#spain being around port

[zvaigzdelasas]

There is an overwhelming case for the UK to intervene to stop a US oil tanker carrying 300,000 barrels of jet fuel for use by Israel in Gaza from docking in Gibraltar, according to a letter from a cross-party group of MPs addressed to David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary.

Protests in Spain led by trade unionists and political activists have already resulted in the owners of the Overseas Santorini abandoning plans to dock in the Spanish port of Algeciras. According to Marine Traffic, the ship is now destined to reach Gibraltar at 3pm UK time on Tuesday.

The Gibraltar government, however, insisted it had received no formal request to dock.[...]

Campaigners said the Overseas Santorini was carrying military-grade JP-8 fuel, delivered as part of a contract with the US government, that powers F-16 fighter jets. According to a UN investigation, it was probably an F-16, which are built using UK parts, that bombed British doctors from Medical Aid for Palestinians at a compound in Gaza in January.

The MPs, including members of the Scottish Nationalists, Labour and Green parties, have urged the government to “prohibit and prevent Gibraltar being used as a haven for the transport of military fuel used in Israel’s assault on Gaza”.

The letter said: “The jet fuel will be unloaded and used to fuel the Israeli air force’s F16 and F35 that drop bombs on the people of Gaza. The 300,000 barrels of fuel are sufficient for around 12,000 F-16 refuellings.”

It added: “The case to prevent Gibraltar’s facilities from being complicit in Israel’s breaches of international law are overwhelming. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault.””[...]

In May, the Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said Spain will not authorise ships carrying weapons for Israel to call at its ports after the country refused to let a ship call at the south-eastern port of Cartagena.[...]

The campaigners said the oil is being shipped by the Valero company from Corpus Christi, Texas and is aimed to reach the port of Ashkelon in Israel. For years, these regular shipments have stopped at Algeciras and Limassol, Cyprus.

On Monday, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, announced he was making a free trade agreement with Israel one of his priorities in securing trade deals. But ministers are expected shortly to announce limited restrictions on arms export licences to Israel if the arms are deemed capable of being used in Israeli offensives in Gaza.

29 Jul 24

[shadow4-1]

Got You! - Ghost x Reader Oneshot (NSFW)

please mind the tags on this one! this one is especially dark! tags: heavy noncon, slight dubcon, some torture, predator/prey dynamics

Summary: Being on the frontline as a Kortac hacker is just another job for you. But after a mission goes sideways, you find yourself in the clutches of a broken yet monstrous man they call Ghost.

You typed quickly and quietly on your tablet. A thick cord wormed its way from a port in its back all the way into a wall of servo units. The wall blinked and hummed, some lights flickering as you did your job and did it well.

"I can't believe they're paying so much for such little data." You murmured to yourself, eyeing the storage left on your removable drives. It was less than a couple gigabytes of intel. Off in the distance, you heard a few pops of gunfire, your fellow Kortac members keeping the area secure for you in particular.

"What a weird place to put this shit." You murmured again, glancing around at the room.

You couldn't remember where, in what country you were exactly. This was your third intel op for the week, it was all beginning to blend together. First time had been Russia, and then Spain, and then...Morroco? You were in Morroco, right? Based on the soft rug beneath your knees, the cotton drapes, and the casual color scheme, you supposed so.

All that mattered was getting the hell out of dodge. You half glanced back down at your tablet, another five minutes to completion. Most of the lights on the racks of servers had turned red, a sure sign you were doing your job correctly. Although, the more you looked around the stranger it all felt. Yes, you were a talented hacker. You'd worked hard to get where you were, but your instincts had never let you down either. Something about a server room being in the living room of a Moroccan household didn't seem right.

You heard some more insistent pops of gunfire. They weren't as far away as before. Your heart began to thump with the beginnings of anxiety. Leo, your main escort, was sure to be just outside of the cinderblock house. A part of you wanted to run to him, but you had to stop yourself. Three minutes, and you'd be able to get the hell out of there.

The pops of gunfire quickly became sprays. You heard something shatter across the street. Fuck.

"Leo!" You hissed out, grabbing your tablet, readying to rip the cord out of the back. "I almost got it!"

Thirty seconds. Come on. Come on!

Leo burst through the door, slamming it behind him. He huffed with adrenaline, forcing the door to lock and slamming a nearby bookcase against it. The gunfire was outside. You heard some yelling and returning fire. A man cried out in pain, you guessed one of yours. The glass of the living room window exploded.

Luckily for you, the servo units blocked your body from the main impact. Unluckily for your tablet, it was knocked from your grip. It skidded across the floor, screen shattered with a hole in the center.

A sniper.

You tried to reach out for your trusty tablet, but Leo had other ideas. With one of his large, tan arms, he hooked it around your center and yanked you upwards. Before you could even question him, he began to pull you towards the direction of the back of the house. Sprigs of his usually neat, slicked back hair fell across his forehead. He looked worried, an expression you were not used to seeing on the normally jubilant man.

"Leo, wha-"

You were cut off by the sound of the front door and bookcase splintering inwards. Daylight streamed into the dark house, making it harder to see. Leo practically picked you up and carried you as he ran. There was a long hallway with multiple doors that he locked behind you until finally, your path ended in a bedroom. The layout of this house was strange, but you hoped that it would help throw off your pursuers for just long enough that you could escape. It seemed Leo was thinking the same thing.

"Come on, girlie! The window, quick!" He huffed out through his thick, Australian accent. You happily obeyed, trying desperately to lift up the sill of the nearest window.

"It won't move!" You cried, throwing your entire shoulder against the small ledge. You yelped out in pain, multiple nails had pricked your palm. "It's nailed shut!"

There was a sickening crash from somewhere on the other side of the door. Leo stood tall, his rifle in hand, ready to blast a hole through whoever was planning on coming through. He looked over his shoulder, his brows furrowed in determination. Somehow, his energy was what you needed to keep from falling into a pure panic.

"Try the other one, girl! Kick it out 'f ya 'ave to!" He commanded, his low voice like a spell.

You climbed up onto the bed in the corner of the room. Sure enough, there was a skylight within reaching distance. You threw your body up the wall, the metal bed frame squeaking and shaking beneath you. You clawed and scratched, your fingertips barely making it to the ledge.

"I can't reach!" You cried. "M' too short!"

Leo made an aggravated noise in his throat, but it wasn't directed towards you. Out in the hall, there was the unmistakable sound of a door being kicked open. You glanced down at Leo, tears pricking in the corner of your eyes.

So this was it, huh?

Fucking weeks, months, of being stationed with this random man, and this was how both of you were to die. Cornered and helpless in a foreign country. A part of you supposed that maybe it was meant to be. Leo had always been kind of sweet to you in comparison to the rest of the men you worked with. Hopefully, your shared end would be quick.

Leo's eyes quickly swapped between you, the skylight, and the door. He blinked and then jumped up onto the bed with one stride. You squeaked as he pushed you to the wall, lifted the butt of his rifle, and knocked the glass out with a singular, smooth motion.

"Leo wai-"

He didn't wait. He dropped his rifle on the bed, hooked his hands underneath your thighs, and lifted you easily. Despite his help, you only managed to be tall enough to get your arms through the windowsill, but it was enough.

The door to the bedroom was thrown open with so much force that it caused the plaster of the wall to crack. Leo turned his back to the wall, letting your legs kick off his shoulders.

"It was a pleasure!" He called up to you, voice cracking.

"LEO!" You cried.

A folley of shots flashed from a muzzle in the doorway. Leo let out a garbled growl, reaching for his knife in its holster. He surged forward with his weapon, blood spots leaking into the back of his canvas vest. Leo was dying, and yet he kept fighting.

Fighting for you.

You refused to let his sacrifice be in vain. You turned your attention back to the roof beneath your fingers. The skylight was part of the floor of the flat roof of the house. If you managed to get your body through the sill, you could potentially be able to run from rooftop to rooftop to safety.

You used what little leverage you had in your arms and legs to push yourself up. It hurt, the glass dug into your fatigues and was no doubt embedding itself into your skin, but you hardly felt it.

Leo called out your name in a gritted scream.

You had to keep going.

Tears pricked in your eyes. You kept squirming and clawing your way up, pulling your right knee through the window. That was the final amount of leverage you needed. With a hard kick, you threw yourself a couple feet away from the skylight. You sucked in a well needed breath and turned over to fall on your knees.

You'd made it.

All you had to do was stand up and make a running jump to the next banister. You presumed it couldn't have been more than five feet away. Totally doable, even for your smaller stature. You got your right foot underneath you, using your hands to push up from the floor.

Something wrapped around your right ankle, squeezing so impossibly tight you felt the joints squeak. You cried out in pain, trying to right yourself, but falling onto your left side. You looked down at your legs to see what had ahold of you.

Fear froze you in place.

Through the darkened hole of the skylight, surrounded by broken glass, was the dark figure of a man's head. He was covered in all black, save for the bleached white skull he stared at you through. His eyes were so dark and smothered in kohl that only the whites of his eyes were truly visible.

He looked alien.

And he had a terrifyingly casual hold of your ankle with only one hand.

"Got you..." He hummed, his voice deep and dark and dangerous.

The panic finally kicked in, in full force. You screamed and threw your entire body weight away from the strange monster of a man. It seemed he anticipated your move because he tugged back at the same time you tried to surge forward. You gained absolutely no ground.

Tears began to blind your vision and you clawed and kicked with your free foot. You miscalculated. The extra foot was his next target. With his other hand, he snatched your free ankle into his grip.

