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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Unfettered - part 2 - previous parts: on ao3 or tumblr part 1

It’s time. Come back.

Awareness came slowly and fitfully.

His body felt heavy, weighed down - it was as if his spirit had gone roaming freely and returned only reluctantly, sinking back into the skin and bone and flesh that bound it, the return voluntarily but begrudging, like an ox submitting to the yoke or a donkey to its bridle. There were times when he was there, awake but unable to get up the strength even to open his eyes, only barely aware of the world around him in the murmur of voices, the smell of food, the consistent feeling of spiritual energy being transferred into his body. There were times he was not awake at all.

One day, he heard a child laugh.

That was strange enough to catch his attention – it had been a long time since there were children here in the place where he slept, a place so familiar to him that he could feel where he was in his bones. It had been even longer since there were children who laughed.

It’s time. Wake up.

He did not wake all at once. It was a gradual process, slow – he had to struggle against the infinite heaviness of his eyelids, the sopor that kept trying to steal him back into the dark, but he did struggle. He tried, he strained, he pushed, he forced.

He summoned the rage that was his birthright and said to his body, we have been friends these many years, I have honed you as I did a beloved blade, you will not stand in my way in this.

He woke.

A child was laughing.

“Be careful, A-Song,” a voice, unfamiliar to him but gentle, said. It was male, young, and kind. He thought perhaps he had expected someone else. “Remember, you must not disturb the array.”

“I won’t touch it, gege,” the child said cheerfully. “I’ll be good, and then A-Ling will come visit us!”

“When he can, A-Song. It may not be for a while, because of the war…”

A weight settled on his chest at the word – war – and he almost lost his will to wake, not wanting to return to everything that word entailed: the pressure of all the expectations that rested on his shoulders, the stress and fear of the decisions he was forced to make, the guilt at each life lost and the butchers’ bills that piled up on his desk, the exhaustion and pain that followed the slog of life at the battlefront, adrenaline melting away to leave him feeling vacant and empty…

Duty was duty, though. Even in war.

Especially in war.

He forced his eyes open, staring at the ceiling for long moments as the noises of a child playing continued around him, the soft voice alternatively praising and gently chiding him. After a while, his gaze stabilized enough for him to recognize that above him was his own ceiling in his own room in his own home.

He could always tell, thanks to the drawings right above his face – his brother had once insisted on sitting on his shoulders while he stood on the bed so that he could reach the ceiling to carve something into the wood and stone. Something that would make him smile every morning that he opened his eyes, his brother claimed, his own eyes curved into a smile of his own, and he had never been able to resist his little brother anything that would make him happy.

He swallowed several times, wetting his throat, and asked in a voice little better than a rasp, “How goes the war?”

He meant where is my brother, is he well, is he whole, he meant what has happened to my sect, he meant what has happened to me. But duty called, and so he asked instead – how goes the war.

It helped, he supposed, that the words were familiar on his tongue, even as his throat and lips ached the strain of having to speak for the first time in what must have been a while. How goes the war – it had been his watchword for years now, all throughout the Sunshot Campaign and even before, the first question in the morning and the last question at night. How goes the war.

“Gege! Gege!” the child shrieked. “He said something!”

“No, I – but…did… – Sect Leader Nie…?” The unfamiliar voice was deeply surprised, almost shockingly so – how long had he been asleep? “Sect Leader Nie, did you say something? Please confirm.”

Sect Leader Nie.

Yes, that was how they called him. That was who he was: Sect Leader Nie, Chifeng-zun.

Nie Mingjue.

He had forgotten it, for a moment, the name and the weight of it, all the responsibilities that went with it, but now he remembered.

Nie Mingjue struggled to force himself up on his elbows, trying to look further around the room – it felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done, harder than moving through waist-deep muck through a swamp, which he’d also done, more than once.

As he’d expected, there was a man there, and a child. Both were unfamiliar to him, he thought, even if he did not entirely trust his memory at the moment. They were both gaping at him.

Well, gaping at his general direction, in the case of the man. He was dressed in white, like the Lan sect did, but the narrow band of white that they had in common encircled his eyes, not his forehead – he was blind.

No, Nie Mingjue was sure of it now: this man was totally unfamiliar to him.

The child was, too, but that was less of a surprise, given that he was only two or three at the utmost, the age children changed the most, and after all Nie Mingjue had been away fighting the wars for several years; it was reasonable not to recognize him.

But a man he did not recognize, here, in his own bedroom..?

“The war,” he rasped again, and swallowed to try to clear his throat. That was the only thing he could think of that might explain it. “My brother…?”

“Oh,” the man said, not especially intelligently. “The Pallbearer isn’t here – he’s away. There’s a war.”

The – what?

Nie Mingjue narrowed his eyes and forced them to focus, realizing that what he had taken for a man was little more than a teenager, certainly younger than twenty. Old enough to fight in the war, regrettably, but he supposed the blindness might keep him from it. It was sometimes hard to tell, with cultivators, how much they would be impacted by something like that.

“My brother,” he insisted. He wasn’t dead; what did he care about where some pallbearer - technically, the phrase meant ‘virtuous mourner’, or possibly ‘person whose virtue is in their mourning’, but either way it was a strange appellation - was? What he wanted was – “My brother.”

The child had been hiding behind the young man in white, but he popped his head around to stare at him, tugging at the young man’s robes. “Isn’t he Nie-er-ge’s brother?”

“Yes, he is,” the man said automatically, then flushed, ducking his head. He was very handsome, almost pretty, and at some point when Nie Mingjue didn’t feel like drowning in his own exhaustion he would spare a bit more time to wondering why he had been left here at his bedside, whether it was because he was the only one who could be spared or if it was for his own protection or both. “Ah, forgive me, Sect Leader Nie, of course you wouldn’t – your brother is away at the moment, but I will send him word at once. He’ll be so happy to hear that you’ve awoken.”

Nie Mingjue let himself slide back down from his elbows, his most severe worry assuaged – Nie Huaisang was alive, he was fine, he was safe. That was good.

Now he could concern himself with the war, he supposed. Although…

“Wasn’t the war…over?” he asked the ceiling. He thought he remembered that it was, the vague memories of seeing Wen Ruohan’s body hit the floor burnt into his brain as if with a brand – it was so different from what he had dreamt of for so many years that he thought it must be true. And with Wen Ruohan dead, his sons dead, who would continue to fight? Some small pockets of the truly devoted, maybe, but surely not the bulk of the forces…?

He didn’t remember. There was something there just beyond his memory, and he was abruptly struck with the feeling that he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.

There was a whisper of cloth, the man beside him shifting from side to side in awkwardness. Probably trying to decide if he should stand here and answer questions or go to send out the alert about his reawakening at once.

“You are correct, Sect Leader Nie,” he finally said. “The Sunshot Campaign ended…it’s a new war.”

A new war, Nie Mingjue thought, and closed his eyes for a brief moment to stave off the pain of it. It wasn’t that he hadn’t discussed the possibility that something like that would happen with his sect’s elders during his war counsels, the fact that wrecking the established system of the Five Great Sects might lead to a power vacuum and more fighting, but the alternative of submitting to Wen tyranny had been worse; they had had no choice but to hope that their worst fears would not come to pass.

In vain, it seemed.

“I should – go tell someone,” the young man said. “I’ll go –”

“Go,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Return after, and then you can…what’s your name, anyway?”

“Xiao Xingchen,” the young man said. “Disciple of Baoshan Sanren…you wouldn’t have heard of me. Your brother took me in after I lost my eyes.”

