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brittaden · 6 years ago

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They Kiss Gilmores, Don’t They

They Kiss Gilmores, Don’t They

(FF) (A03)

"Your shoe will be ready in a minute."

"Thank you."

Lorelai smiled Luke's way before turning her head and watching the remaining dancers stagger around on the dance floor. Their conversation had fallen into a lull after all the 'right person' and discussion of possible future kids. But her mind was still incredibly busy, pinging with the thought of possible having another kid at some point in her life. It was something she had put some thought into before; raising another kid with someone else. A chance to find someone she deeply loved to marry and raise a family with. It was a nice thought.

Of course, the right guy had eluded her so far in life. There was Max who was by all means a great guy and someone that someday could make some lady very happy but she wasn't that lady. And then there was Christopher which seemed like a bigger mistake every time he deemed it to be the right time to come around. She had always thought it might happen one day but, as time went on, that slipped further and further away. There wasn't much more than that, a few dates here and there but no one that came close to being the right person for her now.

It was Luke's voice that broke her out of her thoughts.

"This glue isn't working," Luke said, shaking his head.

"What?" Lorelai asked, her voice frantic. "It can't be not working; I need that glue to work. There's a big trophy hanging in the balance here."

"Relax, will ya," Luke replied. "I have more glue. Better glue."

"Better shoe glue?" Lorelai asked. "Better shoe slash earning a rightful trophy glue?"

"Yeah, back at the diner."

"Then come on, what are you waiting for?" Lorelai popped up from the bleacher with the energy of someone who hadn't been awake for almost twenty-four hours straight. "Let's go, time is ticking."

Lorelai had already managed to pull Luke up from the bleachers and drag him to the dance studio door before he fully realized what was happening. He yanked his arm back from the death grip she had him in and trailed behind her as she hurried down the steps and along the walkway leading to the diner. Surprisingly fast for a person whose main move at the moment was hobbling.

"How are you moving faster than me with one broken shoe?"

She looked at him over her shoulder as she approached the diner, "Have I not mentioned the big, big trophy?"

"There's a trophy?"

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Just open the door."

Luke grabbed the keys from his pocket and unlocked the diner door with Lorelai squirming around behind him and encouraging him to move a little faster. The second the door was opened, Lorelai was pushing at his back and circling around him, still hobbling on her one still in-tact shoe.

"Upstairs or downstairs?" she asked.

His mouth twisted into a smile. "Dirty."

"Not the time!" Lorelai shouted back, catching him by surprise. "Where's the glue? Upstairs in the apartment or do you have it stashed down here behind all the coffee cups?"

"Storage room," Luke informed her.

Her reply was tinged with sarcasm. "Right, because that's where everyone keeps their glue; stored right next to the jar of pickles."

"It's a jar of mayonnaise and if you want your shoe fixed, you'll stop questioning my glue storage habits."

She held her hands up to surrender. "I am the question-less girl, no more questions just some good old-fashioned shoe fixing."

"Follow me."

She thanked him once again before following him back to the storage room. While he retrieved the glue, not actually next to the mayonnaise she noted, she leaned back against a small wooden table as he covered the broken part of her heel in glue and attached it back to the shoe. She mentally tried to calculate how much time had passed since she had thrown her yellow card into the ring but everything was foggy and even simple math was escaping her.

She watched as Luke held the heel to her broken shoe tightly. "Please tell me this one is working."

"It just needs another minute and that trophy will be yours."

She smiled. "Have I said thank you lately?"

"That'll make a million and one times."

"Well I'm very grateful so, thank you."

"Anytime."

"By the way," she segued, "That comment back there, I didn't appreciate at the time, but it was very solid."

"What comment?"

"Upstairs or downstairs, the dirty one," Lorelai replied as she leaned in closer to him as if it was a secret. "Truly underappreciated in its time. Not one that everyone would catch the first time around."

"I'll add it to my standup act," Luke replied dryly.

"As long as my shoe gets fixed."

"Almost there," Luke promised.

"Good."

Testing the weight of the table behind her, Lorelai hopped up on it and gave her feet a much-needed break. After the marathon was over and the trophy was proudly displayed in her living room, she would be treating herself and Rory to a fabulous spa day, mainly consisting of a pedicure as an apology for twenty-four hours straight of vintage shoes.

"So, Luke," Lorelai began, "What did you mean earlier? Who's your right person?"

Luke looked up from her shoe and at Lorelai, "I thought you had no more questions."

"I had no more questions about glue but I have plenty of questions about other things, like what I just asked."

"What are you even talking about?"

"Your right person," Lorelai clarified. "You said kids would be a discussion with your right person, so who would that be? What's your type?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Lorelai shrugged her shoulders. "We're friends, I'm just curious. What if I'm somewhere and I meet the right person for you but I don't know they're the right person for you because you've never told me your type and you miss out on a chance at love all because you never answered my question."

"You have a lot to say for someone suffering from a lack of sleep."

"I'm well caffeinated."

Luke caught her eye. "So, I'm to blame."

"Yep," she punctuated with a nod of her head. "Back to my original question, what's your type? Because I've only ever really known you with Rachel and that was a surprise to me. She didn't seem like your type."

"What was wrong with Rachel?"

"Nothing was wrong with Rachel, I mean she was nice and funny and pretty, and we got along great, which is always a plus, she just wasn't who I would think of if I happened to think what your type was," Lorelai admitted. "It's not a bad thing. It just wasn't the picture I had in my head."

"And what was the picture you had in your head?"

"I don't know, someone who also owned stock in a flannel company and thought red meat was the devil," Lorelai fumbled her way through an explanation. "I'm not the one that's supposed to answer the question, I asked you for a reason."

He chuckled. It was amusing to watch her sweat.

"And now you're laughing at me, great. Is my shoe ready?"

With a smile still on his face, Luke checked the shoe to make sure the heel was firmly secured back to the shoe. When it didn't budge with his wiggling, he declared it ready. "You can have your shoe back now."

"Great!" She lifted her foot just high enough that she was still decent with her dress on. "See if it fits."

"I'm not putting your shoe on you."

She wiggled her toes. "Please? I don't have all the energy for the bending and the buckling."

Luke sighed and began to slide the shoe onto her foot. "I'm adding this to your next diner bill."

She waved her hand, dismissing the thought. "Sure, just add it to my tab."

Lorelai watched as she handled both her shoe and her foot carefully, sliding the straps onto her foot and securely buckling them. She held her breath as his hand lingered on her foot for just a moment after he buckling it but released the breath when he looked back up at her and offered his hands to her. She placed her hands in his and eased off the table.

Taking a few steps away from him, she tested out the shoe. "Good as new! Or good as new as in the condition that I bought them in since they were made sixty years ago."

"They're sixty years old and you're surprised they broke?"

"Not surprised just caught off guard," Lorelai explained. "Two very different things."

He scoffed. "In your world, maybe."

"It's a fun place to live in, pal."

"A little delusional."

"Aren't we all?"

"Can't argue with that."

"Hey, I didn't mean anything by the Rachel comment earlier, I know that was a serious relationship for you, I was just saying that she surprised me a little," Lorelai said as way of an apology.