You fell to the ground, kicking and screaming. Your leg muscles burned, your heart felt like it was about to explode with panic. You tried so desperately to use what was last of your strength to wiggle free, but it was no use.

With one very hard yank, he pulled you backward. In what felt like slow motion you watched as you were torn away from the sunny afternoon, the terracotta bricks and laundry clotheslines of freedom. You fell down and down and down into the darkness of the bedroom prison that was sure to be your tomb. Your nails caught on the texture of the wall as you belly flopped onto the bed below.

All of the air was forced out of your lungs. The fall had only been a few feet, but the impact of hitting your ribcage on the metal bedsprings of the mattress was enough to wind you. You sputtered and coughed, subconsciously curling up on yourself. The blankets tangled into the soles of your boots as you tried to put distance between yourself and your attacker.

A beat passed, and you gasped out, finally getting a lung full of air. You panted hard, putting your arms over your face, expecting a flurry of blows or a knife in your ribs.

"Who do you work for?" The man asked as he slowly stepped off the bed with heavy, measured footsteps.

Hysterically, you sobbed, refusing to look at his masked face. Despite your fear, you felt him come around the side of the bed to lean over your face. In a complete panic move, you kicked yourself backward, only serving to push yourself deeper into the corner of the bed against the wall.

It seemed the masked man's patience was dwindling. He roughly grabbed you by the shoulder and shook you with enough force to slam the back of your head against the wall. The pain, luckily, did clear your head enough to actually answer the question he asked.

"K-KORTAC!" You stammered out. "I-I work for K-Kortac! C-cyber tech o-operator!"

The man looked down at you with an odd sort of interest. He looked down at your legs, seemingly off in thought. The light that filtered down from the broken window cast him half in shadow and half in light. Behind him, on the floor, lay a body in a growing pool of blood.

"Leo..." You hiccuped out in recognition, feeling an intense pull of hysteria.

The man didn't even glance back at your fallen comrade. Instead, slowly, his eyes panned up your body until his gaze landed right on the Kortac chest insigna of your kit. Tears plinked down your lashes and into the canvas material.

The mystery man clicked a button on a comm unit tacked to the front of his vest. A man on the other end yelled out a callsign through static.

"Ghost! Ghost! How copy?" The voice had an accent you couldn't make out in your addled state.

"Copy, Soap." The masked man (Ghost, you presumed) spoke back. "Get to exfil now. Don't wait for me."

"But Ghost-"

"I said don't wait for me, sergeant." Ghost nearly yelled in annoyance. "Exfil in 40, out."

He stopped pressing the button on his comm unit and looked down at you once more. His expression was unreadable. You tried to make yourself seem as small as possible before him.

Ghost slowly glanced over his shoulder with only his eyes. He seemed to give Leo's dead body a short once over before he focused his attention on you again.

"You shag 'im?" He asked.

"Wh-...what?"

"You shag 'im?" He asked again, this time using your name to make the question somehow even more personal.

You looked up at him in a mix of horror and revulsion. What kind of question was that? This man had pursued you like an animal, murdered one of the few men you respected in cold blood, and now wanted to know if you'd been fucking that man while his dead body was still warm?

"F-fuck you." You choked out. Despite feeling drained off all your physical strength, you still had some mental fortitude left.

Ghost let out a soft huff. Whether or not it was a noise of amusement or annoyance, you couldn't tell.

You screeched as he grabbed the front of your kit with one hand. He lifted you out of the corner and slammed you back down in the center of the bed. The metal base squeaked and groaned but held up beneath the impact of your body again. You yelped out as he took his other hand and pulled out a wicked looking knife from his belt. The edges glinted with red, drying blood.

You tried to bat away his hand but he was significantly stronger than you. Even with all your might, he didn't budge. Running on pure fear and self-preservation, you dipped your head down towards his wrist. You clamped your teeth down hard against his gloves. He brought the knife up to your kit but stopped.

He made that noise again. And this time, it seemed to border on amusement.

The world turned black for a second.

When you came to, you could taste copper in your mouth. It ran hot down your nose and out the corners of your lips like drool. You groaned out pitifully, your body giving up any and all fight.

The bastard had knocked your lights out.

Despite all of your senses swimming in pain, you could feel your body physically lightening up in weight. With a bloody gurgle, you glanced down. Your kit and utility belt had been cut away, leaving you in just your fatigues.

"There we go. Good girl." He grumbled, putting his knife away. Something about the tenderness of his voice did not match up with his actions.

You whined out a cry, and he let you. He made no move to deck you again. Instead, unzipped your pants, hooked his fingers into the waistband, and yanked down.

You tried to pull your legs up and away but barely managed to twitch them. Your pants grew tangled around your still boot clad ankles. Ghost took absolutely no time in ripping it all off your body, making you sob as he twisted your already sore ankles.

"Stop..." You hiccuped weakly. "Please."

Roughly, he pushed the hem of your longsleeve up and over your breasts. He jerked it up over your shoulders so hard the fabric snapped and ripped. He threw the ruined garment to the side, seemingly too enraptured by the sight of your near naked body.

Weakly, you put a hand up to his chest as he put his knee up on the bed. There was no strength behind your push, and it seemed to amuse him. He let out a cruel chuckle and pinned your hand over your head as he positioned his entire body between your thighs.

Tears spilled so freely down your cheeks and neck that they soaked the bedsheets beneath your head. This was wrong. He had to know this was wrong. He couldn't do this. Could he?

"Please...no..." You whispered.

He didn't say anything, just breathed in slowly and steadily, eyes roaming over your entire body. He didn't move to touch you, or rip off your panties, or do anything else as monstrous as he'd done before. He just stared at you with an odd sort of fondness.

With his gloved hand he cupped at your face. You whimpered and cowered in his touch, but it was sweet, almost lover like. He wiped as much tears and blood from your face as he could, even taking the corner of a blanket to dab the excess body fluids away.

You were so confused and scared. What the hell was wrong with this guy? If he wasn't going to kill or rape you what did he want?

The hysteria finally set in.

How fucking funny was this? You couldn't find a decent man for years. Leo was the only one to come close, and even then, he was dead. And the two of you had barely been considered acquaintances. This big, fucking hulk of a monster knocked you out, ripped off your clothes, and now wanted to be tender with you all of a sudden?

You giggled once. Then that giggle turned into a chuckle. Soon enough, you were laughing softly against the hand cupping your face.

"I...what do you want?" You managed out between hysterical pants.

He didn't answer, just leaned his body down low over you. The bed protested hard beneath you both but stayed together. Slowly, he began to put his entire weight down on you.

At first, you wheezed, your beaten body unable to handle the load on top of it. Eventually, after enough time, you began to melt beneath him. Despite the discomfort of everything, his body felt warm and solid... and almost safe in a fucked up way you couldn't explain.

Ghost slid his other hand between you, cracking your legs apart. His still clothed core pressed up against yours. You knew that the too hard lump straining against the fabric was definitely not a gun.

"Why?" You asked meekly. "Why are you doing this?"

The man buried his mask clad face into the crook of your neck. He inhaled sharply before slowly breathing out.

"Mine." He admitted, giving your body an experimental thrust.

He groaned low in his throat. Again and again he thrust hard against your center, his cock grinding into your panty clad entrance.

What did he mean he "mine"? He was trying to fuck your forcefully pliant body. This man was a fucking lunatic. What in the godforsaken world di-

The head of his cock brushed up against the mound of your cunt. Despite the layers of clothes between them the head found its way just deep enough between your lips that he brushed up against your clit. Tears pricked in your eyes. Again and again and again, he pleasured you with each cant of his hips. You cried at the feeling. He wiped the tears away sweetly.

Why didn't he just rape you hard? Why did he have to drag this out, make it sweet? If he wanted your body so bad why didn't he just take it? He obviously had no qualms about using force.

"Thas' it, love." He murmured softly. "Just like that."

Was this some kind of sick fantasy? Did he truly believe you were into this? Or was he just pretending you were to fulfill some kind of fucked up need for human closeness?

He kept rutting against you, mumbling quietly against your neck. Most of it was filthy name calling, the rest was too damn sweet for the act he was committing.

"Fuckin' pretty thing you are. Not getting away from me." He muttered, seemingly half out of his mind. "Never getting away from me. Ever again."

You were so confused. Since when had you ever met this man before? You were certain you would've remembered him and all of his monstrous qualities. You tried hard to squirm away from his touch, but he kept you right where he wanted you to be.

"Never again, love. Not letting you slip through m' fingertips again." With his free hand, he pulled the front of your sports bra down. One of your breasts popped free of its confines and into his view.

"No please..." You begged.

"Should've thought of that before you ran off." He growled.

Words relaying your confusion immediately died in your throat. Ghost tugged the bottom portion of his mask up and then proceeded to pull your nipple into his mouth. He bit you hard, making you scream before letting up. He lapped at the aching bud, forcing it to harden into a throbbing peak. As if just to spite you, he traced your areola with his tongue, making your entire body shake with whiplash from the pleasure.

"Stop please!" You begged. "You're hurting me."

Ghost made that huffing noise again, his breath cooling the saliva against your nipple. He pulled your other breast out and pressed the two together. He swiped the flat of his tongue over both buds. You squeaked and tossed your head back.

"Thought you could hide behind your lil' computer, love?" He growled out, his drool leaking between your tits. "Thought I'd never find you?"

