#natural disaster mention

[askdarkermatters]

some clarifications in advance

not every character we meet in the AU is a reincarnation of the comet parents. usually, if they are, there's immediately going to be clues. you will see characters who aren't reincarnations in various places

the comet parents weren't around for the extinction, so don't worry your head off about the thought of them Dying Horribly or something. the fact their silhouettes disappear before the sky effects happen in the last update of arc 1 is intentionally telling you that they weren't there. i don't know how far in the future it was, but there's nothing to worry about. they lived happily until the end <333

you WILL find out what happened to anthries, finding out is actually going to be part of the main story.

there are some things in this story that are definitely going to take people by surprise! i mean that's already happening a lot but like It Will Not Fucking Stop Now That You Know Things you are still going to be bewildered by insane shit trust me

[bronzeageyuri]

I mentioned her cuz of her similarities to AZ (very funny to me btw) but now I'm gonna actually introduce her here since she's my main OC :~) God trying to explain this in a way that makes sense is hard... Okay basically Rhodon was born some thousands of years ago, specifically into a time period that in the modern day is shrouded in mystery. Her mummified corpse was discovered after a flood removed some rubble from the coast of the city Psamathe, revealing a shrine buried beneath the sands. Rhodon was revived(!) from that corpse! Rhodon isn't her real name, just a name she was given by scientists... She's terribly anxious and self loathing and feels scared at having been thrust back into a world that, in the past, did not want her... mostly she's busy pretending not to have memories of her past so archaeologists leave her alone, though. Her full name, Rhodon Emation, means Rose of Emathia... Emathia is the continent her body was discovered on.

[caoimhe-from-hoenn]

Just got home

I didn't do as much work as the rangers but holy fuck everything hurts

Won't be at the gym today catch me tomorrow

[dreamsofalifeold]

((I was supposed to call back a behavioral health center near-ish to me bc I was referred for my severe anxiety and I haven't called back yet. The town it's in is literally on fire right now and people are being evacuated so I don't think I should call right now because it seems rude to be doing normal stuff when the town is on fucking fire. I don't know if there's a known fatality list but it's just. Bad. There's a hospital there and a state hospital and I'm worried about the people there who might not be able to get out. It's also a low income area and if people's houses are destroyed, who knows where they're going to live? I'm honestly just rambling at this point but I think I'm in Hell.))

[moss-theft]

natural disaster mention

there was an actually devastating tornado that touched down in my old hometown last night n I’m feeling some sort of emotional bc that’s where I mostly grew up and this kind of thing rarely ever happens there

[miniar]

(Nov. 10. 2023) The blue lagoon in Iceland is currently closed (for a week) due to a high risk of a volcanic eruption within a kilometer (0.8 miles) of the popular tourist location.

When the gathering magma breaks the earth's crust, anyone visiting the blue lagoon will have (best case scenario) approximately 20 minutes to make it to safety.

If there are people sleeping in the adjacent hotel or gods forbid in the lagoon itself, the worst case scenario is the magma breaking surface beneath the lagoon.

The only truly realistic way to avoid serious casualties here is for the resort, hotel, and lagoon yo remain completely closed until the danger passes.

There are currently icelandic people calling for a 2/1 deal (or cheaper) on blue lagoon tickets for Icelandic people on twitter.

Do Not Go To The Blue Lagoon Until The Danger Has Passed!!

It's a lovely experience but it's absolutely not worth boiling alive or burning to death.

[gemsofgreece]

You really should know about Storm "Daniel"

Unlike how much all of us Greek blogs notify our tumblr communities about the regular (at this point) arsons wildfires afflicting Greece, we did not say much about the floods the country has been suffering from right now. There was a mention here and there and I even made a joke post as the storm was starting but not a lot of stuff in general. So, I think there's a couple of things you should know and I feel like I could address about it and actually it's not just about Greece. So I believe this could interest a lot of people and it should be something known worldwide.

In the beginning of September there was an alarm about an extreme weather phenomenon forming above the Ionian Sea at the west of mainland Greece. In truth, the phenomenon was not caused by the climate change. It was just a very rare occurence where a high pressure atmosheric system was sandwiched between two currents of low pressure. Low pressure systems are the ones resposible for stormy weather while high pressure systems generally create stable weather. As the low currents encircled the high pressure system, the storm that had started forming became unusually stable for a storm. As a result, the storm moved northeast above Thessaly and other regions of the central part of Greece and... just decided to stay there for an indefinite amount of time. Furthermore, because it's September and the Ionian Sea had warmed up throughout the summer, the medicane (Mediterranean cyclone) gained tropical features as it was forming, pushing its intensity to extremes unknown to this area.

The storm remained above all of central Greece for about 4-5 days but at the meantime it was causing side-storms in neighbouring countries, such as Bulgaria and Turkey. Both countries suffered from floods causing damages and deaths.

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN).

Tsarevo, Bulgaria (CNN).

Four people died in Bulgaria and seven in Turkey.

