#miss petrel

[peculiar-archives]

Below is a letter I received several years ago, and recently rediscovered in my drawers, dated 1711:

Ms. Starling,

I’ve come upon something most intriguing. Attached are photos relating to the mysterious events, and I hope that after reading, you could respond to me with advice. I’m rather at a loss.

I appear to have forgotten my manners. My apologies, here is an introduction if you’ve not heard of me. My name is Ms. Iryna Petrel, and I am currently in charge of a loop in Crete, Greece. We reside in a manor, which has since been destroyed through an arson, committed four days after I began the loop. As I and my wards have made a home here continually since November fourteenth, 1711, I’ve had many traveling peculiars stop here as not to age forward. Some famous, many simply looking for a place to stay and rest. It’s been almost two hundred years (In actuality, it has been one-hundred-and-ninety-nine years and three-hundred-and-thirty-five days since the loops beginning), and the most trouble I’ve encountered was a group of peculiar raiders. That is, until now.

Early yesterday morning, four peculiars entered my loop. They carried the body of another, very obviously deceased girl. The rest had sustained major injuries. At first, when I’d seen them enter our loop (The signal for entry is rather bright, and happens to be outside of my bedroom window), my thought was that they’d want me to save her. Even from two stories, it was clear that she’d suffered much damage to her stomach, nearly her entire body being drenched in blood. 

Their injuries were much worse in person than they appeared from the window. Upon running across the the manor to reach them, it was clear that they were in urgent need of medical assistance. I showed them to the west wing of the house, which is our teaching and medicine area. I then awoke three of my wards who excel in medicine, and the peculiars told me their story.

The three living were Georgia (appeared 23, true age 26), Xenia (appeared 11, true age 112), and Chrysanthos (appeared 17, true age unknown, assumed to be just under 190). The dead peculiar’s name was Artemis (appeared 9, true age 12). They had fled here from a loop in Cyprus, which had only been open for around three years. Xenia and Chrysanthos had been forced to flee from two previous loops, the second of which they were in together for over 70 years. Chrysanthos referred to Xenia as his younger sister, and was very concerned about her safety for the whole time they were in the medical wing. Georgia and Artemis were siblings from Cyprus who decided it was safer to reside in a loop than out in the open, risking Coerlfolc discovering and possibly killing them. By the time my wards had healed them appropriately, it was well into the morning, and I could hear a large collection of my wards waiting outside of the door to the medic room. I told them to come in, and the other fourty-two wards in my protection walked through the door. Since it could not do to to have them all in a singular room lacking much ventilation, I took my wards (as well as the three new arrivals), into the garden. Georgia required a chair to sit on, as whenever her bare skin touched plant life, it would grow up to ten times its original size. She apologized profusely for this, explaining that she couldn’t control it when she was stressed.

The three peculiars began to tell their story. I’d advise reading this outside of the company of any wards, as it is rather violent, and I would not like to be responsible for traumatizing anyone under your protection. I’ve written this part with help from Chrysanthos, so I missed no details.

They had lived in a loop in Cyprus for three years, led by Ms. Chukar. It was a small loop, occurring in a hotel basement just outside of Georgia’s village. Ms. Chukar was a young ymbryne, but a very powerful one nonetheless. On one night, she welcomed in a man who claimed to be an echolocator. He claimed to be named Jonathan, although, it could easily be a falsehood. His eyes were blank, so we all assumed it was true, and he was simply blind. He came with a gun, claiming that he needed to protect himself on his travels. He stayed for two days and became quite a favorite of the younger children, with a quiet and kind demeanor. That made it even more startling when he turned his gun at Ms. Chukar and fired on his second dinner in the loop. She fell out of her chair, assumed to be dead. There were sixteen peculiars (including Ms. Chukar) in the loop at that time. In my panic to leave, five other shots were fired. There is every reason to believe they were lethal, as only ten of us left from the only exit of the basement. They all attempted to leave the loop, scattering in many directions. The man walked casually towards the entrance to the loop, shooting two more wards in the process. None of them, outside of Chrysanthos and Artemis had peculiarities that would help with combat, so Artemis stayed behind to buy the rest of them time, while Chrysanthos protected the main group. She used her ability to create winds up to 150 km/hr to keep him pressed against a wall while we left the loop. On the other end, there was a sort of monster that waited for us. It was invisible for ten seconds, until it grabbed two wards with two long tongues, and ate them in one horrible bite. It looked like a rotting grey corpse, with loose skin folds, and oversized eyes. It moved using three monstrous tongues, and it had teeth that appeared over 25 cm long. It managed to eat almost all of the peculiars, only two (Georgia and Chrysanthos) making it back into the loop, even though we’d sustained injuries. We’d made it back through to see the man with white eyes slash Artemis’ stomach with a knife, him finally having overcome her miniature hurricane. 

The next paragraph is entirely written by Chrysanthos, as I (Ms. Petrel) know how difficult it is to put one’s own peculiarity through the words of someone else. 