"Wha-?"

"Thought you could just drop off the face of th' Earth n' I'd never find you again?" He nearly yelled. "Should've known a slag like you was just in it for a paycheck."

"I don't...what?" You tried. "What do you mean?"

Ghost sat up to glower over your face. His jaw was set hard. You could see the veins in his neck since he'd pulled his mask up to his nose. You blinked tears out of your eyes. What you thought was the shadow of his jugular turned out to be the corner of a neck tattoo. One you immediately recognized.

"S-Simon?"

Despite his obviously bad mood he still managed to crack a smile. It was genuine and yet still so full of malice. His grin was still as beautiful as the night you'd met him. And the night you'd chosen to run away.

"I was scared!" You cried out in admittance.

"You were scared?" He chuckled. "When every night you were in my bed n' cummin' on me?"

It had been years since you'd seen him. You'd been mere weeks out of university, adrift and broke, but with a shiny new certificate in computer science. Just to get a free meal here and there, you'd found yourself going out on dates with random men. You'd never had much luck with men, and so it was easy to forget their many faces.

But Simon's you could never forget.

He'd been quiet, almost too quiet. He'd exclusively asked you questions about yourself in a much meeker voice. Come to think of it, he'd sounded like a different person the whole time. Did he do it on purpose so as not to intimidate you? Or was it a side effect of the pills he was taking while he'd been on medical leave?

He'd made it clear the two of you weren't going to be long term. And you were okay with that. It wasn't until you got a job at a programming firm that he started getting leery. When you made it clear your fling of a relationship wasn't going to work he'd retreated. And then he came back...lurking in the shadows.

"I-you were stalking me!"

"You still have no idea what I've done for you."

For a moment the two of you looked at each other. The pure terror of a moment ago was starting to wash away. This man was no longer a complete, deranged stranger willing to murder you in cold blood. He was still unhinged and dangerous, but he'd shown he wasn't going to kill you immediately. Your chances of getting out of this situation were much more likely. You appreciated those odds.

"What did you-"

"Y' think i' was a coincidence?" He hummed, cocking his head slightly. "Getting that job. N' endin' up here?"

"Simon-"

"You were meant for me." Ghost said with pure conviction. "You were meant to be next to me...under me."

The egoistical side of you wanted to fight, to scream, to make it clear you'd never want him ever again. The other side was absolutely certain that to live through this encounter was to appeal to him. You'd done it before and it'd worked. It was partially why you'd slept with him so much back then. And why you'd forced yourself to cuddle into his iron grip afterwards.

"On your back. On your knees..." He kept trailed off, eyes drooping in arousal. You felt a hard twitch between your legs.

Your stomach lurched at the thought of your dead, fucked out body being haphazardly tossed on top of Leo's. You needed to live. You'd do whatever you had too. And you knew what'd it take.

"S-Simon...I-look I'm sorry." You swallowed hard, tasting nothing but copper. "You scare me sometimes, but I-I still really care about you."

"Don't lie to me, lovie." He scoffed. The usage of his old nickname made you shudder.

"Simon...I've never stopped thinking about y-you." You sighed out, feeling your skin flush with embarrassment for admitting such a thing. It was marginally a lie since you mostly thought about him with fear in your heart. But there was a part of you who missed his body, his hands, and how'd he'd fuck you apart night after night.

"Please....I-" You slowly moved to sit up on your elbows. As you did your core inadvertently brushed against him. A warm jolt of pleasure shot up through your spine and you couldn't help but bite your lip.

There was a new tension in the air.

"Always such a fuckin' minx." Ghost growled.

"J-just for you." You admitted, forcing your gaze away from Leo's body. "I swear..."

"I know." Ghost hummed, cupping your face in his palm. The sweet gesture made your lashes flutter.

"You're a good girl." He said, as if off in thought. "Just needed a break. N' now you're back, back w' me."

"I..." You blinked, feeling tears well in your eyes. You were playing right into his hand. You knew it, and yet...a part of you didn't care.

He'd pulled strings, murdered and God knows what else just to give you a life outside of him. It'd all been one big, nasty lie just to make you feel good. Just so your inevitable fall back into his arms would feel earned. Because you didn't earn anything. Your entire life trajectory had been an unearned lie. But somehow, someway, you'd earned his affections. And that was all that seemingly mattered in your life.

"Mm...missed you, love." He sighed.

With that he kissed you softly. He was too sweet, too loving. It made your heart ache. You couldn't stop the few sobs that escaped. He didn't seem to care as he licked over your blood tinged tongue. He tasted like he'd always had. Like fresh cigarettes and bitter pine. Your head swam.

"Fuck. M' missed the way you taste." Ghost sighed, licking his lips.

He roughly tugged your panties, making the stitching pop, forcing the elastic to dig into your flushed skin.

"W-wait I-" You squeaked.

It didn't matter. With an easy flick of his wrist the entire garment came off with a rip. The amount of strength and tension used on the cotton practically burned your skin as it was forced off of you. You cried out in discomfort, trying desperately to close your legs, but it was of no use.

Without another second to lose, Ghost hooked his arms up beneath your legs and forced them up. He pushed them back so hard and so quickly he forced the air out of your lungs. You gasped, trying to right yourself.

"There w' go." He growled, staring at your now bare cunt, your knees up to your ears. He kissed your mound, nuzzling his nose into the dusting of hair, breathing you in.

A part of you felt disgusted. You'd been sweating out in the desert, sweating in fear of him, and it seemed he was drinking it all in. Truly a beast he was.

"See you haven't shaved." He hummed, giving a few broad laps to your folds. With each lick, a bit of his thick saliva grew matted into the light dusting of hair. You whimpered.

"Good." He chuckled.

You yelped when he slipped his tongue into you. It was thick and wide and he'd never had any issues getting you open this way. He much preferred to lick your cunt lips apart to accommodate him than sully his fingers. You hated this despite how good it felt. His fingers were always a bit less personal. This way? You had no choice but to watch as he devoured you like a starving man.

You supposed he was.

He'd made it clear you were his and his alone. And if that was the case, then he was only yours too. At least, you'd hoped so. You hoped no other woman would ever be subjected to this torment.

You cried out, legs shaking from the stress but also the pleasure. You tried so hard not to watch him drill his fat tongue right between your lips. He was drooling, his saliva spilling down and down over your neglected clit and onto your squashed tits. He wiggled his tongue in a way that brushed over that rough spot he liked torment. He bullied the tip of his tongue as deep as he could, letting it point right between the gummy ridges of your g-spot. You couldn't help yourself.

It'd been years.

Every man you'd ever talked to had scorned you or disgusted you. You'd never wanted to touch one until Leo had come into your life. And even then, he was untouchable. You'd been too nervous to flirt. At the time you didn't know why, but now, you'd subconsciously known you'd had a skull on your back. Perhaps you were getting a slight kindness for staying untouched all this time.

You cried as you came. Your hips bucked and writhed. Your spine protested, your head swam from the lack of blood flow. Everything floated away for a gorgeous second before your soul slammed back into your addled body.

"Fuckin' 'ell..." Ghost purred. As he talked a wetness spilled out of his mouth. For a brief second you wondered if he was really drooling that much. "C'mon, lovie. Give it to me."

"Wha-"

Ghost latched onto your clit and sucked so hard you screamed. You felt two of his fingers slip inside you with no resistance. They bullied that spot again while he forced pleasure out of your nub. The first orgasm didn't have a chance to fade into an afterglow. The second orgasm came quickly. It burned. Your belly muscles didn't even have a chance to relax.

"Simon!" You mewled, absolutely lost.

He wouldn't stop. He kept taking and taking and taking. He let his teeth graze at the sensitive flesh of your clit. You saw stars again. This time, the orgasm was so violent you screamed. Every bone in your body shook. Your eyes rolled up into the back of your head.

You came to with the warm splashes of wetness against your breasts. A familiar and yet foreign pressure in your belly was being released. More warm wetness dripped quickly onto your neck and chin. You let out a weak cry.

When you finally managed to open your bleary eyes you realized what'd happened. The entire bottom half of Ghost's face was shiny with slick. He huffed against you with pure excitement in his eyes. Your cum coated the inside of his mouth with the telltale sheen of cream.

"Knew you were a squirter." He grinned at you.

It was as if your orgasm was a feast for him. He hungrily lapped every ounce of your relief off of your body. To get to your cummy chest he released your legs. They fell apart, and you groaned in relief. Fresh blood finally flowed to your head, and you grew dizzy.

"Ah ah, no goin' soft in th' head on me now, lovie." Simon hummed as he laved his big tongue over your wet breasts. He slapped your cheek. Not enough to really hurt you, but certainly enough to clear up the stars in your eyes.

"Simon..." You hiccuped.

"Only got a few minutes left." He mused, eyes scouring over your entirely bare body.

Despite wanting to fight him, your extremities felt like jelly. You couldn't even catch your breath. All you could do was lay there in complete submission.

Without a warning, Ghost used his strength to flip you completely over. He forced you up onto your knees and pressed your face into the now tainted sheets.

You wanted to cry, you wanted to scream, but there wasn't much of a point anymore. No one was coming to help, and even if they did they'd be dead before they could process what was even happening to you. Ghost was going to take you. And you'd asked for it.

It beat death, right?

He entered you roughly from behind. Luckily, he'd prepped you well, so there wasn't any pain. Just the warm, muted burn of him stretching you open for the first time in years. You'd forgotten what the feeling of sex was like. You couldn't help the low groan that escaped your lungs.