But like I told you the core of this was exactly on top of Greece's central mainland and islands. So what happened there? I happened to experience this shit first hand. My recollection of it is that it was unlike any other storm I had experienced before. My knowledge on meteorology is not very advanced, however I believe due to the high pressure part, there were actually no winds at all - or they were insignificant, so it wasn't like what you might have in mind as a conventional cyclone. It was a rainstorm but it was like a rainstorm from hell. The crucial part is that in Greece summer violent rainstorms may last for about five minutes but certainly not for five days nonstop. There was no pause, not even for a second. It kept pouring and pouring in indescribable volumes, without decreasing or slowing down, not for a moment. The fourth day it started taking short breaks.

As a person with a phobia of lightnings since childhood, I kept wearing earplugs throughout all these days. For four days, ten seconds did not pass without at least one lightning shrieking exactly on top of our heads. In the end, I am dead serious, I think my lifelong phobia has been cured somewhat due to this extreme exposure that eventually had a numbing effect. I think only the first day there was a record of 7,000 lightnings. I believe there must have been dozens of thousands overall. The lightnings also caused fires but the downpour was so overwhelming no fire could ever stand a chance.

Whether during or after the rains, what I was seeing outside was post-apocalyptic. The only thing missing was the zombies. It really looked like a background from a videogame, including a constantly lit up sky. I was not in danger though people dear to me were. The worst for me was a huge fall in the quality of living but that doesn't matter. The rains caused severe destructions across cities and villages. They caused floods, they broke bridges, they broke a massive number of roads, they made walls collapse, they destroyed springs, they damaged water and electricity outlets entirely, they drowned flocks and flocks of animals, they destroyed mountainous and coastal villages alike, they made cars float and fly over each other and they uprooted houses.

Village in Mount Pelion, Greece.

But that's not the end of it. Four days later, the storm moved southwest towards the Ionian sea, basically to the place of its original formation. It side-swept over Athens in the meantime, flooding the city, but that doesn't mean much since I could cry and Athens would still flood with my tears. Anyway. AFTER the storm left, the floods caused by it started multiplying and expanding. Picture that: a crystal clear sky, a bright sun and your phone screaming state alerts about evacuating your village or town because a lake has launched at you! Here's the thing: Thessaly is a massive plain surrounded by a ring of mountains. Half of those downpours fell right on the lowlands causing floods and destructions the first days. The other half however fell on the mountains, filled the streams heading down and they all met up and filled the lakes and the large river of Thessaly, Pineios and they all basically exploded the next days. Pineios especially exploded both in its western and eastern part, sinking the entirety of Thessaly's plains under water. As a result, floods were actively taking place days after the storm had ended and the weather was good. The phenomena have only started subduing since yesterday.

The overflowing of the river, trapped by the mountains.

Farmers won't be able to work this year and next year is questionable as well. There are huge concerns about various epidemics breaking out as more and more dead animals are found in the waters. Entire villages are under the water. There are estimations that some villages in west Thessaly might have been lost forever and their residents will have to move elsewhere. Sixteen people have died from the rainstorm and the floods.

Actual villages in Karditsa, Greece.

A more longterm danger is that the ground received such an unnatural amount of water that it might have been severely eroded and destablised, making it vulnerable to natural disasters I don't want to utter. Many roads are either broken or bloated and Thessaly has been cut out from communication and transportation with the rest of the country. To this day, there are maps guiding people how to drive from North to South Greece and vice versa by entirely skipping Central Greece! (Hint: they will have to drive through Epirus, aka western Greece.) The first days there was also complete isolation from what was happening in the country and the world and also the very regions we were in as we had no electricity and our only chance was getting a call from somebody being elsewhere and telling us what is going on.

Volos, Greece (CNN)

Many regions have received within 2-4 days 55 times their monthly amount of rain or more than twice the yearly amount. Greek meteorologist Christos Zerefos estimated that such a phenomenon occurs every 300-400 years. Meteorologists were alarmed internationally - with Germans and Americans reportedly saying they hadn't studied such a phenomenon again in their career. Its intensity was record high in the history of Greece and right in the top of Europe's as well. They also agreed that such a phenomenon would be devastating even if it had hit the most advanced and prepared country.

BUT THIS IS NOT THE END. The weakened Daniel seemed to slowly move towards South Italy but it decided to take a turn and headed south towards Libya and Egypt. Quite possibly, as the storm was once again travelling across the warm Mediterranean Sea, it was rejuvenated and gained even more tropical traits. Eventually, the medicane hit Libya with unprecedented force.

The cyclone travelling from Greece to Libya.

The toll it took on Libya is unspeakable. As I am writing this,

More than 5,226 people are killed and more than 10,000 are currently missing.

Like, can you wrap your head around what I am talking about? I don't see this shit being acknowledged enough across the world. I am checking this again and again, to ensure I am reading this correctly.

Daniel has officially become the deadliest medicane on record.

Eastern Libya, from Al Jazeera.

