol’ fat asteroid, or maybe a skinny asteroid if it’s been working out.”

“Orangeses and Yellowses”

“470 degrees celcius-that’s like double pizza oven, and you’d look and feel like a pizza on Venus’ surface, you’d be pizzafied.”

“Cryo means cold, and volcano means volcano.”

“And sometimes these asteroids come near us and hit, just ask a dinosaur-oh right they’re dead.”

Prof: “Is it montage or collage?” Students *collectively*: “Collage.” Prof: “...Here’s a bunch of pictures.”

Student: “I think it’s the death star.” Prof: “I think it’s a topographical map.”

“C-G is a couple of long Russian names that are disgusting to pronounce.”

“The “not as grand as Mars’” grand canyon.”

“You don’t spell at the board, you draw the letters and hope that they’re all correct.”

*says “Squirpio” when trying to pronounce “Scorpio”*

*About atmosphere* “Think about it, when your dog… I have a very flatulent dog right now.”

#love this man #tbh I still don't know his name #astronomy #funny

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selenite-drywall · 6 years ago

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April 28, 2019

Time: relative

Mood: also relative– relatively GOOD

It is a happy day, dear empty readership. For the first time in waaaaaaaay too long, I have acheived a Goodnight's Sleep! I feel rested and whole, I finally finished that geochem homework I keep talking about, and I watched the Idiots perform for like an hour!

One of the things we did for the homework was ternary eutectic diagrams, which are just the coolest! They start off as a 3d things like this:

And then, because a 3d graph isn't very useful to anyone, we look at them from the top and put isotherms on them like a topographic map, like this:

Anyone who knows me knows that I like a good topo map, so I had a lot of fun doing this homework in particular.

I mentioned the Idiots! I should elaborate. The campus improv troupe here at RPI is called Sheer Idiocy, or the Idiots for short. Today they did a marathon 24 hour performance, so Kelsey and I went to watch some of it. Joseph was also there, which wasn't optional, but there was no downtime so I didn't have to interact with him, do that was fine. It was good and fun, in the way that only college improv can be.

Last night, before going to bed for the fabled aforementioned Goodnight's Sleep, I watched a sailing video. I have never wanted to be out on the water more than I do right now. I also want to kiss my girlfriend a bunch, but I have to wait until she finishes her essay to do that, so I will say until next time, Stay Frosty.

-s-d

#not advice #geochemistry #geochem #ternary eutectic #RPI #improv #sheer Idiocy #sailing #the ocean

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beautifullights1 · 8 years ago

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Fanwork Appreciation Day!

Happy Fanwork Appreciation Day, everyone! May you all be blessed with a mountain of wonderful new fics for your OTP. Here are a variety of short recs off the top of my head, in no particular order:

@animalasaysrauer writes the #1 best fluff, so much fluffy fluff, also Emotionally Honest Conversations, also SMUT oh my lordy have you read An Education? Go. That’s your homework.

@la-tarasque has a few brilliant epic fics, including Last of the Chaos and The Slave’s Game. Plenty of whump, so much whump, oh my god. A little too intense to read, at times, and you know I have a fairly high tolerance for whump.

@imaginarygolux posts a few delightful fics each week, including sweet fairytales, sweet loving smut, and sweet h/c whumps. Seek and Ye Shall Find has gotten me through many a rough moment. Highly recommended.

@topographical-map-of-utah draws the sweetest Stormpilot art I have ever seen. Kissing, dancing, cuddling, you name it. Absolutely adorable. Why yes, I have stared at each one for at least twenty minutes with a dopey smile on my face.

@the-pudding-is-a-lie is the mastermind who drew the Resistance in lingerie. No, really, this one’s worth taking a good long look at. A looooooooong look ;)

@telekinetic-hedgehog does both crack-whump and torture-whump, including a truly inspiring waterboarding scene that’s still with me.

@spooky-doings (Zoe_Dameron) has written some of the whumpiest whumps to ever whump--all gleefully sadistic, with a touch of comfort at the end. If you need a good torture scene, she’s got your back.

@deputychairman‘s War and Politics is a classic by now, and worth every bit of its rep. Consider it a primer in Poe hurting bravely, brilliantly, and self-sacrificing-noble-idiot-ly.

@wecamebackforyou (lovecamedown) has a LOT of uber-sweet and sexy FinnRey smut. True to character and smokin’ hot at the same time is a challenge--well done, very well done.

@maeglinthebold‘s hurt/comfort series, Emphasis on the Comfort, is a gift from above, you know, that galaxy far far above. Poe without a voice? Finn in carbonite? Yes, yes indeed.