"Don't worry about it, it's in the past," Luke replied. "And you're right, she wasn't really my type."

"You do have a type!" She playfully accused, "A flannel-wearing, turkey burger eating, thinks camping is a thrill type."

"You hit the nail on the head," he deadpanned. "What about you?"

"I don't like camping; I prefer the indoors."

"I already knew that," Luke said. "What's your type?"

Lorelai thought for a moment and then blew out a breath. "I honestly don't know, not like I had a whole lot of time to figure it out, what with being a single mom and all."

"But you know the type of person that you want to find one day," Luke prodded her.

"I guess." She looked away from him and then at the floor. "I think my ten minutes are about up."

He nodded his head. "I'll walk you back."

She smiled gratefully, mostly for an escape from this conversation, and wrapped her arm around his as he escorted her out of the storage room and through the diner. Their walk through the diner and out onto the sidewalk was silent until Luke decided to speak up.

"I think I know your type."

"Oh, you do?" Lorelai teased, "Well please enlighten me because I'm over here wasting all my prime years not knowing my own type. I mean beauty doesn't last forever, even mine."

"Well you're going to need someone that knows how to cook," Luke started out.

"Because I'm a hazard around ovens."

"Precisely," Luke agreed. "Someone that knows how to make a decent cup of coffee but you don't settle for sub-par."

"Only if I'm truly desperate."

"And sub-par isn't something you want for the rest of your life," Luke added on. He took a moment before continuing on. "But really you'd just want someone that is there for you. That you can count on, not matter what. Someone to protect you, knowing that you're independent. Someone that gets you."

They stopped just short of the dance studio.

"Wow," Lorelai said, a wry chuckle danced with her words. "I'm counting on a lot for my type."

"But most importantly," Luke tacked on.

"Yeah?" she asked, a little breathless and eagerly awaiting his answer.

"You want someone who cares for Rory as much as you do, someone that's going to take an interest in her life and treat her almost as if she were their kid too," Luke answered. "You're not going to settle for anyone who doesn't care for her."

"She's the most important person in the world for me."

"I know," Luke said with a smile. "She's a pretty great kid."

"That she is."

"She has a great mother too."

She beamed at that comment. "Couldn't agree with you more."

Her smile was infectious so Luke couldn't help the grin that crossed his face. "So, how'd I do?"

"I say you were pretty spot on. You were just missing one thing."

"What'd I miss?"

"No mentions of Bono," Lorelai said like he should've known the answer already. "Your guy sounds amazing but he's no Bono. Your guy is a strong number two though."

Luke shook his head. "Well who wouldn't be compared to him?"

"That's what I'm saying." She turned ever so slightly to head to the dance studio because her ten minutes had to be dangerously close to being up, but she ended up turning back to Luke. "Just one more question before I go?"

"If it's about glue or my storage habits, I'm gone."

"It's not."

"Go ahead."

"This guy you described, my type guy, my right person guy," Lorelai filled in the gaps if he happened to be the littlest bit confused. "Do you know him?"

"Lorelai," he sighed.

"What? It is a valid question, if I knew someone that was your type, I would let you know so you could go find your little chicky and start the rest of your life with her," Lorelai replied. "It would be a courtesy."

He stressed her name again, this time softer than before. "Lorelai."

"It would be excellent if you knew him because Rory is leaving soon and I'll be lonely but if there were a Mr. Right that you're hiding from me and just allowing me to dwell in my loneliness, well that you be on you buddy, and I..."

She was cut off by Luke's lips on hers.

"And I..." she muttered once they parted, losing all track of what she was going to say before.

He kissed her again, pulling her closer to him this time. She responded in kind, wrapping her arms around his waist and melting into the way his lips felt against hers. So soft and just the right amount of pressure. The kiss was brief, ending almost as soon as it began but he still held her in his embrace.

She looked up at him. "You were describing you."

"In a way, I guess I was," Luke admitted. "But I also know you and who you'd want to be with."

"You're no Bono."

He chuckled. "I'm here if you're willing to settle."

She didn't answer him with words, instead she brushed his lips with hers and pulled him into a soft kiss. She was dimly aware that they were in full public view of anyone that cared to see them and how much Luke would hate the pda but that didn't matter at the moment. What mattered was this kiss that was interrupted all too soon by a blowhorn.

"The dance marathon!"

Lorelai stepped back from Luke's embrace to see the very beginnings of Kirk's victory lap. Stunned that once again Kirk had beat her, she darted up the steps and pulled out the yellow card she had been waving around earlier. It was when she stepped foot in the building that it occurred to her that she had left Luke completely in the dust. She hurried back down the steps to where he still stood just outside the dance studio.

"Can we put a pin in this?"

Amused, he nodded his head towards the dance studio. "Go find out what's going on. I'll be waiting."

She leaned up and placed a kiss on his cheek before looking him in the eye. "This isn't me settling."

"I know." He nudged her towards the dance studio. "Now, go trip Kirk and get your trophy."

She nodded eagerly in agreement before once again dashing up the dance studio steps and waving her yellow card around while Kirk began to run circles around her, waving the trophy in the air. All the while, Luke remained outside watching as Lorelai began to argue with Taylor and Kirk about how she wasn't really gone that long and had a pretty good reason for being gone her for her allotted ten minutes.

He stepped back from watching the scene unfold and headed back towards the diner. Where he would be waiting with the coffee and the breakfast that would come after the crashing on the respective couches that would afflict all of Stars Hollow once the dance marathon was officially over. And he would be waiting for the morning when stories of how it's unfair that Kirk won once again with plans to steal and hide the trophy from Kirk once be became obnoxious with it. Which was going to be sooner rather than later. But, most importantly, he would be waiting for the pin to be picked out of their conversation and that would be met with a first date.

#gilmore girls #my writing #gilmore girls fanfiction

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dun-dun-dunnnnnngeonmaster · 7 years ago

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A very kobold candle nights

a large band of kobolds have been burrowing under the town of tavistock for almost a full year now. approaching the town the party will find a small group of towns folk who managed to escape “the kobolds were just all of a sudden everywhere!! then jumped out of barrels, floorboards and sacks of flour it was horrible!” they cry. the townsfolk implore you to help rid the town of kobolds, theres a small band of men and women assembling at the northern edge of town they plan on storming the streets

if the party allies with the band in storming the streets they find that the kobolds were prepared for such an assault they roll hay carts into the streets lighting them ablaze cutting off the exit the kobolds are lined on the roof firing bows and lobbing heavy rocks and furniture into the band the band scatters into buildings where the real fun begins

the first house they enter is obviously kobold infested but all the kobolds are in the kitchen. if the party is silent they can avoid alerting the kobolds. if the party sneaks up on the kobolds they can see one with his head stuck in a mixing bowl full of dough, another is eating a turkey right out of an open oven that’s still burning another one is playing with a set of kitchen knives throwing them at a bulls eye hes painted on the door in blood. combat ensues feel free to use the environment to dispatch the kobolds easily.

the streets aren’t safe kobolds prowl them in groups of 8-9 looking for anyone who has escaped the ambush on the main road. if the party encounters one of these groups the kobolds call for reinforcements and soon kobolds come swarming onto the streets luckily they can escape down an alley and into a toy store.

