#south pointe pier

[harrisx28]

Portofino Tower at South Pointe Park in Miami, Florida🌴

[ratatatastic]

for everytime swaggy uses we are the champions in any post i think we need to shoot him with a paintball gun in the back

[homelounge]

Unstoppable? Dubai’s Property Market Growth Accelerating in 2031

Dubai’s real estate sector is booming in 2024, with strong sales figures, rising property values, and a swift absorption of new inventory driving expansion. This growth momentum is poised to carry into 2025, thanks to high demand across multiple sectors, an influx of new properties in Dubai, and the adoption of advanced technologies.

Market Performance and Trends

Dubai’s real estate market is on track for a record-breaking year in 2024. Sales in July alone reached AED49.6 billion ($13.5 billion), a 31.63% increase from the previous year. The luxury segment, especially in sought-after areas like Palm Jumeirah, is thriving. More than 43,000 transactions valued at approximately AED122.9 billion took place in the first half of the year, marking a 30% rise from 2023, a reflection of high demand and rapid inventory absorption.

Supply Surge and Its Implications

As Dubai continues its growth trajectory, an influx of new properties in Dubai is expected. Around 27,000 units are projected for 2024, with an additional 41,000 units in 2025 and 42,000 in 2026. This increase—an 80% rise compared to previous years—provides a unique opportunity for buyers and investors, although it could lead to price stabilization or slight declines in some segments. Dubai’s resilience, backed by investor confidence and strategic urban planning, is expected to absorb most of this supply.

Investment Opportunities and Strategic Timing

Investors eyeing Dubai’s property market in 2024/2025 have ample opportunities. High-net-worth individuals are drawn to luxury properties in Palm Jumeirah and Downtown Dubai. Meanwhile, mid-tier segments in areas like Dubai Silicon Oasis and Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) are attracting investors for their high rental yields, making real estate in Dubai a profitable venture across various income levels.

Technology Integration and Proptech Growth

Dubai’s real estate agents are leveraging technology to transform the buying experience. From AI-driven market analyses to virtual tours and 3D floor plans, proptech is streamlining processes, making property transactions more efficient. These advancements make Dubai a global leader in real estate innovation, and this trend is likely to expand as technology continues to enhance transparency and accessibility.

Challenges and Market Dynamics

Despite its positive outlook, Dubai’s property market faces potential challenges, including the risk of oversupply and a slight pressure on rental prices. Prime development land in central areas is becoming scarce, prompting a shift toward more sustainable strategies beyond 2026. This forward-thinking approach is expected to foster stability, solidifying Dubai’s status as a premier real estate investment destination.

Trends for Renting Properties in Dubai

For those interested in properties in Dubai as rental investments, certain areas stand out for their impressive rental yields. For affordable apartments, Dubai Investments Park (DIP) and Discovery Gardens offer returns of up to 11%, making them top choices. Mid-tier locations like Dubai Sports City and Motor City also boast rental yields of over 9%, while luxury neighborhoods such as DAMAC Hills yield close to 9%.

Bayut’s recent analysis also reveals favorable ROI for buy-to-let villas, with International City offering over 7% returns. Areas like DAMAC Hills 2 and Wasl Gate provide ROI percentages above 6%, with mid-tier villas in Jumeirah Village Triangle and Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) yielding between 6% and 8%. In the luxury villa market, communities like The Sustainable City and Tilal Al Ghaf have gained popularity, with ROIs exceeding 7%.

Surge in Rental Prices

Rental prices across Dubai have surged. Affordable villa and apartment rentals have increased by 4% to 31%, with studios in Al Nahda witnessing the most significant rise. Mid-tier apartment rentals have climbed up to 15%, and luxury apartments by 7%, with only a few exceptions, like Business Bay, where prices dipped slightly.

For villa rentals, budget options have risen by up to 12%, while mid-tier rentals saw increases of 15%. DAMAC Hills experienced the highest growth in luxury villa rentals, with limited six-bedroom units seeing a 27% rise. For affordable living, Deira and Al Nahda remain popular for apartments, while DAMAC Hills 2 and Mirdif attract villa tenants. In the luxury rental category, Dubai Marina and Business Bay are favored for apartments, while Dubai Hills Estate and Al Barsha draw villa seekers.

Who’s Investing in Dubai?

Dubai’s real estate sector has become a magnet for international investors. Data from W Capital reveals that British investors were the top buyers in the first half of 2024, followed by investors from India, China, Lebanon, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and Turkey. The city’s high rental yields, accessible financing options, and residency visa programs have turned property ownership into a strategic alternative to renting.

Home Lounge UAE: The Premier Real Estate Partner

As a premier real estate agent in Dubai, Home Lounge UAE provides top-notch services to clients looking to invest in this dynamic market. A RERA-registered firm, Home Lounge has earned a reputation for excellence, assisting clients with both residential and commercial properties in Dubai. Known for innovation and a client-centric approach, Home Lounge redefines real estate services in the UAE, offering clients access to high-return real estate in Dubai.

[slyandthefamilybook]

okay because I'm seeing some misinfo, here's the story on the Key Bridge collapse

What was the Key Bridge?

The Francis Scott Key Bridge (also called the Key Bridge, the Beltway Bridge, and the Outer Harbor Crossing) was steel-arch continuous-through-truss bridge spanning the Patapsco River south of the Baltimore Harbor. The bridge took 5 years to build and cost an estimated $145 million ($735 million in today's dollars). The full bridge project (including approaches) was 10.9 miles long, but the stretch over the Patapsco was 1.6 miles long and 4 lanes wide, and comprised a length of I-695, the Baltimore Beltway. It traveled between Hawkins Point and Dundalk, and in addition to the I-895 Harbor Tunnel was the primary way for Marylanders to cross from the Eastern Shore to the West. The bridge carried an estimated 11.5 million vehicles per year. There is a lane for ships to pass under the Key Bridge with enough clearance.

Was it structurally sound?

The bridge received its latest inspection in 2022 and received a 6/9 score, which is considered "fair" by federal standards. There was a concern with one of its columns, which was downgraded from a health index of 77.8 to 65.9, but it is not clear yet if this was one of the columns struck by the ship. In 1980 the bridge was struck by a different cargo ship which destroyed a concrete support structure, but the bridge itself was unharmed. There is as of yet no evidence that the bridge collapsed because of poor condition. Experts say the lesson to be learned is about the size and weight of modern cargo ships, and that the bridge was not to blame. Engineers have noted, however, that the bridge's piers lacked protective devices such as fenders.

What was the ship?

The MV Dali is a container ship flying the Singapore flag. It is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and operated by Synergy Marine Group Ltd. The ship is currently being chartered by Maersk, a Dutch shipping company. It was built in 2015 by Hyundai. The ship is 980 feet long and 157 feet wide. The ship's gross tonnage (its internal volume) is 95,128 tons (190,256,000 pounds). Its deadweight (the weight of cargo it can carry) is 116,851 tons (233,702,000 pounds). The ship was carrying 3,000 containers. The engine is a MAN-B&W 9S90ME putting out 41,480 kilowatts (55,626 horsepower).

Over its lifetime the Dali has been inspected 27 times, and only 2 faults were ever found. On June 27, 2023 the Dali was held in port in Chile due to an issue with the propulsion system. According to an inspector the pressure gauges on the heating system were "unreadable". The fault was fixed before the ship left port.

The Dali is crewed by 22 Indian nationals including 2 maritime pilots.

What happened?

The Dali arrived at the Port of Baltimore on March 23, 2024. At 12:44 AM on March 26, 2024 the Dali left port, beginning its journey to Colombo, Sri Lanka. At 01:26 AM the ship suffered a "complete blackout" and began to drift out of the shipping lane. It is not yet known what caused the electrical failure. The backup generator did not power the propulsion system. At around 01:26 AM the crew of the Dali sent a mayday distress call to the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) informing them of the loss of power and that a collision with the Key Bridge was possible. The anchors were dropped as an emergency measure to attempt to slow or stop the vessel. At the request of one of the pilots traffic flow over the bridge was immediately halted. Black smoke was seen coming from the Dali, which experts believe was the result of the crew managing to restart the power system to regain some maneuvering capability.

At 01:28 AM the Dali, traveling at 8 knots (considered to be a fast speed) collided with a support strut beneath the Key Bridge's metal truss at the southwest end of the bridge. A Baltimore resident said he heard the collision and that it "felt like an earthquake". Emergency teams began receiving 911 calls at 01:30 AM, and the Baltimore Police Department were alerted at 01:35 AM. One of the officers present radioed that he was going to go onto the bridge to alert the construction crew as soon as a second officer arrived, but the bridge collapsed seconds later.

What was the damage?

The Key Bridge has completely collapsed. The metal truss relies on structural tension from the bridge itself to maintain its rigidity. As soon as one of the support columns was destroyed, the rest of the bridge quickly followed.

The damage to the Dali is reported as minimal. The ship was impaled by the bridge's structure above the waterline, but has maintained watertight integrity. The crew has not reported any water contamination from its 1.8 million gallons of marine fuel. 13 containers carrying potentially hazardous material were damaged, and are being inspected by a team of Coast Guard divers. At least 5 vehicles including 3 passenger cars and a cement mixer were detected underwater, but authorities do not believe they were occupied

Who was hurt?