Ghost was right there with you. He hissed loudly, gritting his teeth as he sunk right into you. His big, gloved hands palmed roughly at your ass. He forced your cheeks apart to no doubt give him an excellent view of where you joined together. You squeaked when you felt a couple of his thick fingers spread your lips apart even further.

"Fuckin' 'ell." He groaned. "Missed this tight lil' cunt o' yours."

You whimpered.

"Next time I'll make sure you get the fuck you deserve, lovie." He growled. "But m' runnin' short on time."

"Si-."

A hand roughly grabbed your throat and squeezed. You opened your mouth in shock but nothing came out. No words, no air, just a silent shock.

Ghost began to move, fucking you roughly. He wasted no time in forcing his fat cock back into those parts of yourself you didn't know existed. He kept his grip tight. You couldn't breathe in or out. Tears and panic began to well in your chest.

With the smallest amount of energy you had left, you tried to claw his hands away, but he just choked you tighter. The mix of fear, lack of oxygen, and pleasure was too much for your brain. Black spots began to form in your vision.

"There we...ngh-go." He huffed. Every thrust was punishing. You could feel his sharp hipbones and hefty balls slap into your core. Your only saving grace from the stinging contact was the cushion of your innate softness.

You began to choke. The pressure building in your chest and behind your eyes was immense. The entire room was spinning. Drool spilled past your open, air hungry lips. The black spots began to completely fill your vision. Everything started to float away into that dark, sleepy place.

"Fuck." Ghost panted, his thrusts becoming uneven. "Fuck!"

The moment he came, he let up on your airway.

Everything had turned black for you. When you finally came to, completely out of it, the entire act was over. It hurt to much to move, but you could feel the wet cream between your legs. It had been awhile but you could never forget the feeling of being stuffed with Simon's seed.

His comm unit made a static-y noise and he answered it.

"M' on m' way. Five minutes to exfil." He hummed. "N' I managed to catch a lil' bird."

Ghost didn't wait for his teammate to respond, instead he lazily got off the bed. He eyed your body, smirked, then pulled his mask back down.

"I hope you learned your lesson, lovie." He said, lovingly rubbing your cheek. "Time t' come home."

You couldn't make any noise, your voice stolen from you. You couldn't even swallow. All you could do was lay there and look at him as he took to work getting you dressed again. He was haphazard and rough. Anything he couldn't put back on you, he didn't. The last thing he adorned you with were ziptie handcuffs to your hands and feet.

Ghost then threw you over his shoulder and headed back out the way he came. He didn't even bother to walk over Leo's corpse. Instead, he opted to step directly onto the dead man's head. You closed your eyes and desperately tried to block out the sickening, wet sound.

The sunlight burned but its blinding, white rays were welcoming. You'd never thought you'd see the light of day again, and so the blistering heat of it was welcome. Something told you to relish in it, as it might be awhile before you'd get to see it again.

The position over Ghost's shoulder made it impossible to look up. The only thing you could see were the back of his legs and feet. However, you could hear the sound of men yelling and running around. They began to get washed out by a helicopter whirring, it's blades cutting the air and cooling the sweat on your skin.

Ghost stepped onto the helicopter and unceremoniously dropped you to the metal plated floor. You couldn't even groan in pain as your leg took the brunt of the fall. All you could do was lay there, restrained and in so many different versions of pain.

The small grouping of men in tactical gear hungrily eyed your body. Each one was more distinctive than the last. One of them slow whistled and when he spoke you recognized him as the man over the comm unit.

All of the men, including Ghost, stood around you. They discussed your fate, each one getting more and more creative as they went on. The one in charge, the one with the beard smiled sweetly down at you. He wiped a stray tear away from your face with the back of his curled index finger.

"Oh, don't worry about it, Simon. We'll get 'er to sing for us."

In that moment, you realized you should've asked Leo to shoot you when you had the chance.

[pascalispretty]

history stopped in 1936

Javi G x F!Reader

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Angst, Spanish Civil War AU, war and its horrors, brief and vague descriptions of sex, it's implied that Javi and reader are speaking Spanish the entire time, references to drinking and smoking, unbeta'd so please be gentle!

Summary: The Spanish Civil War threatens the slice of paradise you and Javi have found together. (AO3)

A/N: Hoo boy. This was written for @studioghibelli's writing challenge, and the moment I saw the moodboard, I knew I wanted to do something Atonement-inspired. You don't need to know who the opposing sides were in the war, but if you'd like to learn more, I'd recommend George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia". The title comes from an essay of his. As always my love to @misscharlielulu for her support.

Mallorca, August 1936

Spain burns and, across the Balearic Sea, rumours are carried like ash on the wind.

You and Javier had fled Barcelona in the middle of the night, just after St Jordi’s Day. The streets had still been littered with rose petals as you had made your way to the docks, and the waiting ship. The atmosphere in Barcelona had grown tense, shimmering with electricity like the air just before a thunderstorm.

In July, your fears had been vindicated when news trickled across the sea, whispers of a violent uprising. Nobody could say for certain who had seized power – the anarchists, the communists, the Carlists, or some as-yet-unknown political spectre.

By contrast to the news reports that trickled over from the mainland, Mallorca felt safe. The ocean separating the island from the peninsula made the war feel further away, something that was happening in another world. Even when Barcelona fell or when, days later, Franco invaded with his African army in Seville - it all felt so far away, separated by miles of sparkling blue water.

On your island sanctuary, you and Javi managed to find a measure of happiness. Reminders of the war were never far away, and you were all probably smoking and drinking too much, but it didn’t matter. You could still watch movies on the projection reel he’d bought before he met you. Tucked up against Javi’s side, watching Clark Gable or Errol Flynn, you could forget the war on the mainland entirely.

It was only when the war came to Mallorca that you realised how deluded you had been.

With censored newspapers and downed radio communications, rumours run like wildfire across the island. Days after Seville falls, the stableboys hear that the Republicans have landed on the east coast – the housekeeper tells Marta that it’s Russians sent by Stalin, and the man who delivers the mail insists its Italians. There’s fighting in the streets of Palma and to the ports in the east, but nobody can agree on who exactly is fighting who.

You clean up after breakfast, a hastily made pa amb tomàquet that masks the staleness of the bread. Even for a family as rich as the Gutierrez’s, you cannot waste food anymore.

They say the fighting is in Palma, and Porto Cristo. Drawn onto a map, the Gutierrez villa would form the apex of the triangle; it’s about as far away from the fighting as you can get while still being on dry land. You try to breathe. It’s just another Tuesday morning. You’re breaking leftover breadcrusts into a bowl for the dogs when Javi appears.

“Leave that, my love. Come out into the garden with me?” He asks, wrapping a large hand around your wrist. You don’t need much convincing; you wipe your hands down on a towel and twine your fingers with your husband’s as you walk out across the patio to the greenery beyond.

The gardens are a riot of colour. In the hazy, golden light of summer, the colours seem almost over-saturated. It’s a world away from the dark, medieval splendour of Barcelona. Foxgloves and red poppies and bright marigolds fill the carefully planned beds around the pond, a riot of Technicolour hues that somehow work beautifully in concert.

In the sunlight, Javi’s curls look gilded; he glows, in spite of the anxiety furrowing his brow. A stone bench sits beneath a gazebo, and he leads you over there. The wooden structure is heavy with jasmine; the smell perfumes the air, blending with the salt of the nearby sea.

“Is something wrong, Javi? Is it Marta?” You ask, worry colouring your voice. Javi’s mother, Marta, was a complicated woman. She had loathed Lucas, her nephew by marriage, but had been unable to get out of bed for days when news had reached her that he had been taken into Montjuïc Castle as a prisoner. Even across the ocean, you had come to know that nobody came out of Montjuïc alive.

Javi shakes his head, his hand cupping your elbow as he guides you to sit down on the bench beside him. Even now, it’s unlike him to look so morose.

“I’ve been talking to my father.” This much you already knew. One of the stableboys had come to fetch Javi in the middle of breakfast: his father had requested his son ride out with him. Whatever they discussed, it’s knocked your husband’s relentless optimism, and that worries you more than anything.

You hold Javi’s hands and wait patiently for him to tell you what’s bothering him, but he seems unable to find the words. Your mind careers from calamity to disaster in his silence. Someone somewhere has issued a warrant for Javi’s arrest. The army is on the move and will reach the cliffs by nightfall. His father, Jordi, has had another heart attack.

“My father- that is, my father and I-” Javier starts. You squeeze his fingers, your heart beating a rapid tattoo in your rising panic.

“Please, Javi, just tell me,” you plead. He looks out over the cliffs and his shoulders slump resignedly.

“My father thinks you should leave.” A punch to the gut could not have winded you more. You sit there, blinking at him like an idiot, unable to understand what he just said.

“My father thinks you need to leave, and I do too.” He turns away from the ocean, cupping your face in his hand and forcing you to look into your eyes. “You need to leave Mallorca, leave Spain. Tonight if possible.”

“You want to send me away?” You manage, sounding rather more pathetic than you’d hoped. Javi shakes his head, his lovely brown eyes full of sorrow.

“I want you to be safe. And it’s not safe here, not for you.”

“It’s no more dangerous for me than-”

“It is more dangerous for you. The worst thing they do to men is shoot them.” The unspoken implication hangs unpleasantly in the air. Javi sighs and glances back towards the house. “My father thinks he can persuade my mother to leave.” You want to scream. You want to ask who made Jordi such an authority, who made him king of his own tiny dominion and gave him the power to dismiss you.

