#my brain just went to the metal pipe falling sound effect when i saw the ask lmao

[the-text-party]

*there are sounds of a huge stack of paint cans falling somewhere*

∞ Oh, hello! Sorry about the inconvenience, the annons are just stealing my forest that was recently taken over by something(?) And I have alot of stuff on my hands, but feel free to paint. ∞

[ ● REC ] STAY THE FUCK OUT OF SECTOR 7 WITH THOSE HELL COLOURS. ]

[sometimes-we-all-fall]

A little Bucky ff…

It was always a good idea to be the boss’ favourite toy.

She slipped down the pole, every languid inch of her body running down the cold metal. Pulling her limbs down with the darker tempo of the music and when the beat popped, she flipped her head back. Her hair was a flying bird in the air, arms swirling in a twirl that would make saints faint on the spot.

A man to her right: a handsome one with heavy tattoos and that smile, the one all the women fawned over for sure. He was the one who she’d caught the eyes of.

Anna put a hand out to the girl on her left and whispered she’d be right back. Then she climbed down the stage, a beeline straight to the man. He saw her coming and nudged at his friends and when they saw her and their jaws dropped Anna’s pride soared.

Of course Anna was gorgeous, her parents wouldn’t have gotten such a high price for her if she wasn’t.

Smiling a million dollars, Anna swayed her hips right to him. He yanked her, his fingers digging into her waist as he pressed her too close to his torso.

“That ass has my name on it princess.” He whispered in her ear.

Anna tried her hardest not to roll her eyes at the same line every man spluttered out with. Fair enough, on the ledge of her pantyline a delicate tattoo read, ‘your name.’ But she was really fucking tired of it.

“Hands off pretty boy, it's the only rule.” Anna winked but her fingers pried firmly at his hands. He sighed and gave her another firm squeeze before letting go with an overdramatic nod. She got to work then, shaking her ass in his face and running the tips of her fingers everywhere but where he wanted.

It was the whole trading chip of a stripper to leave them wanting more, always on the edge of desire and frustration and relaxation. This man was not taking kindly to her tactics though.

She had one hand in his hair, pulling just enough and the other delightfully too high on his waist. Her tits were definitely on one of each of his eyes as she danced to the music.

“Stop.” he put a hand on her throat, “teasing.” his tongue licked the column of her throat before she could pull away. And when she tried, his hand only held tighter.

Grinning, Anna slid her hand up his arm, pulling her body closer and closer, her bloodred lips inches from his neatly trimmed beard. She ran a streak of that lipstick across his cheek until her lips found the shell of his ear. The man seemed to practically purr.

“If you look behind me, on my right shoulder and next to the bar is a man I am sure is staring at you.” when his hand on her throat faltered a little all Anna’s teeth bore. “His name is James, a former soldier and present advocate for the devil.”

Her words had the man practically melting off her but Anna only leaned closer, let her knees rest between his thighs. “A personal bodyguard of mine you could say and though I told you not to touch…” she trailed off.

Anna slid a hand to the tent below her and leaned all her weight down. He grunted and huffed.

“Pay up.” she whispered, but he only sneered in her face.

She shrugged and released the poor fucker, slapping her hands together as if touching him had left her hands dirty.

The man looked all shades of pissed. “Filthy bitch. Too fucking useless to even give me blueballs.” Anna only winked.

Sad for him really, that streak on his cheek was Anna’s personal penmanship for his demise. Sure enough, as she headed to the bathroom James had gotten off his stool and strutted straight to the man.

Leaning on the cracked sink, Anna closed her eyes for a minute. It was four in the morning and she’d been in these heels for the better part of twelve hours. Her feet hurt. Her head hurt, her eyes and every inch of her body ached.

But, she took a breath and fumbled beneath the pipes of the sink and- there, found it. She only spilled three of the slim pills onto her hand, deciding not to let her head get too fuzzy tonight and chucked them to the back of her throat. The effect was instant, her head feeling like the pins weren’t there and her hands the opposite.

A shuddering breath and a swipe at the mascara under her eyes, Anna straightened herself again, plastered her filthiest smile on and clicked out the bathroom.

James had taken his spot at the bar again, brooding over a knuckle of whiskey. She went over to him, gesturing at Andy across the bar for her regular drink. She only barely missed the seat the first time and knocked into James on her second attempt.

He only exhaled deeply and elbowed her the right way. “Flags and weapons look the same Anna.”

Her brain was too fucked to even understand what the fuck he was on about. “James-”

“That’s not my name.”

“We only live once and all that bullshit. Let me be who I am. To be the best me I can be.”

He feigned a chuckle. “Where’d you hear that one?”

She peeled the skin off a peanut, “subway station.”

The corner of his mouth curled and she nearly choked on the nut.

“A smile? James, you-“

“Anna.”

She grinned evilly. “James.”

“That’s not my name.”

She threw a hand on her chest, gasping “James!”

He shook his head and gave up, swigging from the glass. She rolled her eyes, he was never any fun.

“Alright, Thomas.”

“Still not-”

“I think it’s time I went home.”

James levelled an eye at her, “your shift isn’t over yet.” Anna grimaced but nodded.

She stepped onto the floor and spun his seat so she was nestled between his legs. James raised his chin with a snort. That was the biggest invitation she’d get.

Anna tilted her head, watching where his eyes turned from ‘boss mode’ to ‘whatever’.

Dipping a hand down, she felt the bump at his crotch and ran the tips of her stiletto nails down it. His hips jerked and Anna gleamed.

Andy had turned his back and all other girls secretly hissed at her, Anna was the only one he ever tolerated. The one he’d let be rubbed off for a few extra hours in bed.

He hissed when she came close enough to smell the mint and whiskey on his breath and nipped the hairs of his stubble. She ducked down then and rubbed her nose over his throat, keening when the parcel in her hand throbbed a little.

“Up. Get up and follow me.” He hissed under his breath and she didn’t take a moment to clasp his hand and pull him to the darkest of the booths.

James spread eagled across the surface and caught her as Anna flung herself into his lap. She was on his mouth instantly, pulling and nipping his bottom lip until she was let in to explore. He was warm and soft and familiar, and she fell into the curves of his chest easily.

James hummed in approval when she rolled her hips over his bulge, so she did it again, but this time her fingers tugged those fly-away hairs on his nape. That throbbing pulsed past the leather on her thighs and Anna grinned through the kiss.

They were never gentle, always tugging and clawing at each other for that release. It wasn’t as if James couldn’t have every woman in the club if he wanted, he was the owner, but they lost each other in the familiarity. She had known him since the war ended and watched as he built this place from the ground, only ever asking to be a part of his journey. She didn’t want anything else, didn’t need; at least not from him. Anna would never ask another thing from any man ever again.

“I need you early tomorrow.” James panted through his teeth and she momentarily went still and groaned.

He picked her lips back up and ran a rough hand down her back. “Kelly quit yesterday and we have no one for the live tomorrow. I swear, it's only temporary.”

When he trailed that sweet mouth to her collar it became impossible to think. “How bad-” his devil tongue sliced a path of desire down her chest. “How bad do you want me?”

James knew what she was doing and he couldn’t care less. “Not want.” he raked his cock up her tortoursley. “I need you. Could barely survive without you.”

She was lost and nodded a yes to now and whenever. He praised her beauty before stealing the air from her lungs, his tongue doing dangerous things to her mouth and throat. And she couldn’t help herself from chasing that friction, flushing the denim seam against her aching core. James met her eagerly, happy to be the giver this time round.

He slapped the bare skin around her thong and humped her up and down his lap. She moaned too loud for decency. All too soon there was a bubble in her stomach and she began panting and falling, her limbs giving over to whatever James could offer her. He undid her with every heave but she needed more of him on every part of her body, the body that betrayed her right then.

With a shudder her head exploded into stars and the only way to hold on was to dig her nails into him, a pain that had him ripping the steady pace and fucking her into oblivion. He grunted but still wasn’t there. Only barely hanging on as Anna flew worlds over; but that wouldn’t do at all.

She pulled herself up with renewed vigor and James’ heart fluttered with anticipation. She took over then, a predator spotting its prey. Her hips drew breathy moans from him, pulling apart his sense of self and yanking them together and when her teeth flew to his throat-

He was undone. Spent and too uncontrolled to stop the sounds or jerking of his hips that nearly knocked Anna’s head on the light above them. It rippled through him in ecstasy. He pulled her right to him then, so she was flush with his chest and he could hear her second release barrel through her with the last few thrusts.

Anna lay in his neck, gathering her thoughts from the floor. James was gripping her tight enough she was practically clung to his torso like a monkey. She could feel the humming bird in his chest slowly calm as the breaths in her hair lulled. He was content and Anna was all too happy to sit there, she’d fall asleep in his arms without bother. Even the music seemed satisfied and soft.

The flashing lights had turned to a dim glow for the late nighters and Anna let herself melt. Only for him would she be so content and she knew, Anna just knew this is what it felt like to be truly home. Clustered in his heat where even the scar riddled soldier was happy to dream with his face in her hair.

Anna opened her eyes to darkness. The beeping at the side of her bed seemed to get louder with every second. She flung an arm out and shut the blasted thing up. She was still there in James’ arms for a second before reality hit.

And Anna couldn’t stop the dam from bursting as she wished with all her heart that it could have been real. That James was alive and well. That she wasn’t aching for his smile every blasted morning and his voice every night. Anna prayed that somewhere out there he was alive but it was impossible. Impossible because she was part of Hydra, part of this century and yet it hurt like no torture could ever match. James would only ever be memories in her dreams.

[saiilorstars]

Falling Temptation

Previous chapters • Sequel to Stars Dance •  Fairy Tale Memoirs (Companion story)

Ch. 21: Orphan 

Fandom: Doctor Who // Pairing: 11th Doctor x Female OC

Chapter summary: The travelers have landed in a planet the Doctor can't quite remember (but thankfully the Sapling can) and possibly find another Time Lord...a Time Child?

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel​ [If you’d like to be added to this specific OC’s stories/edits, send me a message!]

"Where's a prefrontal cortex when you need one!?" The Doctor grumbled as he tirelessly rubbed his temples. This was not working. If anything, he felt his mind more jumbled than when he first started.

"Nice tiara," he suddenly heard Avalon remark. The Doctor cracked his eyes open to see her and the Sapling standing in front of him. "How come you get a tiara and I can't?"

The Doctor's face fell flat at the question. "First, this-" he pointed to the Chameleon Arch helmet over his head, "-is not a tiara. And second of all, the last time you saw a crown was Queen Mary's and you tried stealing it!"

Avalon folded her arms, about to make a better argument when the Sapling giggled beside her. "You were trying to borrow it," he said.

"I was?" She blinked suddenly, as if realizing something. "Wait, how come I can't remember that?"

"Because the Sapling remembers it," the Doctor sighed. "Remember, whatever he remembers of our memories we-" he gestured at himself and her, "-can't. He has our memories."

"Right…" Avalon brought a hand to her forehead. Her mind was already conflicted with her memory wipe from Kovarian and other torture mechanisms that it was a lost cause trying to remember what the Sapling could and couldn't remember. In lamens terms, her brain was tired.

"Don't worry Ava," the Doctor got a sense of where her thoughts were running to. Lately, he'd been getting the feeling like his and her memories were just a tad fuzzier than the normal amount caused by the Sapling. It was, admittedly, a long time since the Sapling was created and it meant that he had kept the Doctor's and Avalon's memories for a much longer period than either expected.

The Doctor was getting the feeling that his brain was beginning to try and compensate for the missing memories. He presumed it was the same for Avalon but because of Kovarian's interference, the feelings had to be heightened.

"So what is that thing anyways?" Avalon motioned to the metal helmet again.

"It's the Chameleon Arch," the Doctor let the device rise back into its spot above the console. "It's exactly what it sounds like. Helps a Time Lord disguise them self into anything. Last time I used it, I made myself human!"

"You could do that?" Avalon gaped, her eyes widening at the thought.

"Yup!"

"Were you trying to switch again, then?" The Sapling cocked his head to the side curiously.

"Not exactly. I've been noticing there's some gaps in my head. I've, uh, been forgetting things…"

Avalon stiffened. "The Silence?" It was fairly quick how the color in her face drained. Had they found a way to continue messing with them after all? They'd been so careful not to let their guard down but the fact the Silence made you forget would always be the weakening point.

"No, no, Ava, don't worry," the Doctor brought her into a hug. He definitely knew where her thoughts went to now. "No one's touching you, I swear."

Despite her efforts to appear brave, Avalon let herself be wrapped in his arms. She felt so small whenever she thought about the Silence and what they did, what Kovarian did. She still had a long way before she truly recovered.

The Sapling moved on over to hug them as well. He took every chance he got to hug them, much to his parents' amusement. "You're safe, Mother," he assured her just like the Doctor.

"Can I be honest, though?" Avalon's question came in the form of a whisper.

"Of course," the Doctor nodded and pulled away from her.

"You say...that you've forgotten things?" She watched him nod again. "I-I kind of feel the same and it's not just because of the things Kovarian wiped. I feel...like there's something before Demons Run that I've forgotten. And then...I don't know, I feel like there's something kind of...watching us."

"Yes!" The Doctor snapped his fingers at her, regretting it the moment she flinched. "Sorry. I meant to say that I feel the same way."

"Do you think it's still the Silence? Some lingering effects?"

"It's been a long time," the Doctor mumbled in thought. "But I get the feeling that whatever is watching us will be revealing itself to us very soon."

"Just as long as it's not Kovarian," Avalon felt her skin crawl at the image of seeing the woman again. "When I see her again I want to do it with all my brains so I can shoot her dead."

The Doctor watched her silently, sadly, knowing that she had to be that afraid to truly want to kill someone. He wanted to kill Kovarian and all her Silence for hurting Avalon. He wasn't scared, he was angry, but Avalon was afraid. She was so afraid.

Before he could try to comfort Avalon, Amy and Rory joined them from the corridors. They were eager to see where they would be heading out for today. Each day, they'd been exposing Avalon to new environments to see how her immunity system would take it. They were so grateful to see their granddaughter reacting fine to each trip. It was almost as if she was completely normal.

"Now that's interesting…" the Doctor said just as Rory wondered out loud where they would be taking Avalon. He drifted towards the monitor, prompting Avalon to do the same and eventually the Sapling. They were like a little domino effect and they didn't even realize it.