After Artemis had fallen, held by her sister on the rock, I did something that I’d never known I was able to do. My abilities normally extended to simply telekinesis and in the past few years, I’d discovered that I was able to turn quantities of a certain matter into another - a piece of metal into the same amount of water - but only with intense concentration. I, in a state of panic, instinctively pushed the man to the ground. I held his arms above his head, and power rush through me. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I felt the blood rushing through his body. There was a small cut on the back of his hand from where I’d pushed him down, and that was enough. I turned all of the blood in his body into stone. His mouth was frozen in a pained scream, and his eyes wide in terror. I’d no idea I could do that. I fell off his body. I was picked up by Xenia, who was yelling at us that we needed to go. Apparently, another one of us (who’s name I will not disclose out of respect for the dead, but I was very close with him romantically) had gone through the loop entrance again, dying, and told Xenia what happened. Xenia had a fight with Artemis earlier that day, and was too angry to attend dinner, but ran downstairs after she’d heard gunfire, fearing the worst. Artemis was still alive, but barely. Georgia carried her to a boat that we had, and Xenia piloted us towards Cyprus. We made it here in under five minutes, thanks to Artemis. It was this effort that killed her. We all stepped off of the boat, in shock, and found the loop, thanks to Xenia’s ability to sense other peculiars and loops, amongst other things navigational.

I (Ms. Petrel), am writing again. I beg for your assistance in future endeavors and advice with how do deal with the new arrivals. Xenia says that she can sense two of them from the loop on Cyprus alive, and I am going to travel there. While I am gone, my loop will be maintained by Ms. Phoebe Spoonbill, an injured ymbryne currently under my care until she is able to find a group large enough to start a loop. If I am injured and unable to return, she will be in charge of my loop. I will report to you with any changes. 

Please advise,

Ms. Iryna Petrel

P.S. - Attatched are some images that Georgia brought with her.

I - The loop entry in Cyprus, with a normal light flash

II - The strange light occurance in the hallway when the man entered, very abnormal

III - A picture taken of the hotel where the loop was

IV - A closer look at the hotel room where the man was rumored to stay during the day. Dark prints on the side wall are most likely blood

V - An unknown room, from the hotel, picture found on the dead man

[winsdayink]

finally got the chance to play Lets Go and Archer is so fucking funny actually like

That is 100% his dinky ass table next to Giovanni's expensive ass mahogany desk and leather chair nobody does it like him

[junijwi]

Man. I don't think I ever posted these here either.

Event banners for Orrison!

[silleye]

re-downloaded pokemas bc of the new gio look... i fear im reentering my pokemon phase......

[ring-of-galactic]

I can talk to electric types.

[moonfurthetemmie]

Eostrix & Petrel (and bonus)

Eostrix

Girl was just living her life and had friends and a job, and then Rayonnant showed up and now she's in a cell. god damn it rayonnant.

also fuck it IDA Ruby officially exists and has a ref. their name is grackle. I don't know why that one is the name that stuck but anyway

Grackle and Eostrix aren't biologically related, but they've been together so long they do kinda think of each other as their sibling. Grackle's present whereabouts and status are unknown to Eostrix, and she really, really hopes they're safe. She has no idea if Rayonnant knew about them at all.

Eostrix knew Baroque had gone looking for Rayonnant, and tried to stop him, but of course he went anyway. And then he vanished.

In trying to look for him a day or so later, she then ran into Rayonnant herself, who somehow knew about Petrel and the vials of positivity that they have. Eostrix played dumb. she was too freaked out to be good at it though so Rayonnant took her for 'interrogation.' At this point she thinks he's keeping her around out of spite, though she doesn't know for sure. She's certainly not enjoying being stuck here.

Petrel

They're doing their best to hide, and to find someone somewhere who can help them create more positivity from the one* vial they have, but hasn't had any luck yet.

*they have two vials, like I said before, but they'll only let one of them be experimented with.

They're trying to look for Baroque and Eostrix, too, but isn't having much luck. And they're pretty sure that means that they're with Rayonnant. Baroque, at least, they're certain about.

She ended up in Eostrix and Grackle's AU entirely by accident, while trying to leave her own. She had no idea how she got there until much, much later, when trying to hide from Rayonnant and learning how to reliably hop between AUs.

With no idea where to even start to look for help, Petrel's really just wandering at this point. Hoping that she'll find someone, eventually. Someone that's not Rayonnant or his team. please. please not them.

Grackle

if fantasy au, why not have elf? so here. elf. they are 6'3'' in case you were wondering.

also if original name 'ruby' why not make very red?

listen i slapped them together before i had to leave for a 9 hour shift okay some colors might be a little wonky

They are alive, somewhere. They've been looking for Eostrix and their friends, but they've found nothing whatsoever. They can only hope that means they're all safe. Unfortunately Petrel's the only one who's even remotely safe right now.

[pokepollsters]

Best Pokémon Villains Tournament- Opening Submissions!

As you've all voted on, our next tournament will feature the villains of the franchise going head to head in a battle to be the best- or perhaps the worst? Though, some of these people turn out to not be too bad after all!

For the first time when doing one of these tournaments though, there's not a clear cut way to decide who counts as a vilain and who doesn't! So I'm going to be trying out something new for this tournament- submissions.