unfortunately the toystore is also infested (go figure) here is a kobold on a baseball pitching machine at the end of one isle that seems all to happy to aim for the head, there’s another kobold hiding amongst the stuffed animals that jumps out attacks and hides again taking an attack of opportunity everytime it does so but its a quick bugger so watch out

the next building the party goes into is a bank. the kobolds have rigged a large cage that falls from the ceiling and traps the party instantly. kobolds swarm the cage climbing on top of it and stabbing at the party with spears and firing crossbows into the cage. have the party roll initiative (attacking the kobolds is pointless if one is killed another takes its place instead encourage them to escape the cage) at the end of the round the kobolds make an attack on every person inside the cage separately. when the party is free of the cage the kobolds flee if the party searches the bank they can find gold and a dog hiding behind one of the teller stalls. animal companion time? whose to say?

next the party finds the guard tower where there are no kobolds but there are a few of the fighters from the band that have also survived the ambush they say that there’s a rendezvous point at the tavern but that its too far to travel on foot with kobolds prowling the streets. one of the guards has an idea, they can use one of the city guard wagons! with the whole party they could keep the kobolds from swarming the wagon and killing them all.

when he party makes a break for the wagon they attract the attention of kobolds a large wave of them streams after the party nipping at their heels as they board the wagon. 6 kobolds manage to hang on its up to the party to get them off before they disable the wagon by attacking the wheels. as the party turns onto a street they are blinded by lights of a larger vehicle a snowplow sounds its horn and revs its engine the snowplow is covered in kobolds it burns rubber as it chases down the party’s wagon eventually the snowplow catches up to the wagon kobolds leap from the snowplow to the party wagon(most of them dont make it but the party has to deal with the successful boarders) as you turn down a side street in an attempt to shake your pursuer the snowplow hits the partys wagon which sends it into a spin it crashes into a building and flips and crashes spectacularly! the party regains consciousness in a beer garden amid the smoking wreckage of their wagon. one of the party members is trapped under the wrecked wagon, the party better hurry and free them because the snowplow that was chasing them crashes the fence and starts closing in. the party has got three rounds to free the party member before the snowplow destroys the wreckage killing whoevers inside (sorry not sorry) the party is now trapped by the snowplow they can only escape into the building they are being pressed up against but the only door in or out is locked the party has 5 rounds to get throughthe door before they are crushed by the snowplow and killed (really not sorry this time)

Hooray! the party finds themselves in the tavern the guards said was the rendezvous the party is in a back room surrounded by kegs and various tavern supplies the guards peek out into the tavern proper but oh shit whattup its chock full of kobolds! the little trash dragons are everywhere throwing bottles, smoking cigars, theres a card game going on in the back corner where one kobold is stabbing another for cheating. half of the kobolds are singing kobold songs waving thier tankards in the air. there are even kobolds hanging from the rafters there’s a barmaid the kobolds are harrassing her and making her bring them drinks! she finds the party in the back room she tells them that if they can get her out of here shell burn down the tavern with all the kobolds trapped inside she grabs an axe the party must protect her while she smashes a couple barrels of firetongue brandy then the party must escape as the barmaiden drops a lantern igniting the bar in a huge fireball

as soon as the party exits into the street they meet up with what remains of the band of townsfolk that fought to take back their town more than half of them are dead the rest all have some pretty serious wounds from the vicious kobold invaders. together the band quickly dispatches the rest of the kobolds that were not burned in the tavern the band of townsfolk is happy to have won back their town they are grateful to the party for their help and they hobble together a meager candle nights feast theres not much alcohol but theres plenty of roasted kobold

happy candlenights everyone

go ahead and plug in all your own dc’s and # of kobolds etc this is just a couple guidelines for a fun oneshot i like to do for different groups! if you didnt notice, ‘a very kobold candle nights’ is a complete and unrepentant rip off of the movie ‘gremlins’. what is even sweeter is that kobolds are basically re skinned gremlins complete with sunlight sensitivity and a flare for causing chaos and making traps etc. so it all comes full circle

#dnd #dnd 5e #dnd encounters #Kobolds #candlenights #candle nights #gremlins #homebrew #table top

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pencil-or-ink-blog · 7 years ago

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The Nereid and the Seachild

Day Two

The boy woke early the next morning, soaked to the bone, the pain in his ankle and side amplified from the cold and the wet. Shivering, he stood and limped his way back through the city, searching at every turn for a glimpse of the sea to guide him. As he grew close, he could hear the sound of bells from the docks, and he used that to lead his way like the point of a compass.

The bar was an old wooden structure that had stood in that location for over a century. The owner sometimes spoke of the grandeur of its early life, how his great-grandfather had created a warm and welcome atmosphere for all the rowdy sailors returning from long voyages and aching for a stiff drink, their pockets full of coin quickly burning a hole in the thin cloth.

Now, the wood was warped from a hundred years of saltwater wind and heavy rainfall. This close to the docks, none of the buildings fared well for long. And where it had once been a bustling first stop for many returning sailors, it was now mostly frequented by anyone who couldn’t afford the better bars that could be found both up and down the block.

Still, the boy looked on the place as a safe haven, the only real port he had in his messy life, and when he hobbled up to the groaning structure, he sighed in relief, pressing his hand against the wood, still saturated from last night’s storm, to reassure himself he wasn’t simply hallucinating.

The winds were beginning to pick up again, icy rain battering his face, so he settled himself beside the back entrance, sitting on an upturned bucket left out for the smokers on break, and hunkered down for three hours of waiting before the owner arrived and let him in. He slept sporadically, having slept very poorly the night before between his throbbing side, the sharp pains in his ankle, and the awful nightmares.

Occasionally something would pull him from his dreams and he’d look around – a particularly strong gust; shouting from the street; the bugle call announcing the arrival of The Commodore out in the port – but he always fell back asleep quickly. Once, he thought he saw the woman standing over him, her hands tucked into the pockets of her coat, but when he looked again there was nothing there.

It must have been a dream.

Finally, a set of heavy footsteps dragged him from the last of his sleep, and he stood up and straightened his clothes as the owner pulled his keys from his pocket and nodded once at the boy. “You gonna be falling over again tonight, or are you gonna be alright?” the owner asked, and then, remembering the boy didn’t speak, he repeated only the last question: “You gonna be alright?”

The boy nodded quickly, and the owner grunted. “Well good. Tonight’s set to be a busy one. Got the new ship that just came in, so I expect you to be at the top of your game.” He pushed in the door and ushered the boy in first, quickly locking it up behind them.

There was a coat closet in the manager’s office. The owner had always been kind enough to allow the boy to keep his most important belongings hidden away there. He wouldn’t let the boy sleep in the bar at night, but the boy could store his clothes, his spare money, whatever he needed. He changed quickly in the bathroom, using soap and water to clean himself before getting right to work, pulling down chairs and bar stools and relining trash cans that had lain empty all night.

Silently, the owner and the boy went about their own business, each focused on their opening tasks. As the other employees trickled in, the boy gained the courage to put his coat in its spot in the back of the break room, beside the vending machine. As quickly as he slipped in, he slipped out again.

The ancient machine made him even more nervous, now. He didn’t want to be alone with it.