"What are we looking at?" Avalon cocked her head to the side when she saw the odd readings on the monitor. She was sure that they weren't even in their language!

"Time Vortex energy!" the Doctor gawked.

"Oh my God!" They heard Amy yelp and when they followed her gaze, they all did the same.

The Sapling's neck had elongated to do a semi-curl and move his face closer to the monitor.

"Sapling, stop doing that!" Avalon screeched with the same horror she usually did when the Sapling pulled that stunt. Lately, it'd been happening more and more. He would stretch parts of his body for whatever reason that presented itself.

The Doctor theorized it meant the Sapling was beginning to mature, an act that prompted Avalon to joke and tell him he had to give the Sapling 'the talk'. While the Doctor stammered for a good ten minutes, he also made Avalon realize that the closer the Sapling got to maturing the more danger they could all be in if he decided to follow into his ancestors' primal instinct.

Destroy worlds.

"Time Vortex energy?" Rory moved over with Amy to the monitor. "Isn't that where we are right now?"

"It's coming from a planet in the Ligotti Tract," the Doctor read off from the monitor.

"Zoline, perhaps?" The Sapling asked.

There was a funny look on the Doctor's face when he tried to think of the place. "Zoline...excellent. Um…can't quite remember it."

"But I can!" The Sapling cheered. "Because I have the memories!"

That was great.

"Don't worry! I love that place!" The Doctor zipped to the other side of the console, working fervently to get them to the planet. "Least I think it was!"

"That doesn't sound very promising," Amy made a face but the Doctor was already bringing them to Zoline.

"I'm sure it is! Come along Ponds!" the Doctor exclaimed, internally laughing with his joke. He could truly say it now and mean all of his companions, if only Avalon would know.

"And me!" Avalon rushed to his side, taking his hand. She chuckled at the blush that sprouted on the Doctor's face. Their relationship was still a secret from Amy and Rory and since the Doctor was so worried about what they would say, Avalon thought that 'easing them' into the idea of a relationship would help out when the time came to say the truth. Although she secretly thought that maybe Amy and Rory already had some idea because sometimes they acted just a bit nonchalant about their hand holding and closeness.

"Let's go!" The Sapling zoomed by all of them, heading straight for the doors.

The rest followed and stepped out of the TARDIS to find a gray city full of smoke.

"This, uh, this doesn't look very pre…" Amy started to feel a funny tickle in her throat. Beside her, Rory was bringing a hand to his throat because of the same tickle.

"This can't be ri…" the Doctor cleared his throat several times. Even the Sapling was having trouble breathing.

Avalon reacted worse than all of them. She went into a full coughing fit. The Doctor could see her from the corner of his eye. He reached over for her, intending on practically shoving her into the TARDIS. The air was terrible.

"Doctor! Nothing to worry about, just a slight air quality!" A male dressed in green robes (and wearing a funny tall green hat that seemed to have pipes sticking out from it) ran towards the group. He also wore a transparent green face mask.

Two more robed men came behind him and strapped the same masks to each of the travelers.

"Price of progress I'm afraid!" The same male continued as the travelers got their normal air back.

The Doctor immediately checked Avalon with the sonic to make sure the bad air quality hadn't left effects that would hinder the progress she was making. Her lungs were clear of permanent danger and, thankfully, she was breathing normally again.

"I'm fine," she mumbled to him. The Doctor wished he could kiss her but now there were masks between them apart from, well, other people.

"What kind of place is this!?" Rory was outraged after he could properly breathe again. This was not the place to bring Avalon around!

"I'm Pfortner," one of the men dressed in gray introduced himself. "His excellency imperator Bax's chief Sycophant. Sorry about the informality of the welcome but we only had minutes to prepare once the TARDIS' energy signature was detected."

"It's so good to see you old friend," the man in green looked specifically at the Doctor, but the Time Lord was having trouble placing him. "Well...surely you remember me Doctor. I'm Bax! Imperator of Zoline and her Moons! We seduced Quantum Kelp together off the coast of Revok!"

"Seduced who now?" Avalon shot a sharp look at the Doctor, one that genuinely sparked a bit of fear in him.

"You survived a cage match with my first born son's placenta!"

"He did what!?" Both Amy and Rory chorused together, shooting the Doctor the same wide-eyed look.

The Doctor didn't like being the center of attention for once. He had no idea what the green robed man was talking about and it seemed to be getting him into trouble with Avalon. He needed to put a stop to it before she smacked him. "That all sounds very me but the thing is, that handsome little chap over there-" he pointed to the Sapling who was busy staring up at the smoky skies, "-is currently in possession of a couple of my memories. I don't remember being here."

Knowing he was being talked about, the Sapling moved over to properly greet the green robed man. He knelt down on one knee, amusing the travelers for a moment, as he properly introduced himself. "Greetings Imperator Bax. May your fronds shoulder the sky."

"May your fronds shoulder the sky - have we met?" Bax looked at the Sapling with bemusement, still not understanding what was going on.

"No your excellency. But I remember meeting you all the same. My father is sadly diminished-"

The Doctor's face scrunched into offence, much more when Avalon, Amy and Rory snickered around him. "Rude!"

"-but I can recall his time here perfectly," the Sapling finished and raised his head to reveal a grin.

"Father?" Bax's eyes widened in surprise. "I was not aware you had a child, Doctor."

"And my Mother," the Sapling gestured to the curly-haired ginger beside the Doctor.

"It's not what you think," Avalon quickly shook her head before any presumptions were spoken.

But before any comments could be made about the situation, there was a rumble in the sky. Everyone looked up to see something green coming down on them.

"Quickrain!" one of the gray robed men exclaimed. "Run, your excellency!"

"What? What the heck is 'quickrain'?" Amy made a face when the man took Bax away in a hasty run.

"OW!" Rory suddenly flinched when the green rain dropped on him. It was rain….but with acid. "That hurt!"

"Ow!" Avalon was next on the list and the final one before the Doctor pulled them into a run.

This was definitely the wrong place for his Ava! They followed Bax and his men into a building but they'd still suffered sustainable acid over their skin.

"Earth's acid rain doesn't get anywhere near this corrosive until the mid-21st century," the Doctor remarked as he turned his palms over to see the reddened blotches on his skin.

"Rory, I'm fine! Stop it!" Avalon was fighting off both him and Amy trying to see if her skin was reacting worse than theirs. "Seriously!"

"Mother…?" the Sapling squeezed himself through his grandparents to see Avalon's reddened skin, but he also allowed Avalon to see his.

"Oh my God," she shooed Amy and Rory away and cupped the Sapling's head. "Look at you! Your skin is all red!"

"I will heal, mother," the Sapling assured her but Avalon still called for the Doctor.

"Is he really going to be okay?" She asked while the Doctor let the sonic scan him. Like everyone else, the Sapling's skin was only irritated.

"Just fine," he assured her. He was relieved to know it too.

"But it shouldn't be like this!" The Sapling exclaimed. He pointed an aggressive finger towards Bax. "We must know what has transpired here! The Zoline are not an industrialized people! They're tree dwellers!"

Didn't look like there were much trees out there," Rory mumbled to Amy who nodded in agreement. The city barely looked like it had a sun. Actually, they weren't sure if they saw one now that they thought about it. It was all so gray and smoky!

"Primitives!" Bax huffed. "We left all that behind years ago, creature!"

"Hey!" Avalon snapped at him. "You watch how you address my son!"

"Behold my Imperial Palace! A miracle of engineering and leak management!" Bax gestured to the building they were in. He raised his hands up, making the group realized it was several, several floors high.

But it was all gray.

And slimy green.

It all looked icky like they were in a rundown factory.

"Every expense was spared in its construction!" Bax exclaimed with a proud smile and yet the Sapling looked sO so sad, and terrified.

The Doctor noted it and turned the Sapling to him. "What is it, Sapling?" he crouched in front of the child.

The Sapling's eyes glistened. "I remember Imperator Bax. He was a wise ruler. This was not how the place looked like before." He could vividly remember the Zoline his father visited before. It was all so bright and green and...natural. It was nature. Such an abundance of nature that peace was just one of the common effects one would feel when visiting it. "It was like a beautiful fairy tale forest that Mother would like. The Zoline you met were barely past the hunter-gatherer stage. That was less than 30 years ago."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Fourth dimensional skulduggery may be afoot there."

"Would it really kill you to speak in English?" Avalon frowned at him. "I mean-"

The building shook like an earthquake was striking. The same green liquid that the acid rain was made of came so rushing down like a waterfall.

"Relax everyone!" Bax raised his hands to calm them down. "Everything's fine! It's just the Golden Triangle conducting one of their experiments!"

"Watch out!" Rory lunged to get Bax out of the way before the green waterfall fell over him.

"Avalon!" The Doctor did the same with the ginger who'd been second on the list of accidental contamination. He shrouded her with his body but somewhere along the way Avalon started feeling like he was the one in need of protecting. His body was shaking and he groaned in pain.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Avalon wiggled out of his arms, not that he noticed because as soon as she was free he clutched his head and chest.

"Father!" the Sapling rushed to help him as well.

"I'm not...feeling too clever, truth be told!" The Doctor raised his head to reveal a strong golden glow in his eyes that seemed to pour out of him. At first instinct, Avalon pulled the Sapling away.

"What is going on!?" Amy turned on Bax for a full explanation of what was causing this.

The Doctor lost his balance and fell to his knees. The golden energy around him got stronger, blinding the others for a moment.

"Fairy Tale Man!" Avalon cried and rushed towards him only for Rory to pull her back.

"T-th-the Time V-Vortex energies!" The Doctor managed to say in-between his groans. "My b-b-body's saturated with it, so…" He sucked in multiple sharp breaths, "Temporal t-tremors tend to-to- shake it all up like a can of pop!" He raised his head to meet Bax's terrified face. "Where are you keeping it!?" Everyone turned on the Imperator. "Where are you keeping the Time Lord technology!?"

"I have no idea what you're…" Bax was in the middle of denying it when the Doctor collapsed completely.

"LET GO!" Avalon shouted and shoved Rory to the side to hurry up to the Doctor. She dropped to her knees beside his body and listened for a heartbeat. Thankfully, she heard the two but he was completely out cold. "We need to get him somewhere so he can rest!"

"I'll get my personal physician for him," Bax offered and while the group was thankful for it, it didn't save him from the stand off with Avalon.

She had gotten up and stormed right up to him. "You better hope that he wakes up fine because if not I'll make sure you wish you were still a primitive as you said."

"Ava," Rory pulled her away but he honestly knew that there was no making her back down. He only wanted her to calm down and not hurt herself.

~ 0 ~

The next time the Doctor woke up, he found himself in a lovely room and a soft bed under him. He sat up with a groan, only getting a minute before someone gently stroked the tips of his hair. He knew that hand anywhere! A big grin came to his face even though his head was hurting like mad.

"Fairy Tale Man, are you alright?" Avalon was sitting beside him on the bed, her eyes full of concern for him.

"Who stuffed my skull with socks from the lost and found?"

"That's a weird thing to say, father," the Sapling giggled from the foot of his bed.

"Where am I?" The Doctor said after gaining a bit more lucidity.

"In some fancy guest room of the Imperial palace," Avalon explained with a mutter. Bax could give them all the fanciest things he had but it wouldn't make her like him.

"The Imperator put you in here because there's air filtration on the whole floor," the Sapling added.

"Amy...Rory…?" The Doctor soon noticed the couple was missing and panicked until Avalon shushed him.

"They just went to see if they could get Bax to talk about whatever is causing this to you. I really didn't like what I saw, what was that?"

"I need to find it first," the Doctor said as he moved to get out of the bed.

"You can't!" Avalon hurried to keep him down.

"Ava, I have to! Something Time Lord is out there! It's my responsibility to find it!"

Avalon bit her lower lip and watched him continue his efforts to get up despite his body being too weak to do it on his own right now. She was scared that this would turn into another House moment. It could all be a trick that would end up hurting the Doctor. But she knew that no matter what the Doctor would be doing it anyways. She would have to ready herself for whatever was going on.

With a sigh, she got up and helped the Doctor stand up with the Sapling doing the same. Together, they brought the Doctor out of the room where they met Amy and Rory, along with another man, Pfortner, from earlier.

"Did you get anything?" Avalon asked the pair.

"Just this guy," Rory pointed at the man then winced. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Pfortner said. He didn't look too pleased either. It was why Amy and Rory were able to convince him to come talk to the Doctor. Bax wasn't letting anything slip. "Look, I'd be lying if I told you that most of us didn't find the recent tremors a tad discombobulating. Still the Golden Triangle insist that they're perfectly normal. No 'Time Lord' energy is involved."

"That's the…" the Doctor groaned again, "...second time you've mentioned this 'Golden Triangle', Pfortner. What are they? Or...who are they?"

Pfortner smiled kindly, and genuinely. "Oh, they're simply divine. Their genius rivals even yours, Doctor. Three inventors whose break-throughs - so revolutionary, so numerous...led us out of the timeless forest into an age of industry. Nobody knows where they came from or who they were before, but to us they became known as 'the Golden Triangle'. His excellency would never admit it but they are the real power on this world."

"Hmm, I don't suppose anybody ever conducted a medical examination of these chappies, did they?" The Doctor muttered. He didn't want to get that hopeful but all the signs were there. Maybe this time wasn't a trick. Just maybe...

"Not that I know of, why?"

"Well, to ascertain how many hearts they have for starts. Ponds, we're we're leaving!"

"Doctor, we agree but you still need to - GET BACK HERE!" Avalon screamed when the Doctor raced away from them.

"Where is he going!?" Pfortner asked but none of the group seemed to know. Still, they chased after him.

The Doctor snagged a facemask off the first person he met in his run, and with an apology, he went on outside. He had to go out there and find...find whatever Time Lords were out there. It was fairly easy for the rest of the travelers to catch up to him. He wasn't that fast yet but it didn't save him from the smack Avalon gave him.

"You shouldn't be out here!" She angrily said, grabbing his arm but still letting him lead to wherever it was he needed to go.

"You shouldn't be!" He argued. Despite her wearing the mask again, he wasn't comfortable with her exposure to such a horrendous city.

"We're all doing this," Avalon looked back at Amy and Rory. They agreed and helped the Doctor on his other side. The Sapling came beside his mother.

They walked together until they saw a building with a strange golden design on its front. It was a circle with dozens of lines inside it. It was also the building that lost a good chunk of its top after getting struck by a big pink blob.