Baoshan Sanren? Another disciple of the immortal mountain? Surely Nie Mingjue would have heard of something like that happening – it would have been the talk of the cultivation world, ongoing war or no. But he hadn’t heard anything, and this Xiao Xingchen fellow didn’t expect him to. And that meant…

“How long have I slept?” he asked. No, not asked. Demanded.

“Oh, I definitely can’t answer that one,” Xiao Xingchen said, sounding genuinely distressed. “I’m going to go get someone who can.”

He dashed out of the room in a swirl of white that Nie Mingjue saw out of the corner of his eye. A moment later, he heard a small shuffling sound and, with a slight groan, lifted himself back up again to look at the child, who had lingered even after his guardian had departed.

The boy was wearing Nie colors in familiar styles – Nie Mingjue thought it might even be some of Nie Huaisang’s old clothes, which he’d found himself unable to throw away even after they’d long been outgrown. He’d ultimately ordered them to be stored in hopes of preserving it for the next generation - his son, or maybe his nephew.

The shape of the boy’s face wasn’t remotely Nie, though, so he thought perhaps he might be an orphan or something. Another person his brother had taken in, perhaps, the way he had the blind Xiao Xingchen?

Had his brother been forced to run the sect while he slept? He must have. That had been what Nie Mingjue had always intended for him, wanting his brother’s cool head to guide the next generation, but he had not thought that it would be so soon…he thought he would have time to help guide Nie Huaisang into being sect leader, to ease the way, to show him how things were done and what was important. To let him become the wonderful sect leader Nie Mingjue had always been sure he would be, the one their sect deserved –

He’d wanted to make the transition less abrupt than his own elevation to the position at his father’s death, to make sure the position of sect leader didn’t consume Nie Huaisang as it had Nie Mingjue, who didn’t have any hobbies or pastimes except for spoiling his little brother, Nie Mingjue who barely remembered what or who he was outside of the work he did.

He’d wanted to leave Nie Huaisang to govern their sect through a world of peace, not war.

Clearly he’d failed.

Despite these gloomy thoughts of his, he tried to smile at the child. “Hello,” he said. “Your name is – A-Song?”

The child nodded, edging closer – closer, but not too close, and the reason for his hesitation was clearly, upon further inspection, that he didn’t want to cross over onto the lines of the complicated array painted onto the ground around the bed. Nie Mingjue hadn’t seen it before, and he didn’t recognize it.

“What’s that for?” he asked, nodding at the softly glowing lines, which he could feel were full of spiritual power.

“It’s to make you feel better,” A-Song answered promptly in the know-it-all tone of a child who had clearly asked a similar question in the past. “Nie-er-ge repaints it all by himself every week, Xiao-gege helps keep it running, and I help, too!”

“You do?”

“Yeah! I’m the – the – I make it less boring!”

“Ah, I see! You’re the entertainment? That’s a very important job.”

A-Song nodded so rapidly that Nie Mingjue was slightly worried his head would come tumbling off his shoulders, and he had to suppress a smile at the sight. He’d always liked children, and this one seemed…strangely familiar, for all that Nie Mingjue was sure A-Song wasn’t a Nie.

“What’s your surname?” he asked, and A-Song frowned, scuffling one foot behind the other. “Don’t you know?”

“I know!” A-Song exclaimed. “It’s Jin! I’m Jin Rusong!”

Nie Mingjue could feel his eyes going wide in surprise, surprise and even shock that stabbed deeply into him. Ru- was the next generation’s name for the Jin sect, following after Zi- for the current generation and Guang- for the previous one – there had been much discussion of that towards the end of the last war, as it had been a clear insult framed as a compliment when Meng Yao had been offered the name of Jin Guangyao so shorty after the Nightless City.

Meng Yao -

The Nightless City, Wen Ruohan, Meng Yao…

Nie Mingjue remembered.

How could he not? In his memory, it had been only a few weeks before.

They had been mopping things up in the aftermath of Wen Ruohan’s death, and Nie Mingjue had been absent without leave from the medical tent more often than not, unable to refuse the calling of his duty even though his health (and any number of his subordinates) demanded he rest and recover. It hadn’t been easy: his mind had still been fuzzy from the aftereffects of the torment he’d suffered in and after Yangquan, the torture on the way to Wen Ruohan’s palace and again within it. The dizziness had impeded his ability to work, causing him to lose track of time or to grow abruptly distant and forgetful.

At the time, it had seemed that everything he remembered was unreliable – he’d thought, at first, that Meng Yao had done certain terrible things while he was in the Sun Palace, truly terrible and unforgivable things, the sorts of things that would make Nie Mingjue obligated to denounce him and Meng Yao worthy only of execution no matter what his good deeds might have been. But Meng Yao had said he was misremembering, that it hadn’t happened that way at all, that his mind was damaged from the torture and the fight with Wen Ruohan, and Lan Xichen had vouched for Meng Yao with all sincerity.

Nie Mingjue hadn’t been sure at first, had been so certain that he was right, that he remembered correctly and that Meng Yao was simply lying to him, but they had both seemed so sincere…and in the end Nie Mingjue hadn’t really wanted to believe that Meng Yao would do things like that anyway. He hadn’t wanted to think that someone he trusted would do that, that he’d so misjudged him. And that had made it – not easy, no, but it had made it make sense to accept their version of events over his own, even if it made him sick and anxious to think that his mind was so unreliable and untrustworthy.

Still, accepting it had meant that Nie Mingjue could agree to swear brotherhood with Lan Xichen and Meng Yao, as they both wanted so very much. It meant he could congratulate Meng Yao when he received the letter indicating that he would soon be his father’s recognition and the name Jin Guangyao. It meant that he could invite him to dinner at his camp to raise a glass together in honor of his accomplishment, to wish him good fortune and the best of luck for his new life.

It meant that when, in the middle of their dinner together, the wonderful news came that Nie Fengjun and Nie Xiaopeng had survived their injuries at the Nightless City, the ones that had kept them bedridden for so long getting infusions of spiritual energy and being fed drugs to keep them asleep so that they didn’t tear their throats open again by trying to talk, he could smile at Meng Yao – no, Jin Guangyao, he had tried very hard to remember to call him that and had still mostly failed – and tell him with joy that there were two deaths he no longer had on his conscience.

He could ask him to wait a while when he went to talk to them, promising to return soon.

It meant that he could take a few steps towards the door, Baxia far away on her stand and not in his hand, his back unguarded against the man who had sworn before all the world to be his brother.

It meant that he could feel the cold string of the garotte when it settled over his throat and pulled tight, cutting off his air – that he could hear the humming of a Lan battle-song in his ear, the spiritual energy that he had been freely sharing with Meng Yao only moments before suddenly turned against him and starting to riot inside of him – the weakness inherent in his blood, the ancestral Nie tendency towards qi deviation, abruptly pressed upon and galvanized from within –

If you yell, the first person through the door will be your brother and I will gut him like a fish, Meng Yao had hissed in his ear, and Nie Mingjue had stopped struggling for just a moment, horrified by the thought.

Horrified at being attacked by someone who knew his most dangerous weaknesses.

By someone he trusted.

The pause had been a mistake, of course. There’d been poison on the garrote, he thought, and the battle song and his rioting qi had let it in easier than it might have otherwise.

Meng Yao really was a perfect assassin.

But why me, why now, I don’t want to go so soon, I haven’t even had a chance to live yet, he remembered thinking, more fear and hurt than anger, and then there was nothing but darkness.

And now –

And now there was a child called Ru-, the next generation down from Zi-, and he was already two or three of age.

“How long have I slept?” he demanded, struggling to sit up. “How long has it been? Huaisang!”

How long have I abandoned you?