In your gut, you know Javier’s father is right. He’s been weathering the storms of Spanish politics since before you were born, a wily fox of a man who had declared months ago that the political powderkeg was about to explode.

 “I won’t leave you,” you insist, your voice firmer now. Jordi might be right; an army will come here someday. But you’d rather face them than abandon your family. “Until death do us part, Javi.”

“Please, sweetheart. It would only be for a little while. The war can’t last forever.” He manages a smile; a soft, crooked grin that wants to make you give in. You’d do so much to make him smile again.

“Your father will never get Marta to leave. She won’t leave him, and you won’t leave them.” The half-smile falls from Javi’s face.

“They’re old, sweetheart. I need to take care of them. But you – you’re strong. I know you can do this. You’ll go somewhere safe, and as soon as we’ve weathered this storm, you’ll come back.” Both of his hands are cupping your face now. Somewhere overhead, seagulls are screaming. His optimism makes you want to scream too.

“No, Javi, no, I can’t-” you start again, clutching his wrists in your hands.

“You can, you must,” he talks over you. In frustration you pull away, marching over the grass towards the house. One of Marta’s cats yowls at you as you pass it, pleading for attention, but you’re too upset to pay it any mind. Javi is hot on your heels, by turns pleading and stern. The door to your bedroom bangs against the wall as you fling it open.

You want space, but Javi won’t give it to you. He’s in your face, his hands roaming over you, clutching at your shoulders, your arms, your wrists. His rosy view of the world had been charming when you’d first met – now it makes you angry beyond words.

“I’m not leaving you,” you insist sharply, bringing your hands up to push your husband away from you. His hands circle your wrists instead, refusing to let you escape. “I’m not leaving you!” You repeat it in English, in your broken Catalan, in French. You tell him over and over in as many languages as you know, all the while struggling to break free of his hold.

The kiss takes you by surprise. He keeps one hand at your wrists; the other cups the back of your head. There’s no elegance to the kiss. He presses his mouth to yours, full lips meeting your own, your breath mingling with his. You’d almost think he’d done it deliberately to throw you off balance, if not for the surprised little intake of breath he makes.

“You are leaving tonight,” he says, once he’s broken the kiss. His fingertips grip the nape of your neck, your foreheads press together. You try to shake your head against his, but his hand at your neck grips tighter. “If I have to throw you into the boat myself, you’re leaving tonight.”

“I’ll hate you forever if you do.” It’s a childish assertion. His soft brown eyes fill with quiet devastation, and you immediately want to take it back.

“I’d rather have you hate me and survive than love me and die.” The two of you grapple again; him trying to keep his hold on you as you try to escape his grip. You have no real notion of why you want to break free – you could hardly hide in a cabinet until he gave up and allowed you to stay.

When the two of you tumble back onto the bed, it is an accident. You had tried to kick out with your legs, but had only succeeded in knocking you both off balance. His arms wrap around you as you lie on top of him, doing your best to squirm free and failing miserably.

You and Javi rarely argue. Any petty squabbles you do have are usually easily and quickly resolved. And when you do fight, you’ve gotten used to burning out that tension with sex.

So it feels like the most natural thing in the world to start pulling his shirtfront open. He takes your cue, his hands falling from your wrists and setting to work on the buttons of your dress. There’s a frantic energy to you both; for all you had been fighting him before, you can’t pull him close enough now. Your hands itch with the need to touch him, to memorise every inch and curve of him before he sends you away.

You sink your fingers into his curls and drag him down closer. It’s not making love, not the soft, slow sex that you and Javi usually have. This is something harsher, more demanding. The bedframe rattles with the force of your movements, and you know you should be embarrassed. The servants or Javi’s parents could hear, your actions unmistakable when the noise of the bed combines with the moans escaping from you both.

When you’ve both come, and are lying satiated in each other’s arms, the fire has gone out of your conversation. Javi rests his head on your breasts, humming contentedly as you play with his curls. You admire the Monet painting that faces the bed, the hazy floral landscape that you wish for all the world you and your husband could escape into. The canvas lilies almost seem to sway in the breeze with the haze of heat rising through the room.

“What if you forget me?” You say softly. As much as you know Javi loves you, you can’t deny that the thought scares you. That you will leave, but after long years of war, Javi will have moved on. He’ll find some pretty Mallorquin girl that never went into exile and never come to rescue you from your banishment.  

“I could never forget you,” Javi says, tilting his head back to look at you. Those beautiful eyes of his are so full of sorrow that you want to cry yourself.

“You say that. What if this war lasts as long as the Great War? Longer?”

“It doesn’t matter. ‘If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever’,” he says in English.

“Byron?” You ask, and he shakes his head. Of course he would quote poetry at a time like this.

“Tennyson. It’s true. I could fill the whole island with flowers, all the thinking of you I shall do while we’re parted.” Javi’s hands rest on your thighs, his thumbs stroking lazy circles onto your skin.

“Wouldn’t that be something to behold. A whole island, full of flowers. You could live four lifetimes and never run out of scenery to paint.”

“I would write to you every day, you know,” Javier manages eventually. You know he would. Javi has always had an excellent turn of phrase – there were half-drafted screenplay ideas all over your apartment in Barcelona.

“And one letter in twenty might reach me,” you retort. The postal service hasn’t exactly been running efficiently of late, never mind the inevitable censorship everything seems to be going through.

“I would keep you here with me if there was any way I could be sure you’d be safe.” He says gently, and you sigh. “And I would like you to go willingly. But you’re going either way, I’m afraid.” Even issuing orders, there’s undeniable tenderness to it.

“Between the both of us, we might fill all of Europe with flowers.” You try to imagine it; two paths of flowers creeping across the continent, growing every time you and Javi think of one another.

“The whole world, even.” Javier clutches a little tighter at your thighs, and you can hear tears thickening his voice. You hold each other tighter, and you know now that neither of you will loosen your grip until the very last moment.

****

Later, there will be a forget-me-not pressed into your hand as you and Javi say your final goodbyes at the dock. Your clothes are weighted down by the money and jewellery sewn into the hems, but it’s the flower you treasure the most. You refuse to cry as you sail away; you stare insistently at the dock, long after Javier has faded from your sight. You know he’ll be doing the same, standing on the pier and keeping a watchful eye on the horizon until the sky starts to lighten with the dawn.

Later, in spite of your denials, there will be letters. Javi writes to you often, mostly of trivial, household matters that won’t be censored. In every one he tells you how the gardens are growing. In every one, there is a flower drawn into the margin. You hoard them like a dragon hoards gold; when your homesickness makes you feel physically ill, you surround yourself with his letters and tracing the lines of his pen.

Later, there will be a screenplay. It’s smuggled off the island and brought directly to you by a man who only speaks brusque Catalan, and you nearly weep just to hear the language spoken again. The screenplay bears a pseudonym – Javier Peña – but every line is clearly your Javi’s work. It tells of a great love story flourishing in the face of a brutal war, of love conquering all. You cry over the last twenty pages, a handkerchief clasped to your face so you don’t smudge the ink.

Later, the war will end. Spain will survive, though she will not be saved. You will never walk through a garden of flowers without thinking of Javi.  

****

 “But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.” – Ian McEwan, Atonement

TAGLIST:

@avengersfan25 @misscharlielulu @apenny4thots @its-nebuleuse @totallynotastanacc

[toseehowthestoryends]

Hal Gates = Henry Avery

So, I've seen the theory that Hal Gates = Henry Avery, and I laughed at it until I did the research.

And holy shit, it fits.

What made me start scratching my head was when I stumbled upon a second draft script for the pilot that is a little different from what aired. It straight up says that Hal Gates is in his 60s in Episode I/1715. For some reason, I figured him a bit younger, but since Mark Ryan was only 58 when the show started airing...it starts to make sense.

Henry Avery was (probably) born in 1659. He'd be 56 in 1715.

Short history: Henry (Hal?) Avery was a British-born sailor who spent some time in the Royal Navy as a master's mate, became a privateer, and then a pirate captain when the crew of his ship mutinied and elected him. Then he became the most successful pirate of his age, the "Arch Pirate," and the subject of the first-ever worldwide manhunt after only two years as a pirate captain.

Then he escaped with his loot around 1695, twenty years before Black Sails begins, never to be seen again.

But there are theories that he disappeared to New Providence Island.

(More on that below the cut). Isn't that fascinating? We don't know where Hal Gates comes from, but we know he's been around for quite awhile. He's the right age (practically spot on). Hornigold implies that Gates has been at sea for around 50 years, which would mean he first went to sea around 1665, give or take a little. The first mention of Every at sea is around 1671, but what's 5-6 years when you're rounding?

The Black Sails universe credits Avery/Every as one of the founders of the Nation of Thieves, saying "this is a place for free men," on New Providence Island. He's also the man who found Skeleton Island.

We know Hal Gates sailed on his crew and had his journals (his "prized possession," which he gave to Flint for safekeeping. Why give those to someone who was supposedly a minor member of his crew (someone who was "terrified Avery knew his name")? That doesn't add up very well. Why would Gates even have those journals?