@linatrinch‘s Memories Lost slayed me. Glorious. If you like hurt!Poe, caring-but-traumatized!Finn, and a gingerbread trail of hints to put together, this fic’s for you.

@shawarma-palace (cognomen)’s Endymion and I rests safely in my heart, in that soft place where the soul-restoring fluff lives. Right by the fire, with Finn’s arms around me and Poe’s head on my lap and a warm blanket around our shoulders. Some of the best cuddling I’ve ever read.

AND THERE’S SO MUCH MORE!!! Sorry, pals. I know I’ve forgotten many good authors/artists here, but I have neither time nor spoons to rec any more right now, so this will have to do. Thank you all for your awesome fics - they make my day, every day.

#fic recs!#fanwork appreciation day #fanfic appreciation day

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andythomas684-blog · 5 years ago

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List of blunders for hikers

Careless hikers are more likely to tumble off a cliff, poke a diamondback rattler, and otherwise get themselves in trouble’s way. And frankly, our nation needs more outdoorsy people, not less.

So Backpacker asked me, the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Backpacking and Hiking, to answer all of your camping, hiking, cooking, training, you-name-it questions. I’m no gonzo, Everest-scaling, bear-wrestling hardman, but I’ve hiked enough miles to recognize which mistakes first-timers tend to make. Let's count 'em off:

1. Wearing denim like Johnny Depp on 21 Jump Street

News flash: Denim is cotton, so wearing jeans (and jean jackets for that matter, Mr. Depp) is a poor choice for any hike, especially in rainy or cold weather. That’s because cotton retains moisture instead of wicking it away like wool and polyester fabrics. Once cotton gets wet, it takes a long time to dry out; that moisture on your skin siphons away body heat through convection, leaving you shivering in your boots, and more susceptible to hypothermia (hence the aphorism “cotton kills”). Jeans are the worst of all cottons because they can ice up in below-freezing weather. I learned this lesson on my first hike with the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire, and I’ve remained cotton-free ever since, except on short summer hikes where getting chilled isn’t a danger. So the next time you see hikers wearing blue jeans, remind them that the 1980s are over and that Johnny Depp now prefers tri-corner hats and eye-liner. Related Articles : https://www.hikingbay.com

2. Buying your tent or sleeping bag at Wal-Mart

Sam Walton was an Eagle Scout, but he didn’t become America’s richest man selling top-quality camping and hiking gear at discount prices. Yes, Wal-Mart does sell an Ozark Trails sleeping bag for $10, but I wouldn’t use it on a real Ozark Trail. It's fine to buy your beef jerky, trail mix ingredients, and propane canisters at big-box retail stores, but trust specialty outdoor stores and reliable brands for the gear that matters most, like footwear, raingear, sleeping bags, and tents.

3. Hiking a trail with a road map

Not all dotted lines are made equal. Thus, the map that helps you find the trailhead parking lot won’t help you navigate a trail. Hyper-detailed USGS topographical maps (called “quads”) are the gold standard for backcountry navigation, but they are often overkill for popular and well-marked trails. Much easier to acquire and use are designated trail maps that include topographical features like rivers, ridges, and peaks, as well as key info like hiking mileage and trailheads. Book stores and visitor centers often stock maps and guidebooks for local trails, while National Geographic’s Trails Illustrated series is great for U.S. recreation hot spots from Acadia to Zion. And don’t forget Backpacker.com’s new Print & Go weekend planners, which include gear checklists, driving directions, and waypoints for dozens of popular hike what to wear on a hike and still look cute https://www.hikingbay.com/what-to-wear-on-a-hike-and-still-look-cute

4. Packing a first aid kit as if you’re landing on Omaha Beach

Morphine? Check. Gauze bandages? Check. M1 rifle? What? Most novice hikers either forget to bring a first-aid kit, or pack an entire pharmacy. Neither represents the right approach. You should bring a first-aid kit appropriate for the length of your trip, the size of your group (along with any individual medical needs), and your medical knowledge. The last one is important: If you don’t know how to use a first-aid item—like a suture kit—you probably shouldn’t be carrying it. Packing obscure supplies you’ll probably never use in place of additional bandages and painkillers doesn’t make sense. Basic first-aid essentials for most outings should be: adhesive bandages (various sizes), medical or duct tape, moleskin, sterile gauze, ibuprofen, Benadryl, antibiotic ointment, and alcohol wipes.