"Don't you see?" The Doctor swallowed hard, willing the others to keep going straight for it. "There's only one rational explanation for what we're seeing. The Gallifreyan symbol clinches it! If this 'golden triangle' have Time Lord technology, then that means one of them might be…"

They walked into the building only to be targeted by multiple red dots.

"Oh c'mon," Amy sighed. They had just walked in and there were five people already waiting to shoot them!?

"This is as far as you go, Doctor," one of the guards said. "Pfortner warned us you were en route. The Golden Triangle were very explicit: they're not to be disturbed during their experiments."

"Look, I'm feeling a bit peaky so I'll keep it short," the Doctor shuffled a bit to find his sonic. "It may have escaped your notice, but the top of your building just fell off!"

Their response was to point more red dots on him and the others.

"Keep talking, it's going great," Rory shot him a look.

"C'mon, it's a diagnostic thingummy see!" The Doctor waved his sonic in the air. "It's harmless!" He scanned the immediate area for show but did get some interesting results along the way. "Except it's telling me you're going to have to worry about a lot more than this building if you don't let me talk to this Golden Triangle! How would you like to not die in the very near future?"

"Don't be idiots please," Avalon added with a flat face. Thankfully, they spared them the more dramatic parts of the standoff and stepped aside. They were brought into the elevator to finally meet the Golden Triangle.

"It may be temporal bends talking but...is that Kenny G I can hear?" the Doctor mumbled to the group on their way up.

"Yeah, actually," Amy made a face when she heard the familiar tune.

"Thirty billion light years from Earth and I still can't escape smooth...jazz," he blinked though when he started to wonder how nice it would be to have a nice jazz date with Avalon. They would have such a lovely time together, dancing to the jazz music. She was all about the music, after all.

The elevator dinged open like a regular Earth elevator. As it slid open its doors, a soft, warm golden glow slipped in. The Doctor's mouth fell open at the sight before them. Little by little, the same happened to the others.

"I'm not allowed visitors. Are you here to watch the end of the world with us?" A young female Time Lady sat across from them with three robed people behind her. She wore the red robes and golden armor that the Doctor recognized so well.

Everyone behind the Doctor was frozen in their spots. The Time Lady wasn't just a Time Lady...she was child. She appeared to be like a ten year old in Earth terms. Still, there were noticeable differences between her and a human child. For starters, there was something funny going on with one of her eyes. The right eye was completely white and the more the group stared, the clearer the scars on the right side of her face got. A chunk of her hair was missing on the same side as well.

"Go get the TARDIS," the Doctor immediately ordered, startling the group of their thoughts.

"What? No! We're not...we're not leaving you," Avalon frowned at him. Yes, the Time Lady turned out to be a child but who's to say it wasn't a trap? The Doctor was in no condition to be on his own.

"I'll be fine. But I'm gonna need my TARDIS." The Doctor wasn't sure what was going on but something warned him that he would require his TARDIS for whatever reason.

Amy and Rory suspected that beyond the TARDIS, the Doctor wanted a moment alone with the child. No matter what, she still looked like a Time Lord. And the Doctor was still the Doctor.

"We'll be back," Rory said while Amy reached over for Avalon and the Sapling.

Avalon still resisted Amy's pull but she stopped when the Doctor held out his sonic to her. "Why are you giving me that?"

"So you can follow the signal back to the TARDIS and because it gives you a reason to come back to me," the Doctor offered her a knowing smile that, even though she didn't want to, got her to smile for him. He wasn't leaving her nor sending her away like he tried to do to Amy and Rory when they were in the pocket universe.

"Please be careful," she whispered as she took the sonic from him. He nodded at her, at least silently promising he would do his best. These were one of the moments she wished she could kiss and hug him. One of these days she might just skip over the 'easing Amy and Rory into the idea' thing and kiss her Doctor whenever she wanted. But for now, she gripped his sonic in her hand and let Amy pull her back towards the elevator.

Despite her reluctance, Avalon let Amy take her away.

~0~

"I'm not sure that was a good idea," Avalon huffed on their way into the TARDIS. The Doctor's sonic was lead them right to the blue box.

"Either way, he didn't want us in there," Amy said, keeping a tight hold around Avalon's arm despite knowing that if she really wanted to, Avalon could rip away with ease. They truly understood now that Avalon's 'freakish' strength wasn't freaky at all. It's a natural part of her unique DNA.

"I'm sure Father can handle it," the Sapling chimed in to cheer his Mother up. "The Time Lady is a child."

"Doesn't mean she's not a weapon," Avalon muttered before it truly hit her. Her eyes widened as she looked over to Amy and Rory. "I'm sorry! I meant…"

"We know what you meant, Ava," Rory assured her. Their daughter was part Time Lady and it was used as means to weaponize her.

"I'm just scared that it's still going to happen," Avalon admitted. She found it easier to share with them than the Doctor. He didn't know what they had seen at Lake Silencio. "The Silence are still out there and since they don't have neither me or River, who's to say they didn't come up with something else?"

"I think this is something completely different," Amy said. They were picking up their speed and could already see their blue box from a distance. "If this had been the Silence, they would've done something on the spot. I think we've angered them all a bit too much for them to be patient again."

"Let's just get the TARDIS back to the Doctor and hopefully clear all this mess up so we can go!" Rory was on the urgent plan that they really needed to leave. This was a terrible place for his granddaughter who was only just healing. He didn't want to see her have a setback.

"Right," Avalon bit her lip and turned to the console, her eyes lingering on the Time Rotor. She handed the Sapling the sonic, once she made sure he understood he was not to play with it, and started working the controls.

Her grandparents had the time of their lives watching her hands smoothly glide over the controls like she practically owned the TARDIS. Of course the TARDIS was letting her work like she was a pilot, because Avalon practically was. Amy and Rory wondered if Avalon truly realized just how much the TARDIS had bonded with her in these last months. It was touching, really.

The TARDIS had separated all of Avalon's favorite rooms again since there was no need to keep her in bed all day, but she still only put them in separate rooms in the same hallway as Avalon's bedroom. Her piano room, the media room and the library were all just seconds from her bedroom. Avalon had no idea why the TARDIS was that involved in making her life easier but she loved the attention. She took it as 'I'm the TARDIS' favorite' and she was.

She just didn't know how much deeper it went.

~ 0 ~

The Doctor felt his head pounding as if someone was actually hitting him with bricks. Little by little, it got stronger and he had a pretty good idea of why it was.

The Time child, who had introduced herself as Orphan, stopped talking when she heard the Doctor mumble something under his breath. Even she knew he wasn't looking well. "Are you okay, Doctor?" She leaned forwards on her seat.

The Doctor seemed to be sinking away in his chair. He brought a hand to his forehead and rubbed circles over it. "Yes, yes, I'm fine. Nothing to worry about. Just a...very minor anoxic seizure. Where were we, Orphan?"

"You were asking me about my memories."

"Ah, yes! What's the very first thing you remember?"

"War," the child said distantly. "I remember war."

"War, that makes sense," the Doctor sucked in a breath and leaned forwards to meet the child's face.

Orphan didn't seem to remember a lot about Gallifrey, much less about herself. She suffered a type of amnesia but the Doctor was fairly sure there was something else going on, he just needed his sonic first. She remembered the planet's environment, its people, but when the Doctor asked her specific questions about herself, she went blank. She seemed kind, she seemed...like a child. She was a very mature child, more than the Sapling was. That was normal given Orphan's age. She was a bit past 100...she couldn't remember the exact number. And she genuinely wanted to remember who she was.

The TARDIS materialized outside the room, just as the Doctor hoped. He had barely gotten up from his chair, albeit wobbly, when the doors opened and allowed the others in.

Avalon came rushing in first, once again holding the sonic in her hand. "You're not supposed to stand!"

The Doctor playfully rolled his eyes. He supposed this was how everyone was acting with her. He could understand the annoyance that came with it. "Thanks Ava, but I'm fine." He took the sonic from her and turned back to Orphan.

"So...what's happening?" Amy quietly asked while they watched him sonic Orphan. The child sat motionless, only blinking at the sonic in front of her.

"Do you know who I am, then?" The child asked when the Doctor pulled the sonic away, taking a look at the readings he'd gotten. "You said there was a possibility that we might be related."

Everyone behind the Doctor went wide-eyed. Could they be related? Could it be…

"Is that one of his kids?" Rory whispered very quietly to Amy. They knew that the Doctor had once had children of his own and that they died as adults in the War…

...or so the Doctor thought.

Avalon swallowed hard and stepped back. What if the child really was his? That would be wonderful news for him, that one of his children had survived...but that left a lot of questions. Did it mean the child had regenerated into a child during the War? And if so, why was it only now that the TARDIS picked up on their signal? It was all just a bit too odd.

"I'm sorry Orphan, would you excuse us for just a minute?" The Doctor smiled at the child and turned to the others, his smile dropping. They needed to follow him.

"Doctor, where are we going now?" Amy asked as they crossed through the doors.

"I need to see the Golden Triangle now!"

"Right, but what about her?" Avalon stopped him for a moment. She suspected he was on his fast pace plans again and his body wasn't quite up to it. "Is she...you know...your daughter?"

"Do I have a sister, Father!?" The Sapling beamed at the idea of having a sister. The could have so much fun together!

The Doctor visibly tensed. "I need to see the Golden Triangle," he repeated.

Avalon inwardly sighed. He wasn't going to tell them one bit until he talked to those people. "Fine. But please don't run. You still look sick!"

"I feel sick," he corrected as if it was a point for him.

"So you need to slow down," Rory exclaimed, his nurse side coming out.

"Quite the opposite Rory, I need to be faster! It's the Temporal Quakes! If they don't stop soon then my body will try to regenerate! And the problem with that-"

"-besides the fact you'll be regenerating?" Avalon folded her arms over her chest. What more could there be than that!?

"Well...I don't really have any regenerations left."

Avalon's eyes widened. That. That was worse! Her arms dropped to her sides out of shock. "What...what do you mean you don't...you don't have any left!? You said you could regenerate!"

The Doctor cursed himself for choosing this moment to have that type of talk with her. There were so many things he needed to discuss with Avalon now that he knew who she was and who her family was...but it just wasn't easy. How could he bring up his regeneration count? Her mother''s own life?

"Doctor, you're kidding right?" Amy asked, trying to ease up the tension with what she hoped would be the beginning of 'Of course I am, Pond'...but it wasn't.

"Father is telling the truth," the Sapling spoke up. "He only has 12 regenerations and he is at the end of the cycle."

"Thank you Sapling," the Doctor sarcastically smiled at the child. He was trying to be delicate about it but the Sapling, really being just a child, couldn't see that. "Avalon...I didn't know how to tell, there was no right time with everything…"

Avalon shook her head, pushing away everything that she was thinking to focus on the most important thing right now: keeping him alive. Because if he stayed alive then she could kill him afterwards for not telling her about the regenerations

"Let's go," she snagged his hand and pulled him down the corridors.

They found the Golden Triangle in the only room with its door wide open. They were waiting for the group, or more so the Doctor.

"We're delighted that you've finally deigned to meet with us, Doctor," one of the trio said as the group walked into the room. "The Golden Triangle is always happy to meet a peer."

"Yes, even one who dismisses us from our own conference room," the second of the trio said somewhat sourly. The Doctor hadn't been too kind asking them to leave him alone with Orphan.

"I am Beaback, Doctor," the only female of the trio introduced herself. "Such a pleasure."

"And I am Sendham," the first male went next. "We met when I was just a boy actually."

The Doctor didn't remember that detail.

"Shriven," the last of the trio said. "Are you enjoying our friend? She's been helping us with our experiments for some time now."

"Yes, yes, charmed. Which one of you gave her the name 'Orphan'?" the Doctor started going around the room on his wobbly feet, trying to find something the others weren't sure of.

"Ah, it's the only thing she could remember when we found her injured in the forest all those years ago," Beaback said.

"Lovely story," the Doctor's sarcasm was very noticeable. He was shooting down everything they were telling them. "An amnesiac Time Lord foundling...kindly scientists. Shame it's all poppycock of course."

Avalon watched the trio go from outrage to shifty in two seconds. "Oh, are you lying?" She smirked. "Somebody just got caught."

"How dare you!" Senhdam exclaimed but the Doctor paid him no attention. He had found what he was looking for. The sonic had found a hidden compartment in the wall.

"What are you doing, Father?" the Sapling scurried over to him while he pushed the compartment open.

The Doctor reached inside to pull out a small pyramid with silver metal outlining it. "Oh you silly, silly, sausages. You have no idea what this is, do you?"

"None of us do, actually," Rory pointed that out for him.

None of them noticed a small figure peeking their head into the room.

"What about Orphan? Does she know?" the Doctor demanded from the Golden Triangle.

"Know what?" Avalon dreaded to ask, but they would need to know anyways.

"That she's not real."

"What?" A child's voice asked, claiming the entire group's attention. Orphan had found them and had tears pooling in her eyes. "I'm not...real?"

"Oh Orphan, I'm so sorry!" The Doctor exclaimed and moved towards her only to feel that same pain course through his body. The same golden energy was striking the right side of Orphan's face, sparking up into the air.

"Not again!" Avalon rushed to help the Doctor stay on his feet, but she had to take away the pyramid and hand it to the Sapling instead.

"Orphan! You don't need...ah! Orphan!" the Doctor extended a hand towards her but she was already turning away.

"Help me!" Avalon motioned to Amy and Rory. The Doctor was slouching in his attempt to chase after the girl. Between all of them, they brought him into the hallways after Orphan.

The child was nearing the TARDIS but she stopped. Her body was flickering. She raised her left hand and saw it...disappearing?

"Why does she look like that?" Amy crinkled her nose. It almost appeared like she was losing her hand in bits that kept disappearing in the air...like she was disintegrating.

"I...I know this box," Orphan said at the sight of the TARDIS. "I don't understand I'm real!"

"Of course you're real," the Doctor said once they were behind her. "You're just...not like me. You're not like anyone. Trust me, that's not the first time I see it happen." He had someone just like that helping him stand and she had no idea.

"Father, do you need this?" The Sapling presumed once the Doctor had straightened up on his feet, though he was still a bit rockish.

"Yes!" He moved towards Orphan and gently turned her around, making her face the pyramid and the others. The Golden Triangle had come after them but remained a cautious distance from them.