"They say it started with a man named Henry Avery. Sailed into the port of Nassau, bribed the colonial governor to look past his sins, encamped his crew upon the beach, and thus began the pirate issue on New Providence Island." (Thomas Hamilton to James McGraw)

Avery vanishes into thin air, after supposedly giving Hal Gates his journals and leaving some of his crew on New Providence Island, including - presumably - Gates. Unless, of course, he is Hal "Gates." Then we've definitely seen him, the man who didn't really want to be a pirate captain until it was thrust upon him. That's a weird attitude, unless, of course, he's retired and is just going to see as a quartermaster because he missed the action?

More Avery/Every history beneath the cut.

Black Sails spells his name as Avery, though the common spelling is actually Every. So, what's his story?

Henry Every, also known as Henry Avery, Jack Avery, John Avery, Benjamin Bridgeman, or Long Ben, was the "Arch Pirate" or "King of Pirates" in his day.

He was probably born in Newton Ferrers, England (near Plymouth), in August 1659. His last name may have been spelled "Evarie" at this time.) Sometime between 1671 and 1689, he joined the Royal Navy under the name Henry Every and made it to the rank of master's mate before being discharged in 1690.

He also married to Dorothy Arther in 1690. Even in the navy, he was known as a family man, sending his money home instead of wasting it.

Then Every joined up with a new shipping company, and became first mate on a privateer warship, Charles II. The Spanish Expedition Shipping company was basically a bunch of English privateers who headed out to help Spain (then an English ally) hurt the French (never an English ally) in the West Indies. But Spain didn't deliver the promised letter of marque, failed to pay them, and left them sitting around as virtual prisoners. The crew of Charles II mutinied. Next you know, Every was unanimously elected captain and they changed the name of the ship to Fancy.

Over the next two years, Every and his crew embarked on a legendary series of raids that culminated in him commanding a squadron of pirate ships and taking a prize worth about £600,000 (about $135 million today). This was a 25 ship convoy owned by the Grand Mughal (Emperor), and it was the biggest prize ever taken by a pirate at the time.

The result? The first ever worldwide manhunt for one Henry Every. Britain's privy council and the East India Company offered a bounty of £1,000 (about $224,000 today) for his capture, plus a free pardon to informers.

It was due to his actions that Parliament declared pirates hostis humani generis ,or enemies of all mankind.

What happened to Every after this? What we know for sure is that he disappeared, forever to be the one pirate who got away scott free with his treasure. Sightings were reported for years, but none were reliable. Some say he died in poverty after squandering his treasure or being unable to sell it. But there's a strong theory that he disappeared in a place we all know very well: New Providence Island.

According to this theory, in Every and Fancy headed to St. Thomas and sold some of their treasure. Anchoring about 50 miles off New Providence Island, some of his men went to talk to the governor and ask leave for the crew to come to the island in exchange for hefty bribe. Their captain, "Henry Bridgeman" promised the governor a gift.

Every's crew spent months in the Bahamas and Fancy was stripped of everything valuable, ending up running aground and sinking, perhaps at the governor's orders. Eventually, the governor learned about the price on Every's head and put a warrant out for his arrest, but he seems to have tipped off the crew. Of 113 men, only 24 were captured (and 5 executed). Every was never seen again, having told his men multiple stories about where he intended to go.

And then he vanished, never to be seen again.

Unless he didn't.

[laikaflash]

A Mirror Across Timelines: Mitsurugi

(For the September community prompt. This will also be on Ao3 with notes and stuff later.)

As strange as it had been for Mitsurugi to find himself in Beijing, he was brimming with strength. Not a moment ago, he was in a Spanish port town and what had happened there was far too invigorating to have been a dream. In a flash of white light, he was spirited away to a place lit by a strange fiery glow. All around him floated towers and arches that twisted and broke into rubble, all being pulled into a blue maelstrom. The air itself thrummed with power when he dueled the silver-haired shapeshifter Iska Acht who brought him there. Then came a voice that rumbled through the chaos like distant rapids, but its words were no clearer to him even as the second white light faded. Whatever it was that had awakened there—warrior or demon—Mitsurugi wondered if it was waiting for him in Ming.

Passing shop after shop along the wide street, Mitsurugi looked around to get his bearings. Although he could recognize many characters, his pronunciation of any of them would stand out as much as his armor did. Passersby gave him a wide berth and he caught more than a few uneasy looks from them. Mitsurugi maintained a nonchalant attitude that had served him well in his travels, but there seemed to be something more to their wariness. Was Hideyoshi carrying out his ambitions of conquest?

Amid all the chatter, he caught the word wōkòu—Japanese pirate. Mitsurugi jerked his head to his left and saw two young men hurry into an alley and disappear. He scowled, knowing it would make no difference to them that he had slain pirates on his way back to Japan several years ago. Shading his eyes as the sun glared through a gap in the dark clouds, he hastened his steps. Though the clouds were rolling northward, toward the mountains, the air felt heavy enough to rain at any moment. Much to his relief, ahead was a red-fringed banner that bore the character for wine.

He had not realized just how hungry he was until he walked into the tavern. Mitsurugi had no desire to explain in halting Chinese how he had gotten here from Spain, but the tavern-keeper had noticed the reals among his few wén coins and seemed to give a knowing nod. After a filling meal of fried rice and enough wine to ease his nerves, Mitsurugi bought a night’s stay in a small room upstairs. As he settled in and began to unfasten his armor, thunder rumbled outside and rain followed.

Whoever this new opponent is, he thought to himself, maybe the silver-haired child will lead me to him.

A white flash, like lightning striking nearby, startled him to his feet. But no sound came. A blaze of crimson light filled the room. Mitsurugi grabbed his sword, with only his cuirass remaining to shield him. His heart pounded fiercely as he recognized the power that coursed through him once more as he prepared to draw. The red light vanished as though it had been snuffed, leaving only the soft light of the paper lantern overhead.

Now a swordsman stood before him. His short, black hair was streaked with gray, as was his beard. A katana was tied at his sash, yet the top of his frayed, black kimono hung off his left shoulder like a monk’s robe. The hems of his black hakama were equally tattered. A large necklace of prayer beads hanging from his right shoulder seemed to complete his monkish look. Yet, his bare right arm bore what were almost certainly dueling scars.

“Are you here to fight me?” Mitsurugi challenged.

Sardonically, the swordsman raised a thick eyebrow. “Here?” he asked with a barely suppressed laugh. “Don’t you know who I am?” He pointed to a single, round scar just below his right shoulder.

Mitsurugi sheathed his sword and instinctively touched the same spot on his cuirass. “How…?” he gasped. “How is it possible?”

“You should know.”

There was no mistaking the scar from the tanegashima duel. Mitsurugi remembered how Iska Acht changed her form three times to test him, but it had been nothing like this. If this was a trick, he suspected that his older self would not have bothered to kick off his geta. “I mean… How did you get here?”

“Ah, that. The Astral Chaos brought me here, and there’s no telling where it can take you. I could’ve gotten lost there if it wasn’t for you. Tell me, where are we now?”

“Beijing. The outer city.”

The swordsman took a glance from the lattice window. “So it is. What year is it? You look about twenty years younger than me.”

“Eighteenth year of Tenshō, unless something happened while I was gone. Or, an Earth Ox year.”

At this, his older self cracked a wry smile. “Hm. Say, is that Shishi-Oh?”

Mitsurugi hesitated, noticing that the grip on the swordsman’s katana was black. “Yes.”

“May I see it for a moment?” The swordsman’s voice lowered to an almost reverent tone.

Mitsurugi’s heart sank at the thought that his finest sword had been lost. Even so, he unsheathed it. The older Mitsurugi gazed upon Shishi-Oh as though it were a son he had not seen in years. His expression turned somber and wizened.

“Cherish it. Hone it and wield it well.”

“Of course.” Mitsurugi gravely nodded and sheathed his sword. “I need it in top condition. There’s an opponent I’m supposed to meet. He must have something to do with this Astral Chaos. I heard something—”

Surprise flashed in the older swordsman’s eyes. “What did you hear?”

“I couldn’t make it out. That silver-haired child, what’s her name…? Iska Ahha…” He felt his throat catch on what was meant to be a guttural sound, along with slight embarrassment for it. “Acht, that’s it! I thought this Iska Acht would bring me to a worthy opponent, but well, here I am. Whatever that voice was, she had different ideas.”

The older swordsman thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “You’ll meet him, this new opponent.”

“Where did—uh, where might I find him?” Mitsurugi felt as though he had been talking to Edge Master, rather than himself.

“You won’t find him right away, but you will need one thing. Head to the fortress at Xiwei on the western border of Ming, and in time, you’ll meet your greatest opponent yet.”

Mitsurugi grinned. “That’s more like it! But what am I supposed to find there?”

“A shard of the very sword that started this. You’ll know you’ve found it when you feel it.”

With his brow furrowed, Mitsurugi wondered if it was that same power he had felt in the Astral Chaos. “If that’s so, I’ll prepare to set off at once!”

The older swordsman grinned back at him. Then crimson light filled the room once more. A regretful look crossed his face he stepped back into his geta. “I'm afraid I can’t stay much longer.”

Mitsurugi stood transfixed at the glowing portal, half-expecting Iska Acht to appear. He almost wanted to reach out to his older self, but he gratefully bowed.

“Fare well.”

Mitsurugi felt a chill as his older self stepped into the twisting chaos. At once, the crimson light was gone, and in one last flash of white, the room was once again as it should have been. He fell silent as the sounds of people in the tavern, noises of the street, and rain returned all at once to his ears.