5. Being overhead saying, “Lightning can’t strike me—I’m not carrying anything metallic.”

If you think lightning only strikes metal objects, ruminate on this ancient Chinese proverb: “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe.” Then substitute “knuckleheaded hiker” for the tall grass and “zapped by 100 million volts of electric juice” for the scythe, and you’ve got Professor Hike’s updated proverb on why you absolutely need to descend from exposed peaks and ridgelines when an afternoon thunderstorm is brewing. Lightning is attracted to tall, isolated objects, which could be anything from a clueless hiker standing on a summit to a lone tree. And even if you're not touching that lone tree, the lightning might strike the ground right next to it, or the ground current may surge up you. Secondary strikes can be just as deadly. What's more, lightning can strike targets up to 10 miles from the center of a storm. Trust me on that; I’ve got a few hair-raising tales from New Mexico to prove it. Instead, get into a forest or the low point of rolling hills, a ravine, or a gully. lattcure outfitters sleeping bag https://www.hikingbay.com/finding-the-best-lightweight-sleeping-bag-for-hiking

6. Going ultra-light without ultra-experience

A regular backpacker going ultra-light is like a vegetarian becoming a vegan—it takes time to dial down a new, safe system. Definitions vary, but ultra-light hiking generally means having a base pack weight (your gear minus food and water) of 10 to 12 pounds. The advantage, of course, is that you have less weight to schlep, but your safety net also shrinks: You have fewer backup provisions (food, fuel, warm clothes) if things go wrong, like you fall in a river or rodents steal your food. The more backcountry experience you have, the more safely you can go ultra-light simply because you’re better equipped with skills to, one, avoid such mishaps and, two, improvise if they do occur. However, even expert mountaineers can pay the ultralight price. Think of Joe Simpson of Touching the Void fame: During his and his partner’s ascent of Siula Grande in the Andes, bad weather prolonged their climb, causing them to run out of fuel for melting snow for water—something that later would contribute to Simpson’s fall into a crevasse. That’s why ultra-light hiking should be a gradual goal and not a first-time objective. Reducing pack weight is a skill you hone after much experimentation. So how much weight should you carry on a typical day-hike? Is it 10, 15, or 20 pounds? It all depends on the circumstances. If you’re hiking a dozen miles alone on a mellow trail, you can carry a sub-10 pound load of water, snacks, rain gear, headlamp, and the always essential map, compass or GPS. But if the trail is unfamiliar, tricky, or remote, and you’re hiking in a larger group, you might want to add a small first-aid kit, warm clothing, and extra water and food that pushes your weight north of 15 pounds. That’s because carrying more gear—along with the skills to use it—is your best strategy to reduce risk.

7. Wearing boots fresh from the box

I’m not a fan of hiking proverbs, but there’s one that I consider gospel: “If your feet are happy, the rest of you is happy.” I wised up to that fact on a 95-mile trek (Scotland’s bonny West Highland Way) that I began with stiff leather boots I hadn’t worn in eons. Those boots shredded my feet on the first day out, and I spent the next week limping up and down Scotland’s green hills. Trust me, neither you nor your feet will by happy if you begin a big trip with untested shoes or boots. Starting weeks ahead of time, you need to break them in while mowing the lawn, walking the dog, or running errands around town. Trail shoes, which perform more like athletic footwear, conform quickly to your feet, while taller, rigid boots require more break-in time. Wear recently purchased shoes indoors at first, since most outdoor stores have return policies that exclude those worn outside. If your feet hurt or develop hotspots or blisters, apply bandages, experiment with different socks, and keep at it. Remember also that most people’s feet swell a half size or more by the afternoon.

8. Starting too late in the day

Showing up an hour late for a 7 p.m. dinner reservation is bad manners. But starting at 2 p.m. a hike that you intended to begin at 10 a.m. is bad news. Unless you want your 15 minutes of fame on the CNN ticker (“Clueless Hikers Survive Freezing Nights in Wilderness”), it’s best to start on time, or shorten your route. I learned this lesson the hard way on a 10-mile hike in New Hampshire that began four hours late, included a few frustrating wrong turns, and ended at the trailhead parking lot just before midnight.

Besides an early start, how fast you move matters, too. An athletic adult hikes at 3 mph, but that rate drops to 2 or even 1 mph when you factor in rough terrain, elevation changes, and rest breaks. Groups always move slower than individuals, and a snail on crutches will beat families with toddlers. If you find yourself starting later than anticipated, check your map for shorter routes or a cut-off trail to reach your destination before sunset. If you find yourself falling behind, avoid the lure of cross-country shortcuts, and instead keep moving, watch the time, and be prepared to finish using headlamps, which you packed for just such an occasion.