"What is that thing?" Orphan stared at the pyramid in fear.

"It's...well, it's you, Orphan," the Doctor said, gently bringing her a bit closer to it. "You're the user interface for it."

The closer Orphan got to the pyramid the brighter her body became. The others had to shield their eyes every now and then.

"It's a...weapon. A terrible Time Lord weapon," the Doctor swallowed hard. It was far too similar to the Moment. Even its structure resembled it. "The Orphaned Hour was part of the Time Lords' Omega Arsenal. It was deployed during the Time War. It worked by hurling everything within a defined radius back in time. Imagine being able to make an advancing army disappear simply by resetting your surroundings. Wildly destructive even in the right hands. The weapon was designed to protect users from its effects, but they were still vulnerable to the external threats. Last I heard, the Orphaned Hour had been damaged in the war. It - you - must have been flung clear of the…"

The Doctor shut his eyes terribly hard. He used the Moment, he needed to accept that and own up to each time it came up. He used the Moment and just before chaos descended, the Orphaned Hour must have been thrown off planet and landed in Zoline.

Orphan gingerly took the pyramid from the Sapling and held it with shaky arms. She was glowing. "I'm...I'm not a weapon!" she frowned. "I feel! I think!" She let the Sapling take the pyramid back and turned to the Golden Triangle, eyes blazing with fury. "Is this true!?"

"Ah, well...its complicated," Bearback said nervously.

"You said you were my friends!"

"Of course we're your friends, Orphan! You've known us since were children! We treat you like a princess!"

"Oh, shut up!" snapped Avalon, shooting a similar glare at the trio like Orphan. "That is not how you treat a princess! Actually, that might not be as true. You do, you just treat her like Rapunzel. Keeping her locked away."

"Preposterous!" Sendham snapped.

"Yeah?" she arched an eyebrow. "How many times have you let her go outside? Out of the room we found her in?"

Silence.

"Mhm. She's like a caged bird and you are the evil stepmother, only worse!"

"It sounds like you just used her," Amy frowned.

"Because they did," the Doctor reiterated, feeling terrible when Orphan looked back at him with fresh tears in her golden eyes. "You three found a broken magic box that magically resets your world every, what...thirty years? You correctly deduced that close proximity to the Orphaned Hour would protect you from its effects. Then every time this planet got reset by a few decades, you kept the technological innovations made by others during the last cycle. You claimed these innovations as your own and then waited for real geniuses to build on them so you could steal their ideas too and so on. Finally, you invested in life-extension tech so you could continue fleecing these poor people indefinitely, isn't that right? Zoline's great minds? Don't make me laugh! You're cheap con artists who lucked into the ultimate scan!"

"Uh, Doctor…?" Rory was the first to catch the Doctor's flashing gold. Avalon and Amy each gasped when the same gold spread over his body.

"Unfortunately for you, this gizmo wasn't designed to be triggered multiple times. You're lucks run out. This broken bomb's gonna blow!"

"So let it go!" Avalon snapped when the Doctor took it from the Sapling hands. He groaned and fell to his knees with it. "Dammit, Doctor!" She ran to help him stand with Amy's help while Rory and the Sapling took Orphan's weakened self.

The Doctor pointed them towards the TARDIS so they helped them in. "You lot better not move!" He yelled to the remaining trio behind.

The trio huddled together as another tremor shook the ground. A few seconds later, the TARDIS doors re-opened only for a book to be thrown directly at them. It fell to the ground where it remained until the Doctor stepped under the doorway and pointed at it.

"Pick it up," he ordered with gritted teeth. "Come on, chop chop!"

Shriven grabbed the book off the ground and opened it up to a random page. "I...I can't read this!"

Carbon Sequestration For Children: A Beginner's Guide was freshly printed on the title cover.

"It's p-printed on semi-psychic paper!" the Doctor clutched his chest with one hand. "Give it a few seconds and it'll translate into your language."

"What are we supposed to do with this!?"

"You have the money and the resources, so you're going to - ah! - roll up your sleeves and fix this mess yourselves! No resets, no do-overs!" He wouldn't tell them he'd be checking up on them later on to see their progress. They would most likely wait for him to come and fix everything and he was not going to do that!

"That book's a got a cool pop-up section!" The Sapling poked his head from around the Doctor. "I love it!"

"Doctor!" Avalon called from inside.

"Fix it!" The Doctor left the Golden Triangle with those parting words. He let the doors close behind him as he rushed to the console.

Orphan was continuing to disintegrate.

"What's happening to Orphan?" Rory asked once the Doctor joined them. He would try to be a nurse once he knew what the problem was exactly.

"The weapon's disintegrating which means she is too!" The Doctor ushered them away from her, leaving only himself around.

The TARDIS hummed a second before a lever on the console was pushed down. She was bringing them back to space, off Zoline.

"Did the TARDIS just move us?" Amy blinked. Funny, the box hadn't rocked them this time. The Doctor truly was that bad of a driver.

"Yes, but…" the Doctor groaned, lurching forwards.

"The weapon!" The Sapling gasped at the pyramid. A fierce golden light was slicing through the thing.

"Doctor!" Avalon forgot all about staying away when she saw the Doctor collapsed on the ground. "N-n-n-n-no! You gotta get up!"

"He's dying!" Amy frantically looked at Rory but neither of them knew what to do.

"Shut up, no he's not!" Avalon had heard that far too many times in this year alone. Why was the universe so hell bent on taking him away from her? From the entire world!?

Orphan picked up the pyramid from the ground and desperately looked over to Amy and Rory. "Please...I don't want to hurt anybody. What do I do?"

Neither could answer her but the TARDIS could. The console shined bright in a white light, pulling the Orphan's attention. "What?" It was like she could understand what the box was trying to tell her. She gave a firm nod. "Yes...yes of course. The Heart of the TARDIS."

Hearing those familiar words made Avalon raise her head from the Doctor. "No, wait! I know that!" But the Orphan was already coming towards the console.

"Don't...don't let her…" the Doctor struggled to get up. He felt terrible (apart from his biological pain) using Avalon like a pillar to stand up, but he couldn't let Orphan get any closer.

"Will it hurt…?" Orphan seemed like she wasn't even in-tuned to their world. She was in a little bubble, talking to the TARDIS who kept calling her forwards.

"Orphan, you can't do that!" The Doctor argued once he was back on his feet but try as he might, he couldn't get closer.

"It'll kill you too!" Avalon exclaimed. Orphan's body was already more than half disintegrated.

"The TARDIS says this is the only way to keep everyone safe," Orphan reasoned. "I am not a weapon for destruction. I can do good." Her voice started to echo as her body truly began to lose form and turn into white particles. "I think...I would have enjoyed being a Time Lord, Doctor. Shame."

"Orphan, no!"

The Sapling wrapped his branch arms around the Doctor to keep him in his spot. They couldn't get any closer without getting hurt themselves. Orphan was sacrificing herself for them! They couldn't let it be in vain! Soon, the white light faded and it was like nothing happened.

"Sapling, let me go!" The Doctor untangled himself from the branches but wasn't free until the Sapling listened. "I could've fixed this!"

"It didn't look like that," Amy frowned at him. "You were dying too!"

"I could've done something!"

"No, you couldn't have!" Avalon stepped towards him. She wasn't going to stand there and let him blame them for something the Zolines did and much more for wanting to keep him safe and alive! "You were dying if you forgot!"

No, of course he hadn't forgotten. That was still a pending conversation to have with her. The console suddenly sparked, starling all of them, before a wicked groaning came from the Time Rotor.

"What...was that?" Rory asked slowly.

The Doctor hurried up to the console to find the problem. "Well...the TARDIS just euthanized the Orphaned Hour by absorbing it into her core. I don't think she thought it through!" He yelped when the Time Rotor burst, shooting out white electricity all over.

"What's happening to her!?" Avalon shrieked when an electric shock just narrowly missed her side.

"We're going to lose her! We're coming apart!" the Doctor had to step back from the console, or what was going to be left of it.

"I thought you said she could withstand the heat of a star!?"

"I don't know what that means but she just digested a Time Lord weapon of mass destruction! That's bound to make things harder!"

Amy fell against one of the railings. "Doctor, what do we do!? What do we do!?"

The Doctor put his hands together and thought. He really thought. This was the first time something like this was happening and he had nothing to keep it from tearing apart!

Actually…

The Doctor shook his head. No, that was...that was a terrible thing to ask…

"RORY!" Avalon screamed when Rory toppled down the staircase leading to the corridors. She tried running towards him but Amy yanked her back.

"I'm fine!" Rory called from his spot, but who knew how long that would be true.

The Doctor closed his eyes. He had to. It was the only way to keep all of them safe. "Sapling!" The child raised his head at the call of his name. "I...I need you to put down roots again, right now!"

The Sapling naturally hesitated. "But...I will lose myself among my leaves, Father!" That's what happened the last time he grew so tall and wrapped everything in his arms. He ended the hippie party but he nearly got lost! What if this time he stayed lost forever!?

"Doctor, you can't make him do that!" Avalon wobbled on her feet to get to the two. She almost fell but she was close enough for the Doctor to grab her and pull her up to him.

"Ava, tree roots stabilize crumbling riverbanks, shifting sands...the Sapling can hold the TARDIS together!"

"But he's just a child!"

"I know that!" He snapped, startling her into silence. He held her closer, really close, enough for him to feel her heart beating rapidly. She was terrified. "I always do things like this and I'm sorry but this is the only way to keep everyone - to keep you - safe."

Avalon's eyes teared up. She shook her head and looked at the Sapling. "You don't have to," she whispered. "You're just...you're just a child."

The Sapling swallowed hard. He believed his mother when she said it was his choice, but he also believed his father. The only way to keep everyone safe was to sprout his roots. He didn't...he didn't want to let anyone die, especially his parents. But he was just so scared. He wasn't brave like them.

But he had to try.

"Will I...will I still be me when you have saved us all?" He asked in a frail, child, voice. "What if I disappear like last time?"

The Doctor shifted so that he could face the Sapling and still keep hold of Avalon on the side. "Sapling you listen to me, we are family. That means that wherever you are, I'll find you and bring you home."

A smile took over the Sapling's face. "That's what you said to aunt Amy and Mother...and you found them." It took them a long time to find them but they did, so that meant that they would find him no matter what.

"Sapling…" Avalon reached for him but didn't have to move a step. The Sapling ran up to her and the Doctor, throwing his arms around them. He hugged them tightly.

"Sapling, I swear we'll find you," the Doctor told the Sapling when he looked up at them. This was the last time he would ever say that to anyone. He had to stop putting them in danger like this, making them get taken away.

"Yeah?" The Sapling asked.

"Yeah, cos I'm going to help," Avalon smiled strongly for him. "And you know what they say, mothers always find what they're looking for."

The Sapling giggled. "You're funny." And that was his Mother, whether she was sure of it or not. He took a deep breath and stepped back. He looked down at his feet and saw them started sprouting the roots on the ground.

His body started stretching out into huge, thick branches that went to cover every inch of the room.

Outside the TARDIS, something was beginning to peek through the shattered windows of the door. "Yesssss, finally….I wassss right all along. Faaaame issss chiefly a maatter of waiting for the rrright door to open."

The Scream smashed a hand through the last window of the door to squeeze right in. "Doctor, I hhhhhave finally fooound youuu."

[bakugou-tm]

I JUST WOKE UP AND SAW IDEA TIME SO UH I DONT REMEMBER WHERE I GOT THIS FROM BUT: villain/anti-hero reader shows up at bakugou's door in the middle of the night like terrified outta their mind n bruised and dirty and goes "i had no where else to go" before c o l l a p s i n g

your idea is FANTASTIC and if you would like me to re-write it in your version let me know I will, but I have a better idea where it’s sorta flipped in a way? the reader still comes to the door injured but she comes to villain bakugou’s door instead; THANK YOU FOR THIS AMAZING IDEA (ps. i’m sorta using the look and quirk from my previous anti-hero bakugou story)

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After being a pro-hero for about five years now, the dissapointment that filled your body as you were backed into a corner for falling for the sick villain’s tricks was overwhelming.

The chief at your agency only asked you to investigate an ongoing case of a low life criminal, the villain wasn’t too dangerous and it should’ve been an easy case.

Should’ve been.

You’ve been doing this for five damn years, you even had a feeling that something was off about this case before you were even assigned to it. It all seemed to simple, too easy. You should’ve been more cautious instead of rushing into it in hopes to get home to your comfy bed sooner.

Instead here you stood, back against a pipe filled with acidic chemicals with three villains cornering you in.

Now even with the situation you were in, it should’ve still been easy to get out of it with the powerful radiation quirk you had, but the villain you had been chasing led you right into his trap, leaving you powerless.

When you arrived on the scene, it took less than ten minutes for you to find the villain himself. That should’ve been the first red flag that led you to stop and analyze the situation. But instead, you ruthlessly attacked the villain, not even noticing as the bright sun was lowering for the day, leaving only darkness above you.

After hours of pounding and using your green energy to attempt to incapacitate the villain, you had finally succeeded. That is, until you felt a new pair of arms grab you by the waist.

Just when you were ready to yank the arms back and launch them across the building, you had frozen when the man hadn’t budged at all. You tried to light a starbolt in your hand to blast him away, but nothing emitted from your hand except a pathetic green spark.

It was then that you realized your powers were drained, and there was no solar power to recharge you anytime soon.

So now here you stood, your silk like skin pressed against the cool rusted pipe behind you, wishing you could just meld into the metal and disappear till morning when the sun would be able to recharge your quirk.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this Starbolt.” The villain before you hissed, each of the three men before you having sickly twisted smirks.

Gritting your teeth, you let your testy personality talk the talk but for once you wished you would shut your mouth because you knew you wouldn’t be able to walk the walk anytime soon.

“It’s pretty sad you had to come up with this entire intricate plan just to get me quirkless so I can’t beat your ass to a pulp.”

The warped laughs you heard in response made your skin crawl.

“You think that’s sad bombshell?” The man sneered, “What I think is sad is that you’re on the verge of becoming the number nine hero of Japan and you fell for such an obvious trap, such a silly girl.”

This caused you to inhale sharply, your eyes slightly widening which didn’t go unnoticed by the villains before you as they laughed at your reaction.

You hated this, you hated all of this. You hated these villains, you hated how you got in this situation, and most of all you hated that they were right.