The crew of the Dali reports no casualties, except one crewmember who was hospitalized for minor injuries. There was a crew of 8 construction workers on the Key Bridge filling in potholes. 2 were immediately pulled from the water by rescue crews, with 1 being rushed to emergency care and the other reporting minor injuries and refusing treatment. The hospitalized worker has since been discharged. 1 of those rescued was Mexican. The remaining 6 remain missing. Of those 6, 2 have been identified:

Miguel Luna from El Salvador

Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval from Honduras

Of the remaining 4, 2 are Guatemalan nationals. Neither have been identified, but the Guatemalan Foreign Affairs Ministry has stated that they were a 26-year-old from San Luis, Petén, and a 35-year-old from Camotán, Chiquimula. The other 2 are presumed to be Mexican.

Rescue Efforts

The Coast Guard was immediately deployed for search-and-rescue operations. Military Blackhawk helicopters were seen over the river. Rescue efforts were ended at 07:30 PM on March 26, 2024 due to darkness, fog, and cold temperatures. Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said "Based on the length of time that we've gone in the search, the extensive search efforts that we put into it, the water temperature -- at this point, we do not believe that we're going to find any of these individuals still alive". Recovery operations resumed at 07:30 AM on March 27, 2024 with all 6 workers presumed dead.

No divers have yet entered the water underneath the bridge. Supervisory Special Agent Brian Hudson of the FBI's Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team said "the debris field is pretty sizable and I know that’s why they’re hesitant to send divers down because some of the debris is still shifting, the heavy weight of the rocks". The FBI has deployed Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) equipped with cameras and SONAR.

Aftermath

At 05:08 AM on March 26, 2024 Transportation Secretary Pete Buttegiege posted on X (formerly Twitter):

"I’ve spoken with Gov. Moore and Mayor Scott to offer USDOT’s support following the vessel strike and collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge. Rescue efforts remain underway and drivers in the Baltimore area should follow local responder guidance on detours and response."

At 07:30 AM on March 27, 2024 President of the Maryland State Senate Bill Ferguson posted on X (formerly Twitter):

"Over 15,000 in the Balt region rely on daily operations at Port of Baltimore to put food on the table. Today, with Del. @LukeClippinger and colleagues representing Port, we are drafting an emergency bill to provide for income replacement for workers impacted by this travesty."

At around 09:40 AM on March 26, 2024 Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott declared a State of Emergency to take effect at 10:30 AM March 26, 2024, and to last 30 days. Baltimore's Emergency Operations Plan was put into effect.

More than 1,000 personnel from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) have been deployed to assist with clearing the debris and rebuilding efforts. President Joe Biden has pledged that the federal government will pay for the entire reconstruction of the bridge.

Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recovered the Dali's data recorder, and will be inspecting both the Key Bridge and the Dali to determine the cause of the crash and the collapse. She says the investigation could take up to 2 years to complete.

Was it intentional?

According to William DelBagno, head of the FBI's Baltimore field office: "There is no specific or credible information to suggest there are ties to terrorism in this incident".

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said: "There are no indications this was an intentional act".

At least 3 people have been killed in accidents related to ships operated by Synergy in the past 6 years. In 2018 a person on board a Synergy ship in Australia was killed in an accident relating to the vessel's personnel elevator. In 2019 an officer aboard a Synergy vessel in Singapore fell overboard while performing maintenance. In 2023 at least one sailor was killed when a Synergy ship collided with a dredging ship in the Philippines. In the first two cases safety inspectors noted that proper safety procedures had not been adhered to.

Sources

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 2: I’m The Son Of Rage And Love]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Jesus Of Suburbia” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

On the shores of the Susquehanna River, just north of Harrisburg, you find a Wawa with no gas: bags on all the pumps, cars with their fuel caps unscrewed and dangling. This is a common courtesy adopted en masse, like rationing during the World Wars or flying American flags after 9/11. It signals that a car has already been siphoned, no gasoline to be found here, no transparent flammable gold made of eons-past decomposition. You wonder if in a few million years, some unfathomable new apex species will be drilling your liquefied remains from the lightless layers of the earth to power their spaceships.

“Then we got sent to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling,” Rio continues, gnawing on a piece of beef jerky, Jack Link’s in a red bag, teriyaki. Mercifully, whoever took the gas left some of the food. You are sitting in the parking lot, a quaint zombie apocalypse picnic, trail mix and Rice Krispies Treats, Herr’s potato chips and Tastykakes, warm soda sipped from plastic bottles. Luke and Rhaena are on the roof of the Tahoe. Jace is tearing the convenience store apart; he is convinced the employees must have kept a gun somewhere in case of robberies. You know he’s fine. You can hear him banging around and swearing in there.

“Then we built some schools and a hospital in Djibouti,” you say.

Aegon is baffled yet intrigued. “Djibouti…?”

“It’s on the Horn of Africa, near Ethiopia and Somalia.”

Luke snorts. “It’s nice of you to assume he knows where Africa is.”

“Huh.” Aegon tosses a green M&M into his mouth. “Djibouti is horny.”

Rio says: “And after that we spent like six months in Key West, and then we got shipped to Corpus Christi, where Chips very narrowly avoided getting impregnated by, marrying, and inevitably acrimoniously divorcing a Marine.”

Everyone laughs except Aemond, who gives you a teasing smirk. “Did you really?”

“Uh, no. He asked me out, I ghosted him, that’s as far as it went.”

“Why’d you ghost him?” Baela says, crunching on Utz Cheese Balls.

Aegon turns to Rio. “You want a Honey Bun?”

“You’re my Honey Bun,” Rio replies. Aegon smiles, his sunburn flushing darker.

You shrug, eat a handful of candied almonds, tell a half-truth. “I just didn’t like him enough.”

Rhaena yelps and points: a snake, black and maybe five feet long, is slithering across the parking lot. It passes beneath the shade of the Tahoe and then continues towards the bushes. A moderate amount of panic erupts.

Helaena glances up from her notebook. “Rat snake. Not venomous.”

Rhaena shudders. “Well, I still don’t like it.”

“Where were you stationed next?” Daeron asks Rio.

“Chinhae, South Korea. Wicked cool place. The people love Americans, the food is incredible. We were there to rebuild a pier that got wrecked in a typhoon. They have these cute dolphin-looking things, they’d swim right up to the edge of the water with fish in their mouths to try to give to us. Like cats bringing home mice for their owners.”

“Finless porpoises,” you say.

“Yeah, those. And after Korea, it was Diego Garcia.”

“Diego…what?” Rhaena says.

Aegon turns to Luke. “Try to act like I’m stupid for not knowing where that is.”

“Diego Garcia is a tiny little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean,” you say, a bit wistfully. “It’s technically owned by the British, but we share a base there, we use it for airfields and to refuel submarines, things like that. We were renovating the housing facilities for Camp Thunder Cove. At night we’d go to the beach, have a few beers, look out into the ocean and it was just…nothing. Wide open dark nothingness for as far as you could imagine.”

“That’s what we need now,” Helaena murmurs as she makes elegant cursive annotations in her notebook, the cover picturing different species of spiders, a pinktoe tarantula, a green lynx spider, a black widow. “Someplace to go where no one will find us.”

“So you’ve known each other since basic training.” Aemond’s remaining blue eye shifts between you and Rio, like he’s still trying to puzzle it out. There’s really no mystery. You’re friends, and you’ve always been friends, and you’ve never been more than friends, despite many of your fellow seamen’s jokes to the contrary.

You tear open a Slim Jim. Aemond rebandaged your hands this morning, though they barely hurt anymore; he touches you with a clinical, focused restraint. “Not quite that long. Rio enlisted a few months before I did, so we weren’t at Great Lakes together, and then carpenters do technical school in Gulfport, Mississippi near Biloxi, and electricians train at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas. We met after we were both assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 1.”

“The First and The Finest,” Rio quotes the motto, grinning. “The original Seabees, founded during World War II. People called our battalion the Pioneers, which…is kind of ironic now.”

Aegon says, munching noisily on trail mix: “It’ll be so appropriate when you end up dying of a broken leg or the flu or in some other totally preventable way.”

“It’s so crazy, people died of anything back then,” Luke marvels gravely. “Tuberculosis, pneumonia, infections, starving, freezing, poisoning, getting kicked by a horse, giving birth…”

Rhaena shoots him a fearsome look and Luke shuts up, but of course he can’t take it back. There is a long uncomfortable silence punctuated only by birdsong and Jace’s muffled outbursts from inside the Wawa. Everyone looks at Baela, concerned, pitying, entirely unable to do anything to improve her situation. She is still eating Cheese Balls with one orange-stained hand, but the other rests on her belly.

“Clearly, the timing is less than ideal,” Baela says after a while, and if she’s terrified she doesn’t sound like it. “It wasn’t planned to begin with, but I was determined to make the best of things. I figured that I could still finish up my master’s degree with a baby, and Rhaena and our parents could help, and Jace would be done with law school soon, and it might be stressful for a while but we’d all get through it. And now…” She shrugs wryly. “Now all those plans are gone. Just gone.”

“You’re going to be okay,” Aemond says; a fierce low determination, a promise, a vow.

Baela smiles at Rio. “How old is your baby?”

He is caught off-guard, clears his throat, averts his gaze. Aegon looks over at him, alarmed. “Oh, he, uh…he’s little. Really little. He…” And Rio, so rarely at a loss for words, can’t continue. He eats his beef jerky instead.