Xiao Xingchen ran back into the room not long after, looking horrified by Nie Mingjue’s burst of temper, pointless and impotent as it was. “Sect Leader Nie, please calm yourself,” he exclaimed. “I’ve already sent word out, and I’m sure your brother will be here soon. Please, stop moving – don’t damage the array…!”

Nie Mingjue forced himself to calm, his fingers digging into the bedding as he fought to control his temper –

Now is not the time.

– but he finally managed with a few deep breaths to stop feeling as if he was drowning in dark thoughts, in fears, in horror at himself and what he had inadvertently allowed, at what he had lost.

A few breaths later, and he stopped struggling.

At that point, it occurred to him that something was strange.

Based on his experience with being injured, and with his warlike sect he had plenty of that, Nie Mingjue would have expected that a fit like the one he had just had would have meant that he’d be swarmed by doctors. That was what was usual for this sort of situations, a giant bevy of doctors always just a few steps away, standing at the ready to force opinions down his throat about what he should and shouldn’t be doing – that had been what it had been like with his father, at least at first, and then later on it had been something he had been forced to accustom himself to as sect leader.

(First rule of being sect leader: don’t get knocked unconscious if at all possible. Not because the sect won’t manage without you, but because you’ll have to deal with doctors fussing at you for ages thereafter.)

Strangely enough, though, this time the doctors didn’t come. It was only Xiao Xingchen, dropping down to survey the array with his fingers, murmuring and infusing it with bright and pure spiritual energy that Nie Mingjue could feel soaking into his meridians, into his bones and muscles and bones.

Presumably this was the reason his body had not atrophied, in the – it must have been years since he –

He took another deep breath.

“Forgive me,” he said to Xiao Xingchen, and then again to Jin Rusong, who was hiding behind something. “I did not mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine,” Jin Rusong said with a great deal of grace, and probably too much equanimity for someone his age. “I don’t mind. It happens.”

To so easily disregard such a show of temper suggested that the boy had either had a hard early life or very calm parents, or maybe both. Nie Mingjue did not like to think of it, although he himself had been quickly inured to such things, after his father…

Best not to think about that. Best not to think about how it might have – what might have happened to him, after Meng Yao’s surprise attack.

(He hoped that he had succumbed to the poison or the suffocation instead of the qi deviation, since Baxia had, he hoped, remained intact; he could not be sure of it, since the assassin had been Meng Yao, who had known how best to hurt him. He hoped that he did not linger - did not lose himself to rage - did not have to be put down - that Nie Huaisang had not had to make the choices he himself had long ago had to make.)

“You didn’t call for any doctors?” Nie Mingjue asked Xiao Xingchen, trying not to think about those foul memories and the dark suspicions that swirled in his mind.

“I have some medical skills,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Not…many, and not as many as I used to have, but some, if you’d like me to check you over?”

“I’m not concerned for me,” Nie Mingjue said, rolling his eyes. He’d propped himself up against the headboard, an activity that had drained most of his remaining energy. “I’m just – why didn’t you call any doctors?”

“Ah,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I see.”

“I’m glad that you understand,” Nie Mingjue said, eliding to mention the matter of sight. They were not on such familiar terms that he could make a joke over it, and it was clear from Xiao Xingchen’s occasional if very graceful clumsiness that the blindness was new. “Would you also like to elaborate?”

“Sect Leader Nie is off-limits to anyone without permission to enter,” Xiao Xingchen said, folding his hands in front of him. “Especially in the event that you wake up.”

“I understand,” Nie Mingjue said, and he did.

He had had some time to think about what had happened to him back then, about the timing of those two survivors from the Nightless City waking up and Meng Yao’s sudden attack – he still didn’t have any answers, didn’t understand why Meng Yao turned against him so suddenly, but he had his suspicions.

Suspicions - and regrets.

If he hadn’t chosen to believe Meng Yao over the evidence of his own eyes and ears, would he have ended up like this, leaving Nie Huaisang alone for years on end?

There wasn’t any point to that line of thinking, though. Might as well say that if Nie Mingjue hadn’t been conditioned for years and years by his sect to have a mortal fear of his own qi, filling him with terror that one day he would become like his father – sick, with a mind full of hallucinations tormenting him and leading him astray – then maybe he wouldn’t have been so ready to disregard his own perception in favor of another’s, and of course there was no one to blame for that.

“Your brother will be here soon,” Xiao Xingchen said. “And once he is, I’m sure he’ll want the doctors to look you over. It’s only, you understand, without him to supervise, he doesn’t – he –”

“He doesn’t trust anyone,” Nie Mingjue said, and felt a pang of grief. Nie Huaisang had always trusted more readily than he had, the extroverted younger brother to his introverted and even misanthropic elder. The differences between them had in large part been caused by Nie Mingjue’s elevation to sect leader – too soon, too fast – and the discomfort and distance that created between him and those he thought had been his friends. And now, to his regret, the position would have done its work on Nie Huaisang as well. “I understand.”

“I’m not sure if you do,” Xiao Xingchen said. “He trusts – quite a few people, I’d say. There’s his people in the sect, of course, his cousins and deputies and all that, but he’s also on very good terms with quite a lot of the cultivation world: Sandu Shengshou, Yiling Laozu, Zewu-jun, Hanguang-jun…almost all the important people, really.”

Nie Mingjue noted the absence of Jin Guangyao’s name or title.

Good.

“It’s just – you’re very important to him. More than you might think.”

“I raised him,” Nie Mingjue said. “From the time he was a child, he was my only family. The only things I had in life were my sect and him, and even my sect I wouldn’t have placed above him, and he knew it – I think I understand my importance to him. It’s the same for me, with him.”

“Perhaps,” Xiao Xingchen said, looking wistful. “Perhaps. That does explain rather a lot, I think.”

Nie Mingjue made himself more comfortable. “Who’s the child?” he asked. “He said he was surnamed Jin, but I assume the Jin sect is who we’re at war with?”

“You’re very perceptive,” Xiao Xingchen remarked. “How did you know?”

“The seeds of a new war can be found in the end of the last one,” Nie Mingjue said. “It would have always been the Jin sect. I’m surprised that it actually came to a head so soon, that’s all – they’ve always preferred being subtle and sly, politicking to outright fighting. I wouldn’t have thought they’d declare open war.”

“Why do you assume they were the ones who’d declare war?”

Because of who was left behind, Nie Mingjue thought. Lan Xichen who tries to see the good in everyone, Jiang Cheng who is insecure about what he can and cannot be, Wei Wuxian with his armies of the dead that he so very clearly never wanted…and my brother, who knows better.

My brother, who loves peace and hates war the way only a child born into the thick of it would; my brother, who’s so terribly clever underneath all his laziness; my brother who knows that war is fought as much in the hearts of men as on the battlefield –

No, he wouldn’t be the one to declare war.

Not even for me.

“Weren’t they?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Although in fairness, they were provoked.”

Nie Mingjue was sure they were. His brother, probably, or maybe Wei Wuxian – they were good at provocation. They could find something that even the Jin sect couldn’t tolerate.

From the way Xiao Xingchen turned his head towards Jin Rusong, an instinctive gesture for all that he couldn’t see the boy, it might have something to do with him. A small child surnamed Jin, and yet embarrassed to admit it…there was a story there that he would eventually need to learn.

Just as he would eventually need to ask the practical questions – questions like who’s leading the war effort, since Jiang Cheng was good at battle but shit at strategy, Wei Wuxian who was too reckless and reliant on flashy tactics that wore him out, Lan Xichen who was better as a courier than a general, Lan Wangji who was too independent, a lone wolf who’d never learned how to compromise enough to join a team, how are we paying for it, the eternal question of supply even more critical for three weakened Great Sects when set against the richest of them all, and of course how can I help.