You didn’t deserve to be called number ten hero at all.

“Now now, what should we now that we have Japan’s sweet golden girl?” The main villain before you hissed, fists cracking as he flashed a distorted grin, “I was just gonna kill ya, but that wouldn’t be good enough…”

“I say we have a little fun with her first.. take off that thin piece of fabric she calls a uniform.”

Swallowing what saliva you had left in your dry mouth, you bit your lip and moved your head to the side as you felt his warm breath on your neck.

Even though you were in this situation you couldn’t just give up. This was not the end of the story, you still had a lot of fight left before you saw the last of this world.

Letting out a growl you kicked your leg out as hard as you could, your booted foot smashing into the man’s knee causing him to crumple to the ground. Eyes looking to the other two you decided for once to think the situation through.

You knew the main villain’s quirk, if he were to lay his hands on you he could give you the side effects of any drug in the world. Given that would prevent you from any hand to hand combat which is all you had without your quirk and you didn’t know of the other two villain’s quirks, you went with the only reasonable option available.

You made a mad dash towards the entrance of the worn down factory. Shouting was heard from behind you but you didn’t care, all you wanted was to get out of their fast. You pushed your pride aside and let the truth sink in that you were pretty much useless at the given moment without your quirk.

The opening to the street outside was close, for a moment you thought you may get out of this easier than you thought. But of course, nothing was ever easy for a pro-hero. 

A sharp burning pain began to surge through your shoulder causing a shrill shriek to escape your plump lips as you crumpled slightly and looked to the side.

A bright yellowish green substance covered your right shoulder, slowly seeping into your skin and burning the edges of your costume. Looking back you saw one of the villain’s henchmen grinning with his hand glowing the same sickly color.

“Acid doesn’t feel to hot does it sweet cheeks?” The man sneered, quickly running to you.

The burn was severe enough to incapacitate your right arm, but it didn’t stop you from running. You could only assume the main villain made a run for it since he was nowhere to be seen, but if you could just get the acid man off your tail you would be able to be free.

As you neared the opening, your (e/c) eyes fell upon a stack of metal barrels. They looked just heavy enough to knock the man out or stun him at the very least. Making a mad dash for them you waited till he was just close enough before using all the strength in your left arm you had left to yank the barrel down.

Though the villain didn’t get knocked in the head with the metal barrel, to your luck he ended up tripping over it before his skull smacked into the concrete beneath him.

You dared let a smile reach your lips, hope surging through your veins as you began to run towards the entrance until you saw a large block like fist coming towards you. Before you could even register what it was you were sent flying back, body skidding against the hard floor as you felt stars come to your head.

For a moment you thought you were completely knocked out, the only sound bringing you back to reality was the sound of drops falling against the cool floor.

Blinking slightly you looked down to see a pool of blood beneath your head. Besides the multiple scrapes tainting your smooth legs, you felt a large gash in the side of your head with blood flowing out.

The attack had to cause some sort of temporary brain damage, your head ringing loudly as the man came towards you with a grin.

“You look a little dazed there Starbolt, that’s okay though I don’t need you conscious to have my way with you.”

Mentally you cringed at his words, but you forced yourself physically to cringe as an idea popped into your head. It was probably your worst idea yet, but with a situation like this you had to use all your assets.

“Y..You know, I never realized how incredibly handsome you are.”

The villain froze at this as you gripped onto his shirt to shakily pull yourself to your feet. If there was one thing you knew how to do from past lovers, it was fool a gullible man.

Letting out a pathetic cough you tripped over your own foot and pressed your body up against his own, slowly looking up into his eyes with your lips slightly parted.

The man’s face suddenly lit up, his eyes narrowing as he smirked, “That’s more like it dollface, if I knew this would’ve happened I would’ve knocked some sense into you years ago.”

Just the smell of his warm breath dancing against your skin had you wanted to gag, but you kept your act up for the sake of your life.

“I wish you would’ve knocked some sense into me too…” You purred seductively as your hand traveled lower down his chest towards the edge of his pants, “So I could do this..”

With the villain completely entranced under your spell, you took advantage of the moment to bring your knee up sharply into his crotch as hard as you could.

In seconds the man was crumpled on the floor, wheezing for air as he let out a loud yell.

“You.. You fucking bitch!”

Gritting your teeth you stood over him and spit on his face with a fierce glare, “Don’t mess with me ever again you creep.”

Giving him one last glance to make sure he would stay down, you ran as fast as you could toward the entrance. Somehow.. you had made it. You would be able to run to your agency and tell them everything, and this horrible day would be done with.

Stopping just at the entrance you looked around to your surroundings. Your long smooth hair blew in the chilling wind that came along with the night sky, your eyes taking in the atmosphere. They must’ve led you to the rough part of town, it was going to take you hours to get back to the city or at least anywhere remotely safe.

Biting your lip you shoved the negative thoughts out of your head, if you could make it out of that deadly situation you could get out of this. Beginning to run west towards the city, you froze when you felt a hand grab your shoulder.

“Going somewhere Starbolt?”

Your eye began to twitch lightly, silently cursing as the villain’s quirk already began to surge through your body.

“I must admit, getting through two of my most powerful henchmen was an impressive feat.” The villain spoke, walking around you as you fell to your knees, gripping onto your head as you felt your whole world spinning in circles.

Whatever drug affect he put on you, it was strong. You felt like every emotion you’ve ever felt was coming to life and all you wanted to do was cry.

You hadn’t even felt his fingers grip your chin and lift your gaze up to his smug one, “Perhaps you do deserve that number nine spot, it’s a shame I’ll never let you get the chance to have it.”

Gritting your teeth you felt yourself fall on your butt, your arms scrambling to the floor as you crawled around, the villain just laughing as he watched you hyperventilate.

“Now while you have your fun here doll, I’m going to go wake up my friends in there so we can get you go-”

The villain froze in his words when he noticed your eyes begin to faintly glowing, flickering a bright green.

“What on earth… how do you still have energy..”

The words he spoke hadn’t even registered, your head growing dizzier by the second. Before the villain could do much more your green energy shot from your eyes, knocking him back off his feet as he skidded against the sidewalk.

Much of your awareness to the world was fading as you struggled to stand up, you knew running to town was out of the question now, just walking was hard enough. Luckily enough, a miracle of an idea popped into your head that just might work.

—

As you stumbled down the hallway of the rundown apartment building you let out a quiet whimper. It felt as if the atmosphere was sucking all of the oxygen out of your lungs. The only thing that kept your feet moving you forward was the sheer fear of death.

You took two more steps forward until you felt your side collide with the wall beside you with a loud thud. You were sure you just woke up the entire building but you didn’t care, all that mattered was getting to his room.

The anti-hero you met a few months ago you ended up talking more with, enough for him to invite you over. Though you hadn’t been to his apartment in awhile due to the holiday season being chaotic with the press, you were lucky enough to remember where it was with your intoxicated state.

When your droopy (e/c) eyes fell on the final door of the hallway you let out a cry of relief, quickly leaning your weight to the other side of the wall to his door causing the frame to shake.

You mustered all the energy you could to pound your fist against the door, which really ended up with you slamming your palm against the rundown wood.

The sound of the door to the apartment building filled your ears, sending more fear into your bones causing you to smack the door harder until it swung open.

With the state you were in, you didn’t even feel yourself fall into Bakugou’s arms your vision slowly fading until all you saw was darkness envelope you.

—

The ash blond knew something was wrong before he even opened the door to your unconscious frame.

Though he was in bed attempting to get any sort of sleep, the sound of a bang against the wall was quick to get him up.

If he hadn’t lived in such a shitty apartment he would’ve assumed the groaning and banging was a damn ghost. It wasn’t until the intense knocking on his door that he discovered the banging mess was only you.

For a minute he thought you were just drunk, assuming your shitty ex-boyfriend yet again tried to get under your skin. But when he felt the raw flesh on your left shoulder and the blood dripping onto his arm he knew this wasn’t the case.

“The hell did you get yourself into shitty girl..” Bakugou muttered, quickly scooping his arm underneath your knees to carry you gently to his bed. He placed his hand against your forehead, feeling your face burning up intensely. Your eyes seemed to be fluttering open and closed, but you were unquestioningly knocked out.

You appeared to be drugged, the only problem was he wasn’t sure what drug was used. If he attempted to give you the wrong medicine, the results could be fatal.

Looking down to you his vermillion eyes narrowed, soaking in every feature. Your once pristine uniform was torn up and covered in blood at this point, your normally smooth enticing legs were littered with scrapes, and it would be impossible to notice the probably third degree burns on your left shoulder.

At first he thought perhaps someone had attempted to have their way you, but with your power there’s no way some low life would get away with that. Now after analyzing the damage done to you, this was no average person. You got involved with the wrong villains at the wrong time.

Gritting his teeth, the ash blond plucked your gorgeous strands out of the dried blood on your forehead. Even with such a nasty wounds covering you, you somehow managed to still look like an angel. Your lustrous eyelashes keeping your eyelids shut, those perky lips parted just slightly for air to flow in and out of your mouth. Oh how he wished those dazzling (e/c) eyes were open so he could hold you in his arms and ask what happened.

He knew whoever did this to you was going to pay. But to his luck, they ended up coming right to his door.

“I know I saw her come in this damned building, and that’s probably her blood right there on the wall, c’mon!”

The ash blond’s head whipped up to the sound, immediately recognizing the voice as the infamous villain Tremor.

“Why the fuck did you get yourself involved with these guys angel…” Bakugou muttered, giving you one last glance before standing up and making his way to the door.

Both footsteps met with each other until the three villains stood before Bakugou’s door, the ash blond staring right back at them with a vicious glare.

Tremor’s eyes glanced beside the anti-hero to see your resting form on his bed, before meeting his own gaze.

“Listen Zero we don’t want no trouble, we just want that damn girl we found her first.”

Bakugou grit his teeth, fists clenching as he narrowed his eyes into his signature glare, “You’re not laying a fucking hand on her, she’s mine and she’s staying here.”

At his words, one of the henchmen moved forward until Tremor placed his hand out to block him from advancing any further. The villain looked to him in confusion but Tremor only smirked, moving forward slightly.

“Look Zero I get it, everybody in the city wants a taste of what that girl has but I have personal business with her, you understand right? I’m sure a stud like you can find plenty of other lass that look just like her.”

The villain’s words only pissed of Bakugou more, his body feeling as if it was going to explode figuratively and literally.

How dare he speak of you as if you were just some other girl, some other.. tramp. No other girl could dream of comparing to your angelic features, just your smile alone could light up cities, no countries! You didn’t even have to try, you were so unbelievably genuine that your personality blew your looks out of the water. You were an actual angel sent on earth, and he wasn’t about to let you be taken away from him this easily.

When Tremor noticed Bakugou making no movements he let out a sigh before folding his arms.

“How about this, we take her now and I get my rightful revenge, then I’ll let you have fun with her when we’re done. That only sounds fair right?”

Those were the final words that laid his grave. Bakugou knew you would hate to find out he had murdered more people, but for your sake and his image he knew what had to be done.

If they were to escape they would tell the world that he joined the heroes, and they would only seek you out again until you were dead to the world and that would not happen, not if he could help it.

Looking back to your frame once more, the ash blond sighed before turning back to the villains with a smirk so sinister it sent every hair on their bodies to the sky.

“You’re going to regret every laying a fucking hand on my (F/n).” Bakugou growled, his hands beginning to spark as he moved forward to the villains who began to back away from his doorway.

Bakugou didn’t want to have more blood on his hands, or even waste his energy at this hour on such pathetic extras. But for what they have done to you…

They would pay for what they did to his angelic princess.

[secret-engima]

Worlds Unseen verse Drabble: Stand By You (Even in Dreams)

(here I am, writing something I have no idea what to do with. Enjoy the angst? This ends really abruptly but I didn’t know how to wrap it up. gfhgfd it was interesting to write at least. Also, potential spoilers for Horizon Zero Dawn).

...

     He showed up about two days in. A silent companion walking steadily at her side even though that —he— was impossible. She was determined to ignore him at first. She didn’t know if he was born of her increasing hunger and thirst, her loneliness, or if the air was turning toxic the more damage the swarm did to the world, but he wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. So she ignored him.

     Still, he walked beside her. Not speaking, not ranting or babbling or screaming, just-. Walking. Watching. He watched the world around them with sad eyes, very emotive eyes. Sometimes he almost seem to stumble over the rubble of the road. If it hadn’t been for the impossibility of it, of him, she might have believed he was real. Her imagination was too strong apparently.

     But he was impossible. Dressed like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, furs and leathers mixed with machine piping and wires, his painted face exposed to the ruined world without dying even though she knew that people needed vacuum-sealed suits now just to survive. He was impossible.

     She would never admit that it felt good not to be alone. Even if her company was just a figment of her imagination.

     She made it through three days of silence before she broke, “You ever gonna talk, or are you a silent hallucination?”

     Blue-grey eyes, more like storm clouds than skies, shifted away from the landscape to look at her, “You didn’t seem in the mood for conversation,” he spoke, and she noted what almost sounded like a Japanese accent —odd choice brain, why not a southern accent like Travis or something?—, “so I left you alone.”

     She sighed, “Well, not much else to do out here but indulge my insanity.”

     “You think you’re dreaming me up.”

     “Aren’t I?”

     The hallucination shrugged, “I don’t know. I think that I’m dreaming you up, personally, and you believe you’ve dreamed me up. Maybe we’re both dreaming up each other. Or maybe we’re both just dreams. Does it matter?”

     She mulled over that for probably longer than it deserved, “I guess not.”

...

...

...

     “Where are we going?”

     She looked up tiredly at the words, jolted out of the daze that had been settling into her bones by the soft voice of the impossibility following her around, “I’m trying to get home. You can leave whenever you want.”

     A loose shrug, as if her words were merely a polite suggestion and not a jab at her insanity, “Are you sure you want to see it this way? It’s not going to be pretty.”

     They both paused to look around at the ruined landscape. Skyscrapers smoking in the distance, roads cracked and torn apart, the entire world either burned or eaten by unstoppable metal monsters, the sky turned unnatural colors as the atmosphere was ruined ever further. No, she mentally agreed. She probably did not want to see her home this way. But still … “I have nowhere else to go. I’m a dead woman anyway. I want to die at home.”

     He shrugged again, as if to say without words that it was her choice, and they kept walking.