~*~

Every night, the boy worked for the bar from when it opened at one in the afternoon to when it closed at three in the evening. The extra-long shift made up for the fact that the owner paid him half what he paid the other employees. “Look, kid, there’s no way you’re legal. I could get in a lot of trouble hiring you like this. If anybody found out, I could lose my license. I’ll pay you under the table, but I get half your paycheck – you know, for all the risk I’m taking. You’ll get four bucks an hour. But, if you’re good, I’ll stack up your hours. It’ll even out. You’ll be fine.”

It seemed like a fair enough deal. The boy kept his head down and worked hard. He didn’t notice when the woman came in again, her long legs making slow, even strides down the concrete steps and sweeping across the cramped floor like a dancer. He didn’t notice as she settled into the same spot at the bar, sipping on another whiskey and coke as she watched him, this time with a look of finality in her eyes. She had made her decision.

The boy didn’t notice woman at all, until a drunk customer knocked into him as he was pushing his way through the crowd with a broom, heading for a mess at the table nearest the bathrooms. The customer laughed uproariously and weaved his way to the bar, but the woman caught the boy in her hands and helped right him. He came eye to eye with the wild horse fish on the woman’s arm, and slowly he lifted his gaze to her face. For a moment, the world stopped. He could hear the sounds of the ocean in his head, and her dark eyes seemed to hold the ferocity of a tumultuous sea.

The bartender’s voice broke through the cresting waves in his mind. “Hey, kid! You alright?”

He came to, looking up at the bartender before quickly nodding and pulling away. He tucked his head and got back to work, but the rest of the night he could feel her eyes on him. Every time he looked, there she was, sitting at that bar and watching him with the same intensity.

She stayed the entire night, and between her and the vending machine on his breaks, the boy barely got a moment to calm his mind and breathe. Somehow, he made it through his shift without the owner threatening to send him home, and when it was finally closing time and the woman was gone, leaving him alone with the bartender, the boy was able to finish his tasks in peace.

“Where are you going tonight?” the bartender asked when the boy was finally done, and the mop and broom were locked away in their closet once more. The boy shrugged by way of answer and disappeared down the hallway. He could hear the soft buzz of electricity running through the vending machine, and for a long moment he stood in the doorway, looking up at it and wishing he hadn’t left his coat in there.

It took him too long to garner the courage to rush in and grab it, but when he turned to run out again he nearly ran head first into the bartender, who was suddenly blocking the doorway.

The boy sucked in his breath, his heart jumping in his chest. He shot a quick look at the vending machine, his eyes wide, before turning back to the bartender’s tall form taking up the entire opening. He stepped back.

“Does it spook you?” the bartender asked, motioning with his head toward the unnerving object in the corner. The boy gave no answer, and the bartender sighed. “What’s your name, kid? How old are you? Where do you live? How did you end up in this job?”

The boy opened his mouth to speak, his lips forming the words, I don’t know…, but no sound came from his throat and he felt the panic rise through his body, up his limbs, through his throbbing ankle and aching side. Finally, the bartender nodded and stepped out of the boy’s way. After one more glance back at the vending machine, the boy slipped out of the room, giving the bartender a wide berth before taking the employee exit and running into the night, his heart racing in his chest.

He stopped against the wall of the building next door, leaning over and bracing with one hand against the bricks, his free hand covering his ribs. He breathed deeply, working the stress of being cornered by the bartender out of his system. Overhead, the black sky poured rain and hail onto him, and the wind picked up. His heart sank; another sleepless night awaited him, and tomorrow, he would wake with an empty stomach and another day yet to go before the owner paid him his share. The boy collapsed to his knees, the water soaking through his thin pant legs, and for a moment he let the panic rush over his body again. He couldn’t tread this, couldn’t stay afloat in his own life anymore, and he wasn’t sure where to turn for help.

A gentle hand rested on his shoulder, and he jumped, looking up. The woman was crouching down beside him. She smelled of the ocean, of seaweed and brine, and he sniffed in hard and let her help him to his feet. Her hand brushed the wet hair from his face, and when he trembled from the cold and the uncertainty in his bones she simply nodded and pulled him into her chest, wrapping her arms around his back and embracing him.

At first, he didn’t know what to do with the motion. He hadn’t been held like this in longer than he could remember. Slowly, slowly, he lifted his hands to her sides, still tense and unsure. But the longer the woman held him, the calmer he felt, the easier it was for him to slip his arms around her back and hold her tightly in return.

This felt safe, and that wasn’t a feeling he had very often.

When she pulled away, it was too soon. He didn’t want to let go. But he tucked his arms around himself and looked at the ground, ducking his head and examining his feet carefully, focused on his old, grayish shoes with the holes that let the water in and kept him freezing on nights like this.

“Come on, then,” the woman said gently, and he looked up in time to catch her motion for him to follow. Swallowing hard and looking around, the boy obeyed.

~*~

They trailed through the winding backroads along the waterfront, away from the main nightlife filled with restaurants, bars, tattoo parlors, and convenience stores. They passed through the canneries, and up into the beachfront district. The winds swirled around them, but the gusts themselves never seemed to touch him; so long as he stayed close by her side, he could handle the cold.

The woman stopped at an old apartment complex, with peeling paint and wood warped from thirty years beside the saltwater, bearing the brunt of the storms that rolled in off the coast. It was pressed against the sea, its far edge touching the beach, with only a thin strip of land between it and the water. It lacked even the minimal protection from the sea the bar enjoyed, being set back from the docks by a few blocks of buildings.

She unlocked a door and led him up a steep, narrow staircase, to a creaking top floor. The wallpaper was peeling inside the dim hallway, the flowering pattern yellowed with time, and water damage seeped through the ceiling. The woman tugged lightly on his shirt, motioning him through a narrow doorway.

The woman lived in a large, comfortable studio, decorated with driftwood tied carefully to the walls and glass bowls and vases full of sea glass and shiny, polished stones. There was a main room with an enormous bed, sectioned off from everything else with light, gauze-like tapestries that hung from the ceiling, and to the side was a small bathroom. A raised platform in the distance held a kitchen that overlooked the beach. It was dark, but he could still make out the waves cresting on the sand as lightning struck and lit up the night sky.

He jerked back, hitting the wall behind him, his heart thumping in his chest. A roll of thunder came through and shook his bones, and his breathing grew unsteady.

The woman stopped halfway from the door to the kitchen, turning to face him. “It’s alright,” she said. “It can’t hurt you tonight. This room will protect you. Come in; take a seat. I’ll make us some dinner.”

Hesitantly, the boy pushed himself away from the wall. There was a small card table beside kitchen’s raised platform, with two folding wooden chairs, and he took a seat in one of the chairs and watched the woman as she moved about the elongated space with the strength and flexibility of a dancer, or perhaps a swimmer. He was entranced with her, his eyes unable to look away as she pulled two fish from a small icebox and prepared them on the counter with adept knife cuts. Each of these was pan fried with a few pinches of seasoning and some ripe, cut lemons. While the fish cooked itself in the pan, she deftly cut up vegetables, tossing them together for a quick salad. It took no more than fifteen minutes for everything to go from the ice box to the table, and the boy dug in greedily, his grateful stomach growling its impatience. A basket of flatbread was placed on the table between them, and the boy ate until his stomach was full to bursting, that sick, full feeling overtaking him a second time.