But he was tired, and did not ask. He would gather the energy for war later.

For now, he would be satisfied with something simpler, more straightforward: his brother’s well-being, confirmed not merely with words but by his own eyes, which he really ought to learn to trust.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before there was a noise outside the door, and Xiao Xingchen brightened in evident relief. “He’s here! A-Song, come with me, come say hello –”

They went out, and a moment later, the door opened and Nie Huaisang walked in.

Attuned as Nie Mingjue was to movement, that was the first thing he noticed: that his brother walked differently than he had before. It was more purposeful, striding rather than ambling, sharp, with as little wasted movement as possible – angry, always angry, but contained. It was not at all what he thought of when he thought of Nie Huaisang, who was usually more aimless and carefree, limbs tumbling everywhere; it was far more similar to the way Nie Mingjue used to carry himself, seemingly relaxed but in fact on guard against the world at all moments.

Nie Huaisang’s face, too, was different than Nie Mingjue remembered it being: it was thinner, sharper than it had been, with narrowed eyes and lips pressed together, his whole demeanor distrusting and forbidding. The last bits of baby fat had melted away, taking with it the impression of softness and tenderness that he had once exuded, the lazy and indolent air that had made him seem younger than he was.

No longer was he the feckless young man the Nie Mingjue had so carefully protected from the horrors of the world, and the thought sent a pang of pain through Nie Mingjue’s heart.

And yet, when Nie Huaisang walked into the room, looking irritated and exhausted, and his gaze fell upon the bed where Nie Mingjue had lain for longer than he cared to think about, when he saw Nie Mingjue propped up and awake, when their eyes met for the first time –

It all melted away, the child he had held in his hands abruptly recognizable once more.

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang wailed, and threw himself forward into Nie Mingjue’s waiting arms, heedless of the array that Xiao Xingchen has so worried himself over, heedless of the shocked expression on both Xiao Xingchen and Jin Rusong’s faces, heedless any residual injuries in his urgency. “Da-ge!”

All the questions Nie Mingjue had, and he had a lot – who is the Pallbearer what is the war who is fighting who have we lost what happened to me what happened to you – dashed out of his head at once.

There was only one question that mattered – are you safe – and the answer to that was in his arms. He clutched his baby brother to his chest with all his greatly diminished strength, tears springing to his eyes just as they filled Nie Huaisang’s, and they wept with joy to see each other again.

It’s time. At last.

#mdzs #nie mingjue #xiao xingchen #nie huaisang #jin rusong #my fic #my fics #unfettered

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all-good-things-dot-dot-dot · 4 years ago

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All Good Things… The Good With the Bad.

All Good Things… The Good With the Bad. #Blog #Bloggerstribe #AllGoodThings… 24th June 2020 Hello, Chaps and Chapettes,

(Source: https://www.keengamer.com/articles/guides/list-of-common-fallout-4-pc-errors-and-how-to-fix-them/ ) It might have seemed like I stopped for a little bit there, huh? In actual fact, I have still been writing, but more or less in the background rather than doing a full-on post like this. Does that mean I’ve been “neglecting my duties” or “forgetting the challenge” I set myself to write for thirty minutes a day? Well, sort of. I cannot lie. Let’s see if we can analyze what happened here and correct the error, shall we? The main hiccup was actually on Friday where I did not write anything at all. I did end up writing that blog on Saturday and followed it up with the actual Saturday blog which I wrote and posted on Sunday, but by then I was already going back on several guidelines that I’d set myself. The first was to ensure that I wrote thirty minutes a day, this was missed on Friday, and the second was to have a break on Sunday.

I’ll come back to Friday in a bit and how I’ll resolve that in the future but I also want to talk about why Monday and Tuesday also didn’t happen. Monday was an oddly exhausting day. The heat has been creeping up this week, today being the hottest so far, but Monday was still cool. I had to take a nap after work and then when I did sit down to write, what I wanted to write was not one of these. Instead, I wanted to work on “Scoundrels”, a story about colorful ponies living in apocalyptic times. They swear, take drugs, shoot guns, it’s fun to write. The reason I wanted to write that, was because on Tuesday I attended an online workshop by a fellow writer who goes by the codename “Somber”. I know there’s non-bronies who read this on my Tumblr so, to summarise, they wrote a particularly famous FanFiction called “Fallout Equestria; Project Horizons”, millions of peeps have read it. It’s also a spin-off from an equally successful story called “Fallout: Equestria” (written by another fanfiction writer, KKat). Somber has a background teaching English so a class on Creative Writing was practically extra studies for my university course!

(Art by me, see https://derpibooru.org/images/2200843 )

The workshop was brilliant. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to workshop my story as we ran out of time but I didn’t feel too down about this. I made friends with a few other fellow writers and so could happily learn and share ideas with them. This ran on quite late and by the time it had ended, the clock was telling me I wouldn’t wake up for work if I didn’t attempt to sleep. That, neatly, leads me to today. As you can see, although I’ve had a busy day of work, walking to and from the shops and watching “Game Night” with my brother, I still managed to find the time to write this. That’s because tonight I had the time. That’s important. Friday, the time wasn’t there. I had to be there for a friend who was in need and since my chat, I have it on good authority that their life is looking up. Sunday was father’s day and I wanted to see both dad and stepdad, which I accomplished. Both men had a great day and felt loved, which was another mission accomplished. Sunday night was blitzed by a migraine and it took two paracetamol two hours to put those fires in my brain out. Monday, as said, was a very tiring day. But I also spent time writing something, even if it wasn’t this. So there was still something completed by the close of the day. Tuesday, there was work, I had my mother pop over for something, I had to cook dinner, and despite all of this still managed to make Somber’s workshop and find writing allies. Do you see where I’m going with this? Basically, just because you don’t get done what you wanted to do, do not look at it as a wasted day. Even a rest day is a success, so long as it is used to let you prepare for some harder work ahead. You are not failing if you didn’t hit that word count, or forgot to do something you wanted to do, or missed that walk to slim down the spare tractor tyre your gut has become. Even little accomplishments are still a win in the grand scheme of things and believe me they make all the difference. And sometimes, if someone you know, care about, or love is in need of you, then you should down tools to help them. Let me reiterate that it should be somebody you care about or at least someone who will return the favor along the line. There are people, even family, who can be a drain on your time, resources, and energy. I learned that the hard way last week (see my blog about bullies). Follow your head in these instances, especially if it is aligned with your heart. Most of all, I want you to take this away with you. Did you wake up today? Do you know how many didn’t get out of bed? Pulled a sickie? Or gave up? You didn’t so in that sense you’re already winning. Now go treat yourself to some cake, champ, you earned it. Stay safe, stay happy. All good things, Love, Scaramouche. X Oh, eerrrr, still here? Okay, let me square with you. Thirty mins just ran out but I wanted to include this; I am writing a spin-off of that “Fallout: Equestria,” series too, as I mentioned, called “Scoundrels”. I did have a lot of the story already up in my FIMFiction library, but I have unpublished it. Here are my reasons; I didn’t like how confusing it was. It felt like it started in the middle of a story. I had made choices as a writer that took the story in some strange directions. I made the plot too complicated. I made some of the good characters unlikeable. I made it too long while not much/ too much happened. So, I am holding onto what I wrote. I want to rewrite it, so that story that you may or may not have read does still exist and isn’t a waste of time, it just needs surgery. When it’s ready, you’ll be able to see it again. Until then, here’s a sneak peek at “Scoundrels”, the ponies of the apocalypse story I will be writing, have edited and polished before I publish it as fanfiction. Enjoy!