You explain for him. “Sophie’s due date was right around the time the phones and internet went down. The last we heard, she was headed to Odessa to stay with Rio’s parents.” Aemond and his companions nod and don’t say what they’re thinking, but it’s swimming in their eyes: Sophie could have died, the baby could have died, they both could have died, you and Rio might be risking your lives to cross the continental United States for nothing. “Rio’s parents live in this…well, I joke around and call it a doomsday prepper cult, but that’s not really what it is, it’s just a farming community out in the middle of nowhere. People who have their own chickens and gardens, churn their own butter, don’t wear deodorant, make medicine out of tree bark…and a lot of them have kind of a survivalist mentality, they stock pantries and collect guns. So we figure we can reunite Rio with his family and then carve out lives for ourselves in relative peace.”

Rio reaches over to bump his fist against your shoulder. He is grateful. You punch him back, fairly forcefully; it’s like hitting a brick wall. Rio is as tall as Aemond but probably outweighs him by a hundred pounds.

You ask Aemond: “What’s in the Bay Area?”

“Our parents have a beach house. It’s up on a cliff by itself, pretty isolated, and surrounded by state parks. That’s where they were when everything shut down. I assume they’re still there.”

“Beach house?” Rio raises his eyebrows. “On a cliff?”

Rich kids. REALLY rich kids. “Your parents couldn’t just fly you to California in a private jet or something?” you say.

“Our pilots stole the jets,” Aemond replies, not realizing you were joking.

“Oh.”

“Jace and Luke’s parents were home in London, so getting there isn’t really an option, and then Baela and Rhaena…”

“Mum and Dad were on a business trip to Moscow,” Baela says. “I’d like to think they weren’t eaten, but…they were probably eaten.”

“I am so sorry,” you manage awkwardly.

A single zombie goes shuffling past the Wawa on the main street, a woman in a floral church dress, hair falling out of its curls, one pink high heel that clicks on the pavement, blood all over her mouth and chin. She notices the nine of you and begins to hiss, lurching closer. Daeron shoots her down and then trots over to retrieve his arrows, yanking them out of her cheek and eye socket. Rhaena winces. Aemond, distracted, bites into a Nature Valley granola bar. Aegon opens a can of Pringles, pizza-flavored.

Luke is peering through his binoculars, looking south towards Harrisburg. Faintly, you can see sunlight glinting off the gilded statue of a woman—the Spirit of the Commonwealth—that tops the green clay tile dome of the state capitol building. “What is that?”

“The sculpture?” you say.

“No. Farther away. Those big concrete towers, right on the water.”

Now you know exactly what he means…and you’d forgotten all about it. It’s an oversight you hope doesn’t cost too much. “That’s Three Mile Island. And we should leave so we can put more space between it and us.”

“Oh, fuck me…” Rio mutters.

Now everyone else is squinting to see the facility, barely visible from the Wawa. “Why?” Aemond asks you.

“Because it’s a nuclear power plant. And since the electricity is out everywhere, as soon as its backup generators fail, it will melt down and the whole area around it will become radioactive.”

Aegon puts two Pringles into his mouth so they look like a duck bill. “How do you know?”

“Did no one else go through a Chernobyl obsession phase in high school?”

“The professor mentioned it in one of my chemistry classes,” Aemond says, but he sounds doubtful; this must have been years ago, when he was consumed by med school prerequisites and had no space left in his brain for mere curiosity.

“Okay, listen up.” Rio knows the key points; he’s had to study different sources of electrical power. He demonstrates with dramatic hand gestures. “You have super radioactive reactor fuel, usually uranium or plutonium. You have a pool of water around it that circulates continuously. The heat of the fuel evaporates the water, which makes steam, which spins turbines, thus creating power. But if the external electricity fails, the water stops circulating, and the heat vaporizes all of it, and when there’s no more water the reactor fuel overheats and melts through the floor and poisons the earth, air, and groundwater. Any questions?”

There is a chorus of distressed chattering as people swiftly rise to their feet, clutching armfuls of snacks for the road. Jace comes trudging out of the Wawa, conspicuously not in possession of a firearm.

“No luck?” Daeron asks.

“Obviously not.” Then Jace snaps at Aemond: “Why were you stomping around all pissed off in the medicine aisle earlier? What were you looking for?”

“Nothing,” Aemond says quickly.

“Seriously, dude, what was it?”

“Nothing!”

“Damn, Plankton, calm down.” Jace shields his face from the sun, following Luke’s nervous eyeline towards the concrete cooling towers to the south. “What’s that?”

“Three Mile Island,” you say. “And we’re leaving now.”

Aegon yawns loudly. “I’m so full! Rio, can you carry me to the car?” And before anyone can tell Aegon to shut up, Rio has crouched down to let him scramble onto his back. Aegon cackles and waves his can of Pringles around as Rio sprints to the Tahoe. Now there are a few more zombies stumbling up the street, but you don’t waste arrows or bullets on them. Baela runs them down as she swerves out of the parking lot and drives northwest, heading towards Clarks Ferry Bridge where you will cross the Susquehanna River in a less populated area and commence the long slog to the Ohio border. She turns up the volume on the CD player: London Bridge by Fergie. Immediately, Rio, Aegon, Daeron, Rhaena, and Luke are singing along.

Baela checks the fuel gauge and looks at Aemond in the rearview mirror. “We have half a tank left.”

“We’ll find gas somewhere.”

“Aemond, it’ll be alright. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re not going to be able to walk to California.”