There was no more conversation between him and the woman. She snuffed out all of the lights and helped the boy to his feet, bringing his sore body to the bed and pulling off his coat, shoes, and socks. She tucked him in, stroking his hair and leaning over to kiss his forehead. “Sleep, and dream, child of the sea,” she whispered.

The familiar words jerked him awake, but she pushed him down lightly when he sat up, and soon the cocoon of warmth overtook him, and he drifted into an easy sleep. That night, his dark, surreal nightmares were replaced with vivid images of a group of fifty beautiful young women, swimming through the crystal blue waters of a distant land, riding steeds that were a mix of horse and fish beneath the watchful gaze of a shapeshifting figure who, at one point, seemed to turn to smile at the boy. Rest well, seachild.

#writing #fiction #short story #fairy tale #fairy tale retelling #little mermaid #nereid #greek mythology #fey

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jamesosiris · 7 years ago

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Dragon Seed: Chapter One

Dragon Seed is being released on the 28th February – that means it’s preview time!

Pre-order Dragon Seed here: Amazon (All Stores)

Chapter 1

The coughing fit kicked me upright before I was even awake. Strangling, eyes throbbing from the pressure in my head, I coughed and heaved and flailed around, unable to see anything but dancing black and white spots. My lungs were burning by the time I pitched back onto my pillows, exhausted and shaking with lingering terror. Not just terror of the present: terror of the future that awaited me. I was now at Stage Two of the HEX virus – in three days’ time, I’d be dead.

There were no nurses in our quarantine tent. Everyone here was already sicker than me, moaning and rattling in their sleep. Still wheezing, I fumbled across for the box of bleach wipes next to my Army cot and used them to clean up my face and hands. The smell made my throat burn raw, and I shook with unfamiliar weakness. I hurt all over. My joints felt like angry dwarves had been pounding them with hammers while I slept… and it was only my second day of being sick.

My tent bunked eleven other soldiers, all infected, all of us in the prime of our lives. My conscript’s uniform only had three badges on it: my platoon, my rank – Private – and my name badge, which was just my surname, ‘Park’. I was twenty-seven, fit despite my chronic gaming habit, used to bouncing around the world with a pack and rifle. When I rolled up a sleeve and looked down at the inside of my arm, the smooth tan skin I was used to seeing was mottled with a spreading red rash.

HEX was like clockwork. The first day hits you like a train, and five days later, you’re toast. By tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to walk. Day Three was the worst day, because you were still aware of everything that was happening to your body. I’d watched people cough until the veins in their eyes ruptured and they began to cry blood. If I did nothing, if I followed orders and stayed in bed to die, that was all I had to look forward to. But as Baldrick from Black Adder would say: “I have a cunning plan.”

Assuming I could find the strength to get my ass out of bed.

My hands were shaking with fever as I pulled up my ration of medications and fumbled them out into my palm, clenching my teeth while I tried not to drop them everywhere. The cocktail of tablets were all anyone had to fight HEX, the common name of the H5N1-X virus: a lab-made super-flu unleashed on the world as a weapon of war. The tablets would take down the fever, keep my lungs from filling up, help the cough, and manage some of the pain. When I stood up, my head began to pound even harder. I pinched the bridge of my nose, willing the pain to stop, and then got dressed. A t-shirt, BDU pants, boots, then my sidearm. Last but not least, I struggled my pack on, took one last look at the other men in the tent, and hobbled outside. I’d packed the most important things I needed, just one small bag for me and my brother. There wasn’t much need for ordinance where we were going.

I forced myself to a clumsy jog outside, moving past ripped and dirty tents full of coughing, moaning people. We had started with a division between soldiers and civilians, but that division had broken down entirely. The only armed patrols on duty were PALADIN sentry robots: each one seven feet tall, loud, clunky, with sensor arrays instead of faces. They prowled the ragged rows of tents and manned the perimeter gates, standing watch or marching in set patrol routes no longer directed by a human controller. The bots’ reflexes were starting to slow as their batteries wound down. When we were healthier, me and the other lepers in quarantine had had fun throwing things onto them in the yard. Hats, scarves… we even uploaded a few videos we called ‘Stuff on Our Robot Overlords’.

Unlike human guards, PALs could stand watch at full attention for forty-eight hours – provided they were at full charge. With no one to top up their juice, the ones that were still moving were sluggish, like humans who hadn’t had any sleep. Sweat poured down my face in the early morning chill as I broke from cover to cover to keep out of their sight. I focused on putting one foot after the other. My heart was pounding, my guts were cold and twisted with fear. Not only fear of dying, either.

I’d received a text on an old civilian cell phone I’d kept, but now only used for morning alarms. It was a message from my brother, Steve. He hadn’t spoken to me in five years. The last time I’d seen him was during the big knockdown, drag-out fight that had ended in me stalking out of his house and out of his life. But three nights ago, Steve had contacted me. He’d sent me only two awful words. “Mom’s dead.”

Then, ten minutes later. “I’m sick. If you’re alive, get to Washington D.C. You’re named in my will. If you’re sick… please come home. PLEASE.”

I didn’t know what was worse: that mom had died and no one had called to tell me, or that Steve had gotten sick caring for her. He hadn’t thought to ask me to come and help. The sad thing was that it was probably an honest oversight, and that only made it worse.

Guilt tore at me as I waited for a PAL to turn around, and then staggered out from cover and through the ramshackle wire perimeter of the quarantine camp. The robot’s rear sensors were covered by a USMC cap that hung at a jaunty angle over the thermal lens. There had been a method to our madness.

My mission was to reach the base’s A-Block garage and reunite with the love of my life, Mona. She was waiting for me in the parking lot in spot A-457, concealed by a large locked tarpaulin.

“Hi, baby. How are you doing under there?” I tried to croon to her, but my voice came out as a harsh croak. I unlocked the tarp and pulled it off, throwing it carelessly to the side. Underneath it was a stripped down, banged up Ducati 996X. Mona’s bare steel frame hadn’t been painted in a while, and her fuel tank had a couple of dents and scratched paint, battle scars from the stunts we did together. Like most motorcycle stuntmen, I’d started on a little 250cc bike, a Ninja, which had enough power to do the job but hadn’t punished me when I’d screwed up. I’d worked my way to stunting and racing the Ducati. If you screwed up on an 996X, it would punish you. It was the closest thing to a dragon I would ever ride outside of a video game.

I normally enjoyed the ritual of putting on my motorcycle gear, my suit of armor. Kevlar jeans, boots, jacket, helmet, gloves, in that order. Today, I only had gloves and goggles, my sweat-soaked uniform, and a bag. I swung a leg over, and took a moment to catch my breath before turning the key. The bike came to life with a deep booming purr, and for a couple of seconds I just sat with it and drank in the way the machine made my body rumble. It would be the second-last time I’d ever ride her.