     She wondered distantly when his footsteps had started to make sound, just like real ones did.

...

...

...

     “You got a name? It’s getting boring just calling you the Hallucination in my head.”

     An amused glance her way, “I thought you weren’t supposed to indulge hallucinations because it would only make them worse.”

     She scoffed, the sound laced with static through the speakers of her suit, “Worst case is that I die before I get home, talking to thin air. Best case is that I die at the ranch, still talking to thin air. Might as well risk it. So, do you have a name?”

     He tilted his head and considered her. There was something eerie in his gaze, something too keen and too alive. Something too old. It fit the strange military uniform he was wearing today, “Bast,” he finally said, “Bast Lucis Caelum.”

     “Pretentious,” she huffed, and his lips twitched like he agreed and found her opinion amusing. It was stupid to introduce herself to a hallucination of her own mind, because surely he knew everything about her already. But even so, boredom and manners made her tap her chest plate and say, “Elisabet. Elisabet Sobeck.” He stopped and stared at her with wide, startled eyes, the most open emotion she had yet seen from him. His mouth opened, then shut, then he shook his head and muttered something that sounded distinctly like “should have known” and she was intrigued despite herself, “You didn’t know who I was. Shouldn’t you know everything about me?”

     He scoffed, a dry, tired noise, “No. I didn’t. I knew your voice was familiar, but I can’t- I can’t see you under that suit. I wasn’t sure. And I don’t know much about you. Not really.” A pause, a thoughtful look at the ruined horizon and the swirling dust beneath their feet, “Tell me?”

     Elisabet didn’t feel much like talking about herself to, essentially, herself, but she was used to answering vague, childish questions after so long working with Gaia, and somehow she found herself talking as she hiked through the empty landscape. About herself, about her past, about her dreams. Bast listened without judgement, just occasionally made a questioning noise that let her know he was listening.

     It was a relief to not feel alone in this place. Even if she knew logically she was more alone than she had ever been before in her life.

...

...

...

     “If you had a daughter,” Elisabet jerked awake from her daze at the sound, blinked and tried to shake off the effects of dehydration —the suit had run out of water stims to inject into her bloodstream yesterday and she was already feeling the effects—, “what would you say to her?”

     “I don’t have any children,” she retorted and tried not to sound bitter about it, “for the best, really, considering … this.” She waved a hand at the fallen buildings and smoking spires. Ruins without bodies, everything already picked clean of organic material by the swarm as it had passed by. That was probably the only reason she was still alive. This area had already been deemed empty by the swarm and it had moved on before she had … left.

     “Humor me.”

     She looked at her imaginary companion. He was dressed in post-apocalypse leathers and cables again, his blond hair half shaved, the other half left to flop to the side like some kind of sad not-mohawk. His weapons hadn’t changed. They were just as anime as ever. A katana at one hip, a bow on his back and a quiver of arrows on his other hip, knives peaking out from seemingly every pocket. He was watching her with something very focused and serious in his gaze. Like he could see through her suit and into her eyes. She licked dry lips beneath her visor, “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have anyone.”

     He stopped walking, she stopped instinctively so as to not leave him behind. He reached out as if to grab her shoulder, paused before he could touch her and lowered his hand. Grey eyes looked dark with intent, with desperation, “If you had a daughter,” he started to repeat.

     “Well I don’t!” She snapped, temper breaking free of its leash, “I’m childless! I have no daughter, I have no future! I’m talking to a hallucination! You’re a figment of my mind, why won’t you just change the subject?”

     “Because this is important!” He snarled back with more ferocity than she expected. He stormed forward until they were almost touching, his nose inches from her faceplate, “This is important, Elisabet. I don’t know what’s going on, if I’m dead or dreaming or what, but I have a chance to ask this and I’m taking it!”

     A fractured pause between them, tense and disbelieving on both sides. Then Bast ran a hand through his hair and stepped back, “Now please. If you had a daughter, what would you tell her?”

     A pointless question. A pointless question that was painful to even think about, especially here. Especially now. She turned away and resumed walking, listened to the crunch of footsteps that couldn’t really be there as they followed her and thought about changing the subject.

     And yet…

     “If I had a daughter … I would tell her that I loved her. So much. I would tell her … to be brave. And curious. And kind. That- that the world has enough people out there hurting it, and that it takes a special kind of person to heal it instead. If only a little bit. I would tell her that I support her, no matter what she decided to do with her life, and that wherever she went … whatever she did, I would believe in her. Anything she wanted to be, or achieve, she could do it. I know she could.” Elisabet looked up at the sky, taking in the starscape just beginning to be visible, “I would tell her to reach for the stars, because if she wanted to, she could touch them. And no matter what happened next … I would be … so proud. I would love her, and I would… I …”

     “I would tell her that I would always be proud of my baby girl.”

     Bast let her fall silent after that. Politely looked away as her shoulders shook and her breath hitched inside the suit. Then, after minutes upon minutes of aching silence, he whispered, “I’ll remember that.”

     And Elisabet wondered why it felt like such a relief to hear those words. Even though logically she knew that she had no child, and even if she had, they would never hear what Elisabet had to say.

...

...

...

     It was getting hard to see straight. Hard to think. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since the suit ran out of nutrient stims. Just that it had, and she had kept walking. She had avoided the swarm, somehow, and now … now she was so tired. So very tired.

     “Keep walking,” Bast said, and she wondered when she had stopped caring that he was a figment of her mind and instead clung to the comfort of his presence. To the steadiness of his voice even in a world eaten alive. “That’s it, isn’t it? Up ahead.”

     She looked up. Cried when she saw the weathered letters of the Sobeck Ranch looking back, “Yeah. That’s it. That’s home.” She had made it. She had made it home. Crazy and dying and alone at the end of the world but … she was home. She staggered past the wrecked gate, tried not to look at the devastation. The swarm had been through here, she could tell. All the trees were gone, all the grass ripped out of the ground by the roots. The walls caved in to get to the ivy that had been growing on them. Her home was in as much ruins as the rest of the world.

     But it was still here.

     She sank shakily onto the old stone bench that faced the house and sighed.

     This would be a good place to die.

     Bast settled next to her, crouching on his haunches near the bench rather than risk touching her —he never touched her, and she wasn’t sure if that was out of respect for her boundaries or because they both knew it would break the illusion that he was ever there—. He was quiet. He had been getting a lot quieter, the longer the journey went on. The more Elisabet faded. He only spoke now to wake her up, to tell her to keep moving. But she was home now, so there was no more reason to stay awake, or to walk. This was it. This was where she was going to stay until the end.

     She wondered, a little dazedly, if it would be scary for Bast. If he would fade with her consciousness, acting alive until the end, or if her brain would just get too tired to keep him around and he would wink into nothing between one heartbeat and the next. That thought scared her more than it should.

     “Hey, Bast?”

     “Yeah?”

     She licked dry lips and shifted to be marginally more comfortable on the bench. Tilted her head back to the sky and idly rolled her little globe charm in her fingers as she whispered, “If I had a daughter … what would her name be? What … would she be like?”

     The silence that followed was deep and long. So long she closed her eyes with a shaking sigh, sure that her brain had finally gotten bored with making him and left her well and truly alone. Then.

     “Aloy. Her name would be Aloy. She would … look just like you. Red hair, bright green eyes that try to pick apart everything in the world around her. She would be … curious. Brave. Unstoppable. The smartest person in the room wherever she went but not … arrogant about it. Always looking for knowledge, always looking to learn. She would be … afraid of a lot of things, but she would never let it stop her. She would be very kind. Always willing to help other people in need, even when it’s risky, or when she would rather do something else. She would … look at a boy about her age that … no one wanted anything to do with because he was weird and she would hold out a hand in friendship. She would learn a foreign language just so she could talk to her new friend better, and ask questions no else thinks to ask. She would do … so many amazing things.”

     Elisabet tried to picture it. Indulged in the fantasy of it, just for a little while, “What things?”

     “Well,” Bast mused slowly, a note of gentle, nostalgic fondness in his voice, “there was this one time when we were eleven, and Aloy decided she wanted to surprise Rost, our … caretaker, so…”

     Elisabet listened. Eyes closed, breath slowing, basking in stories of the impossible. Of children and curiosity, of teenagers and bravery. Of a daughter who was unstoppable, and curious, and kind enough to fix the world, just a little bit. She listened to Bast’s voice rise and fall in stories of hope and heartbreak and danger and kindness. Her hand slowly relaxed around her little globe charm. It would be alright to doze off just for a little while, right? To dream of these fanciful stories her own mind was telling her.

     Just for a little while. Maybe … maybe she would get to see them? In her dreams if nothing else.

     Just for a little bit.

     Thank you, she tried to tell Bast past lips too tired to move. Thank you for staying with me, even if you aren’t really here.

     Thank you for not letting me die alone.

...

...

...

     Bast finished his story, one of many he had been telling, through the day and night and into the dawn again. He looked up from the pebbles he had been fiddling with, only half feeling them, as if he was touching them in a dream.

     He couldn’t hear Elisabet breathing anymore.

     He closed his eyes. Opened them and looked around the ruined world one more time. He could feel it, the tug in his soul that had been trying to make him wake up for a while now. He could have left days ago, followed the tug and gone back to the world of the living. But even if this was all just a dream —which it might be, or it might not, could he really judge after all the things he’d seen?—, he hadn’t wanted to leave yet. He hadn’t wanted to disappear and leave her alone.

     It was the least he could do, for Aloy’s mother.

     He stood up, letting the tugging sensation unravel through his soul as he stared at the unmoving figure slumped over on the stone bench, “I’ll come find you,” he whispered, “when I wake up. When this is all over. I’ll take Aloy here to meet you. Just wait for me until then, okay?”

     There was no answer. He didn’t expect any.

     The tugging feeling grew stronger and yanked him away, and Bast had just enough time to whisper goodbye before he opened his eyes in the real world, aching all over and with a relieved Aloy crying at his head.

     “-you thinking? You almost died!”

     “Sor’y, Aloy.”

     “I’ll show you sorry, all those lectures on being reckless and there you go and do something stupid like that-!”

     “Your Mom says hi.”

     “I’m going to- what?”

     Bast shook his head with a sigh. She didn’t know yet. She still had hope.

     He would tell her later. When he took her to meet Elisabet, “Neverm’nd. Tell you later.” He reached up and tugged one of her braids gently, “Missed you.”

     He squinted past the tears dripping onto his face as she pulled him into her lap, “I missed you too you big idiot. Don’t scare me like that again.”

     “Okay.”

[skiphunt]

Peyote Brujo

One of the desert regions in Mexico, in the state of San Luis Potosi, is considered sacred to the indigenous tribe called Huicholes. They call the region “Wiricuta” or “Huiricuta” and it’s just North of the city of San Luis Potosi and even closer to the town of Matehuala. There’s a popular tourist town up in the Sierra Madres that line the desert below called Real de Catorce. Wiricuta is the desert below. 

One of the nearby mountain peaks, maybe an hour hike on foot from Real de Catorce, is called “Quemado” by the locals. The way it was explained to me is that the very first Huichole saw the very first sunrise coming up over Quemado. The Huichole believe that the head of each family must make a pilgrimage through the desert and up to the peak of Quemado every 3 years for peyote rituals. They believe this practice must continue in order for the Sun to continue to rise. Peyote is used along the way and these colorful god’s eye crosses made of wood and colored yarn are placed at different points along the sacred route. 

This practice has gone on for possibly a couple thousand years. In the past, the journey would be made on foot all the way from the Nayarit region where the Huichole live. Now most of the journey is taken by bus and the last week or so on foot. 

I’ve never participated in one of the Huichole ceremonies, but I have come across the yarn crosses they leave along the route. I’ve also visited the ceremonial grounds above Real de Catorce, atop Quemado. There are several primitive concentric circles made of stones and many more of the yarn crosses left behind. Often they have a photo of a loved Huichole, children, etc. and some pesos and candles left behind. I believe they carry the prayers of the loved ones up to the ceremonial site and the objects as offerings. 

I’m not an expert on Huichole tribal and spiritual culture, but having gone to the sacred Wiricuta myself on several occasions, one hears lots of stories. 

The first time I went there was back in 1994. Another backpacker from Austria had told me about it. Or, rather… a couple of years after we’d met on the road, he sent me a photo of himself in this desert. There was a peace about him in the photo. He was just standing out in this dry expanse with mountains in the background, a simple Mexican poncho, a wooden staff, and he looked dusty. 

Not long after the letter and photo had arrived in the mail, I heard from him. It’s been a long time now, but I think his name is Gerard. He was passing through Texas on his way to visit other places in the U.S. and contacted me to see if it’d be cool to visit. 

Gerard only stayed a few days, but before he continued on his journey, he gave me instructions on how to get to a place in the desert called Wadley. And, he told me to ask for an older local man, Don Tomas. Gerard said to mention his name to Don Tomas and he’d fix me up. 

I’d been to Wadley several times when this particular story takes place, and Don Tomas did indeed fix me up. Every time I returned to Wadley I’d go straight to Don Tomas’ house for a key to one of the several rooms he rented to backpackers. He had a couple of enclosed compounds with around a half dozen basic rooms with a smooth concrete floor, tin roof, metal door with padlock, and a shared toilet that you have to fill up a bucket and dump into the commode to flush. Basic. 

Don Tomas also had a few rooms next to his home as well, and pretty much all of the walls in his rooms were adobe. 

On this particular visit, I stayed in the compound just above Don Tomas’ place, on the other side of the only 2-lane road that extends the entire length of Wiricuta. All of the half dozen little villages along the road were there basically as depots for the train that also runs the entire length of Wiricuta. The upper compound is a bit further from the train track and pretty much on the very outskirts of town. 

The lower compound is interesting in that it’s right in the middle of town, where you can hear all of the sounds of life there. And, it’s closer to the little tienda stores where you can get snacks, water, candles, etc. However, the lower compound is only a few meters from the train track. When a locomotive comes barreling by, the force shakes everything violently. The train whistle sounds like it’s right there in the room. You do get used to it after a while. I sometimes prefer the lower compound because of the sounds of life, and the train reminds me that the rest of the world is still powering along, while time feels like it stands still in Wadley. 

Sometimes there are a handful of other backpackers there too. Whether that’s a good thing or not, is often a roll of the dice. You can end up with some loud partiers who don’t clean up their messes and are up all hours of the night. Or, you can end up with a quiet group that you get along with. Other times I’m completely by myself. 