Baela can’t think of a response. He’s right. Outside, the miles roll by in a blur of radiant, reptilian, early-summer green.

~~~~~~~~~~

Each time the interstate is blocked by a snarl of crashed vehicles or a backup too thick to navigate through—both common occurrences—Aegon digs the folded map out of his shorts and charts a new course for Baela to follow. This particular divergence might prove fortunate. The Tahoe has rolled into Distant, Pennsylvania, an Appalachian speck of a town, churches, coal mines, dilapidated old sheds. On the outskirts, perched on a hill and surrounded by oak trees, you find a small single-story brick house with a myriad of banners on the flagpole: an American flag, a Confederate flag, a black POW/MIA flag, Don’t Tread On Me, Trump 2024.

“Yeah,” Aegon says, scratching his scruffy chin as he peers up through the windshield. “I feel like they probably owned guns.”

“How do we know they’re not still home?” Baela asks warily.

“No car in the driveway,” Aemond observes. “No windows boarded up. They probably ran into trouble while they were out somewhere and never made it back.” Then he waits, the question upspoken. Are we going to risk it?

“We’re down,” Rio says after exchanging a glance with you.

Aemond turns to Jace. Jace—curly dark hair down to his shoulders, eyes on the house, chewing his full bottom lip apprehensively—doesn’t reply at first.

“You said you wanted a gun, Jace. All the Walmarts are cleaned out. This is what shopping looks like now.”

“Fine. Okay. Let’s go.”

Baela parks the Tahoe in the gravel driveway and tells Rhaena and Luke to stay inside with Helaena until the property has been cleared. The rest of you climb out, afternoon sun and mountain wind, dandelions crushed under your shoes. There’s a barn behind the house, you see now, gaps between the wooden boards and flaking red paint.

Luke is standing up through the open sunroof, inspecting the scene with his binoculars. “No movement.”

“We’ll take the house, if you want,” Rio tells Aemond. You’re clutching your borrowed baseball bat with bandaged hands, though it still feels unnatural; your M9 is in its holster in case of emergencies. Jace, Baela, and Daeron start plodding across the yard towards the barn. The grass is tall and mostly shaded, the oak trees decades old, massive, weaving a patchwork canopy of leaves.

Aegon trots over and slaps Aemond on his left shoulder, his blind side. Aemond says without looking at him: “I’ll go with them. You wait out here.”

Aegon drives an imaginary ball with his golf club. “I’m very sensitive to rejection, you know.”

“You’ll survive.” Then Aemond follows you and Rio to the house.

Rio tries the knob, locked. He doesn’t waste a bullet by trying to shoot the lock off the door, something that is far less reliable than movies would have you believe. He kicks it open instead, three tries and then the screws that secure the latch give way and the door swings ajar. You wait, counting seconds in your head, listening for growls or footsteps. There are no sounds except the breeze sighing through the trees, the warbles and wing flaps of birds. You steal a glimpse of the barn. Jace, Baela, and Daeron have unhooked the rusted iron latch and are venturing inside, Daeron last and glancing around watchfully, his compound bow already drawn. Rio steps into the house.

It’s hot, stifling, all the windows shut. But this has its advantages. You inhale deeply: no trace of decomposition, no black swampy nauseating rot, just dust and lemon Pledge and old-people staleness.

“Smells fine,” Rio says. And then, loudly: “Anyone home? We’re just looking for supplies. We don’t want to hurt you. If anybody is here, just let us know and we’d be happy to leave. And, uh, sorry about the door.”

You stay close to Rio as he sweeps through the living room—floral couch, television turned off, crosses on the walls—and then the kitchen, where bananas are turning black on the counter. Aemond is to your right; he’s placed you on his blind side. He trusts me, you think. When did that happen? You haven’t heard anything from Aegon or the barn. That must be going well.

In the bedroom, Aemond pulls the curtains open to let some light in. You search the drawers, the closet, under the bed. No weapons. The bathroom has 1950s-style pink porcelain, the dining room table is set for a meal that never happened. There is a deer head mounted on the wall, ten points, not bad.

“I can’t believe these fuckers didn’t have guns,” Rio says. “But where the hell are they?!”

You have always watched more than you’ve spoken. That’s why you’re good at shooting things, and why you’re still alive. Rio talks and you listen; Rio acts and you reflect. “Wait.” You turn to Aemond. “Did you see a cellar outside?”

“A what?” He is perplexed. “Like…a wine cellar…?”

“No. A regular cellar.” You walk back into the midday heat and circle the house, Aemond and Rio hurrying to keep up. Over by the barn, everyone else is stretched out across the grass, joking, relaxing, Baela with her hammer on the ground and her hands laced over her belly, Helaena cradling a praying mantis in her palms and showing it to Rhaena. Aegon is teaching Luke how to smoke with a pack of Marlboro Golds he found at the Wawa. Luke, game yet somewhat anxious, takes a puff and then immediately coughs until he starts retching.

“I want to try too,” Daeron says.

Aegon shakes his head, taking a nonchalant drag off his own cigarette. “Nope. Not for you. Illegal. You’re under eighteen.”

“I want to try!”

“Shut up, you can’t even vote.”

“Nobody can vote, the government has collapsed!”

You find it at the back of the house: a pair of large metal doors leading down into the underground cellar. The weeds have begun to encroach on them, wild violets and black nightshade.

“Awesome!” Rio says, lifting the doors open one at a time, the hinges shrieking. They’re heavy, but they cause him no trouble. Underneath is a staircase and a room dark with shadows; you can see a light switch that won’t work, the electricity long gone. Rio unclips the flashlight from his  belt—taken from Saratoga Springs, waterproof with a 90-degree head so it doesn’t roll, known as a Moonbeam—and ducks down into the cellar. It’s a small room, easy to clear, and then you can start inventorying your findings. Rio is laughing, ecstatic. There is a workbench, a coil of thick rope, an array of tools—screwdrivers, wrenches, hammers, saws—some homemade leather wallets and holsters, cans of Brillo color spray…and then a treasure trove of weapons mounted on the walls.

You scan the collection. “We got Marlin .22s, we got Ruger Magnums, we got Remington 12 gauges, we got hunting knives…and one Glock 20.”

“A lot of ammo under here, Chips,” Rio says, yanking boxes out from beneath the workbench and stacking them on the floor, organized by caliber.

“No scopes?”

“Not that I’ve seen yet.”

You lift one of the Remingtons off its hooks and examine it: dusty, unloaded, vines of rust on the receiver. “We’ll have to go through and sight all of them. I don’t think they’ve been used in a while.”

“That’ll be a lot of noise. But here’s the place to do it, I guess. Low population, and we’re not staying.”

“Exactly.”

“Sight them for close range, like ten yards?”

“Yeah, that should work.”

Aemond says, eyebrow raised: “I didn’t know the Navy used shotguns.”

“Everyone hunts where I’m from.” You put the Remington down on the workbench then pick up the Glock, a box of 10mm ammo, and a can of Brillo. “Come on. Grab one of those hammers. I’ll show you how to shoot.”

You bound up the cellar steps and out into the shade of the oak trees, not stopping until you are at the edge of the property. Across the backyard where he lounges on the grass, Aegon gestures to the barn and asks Luke: “What’s in there anyway?”

“Nothing. Saddles and a few dead horses.”

“Oh, dynamite, I gotta see the dead horses.”

Jace says: “Aegon, man, what is your diagnosis?”

You use the can of Brillo to spray a large chocolate-colored circle onto a tree trunk, then make another two feet above that. You count your steps as you walk back towards Aemond: approximately ten yards. You load a single bullet in the Glock, aim for the bottom circle, and fire. A hole appears at the very edge of the circle. You take the hammer from Aemond and give the rear sight a few knocks. “This isn’t recommended, but it usually works.”

Aemond is smiling. “Okay.”

You load the full magazine and try again. The bullet hits closer to the middle this time. “Here. Both hands.”

Aemond takes the Glock but hesitates. “Is…my eye…?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of people close one eye anyway when they’re aiming. I always do.”

He is relieved. “Oh. Good.”

You tap the underside of the Glock. Aemond obediently lifts it. “The line of sight is slightly higher than the barrel, so you have to account for that. And then gravity will pull the bullet lower, and the longer the range of the shot, the more it will drop. So when you fire, the barrel should be angled upwards just the tiniest bit, not horizontal.”

“Like throwing a football.”

“Yeah, exactly. It’s an arc, not a straight line. At first it’ll feel like you’re trying to do all these calculations in your head, and it will be overwhelming, but then it becomes muscle memory and you don’t even have to think about it.” Jace, Baela, and Daeron are now eagerly crossing the yard to help Rio carry the guns out of the cellar and receive their own lessons. “Alright, we’re going to start with a really terrifying enemy. I want you to shoot that tree.”

“What a formidable tree.”

“Aim for the top circle. And if you hit it, then you can practice on Jace.”

Aemond laughs, butter-yellow sunlight filtering down through the trees, the shadows of leaves flickering over his skin, a mosaic of flesh and earth. You ghost your open hand down the length of his arm as if adjusting the angle. Really, you just want to touch him, to feel his warmth and his stillness, the tension of his muscles, the rhythm of his pulse. He’s watching you, lips parted, goosebumps rising beneath your fingertips. Birds are chirping, sparrows and blue jays. High above, squirrels leap and scrabble through the branches. You pull your hand away.

“Look through the sights. The rear sight at the back of the barrel is shaped like a U, and the one at the front is an I. Is the I in the middle of the U?”

“I have no idea.” A pause as he reconsiders. “Yes.”

“Right, it is, and the bullet should go exactly where you want it to because I already sighted that Glock. I’ll show you how to do it later. Now shoot the tree.”

Aemond aims but doesn’t pull the trigger. He’s nervous; he doesn’t want to seem incompetent, pathetic. You imagine it is rare that he isn’t the one with the solutions.

“Hey,” you say softly, and he looks over at you. “You don’t judge me for not knowing how to cure people. I won’t judge you for not knowing how to kill them. Deal?”

Now he’s smiling again. “Deal.” He returns his attention to the tree, lets a few more seconds tick by, and fires. He hits one of the branches. “Oh, that is…embarrassing.”

“It’s not that bad. You hit something. Try again.”

More seconds, more birdsong, more wind through the grass and the leaves. Aemond’s second bullet pierces the trunk about six inches above the top circle. “Yes!” he cheers, boyish triumph on his scarred face.

You resist touching him. It is startlingly difficult. “That was really good.”

He lowers the Glock, and you click the safety on for him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” you say.

“Why’d you ghost that Marine at Corpus Christi?”

“I told you. I didn’t like him enough.”

“Okay, sure, but actually. What was wrong with him?”