In the meantime, Greeks found opportunities to practice their favourite sport: political infighting. People who weren't even here when hell broke loose say that if this or that was properly done, we would not have problems at all. I even saw an idiotic Greek expat comment how "we got drowned in a little bit of rain". The truth is we should bloody thank our lucky stars and I say this with the entire awareness of half of Thessaly being currently underwater. It is true that Greek governments and people have done so many things badly, like building on top of streams and rivers, changing rivers' natural route, drying up natural lakes and all that shit that guarantees you are going to have massive problems once a serious storm breaks out. Also, the disaster revealed that there was once more a very questionable management of all the money given by the EU for anti-flooding measures after a previous flood (Ianos). Of course, I would be happy if at last we viewed this disaster as an opportunity to improve ourselves and the management of our land, however whatever happened these days wasn't the fault of anyone in particular. On the contrary, A LOT worse could have happened. A lot. Maybe Libya is not an indication because if Greece is not used to such extreme rain phenomena, then Libya is probably ten times less used to them, however we should not forget that this monster was STUCK at least five days over the heartland of Greece. For this alone we should damn be thankful we did not get it any worse and that the land endured in any way and of course now we have to correct old mistakes as well but let's do it united and determined and without wasting time once more in pointless infighting, which in this case might even be unfair. (In fact I think the thing we should blame the state the most about was not making it clear beforehand that this was going to be unprecedented, not just "very severe". They probably didn't want to cause panic and mayhem but still. We should know.) Of course I am not talking about how the state will treat the afflicted regions from now on, which is entirely its responsibility. And we should stand next to Libya. Greece has its wounds to mend but it should absolutely provide support to Libya. We know what this freak phenomenon was like.

I know this text is long but please consider reblogging this. We should know what happens on our planet. Thousands of people are dead from a freak phenomenon devastating regions across lands and seas. Also forgive any mistakes I might have made although I believe the information is correct for the most part. I didn't speak more about Libya because I don't know enough to analyze the situation as much. Perhaps there are ways of supporting the country too. As a last note, this phenomenon was not freakish because of the climate change - it was just a very unusual occurence. However, the - otherwise normal - warmth of the sea did feed and intensify the storm and the climate change might in the future cause these super rare, accidental phenomena to become more frequent.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

While all eyes were on the thunderstorms and floods in the south of the province, the largest blaze in Quebec history was burning north of 49e parallel this week.

At 1,041,760 hectares — barely smaller than Lebanon — this fire is three times larger than the one that made headlines in 2013.

This is the largest fire ever recorded by SOPFEU, confirmed to The Press spokesperson Mélanie Morin. “In the statistics to which I have access, which go back to 1984, I do not find any fire of more than one million hectares in the northern zone”, she explains.

“Unparalleled magnitude”, “historic fire”, “the biggest fire ever seen”: there was no shortage of superlatives in 2013 to describe the 350,000 hectare blaze that was burning then a few kilometers from the Cree community of Eastmain.

Ten years later, the magnitude of this new fire has gone almost unnoticed. It should be noted that it was in this fire that two auxiliary SOPFEU fighters were injured last Monday, a first in 30 years, as reported by The Press SATURDAY. [...]

Continue Reading.

Note from poster @el-shab-hussein: this article was posted 3 days after the SOPFEU partially lifted some bans on open-air fires.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @halfwar-halfpeace

[sayitaliano]

One half of Italy is drowning, the other half is suffering from drought, please y'all stay strong and safe as you can

[fortunatefires]

I can't stop thinking about the troubled teen industry and the fact that there were a bunch of those wilderness camps in the path of hurricane Helene. What if the couselors didn't have service and never knew it would flood? What if they just didn't care? Are there children out there who have been told that they need to be isolated from society dying cold and alone because they were told that rebellion is a bad thing. They're separated from their families without a phone and no way to get help. I can see them in my mind and I mourn for the loss of not only who they could have been but who they are. Regardless of what landed them there, there is no reason a child should die like that. I don't even know if this is a reality for anyone but the thought of it haunts me.

[askdarkermatters]

ok you said the comets didnt experience the eruption so. did the lineage after? like ally and howie's kids or sly and carl's kids die feom the eruption?

OOC: i think it's inevitable that the family tree itself had to still be in existence (theres no way there can be that many kids and zero descendants), but i think it was further enough down the line that it didn't matter as much anymore.

[melonthesprigatito]

I always thought that the Ultra Recon Squad vanishing from the plot in USUM after the Team Rainbow Rocket postgame arc happens was a little weird and super noticeable.

Surely for a squad dedicated to exploring and studying alternate dimensions, a guy with his own pocket portal opener stealing villains from across the multiverse, (villains that ACCOMPLISHED THEIR GOALS and caused apocalypses in their home dimensions by the way!) in order to create a team with the goal of conquering the multiverse, that sort of thing is right up their alley and they could have easily intervened by having their Solgaleo and Lunala yeet them back to where they came from.