The first leg was to find my brother. We’d make peace, I hoped, and then I’d take Mona out to the highway and ride as long and as far and as fast as I could. We’d tear up the Big Sur at a hundred and twenty until we were almost out of gas. When the needle touched Empty, the plan was to wheelie jump the bike off a cliff overlooking the Pacific, because screw this whole ‘drowning on your own lungs’ goat fuckery. I was a stuntman. When I died, it was going to be spectacular.

I walked my bike backwards, turning her to line up with the exit ramp, and then threw it into gear. The purr turned into a snarl as the chassis kicked underneath me, the front of the bike briefly lifting as I turned the throttle and screeched off.

The only way in or out of Fort Richard was the main boom gate, but I wasn’t the first to desert and I wasn’t going to be the last. One of my buddies had given me directions to a section of unmanned fence where waves of soldiers and desperate refugees had cut holes in the wire and poured in and out. As I drew up on it, I could see that he’d been correct, in that the hole was there, but it was now manned. Two PALADINs waited on either side of the gap, which was big enough to admit an elephant. The railguns in their hands and heaps of dead – some in uniform – strewn on the ground around them was testament to why no one was no longer going in or out.

“Shitballs.” Resigned to an untimely demise, I threw my bike into third gear, and hunkered down as the Ducati howled. I spun the back wheel, raised a fist, and energetically rasped a battlecry. “PORK CHOP SANDIWICHES!”

The robots saw me coming, visored helmets swiveling. They aimed, and I swerved hard and low to the ground. I came out of the zig and zagged as they opened fire where my motorcycle had been only a second before. Any panic I felt in the face of being fired on had been beaten out of me in Indonesia and Syria. I kept my focus and leaned the bike over until the ground tore open the knee of my pants, swooping along the ground and then righting up as I blasted through the hole and sailed out over the embankment below. The robots fired at me during the jump, and several rounds blew by close enough that I felt the sting on my arms, but they were no longer fast enough.

My stomach swooped as the rush hit.

“Sayonara, bitches!” I found myself laughing, giddiness breaking through the cold focus as I rode the heavy machine to the ground, clutching at it with knees and thighs. We hit the dirt, fishtailed, and kept roaring forward.

I nearly ran several civilians down as they stumbled to get out of the way. There were people everywhere out here, a camp much less organized than the one inside of the Fort. Fellow victims of HEX stood around coughing, or staring at me with dead, confused eyes. There were a lot of kids, many without parents. The hard summer ground had somehow been churned to mud, and the air hung heavy with the smells of human misery.

I pulled over to catch breath, which only resulted in a coughing fit that felt like it was going to send my eyeballs shooting out of my head. When I pulled the cloth away from my mouth, it was bloody. I stared at it in impotent rage, and then, with anger burning a hole through my gut, at the huge silhouette in the sky. Looming above us all from the bay was the Golden Gate Shard, a mile-high megastructure that jutted up from the water like a glittering crystal spike. The Generals and Colonels were up in there along with the rest of California’s elite, sealed away from HEX and protected from the war they had started.

“Fuckers.” Aching, my breath rattling in my chest, I started the motorcycle and set the GPS for my family home on Hyde Street.

Despite not being Chinese, our parents had bought a house on the fringes of San Francisco’s Chinatown at a time when housing was still remotely affordable. It was a small rowhouse at the end of a strip of larger rowhouses, with a big parking lot on one side that was always crammed with cars. Now, the lot was abandoned. The chaos and rioting had been and gone, and everyone who’d survived had fled the city to try and escape the spread of HEX. I was shaking with fatigue by the time I pulled up, running on nothing but adrenaline and the cocktail of drugs I’d taken an hour and a half before. It was by will alone that I swung my leg over and stumbled toward the dark green front door. It was the home where Steve and I had grown up. I hadn’t been here in seven years.

I pressed a shaking hand to the palm lock, barely believing it would work after all this time. When the lock flashed green and clicked, my legs nearly went out from me. Mom and Dad hadn’t completely erased me from their lives after all.

“Steve? Steve, you alive?” I called as I opened the door.

The stench that billowed out of the house was like a slap to the face. I recoiled, struggling not to vomit. Breathing in that dead smell on the battlefield was one thing. Breathing it in at your family home was enough to make me want to run away a second time, as far and as fast as I could.

“Hector?” My brother’s voice was a dry rasp, but I could still hear the surprise in it.

Bracing myself, I pushed through the stench and went inside, freezing up for a moment as the old instinct to take my shoes off at the door kicked in. I shook it off and followed Steve’s voice to the den. He was propped up on the sofa, a bloody blanket half-fallen over his lap. I knew by looking at him that he well into Day Three. HEX had made a ruin of my tall, handsome brother. His skin was mottled with bruises, his eyes sunken and his face gray. He already looked like a corpse. I stopped in the doorway, too shocked to move or speak.

“Hec… Hector.” He wheezed on the ‘H’, trying to sit up higher. “You made it. My God. You look… so… so fit!”

“I call it the ‘Forced Conscription Jungle Warfare Diet.” My mouth was moving way ahead of my brain at this point. I checked myself. “And apparently I’m a snarky asshole when I’m sick. Sorry.”

“Hah.” He almost let himself laugh. “You’ve… you’ve changed so much.”

And you probably haven’t. I didn’t say it out loud: just forced a smile. “So have you.”

“How did… how did you… get here? You were in the Army?”

“I deserted,” I said. My voice was cracked, too, and it hurt to speak. But I wasn’t as bad as Steve, not yet. “About fucking time, too.”

Steve was so exhausted he didn’t even notice that I’d sworn. As I came closer, he searched over me in shocked relief. “Deserted? But you… you shouldn’t have deserted. Why didn’t you ask for leave?”

Typical Steve. “From who? There’s hardly anyone left. We were on the front lines for HEX. And I’m dying, Steve – what’s the worst they could do, shoot me?”

His eyes focused on the rash on my arms, and then it seemed to finally click. “Oh no. Not you, too.”

“Of course I’m sick,” I replied. I sat down on the floor. Sweat poured down my face and down my back. “Everyone’s sick. Dead or dying. The city’s deserted. We might be the last ones here, bro.”

He closed his eyes, as if struggling to process the enormity of it.

“Hey. I brought something for you.” I struggled the backpack off and pulled it around.

“What?”

“My RetroConnect,” I said. “And granddad’s library of games. I know you’ve been working on those fancy VR rigs and everything, but we used to play together and I thought, ‘Fuck it: might as well go out making up stupid Latin words for the Sephiroth theme song one last time’. You know how it goes: ‘French frogs, big cherries…”

“Peter Pan, magic cheese. Sephiroth!” He croaked. He couldn’t quite get the dramatic chorus falsetto going, but I busted up laughing and coughing anyway.

Steve and I were chalk and cheese in every significant way, and always had been. Games had been the one thing that had brought us together. The sounds of us hacking and wheezing were obliterated by the roar of a helicopter passing by overhead, low to the ground. By the time I could hear anything else, I was wheezing and gasping for air.

“I figure we can do at least one speedrun of most of these before we croak,” I continued once I got my voice and hand-eye coordination back, taking out the box and the chip with the games, and then the other things I’d brought: candy bars of every shape and size, chips, and energy drinks. “Remember that time we went trick or treating and told dad we were at cram school, and we ate ourselves sick?”

“He nearly killed us,” Steve said hoarsely.