(Artist: Brainiac - see https://derpibooru.org/profiles/Brainiac ) ~ Scoundrels Written by Scaramouche “War,” a voice, masculine and gravelly, haunted my hangover. “War never changes.” It wasn’t much, but it was enough to stir me from where I’d attempted to make my early grave. My snout had the telltale feeling you got when you accidentally snorted water while submerged in a pool... Or hit too much Dash. I pushed my hooves out around me before my eyes were able to open and felt tiny canisters rattle away from me wherever I moved. My ribs hurt, telling me I hadn’t found a nice or even barely comfortable place to flop. The information fed back to me from all my senses came to the conclusion that I’d bucked up again. Daring to wake, I cracked my eyes open for as long as I could muster and fluttered the lids ‘til I could make out the shapes of a flickering square of light in the night-time room. Black and white images flashed through the screen of ponies dressed in armor and uniforms, those in the foreground attempting an escape with their wounded while the “best and bravest” continued to fight, to injure, to die. The image changed to Wonderbolts tearing over a coal cloud that once belonged to a shining city. I realized it was Manehattan, the place I’d hailed from. I knew from the shadow of a building topped with a huge pony head choking on the fumes. The Pegasi just seemed like haunting crows over that havoc. After the Manehattan skyline lingered for a few seconds, it switched to a shot taken behind ponies hiding from the invisible foe in a shady tunnel. Their silhouettes were huddled and perpetually expecting the worst of what was to come. Image after image along with the low, tedious voice seemed to mingle with the throbbing headache I’d gained. It reminded me that as gloomy as these images were, they were only the precursor for the apocalyptic times that came after them. I watched, laid lazily on my side among spent stims I’d used to forget the woes of the new world. I couldn’t help thinking that those dumb saps who had lived nearly a hundred years ago never knew how lucky they were. They could still trust the folks either side of them and that was more than could be said for most ponies this side of a century. “... But out of the devastation that arose from the wars, a few were able to reach stables that could house and shield them underground.” The narrator of the scenes kept going with his spiel regardless of whether I was listening or not. I looked about, but it quickly became apparent to me that the voice was just that. A recording from a stallion no doubts long gone now. There was nopony else in the place but for me that I could see. Nonetheless, he persisted. “Your family was part of that group and took refuge in Stable Thirteen.” On-screen, a snap of the giant cog that had once locked up this subterranean vault could be seen. “No, they weren’t, pal,” I grouched, squinting about the area still while battling with some persistently annoying amber locks of mane in my eyes. Something in this place was still trying to live, based on the squealing of a harmed fan spinning in the walls. Thanks to the projection lamp, I could see the tiles that dripped from the ceilings as age and erosion pulled them down. Wires knotted into nooses hung out from the ceiling gaps. Across dirty, rusted floors, the corpses of chairs lay on their sides and backs, stricken by the last unknown executions that had taken place here. Near me and my graveyard of used drug containers, a card crate lay on its side in a beaten state. “You are the first generation born in this stable to have not known the-the-the--” Apparently, I still wasn’t to know what “the” was. Above me, the box that had created this depressing light and sound show for me fizzed, crackled, sparked, then died. All light failed and draped a veil casually over me and space. Yet, this wasn’t as terrifying to me as might have been to somepony else. I sighed, relaxed, and let the gentle black patch encourage my head to heal. The festering stable was dead, the complaining sounds of the vents now a memory, and it was good. It was calming. I could maybe forget everything and fall back into a graceful slumber with it. After all, a ship in the harbor is a ship that’s safe... Of course, fate intervened. “Breeze! Breeze, where are you?” The voice was distant, but it was growing closer. “Gypsy Breeze, I swear on the spirit of Celestia, if you don’t get your ass into gear…” Fresh, battery-powered light began to dawn around the edges of the forever-open doorway into the corridors, confirming that the calling, living voice wasn’t far from finding me. “Buck,” I grunted to myself and pushed back the pain sloshing side to side in my cranium. I had to get myself up before they found me and the evidence littered around me. My legs complained but lifted me, allowing me to stand and let my brain cease paddling about in my skull. I swung a hoof out, brought it down, then my face immediately met the oxidized floor once more as a giggling Dash inhaler tripped me and twirled away. “Breeze?” They’d heard my tumble. “Buck,” I hissed painfully and scrambled back up, firing up a spell. I knew the caller in the halls would see the light but hoped I’d be quick enough. Despite the magic throbbing behind my junked-out eyes, I gathered all the emptied Dash I could see in the enchanted light. Catching as many as I could levitate, I shoved them into the deteriorated box, managing to slip the last of them away when a blinding orb swung through the door. I covered my bleary eyes and snarled out at a feeling only a vampire pony in the baking sun would understand. “Gypsy!” The dazzling sprite squeaked. “That’s my name— Buck, Hayfever, could you drop the light of that thing? My bucking eyes are about to explode…” mercifully, the beam lowered to ground level, allowing me to partially see the mare I knew behind it. Her sunset orange wings were spread in preparation to once more admonish me while the expression on the pegasus remained concerned. “You split from me again, Breeze. Ottawa said this stable is particularly dangerous, we shouldn’t be going off alone when--” “Ottawa was wrong,” I skulked somehow towards the door and waved my hoof back the way she’d come from. “I caught a terminal back up that way and… I dunno, something about the water talisman failing? Either way, the pony meant to fix it shuffled out the main door, and never came back. After that, the rest of the dwellers overthrew the overstallion and let themselves out of their own accord. Probably likely that nopony’s been here since.” If I’d have sounded more sure of myself in that last comment, I might not have seen doubt spread across her freckled, gold-lit face. “No, somepony has been here before us,” she suggested, “I found the mattresses pulled out of their rooms and laid together in the atrium. There was waste and broken gear that could only have come from outside too. Could be scavs, could be raiders, either way, we don’t want to take our chances.” “It could have easily been the Stable Thirteen ponies too,” I countered, “especially if they were going back and forth in and out of here, not wanting to--” I interrupted myself, as a false step kicked something, which ricocheted off of the metal wall and swirled unfortunately into the light of Hayfever’s torch. It only took her a second to realize what it was and I was already cringing guiltily when the light raised back accusingly at me. “Gypsy Breeze, you silly mare,” she scolded as well as any experienced mother could, “Using? Again? I thought you were beating this.” “It’s not mine,” I played the part of a lying teenager as best as I could, “it’s from those raiders you were bitching about--” “Oh, so now we believe in the raiders?” She had another quick examination of the inhaler and sighed, ruffling her wings in irritation as she walked past me, ensuring her hoofsteps echoed her annoyance. “When I agreed to hide your troubles from the rest of Helping Hooves, it was on the promise that you were going to make an effort to quit from them. Not so that you could privately indulge in the stuff.” She collected my saddlebag, discarded on a spineless chair, and was about to toss it to me when she had second thoughts. At my protests, she flipped the flap open first and rifled through up, digging out what she had expected to find almost instantly. Five more full inhalators of Dash were plucked out and tossed into the void of the room before she was comfortable returning my near-empty sack to me. “I’m not doing it to be an ass to you, Gypsy,” she said as I mournfully took the bag and slipped it back on. “As mayor of Helping Hooves I have a duty to look out for everypony and that includes you. But if you’re going to endanger lives this way, I’ll have no choice but…” I waited for what kind of penalty she’d place on me. Yet, all she could do was gaze at me, not mad, just disappointed. I gave a low groan, both out of the pain of coming down and the guilt of letting down a mare who was just looking out for my best interests. “Can we just get out of here?” I pleaded, “the air in here is making me feel sick.” “You sure it’s just the air?” She thrust a hoof forward, directing me on the way to head next. “But you’re right. Let’s just get the spark batteries Ottawa needs and high-tail it out of here…” To be continued...