“I’ve known you for like twenty-four hours. You think you’ve earned all my secrets?”

“Well, not all of them,” Aemond says, grinning. Rio is showing Jace, Baela, and Daeron how to load the .22s. Aegon is swinging his golf club in circles as he follows Luke into the barn. Helaena and Rhaena are giggling as butterflies land on their outstretched fingers. “But our time together could be very finite. It seems unwise to waste it by trying to preserve some amount of mystery.”

“You’ve convinced me.” You want to be known by him, you want to be understood. That is a frightening thing to realize. It’s like handing a stranger the keys to your home. Will they visit graciously, or will they rob you, ruin you, burn you down? “I haven’t seen many examples of love working out for people. I’ve seen couples who hated each other, and couples who split up, and a lot of women having to raise kids all on their own and turning into these…bitter, exhausted, hollowed-out versions of themselves. I never wanted that to be me. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like that was just one wrong choice away from becoming my life. I don’t want men to disappoint me. So I don’t give them the chance.”

You think Aemond is going to say something cheap, flirtatious, awful: Give me a chance, baby. I won’t disappoint you. Instead he says: “I haven’t known many happy couples either. I mean…Luke and Rhaena would be the closest, I guess. But they’re so young. I’m not sure if they count.”

“Rio and Sophie seem happy. But they’ve also barely seen each other in five years.”

“It does things to you, when you start to believe love might be doomed to end or tear you apart or turn to hatred. If it’s just an evolutionary mirage to trick us into reproducing, what’s the point of giving someone that power over you?”

“Exactly.”

“I feel like one of us should be trying to talk the other out of being so fatalistically cynical.”

“Yeah, totally. Okay. You talk me out of it.”

He chuckles. “No, I don’t think I can. You talk me out of it.”

You’re watching Aemond, realizing you like everything about him—his smirk, his height, his hands, the clear direct blue of his eye—and wondering what the hell you’re going to do about it. Then there is a scream from the barn.

What?? Who??

“Luke!” Aemond shouts, and takes off across the yard. Now you’re all running, even Rhaena and Helaena who don’t have anything to fight with. Everyone is yelling, their lungs heaving in wild June air, their shoes pounding against the earth.

Inside the barn, on a wooden floor strewn with hay, Luke is shrieking as he tries to push a zombie off of him with his bare hands. She’s an older woman, grey hair in rollers, yellow nightgown stained with gore. Something has happened to her feet. Both of her legs end in exposed tibias and flapping strips of purplish, rotting skin. Aegon is beating her with his golf club, but he can’t get a good shot at her head. If he accidentally hits Luke, he could make it worse, he could stun him or even knock him out, and he’ll be bitten in the few seconds it takes anyone to remove his undead assailant. Rio lunges to grab the zombie. She snaps at him with bared teeth and he retreats, drawing his M9.

“Don’t shoot!” Jace is saying. The air is putrid: dead horses, dead people. “You’ll hit Luke!”

Your own M9 is suddenly in your hands, the safety clicked off, one eye closed. “Luke, don’t move.”

“Kill it, kill it!” he pleads hysterically, pushing the zombie as far from him as he can, his palms sinking into the decomposing bruise-colored tissue of her chest and throat.

“Don’t shoot!” Jace orders, but you ignore him. He fades into the background with all the other frenzied voices. Your finger on the trigger, a boom like thunder, bits of bone and brains against the wall. Luke shoves the corpse away, trembling, sobbing. Rhaena flies to him.

Aegon spots the fresh blood on Luke’s right hand and panics. “Is that a bite?!”

Luke notices the wound for the first time. “I don’t know!”

“What do you mean you don’t know?!”

“I don’t know!” Luke wails, tears flooding down his pink face.

“I thought you cleared the barn!” Aemond roars at Aegon.

“It fell out of the loft, we didn’t think anything was up there!”

Luke is blubbering: “I hit my hand against one of the stalls, I think that’s how I cut myself, I was just…I was pushing it away…I didn’t think it bit me…oh my God, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t want to die…”

“It only takes once, kid,” Rio says grimly, fidgeting with his M9, looking at Aemond as if for permission.

“Don’t touch him!” Jace hisses, stepping in front of his brother and clutching his bat. “No one is going to hurt him, it’s not a bite, you can’t prove it’s a bite!”

You reach for Luke’s bleeding hand. “Can I see—?”

“Get away from him!” Jace swings his bat. The tip of it connects with your skull, just a graze fortunately, but still enough to rattle you. Rio charges Jace, tackles him to the floor, starts throwing punches. Baela has apparently forgotten she’s heavily pregnant and is trying to pull them apart. You join her.

He’s going to demolish Jace. He’s going to break his nose or jaw or something. “Rio stop, I’m fine, stop!”

There is another gunshot, a cataclysmic earth-shaking explosion that makes the pain in your head surge from a ripple to a wave. Aemond is aiming his Glock skywards; a hole has appeared in the roof of the barn. “Stand up!” he commands. Rio and Jace reluctantly comply. You help Baela to her feet.

“Aemond,” Jace says. “You have to stop them, they’re going to kill Luke—”

“No one is killing anybody.” Aemond lowers his Glock. “Maybe he’s been bitten. Maybe he hasn’t been. And even if we knew for sure that he was going to turn, we don’t just execute people like this, threatening them when they’re terrified. We have humanity. We have compassion.”

There is a silence that strikes you as heavy, laden, holding meaning that escapes you. Aegon points at Luke. “So what the fuck are we going to do about him?”

“We’ll tie him up,” Aemond decides.

“What?!” Luke exclaims.

“There’s rope in the cellar. We’ll tie his arms and legs so he can’t do anything and keep him like that for a few days until either his hand heals up or he turns into a zombie. Someone will always have to be with him to help him eat and take a piss and also…you know. Deal with it if he turns.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Rhaena says immediately.

Aemond’s voice is now gentle, sympathetic. “I don’t think you want this.”

“If Luke has to die, I should be the person with him.”

“You’ve never had to put someone down before.” And in this statement lives another: Aemond knows what that feels like. Aemond has had to kill someone when they turned.

“I’ll stay with him,” Rhaena says again, this frail harmless doe-eyed girl, and you see a steeliness in her that you hadn’t thought existed.

“Okay,” Aemond relents. “When you’re asleep, Jace or I will take over.”

“It’s not a bite,” Jace murmurs, like he’s trying to convince himself.

“We’ll all find out soon enough,” Rio says, casting him a glare, then goes to fetch the coil of rope from the cellar.

Aemond cleans and bandages the wound on Luke’s hand. Then the weapons, ammo, and newly immobilized Luke are loaded into the Tahoe. Aemond asks you once everyone else is inside: “How’s your head?”

“Fine, I think.”

“Hurts?”

“Just a little.”

“Dizzy? Double vision?”

“No, nothing like that.”

He takes a quick look, parting your hair with his fingertips, feeling gingerly for blood and swelling. And this is becoming a serious problem: every time he touches you, you want more.

“Aemond…who did you have to kill?”

He doesn’t answer. For another moment his hand lingers by your temple, then Aemond turns away and climbs into the Tahoe. This time, no one sings along to the next song on the mixtape. Heads rest on windows, eyes are vacant and misty. Baela steers the Tahoe westbound on Route 1004, the Chainsmokers drifting through the speakers: All We Know.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Pick a card, any card,” Aegon says when he’s done shuffling. He fans out the entire Uno deck face-down and offers it to Rio, Aemond, and Jace. They each select a card, then Aegon picks one for himself. Finally, he holds out the deck to Luke, who stares up incredulously from where he’s still bound with rope and sitting on a curb in the parking lot of a Burger King just outside of Yarnell, Pennsylvania.

“Are you serious?”

“You’re an adult male, aren’t you? You think being in the middle of transforming into an undead murder machine exempts you from gasoline siphoning duty?”

“I’m fine!” Luke insists.

“Great. Then pick a card.”

“I can’t move my hands, you idiot.”

“Pick it with your mouth.”

“I hate you.” Luke bites his card of choice and waits with it clasped between his teeth, glowering.

“I want to pick a card,” Daeron says cheerfully.

Aegon refuses. “No. Too young. A baby.”

“Aegon, I’m seventeen!”

“Can’t enlist, can’t do jury duty, can’t buy lottery tickets, can’t sign up to drink gasoline. Okay, everybody show their cards.”

“I got a three,” Jace says, then yanks Luke’s card out of his mouth and reads it. “He got a skip.”

Aemond’s card is a nine, Rio’s a five, Aegon’s a reverse. “That means you lose, Jace,” Aegon announces, admittedly rather gleeful. “You had the lowest number.”

“This is bullshit, I had to siphon last time!”

“Then stop picking bad cards.”

“Jace, I can do it,” Aemond says.

“And get to be the martyr, as usual? No thanks. Give me the damn hose.”

Aegon roots around under the Tahoe seats and produces a long, semitransparent siphoning hose. “All the ones with the little pump attachments were sold out everywhere by the time we thought that might be useful,” he explains to you and Rio.

“That sucks, Jace,” Rio says. “I mean, literally, it sucks.”

“Next time we cross a bridge, I’m pushing you off it.” Jace takes the hose from Aegon, pops open the gas cap of the Dodge Ram 3500 you’ve found, and threads the hose down into the tank. He sucks on the other end and then shoves it into the Tahoe once the gasoline starts flowing. The fuel gauge was hovering just above E. Hopefully you can get at least a few gallons out of the Ram, another fifty or a hundred miles, maybe even two hundred, enough to get you across the Ohio border.

Jace is bent over and vomiting gasoline onto the pavement. Rhaena and Baela sit with Luke as Aemond feels his forehead and peers into his eyes. Daeron accompanies Helaena as she goes to scavenge inside the Burger King, her burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder. Rio is now holding the siphoning hose and watching the liquid gold pour into the Tahoe, his smile growing with each passing second. Your eyes fall on Aemond and stay there, his careful hands, his brow knitted with concentration.

A whisper from behind you: “We could fake date to make him jealous.”

You whirl to see Aegon, mischievous smirk, neon green plastic sunglasses. “That is a super generous offer and I appreciate the thought you put into it, but no.”

“Why not?”

“It’s dishonest. It’s manipulative. If something is going to happen with Aemond, I want it to be real.”

Aegon sighs. “No, you’re right, it was a dumb idea. I just figured I have a lot of experience.”

“Experience with what?”

“People pretending to love me.” He flashes a strange, sad smile, then follows Daeron and Helaena into the Burger King.

[darkbluekies]

one of my favorite passtimes (?) is to sit on google maps and just look around the world and i'm currently looking around Greece and I can't help but imagine Silas here and there, holding his darling by the hand and proudly showing them his culture.