The way this tournament will work is that we'll have two brackets, the first being a bracket of the individual characters, and the second being a bracket of the evil teams and other antagonistic organisations themselves. Both brackets will be open to your suggestions on who should participate- and yes, for once we will be allowing participants from games other than the mainline series! This is something I've wanted to try for a while now, and this feels like the perfect opportunity.

With that in mind though, there will be some contestants who get automatic qualification, and there will be rules for who can be submitted.

For the individuals bracket, the automatic qualifications include any named member of the villainous groups from the main series that the player battles at least once (following the below rules). Otherwise, anyone else must be submitted following these rules:

They must be a human antagonist in a Pokémon game

They must battle the player (in whatever form this may take consindering their game of origin) at least once OR play a distinct, individual part in the story (for example, most of Team Plasma's 7 Sages would not make the cut, but Team Galactic's Charon would)

They cannot have featured in the Best Rivals Tournament- this is to give other characters a chance to shine, and because though some are more antagonistic than others, the rival is a distinct role separate to a villainous one

For the organisations bracket, all main series teams will automatically qualify. Other submissions simply must:

Be a named organisation that works against the player

I have final say on any submission if I feel it doesn't meet the requirements, I would like to have a broad selection of characters, though I also ideally want no more than 64 characters as a maximum- or 128 if I severely underestimate how many submissions there will be.

You have until the end of this week to submit characters and teams, either in the replies of this post, as an ask, or as a submission. I hope this is all clear, and I hope you're excited to see this tournament get started!

Automatic qualifiers under the cut:

Individuals:

Giovanni

Archer

Ariana

Petrel

Proton

Archie

Matt

Shelly

Maxie

Courtney

Tabitha

Cyrus

Saturn

Mars

Jupiter

Charon

Ghetsis

Colress

Zinzolin

Lysandre

Aliana

Mable

Celosia

Bryony

Xerosic

Guzma

Plumeria

Lusamine

Faba

Rose

Oleana

Giacomo

Mela

Atticus

Ortega

Eri

Cassiopeia

Organisations:

Team Rocket

Team Aqua

Team Magma

Team Galactic

Team Plasma

Team Flare

Team Skull

Aether Foundation

Team Rainbow Rocket

Team Yell

Macro Cosmos

Team Star

Let me know if I'm missing anyone or any group that you think should already be here!

[whatlurksbean]

I don't know if I missed pages, but when was it revealed that Sturgeon was poisoning Thrasher? It came out of left field for me when Auklet confronted her.

It has been hinted at in previous chapters, and if you really pay attention you can put it together (a lot of folk did!) But this latest scene was the confirmation that she has been poisoning him.

It starts in chapter 17, Sturgeon and Petrel begin coming up with a plan to kill Thresher since neither of them would be able to physically overpower him.

In chapter 22, Hake mentions that sturgeon has brought lavender home before, for reasons unknown.

And at the end of the scene she is seen gathering more.

And then in chapter 26, Sturgeon is seen bringing home more lavender, and also giving thresher his meals, mysteriously cut open.

And later in this chapter, Thresher is seemingly unwell.

And now in Chapter 29, Sturgeon is still giving thresher his meals, and his illness is getting worse. Auklet noticed a trace amount of lavender and is able to put it together.

Which leads us to where we are now.. with auklet confronting her and sturgeon confessing to it.

[marygih]

Julius

Sometimes I feel like no one really understood Julius' proposal as a character.

He was not created to be a romantic partner, and his age is intentional, precisely to block the possibility of any romance. Basically Julius exists so that we know that Horace is gay, without Ransom needing to show it explicitly. It's the writer's way of saying "Yes, he's gay, I left that implied, but I'm not going to canonize it explicitly and you won't be able to ship him canonically either."

Julius represents that impossible crush that some teenagers have at some point in their lives. They weren't meant to be a couple, all of this is just to show us that Horace really likes boys. He's just dazzled by Julius, the two of them could never be together, Ransom did this on purpose.

Now, since I'm talking about Julius, I'm going to talk about something that's been bothering me for a while.

It's no secret that I don't particularly like Julius, his arrogant personality irritated me deeply, but I'm still defending him on a crucial point.

I hate how some defame him for no reason, I've seen Julius implicitly treated as a predator " omg Julius who is 18 years old didn't dump Horace, how can he let a kid flirt with him? It's so suspicious of Julius to allow a kid to flirt with him!"

Honestly, this is so dishonest! He probably didn't even notice the flirting, Horace is a complete stranger to him, there is nothing to prove that Julius is also gay, the fucking world was ending, his life and that of his mother were in danger, do you really think he would be wasting his time paying attention to an unknown child complimenting his clothes?

Julius was in such a fucked up situation, he literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders and he faithfully believed that he was the protagonist of the prophecy. And then he almost died several times, and witnessed his own mother die. Definitely not the mood for a romance.

Evil is in the eye of the beholder. Not for a single second did Julius hint that he was interested in Horace. There is a single scene of them holding hands, just after Julius lost his mother and Horace was the only person to comfort him. Horace stood by him at the worst moment of his life, but Horace is just a stranger, Julius is broken.

When they meet, Horace tries to start a conversation and Julius doesn't even pay attention to him, and then all their interactions are in action scenes where they are both fighting to survive.