Each compound has it’s own little kitchen or cocina. It’s a bit generous to call it a “kitchen”. There’s a small gas stove, that if you’re lucky, Don Tomas has paid for a fresh tank of gas. There’s a scattering of various pots and pans, plates cups, utensils, etc. If you’re extra lucky, the last people there might’ve cleaned them all up. If you’re not so lucky, they’re all stacked up with varying degrees of food decaying. 

If it’s all dirty, I’ll usually clean it all up once and grab a cup, plate, spoon, and a small pot to boil my water for coffee. I’ll keep this in my room for the duration and clean them up again before I leave.

Don Tomas had first taken me to the lower compound, but I spotted a fair amount of empty cerveza bottles strewn about, some bongo drums, and a beat up guitar leaning on one of the room doors. Looked like a party.

I asked Don Tomas what the situation was like at the upper compound. He said it was empty, except for Philipe. He said Philipe is French and pretty quiet. Done! Vamanos to the upper compound then. 

These compounds are kind of a hodgepodge of repurposed rooms. I think the rooms in the lower compound were at one time stalls for pigs. I’m not sure what the upper compound was originally used for, but it was likely not built for housing backpacker peyote-eating hippies. 

The upper compound had a large storage room with a huge table and a bunch of junk. Don Tomas had shown me the other available rooms, but I asked if I could stay in the large storage room instead. I told him I saw a bed in there and I’d clean it up since I’d be there a couple weeks. He said that’d be fine but was trying to tell me something about the room to beware of. My Spanish has never been completely fluent, and Don Tomas slurs a lot… likely due to a lot of missing teeth. 

The first thing I finally gathered was that he was telling me to be wary of police. That they’d been visiting off and on. That there wasn’t any reason to be worried, but don’t bring any peyote cactus in from the desert. 

The second thing he was warning me about, I didn’t comprehend  until later when the train came through town. Don Tomas was telling me that when the train comes through, it vibrates fine dust from the tin roof that falls like snow for a few seconds. Not ideal, but tolerable. 

Don Tomas helped me push some of the junk into the corner, and he gathered up most of the garbage and swept the floor. I organized some of the storage to make more room and made the bed that was in the corner of the room. By the time we finished, I had a large empty table all to myself, and at least 3/4ths of the room cleared. 

After we’d decided it was cleaned well enough, Don Tomas took off to tend to his goats and I went to check out the kitchen situation and hopefully score myself a good cup, spoon, plate and boiling pot for the duration. I noticed the door to the room Don Tomas said Philipe was using was open and I could hear some music playing. Decided to introduce myself.

Philipe was lounging on his bed reading while puffing on a long skinny pipe. After introductions, I asked him about the strange pipe. The name of the pipe I couldn’t understand, but he said it was a special pipe he got in Morocco for smoking “kef”. Didn’t know what that was either. He pulled out a small bag that had a bright green powder in it and filled the tiny bowl of the pipe. I asked if it was similar to marijuana. Philipe said it was the same plant but a refined variant of just the most potent portion of the plant. He lit up the bowl and asked it I wanted any, but I declined. Told him that I would like to try it, but later on after I got all situated with buying some fruit, water, candles etc. Explained that I have a very low tolerance to marijuana and tend to get way too high very quickly.

Later that evening I saw Philipe chilling out in the compound kitchen with a coffee, a little portable cassette player, and his long, skinny exotic kef pipe. I’d just treated myself to a bottle of Mexican Coca-cola from the tienda and thought perhaps I’d have a seat at the table and see what this strange “kef” substance was all about. My room was all situated nicely for the next couple of weeks, I didn’t need to interact with anyone else, and my bed was only about 30 paces away. 

It was very easy to smoke. Didn’t take much either, at least for me. Generally, I don’t much care for the cloudy effects of partaking in this sort of smoke. The paranoia, confusion, and the hit your short term memory can take are not so pleasant for me. The relaxing part can be quite nice if I don’t over do it. 

The sensation from smoking Philipe’s kef was different than what I’d ever experienced before. I late discovered that Philipe was also quite the expert in high quality cannabis products, so this was likely of the highest grade. Strong for sure. Very strong. Though, I don’t recall having all the paranoia or confusion. It was more of a focussed cerebral experience where I felt like my brain was operating just fine, but on a higher level of plane. 

I can’t remember how long we talked, but I never felt like I was “out of it”. Perfectly engaged and we traded stories most of the night. It must’ve been near 3AM when we finally decided to call it a night. 

The next morning, there wasn’t a cloudy feeling or anything. Mind was clear and more focussed. Normally, for me it’s the opposite and why I typically will abstain. I guess there’s something to be said for the quality of being absolutely pure. The next day our quiet compound was invaded by 3 college-age guys from Mexico City, “Chavos”, slang for city boys. The compound has a large metal door that you can drive a vehicle through, and the new neighbors pulled their red Ford Fiesta right into the middle of the compound. They all three looked pretty stoned and like they were there to party. They tossed out 3 large backpacks onto the ground that were mostly empty, other than sleeping bags and they went to the tienda to load up on drinking water before hiking into the desert. Seemed odd that they didn’t seem to be carrying much in this huge backpacks, but you really don’t need much out in the desert anyway and knowing they were as least taking the party out into the desert was a relief.

Chatted with Don Tomas earlier in the morning when I was on my tienda run for some instant coffee. I’d seen a police truck parked at one of the shacks that doubled as a make-shift bar. Mentioned the sighting to Don Tomas. There was an old jail house in the town that appeared to be abandoned every time I’d visited, but maybe it’d been recommissioned? Don Tomas told me not to worry. That the policia were only making rounds of the desert for someone to shake down. He said there were all corrupt, but that those 3 policias were the only ones in the entire desert. Don Tomas said their station is in the next town Estacion Catorce. 

Backpackers often either hike down the mountain from the touristy town of Real de Catorce near Quemado to Estacion Catorce, or they take a taxi jeep. They call the jeeps “Willy’s” because that’s their brand I think. The 3 cops stay scarce until they see the backpackers coming back into town form the desert to catch a Willy back up to Real de Catorce. Then, they surprise them with a body search. If they’re carrying any peyote cactus, it’s a 50 peso fine for each plant. Pretty good extra drinking money, especially with the weekend approaching.

Don Tomas said he they show up in Wadley only if they haven’t caught anyone in Estacion Catorce in awhile. He also said not to worry about it. That they won’t bother you unless they can smell marijuana or think you’ve just come back from the desert. Then, they might search you. 

I thanked Don Tomas and headed out into the desert for a little hike. There’s a place I like to go that’s easy to get to. Well, everywhere is pretty easy to get to, it’s all mostly flat. It’s the thick patches of cactus that make some areas a little more tricky to get to. Many of the cactuses out there have needle-sharp thorns that can be as long as 3 whole inches and can pierce all the way through your hiking shoes into your feet it you hit them just right. 

The spot I like to go to usually has plenty of peyote cactus growing near by, a scraggily mesquite tree for a little shade, and sandy paths leading right to it that the goat herders use. You’ve still got to watch out for stray cactus thorns, but it’s much easier than hiking straight through the brush. 

On any given trip out into Wiricuta, I’ll just take off in any ol’ random direction and keep walking for hours. You can’t really get lost because you can see several kilometers in any direction no matter which way you go. This time I just went out to my mesquite tree location to inspect how much peyote was out in the general vicinity this time. It varies. Sometimes it’s all over the place, and other times it requires a longer search.

There was plenty, but I also noticed this other plant I’d never seen before. I’d heard of it, and only knew that it looked similar to peyote, but it’s meet was more pinkish purple inside instead of the light green of peyote. It’s called “Peyote Brujo” and reportedly very strong. I’d been told that only shaman’s mess with it. 

I pulled out my knife and cut into the top a little to reveal the meat. Sure enough, it was pinkish purple. Wasn’t sure if I wanted to risk experimenting with an unknown like this, but was thrilled to have finally found some. I cut it out of the ground and into small pieces and bagged it so I could hide it easier in case I happened to see those policia poking around on the hike back to Wadley. Didn’t know how it was supposed to be consumed yet either, but I knew one of the other backpackers in town would likely know. 

Back at the compound I showed my find to Philipe. He’s more knowledgeable about the cultural specifics of the Huichol Indians. He had even talked the University back in France into financing his whole trip as “research” for 3 months. I believe he was studying the sociological effects on indigenous cultures when they’re exposed to foreign tourists… or something like that.

Philipe confirmed I’d indeed found some Peyote Brujo. He said he’d never tried it before but that it was known to be very powerful and not to be trifled with. Said pretty much only shamans use Peyote Brujo and that they typically dry the cactus pieces first, grind into a powder, then it’s smoked. 

I hadn’t decided if I’d risk experimenting with it yet. But I figured I could at least prep it just in case I was game or wanted to pass it off to another backpacker later.The climate is so dry in Wiricuta that it wouldn’t take any time at all to completely dry the cactus. 

The center of the cactus was full of fine white fiber that you have to clean out first, just like the regular peyote plant. It’s almost like a coarse fibers substance and there were bits of it all over the floor I’d just swept out. I found an old primitive ladder that looked like someone had crafted it themselves from mesquite and I climbed up to place the cactus pieces on the roof of my room for the day.

Philipe asked if I wanted to join him for a little hike into the desert. I’d just come back but he wanted to explore an area I hadn’t been to yet. He said there was a nice grove of trees out there that also had soft green grass in the shady parts. Called it an “oasis”. There are a few areas like this in the otherwise bone dry desert, but they’re rare and a bit surreal when you find them. 

I told Philipe about the policia that I’d seen and the warning Don Tomas had given. He’d already seen them too but wasn’t too worried about it.

As we walked along the sandy trail, Philipe told me about a few details regarding the Huicholes peyote culture. I asked about the significance of how many sections counted atop a peyote cactus. When you look at the top of a peyote cactus, there are these little sections with tufts of that white fiber that has to be cut out too. I’ve heard that the white fiber has a small quantity of strychnine in it, and that’s part of what makes you sick, but I’m not certain that’s true or not. 

He did say there was significance, but I wasn’t sure how much of what he said was hippy backpacker hear-say… basically made up or imagined while high, or actual Huichol culture. Perhaps there isn’t really a difference. 

I told him that for me the number 13 was significant as was the number 7. Philipe said that 13 sections meant that the plant is a “maestro” or teacher. I added that in magic mushroom cultures, they tend to assign different significance to the number of mushrooms and physical characteristics of the individual mushrooms too. The longer-stemmed derrumbe mushrooms in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico are also called “maestros” as well. The cap of these is generally more bell-shaped. 

The conversation was going on like this until we reached the oasis Philipe had told me about. I could see a thick grove of mesquite trees ahead of us. It hadn’t rained in awhile, so everything was covered with a layer of dry fine desert dust and the grove blended into the landscape fairly well. I couldn’t see them at all until we were just a few meters from them. 

As we approached a clearing in the branches, I could see bright green grass in the shade. Philipe stepped over toward a shrub to take a leak. I was amazed at how green the grass was in such a dry terrain and then looked down at the ground before me to see where the green grass began. 

Directly in front of my feet was a peyote plant, of the size I’ve never seen before. Philipe walked up as I knelt down to brush away desert dust to get a better idea of just how large it was. It had to have been close to 11 inches in diameter. Usually they’re around 2-4 inches. Philipe walked over and was awestruck with this gargantuan peyote plant. 

“Holy shit! That thing is huge!”

“I just noticed it at my feet. I’ve never seen one that big. Is it actually a peyote plant? Or, maybe just a cousin that looks like it?

“No, that’s peyote for sure.”

“Should we cut it?”

“That’s all you brother. It spoke to you first.”

“I don’t think I can eat all of that, are you sure you don’t want some?”

“Gracias, but I only eat plants that reveal themselves to me. This one is clearly for you. Disfruta!(enjoy)”

After brushing most of the dirt away and digging a small trench around the edges of the mammoth peyote plant so that I could get my knife underneath it to cut, I liberated the entire cactus head in one large piece. After you cut the top part off, you push the dirt back over it so that it’ll grow more. The root of the peyote plant goes down a good ways and they’ll continue to grow another head if you leave the root intact. 

Philipe asked if I was going to leave an offering of gratitude for the plant. I’d seen this done before, but I’d never left anything before. 

“I’m not sure what to leave. Do you leave offerings?”

“Yes, always. It’s the way.”

“Hmmm… ok. Do Huicholes do that too?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t planning on cutting anything today and didn’t bring anything. Does it matter what you leave?”

“No, just something.”

“I’ve got a couple pesos in my pocket. Would that do?”

“Sure, I’ve seen the Huicholes leave pesos before too.” 

It was midday and the sun was intense. We walked over into the mesquite grove and sat in the shade on the soft green grass for a little while. We laid back and stared at the blue sky through the mesquite grove canopy. Compared to the hellish white-hot sun  that had just been making me feel a bit delirious… the grass was  soothingly cool to the skin and felt heavenly.

I drifted off halfway to sleep for about a half hour. Not a full sleep, but that state in-between full sleep and kind of dozing. Completely aware of the cool grass, the sun flickering between the mesquite tree branches above, and the breeze. Yet, I wasn’t completely there. 

Philipe got up first and said he was going to start walking back to Wadley. He wanted to know if I was ready to go back too. I told him that I’d packed a hammock, oranges, and plenty of water. Said I might try to eat some of that giant peyote plant and chill out in my hammock for the afternoon. 

“Are you sure you don’t want any? I’ve got a few oranges and plenty of water. I definitely can’t eat this whole plant myself.”

Philipe looked amused and laughed. 

“No, it’s all you. You found it first and you should see that it has to teach you. I’ll see you later back at the compound.”

Philipe headed out of the oasis and I found a perfect set of branches to hang my hammock from. I sat back down on the grass and started cutting up the monstrous plant. I halved it and thought maybe I could stomach that much. Peyote cactus has a very bitter taste, even after you’ve cleaned the fiber out of it. The oranges are used to help kill the taste so that you can get it down. After you get used to the taste, you can make due without the oranges, but I’ve rarely progressed that far. So much easier with oranges. 