I'll give you a scenario to visualize: it's summer, the sun is shining, it is warm, Silas is wearing a black buttoned shirt that he has rolled up the sleeves on, he's holding his darlings hand and walking past a market, pointing at different food stands ("that is really good, i used to eat that all the time") and then pulling them over to try. He talks Greek with the seller and jokes a bit, thrilled to finally be able to talk his native language with someone again. He will try to teach you some phrases as well, while you're walking along the pier in the sunset. help.

I will rot away looking at England (Hedwig), South Korea (Jerry) and Sweden (Kry) too for the rest of the evening. Hard to do that with Edmund though :/

[stinalotte]

inspired by that fic by @massharp1971 where Atlantis gets pissed at John for being a dick to Rodney after Trinity

AITA for throwing my favorite human into the ocean having a slight transporter malfunction?

One of my (several million years, NB) humans (M37) recently blew up 5/6 of a solar system. My favorite human (M35) is pissed at him. I wasn't there and they haven't written their reports yet, so I don't know exactly what went down, but Favorite is being an ass to the other one. I know for a fact that he is no angel himself. Also, I like the solar system blowing up one, he takes care of me and fixes stuff when it breaks down.

So when Favorite was done being mean and touched the transporter panel without looking (because he wanted to be oh so suave and cool), I sent him exactly where he touched the display — 10.8 meters off of the South East pier. He splashed down into the ocean and eventually got rescued, and I think he learned his lesson. People are saying I'm the asshole because I had to override six security protocols and two subroutines to get the transporter to malfunction, and the waves were high and there were shark-like things, but eh. Sometimes you gotta yeet people into the water to get your point across.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

So I’m mostly curious about this for Muriel’s sake (he’s my favorite) but I have an HC request for if the M6, whether through a dream or magic, got to talk with their past selves from the darkest point in their lives, what would they say? Try to comfort/cheer themselves up? Assuming everyone got their Upright endings.

The Arcana HCs: M6 talking to their past selves

~ this is such an interesting one, @httyd-chocolate! thank you for the request, I hope you like what I do with it! (for hc purposes, this occurs as a magical dream where past and present selves interact) - brainrot ~

Julian

The dream is so vivid that he doesn't realize what it is until it's over

But right now, he's staring down at this gangly, scared, insecure almost-teenager, and every heroic bone in his body is telling him that this boy deserves all the safety and support in the world

It's weird to hear his young self saying the same deprecating things that he still does, but the jokes that normally make him laugh don't sound funny at all coming from a kid

And before he knows it, all the words he's heard you and Portia and Mazelinka say to him are spilling out of his mouth

"You're not alone. People are fortunate to be around you. You only drag everyone around you down when you refuse to let them lift you up. Sticking around to see the future is worth it."

At the same time, seeing himself in that kid's eyes is world-altering

Because to that younger self, the man he is now is smart, and heroic, and important, and somebody worth growing up to be

They stroll down to the seaside, at one point, as Julian listens to tiny Ilya's frustrations with his sister, and himself, and not knowing who he is or what comes next besides a call away from home

"You're pretty cool, mister," Ilya says at one point, "who are you?"

"I'm you," Julian says, and the look of hope and surprised delight he sees on Ilya's face makes him wake up with tears in his eyes

Asra

They know where they are as soon as the back alleys of the South End swim into view. They don't expect to see themself though

He's caught glimpses of the past once or twice, with you by his side, but those were moments of a childhood of wonder and escape. The kid in front of him hasn't found that magic yet

Little Asra is hiding in a corner behind a trash heap, clutching their lost mother's shawl and trying to hide the sniffles that shake their thin shoulders. Though all that disappears when they spot Big Asra

Suddenly, he's being scrutinized with the most curious gaze, and there's no hiding who he is. So he joins hands with him and starts wandering around, paying for lots of street food along the way

They'd forgotten how many questions they used to ask people

Until one hits him out of nowhere: "what's it like for us now?"

They don't want to leave that scared, lonely kid without something to look forward to, so they play with the dream a bit and lead Little Asra to a familiar magic shop a few streets away from the town square

In the dream, you're dozing by the fire, tea and snacks waiting on the table, and Big Asra watches his child self gaze at you in awe and remember what home feels like

It's sobering, to lead that child back to the docks and tuck them in to sleep under the pier, but it's a glimpse of warmth they're glad they got to share

Nadia

She has a suspicion of what's going on when she opens her eyes in her childhood bedroom, and that suspicion is confirmed when her 14-year-old self storms in and slams the door shut

She's ready to provide a haven. A listening ear. Ready to tell the young woman in front of her that she's right, that she's ready for more, that being held back and dismissed like this really isn't fair

Until the 14-year-old opens her mouth and starts to unload her day

For the first time in years, Nadia's not sure what to say. Does she want to tell this young woman that she's right, her parents and older sisters are being overprotective and unreasonable? Yes!

But does she find herself agreeing that a 14-year-old should not be allowed to go off to the battlefield her older sibling is serving as a medic on to lead the army to victory herself? ... yes ...

Does the embarrassed, hurting, angry teen in front of her need to know that? Absolutely not. So Nadia listens and nods instead

There are other things she sees that she realizes she remembers correctly. The fear of not measuring up. The frustration of having to wait to meet the milestones her siblings have already passed

So she tells this precocious, prickly young woman what you've been seeing in her all along: she is strong. She is smart. She is someone worth having faith in, and she doesn't need to be afraid

Muriel

He doesn't have to think twice. As soon as he sees that big, bony lad that was himself in his early twenties, huddled in a cell under the Coliseum after his first fight, he's breaking him out of there

He starts to wonder if this is a dream, when the iron bars give way under his grasp, but he's focusing on wrapping his cloak around those shivering shoulders and leading him out of the city

He's forgotten how scrawny he'd been before he bulked up on the meals provided for Lucio's prized fighter, and seeing spatters of his first opponent's blood on such a boyish face breaks his heart

They're both silent on the way through the woods. The younger him is still in shock, and the older him isn't sure what to do next

When the reach the clearing, the hut is more like what older him is used to. He helps young Muriel into the outside bath and begins putting together a hearty stew for the two of them to share

They both stay quiet. Older him watches every flinch and start and quiet pause of happiness and safety and keeps realizing that he deserves better. He deserves good things. I want him to have that.

They both turn bright red when younger him notices that the bed has two pillows on it, but they both know that that's a good thing

When the time comes for them to wake up, Muriel wraps that kid up in his arms. "... it gets better. Promise. You deserve it."

Portia

This is trippy, but after what she's been through with you, Portia guesses this is just par for the course. Why is she in Nevivon?

Her question is answered when a nine-year-old girl comes careening around the corner, fiery curls flying, just in time to collide with her and go sprawling in the dust by the road

Oh, Portia thinks, I remember being like this. I remember her.

Portia watches Pasha pick herself up, lower lip trembling with rage and eyes full of tears, getting ready to lash out at whoever just ripped her dress and made her day go from awful to terrible

And she pulls that little girl into the tightest hug she can manage

Once Pasha's made good use of the handkerchief she's been handed, she takes Portia's hand and shows her around town

She tells Portia all about her life right now. About the grandmas who take care of her, and the parents she doesn't remember

And she talks and talks and talks about her amazing older brother, the last family she has, who left several months ago to explore the world and find adventure and save people - without her

Portia listens and comments, but she keeps getting distracted looking at the strong, clear-eyed, purposeful little girl next to her

So she spends the rest of her visit telling that kid that she's strong, she's interesting, she's exciting, and she is so, so very important, even when it's just her

Lucio

He's back in the frozen woods. He doesn't like the frozen woods

And neither, apparently, does the six year old boy across from him

At first he's just concerned. Why is a small child alone in the freezing cold? He needs to help them get safe and warm

Then he recognizes the golden head of hair, and the big, silver eyes staring up at him, and the nose red from cold, and he has to bite his tongue to keep from yelling as he starts a fire and asks for a name

He likes having a different name, he realizes, when he gets to introduce himself as Lucio the Adventurer to little Montag

Montag, he learns, is alone on a quest to hunt down a bear per his mother's instructions, but he's cold and hungry and frightened

To Montag, Lucio is a hero. He's big and strong and has a cool arm and builds a fire to keep him warm and listens to him talk about how he wants to be a leader when he grows up, without scoffing at his dreams

So the two of them huddle together by the fire under one of the trees, sharing a cloak and talking about who they are

Lucio hears the beginnings of his downfall already in Montag's stories about growing up stronger than everyone so the people in his family and his tribe will have no choice but to praise him

And Montag hears humility and hope from Lucio, about the importance of recognizing mistakes and learning to love and be loved

[ankoku-teion]

A barren clifftop, the stone scraped bare of moss by the howling winds, and roilubg waters far below. This is an edge place, a boundary place where land meets sea and sky. Where the forest gives way to the crag.

Boundaries can become bridges, if you know what you're doing.

I carve my symbols into the face of this jagged tooth of rock. The pentagram, natures ward, that guards from harm. A red candle at each point, to give it warmth and light.

Next The Seraph's Circle, 23 sacred names in angelic script, to summon and to bind in place.

Then comes the Mage's Circle, 15 words in Old Enoch's glyphs, the potency that piers the rest.

To north, east, south, and west, the four black candles that burn with a blue light, these give shape to the shapeless, form to the formless, mind to the mindless.