When Miss Petrel dies, Julius's world comes crashing down. And Horace is the only one who offers her comfort, it's a scene of consolation and not a fucking romance. It is always Horace who tries to help the boy, he is the one who approaches, Julius never shows anything, and I dare say that if the situation were the other way around, with Horace losing Miss Peregrine, Julius wouldn't be as attentive or supportive.

So this thing about Julius being wrong in letting Horace "flirt with him" doesn't make sense. Definitely the last thing on Julius' mind after seeing his mother murdered was worrying about a preteen he just met being too nice to him.

It's so easy to defame the character by taking his scenes out of context.

He and Horace ride together✨/ fleeing from monsters to save their own lives. ☠️

They hold hands on the train✨/ After Julius sees his mother's murder and is very traumatized since his life was super safe and this is literally the first trauma in his life. ☠️

Horace takes care of Julius's wounds✨/ he's the only one who understands anything about peculiar medicine and Julius is literally gray and dying. ☠️

Horace is at Julius and Enoch's bedside in the infirmary✨/ Julius is in a coma.☠️

Duct all this: Julius has no romantic intentions towards Horace, he definitely didn't notice the flirting, he is VERY traumatized, grieving and drowning in his own pain. He's clearly depressed as his old speech about being a great hero capable of saving the world from Caul drastically changes to "I'm disposable."

I don't like Julius as a character (for the same reason I don't like Horace from the old testament) arrogance and lack of character development. Even though I don't have much empathy for Julius, I came to his defense in this matter. He literally did nothing, I can criticize his actions , not something he didn't do.

In another context, this "attitude" of Julius would really be suspicious and problematic, but definitely not in this situation, you can't blame someone for something he didn't even realize was happening. With the world literally ending, people you love dying, definitely the last thing you're going to pay attention to is some unknown teenager praising you and offering condolences.

[idontknowreallywhy]

Resurface 35 - Reappraise

Story to date in order (Tumblr / AO3)

Previous chapter

ART!VIRGIL KLAXON

Perhaps if you hadn’t read them before these two chapters (here and here) may make more sense of what Virgil has been drawing.

And if you missed the wee!Earth&Sky flying machine adventure, that is contained in this one and this one.

But now, onwards! Virgy-boy still has some demons to exorcise and needs Scooter to help him. Points to whoever spots the cameo from an old friend 😈

💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚

The view from Virgil’s balcony was very similar, but subtly different. They weren’t adjacent - both John’s often-empty and Dad’s always-empty room lay between - and the shift of a few metres to the left meant the light reflected off different facets of the damp rocks of Mateo and the shadows changed shape. The sea met the shore at a marginally different angle, the light refracting through the shallows and hitting the greener end of blue. Two of the trees visible from Scott’s were hidden by the curve of Roundhouse Peak.

Scott hadn’t noticed any of this before Virgil pointed it out. What he did know was that on his own the breeze was stronger and there was fractionally more sky. On a hot day he’d always advocate for the cooler, more exposed position. Where he could see as far as possible. Where he could breathe.

But on a cooler evening, there was something comforting about how the sun’s residual heat radiated from the stone and bathed Virgil’s preferred haven in a warm glow.

Virgil had added to the warmth that evening by opening a bottle of Scott’s favourite scotch which he’d clearly stashed away at some point. Had it been one of the others who produced such a thing, Scott would be waiting for ‘The Favour’ or ‘The Difficult Question’. In Gordon’s case, quite frequently ‘The Confession’.

Virgil, however, often just did it to be nice. And Virgil knew that, unlike Dad and himself, Scott preferred his liquor without rocks. He took another sip and rested his head back with a contented sigh, allowing the liquid to rest on his tongue.

“Scott?”

“Mmmmhmm?” The heat spread through his sinuses as he breathed over it.

“Can I ask you a favour?”

Oh!

The whiskey hit the back of Scott’s throat and his eyeballs burned. Virgil seemed hesitant which mean this was going to be important! He coughed and croaked out a hurried confirmation:

“Always.”

Virgil, staring out to sea, appeared not to notice his brother’s nasal passages vaporising which, again, indicated something was Up. Scott scrubbed at his eyes with a sleeve and with an iron will, forced himself to get a grip of his respiratory system. He was about to say something else encouraging when Virgil suddenly spun to face him and in a voice of utmost seriousness stated:

“It’s a weird one.”

Scott raised an amused eyebrow.

“I can do weird.”

“Would you wear it again?”

The other eyebrow joined it with vigour.

“Wear what? If you’re asking about Halloween and that cursed Superman costume, Alan beat you to it and it’s a hard no. I might be persuaded to consider Batman but only if you’re Robin.”

Virgil snorted and swirled the ice in his glass. The not ungenerous measure he’d poured himself having already disappeared.

“As you very well know I don’t do tights. Not after the Christmas debacle.”

“I think you made a lovely elf.”

“You’re deranged.”

“Yeah but you love me.”

Virgil threw an ice cube at his head before conceding: “I do. Yes.”

He then frowned.

“Scooter, are you CRYING?”

“Nope. No no I’m just… enjoying this with ALL my senses.” He raised the glass and winked.