But then I figured, the reason why the Ultra Recon Squad sat this one out is because Team Rainbow Rocket decided to attack Aether Paradise, aka the organisation ran by Lusamine.

You know, Lusamine, the woman who promised them that she'd help them save their home dimension and stop Necrozma from destroying both Ultra Megalopolis and Alola. The same Lusamine that thoroughly BETRAYED THEM and Leeroy Jenkins-ed herself into the portal without telling them and fucked up so badly that she put potentially billions of lives at risk and nearly destroyed two entire civilisations.

To be fair, Rainbow Rocket was attacking Miss "I sure do like endangering your entire alien culture" Lusamine and her secret evil island lair, so I think the Ultra Recon Squad would be forgiven for not feeling overly encouraged to go help.

The second reason is because the URS saw that the Protagonist was on his/her way to help, the one who defeated their god with a magic singing fairy seal, and probably thought "Yeah, he/she's got this covered."

[ran-orimoto]

[ Incredible how I will always forget to keep up with my crossposting (?) on Ao3 and Tumblr. I promise you I love you all and you are important to me. It’s just my brain wandering and jumping from a distraction to the following one and so forth. You’re not the problem.

By the way, this is the first one-shot of the year, so I welcomed your request with open arms, fighting against my cringe feelings. I love my Junzumi fankids, they are so important to me and they are *cough* my precious grandchildren. So, like other people say, I should snap out of my silly obsessions and write about them as well, without fear, embarassment.

Now that I have said this uselss stuff, let’s dive into things that matter. Junzumi are in their early fourties here and it’s an Izumi-centered one-shot, set years and years after she manages to open her restaurant in Milan, her Brezzo Petalo. She has received a great news but one that also will place her in front of a hard decision, especially now that her life has completely changed and her dreams have as well in their nature.

To a year full of Junzumi! ]

• Il vento fa solo pisolini •

“È tardi, Tesoro.”

She turned to the pink trail of perfume, to the cloudy halo veiling a pair of brown eyes trying finding her in that colourful mist. She felt so alienated from the whole world at a touch impregnated with a sense of urgence. It came from upwards and gave a delicate yet firm shove on her shoulders, so she could part from a chilly iron bar she had been holding onto for almost half an hour.

Nevertheless, she found it so hard to detach herself from there, her eyes from the bustling sight of people going back and forth and blending in a mosaic of different dialects. She was so annoyed by them, but she wanted to stay there, wait for them to go away one after the other and clear out the panorama stretching outside. A view made of nothingness and everything at the same time. Kilometers of heath and that was it.

But…

But…

But it was Fiumicino, part of Roma, part of her.

“ Izumi…Faremo arrabbiare Papà , se non ci sbrighiamo. Forza.”

The red-haired woman reached out again, this time piercing the smoky candy floss hovering in the air, swabs floating around mother and daughter and being noticed only by the latter. Due to the fact Izumi was feeling so ensnared by the sight of those slowly ascending to the celing, -hopefully, the child considered, to the sky too,- her dangling hand allowed itself to be caught more easily than it had the rest of that whole morning. It was no wonder the woman couldn’t help releasing an exhausted sigh when the success of her attempts finally arrived so unexpectedly.

Behind her hasty march, Izumi deeply sighed as well, which made her grow disgruntled and, most of all, extremely puzzled about the behaviour of her body. She could remember she had stayed up all night because she had had trouble falling asleep, as thrilled and restless as she was. She had also chosen her outfit after having almost thrown her entire wardrobe out of the boxes the clothes had been put in, - obviously driving her mother crazy and making her loudly yell despite the presence of the movers-. After all, not every girl on Earth, at the age of ten, has got the chance to start a new exciting life abroad, in the country they were born in but one they could barely recall: picking a special outfit was a must in that occasion and her choice had fallen on one giving her the appearance of the main heroine from a novel who is ready to set on a grand adventure, -large sun hat with a huge ribbon resembling the ears of a cat from a frontal perspective included-.

New house, new neighbourhood, new city, new breathtaking experiences, new classmates and friends: what else could she have ever asked to elicit the fluttering of her heart? To push her to run to the gate, so fast she imagined her feet leaving the ground, her trolley, her mother, her father in the horizon waiting for them with a shaking of his head, in contrast to his amused grin.

Maybe I don’t want to go, She gasped, but not because of that usual pressure of emptiness that will dominate your stomach whenever a plane takes off. It was because of a certain realization, of the fact it had just dawned on her she had already read that story way too many times.

And only during the first one she had happened to be an enthusiastic and, most of all, oblivious ten-year-old.

XXX

The day before she had received the best news of her life and yet…And yet there was she, sitting at the kitchen table, pensive, waiting for Junpei to come from their youngest’s bedroom.

It was early afternoon, the kids and him had just finished having lunch and she had just returned from the restaurant in a noisy hurry, right at the same time he was putting the children to sleep for their sacred nap hour.

“Give me five minutes,” He had winked at her on the stairs, his thumb on display with confidence, as if she had joined him backstage to plant a good luck kiss on his cheek.