Last comes the ring of salt, to purify and seal the whole construction.

I take my place before the point of the star, within the salt seal, but without the magic's ward. And I speak the words of summoning.

"bones of the earth, breath of the wind. Blood of the sea, and soul of the fire. Gaia's child, I summon you. By blood and bone and breath I give you form, spirit of the word. Hear your name and come. @maryland-officially."

[desired-misery]

DM's 2024 Whumptober Masterlist! COMPLETE

Welcome to my first whumptober! I am completing both Whumptober (W) and AiLessWhumptober. (ALW).

@whumptober-archive @ailesswhumptober This month's fics are all centered around Leon Kennedy and Ingrid Hunnigan from the Resident Evil games (specifically post-Resident Evil 4). Expect lots of whump, angst, ample sarcasm and sass, and plenty of field agent nonsense from yours truly, Leon "Condor" Kennedy.

Characters: Leon Kennedy, Ingrid Hunnigan (with Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans as a treat). Works below the cut! *everything will be posted to my AO3 account , but only one is a complete fic. Everything else are scenes of larger fics that have not been completed yet.

THE WORKS

Nonlinear Recovery | Leon Kennedy POV | Scenes

Rating: 13+

Summary: Leon is struggling with medical complications after surviving Spain. While most of his symptoms have cleared up, one in particular is wreaking havoc on his plans to return to his normal life. As normal as his life could be.

W: Starvation [12], Forced Choice [23], Therapy [31]

ALW: Migraines [5]

Trapped By Circumstance | Leon Kennedy POV | Complete

Rating: 13+

Summary: What he has to do is very simple: don't give up the code words, don't crack, don't suffer serious injury or death, do not give anyone the code words. He needs to prove he can be trusted.

W: Panic Attack [1], Set Up for Failure [3], Sensory Deprivation [4], Sleep Deprivation [8], Fatigue [29]

ALW: Stress Position [1], Sensory Deprivation [12], Defiance [13], Waterboarding [15], Hostile Environment [16], Disassociation [19], Forced to Kneel [22], Electrocution [26], Panic Attack/Facing a Phobia [31], Animal Bite [ALT 3 for 25], Kidnapping [ALT 8 for 18]

Unfortunate Consequences | Ingrid Hunnigan POV | Scenes

Rating: 13+

Summary: It wasn’t Condor’s fault— but damn, his luck can be abysmal at the worst times. Falling through a rickety staircase resulted in the kind of injury that was immediately disqualifying to Condor being able to fulfill the mission objectives. It happened outside of the recon point, an abandoned building-turned-safehouse that clearly needed some maintenance.

W: Heat Stroke [5], "Oh, that's not good" [22]

ALW: Unfortunate Fall [2], Heat Stroke [9]

Left Out | Ingrid Hunnigan POV | Scenes

Rating: 13+

Summary: After Condor gets injured and then almost becomes a casualty of heat stroke, he is back to work. The mission is supposed to easy, light work for him while he is still technically on the mend. With Condor's classic, horrible luck, things so south fast.

W: Only for Emergencies [7], Blackmail [14], "It's not your fault" [20], CCTV [28]

Delayed Guilt | Ingrid Hunnigan + Leon Kennedy POV | Scenes

Rating: 13+

Summary: On the heels of a failed mission, Ingrid hopes this one will go better after getting reassurance that it was nothing more than a horribly unlucky situation. That happens with Condor sometimes. ...Sometimes.

W: Nowhere Else to Go [17], Collapsed Building/Equipment Failure [24]

Disoriented, Cornered | Leon Kennedy + Ingrid Hunnigan POV | Scenes

Rating: Mature

Summary: Severely injured, Leon is reduced to survival instincts that won't allow him to recognize the real world around him.

W: Passing Out from the Pain [10], Unreliable Narrator [18], Body Horror [21], Voiceless/Muzzled [27], Hospital Bed [30]

ALW: Passed Out [23], Delirium [30]

On His Back | Leon Kennedy POV | Scenes

Rating: Mature

Summary: Leon's horrific hospital stay triggers all kinds of horrible thoughts. Thanks to the pain medication he has to take, his nightmares are vivid and intense.

W: Painful Hug [15], Nightmares [26]

ALW: Non-consensual Body Modification [4], "You're so much prettier this way" [8], Hallucinations [11], Ownership [29]

Self Reliance | Leon Kennedy POV | Scenes

Rating: Mature

Summary: At this point, Ingrid knows just how much Leon cannot tolerate doctors. She does everything she can to help, but still, Leon insists he can handle it on his own. He can take care of himself.

W: Broken Window [9], Wound Cleaning [16], Surgery/Stitches [25]

ALW: Field Medicine [7], Self Worth Issues [10],

Within Range | Piers Nivans POV | Scenes

Rating: 13+

Summary: As often as Alpha is deployed, you'd think they'd recognize if they were being shot at. But that's the thing about BOWs; they don't tend to be intelligent enough for that. Within the fog of combat, it takes a while to realize that someone is shooting back.

W: Multiple Whumpees [13], Blood Trail [19], Friendly Fire [ALT for 11]

ALW: Multiple Whumpees [6], Concussion [14], Misunderstanding [17], "I'm absolutely not qualified for this shit" [20], Internal Bleeding [28]

Shared Sleep | Leon Kennedy + Chris Redfield POV | Scenes

Rating: 13+

Summary: Leon has nightmares very often. Leon sharing a bed with someone happens way, way less often. It is not exactly great to dream about zombies when Chris fuckin' Redfield is the one lying next to him.

ALW: Zombies [ALT 4 for 27]

Experiment 537 | Luis Serra + Leon Kennedy POV | Scenes

Rating: Mature

Summary: How Luis Serra becomes friends with an intelligent BOW... who ends up being Leon.

W: Healed Wrong [6]

ALW: Deconditioning [24], Shock Collar [ALT 6 for 3]

[anarkissed-ao3]

Silent Hill 2 Remake Guide

How to get All New Game+ Endings in One Playthrough

Note that the Endings themselves aren't spoiled save for the titles, but the locations of items, names, etc, are spoiled as this is a comprehensive guide. I tried this recently, and it worked, and it took me forever to make this list so i decided to post it lol– I hope it helps. <3

Comprehensive list to get All 4 item-based/ New Game + Endings in One Playthrough of Silent Hill 2 Remake

Beginning of Game

Graveyard

Crimson Ceremony (rebirth)- look for a lone grave on the shore in the northeastern corner of the graveyard. In front of the gravestone will be a book with a red cover

Witse Rd., after passing through tunnel

Key of Sorrow (Stillness) - a green car on Wiltse Rd. right after passing through the tunnel. Use the chainsaw to smash its back window and take the key from the back seat

Eastern Southvale

Pet Center by Big Jay's Diner–

Broken Key Part. (Dog) In Eastern South Vale, find the Pet Center next to Big Jay’s diner. The key part will be in the back storage room past the counter

The Jeweller's Store–

Blue Gem. (UFO) In Eastern South Vale, find The Jewellers store next to The Pet Center. Smash the left storefront window and grab a jewel from the display.

Saul St. Apartments

Examine Blue Gem in Eastern South Vale, next to a graffiti of an eye on the back of a vent on the roof of the Saul Street Apartments. (UFO)

Rosewater Park

Examine Blue gem in Rosewater Park, in the northeastern corner of the pier before you meet Maria. (UFO)

Western Southvale

Near Baldwin Mansion

White Chrism. (rebirth)Western South Vale, a bottle with a white liquid on a table near the front door to the Baldwin Mansion

(Note that talking to Maria at the gate to Baldwin Mansion will give points for Maria ending)

After Jack's Inn, Katz St.

Broken Key Part. (Dog) In Western South Vale, after you pass through Jacks Inn find a back yard gate with a dog bone symbol next to the first house on Katz Street. Proceed inside and collect the second key part inside the dog house. (Combine Key parts)

Hospital

Small Chest. (Bliss) In the gazebo of the Brookhaven Hospital Garden

Post-Hospital, pre-Historical Society

Pete's Bowl-O-Rama

Rusted Key (Bliss) In Pete's Bowl-O-Rama, there's a safe that becomes available during New Game+. The code for the safe is 1887, which you can learn from the memo by the corpse at the west end of Nathan Ave. Inside the safe, you will find the key to the box from the gazebo. DO NOT DRINK THE WHITE CLAUDIA YET.

Historical Society

Obsidian Goblet. (Rebirth) Silent Hill Historical Society, a black goblet in a wall niche in the main exhibition hall.

Lakeview Hotel, Fog (Normal) World

Examine Blue Gem immediately upon arriving at Lakeview hotel dock

NOTE: If you want to complete a normal ending, such as Maria, Leave, or Water, wait to pick up the item in Lost & Found until you create your Save JUST before entering Room 312 to watch the tape and complete instant endings: Dog, Bliss, UFO. Complete all objectives until you get to room 312, and then save before picking up the book in Lost & Found. Then complete all desired instant endings, reload, and pick up the book in Lost & Found, continuing as normal via watching the tape. Complete required objectives in the otherworld, and save before reaching the safe in the Manager's Office, after the cutscene with the fire room. Complete Rebirth by NOT collecting the Toluca Postcard in the safe, finishing the game to get the Rebirth ending, and then reloading the OTHERWORLD save, collecting the Toluca postcard in the Otherworld, and acquiring Stillness, for easiest route to finishing all endings in a single playthrough. If you want to finish a different ending, Reload your Room 312 Save and Complete the game as normal without picking up the book or postcard, and you will get whatever ending you collected the most points for.)

First Floor

Lost & Found:

To get Rebirth Ending:

“Lost Memories”. (Rebirth) book that is found on a shelf inside the Lost & Found room (replaces the Lost & Found Note that is here during a normal game). Collecting the four items for Rebirth and finishing the game WITHOUT collecting the 'Toluca Postcard' for Stillness will grant you the rebirth ending.

Third Floor

Dog Ending:

Observation Room (Next to Room 312)

Use the 'Dog' key on the Observation Room Door. This will immediately give you the 'Dog' ending.

Room 312

Bliss Ending:

Drink the White Claudia and watch the tape in room 312. This will immediately give you the 'Bliss' Ending

UFO ending:

Examine the Blue Gem in room 312. This will immediately give you the UFO ending.

Hotel Otherworld (After watching Tape in 312 normally)

Manager's Office (after the fire room cutscene) —

Toluca Postcard. (Stillness) There is a locked safe that requires both a key and a code in the corner of Manager’s Office in the Otherworld Hotel.

Use the Key of Sorrow for the key lock, and input the code 314 (right 3, left 1, right 4) for the combination lock. Inside you will find the Toluca Postcard.

Complete the game with the Toluca Postcard to get the Stillness ending. NOTE: Doing so will cancel out getting the rebirth ending, even if you acquire all rebirth items, so SAVE before collecting the Toluca postcard for getting either ending easily via reload.

hope this helps someone lol

[harrisx28]

South Pointe Beach in Miami, Florida🏝️

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of Four: A Break in the Chain

It's a rather long walk from Baker Street to Camberwell.

Poplar specifically refers to the area of the East End just north of the Isle of Dogs, but also was the name of the entire district covering Bow and Bromley-by-Bow down through the whole Isle of Dogs area.

The Victorians had asthma inhalers around, although not like the ones we have today. They even had asthma cigarettes and cigars!

Baring-Gould's chronology has Holmes being an actor of some note before he became a consulting detective.