Virgil narrowed his eyes as if invisibly scanning his brother, then with a quirk of an eyebrow seemed to conclude there was no sudden emotional devastation and released him from scrutiny. He looked back out towards Mateo and tracked the petrels swooping to and from their rocky nests.

Scott followed his line of sight and started a little. There was a small cave at the base of Mateo which was invisible from Scott’s balcony. How had he never seen that before? He was about to point it out when he realised he’d distracted Virgil from his question.

“If you didn’t mean Halloween… what are you asking?”

“Your uniform. The, uh, air force one.”

“Hell no. I’m planning to burn it. That’s not part of my life anymore.”

“That doesn’t sound very environmentally friendly…”

“Alright bury it then. Shred it and bury it. No… shred it, dissolve it in acid then bury it.”

Virgil blinked. “Have you been watching murder mystery reruns again?”

“They’re relaxing.”

“Riiiiiiight.” Despite the feigned disbelief, Scott knew that Virgil had been the one to add three hundred and thirty-six hours worth of ‘A Century of Detective Classics’ to the family server and he knew Virgil knew that he knew that he’d done it as a cunning way to tempt Scott into some downtime. Devious little brothers… who… needed reassuring, immediately.

“It hurt you so it’s got to die. Don’t worry. I don’t even want to touch it again. If Grandma hadn’t spirited it away somewhere to clean it would be gone already.”

“Oh.” Perhaps imbibing scotch straight into his brain had slowed him down, but Virgil didn’t seem as reassured as Scott had intended.

“Don’t you need it for Ash’s dinner? You should go to that, it’s important.”

“I’ll work something out.”

“Oh, ok.” Virgil went quiet again and Scott realised he’d given the wrong answer somehow but wasn’t quite sure how to change it.

“What’s on your mind, Virgil?”

He sighed and cracked his knuckles one by one, making Scott cringe.

“Would you… um, would you wear it once more if… I… for me to… uh…”

“For you?! But… I don’t understand! It made you so unwell? I thought you hated it?”

“I did. I do. But… I don’t want to carry that fear anymore, I can’t be scared of CLOTHES. It’s… I just can’t. It’s ridiculous. And, well… and I was thinking perhaps if I was prepared… if it wasn’t a surprise… it might… I might not react quite so badly? My last memory of it wouldn’t be… uh… so heavy? And maybe I could finish my book.”

“Your book?” Now Scott was really bewildered.

Virgil put down his glass and disappeared into his suite, returning swiftly with one of the large black ring-bound pads of thick art paper the like of which Scott had seen many times. This one was more battered than most and his little brother clutched it to his chest for a moment then cleared his throat awkwardly as he sat down.

“I found it when I was hunting for a sketch I wanted to work up for the exhibition next month. Some of them aren’t… very nice. I was going to just throw it away but Gordon thinks I should complete it… finish the story.”

“Gordon’s seen it?” Scott wasn’t actually jealous, he was relieved to discover - the little snakelike green monster’s appearance seemed to have been limited to the ‘other’ version of himself. But he found himself kind of intrigued that their fish brother was apparently giving art advice these days.

Virgil rolled his eyes and growled quietly. “You know what he’s like… I foolishly tried to hide it when he burst into the room and of course he noticed and he wouldn’t let up until I showed him.”

“May I see?”

Virgil chewed his lip and nodded. Scott shuffled his lounger closer such that they were shoulder to shoulder and felt his jaw drop as Virgil opened to the first page and he saw a vivid recreation in pastel of his toddler self proudly holding a tiny baby Virgil, Mom and Dad hovering in the background. The baby’s fingers were wrapped tightly around his thumb and Virgil had sketched several enlarged views of their chubby hands in pencil along the bottom.

He turned the pages slowly and Scott saw several scenes he definitely recognised from childhood photographs and some he thought must have come from Virgil’s memory. They paddled in a watercolour sea together, rode their bikes in oils, Scott dangled upside down from a charcoal tree with chalky Virgil underneath, arms stretched upwards. There was a cartoon school bus with a dimpled stickman waving from the window.

He smiled as he recognised the two of them with the flying machine on the roof, although he remembered it as much sturdier than the painting suggested. The faded but detailed cross-section taped in to the next double page disabused him of that impression. This one was covered in his own scrawly handwriting. Scott chuckled and raised a hand to the scar on his jaw.

“Oh DEAR, I’d thought it was a much better design than that!”

“Hmmmm.” Virgil rumbled “The basic concept was sound but the materials and our duct tape-biased construction methods left something to be desired and yeah… your “math” was a touch… shaky…”

Virgil smiled and turned over to another cross-section, only this time of a much more elegant design which was surrounded by small sketches of joints and diagrams showing balanced forces, each with the appropriate calculations painstakingly recorded in Virgil’s neat handwriting.

Scott gasped as he realised that this… this could work. Who was he kidding - it was Virgil’s design - of course it would work.

“You fixed it!”

“I did. I felt… bad that we never tried again and you didn’t get your moment.”

“My moment?! Virgil! I nearly killed us both!”

“You were only eleven.”