Maybe she should have wished him buona fortuna for real, judging from those five minutes that became ten and then fifteen. Still, as strangled by her deep sighs as she was, she wasn’t paying that much attention to the speed of the running clock hanging on the wall. It was spinning continuously just like those nagging thoughts of hers that had been marching in her mind since that morning, since the first second her eyes had opened and met the ceiling.

“Uh, today has been hard, but there is nothing, I say nothing, a wizard can’t do!”

Junpei finally barged downstairs with his rumbling enthusiasm and a silly twirling dance.

She was already expecting him to approach her and pull her on her feet, but that correct prediction didn’t help her keep herself from striking a forced and fake smile at him. While he was holding a hand of hers and rocking it, pronouncing a bizarre formula he was clearly inventing on the spot, she couldn’t help feeling annoyed, even disgruntled.

Therefore, eventually, at the sight of a little pin shaped as a graceful lillac star appearing on her palm from nowhere, she could only stare at it with a grimace, an imaginary, too sweet smell dominating her nostrils.

“I-I…” Junpei blinked, but didn’t show any sign of disappointment, somehow. He mostly looked surprised about her behaviour, which still made her chest drown in a lake of guilt as that obviously wasn’t the right reaction to a present. “Have you talked to that dude?”

“Yes, I have,” She nodded, averting her gaze. Her fingers flew onto her forehead, pressing themselves against its shifting skin. Of course, when someone has got a fantastic announcement to make, they won’t frown and feel so emaciated, but Izumi was, especially now that she was standing in front of pots of honey and their shiny glass. “He told me he wants me to go to Tokyo.”

“But this is the best day ever, Cara !” She had also foreseen the way his arms would extend forward to encircle her waist and lift her. As soon as she felt his big hug warmly conveying his excitement from her back to her whole body, she began wishing his clumsy movements could throw her out of the window, into the misty sky, far from her problems, from the upsetting emotions she was going to pour on that dear person of her life.

But she had to tell him and she was sure he would understand. He would, like always, because he was aware in her life she was the only one who knew what was the best choice for her. He would often give her precious advices, but he had never demanded her to follow them, take them in consideration, and she appreciated that so much.

“Maybe it would have been, if I had told him I will go.”

But the fact was that in that matter she wasn’t only making personal decisions.

“Oh.”

Agreeing to inherit a restaurant in Japan, take her, no, their Brezzo Petalo to a completely different world would have consequences involving their whole family, which she couldn’t allow to happen.

Junpei gently accompanied her to the floor again, his mouth opened and his brown irises pulsing with perplexity.

“I thought over his offer and I think it’s better if things stay the way they are.”

“Even if we are talking about your dream?”

“Even if…” At the sound of his blunt question, she struggled to find the right words to use and preferred to sit again. She was glad Junpei did the same, placing himself at the opposite end of the table, eye to eye with her and her vacillating…Lie.

The kitchen was an important place to her, to them. It was the area of the house they had painted of that soft violet she loved; that corner they had firstly shared in two, successively in five, -six if they didn’t want to ignore their cat-, that niche that had been trusted with their recollections made of laughters and tears. If she turned, she would find herself chuckling at all the drawings the children had hanged on the fridge, the sign of green Kou had permanently engraved near to the dishwasher, the pink butterfly sticker Ran had attached onto a chair, the train toy Toto had begged Junpei to put on the kitchen hood like an ordinary knick-knack.

If she was going to go through that conversation, there wouldn’t be any other room in which that was supposed to happen.

“Izumi, are you really sure this is what you want?” She hadn’t realized her orbs had really escaped onto each of those details of her beloved surroundings, led by petals of a fragrant breeze. She did only when the beats of her heart found an echo in his serious yet tender voice. “If it is, I will be fine with that, of course, but it’s just that…It’s just that you have wanted this for years, since we were in university. This is your chance to do that: to spread the colours and joy of your food with your own wind. Do you remember? You chose to call the restaurant Brezzo Petalo in honour of Fairymon.”

“I do, but I’ve realized I can do that by staying here, meeting tourists, attending to events abroad when I’m invited to them. It’s enough, it really is.”

Her tone had become way too loud for a house hosting three dormant children, so she regained her composure, also exploiting that mute moment to give some pats on her blonde bob, some caresses down her locks: it seemed the whirlwind infuriating in her bosom had managed to disastrously mess up her hair.

“I see…I guess I can say the wind has settled, can I?” Junpei absently commented while contemplating her waving gestures with affectionate enchantment. She had no doubts on Earth only her husband could relax in awe, in the middle of such a big chaos developing before his spheres.

“ Mamma !”

The only being that could quickly distract him from her gorgeous figure couldn’t be anyone else but a smaller, -more capricious, vainer, much more pigheaded-, version of her.

“Mimì-Chan, you told me you would sleep if I told you that story!” Now Izumi was the one growing agape after having assisted to that astounding scene: was he really scolding her over a skipped nap? This was so new to her and she found it hard not to smirk, amused.