“Damn,” he hissed, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I could’ve asked him what changed in his time!” But he knew it would be a long time before he reached Japan again, and he was no stranger to long journeys. Mitsurugi quietly settled on the bed and began to plan. Soul Edge itself seemed nearer than it had ever been.

[helianskies]

11 and 3 for nedport!

i got excited for a second and then i realised you picked number 3 and :(

...but fine. if you insist >:3

11. what are their first impressions of each other?

ned: oh god please not another one—

port: um who let in the street urchin??

but really, ned would be wary of portugal at first by all accounts. he's already got strong opinions on spain when they meet and this young nation can't handle another toni. he therefore plays it carefully and keeps his mouth shut around the iberian, cards close to his chest. port might be calm and lax on the outside, but ned can see there's more to him than meets the eye. he doesn't want to test him.

meanwhile, port probably looks at ned and is briefly pitiful of this other poor kid toni has dragged home with him, but is not too heavily invested in ned as an individual. still, he first sees ned and labels him quiet and timid. no threat. mild. just... there. he's just a little lost lamb trapped in the lair of an iberian wolf. coitadinho... (shame he couldn't see the future, huh!)

3. which one outlives the other and how do they cope (this hurt to write but...)

ned outlives port.

port is not too surprised as the times draws near and he feels his connection to his land becoming tenuous, weaker, frail... it starts with the grey hairs, the aches in his body that won't go away - that only get worse, rather than get better. it scares him, but he isn't the sort to say what's wrong. he doesn't want to burden anyone with worry. which is why, when ned realises what's happening - why port is quieter, more distant - he is sworn to secrecy.

not that that makes it easier for ned, of course. but he also knows that if their time is destined to become limited, then he will do what he can to keep port happy.

so, they'll go travelling. no explanation is given to anyone who asks beyond, 'we just thought it was time to have a break'. ned and port will revisit old haunts. they'll try new things while doing the things they've loved doing together for years - maybe even centuries. ned will look after port, and port will make sure ned knows exactly what his wishes are for when the time comes.

of course, port can't keep his condition a secrst forever. but ned helps him keep it for as long as he can. then, once the cat is out of the bag, port packs up and moves in with ned (after ned nags him about it for a while). they continue to live. ned does everything in his power to keep port comfortable, and to spend as much time as possible with him. years will go by. the hairs turns more grey, the bones become more brittle. but ned stays. and port will always he grateful.

when the times comes for ned to be on his own again, 'coping' does not come into it for a while. everything feels empty - his home, his life, his soul. he's lost. he's a wreck. he breaks things in roaring tantrums and stays in bed for days on end. really, port would be having a go at him if he were still around, telling him to pick himself up, to stop being so melodramatic (which would be rich coming from him!).

it's only when ned finds himself in the presence of others - toni, arthur - even luciano - that he can start to try and come to terms with it. they have to be there for each other. he can't get through it alone.

the wounds never fully heal. but every year, once a year, he'll take himself on a trip to a place that port loved or would have loved, and he'll find somewhere peaceful and beautiful to sit down and rest so that he can share it with him. because port will never truly leave him. he's always there, watching over ned. he's in every breeze, every sunset, every wave. port will be with him right to the end, and evetually, ned finds peace in that.

[ ship ask game here! ]

[female-malice]

A pod of orcas has attacked and sunk another boat in southwestern Europe after relentlessly bombarding the vessel and its crew for almost an hour on Halloween. It is the fourth time that orcas from this region's population have sunk a vessel in the last two years.

On Oct. 31, the Grazie Mamma — a mid-size sailing yacht owned by Polish cruise company Morskie Mile — was attacked by an unknown number of orcas for around 45 minutes oof the coast of Morocco in the Strait of Gibraltar, Morskie Mile representatives wrote in a Facebook post translated from Polish.

The orcas repeatedly hit the yacht's rudder causing major damage and allowing water into the vessel's hull. Despite receiving aid from the Moroccan Navy and being towed toward safety, the boat eventually sank as it entered the port of Tanger-Med in Morocco. All passengers were safely evacuated to rescue boats before the ship sank.

The unusual attack is the latest example of one of many unnerving new orca behaviors that have highlighted the striking intelligence of these deadly predators. 

Since 2020, orcas have been regularly harassing boats in the Strait of Gibraltar — a narrow strait between Spain and Morocco that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea — and the surrounding waters off the coast of the Iberian peninsula. (continued)

–

I love them so much 🥰

[cookieshower]

This question is 10+ years late, but I’m reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally curious to know. How did you first get into SpaPort / PortSpa and why do you like it more than the others?

oh this is gonna be a mini story time 🛐

how: since i got into hetalia toni is already a blorbo™. you know those things like uhh if a ship has both of my blorbo in it i will love it more? yeah...

in 2011-2014 there was a popular heta fan comic in deviantart called Maaf, it's mainly focused on maritime southeast asia ocs and bits of their history with other canon charas. it's kinda non linear (chronological??).

around that time port's 2nd design is revealed (the ponytail with scar), later the author of Maaf drew him in the story... note that the author doesn't write some parts of the story, chunks of it is provided/suggested by readers from said countries, port included.

ofc teen me (occasional yaoi enjoyer) & some readers went: oh ☺️ so that is spain's brother ☺️ they bicker a lot ☺️ wanna see more❣️ then i saw more arts of them by few dA artists... saw their tumblr accounts, followed, and from there i discovered many more in The spaport tumblr✨✨. i was just a minor lurker gnfjnfs, gradually left heta in 2014, made no drawing/content.

dragged back to heta bc of new season & SEA charas › jan 2022 i watched a certain anime and 2 main charas reminds me of #them › wow suddenly i miss #them a Lot..... › marathoned all their remaining tumblr arts and fics i've never seen before and dusted off my tumblr

why:

the 3 principles of good heta ship (credit to oomf): neighbours that share borders, one have invaded the other, family bond/related. this formula is always correct!

then there's canon materials and "why are you only meek with him"... toni only showed his weak side to port??? this exclusivity?!? oh it's over for other ships /lh.

TO ME a lot of ship dynamics/trope fit them heheh. sun and moon, dumb and dumber, sensitive and oblivious, writer and artist, i can fix him, etc. i think being a foreigner means i understood their irl relations less and i wont go "actually..." [insert better english sth sth ignorance is bliss].

they also reminds me of a favourite ship that involves my country so 🤒 even their language differences(?). then other fav ships reveals even more of spaport history bits from different pov. not elaborating the 3 ships here bc it will be Long and off topic lol but these kept adding as i learned more!! so yeah there's the many indirect connections.

ok that's what i can think of, excuse the incoherent texts :3c

[casusvallis]

╰┈➤ ❝ [Harmony-Archibald "Archie" Tissera] ❞

༄༄ They/Them ༄༄ 23 ༄༄ Aquarius ༄༄

Music & Composition Student

Entertainer of The Mirror

"Life is always better with a little music!~"

𝄔𝄅𝄢𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄂

Harmony-Archibald Tissera, commonly referred to as Harmony or Archie, is a child prodigy virtuoso, composer, and music history student at Casus College of International Arts. They host a music club called The Speakeasy with their band, The Speakeasy Experience.

╰┈➤[≈] Description

What is Archie Tissera's physical appearance?

Archie is 5 feet 11 inches, or 180.34 centimeters. Their skin is a deep brown with a warm undertone. Their hair is coily and often done up in protective hair styles, but when natural has a curl pattern of 4a. They have a heavy and curvy build, their assets prominent. They have a dry skin type, accentuated by the climate of Casus Vallis. They have stretch marks on the lower portion of their belly, the outside of their thighs, under their arms, and on their chest. Prior to entering the Mirror World, their original hair colour was a very dark brown, almost black. Their eyes were a very dark brown. After entering the Mirror World, a clump of hair on the left of their forehead took on a vibrant blue tint. The pupils of their eyes became light brown quavers (♪). referencing their longtime love and dedication to music.

What is Archie Tissera's background and history? How did it make them who they are today?

Archie was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad in an affluent home and position. Being born to a mother who was a musician, both them and their twin were made to learn instruments early on in life. The twins were often brought out as a duo string act, attracting audiences throughout Trinidad - not only for their skill, but the novelty of their performance - Archie on the double bass, Symph on the viola. While Archie poured everything into perfecting the craft (under instruction from their mother), their sibling comparatively did not, often doing only what was necessary to make their mother happy. After entering high school, the siblings relationship was strained, often still seen as 'the twin musicians' and nothing else. While Archie enjoyed the attention for their music, Symph enjoyed the attention for their popularity, putting more focus on other instruments simply as a means of impressing people. It didn't sit right with Archie, and eventually they split apart completely, their duo becoming two solo acts. When Symph moved out of Casus with their friend to join a band, Archie was furious, wanting to be there with them but not wanting the fame to come along with it, holding a lot of secret resentment. Now Symph and their partner, Dmitri, are part of a band called B&C, for Mr. Banana and Mr. Corn, a musician-magician combo act. They became world-famous, with the public adoring their campy style and popular music. Since they blew up, the only music Archie resents is B&C.

Who is Archie Tissera related to? Who is their family?

Archie lives with their mother, Pethmi Tissera, and father, Lawrence Tissera. Both their mother and father work for Casus College of International Arts, their mother as a music theory professor and private violin tutor, their father as a carpentry and general construction professor. Before their careers at the college, Pethmi was an acclaimed violinist and ravanahatha expert, traveling around the world with her orchestra until she landed in Trinidad and Tobago, meeting a quiet and humble carpenter on the beach - who happened to be Lawrence. Pethmi never went back home to Sri Lanka, choosing to stay in Trinidad to be with her love. They also have a twin sibling, Symphony-Archibald Tissera, commonly referred to as Symph, who lives outside of Casus to pursue their dreams as a pop star and magician.