“Even so…” Scott tried very hard not to think of all the occasions since then when he hadn’t had ‘being only eleven’ as an excuse but the more he tried the more of them bubbled up in his memory like some kind of noxious gas polluting his only fresh water source. No. They were past this now… it was better. Things were changing. He was changing.

“I guess I had this idea that I could build it and if… if you ever came back…” he shook his head “it was just a silly…”

“No.” Scott interrupted, grabbing his arm and pressing his forehead into the side of Virgil’s head. “Not silly. Thoughtful. Ingenious. Seeing the potential in an idea and making it work? Very… YOU.”

Virgil gave a small smile and turned back to the book. Scott felt himself blush at page after page of sketches, all of himself - as a wide eyed child, a cocky teenager winking, a laughing adult flipping pancakes… even a few where he had apparently sprouted falcon wings, one where Virgil had them too.

Scott couldn’t imagine how many hours these must have taken to create

“When did you do all this?”

As soon as the words had left his mouth he knew it was a stupid question. Virgil shrugged and turned the page.

“When you were gone.”

Scott put his arm around Virgil’s shoulders and squeezed as he turned again, seemingly keen not to linger on any one image.

A blazing sun burned out of the page, the wall of colour marred only by a silhouette of the falcon-winged man, clearly falling, curled in on himself as the wings trailed limply behind, the dark shapes of lost feathers becoming larger and more detailed towards the top. No prizes for spotting the reference there. The real sun, heading swiftly towards the horizon seemed to lose most of its heat and a modern day Icarus-but-for-Many-Miraculous-Escapes wondered yet again how he could have been so blind.

If that one gave him a chill, the next made him shiver, the warmth from the whiskey had now entirely dissipated - a faint pencil outline Scott holding a heavily shadowed Virgil in his arms. Then… there was that same Air Force Grad photo, reproduced in a dozen different styles. The last one almost photo-realistic but crossed through in heavy red pen.

Virgil tried to skip several pages but Scott gently took his hand and turned back. He recognised the image of the crashing jet, over and over… pencil drawn, painted, scratched with a blade into a thick black layer of wax crayon. There followed a page solely of fire. Skeletal outlines of fighter jets. Storms. Crowds of agonised faces. An incredibly detailed map of Bereznik decorated with vicious-looking black insects.

The last few pages shocked Scott the most - all the pictures were drawn on scraps of paper, and then glued in. The largest was a drawing in black ballpoint pen of an almost unrecognisable bearded stranger in a hospital bed, covered in bandages and tubes. There were smaller pencil studies of bruised hands, a foot, an ear, eyebrows over sunken eye sockets, a nearly skeletal chin with a scar… his scar. Scott swallowed hard - he’d looked that bad?

One smaller image stood out as it had clearly been screwed into a ball before being flattened out to stick on to the page. Scott’s younger self winked and laughed up at him from behind the creases, one arm wrapped around a huge box of popcorn, the other hand reaching out of the page towards him. Virgil had clearly got hold of a blue ballpoint pen for this one and had skilfully used it to produce a rainbow’s worth of blue shades. The picture somehow gleamed at him and Scott felt the green serpent stir in his gut. He bit the side of his tongue and motioned for Virgil to turn over to the next.

The very last page contained only the sky in vivid shades of blue with light wisps of cloud: Virgil’s starting place.

Scott swallowed hard as he realised Gordon hadn’t been giving art advice at all.

“I put it away when dad brought you home.”

“It’s… Wow…”

“It was an outlet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Scotty.”

“Not all of it. Some things though.”

He pulled his brother close again and planted a kiss in his hair.

“So how do you want to finish it?”

💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙

Next chapter

[focsle]

Here I am with one of my uneven little phone recordings. My Drowning Ballad. Lyrics:

On a fated voyage I shipped off & here is my final song The lives of men so sadly lost A tale of all gone wrong A cursed ship the old ones would always say Misfortune in her planks imbued But we were not so easily swayed Signed on in the highest mood Set out upon the sea to roam And I will never go back home The fog rolled in across the pier Wreathing mists around our mast We boarded her with all our gear & then we shoved off fast Our good ship groans as she’s set free Check the sails & check the lines We sail out to the endless sea & the dock shrinks behind. chorus

In a briny wind the rigging stirs Shadows run across the deck Mother Carey’s messenger Passing wings outstretched But what did we care of such things? Folk tales told to us as babes It’s unfounded fear superstition brings Our truth is wind and waves

chorus

But bad luck still upon us falls Spoiled food & foul disease From broken pumps & angry squalls To flat winds and dead seas We argue all amongst ourselves Looking for someone to blame The culprit is the ship itself A curse within a name

chorus On our logbook her old name stands Our careless captain left it there Bad luck will plague all our plans I fear how we will fare We learned she was once called Anne Marie A name Neptune would not forget Writ in his Ledger of the Deep The wrath of god upset

chorus

For all the coins we cast to sea & wine libations that we poured The four winds we could not appease Our fate won’t be ignored One fearful night the wind picked up Rain pelting down upon our heads Thunder rolled & lightning struck Sea churned with the dead

chorus It send us to the ragged rocks Treacherous teeth of blackened stone Our sorry hull they found and struck & all we men were thrown The ship turned with a dangerous list Water frothing cross our deck Will we men be missed Drowned down among our wreck?

chorus The petrel warned of storms to come The shrinking tide left of our days A pity I should go so young Beneath the black glass waves The water takes all of me Fills my lungs & fills them deep Replace me with the rising sea The ocean for to keep

[swanmaids]

thank you @ethanray for letting me write for your gorgeous @fall-for-tolkien piece young elwing with birds! i hope you like this short drabble sequence. read it on ao3 here.