(Source: https://thegeek.games/2020/03/24/fallout-3-war-war-never-changes-retro-2008/ )

#fallout #blog #writing #challenge #brony #equestria #my little pony #friendship #new vegas

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poptarts-and-rainbows · 7 years ago

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It’s been 96 hours.

Personal story/venting time. I’m trying to get sober.

I don’t have any friends where I’m located- which is my own fault, I have a tendency to isolate myself while I warm up to new environments enough to feel comfortable talking to people (and I’m moving again in a couple months, so I honestly don’t really even see the point in going through the effort of getting to know people and learning to care about them, just to leave and have to say goodbye and hurt again in March).

Plus, I’ve been spiraling for a bit, so the couple of long-distance friends that I *can* talk to about things are probably starting to get sick of my drama. The last few weeks have been especially difficult and they’ve had to help me a lot. Not to mention, the one is on vacation in Vegas right now and the other is hanging out with her boyfriend tonight, and I don’t want to bother her.

So… here I am, screaming into the void of Tumblr again.

I’ll keep all other details under the cut because it’s kind of a lot, and most people won’t care or want to see this all over their dash.

Anyway. I’ve had a problem with drinking for… close to the last 9 (ish) years. The first couple of years weren’t actually problematic levels, but that’s when I first learned I love the burn of alcohol. Especially vodka. Before I could purchase my own supply I didn’t really drink all of that often- it was just hard to get my hands on and I hadn’t learned how to function during a hangover yet, so one good binge could keep me tied over for a while, back before I finally turned 21.

Then, as it goes, things got progressively worse. I developed a severe problem quite rapidly. Honestly… it started almost immediately. I guess it was always just waiting.

The weekend of my 21st birthday, the very first time I legally went to a bar, I nearly died- Trexx. I didn’t know it at the time, but my friends were trying to get me to come out, so they took me to the best gay bar in all of Syracuse. Plus, Thursday nights? College night. Buy one get one free, all night, and the best Drag Show I’ve ever seen (I’ve been to a few since then- in different States and in other countries).

My birthday was on a Monday that year. That night I went out to a restaurant and my friend bought me a beer with dinner- but liquor has always been my vice (although I did foray into the world of wine for a while, as it is more socially acceptable to be a wino than drink a bottle of vodka alone), so I sipped politely on my glass of Blue Moon and just bid my time until Thursday.

When Thursday finally came, not only did I throw back 18 drinks in about four hours, my dumb drunk-ass barricaded myself in the bathroom stall (of which there were only two) to throw up, and then drifted in/out of consciousness for several minutes. With there only being two stalls, people noticed- and it was actually one of the Drag Queens got me out.

I couldn’t even see clearly when I opened my eyes, but I recognized her green wig. I’d spoken to her earlier in the night, one of my friends was a “Townie” (born and raised in Syracuse, but also going to the school) and knew her, and she’d bought me a drink in celebration of my big day, and gave me the chip for the second free drink too. When she helped pull me to my feet, she called me sweetie and asked if I was ok. I brushed the concern off with an easy smile and told her I would go look for my friends- she let me go.

When I went into the main room, the bouncer did not. I guess I was obviously out of it. I was probably stumbling and about to pass out, or puke right there on the floor. I still couldn’t see anything, but I still remember hearing him say “this one is done” and feeling him grab my shoulders. The next thing I knew, I was outside on my hands and knees in the snow. I wanted to just lay down, but I kept thinking “I’m right in front of the door. If I stay here, I’ll be in the way and people will step on me.”

So I got up, wearing nothing but flats, skinny jeans, and a t-shirt, in the middle of winter in Upstate New York, and stumbled down the road. I found a stoop about a block away and sat down. I threw up over the guard rail and stayed there until the bar was closing, about two hours later. People had passed by pretty consistently, a few had asked if I was ok- but, because I couldn’t talk, I would just hold up my thumb and they would keep moving. One group, at closing time, stopped and asked if I want to Syracuse University- I nodded, they said they would take me back to campus, and I reluctantly agreed. I couldn’t stop shivering. Then one of the girls in the group recognized me, I had pink streaks in my hair at the time and we’d also met earlier that night through my Townie friend, so she went back inside to get my friends who had been freaking out for hours. I made it home fine, but I missed all of my classes the next day and threw up until Monday.

That was just the beginning. My first real introduction ended in disaster, but it didn’t stop me.

I was recovered by the next weekend and did it again. Then again… and again. I learned not to wander off, but I always drank hard and fast. I didn’t even make it to my 22nd birthday before I had friends telling me they were worried. That summer, my mom gave me a book about drinking too much (”Smashed”). The author actually also went to Syracuse. I skimmed it with mild interest, but she started drinking when was 14. I was an adult. What I did was legal, and nothing really bad had ever really happened. I was fine.

The next semester began and I got better at hiding it. I bought bottles and drank, secretly, in my room when I was supposed to be studying- it was cheaper than going out anyways, and nobody else had to know. When my friends and I did go out, I would split off “to meet another group” after so I could go get obliterated at the bar closest to my apartment, without worrying anybody. It was college, anyways. Land of keg stands and unlimited beer pong. Everyone did it, I was fine.

Right before my 23rd birthday, I joined the Army. During the first 8 weeks (Basic Training), there was no alcohol. Hell, we were excited when we were allowed to have chocolate milk! Through that time, I didn’t miss drinking- but, it was mostly because they literally worked us to exhaustion every single day. There was no time to miss it.

After Basic, we left to our Advanced Individual Training locations (technical training), but we still lived under a lot of rules. We could earn different privileges/freedoms, but we still technically weren’t supposed to drink, but it didn’t take long for the people who earned the right to leave base early in our training cycle to start coming back to us with stories of bars, parties, and getting wasted.

By that time, I was close to 3 months sober- and I hadn’t even had to try! I didn’t crave it right away, but they reminded me it existed. I didn’t earn my off-post privileges for a while, so I had one of my friends smuggle me back a bottle of vodka in a jug of orange juice as soon as I could- and, oh god, the first familiar burn of that liquor… it felt like going home. Getting my friends who were allowed off base to bring me back alcohol was harder than getting older students to buy it for me when I was a Freshman, though, so I was still fine.

Once we graduated and all joined the “Real” Army, however, those restrictions were gone. When I was off duty, nobody cared what I did (drinking-wise), as long as I was back by morning and able to do my job.

In the beginning, I was still new to the Army. I was still scared of everyone, this whole new world I lived it, and I desperately wanted to make a good impression. So I only drank on the weekends, Friday and Saturday nights, like a sensible person.

Did I still drink excessively those two nights a week, loosing track of how many shots I had after eight or nine? Did I eventually start finishing a whole bottle of vodka in a single weekend, alone? Yeah… and then that bottle became one and a half. Then I started to chase my hard liquor with wine coolers. Eventually, two nights weren’t enough. I started throwing Wednesday night in to the mix, too- it was middle of the week, after all! It was just to get my through to the weekend. Then it was any night I knew I didn’t have to run the next morning, because running while you’re hung over really sucks (and when you sweat it smells like straight liquor, and other people know). Then I stopped even caring about that.

There were months, on and off, that weren’t so bad, of course. I either just, naturally, didn’t feel like drinking during those times, or our training schedule was just too intensive. When things got bad, my roommate and some of my closer friends would periodically express concern, so I would back off. I wouldn’t drink for a few nights in a row, keep it on the down low during the week, sip on more water between shots during the next couple of weekends, and learn to throw up quieter in the bathroom- until people stopped looking so closely again, because people only see what they want to see. Then the cycle would start over.