“You didn’t tell me how it ends, though,” The kid started swinging back and forth, her arms partly hidden behind her fucsia overall, her green eyes almost seeming to be enlarging to look more innocent than a deer’s. “I can’t fall asleep without knowing how a story ends, Papà. You are unfair.”

“Ehh, in truth I would get so frustrated as well…” He nodded, bringing his index on his lips and looking up, before finding a solution with a cheerful and large grin. “I will reveal you that tonight, then!”

Izumi raised an eyebrow at him, at how fast he could change his mind after having been manipulated by their naughty gremlin. Why do I keep on fooling myself…, She shook her head in an attack of fond exasperation, their chattering continuing in the background.

“Su , Ran. What is it? You arrived here and called for me, not for Papà.”

“Oh,right,” She froze with her arms raised in the man’s direction, making his blissed expression fall when she suddenly ignored his splayed ones. “I want to wash my hair, so I was looking for the hairdryer. Where is it?”

“You aren’t allowed to use the hairdryer. And your hair is fine: you washed it yesterday. Of course it is!”

“It’s not true,” She pouted, crossing her arms with indignation and searching for a support in Junpei. “My hair looks like the fur on the head of the baby camel from the zoo, isn’t it true, Papà? All sloppy and ruffled.”

“Wh-What? Why would I say something so despicable about your beautiful hair?”

“Because she’s right.”

Junpei jumped on his chair and almost fell off it: a stout boy, who was sporting a nest of dark blonde strands and orbs matching his in colour and liveliness, had attempted to whisper in his ear, but had failed because of his hiccuping laughters.

“Why are you two not tired today? Not enough school?” The man muttered, feeling like a poor, unfortunate soul having been just caught by the storm. Both Izumi and him were in desperate need for an umbrella!

Actually, the kids jumped in another bursting argument, even worse, more tumultuous than the one they had had the evening before. Junpei and Izumi had no sibilings, so they weren’t used to those dynamics at all. With nostalgia, Junpei often liked comparing the bickerings between Kou and Ran with the ones that would happen between Izumi and Takuya in the past, with the difference that the Izumi from the new generation was younger and shorter than its Takuya. Nevertheless, the fights still felt so similar to him and to Izumi too, though she would get a bit embarassed about admitting it.

“Instead, your hair will soon receive visits from birds!”

“I love birds, so I wouldn’t care! Try again!”

“Well…A-A whole tree will grow on your head and you will become more stupid than you are now. Pirla !”

“Now, you two…” Izumi stood up and dragged Ran away from her brother. Her puffy cheeks had been washed by a visible red, the shade of those who were aware they had already been cornered at the beginning of a fight.

“ Basta , Koujirou e Miranda, ” Junpei reticently completed her warning and the kids fell tacit at once. Because when the thunder roared, it meant it was better to find a good shelter below which to hide and from which to look at the wuthering sky.

In silence.

Absolute silence.

At least, until that minute of initial scare passed and some brave traveller dared to challenge the might of unbridled natural forces, maybe to check if it was still raining.

“Look what you did! It’s late! ” Thus, Ran melted the stillness with a scowling glance she gave at the clock. “It’s late! I have to wash my hair for the lesson!

“Again, Ran?” Izumi gave a playful slap on the girl’s tense shoulders, helping them sag along with the general mood of the room. “And it’s still half past two, mia Fatina stupidina.”

“Please, Mamma! Perfavore! I need to wash my hair to look good at lesson! Mami…?”

Izumi plunged her chin in that meadow of sunrays, losing herself in the scenario of the ever flowing time, of all those important things their kids had come to find, love and would lose like that. Due to her.

There was no way…There was no way…

“Listen,” She felt the impelling need to speak to clear her hoarse throat. “I promise I will make your hair look splendid in your chignon, if you try sleeping a bit. We won’t need to wash it.”

“Really?” Ran started marching on the spot. “And how will you do that?”

“What questions! Of course , with a pinch of magic!”

Despite her jovial answer, the girl seemed less convinced than before, so hesitant and suspicious.

“But you aren’t Papà.”

“I lent Mamma a bit of magic dust long time ago!” Junpei intruded in the conversation with an improvised melody.

“What?!” Kou pulled his tongue out and put his hands on his hips, pouring every single drop of his skepticism on his father. “If you can really use magic, give some to me too!”

“Maybe we will talk about it, when your grades at maths improve.”

The kid threw his tongue out of his mouth again, in utter disgust this time.

“I will need to find Doraemon or something similar to become good at that. And I will also ask him to show me your high grades from when you were my age”.

Junpei’s pallor got fortunately shadowed by Izumi delicately pushing Ran ,and now Kou too, in the direction of the living room. She didn’t seem too shocked when she found their youngest, Tomoki, sitting on the stairs with a bored fashion, ears of wheat lazily dozing against the wood railing. Who would manage to sleep with that ruckus coming from downstairs?

“You three. In your beds. Now,” She clapped her hands making the trio grumble, displeased.