I put a piece of the monster plant in my mouth along with a wedge of orange and started to chew. The taste of this one was stronger than I’d ever experienced and it was a challenge even with the orange. I don’t think I made it through half before I couldn’t eat any more. So, I wrapped up the remaining 2/3rds of the peyote, put it in a yellow plastic bag underneath my remaining oranges, and dropped it into my daypack. I laid back on the grass and resumed my zoning out to the magnificent blue sky above, waiting for the plant to digest.

About a half hour later I got some stabbing cramps in my gut. This had never happened before. Very sharp pains that didn’t subside. They only got more intense and felt like I was digesting broken glass. Add to that, the peyote was starting to get to my head. 

This wasn’t good at all. I felt deathly ill and was clutching my gut, writhing in the grass in pain, and my mind was taking off into the stratosphere on mescaline. Not a winning combination. I managed to get to my feet and slung myself into my hammock to ride it out.

Having your brain hemispheres open up like a fleshy lotus and expose it’s pink insides to a shower of electrified comet sparkles is fine and good, but if you also feel like you’re trying to pass the cutting shards of a giant mason jar though your small intestine... no amount of comet sparkle can make that tolerable.

Desperately wanted to be back in my room and closer to someone who might be able to help, like perhaps a doctor for example. Though, I don’t believe there are any doctors in Wadley or nurses for that matter. The closest medical attention would be a couple hour bus ride to Matehuala, and that’s after the hour-long hike back to Wadley. Provided, I could get back before the only afternoon bus left at 3pm.

So, I gritted my teeth, clutched my stomach, drank as much water as I could tolerate without throwing up, and tried to enjoy the psychedelic realms in my hammock... between the shooting pains.

Didn’t keep track of how long the pain lasted, but I’m guessing it was the better part of 4 hours since the psychotropic effects of the peyote were starting to subside a bit. It usually last for anywhere from 6-10hrs depending on various factors. I felt like I could finally start hiking back to Wadley at least.

In flat, desert areas like this on, it’s always difficult to judge distance. I hadn’t paid attention to exactly how long Philipe and I had hiked to the oasis, and although Wadley looked to be only a half-hour or so away… it took me well over an hour and a half to get back. That could’ve been because I changed the route a little to give more time for the peyote to wear off so that it wouldn’t feel as awkward interacting with anyone I might run into in the town. 

When I got to the 2-lane road that runs all the way through this desert and along the railroad tracks, I was almost at the outer edge of Wadley. 

I could smell the scent of marijuana burning somewhere. That’s not entirely unusual in this area, but it smelled very strong… as if someone had just walked ahead of me smoking a joint and the smoke was still hanging. 

My intense stomach cramps had calmed down almost completely, but the effects of the peyote still very much had my brain in an ecstatic state. Thought about stopping at a tienda shop to get something cold to drink and maybe some snacks before walking back to my room, but decided to go lay the bed for a little while until the peyote had worn off a little more. 

I was almost to the compound and noticed a white truck parked at the compound gate. Looks like Don Tomas has more guests. They must be waiting for someone to open the gate so they can pull their truck into the courtyard. 

Got a little closer and noticed it wasn’t just a white truck. It had “POLICIA” painted on it. One of the local boys was talking to the cop who looked like he was in charge. He had a stark look, with a bushy mustache and he looked like he was looking for someone to extort money from. I took a hard right toward another tienda to disappear into, but I was too late. The boy had already pointed toward the gringo walking into the nearby tienda. 

I could see the cop starting to walk toward the tienda and my heart started to race. Think fast! Oh, no… I left that bag of dried peyote brujo in a clear bag on the bed and there was still that white fiber stuff all over the floor. And, 2/3rds of that giant peyote plant was still at the bottom of the orange bag in my daypack. This isn’t going to go well for me. Think, don’t panic. Don’t look nervous. 

Walked out of the tienda and rounded behind it toward my room. I could tell the cop was picking up his pace and trying to catch up to me. There were two other cops at the truck with the 3 young Mexican guys from Mexico city handcuffed in the back. 

Evidently, the guys from Mexico City been walking just ahead of me on the road smoking a joint. The cops smelled it and searched their backpacks which were all 3 full of cut peyote plants. That explains why they went out into the desert with almost nothing in their packs other than something to sleep with. Unfortunately, they hadn’t got the memo on not smoking weed in town while the cops are snooping about. 

I could hear the larger cop who was following me calling out for me to stop, but I pretended not to hear. Nodded to the guys in the back of the truck and opened the padlock on my room door, grabbed the plastic bag of peyote brujo pieces and jammed it between a folded mattress in the corner. The cop had made it to my room and started banging on the door. He called out that he needed to see my passport. (in Spanish)

“Señor, I must see your passport. Why didn’t you stop?”

“Oh, I’m sorry… I didn’t know you were talking to me. Just a minute, I’ll get my passport.”

I grabbed my passport and stuffed my wallet between the mattresses too before stepping out of the room.

“United States?”

“Si.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting”

The head cop flipped through my passport and then started checking my visa to see if it was expired and had then proper stamps and signatures. One of the other two cops motioned toward my daypack I’d set down. 

“Hand your bag to him please, we need to search it.”

I remembered the rest of that giant peyote plant in the bottom of the plastic bag of oranges, I tried not to look nervous as I handed my daypack to the other cop. He started taking items out slowly, then glancing up at me to see if I was starting to break a sweat as the cop with the mustache went over my papers. 

When he pulled out my knife that still had some dirt on it, his eyebrows went up. He opened the knife as he stared at me as if he’d found something incriminating. I shrugged. The cop then opened the knife and compared the length of the blade to the width of his hand. Evidently that’s a measure of how long a knife blade can be on your person. It was slightly over the allowed length. I silently relaxed because I thought the dirt on the knife was giving me away. 

Then, he lifts the the plastic bag of oranges out of the daypack and my heart sank. Still, I kept calm on the outside. The plastic bag was opaque so you couldn’t see through it. He simply patted on the plastic bag with the knife and said, “Naranjas” (oranges). He then puts the bag back into the daypack without looking into it, and folds the knife. Everything went back into the bag and he hands it back to me. Whew!

The mustache cop handed my passport back. I tried to make conversation and asked why the third cop was. They said he was getting the keys to the boy’s red Ford Fiesta car because they were being arrested and driven up to the jail in Real de Catorce. 

Felt bad for the boys, but they were mostly smiling. They also looked very stoned, so maybe the gravity of the situation hadn’t quite hit them yet. Still, I was rejoicing silently inside that I was about to avert this trip going very badly for me. 

Until, the mustache cop said he wanted to search my room. All that inner joy came to a complete stop. I was also feeling the tail-end of the peyote effects and my head was racing. I said:

“No problemo”

He followed me into the room. I tossed my daypack to the middle of a long table in the room so it didn’t look like I was trying to hide anything in the bag they’d just searched, and then calmly sat on the edge of the bed while started looking around. 

“What are you really doing here amigo? You’re here to eat the peyote aren’t you?”

“No. I told you I only came here to write. See my laptop on the table?”

He looked toward the laptop and looked moved some loose items around looking underneath as he moved through the room.

“Yes, I see the computer… but many of the foreigners carry them. Tell me why you’re here.”

“Only writing. I like to come here to the desert for inspiration and the quiet.”

He started kicking his police boot around the floor and moving the white fibers from the peyote brujo that were still there. My pulse went up a few notches. 

“If you are not here for the peyote, why is all of this peyote fiber on the floor? You cleaned a plant in here didn’t you?”

“No, I told you before why I’m here. I don’t know what that fiber is. It was here when I got here. I need to sweep. It’s a dirty room and I need to sweep.”

He then walked around the room another time, looking into dusty storage boxes and over to the folded mattress on a rollaway bed where I’d stashed the bag of dried peyote brujo pieces. He rolled it around once. The mattress was filthy so he didn’t stick his hand into the fold to check. 

Determined to find something to bust me for, he sauntered over toward a video camera I had on a tripod in the room. I’d carried it along with me to get interesting travel shots along the way. He asked:

“You are here only to write?”

“Yes”

“Then why do you have this professional movie camera?”

“Because I’m working on a story for a movie I’d like to make and I’m using the video camera to record some of the possible locations.”

I’d heard that another movie had filmed up in Real de Catorce a couple years prior and it had infused a lot of money into the town. Brad Pitt and Julia Davis are in it. I think it’s called “The Mexican” or something like that. 

Anyway, I knew that the primary motivation for the cops in the area, and most of Mexico for that matter, seemed to be making a little cash on the side. And, I needed to think of a way to distract this guy quick as he headed back over toward the folded mattress after running his hand underneath the mattress on my bed. 

“You know... I was just thinking... if everything works out this this movie script I’m working on and I find people with money to finance making it, I’ll be back here with a crew.”

I remembered that I’d recently had new business cards made and I’d put an icon of a movie reel on them, along with a camera, and a couple others. The reel would make it look like I was really a filmmaker. Walked over to the table to get a card our of my wallet and motioned for him to accept it in order to divert him from proceeding toward the folded mattress.

“If, I find the money and can make this film happen, I’m going to need to hire someone for security during the shoot. Would you be available for something like that?”

He studied the business card I’d handed him.

“It’d be paid of course.”

His eyes lit up as he looked up from the business card.

“You would hire me for the security on a pelicula? (film)

“I don’t see why not. I’ll need someone with and you’re the only one with that kind of experience that I’ve met here.”

I started walking toward the door where the other 2 cops were waiting with the 3 Mexican guys in the back of the truck. The guys weren’t smiling anymore as I think the high was starting to wear off and they realized what was happening. The third cop had loaded their belongings into their Ford Fiesta and had just pulled it out of the courtyard.

As I stepped outside the room the mustached cop luckily followed behind.

“What’s going to happen to those guys?”

“They are all under arrest for cutting peyote in the desert. All their backpacks were full of it to take back to Mexico City to sell. They were also smoking mota (marijuana) along the road. Muy estupido (very stupid)”

The other cops asked the mustached one if I was clean. He told them I was only working on a movie and wanted to hire him for security. 

“We are taking these compadres up to Real de Catorce for processing. The only jail we are using now is the one up there.”

I waved sympathetically toward the guys in the back of the truck. They half-heartily waved back and cracked nervous smiles. They’d probably be fine. The cops would likely keep their car and whatever mordida (bribes) the cops could get their parents to send, and they’d be on their way in a few days.

The cop with the mustache got into the passenger side of the police truck. After he slammed the door shut he leaned out smiling and waved my business card toward me. He yelled “Don’t forget me for security when you come back to make your movie!”

I smiled and answered, “Por supuesto! (of course)”

As the police truck pulled out leaving a cloud fine desert dust hanging int the air, it was followed by the 3rd cop in the boy’s Ford Fiesta. He rolled down the window and cranked up the stereo  and started banging his head along to whatever heavy metal music the boys had last been listening to while pretending to sing along. I could still make out the expressions of the boy’s faces. Their high had definitely worn off and they did not look amused.

Went back into my room after first giving the stink eye to the little boy who’d first spotted me and pointed my way as I walked in from the desert. He laughed at me and ran off. 

I stood in my room shaking for a few moments realizing how close I got to ending up in the back of that police truck too. I didn’t have anyone to call who’d bail me out and it definitely would not have gone well.

Opened the other door of my room that went out into the courtyard. I could see Philipe’s door was open. Walked over and peeked in. Philipe was as white as a ghost and shaking a little.  I asked:

“Hey amigo! Did you see what just happened?”

“Yeah, one of those cops came banging on my door and wanted to search my room.”

“Oh no! They didn’t find your bag of kef?!”

“No, luckily I heard them march the Mexican guy’s in here to get the keys to their car. There’s no where to hide anything in these rooms so I jammed my bag of kef and pipe up above the roof beam and tin roof. Luckily my main stash is still in a pack I have a Don Tomas’ casa.

“The Mexican guys were walking along the road smoking weed right as they walked into the town. That’s how they got caught.”

“Idiots! Look at my hands, I can’t stop shaking. That could’ve gone very badly for me!”

“I know! One of the town boys pointed at the gringo walking into the tienda nearby. I have no idea why the boy would do that.”

“I’m sure he was just answering to the cops and didn’t mean harm. Did you end up eating that giant peyote cactus?”

Told Philipe everything that had just happened. About the peyote brujo bag on my bed, getting searched, and about promising to hire the head policia as security on a movie set. Philipe couldn’t believe it. 

“How did you think of that?”

“I was in a panic and making it up as I went… trying not to look nervous.”

“Man, you are very lucky! They would’ve loved to catch themselves a gringo for sure!” 

Philipe asked if the police were still in the town. I told him they’d left and were on their way up to the police station in Real de Catorce with the boy’s and their car. 

He pulled the bag of kef down from the roof beam, along with his special kef pipe. 

“You want to have a smoke? I need a quick one to calm down.”

“Yeah, that sounds like exactly what I need right now.”

We moved into the cocina (kitchen) to pass Philipe’s pipe for a few minutes and shared his Yerba Mate tea gourd. Philipe asked:

“What are you going to do now? I need to catch the afternoon bus to Matehuala to buy a bike. I’m going to be here for 3 months so I want to get a bicycle to get around while I’m here.”

“I think I’m going back out into the desert to cut more peyote.”

“What?! Are you crazy?! We almost got busted!”

“Well, I was thinking of moving on in a couple days and I have a friend in Puerto Vallarta who wanted to try peyote. He’s older and won’t likely make it out to the desert, so I agreed to bring him some. I’ll be back in a few weeks though, when I’m on my way back up to the border”

“Again, are you loco amigo? The policia just left here!”

“The way I figure, those are the only 3 policia in the entire Wiricuta desert. They’re all on their way to Real de Catorce for the weekend, and are getting ready to have plenty of mordida (bribe) drinking money very soon. If I’m going out to cut peyote to travel with, right now is probably the safest time to do it.”

Philipe shook his head in disbelief and headed out to catch the bus into the larger town of Matehuala a couple hours away. He’d be back in the morning. 

Pulled the bag of peyote brujo from the folded mattress and spread the pieces out on my rooftop again to dry out a little more and just in case anyone else wanted to snoop around my room again. My head was in a pleasant haze from the kef we’d smoked, and I was getting a second wind from the Yerba Mate tea. I refilled my water, cleaned my knife, put on my headphones and headed back out into the desert to harvest. I still had at least 3 hours of daylight left. It was a beautiful day with some nice clouds streaking near the horizon. If I timed it right, and was lucky again in my search, I’d be able to take in yet another incredible technicolor desert sunset on the hike back.

~~~

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