He actually had nearly killed me. Dad hadn’t just been any normal kind of asshole: he had been a whacko-religious dentist who forbade sugar in the house, especially on Halloween. One year, we’d snuck in a bag of candy and gorged on chocolate and taffy until we’d puked. Dad beat me with a folded electrical cord. Even Steve had gotten a few lashes for that one.

“Here.” I passed him some chocolate.

“No,” he said. He shook his head, struggling up a little more. “Hector, listen to me. I asked… asked you to come for a reason. Listen-”

“Hear me out, first,” I said, unwrapping a candy bar for myself. It helped cover up just how much my hands were shaking. “I came to like… apologize. I hate that we spent so much time fighting. I hate that I was jealous of you and I hate that dad used you to make me feel bad. I hate it that you and him trashtalked me all the way through school. I’m sorry I was such a jerk to you. We don’t have much time… and I just want to hear you’re sorry for treating me the way you did, then move on and play Secret of Mana until we croak, okay?”

“Hector. Listen,” he rasped. “I know this. I know it all. You being alive, being here ch-changes everything. Listen to me. They’re coming for me. I’m going to make them take you with me.”

“Who? What?” I frowned, trying not to hold my breath. Even though HEX was working its way through my body, I still felt weird about breathing in the air around the infected. Steve had been bright with health not even a week ago. It seemed like the flu took him faster than the others… or maybe I just noticed more.

“Ryuko.” He fixed me with a fever glare.

Ryuko? Ryuko was the AI systems company he worked for. I sort of nodded and shook my head at the same time, not sure what he was trying to say.

He reached out his hand for mine. “They’re late, but they’re coming for me. I’ll tell them when they come that… that… I’ll make them…make them take you. You go with them, Hector.”

“Ryuko? I don’t understand.” He was babbling, and it creeped me out. I’d never known Steve to talk like this, but he was serious about whatever he was trying to get across to me. His agitation beat against my skin. I squeezed his hand in both of mine. “It’s okay, man. You need to rest.”

“It’s secret… it’s…” His eyes wandered past me, and I saw something flash at his temple: a small blue light. His Brain-to-Interface link.

“Ryuko,” he whispered, staring at something behind me.

There was a bang on the door, and then another as the wood splintered and then crashed in under the weight of a battering ram. Five years of training and experience kicked in instantly. Coughing, I was up on my feet with my pistol aimed before I’d even had time to think.

“Hector, no!” Steve hissed.

My grip on the pistol sagged at his command, but I was still in firing position as soldiers poured in through the door. Not ordinary soldiers. They were all identical: the same height, the same matte-black bioarmor, the same oversized rifles and terrifying stillness when they came to a stop. The guns were pointed at my face, and I froze in fear and confusion. There were no eyes behind those featureless black visors. They were androids. Machines.

“No fire. No fire!” Steve cringed back into the sofa, lifting his voice until it broke.

“No fire.” A woman’s voice broke through in the sudden silence.

I eased down as the unseen woman rounded the corner and stood in the doorway, and dropped the pistol down as my eyes widened. She was tall, supermodel perfect, like a vision out of Viking myth. Lean, long legs, a sculpted face like an avenging angel, golden blonde hair pinned up behind her head in a twist underneath a clear, HAZMAT-style helmet. The rest of her outfit looked to me like a fancy white spacesuit, and I wasn’t too sick not to notice how the thick leather-like material hugged her curves. I blinked several times, not convinced that I wasn’t tripping balls.

The woman looked between the pair of us. “Mister Park?”

“Park One and Park Two, at your service.” Every breath hurt like hell, but sassiness was just as incurable as HEX. “Bro, is this-”

“You informed the company that you had no living relatives, Mister Park.” She didn’t bat an eye. Angel Lady’s voice was cool, crisp, and matched her elegant face and hair. Now that she was up close, something was pinging at my uncanny valley reflex. There was something not quite right about this lady. “Has the status of your family changed?”

“Yes,” Steve croaked.

“What in the ever-loving fuck is going on?” I asked the room.

Steve shuffled behind me, and I turned to see him sitting upright. He was trembling with the effort, his jaw tense, eyes wild and hot. With a glance at the others, I went to him and helped him to stay up. His hand grasped my forearm, tight and inhumanly strong.

“T-Temperance. This… this is my brother. Little brother.” His breath bubbled on every exhalation. “Do… background check under… Park Jeong-Ho.”

I flinched at the sound of my birth name.

“Sir, Ms. Hashimoto ordered me to bring you-”

“You’re too late.” Steve retorted, and for a moment, he looked more like himself. He’d always had a fire burning deep inside, a fire he’d manifested by powering through achievement after achievement, scholarship after scholarship. He’d won local and state awards for mathematics and linguistics, joined Mensa, and had gone on to work for Ryuko Entertainment as one of the best AI immersion developers on the United States’ side of the Pacific.

“I’m very sorry we weren’t here yesterday as we planned, Mister Park,” Temperance replied. She didn’t sound very sorry. “My transport was delayed by rogue aircraft. If you cannot travel, I am afraid we cannot honor the contract.”

“I can travel, and yes, you will honor the contract. Hector is my next of kin,” he said, straightening his back. “I want to forfeit my place to him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Temperance said. “My orders were to bring you…”

“Get Akari on a BCI channel,” Steve said, his voice firm with authority. “Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Steve, what the fuck is going on?” I turned on him, suddenly angry.

He glared at me with blood-shot eyes. “Hector. Not now.”

Steve’s BCI flashed, and then Temperance’s. They gazed at each other in silence with faraway expressions for several moments as they exchanged information. Once it was done, Steve sagged back into the sofa, and Temperance stood there like a shop mannequin, inhumanly still. She wasn’t breathing.

A gynoid, I realized. Holy shit. There were only a handful of real androids ‘alive’ in the world, so to speak. The woman in front of me was the real deal – an artificial life form. A walking supercomputer.

“Thank you, Mister Park. Ms. Hashimoto is revising her orders,” Temperance said. “I will perform the requested background check. Please look directly at me, Mister Park Jeong-Ho.”

“My preferred name is Hector. No ‘mister’,” I grunted. More out of surprise than anything, I looked up and met her eyes. They were as wide and blue as the Caribbean Sea, a perfect crystalline color that seemed to dance with light.

“Thank you, Mister Park. Management has approved your appeal,” she said, after five minutes or so.

Steve shuddered. “Thank God.”

I scowled, glancing between them, and got to my feet. “Would either of you like to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Hector, I am here to execute your brother’s contract with the Ryuko Virtual Reality Corporation,” the gynoid replied. “Your brother was an employee involved with a project that is being repurposed. Mister Steven Park, if I understand your uploaded testimony, do you vouch that this man is qualified for the trial and you wish to include him under the terms of your contract?”

“Hey, wait a second.” I stood, alarmed. “What contract?”

“Yes.” Steve choked. “Take him. Please.”

Intellectually, I knew Steve was doing something to try and save my ass. What, exactly, I wasn’t sure – but I was starting to get pissed off. I’d never had control of my life because of our parents, and now he was trying to control me, too. “Wait! Take me where? To do what?”