9. Ignoring the weather forecast

A little rain isn’t a reason to cancel a hike. That’s why we have Gore-Tex boots and waterproof jackets, right? But even the best equipment can’t provide 100 percent protection from the soggy remnants of a hurricane or an Arctic-born blizzard. So before every trip, I review the website www.noaa.gov, which uses a Google Maps interface to generate five-day forecasts for precisely where I’ll be hiking. These results are far more accurate than the traditional forecasts for the nearest town, which could be miles away and thousands of feet lower than a trail. Plus, you can read the “Forecast Discussion,” which is like eavesdropping on local meteorologists during their coffee breaks. Thanks to a NOAA forecast, I knew ahead of time that a powerful thunderstorm would crash a recent backpacking trip in the middle of the night. So I minimized the danger by picking a sheltered campsite, pitching my tent away from lone trees and dangling branches, and tightening the guy-lines for my rain-fly. Sure enough, I awoke at 1 a.m. to witness a ferocious—but mostly harmless—atmospheric cannonade of light and sound. And by morning, as the forecast predicted, the skies were blasted clear. best winter hikes in washington https://www.hikingbay.com/10-best-winter-hikes-in-washington

10. Skimping on Leave No Trace

Litterbug? Not you. I bet you’re a committed recycler. Maybe you even wash and re-use zipper-lock bags. But on a camping trip, where do you dump the soapy water after washing dishes? Do you really strain out the food bits and scatter the “gray” water at least 200 feet from any lake, stream, or campsite? And do you use biodegradable soap? That’s what Leave No Trace (LNT) (www.lnt.org)—seven principles promoting ethical, low-impact outdoor recreation—advises you to do. It’s easy to practice LNT’s major rules: Carry out trash, keep away from wildlife, and minimize the impact of campfires. The finer points, however—like packing out toilet paper and building small fires—are harder to follow. But since Bambi doesn’t crap up your bedroom, you should extend the same courtesy. So here are Prof. Hike’s six tips to make the tough tenets of LNT more achievable:

• 200 feet equals 40 adult strides. • Use the rubber tip of a spatula to scrap leftover food from plates and bowls into your mouth. • Reduce odors by placing silica gel desiccates (those moisture-absorbing packets found in shoe boxes and other packages) into your trash bag, then double-bagging it. • Use dryer lint as natural fire tinder. • Carry versatile sanitary wipes instead of flimsy toilet paper. • Stop washing dishes, as veteran hiker Johnny Molloy advocates in this June 2007 Backpacker article.

OK, there you have it: my top 10 list of n00b blunders. Let us know what you would add to the list!

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newsnigeria · 5 years ago

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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/trump-claims-canceled/

Trump claims he canceled an airstrike against Iran at the very last minute

The first thing to say here is that we have no means to know what really happened. At the very least, there are two possible hypotheses which could explain what took place:

1) a US provocation: it is quite possible that somebody in the US chain of command decided that Iran should be put under pressure and that having US UAV fly right next to, or even just inside, the international border of Iran would be a great way to show Iran that the US is ready to attack. If that is the case, this was a semi-success (the Iranians had to switch on their radars and attack the UAV which is very good for US intelligence gathering) and a semi-failure (since the Iranians were clearly unimpressed by the US show of resolve).

2) an Iranian provocation: yup, that is a theoretical possibility which cannot reject prima facie: in this scenario it was indeed the Iranians who blew up the two tankers last week and they also deliberately shot down the US UAV over international waters. The goal? Simple: to show that the Iranians are willing and ready to escalate and that they are confident that they will prevail.

Now, in the real world, there are many more options, including even mixes of various options. What matters is now not this, as much as Trump’s reaction:

Now, whether this was a US provocation or an Iranian one – Trump’s reaction was the only correct one. Why? Because the risks involved in any US “more than symbolic strike” would be so great as to void any rationale for such a strike in the first place. Think of it: we can be very confident that the Iranian military installations along the Persian Gulf and the southern border of Iran are highly redundant and that no matter how successful any limited US missile strike would have been, the actual military capabilities of Iran would not have been affected. The only way for the USA to effectively degrade Iranian capabilities would be to have a sustained, multi-day, attack on the entire southern periphery of Iran. In other words, a *real* war. Anything short of that would simply be meaningless. The consequences of such an attack, however, would be, in Putin’s words “catastrophic” for the entire region.