“If Mamma wants me to take a nap, I will,” Resigned, Kou shrugged while suffocating a huff: he wanted to look like a well-mannered kid in front of her, after having disappointed her with his insults and teasing. “Mamma always says I will score more goals if I have my daily nap. No matter I’m nine and I’m a man now.”

Like that, after a fleeting hug, he brought himself on the stairs, followed by the little Tomoki who could only yawn and rub his drowsy emeralds. All of a sudden, though, Kou stopped, and looked back at his sister who didn’t seem that willing to leave yet.

“ Scusa, Ran ,” He said, scratching his strands because of a spike of abashment that made him rapidly flee, not caring about checking what the girl’s response had been or hearing his mother commending him.

“Ran, you promised…” Swiftly, Izumi’s focus took a nosedive on the remaining child.

“Will you really comb my hair and make me look splendid with magic?” Ran pressed, still not completely persuaded about what the woman had told her in the kitchen.

“If you go napping, the magic will work even better,” She snapped her fingers, wishing she could be as skilled as Junpei in that field of jokes and play pretend.

That was the reason why she was glad he decided to collaborate with her once more that day…By adding a theatrical aura to her speech.

“I’ll give her even more of that dust, if you are not convinced. Here, look,” She didn’t immediately recognize the identity of what he had found in some cupboard, but whatever it was, it ended up on her face and made her sneeze.

“ Davvero ! I will really look like a fairy princess today, then!” Ran squealed while hopping on the carpet, the motley butterflies printed on her overall seeming to be fluttering in harmony with her heart. “La Maestra Chiaki will be so impressed! Sogni d’oro, Mamma e Papà”.

And up she went, at a faster speed than her brothers, reaching her bedroom in less than a minute.

“She won’t close her eyes even for a second, I assure you,” Junpei commented, standing still in front of the stairs as if he was expecting the petite blonde to show up again, sooner than soon.

“ Really, Junpei? Saffron powder?” Izumi spat those minuscule granules that had attached themselves to her palate and glared at him, even when he promptly provided her with a handkerchief he took out from one of his many pockets.

“Oh c’mon, now you should have understood kids don’t need to see you flying like Peter Pan to believe you can take a stroll on stars at nights. You will see your chignon will turn a little camel into a little swan. Trust me.”

He had never lost that eccentric way to babble about such weird suff. Indeed, it had been worsening day after day, since that far past moment he volunteered to help her at the restaurant in his own style . Apparently, playing the role of a temporary waiter had never been that satisfying to him, so he decided to become the entertainer of the Brezzo Petalo; the saviour of the bored kids huffing at the tables ; the funny, friendly, always grinning man in a big apron, who would come up with something different everytime he was in Milan and could give a hand to the chef.

She had eventually got his same disease by dint of peeking out from the counter and watching his magical shows, listening to his whimsical tales about men turning stars on thanks to special, suspended light switches; curious cats studying from musical sheets below sparkling nights…

“So, have you found this pin on the Moon?” She hadn’t forgot about his present. She had just let it rest in a warm place on her chest, where it had been patiently waiting for her genuine appreciation.

“On Venus, in truth!” He exclaimed while straightening his back, as if he could give more emphasis to that answer by acting like some comical, plastered toy soldier. Until his well-know awkwardness got the best of his intents, at least. “Which is…Which happened to be…A shop forgotten by the world behind the Duomo. I’ve also bought one for Ran. It looks like a butterfly and I think I will give it to her as a lucky charm.”

“You can’t really resist the temptation to spoil her everytime you go out, hm?”

“I…I…I know what it means to stand on a stage, tremble in front of your audience. I want her to go there without too much anxiety, have something to look at that can make her feel only excitement and determination.”

Without adding anything for that instant, she grabbed his hand and beckoned him to join her on the sofa. She was aware he had noticed hers was sweaty and slightly unstable, but she couldn’t find a single puff of air around her that could allow her to speak. She had inhaled and was keeping them all inside her shaken spirit, allowing them to pinch her vocal chords like if they were harp strings. There was nothing else but a melody in there; an ambiguous one wanting to tell too many different stories at the same time and being unable to do so for a while. It needed the right notes. She needed the right words.

“I think the wind settled when we decided to have three kids,” She started, after an undefined interval spent looking at each other with a mix emotions. He was a bit confused yet he was prepared to discover what the missing puzzle pieces were. From experience, he had learnt Izumi liked opening up gradually, step by step, like shy gusts occasionally sneaking among the leaves of a tree, singing a very slow lullaby to the man having a snooze below it. Unlike when it came to him, she didn’t need a person by her side, a stubborn one extrapolating confessions from her throat. She only needed someone who was patient enough to wait for her to make up her mind, sit next to them and release whatever she wanted to get free of. Out of blue. “I can’t. We can’t, Junpei. They have got a life here, things and people they are affectionate to. Kou has got his football practice, Toto that trains museum he loves going to so much, Ran…”

“Ballet.”