It’s the Army, though. Just like college- most of us drink, and more than we should. It’s part of the culture! It’s what is expect from us and among us. With the company I kept… occasionally there was concern, yes, but most of them weren’t much better off than me. I was still fine.

Until I wasn’t.

Last year happened- and… I’d lost my best friend (tag: “Dear A”). I couldn’t sleep. I could barely function. I hid in the bathroom and cried at work. I had headaches all of the time experienced the second most severe depressive episode of my life. I didn’t know what to do, I was alone in the beginning there too, so I turned to alcohol- the solace that was always there for me, that was never too busy, or left, the thing that could make me forget how much everything hurt- and things started to get out of control, more so than ever before.

At first it was excused, laughed off- the military drinks. In Korea we drink more. I was expected to be sloppy at first, but I never found my groove. I started ignoring my limits. I put myself in dangerous situations, and things did happen there. I blacked out more often than not. Sometimes I couldn’t even find my room. I would fall, get hurt, and not remember how it happened. I even chipped my front tooth. I spent more than one morning puking at work, for hours. My supervisor had to peel me off my floor and roll me onto my side on more than one occasion. I was sent to the hospital three times. Eventually, I was given an ultimatum- get my shit together, or be forced to see professionals. I got my shit together. For a while.

My last couple of weeks in Korea passed without any incident anyone else knew about. I still drank, but it was like before, when I could manage it and keep it to myself. I did it quietly, and nobody knew the difference.

I got to Kentucky in the beginning of June- it’s been full two months, and in those two months months, I have literally spent more days drunk than I have spent sober. Not a drink or two after work, not pleasantly buzzed, but drunk. It’s been mostly harmless, I don’t leave my room. I’ve cried a bit, slept on my kitchen floor a couple of times, and have had to make a few phone calls to be talked off the ledge on a few separate nights, but mostly… I still thought I was fine.

Then drinking every day, it became- “hey, I woke up still drunk this morning, I’m going to have one shot- just one- before work.” Then that shot had to be a double instead, of course, because what’s one shot really going to do for me? I drove to work, without incident (“this actually isn’t that hard”), drove back home for lunch. Three more shots, no food. Go back to work. Pick up a new bottle when I was on my way home at the end of the day. Drink until I pass out. Repeat.

Last Friday, while blacked out, I apparently stumbled my way out of my room and towards the parking lot- some people who work in the same office building as me saw and asked what I was doing. According to them, I said I was going to get my cigarettes from my car- but because I could barely stand up straight, they sat me down and gave me some of theirs instead, and then made sure I got back to my room safe. The thing is, I didn’t have any cigarettes in my car. I had run out Thursday night, and knew that before I started drinking. Which meant, I had planned on driving.

Either this stops, I do better, or something I can’t take back is going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon. I can feel it. Most alcoholics don’t change until they hit rock bottom, I was reading the A.A. site, and I’ve gotten a few books, and that’s what they all say. Alcoholics refuse to admit they have a problem until there is overwhelming evidence that proves differently. They argue they’re fine, that they can do better, that it isn’t really that bad… all things I tell myself too. I don’t want to have to fall that far. I don’t want to mess up my life forever, or end somebody else’s. I don’t want to crash and burn any more than I already have. So far I’ve been lucky. I’ve been given passes I shouldn’t have been, and more time than I deserved to do the right thing.

I’m Irish and Native American. I was practically bred to be an alcoholic. My father is one, he doesn’t have his license anymore because of it. His father was too, and that contributed to his death. I didn’t grow up close to either of them, but their blood is my blood. I grew up with my mother and step-father, though, and he is also an alcoholic. A violent and mean one, and he helped raised me since I was four. Genetic pre-disposition. Turbulent childhood household. Emotional abandonment. Issues with depression and self-worth. I’m text book.

At exactly 12:00am on 1 August 2017, I dumped the last of my vodka down the drain. I have now been dry for almost 96 hours, for 4 days. It’s the longest I’ve been sober in the last 2 months, and I am craving it bad. I miss it. The first day, my stomach and head hurt (long after a hangover would typically start), I broke out in sweat, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I ended up having to pull a 24 hour shift. I slept for 4 hours the morning after, and then was too wound up to sleep at all that night. I’ve managed about 3.5 solid hours a night, since then. I’ve been agitated since I first woke up on the 1st, especially today, I almost threw my phone across the room earlier because I kept hitting the wrong button and it wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do. I had to put it away and take my third shower today, just calm down. I can’t focus. I can’t sit still, my leg is always bouncing, my foot kicking, or fingers tapping. I feel empty and sad. Now, I’m not only lonely for people, I’m lonely for my alcohol too. The holes I’ve always had are still gaping, but now there’s no vodka to fill them.

The thing is… I’ve tried to quit before. I pretend I haven’t. I was once even asked if I had every tried to stop, and I said no. I looked back at all those times and told myself “Well, I wasn’t being serious then. I was just doing it to see how long I could go. There was no actual reason to quit. I only needed a break for a couple weeks. I never said I was going to stop forever.” and I always swore “I’ll do better now. My tolerance is back down a little bit, so I’ll control it better. I’ll just have a few, one or two nights a week.”

I never did, though. Maybe a few weeks would pass where I could drink in moderation, but then I would have a particularly bad Tuesday, or something, and drink an extra night- and, eventually, two shots became three, and then three would stop feeling like three, because my tolerance would come back, and three would become four- and after four, I stop caring that I set a limitation for myself.

Honestly, I don’t think I’m the sort of person who can drink in moderation, and that scares me. I want to be the type of person who can just throw back a couple and still have a good night, maybe have just a glass of wine to relax, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that- if I want to get this under control, I know, rationally, I will have to stop forever. I’m going to have to give up my one constant and reliable comfort. Usually I only make it a few days, usually five, because then the weekend has come again. Sometimes I can resist during the week, but once the weekend comes, and I don’t have work to distract me… it becomes almost impossible. Outside of training, when I literally did not have physical access to alcohol, only one time have I made it to 10.

Today is Day 4. Today is Friday, the night I have consistently been drunk since I’ve come to Kentucky. The cravings are bad. There’s a liquor store about 5 minutes down the road, but I’m laying here and typing this instead. The top of my foot has been knocking against my bed’s headboad for the last hour, and I can feel a bruise forming. I want to say “just one last night of letting go, and I’ll do better after” but I know I won’t.

I know I need to stop, but I don’t want to. There’s a voice in the back of my head that is screaming it’s ok if it kills me, if I drink until I can’t see and end up crashing my car into a tree, or downing a bottle of pills because I just don’t care anymore- but that’s wrong. I know it’s wrong, so I’m trying to stop. I’m pulling at my hair and pacing my room just to get through this, even though I don’t really want to. Drinking might kill me, but this feels like it will. I need to do this, but I feel like I need to do everything myself, or it doesn’t really count as having done it- and I don’t know if I can handle this one.

#terryn talks #personal #story time #tw alcohol #tw alcoholism #tw: alcohol #tw: alcoholsim #alcoholic #tw: alcoholic #alcohol abuse #alcohol recovery #i'm attempting to get sober #i'm sorry #i'm losing my mind #i don't have anyone to talk to #rambling #if anybody would like to offer advice #i'm totally here for it #sobriety

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goingbackthroughthelookingglass · 6 years ago

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12:00PM - Dose Day

Well. I have to say I’m convinced.

Last night was hard. Not in all of the ways that make things obvious, but rather in the subtle ways that you don’t even know you’re doing/are habits until you’re suddenly without them.