If this was an Iranian provocation, then it was one designed to impress upon the Empire that Iran is also very much “locked, cocked and ready to rock”. But if that is the case, there is zero change that any limited strike would achieve anything. In fact, any symbolic US attack would only signal to the Iranians that the US has cold feet and that all the US sabre-rattling is totally useless.

I have not said such a thing in many months, but in this case I can only admit that Trump did the right thing. No limited attack also makes sense even if we assume that the Empire has made the decision to attack Iran and is just waiting for the perfect time. Why? Because the longer the Iranian feel that an attack is possible, the more time, energy and money they need to spend remaining on very high alert.

The basic theory of attack and defense clearly states that the attacking side can gain as a major advantage if it can leave the other side in the dark about its plans and if the costs of being ready for a surprise attack are lower than the costs of being on high alert (those interested in the role and importance of surprise attack in the theory of deterrence can read Richard Betts’ excellent book “Surprise Attack: lessons for defense planning“).

How true is this story about Trump canceling a US attack at the last minute? It is impossible to know, but it appears to me that it is certain that the nutcase Neocons around Trump wanted the strike. But it is also plausible (if by no means certain) that at least two groups could have opposed such a strike:

1) The planners at CENTCOM and/or the Pentagon.

2) The planners for Trump’s reelection campaign.

The first ones would lobby against such a strike simply on the sound military grounds mentioned above. As for the second group, they probably decided (correctly) that if Trump starts a war with Iran which nobody has an “exit strategy” for – this could result in a huge blowback for the entire region and kill Trump’s reelection chances.

In this case, whether Trump listened to either group or simply followed his gut instincts, it appears likely that Trump (maybe a “collective Trump”) said “no, I don’t authorize this”. In this case, he does deserve our sincere praise and gratitude (irrespective of this past actions and inactions).

In conclusion, I want to show the kind of fantastically stupid, mindbogglingly ignorant and criminally irresponsible war propaganda the so-called “conservative” US media outlets have been spewing. Check out this one:

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Hannity’s flagwaving logorrhea is exactly the kind of total nonsense which will sooner or later result in a major military disaster followed by a collapse of the Empire itself (for a detailed outline of how this is likely to happen, please read John Michael Greer superb book “Twilight’s Last Gleaming“). The sheer number of counter-factual and plainly stupid things Hannity manages to squeeze into just under 7 minutes is, by itself, a remarkable feat.

Yes, it is a sad day when one has to rejoice that the US President is marginally less stupid and less ignorant than one of the big talking heads on the US idiot box, but these are truly tragic and extremely dangerous times. And in such times, we have to be grateful for anything, no matter how minimal, which pushes back the inevitable war in the Middle-East (or even the world).

This being said, where do we go from here?

My personal guesstimate and almost baseless speculation is that the attack on the two tankers was probably an Israeli false flag operation which failed to achieve its intended results. Notice that the attack itself did not take place inside Strait of Hormuz, but south of it, in comparatively more open waters were an Israeli submarine or specialized surface vessel had less changes to be spotted by the Iranians and a much better chance of escape (for example, take a look at the 2nd map shown below and see for yourself how the depth gradient rapidly drops in the Gulf of Oman).

When this attacked failed to achieve the desired effect, the Israelis and their Neocon agents decided to engage into another provocation, this time using a US drone. I find it likely that in terms of location, the drone was flying inside Iranian airspace, but probably still over water allowing the Empire do claims it’s usual (and CIA-created) cop-out of “plausible deniability” in case of shootdown.

When the Iranians shot down the US UAV, a lot of folks in the USA probably wanted to find out exactly where this UAV was flying at the moment of intercept and since the Iranians probably have a lot of radar and EW data to prove that the UAV was inside the Iranian airspace the only safe course of action would have been to express all forms of protest but not to take unilateral (and, therefore illegal) action.

It is also remarkable that the US has requested that the case of the two tankers and the shooting down of the drone be discussed at the UNSC. Considering that both Russia and China will veto any resolution condemning Iran, this also appears to be a move to find a pretext not to go to war.

Of course, this might also be a strategic PSYOP destined to lull the Iranians into a false sense of security. If that is the plan, it will fail: the Iranians have lived with a AngloZionist bullseye painted on their heads ever since 1979 and they are used to live under constant threat of war.

In conclusion, I am currently very slightly optimistic (48-52%) that the US will not attack Iran in the short term.

In the long term, however, I consider that an AngloZionist attack is a quasi certainty.

The Saker

PS: a pretty decent topographical map of the Strait of Hormuz

Trump claims he canceled an airstrike against Iran at the very last minute

#Iran #U.S.A

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