“Not only that!” He risked to fall backwards because of the impetus laced with her desire to correct him. She wished that energy could have soaked her facial traits as well but, on the other hand, her eyebrows unfortunately started twitching, her lips searched for an intimate contact between their two sides, her orbs filled with a sea of contrasting emotions. “She loves ballet so much. She has so much fun with it and she’s also getting better at the twirls and all that stuff. It’s her passion. What kind of mother would I be if I clipped her wings like that?”

“Izumi…”

“When I lived in Roma, I used to go to rhythmic gymnastics lessons.”

“This is a news to me,” He encouraged her to continue like that, attempting to keep himself from slipping closer and hugging her, as she took the lid off the sealed jar.

“Well, it never bothered me. It never did until I got a daughter who could turn a sport into a dream someday. Who knows? Mine wasn’t a dream, but I did enjoy my time in there. In all modesty, I was also pretty talented.”

“This, instead, doesn’t surprise me in the least,” It was becoming even harder to restrain himself from cradling her in his embrace, but he endured because she wasn’t quite done yet. She would have slapped him with her usual “ Flatterer ”, if that hadn’t been the case.

“I don’t want Ran to give up on ballet because of me.”

“She wouldn’t, Izumi. If you decided to go further in this, we would look for a good school for her in Japan. The best one. Japanese ballet dancers exist: Chiaki is an example, isn’t she?”

He gasped when her following question broke in a row of segments. Izumi abruptly lowered her head and the wavering fist on her thigh clenched the pin he had given her.

“And what if…What if…I went further in this…? What if…They couldn’t make new friends in Japan or, even worse, got isolated from everyone? Just like…”

She might be tripping on the last shred of her externation, but he was certain it wasn’t necessary for him to press her to go on. She didn’t have to force herself to take herself there , either. It was enough.

The brief rest of his spheres and the sigh generated by who knew what kind of vision represented the ending of his enormous feat.

“We will be fine. They will, and do you know why? Because if you hadn’t moved back to Japan, I would have never met a blonde girl wandering in a station all alone, driving me crazy and making me want to follow her in a dangerous place of fantasy. If it is what is supposed to happen, us returning there so you can achieve a life dream, I feel…No, I know they would find something special there too, just like it happened to us. Trus-“

She abandoned herself in his chest without complaints, her arms stretching as far as they could go to cover his large frame with her whole thankfulness. He pressed her heart against his so vehemently she grew convinced she could transfuse the dream, the nightmare of what felt like hundred nights in some ventricle of its’.

And maybe she really managed to do that, judging from how tighter the hug suddenly got; from how his rotund cheek squished against her boiling ear and wet her ear like a solitary drop of rain.

“I honestly thought it had already done when you married me.”

“What?”

“The wind settling. Hadn’t it already done that when you married me?”

“It absolutely hadn’t,” At first she reluctantly stirred, but as soon as she met his lucid honey, she found the warmth she didn’t want to leave back. Indeed, it was an even more powerful one, engulfing her like the duvet of a bed. “ Because I desperately wanted to divorce you on our honeymoon, when you ate all the chocolate you found in the hotel. A whole plate of chocolate in a day!”

“They just were seven and were so small. It’s not that serious. The bread I ate on the plane made me gag. I needed something tasty in my mouth and I didn’t want to wait any longer”.

“Okay, fine, I won’t carry around this grudge any more, then,” Winking, her eye itched because of a salty feeling lying on its base. “ I will forgive you after years.”

“G-Grazie, Cara”.

“Prego, Caro.”

They blinked at each other. One, two times. The amount of rain still sleeping in the clouds above them finally woke up and began falling on lovely slopes.

Starete bene, The yawning wind in her spirit reassured her, before opening its wings and taking off.

The wind never settles. It just takes naps.

XXX

Italian notes~

• È tardi, Tesoro: It’s late, Dear

• Fiumicino is Roma’s airport but it’s also the name of this big suburb of its’.

• Izumi…Faremo arrabbiare Papà , se non ci sbrighiamo. Forza : Izumi, we will make Dad angry if we don’t hurry. C’mon.

• Buona fortuna: Good luck.

• Basta: enough

• Mia fatina stupidina: My little silly fairy (affectionate XD)

• Scusa: Sorry

• Maestra is our Miss/Sensei XD

• Sogni d’oro is used when we want to wish someone a good sleep. Literally it is “Golden slumbers (?)”

• Starete bene: You will be fine

[lamphous]

9-1-1 update: they trapped bobby in a burning building and that building is 544 mateo street. which is to say paddy's pub and also where house faked his death and bit parts in basically everything else filmed in LA

[is-this-camera-on]

hey has anyone else noticed that the world and people around us are devolving into shit

[razzek]

For real, if you post images without tagging for sensitive current topics like war just to get around people's tags, I'm blocking your ass. That is a shitty thing to do especially to screen reader users who have to take extra steps just to read the thing only to get hit with upsetting content that is filtered for a goddamn reason! Tag your shit, people!