So the microdosing schedule I am on consists of a dose day, an after effects day (the day after), and then a “normal” day, followed by another dose day (today actually). I just took 0.2g of mushrooms (via capsule). This is double what I took Sunday. But before we get into that (and while I wait for my stomach to digest the vegetarian capsules) let me tell you about my night last night.

So last night into today is my “normal” day. This is the day, typically, as you’re finding the right amount for your microdosing, that things should feel normal. The problem was, I wasn’t entirely certain if what I did take was really still affecting me. I woke up, got ready for work, and was productive until 1:30am (when I normally get off the road because of drunks and assholes driving and you just never really know who you’re picking up at that time). My night started out pretty normal; I did hit the snooze a bit, but I got out, deep cleaned my car, and got on the road. Most of the rides were good, and I was able to chit chat easily...but as the night wore on I just found myself...irritated.

Not the last ride before my break, but a few before that I picked up this couple. It was just a couple blocks from my house, and I’m sitting there waiting, and this guy, we’ll call him Jake because I honestly don’t remember his name, comes out and is just like “let me set my drink down.” No big, sure whatever. He walks to the other side of my car, there’s some kind of wait, and then he opens up the passenger door behind me, and is like “I’m just gonna say goodbye really quick” closes the door, and walks back around my car to this dark corner that he came from, that I can’t really see. At this point, I’m feeling irritated and that my time is getting wasted. He finally gets back over, sits behind me, and I put my car into drive to drive off. Suddenly, I get this pounding on the back right door, and this chick is like hitting my car so I stop, and she opens the door and is like “I’m going.”

OK. Whatever. The ride is just to Dirty (a sleezy dance club) that’s maybe 5 minutes away, get in so I can drop you guys off and forget you ever existed. Except I can’t. Because they were horrible. The first 2 minutes was them bickering over this guy named Jason, and who he was to her. (Drama) She then asks if she can smoke in my car, and I say no, so she’s like “Rude.” They then are fighting because she originally wasn’t going to come, but now she is, and he’s pissed for some reason (side-slice maybe??) and honestly they’re disrespectful AF and rude as all shit to each other.

She then makes fun of him for being 30. Fam. I literally thought I was picking up 19 year olds for the way these two fuckers were acting. Needless to say, I drop them off, and 1-star them so I don’t ever have to pick them up again.

NEXT RIDE: I pick up this couple from Scandals (a gay bar). We’ll call the guy Seth, he’s the one that ordered the ride. The two get in my car, and something just reads trans about the woman (tall, deeper voice, but gorgeous af, the guy was meh) so I’m just thinking “aww, cute queer couple.” She wants something to eat before going to Holiday Inn (where I just assume they’re staying). But like...there’s something off about Seth. IDK what it is. But my spider senses are tingling. There happens to be a Jack in the Box across the street from the hotel, but of course I have to go through the drive through because it’s that late. I NEVER do drive through rides. Fucking order UberEats. But I was feeling generous, and the woman and I were chatty so sure, whatever. But on the way there, this guy is like...making these really off color jokes. And not in a good way? Like one of them I’m trying to remember the words, but can’t, but basically it’s him joking that he does it bareback (without a condom). STILL assuming this is just some sweet queer couple, we wait forever in the drive thru line, and he’s still making these jokes...like...it’s when you have that friend that tries to copy your mutual funny friend...but doesn’t quite LAND the joke? So it just feels awkward and a little creepy? He says something about “you better order from the dollar menu” and she’s just like “whatever” and orders what she wants, but makes a comment about how her shoes are $600 and if he doesn’t want to pay for a burrito... That is when I realize she is a sex worker, and they’re going to the hotel...well, I don’t have to finish that sentence. But let me tell you...I FEEL SO BAD FOR HER FUCKING THAT SLEEZE!!! So long as she’s a free agent and sex work is what she wants to do, more power to her, but DAMN. After being in that car with that guy for 10 minutes I NEEDED A SHOWER. Barf.

I gave one more ride before taking my break (uneventful) but like the whole time I’m just...annoyed and irritated. And I have no reason for it. I have snacks, I had a good nap, I’m making bank...but I just can’t shake my mood. I come home, and decide to make some soup and have some rustic bread with it...and then I make the MISTAKE. I convince myself I can just close my eyes for like an hour before being back on the road. WRONG. SO WRONG. Big mistake. Big. I wake up at 6 when I was supposed to be back on the road at 4. And the WHOLE TIME I felt weighted and negative and just exhausted (despite sleeping another 5 hours) and heavy. I didn’t want to do anything, was not motivated, and even procrastinated making this post, even though the last couple days I’ve really enjoyed journaling. My anhedonia was beginning to creep back in.

My morning finished with a phone screening appointment for a therapist that I forgot I had, while I had a woman I had just picked up in the back of my car (her car got a flat) because I couldn’t reschedule. I NEVER take calls when I’m on the road. But...at least the woman found out her driver was not contemplating suicide? Though I’m sure she left with questions about who my abusive ex was, and what family issues I might have (since I mentioned both in the call). OH WELL.

So...rolling back around to the first paragraph in this long post. It made me realize what I was feeling leading up to, and then after my nap is my current “normal.” The easy, breezy covergirl feeling I was having these last two days was the mushrooms. The exhaustion, the lack of motivation, the heaviness in my body...that had been gone for the last couple days allowing me to be more me than I have been in a long time. I was no longer smiling. I didn’t want to talk to people. I just wanted to lie down and do nothing, while the days previously I was writing campaign stuff, cleaning, going about daily tasks as if it cost me no spoons. (if you don’t know about spoon theory, you can find it here)

So, now we’re at 12:24pm. The first dose kicked in about 45 minutes to an hour after taking it. I’ve now doubled my dose from 0.1g to 0.2g. I’m taking the rest of the day off to sit and ponder, but I DO need to go get my breaks done this afternoon.

About the pondering: IDK what you believe or don’t but I do somewhat subscribe into the theory of the Law of Attraction. (That link is to the “documentary” about The Secret.) BUT, I don’t believe that that law is something “mystical” (even though I am, myself, a mystic). Rather, I believe that when you approach things with intention, the outcome is more profound/clear/pronounced because you went in with a goal in mind already. For example: you “attract” more successful people in your life to coach you to become successful not because you thought about it and made it “manifest,” but because you thought about it and looked for the tells of the type of success you wanted to achieve and because that was in the forefront of you mind, you kept your eyes open for those things and recognized when they were in your path. It’s easy to find a bean when you’re looking for a bean.

A lot of the articles and such that I read on microdosing before slowly wading into that pool talked about intent. You can take drugs to feel better, but what really have you learned or what habits have you changed to change your life if you’re not using this opportunity to reflect? The idea behind microdosing is not to take drugs. It’s to use a small amount of a substance that has been known for centuries to heal parts of your brain that’s currently misfiring. I remember what my life was like before I had depression. For a couple days I had glimpses of that back. Microdosing isn’t forever; in fact, most say you should only do it for a month at a time, and many have not had to repeat the dosing, but have shaken their depression (or at least to something highly managable) with only one session (about a month, taking a microdose every 4th day).

So, today while I try this 0.2g (which seems about average for a microdose (they can go between 0.1g - 0.5g) I think that’s what I am going to think on. I know that I want my motivation and creativity back. But what does that look like?

It’s now 12:40PM. I thiiiiiink something is happening, because I’m noticing subtle shifts in light. Nothing crazy, but the blue of my Tumblr dash just looks more...blue-y. More saturated.

If you got this far...I’ll keep you updated.

#Psilocybin Mushrooms #Mental Health #Depression #Anxiety #Microdosing #(Woah the blue post button just got very blue)

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