~

The daughter of Nimloth the White and Dior Eluchíl the Beautiful is born at night under a blaze of stars shining against the silver waters of the Lanthir Lamath. Star-Spray, her mother names her as she rests, for the beauty of it as it lights up her newborn face, each tiny eyelash picked out perfectly in the light. Eyes closed, she curls into her mother’s breast.

The song of the nightingale has scarcely been heard in Beleriand since the departure of Melian. But as the dawn rolls over the horizon, their chorus rings throughout Ossiriand. It seems to say: sister. 

~

Hello, the terns that nest in the soupy marshes at Sirion say to Elwing, we love you.

We love you, say the gulls, as they dive between the painted houses of the Edain. We love you, say the petrels as they make their way overhead to faraway places unseen and unheard of. 

It is a small thing, but it helps, in its way. Elwing is only three, and she is very lonely. She holds her secret kinship with the seabirds of Sirion close to her chest –- like her father’s gem, it is precious, and so it is worth caring for. 

~

“Is it true you can speak to birds?” the boy Eärendil asks her, not long after his arrival at the Havens. 

Elwing shrugs a little. “They speak to me. Sometimes they listen, too.”

“Wow.” He kicks lightly at the sand. “I wish I could do something like that.”

She looks at him, from the corner of her eye. There is an earnestness in his young face that she likes. “I could show you how I call them to me, if you’d like.”

She holds out an arm, whistles, and they watch together, smiling, as the seabirds dive down towards them.

~

Here, the gull tells her. Look. 

Elwing follows it across the sand, to the small tidal pool where it perches. Floating in the water amid the hair-like weeds: a bottle of blue sea-glass stoppered with a cork. She pulls it out, and unrolls the parchment within. 

Elwing, beloved , the letter begins, all is well on the maiden voyage of Vingilot. But I miss you so!

She feels herself begin to smile, and hugs the letter against her breast. The gull rises into the air, its work done, and Elwing’s heart soars with it, high among the stars and the clouds. 

~

The fairy terns hop along the shore in a miniature ballet, while Elwing’s sons watch, enraptured. Friends? One tern asks, shy. Friends. She assures it. 

She pushes her bare toes into the sand as she observes the scene. Sirion is at its best in high summer: the laughter of children ringing along the beach, the shimmer of the sun and the Silmaril against the waves, the migratory birds returning towards the warmer weather. The twins’ father will be home soon, too. 

One brave tern steps onto Elrond’s chubby hand. Another flutters towards Elros. All around them, tender joy takes flight.

[kvalenagle]

Hi there! Thanks so much for following my blog!

I finished your first book, Eyrie. I'll admit I lost track of things and got confused with what was important or not, but overall, I still had a great time with the book, and I've already ordered the next three entries in the series. I'll get the rest once I can afford them.

Prior to your books, I had no idea there were so many possibilities with gryphons. I've always associated them with the typical 'eagle-lion' design, although I've been looking into more owl-like concepts.

It got me thinking: Are there any gryphons in your books based on the white bellbird (the loudest bird in the world), or the shoebill stork?

Gryphons in mythology are a lot like dragons, where everyone has their own version =] Minoans loved peafowl for their bird halves, Egyptians prefer hawks and lions (with four cat paws, cat tails, and cat ears) while the Greeks had a mix of golden eagle+lion (with bird forelegs) up to owls with four bird legs. And that's before we get into the weirder gryphon cousins like keythongs!

I think there's something human about looking at mammals and birds and imagining a new creature with the best of both. And there are a few gryphon series out there who really lean into the "interesting gryphons" angle. (Kathryn Brown's A Gryphon's Trial series actually beat me to things like burrowing owl gryphons.)

You can kinda see Zeph's more-feline hawk and Cherine's more avian eagle looks as evocative of the big two Egyptian and Greek gryphons, though there's nods in characters like Younce ('ounce' in heraldry is often a leopard, sometimes a winged snow leopard) or Strix (strix were Greek monsters who sometimes were four-legged owl).

Though they're more fun references, since Belamuria is a world without humans that's very different from Earth =] Sometimes, the gryphon fangirl comes through a bit too much, I suppose.

The series doesn't have any published books with white bellbirds (I didn't recognize the name, but as soon as I saw that waddle in a photo, I remembered that bird) or shoebills. Shoebills do show up on social media as gryphon fodder on and off, and they're such a great, menacing bird.