“I am the Executive Assistant of Akari Hashimoto, the CEO of Ryuko Corporation,” Temperance replied. “I have been ordered to make you an offer as requested by your brother, Ryuko’s Senior Virtual Intelligence Developer, Steven Park. The offer must be made in a secure facility, and you are under no obligation to accept the terms and conditions… but it may very well save your life. Would you like to accompany me to discuss your future?”

Pre-order Dragon Seed here: Amazon (All Stores)

Dragon Seed: Chapter One was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

#dragon seed #litrpg #preview #mothership #jamesosiris

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euro3plast-fr · 7 years ago

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5 digital predictions for 2018

What are the next big changes to digital that will affect digital marketing strategies in 2018?

Recently on behalf of Smart Insights, I gazed into the crystal ball to forecast some marketing and branding trends for 2018.

In this article, I am going to concentrate on five digital aspects which I believe will, in some way or other, affect just about everyone next year.

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To being with, as this chart by Smart Insights, in collaboration with TFM, demonstrates, more businesses than ever are putting digital transformation programmes in place. Yet still, according to Smart Insights, some 50% of businesses don't have an integrated Digital Marketing Strategy.

For more trends covering how to integrate digital media and technology to increase the contribution of digital marketing in 2018, check out Dr Dave Chaffey's article on the 10 trends for 2018 where he talks about integrating marketing technology, integrating marketing activities into the customer lifecycle and integrating content marketing into a customer engagement strategy.

Prediction 1: People close final mile of the consumer journey

Elon Musk (one of PayPal’s founders) would love us to finally become a totally cashless society – leaving rather than loose change, digital footprints and so data wherever we step. However, for now, not every transaction starts and ends online. In fact, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers, when Gen Z-ers go shopping, they actually prefer to at least complete the customer journey at physical stores.

Consumers of all ages are more clued-up than ever on the what’s, whys, how’s, and when’s of purchases. Strides ahead of stepping into a store, they have checked out vlogs, blogs, reviews, comparison sites…

They are no longer merely customers – but accustomed experts. They also remain people. Which is why details such as the physical touch of a product along with words of reassurance remain the final hurdle in the customer sales journey.

2018 will see more BAMs (Bricks and Mortar) brands delve deeper into analyzing the steps that bring consumers to the checkout counter. Drawing on such data, upon arrival at the store, similar to swiping payment devices, customers will increasingly scan personal devices to be instantly recognised by the store’s system and ‘handed-over’ to an assistant ready to add the human reassuring touches, so closing the deal in ways still far from being mastered by Artificial Intelligence.

Prediction 2: Digital closes the final mile of the consumer journey.

Face-to-face store assistants can naturally spot aisles away a potential customer. For example, a cosmetics assistant intuitively recognizes when someone deserves a little “me-time.” The consumer is pampered. Questions are designed to provide advice on the best combination of make-up for a special occasion. The cosmetics are sold.

From 2018 I predict that increasingly more of the data recorded at such everyday human-triggered sales cycles will, thanks to digital, receive a far longer-shelf-life.

In my example, colour charts, styles and so on… will deliver far greater potential than purely being a useful after-sales reference download. The more the data is accessed, the more empowered the consumer will become. Ever-evolving – learning algorithms will help guide the consumer months and even years after an initial consultation. Best of all, instead of coming across as overly intrusive, everything will feel personally empowering.

Thanks to intelligent (human managed) digital stratagems, campaigns will leave the impression of being more natural – and so individual than ever. (Which helps explain why, according to the Wall Street Journal, the majority of cosmetics brand Sephora’s tech-workers are currently female).

Prediction 3: One by one, the Four Pillars blocking digital transformation will topple.

Suspicion and chariness from luddites have long been thorns in the side against digital progress. Yet as the irrefutable maths of digital being the logical step towards greater efficiencies and ultimately business add up, the four main inhibitors currently blocking digital integration and transformation will begin to tumble.

Namely:

First Pillar: Insufficient management buy-in.

Given the clear Return on Investments proof, even executives currently with small appetites for digital, will (gradually) realize that rather than try to halt waves of progress, it’s time to embrace digital’s tsunami leading to a sea of transformation.

Second Pillar. Redundant legacy systems and processes.

Many enterprises are still not yet fully aligned around digital customer digital experiences. Simply trying to keep up with digital, some back-office systems are hobbling along. However, the days for such ‘Hop-a-Long Casiddies’ are numbered: the ceaseless demand for digital completely overwhelms yesterday’s excuses to just make-do and hope to get by.

Data siloes by channel and products or services interfere with a full customer view. Therefore, I predict that a positive inevitable consequence of increased overhauling of back office systems will be the closer cooperation between departmental silos. Simply put, the more seamless digital makes the customer journey experience, the more people from departments as diverse as HR, legal (especially with issues surrounding digital privacy laws) distribution, training, accounts … will talk to each other - to get the job done.

Third Pillar. Lack of skilled resource

Currently, even the biggest corporations are having to double-up on personnel responsibilities, whilst also doubling-down on resources to support them. I predict that political issues such as Brexit – which are concerned with entire countries and continents remaining competitive - will spur investment in people-centric digital knowledge programmes that ensure individuals and departments alike will have the skills to grow.

Fourth Pillar. Data-tech intolerance

Franklin Roosevelt once said: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Recently that anxiety has been very publically applied to digital, and in particular - the woolly subject of Big Data. YouTube documentaries and academic forums discussing “Big Data – Big Brother” warnings have become cottage industries creating armies of worrywarts and cynics.

Undeniably, digital’s Big Data system touches every aspect of lives from buying stocks to ordering food… managing campaigns… even finding love. 2018 will see the next iteration of its development. Just as the lack of skilled resources are set to topple, so it follows that knowledge - rather than hearsay - won’t simply drive change for change sake – but ensure that inexorable progress will actually become nothing to be feared.

Prediction 4: Customer data on-boarding is finally distinct from customer on-boarding.

Customer on-boarding is all about the process someone undertakes as part of their customer journey. In some of my earlier predictions, I described how digital is primed to improve that journey. As we progress through 2018 and beyond, the further refinement of digital will focus on specialist areas which, though separate, will ultimately work closer towards achieving a greater common purpose. Therefore, I predict digital marketers will gain an even clearer appreciation of each specialty’s role and benefit.

Take “customer data on-boarding.” It's the process of linking offline data with online attributes (cookies, IP address, device IDs, non-cookie identifiers and so on). Winterberry Group estimates that by 2020, the customer data on-boarding market may eclipse $1 billion (a day).

As we head into the first quarter of 2018, the average consumer will get accustomed to connecting up to eight connected devices every day. Back in 2016 connectivity generated close to 44 zettabytes of data. Within 24 months of reading this article, that figure is expected to reach 180 zettabytes.

And those kinds of data-chewing numbers bring me to my final digital in 2018 prediction:

Prediction 5: More digital = greater brand engagement

The more informed society becomes, the greater the understanding, the wider the choices and finally the more people will be willing to engage with brands that deliver useful, timely, appropriate and empathetic knowledge.

It is all part and parcel of a digital future where brands, people, and processes become increasingly harmonized to deliver an authentic customer journey from A-Z.

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from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-strategy-development/5-digital-predictions-2018/

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