The Westminster Stairs were located just south of Westminster Bridge. Today it is the sight of the Speaker's Garden of the Palace of Westminster, and no access is possible to the river there. However, Westminster Millennium Pier, opened in 2000 to replace the old pier, has various passenger and tour services operate from there.

Oysters were very common and cheap at the time; being sourced from beds in the Thames Estuary; the river through London had become too fast-flowing due to the construction of the Embankment. You could pick them up from street sellers called costermongers (a subject worth its own post at some point!) along with various other locally sourced fish.

Overfishing and pollution vastly reduced their numbers; microplastics are an issue today. However, efforts are being made to restore the oyster beds and have a sustainable industry supplying London again.

Grouse are hunted in England between 12 August and 10 December. They are either driven in large numbers over a bunch of people with shotguns or flushed out by them as they walk.

You can get oven ready grous for about £10 today.

[homelounge]

Dubai Real Estate in 2024: What Buyers, Investors, and Renters Need to Know

Dubai’s real estate market is set for continued growth and transformation in 2024, with trends indicating a dynamic landscape that caters to both luxury and affordable housing demands. In recent years, Dubai has seen unprecedented transaction levels and rental price increases. Experts project a steady continuation of these trends, with short-term rentals expected to rise by 20% and long-term rentals by 15%. Here’s an in-depth look at the key trends and projections for real estate projects in Dubai market for 2024:

1. Rise of Luxury Developments:

Dubai's luxury real estate continues to thrive, attracting high-net-worth individuals with exclusive properties like penthouses and beachfront villas in communities such as Palm Jumeirah and Downtown Dubai. Developers are integrating world-class amenities, including smart technology, private pools, and concierge services, to cater to discerning buyers. These developments promise a unique blend of opulence, comfort, and advanced technology.

2. Sustainability at the Forefront:

Sustainable building practices are reshaping Dubai’s real estate sector, supported by the UAE’s Net Zero by 2050 initiative. Developers are increasingly focusing on eco-friendly materials, energy efficiency, and green spaces. Notable areas like Dubai South and Dubai Creek Harbour are spearheading these initiatives, attracting environmentally conscious buyers who prioritize sustainability.

3. Demand for Affordable Housing:

The need for affordable housing is rising as Dubai’s population grows. New developments in emerging areas like Dubai South and MBR City aim to offer quality, reasonably priced housing options for middle-income families and young professionals, ensuring the city remains accessible to a broader audience.

4. Booming Villa Communities:

Villa communities, popular among families seeking privacy and space, are witnessing significant growth. Neighborhoods such as Arabian Ranches and Damac Hills 2 provide large, comfortable homes with ample community amenities. These developments appeal to those looking for suburban-style living with easy access to city conveniences.

5. Innovations in PropTech:

PropTech is transforming how properties are marketed and managed. With features like virtual tours, AI-driven market insights, and platforms such as Property Finder, buyers and sellers have access to more transparent and reliable data than ever before. In 2024, technology will play an even bigger role in simplifying the real estate process, with virtual viewing tools and smart home technology continuing to be in high demand.

6. Short-Term Rental Surge:

Short-term rentals are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the rise of platforms like Airbnb. This market is appealing for investors due to high rental yields and the constant demand from tourists and business travelers. Popular areas for short-term rentals include Downtown Dubai, JBR, and Marina, which are central and offer easy access to attractions and business hubs.

7. Growth in Off-Plan Investments

Off-plan properties offer a lower entry cost and the potential for capital appreciation, making them a popular investment option. Areas like Emaar Beachfront and Dubai Creek Harbour are among the most sought-after for off-plan investments, with developers offering flexible payment plans to attract buyers.

8. Foreign Investment and the Golden Visa

The UAE's Golden Visa program, which offers long-term residency for property investors, is fueling international interest in Dubai’s real estate. This initiative, along with Dubai’s strategic location and favorable tax policies, continues to attract foreign investors, particularly from China, India, and the UK.

9. Demand for Commercial Real Estate

As Dubai grows as a business hub, there is a renewed demand for commercial spaces. Business Bay, DIFC, and Dubai Silicon Oasis are seeing increased interest from global companies and startups. These areas provide the ideal infrastructure for businesses to establish a presence in Dubai’s strategic market.

10. Expansion of Mixed-Use Developments

Mixed-use developments like City Walk and Bluewaters Island combine residential, commercial, and recreational spaces, catering to those who value convenience and lifestyle integration. These projects offer everything from dining and shopping to office spaces, aligning with the demand for live-work-play environments.

Role of Property Management Companies

The increasing demand for rentals, coupled with a large expatriate population, has boosted the need for property management services. Companies like Colife, which provide comprehensive property management, renting, and investment support, are becoming invaluable to non-resident property owners and local tenants alike.

Dubai’s Real Estate Market in 2024: A Final Look

With a population projected to grow from 3.5 million in 2023 to 5.5 million by 2030, and the UAE’s economy expected to grow by 4% in 2024, Dubai’s real estate market remains robust, attractive, and full of opportunities. The drive for transparency, sustainability, and innovation will continue to make Dubai a real estate powerhouse in the global market.Home Lounge Real Estate

Brokers LLC: A Vision for Excellence

At Home Lounge Real Estate Brokers LLC, we aim to lead in Dubai’s real estate market, committed to transparency, professionalism, and tailored solutions for our clients. As a RERA-registered company, we focus on delivering client-centered services that align with Dubai’s evolving real estate landscape. Whether assisting in property acquisition or management, our mission is to provide a seamless, trustworthy experience, building lasting relationships as the go-to Real estate agency in Dubai

Phone No: +971 42 866 770 | +971 50 785 1492

Email: trupti@homeloungeuae.com

Address: 2615 Churchill Tower 1, Business Bay, Dubai, U.A.E.

[profeminist]

One quarter of Gaza's people one step away from famine, UN says

"At least 576,000 people in the Gaza Strip - one quarter of the population - are one step away from famine, a senior U.N. aid official told the Security Council on Tuesday, warning that widespread famine could be "almost inevitable" without action.

"Very little will be possible while hostilities continue and while there is a risk that they will spread into the overcrowded areas in the south of Gaza. We therefore reiterate our call for a ceasefire," said Ramesh Rajasingham, coordination director of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs."

Is mass punishment against the Geneva Convention?

"No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

The Geneva Convention on Collective Punishment

Doctors Without Borders: US plan for temporary pier in Gaza a "glaring distraction"

"The US should insist on immediate humanitarian access using existing roads and entry points.

The US plan for a temporary pier in Gaza to increase the flow of humanitarian aid is a glaring distraction from the real problem: Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign and punishing siege. The food, water, and medical supplies so desperately needed by people in Gaza are sitting just across the border. Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies. This is not a logistics problem; it is a political problem. Rather than look to the US military to build a work-around, the US should insist on immediate humanitarian access using the roads and entry points that already exist.   In the past months, the US has vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire—which is the only way to ensure a real scale up in emergency assistance. We reiterate our call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire to stop the killing of thousands more civilians and allow for the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid."

[scarletsaphire]

AND ANOTHER GRAY GHOST TOO BC WE ALWAYS NEED MORE

"So?" Danny asked from his spot in the grass next to Valerie.

"So what?" she asked, turning away from the bright purple lake to look at him.

"So, do you like it better than the last few times you were in the ghost zone?"

Valerie snorted. "Well, considering the first time I was stuck in here with you when I still hated you, and the second time was when Pariah kidnapped the whole town? Yea, I like it better."

It was still weird, sometimes, to watch Danny float around as Fenton, so her breath stalled as he let gravity fall away from him. She caught it before he had floated any closer, coming to a stop just above her. He held her gaze with a small smile, one he had been wearing so much more frequently since he'd come clean about everything. His blue eyes shone with a teal tinge, and his freckles glittered against his skin. He was just south of human, but with the swirling green backdrop of the zone behind him, he seemed so undeniably human. Valerie smiled back up at him.

"Not quite what you expected, huh?" he asked smugly.

She rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the hand, pulling him back down to the ground. He followed without a fight. "I didn't realize it could be so quiet here." It was true; the few times she had been in the ghost zone before this it had been so loud; not just the obvious ghost attack noises, but a near constant whooshing noise, a cross between the sound of a strong wind and waves crashing against a pier. Here, the only sound was their words and their breaths. Everything else was perfectly quiet.

Danny hummed to himself as he extended his arms back to support himself. Valerie didn't miss that one of them stretched behind her back a gentle, barely there presence. She leaned back into it. "There are places even quieter, where nothing can make a sound no matter what. I didn't think you'd want to see that place quiet yet. It's...weird."

"Sounds it."

"No, it doesn't sound much of anything," Danny said. "That's the whole point." Valerie punched him softly in the shoulder, and he laughed. "You should've seen that coming."

"Yea, probably." Valerie let her head fall down to Danny's shoulder. "Thank you for showing this place to me."

"Of course," Danny said. His next words were whispered; if it hadn't been so quiet here, she doubted she ever would have heard them. "Thank you for letting me show you."

Valerie knew he was thanking her for far more than just this trip to the glade. She knew that it didn't matter what she said; words would never be enough. She just had to hope that he would keep showing her everything, until he had nothing left to hide.