For bird halves, just off the top of my head, I've had quetzals, Cooper's hawks, red-shouldered parrots, emerald peafowl, golden eagles, peregrine falcons, barking owls, snowy owls, grey owls, Japanese cranes, Peruvian diving petrels, Weng Hua diving petrels, sandpipers, sandy terns, shrikes, mockingbirds, golden-crowned kinglets, great blue herons, royal spoonbills, hooded pitohui, motmots, red-winged blackbirds, whistling kites, harpy eagles, kakapo, cardinals, eagle owls, European starlings, violet-backed starlings, cape glossy starlings, strawberry finches, cerulean kingfishers, osprey, mallards, white-tailed kites, sandgrouse, ruffled grouse, ptarmigans, hoopoe birds, roadrunners, burrowing owls, giant teratorn… and I'm probably missing a few.

For cat halves, it's tough since Belamuria's terrestrial mammals are mostly extinct, except for capybaras and invasive squirrel species. You don't often see them described =] But you've got a lot of North American cougars, fishing cats, flat-headed cats, van cats, Russian blues, tabby house cats of several varieties, saber-toothed tigers, leopards, jaguars, lions, cave lions, caracals, maine raccoon cats, tigers, sand cats, and… well, it starts to get spoilery if we go too far there.

The series still has a few entries left, though, so while I can't promise it'll have shoebills or white bellbirds… it might!

And definitely feel free to write your own gryphon books =] I think sometimes readers worry that gryphon authors are competitive, but we're all a very friendly, happy bunch. I love seeing someone else's series write a cool bird+cat combination I haven't thought of. Heck, I'd love if someone started an entire series solely based around burrowing owl gryphons. That'd be neat.

There are also gryphons you see a lot either as stone gargoyles decorating castles or in artwork but never in novels, and I'm not sure why. I feel like I should be able to walk into a bookstore and browse a dozen series with crow+wolf lupogryphs on the cover, maybe some vulpegryphs (fox gryphons). For the moment, though, no such luck =]

If you're ever curious about what a character looks like, the CockatielForger fan account (still active in various places online, though not here) drew fan art of every character. It's a little spoilery before, say, you're done with book seven. But if you don't mind spoilers, look under fan art, and there's a page devoted to just her artwork. Oh! But if you're listening to the audiobooks, let me know and I can send you the interior art pieces. There's usually 3-4 per book. The goal with them was to help highlight the more interesting gryphons. (Brenda Lyons was working on a cover for another writing project, and we were talking about how much we loved the gryphon interior art from old series like The Black Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon. Eyrie was written and advance reader copies had been sent out, but the final version hadn't gone to print yet, and there was just enough time to add in artwork. I'm glad we had that chat, since her artwork is one of my favorite parts of the series.) 

[oddlyhale]

I really like the penguin allusion to Atlas, so here's another idea:

The same way penguin chicks jump from cliffs, it is the same for Atlas Academy First-Years doing a landing strategy. Instead of jumping into the water, they are flung across the water and have to land in the icefields to begin picking teammates. The icefields can still threaten to break and the students can fall into the water, but thankfully the temperature doesn't attract too much Grimm.

Just the Grimmed Petrels that fly around and look for prey, no big deal. /j

Though, they're not very big Grimm. They still behave the same as normal petrels: they wait for any first-year to trip and fall, and then the Grimm Petrel dives in to try and snatch them. But if they are outnumbered, they may abandon the plan and fly away. Grimm Petrels are devious creatures but they are not the strongest.

Also, we totally missed out on GRIMM WALRUS. Well, if we go to Vacuo, I hope we get Grimm Camels.

[albatross-lancer]

>//[LNCR(SILKWEAVE) WHITEOUT]:: Hiya! So, this probably isn't the usual kind of request for aid you get but. My FFT just dropped out of nearlight not that long ago and it seems like the long rim has caught fire while we've been away and we're in the dark here. I don't suppose you'd be willing to help a fellow cosmopolitan out and fill us in on recent events? The Albatross are usually well informed about trouble brewing in situations like this so I figured it'd be worth a shot. // @sailing-into-the-middle-distance

Oh, hi!

I'm not sure how long you have been gone or what exact events in the Long Rim you are referring to, but as I understand it a lot of tensions in the Rim are heating up as spillover from the conflict between the KTB and HA in the Dawnline shore. We have a makteba in the Long Rim, MK Levant, I can attempt to put you into contact with someone from there, if you like, or, you could just... visit them yourself at [COORDINATES]. It's a big station on the Coreward side, can't miss it.

-Young Petrel Yan Baio Shai

ooc: Yaaaaaaay you have no idea how long I've been wanting someone to make a Far-Field Team blog I'm so exited about this

[lumenflowered]

If I had known that merely carrying my blade would make Petrel so cooperative I would have done so much sooner.

...Though I suppose I did not actually have it available to carry during the previous Rocket incidents.

Never mind that. Archer is here, somewhere. He does not have a controller for the same technology Giovanni does. However, he and Petrel have both been directed to check in with Giovanni every hour, on the hour, or else Giovanni assumes that something is very wrong and comes here. With Lugia.

There is a field over the entirety of the Seafoam Islands, as we suspected.

And Petrel has just missed his check-in.

Giovanni is coming. So I cannot risk writing much. Even so. Petrel does not seem to know what it is that he and Archer are guarding here, and while he could certainly be lying...

I do not believe he was.