What sort of activities does Archie Tissera like?

Above all else, Archie loves music. Playing music. Listening to music. Dancing to music. They specialize in the double bass and electric bass, but play a huge surplus of modern instruments - even if they haven't tried an instrument, they could easily pick it up! Their entire world revolves around everything that has to with music. As the host of the college music club, The Speakeasy, they have not only dedicated their education, but their free evenings to performing for the public. When their focus isn't on music, Archie is shopping for excellent fashion finds they can refurbish or craft to something even better, or getting their nails done in gorgeous bright colours and art.

What kind of traits, ticks, or behaviours does Archie Tissera exhibit?

Archie is an excitable, joyous, and entertaining individual who loves being the centre of attention. When they aren't the centre of attention, they are highlighting other musicians or performers to make sure everyone gets a turn in the spotlight. Aside from that, they tend to get distracted easily on little details, derailing a conversation or jumping from one activity to the next in a manner of minutes. Because of this, it is hard for them to complete tasks or creations (other than composing music) and there are many unfinished projects lying around their home. Archie also has several vocal stims they present outwardly, including but not limited to whistling, humming, singing, and clicking their tongue. Weirdly enough, they don't like to sing in front of an audience unless necessary, because they consider singing to be their best stim and act of comfort.

What does Archie Tissera want? What prevents them from achieving that goal?

Archie wants to spread the beauty of music all throughout Casus, the country, and the world. They want to teach youth how sound can make people feel good and do good, but aren't necessary looking for the fame that comes along with it. Unlike their sibling, Archie wants to show music for the enjoyment, not the spotlight (even if they like attention a little bit!)

How does Archie Tissera interact with their surroundings?

Archie sometimes forgets to use their indoor voice, laughing loudly and talking about things at inappropriate times. This can lead to people being upset and considering them irresponsible. They try to combat this by being a great host at The Speakeasy, but it doesn't always translate well. Raised in luxury, Archie is sometimes ignorant of people's upbringings, thinking everyone grew up with a pool, or went on vacations, but they are always willing to learn and are constantly trying to get better. Archie tends to leave unfinished projects around places, so if you're lucky enough to visit their opulent home, their bedroom is a mess of activities, crafts, and used plates. They're a little messy, but try to keep up with it.

What do outsiders think of Archie Tissera? How do they treat them?

Those who know Archie know they are a beacon of entertainment and joy. The Speakeasy is often attended by not only college students, but people throughout Casus and just past town limits. Their fans are extremely supportive and spread the word as much as they can. They are always a welcoming person, offering to be their guide or support immediately upon meeting a stranger. At times this can be off putting for outsiders, but most students appreciate the support. Strangers might be surprised by their immediate joy and excitement at first, but most like their first impression. Some others think they are inappropriate and don't know how to take things seriously.

What do Archie Tissera's friends think of them? How do they treat them?

Yhat: "When I first met them, I thought they were just another pretty face. Then I really got to know them and see the excitement they spread. Wow, they have got some real skill in music and in battle! I have never met a person who can play so many instruments and use them to their biggest potential while in a fight, it's pretty fucking awesome. Plus, they're a partier just like me - usually I hate the guy who brings the guitar to parties, but they are the exception."

Gwen: "Such a warm soul, always making people laugh, sharing candies with their friends, giving amazing music recommendations for whatever genre you like - just amazing on all grounds. I was very new to Casus when we first met, and they invited me to one of their shows. It was a great introduction to the town, made me feel welcome, like there are still good people in this world. They are so nice to me, I always feel safe when I'm with them."

Donnie: "Uhh... I don't really know a lot about them. I don't get out much, I prefer to stay at home, but they're really popular with everyone and even have a band. I'm almost a little intimidated by how opposite we are. Though in the Mirror World, their power is staggering. Their lung capacity is unmatched, which I guess makes sense with the amount of instruments they play..."

Dusk: "Archie is one of my closest friends. When they first moved to Casus in high school, they encouraged me to focus more on percussion and getting my feelings out on a drum set. Honestly, I thought they were crazy at first, but I find myself tapping drumsticks on tables when I need to relax. When they asked me to be part of their band, I was stunned - I can't even read sheet music, but they saw my potential. They see potential in everyone. It's rare to find a person so dedicated to being your best self like Archie is,"

Quill: 🎶👯‍♀️⭐️

╰┈➤[🖑] Identity

Archie Tissera is half Trinidadian on their fathers side and half Sri Lankan on their mothers side.

Archie Tissera is a lesbian, nonbinary individual.

𝄔𝄅𝄢𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄂

╰┈➤[❤] Likes

Music

String instruments

Energy drinks

Fashion

Nails and nail art

╰┈➤[⊘] Dislikes

Out-of-tune instruments

Singing (in front of an audience)

Snow

Being bored/under stimulated

Bugs

Romantic films, romcoms

𝄔𝄅𝄢𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄂

╰┈➤[𐙚] Backpack

Flip phone

Sweet gum

Key chain with guitar dangle

Kitty coin purse

Notebook with elephant

Sheet music workbook

Custom made conductors baton

Bow wax

Earplugs

Metronome and tuner

Bag of candy

Pencil case

eBop Shuffle

𝄔𝄅𝄢𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄅𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄚𝄂

╰┈➤[☀] Powers

How does Archie Tissera's power manifest?

Upon tapping into the Mirror World, Archie Tissera discovered their powers of Soundwaves, Winds, and Vibrations. This power likely stems from their intense dedication to music and perfecting the craft, growing up as a child prodigy and virtuoso.

How did Archie Tissera discover the Mirror World?

Archie discovered the Mirror World the most recently of the group, working closely with their friend and bandmate, Dusk. When he was late to a rehearsal, they were shocked and decided to follow him for a few days. Knowing that Dusk and Yhat often butt heads, Archie approached Yhat and accused him of bullying or depriving him of his responsibilities. Dusk eventually had to admit he was helping Yhat in the Mirror World, making Archie involved.

What influences Archie Tissera to protect the public and go through The Mirror World?

The Mirror World takes all the joy and energy out of the people who fall in. Thinking of a place where people are devoid of personal enjoyments and freedom hurt Archie so deeply, they vowed to bring everyone back home. Anyone Reflections they rescue gets a personal song written about their journey, making their trips to The Mirror World an act of art and bravery.

╰┈➤[♿︎] Health & Conditions

Autism

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder

Fibromyalgia

Chronic Migraines

[lonestarbattleship]

August 4, 2023 Restoration work on the Battleship Texas

"I am 'declassifying' Hunter Miertschin's 'Top Secret' picture from a few weeks ago.

Atlantic Theater Map Declassified

On behalf of our crew, our colleagues at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's (TPWD) Cultural Resources branch, and OnAim Conservation, I am pleased to announce that the stabilization, conservation, and partial restoration of the Atlantic Theater Map in the Captain's Cabin is complete!

This map of the WWII Atlantic Theater was painted on a bulkhead in the Captain's Cabin after September 1944 (based on references in the map). It shows the ports of call Texas made during WWII (white dots with anchors in them), where she performed shore bombardment (noted by little explosions), national capitals (yellow triangles), and a few surprise discoveries as the map was conserved.

The 1966 newspaper photo of Chief McKeown, with the map in the background. This is the only known photograph of the map prior to it being painted over.

Sometime after 1966 (which is when the only known historic photo of the map was taken), the map along with the rest of the Captain's Cabin was painted white. That act was not great, but not terrible either. What was truly terrible is a window was cut into the bulkhead right in the middle of the map sometime in the late 1970s, after the map and compartment were painted white. We believe that because the map had been painted over and the loss of institutional knowledge of the map, those who made that decision did not know it was there.

Fast forward to around 2000 when the map beings to reveal itself as the white paint begins to flake off and the map is rediscovered during the planning for the Captain's Cabin restoration. When the Captain's Cabin was restored, the window was welded up and the map was partially uncovered exposing the Mediterranean and most of Europe. In 2009, I discovered the 1966 picture of Chief McKeown with the map in the background, which spurred a lot of excitement about what possibly survived. However, due to budgetary constraints we were not able to perform any real conservation treatments to the map.

This is the map in 2002. You can see Italy, Southern France, and the Mediterranean emerging. At left you can see the frame of the infamous window.

The map sat partially uncovered and untouched until last summer. In partnership with TPWD Cultural Resources we hired OnAim Conservation to stabilize the remaining paint on the bulkhead, just prior to the tow to Galveston. This initial step preserved what remained and protected it from any vibrations from the tow and/or shipyard work. It also set the stage for uncovering the rest of the map and recreating the missing sections.

This is the map in 2011. During the 2002-2003 Captain's Cabin restoration, it was partially uncovered. But work stopped out of fear of damaging the map further.

All through July 2023, the incredibly talented husband and wife team of Zak Miano and Ariane Roesch (who own OnAim Conservation), with the expertise and hard work of artist and conservator Bob Pringle, performed the tedious work of uncovering the map by removing the remaining white paint, revealing that much more of the map survived than anyone thought. They also discovered that whoever painted the map, had painted the State of Texas in Africa in burnt orange!

This is the map as it appears today. The gloss is from Damar varnish that was used by OnAim to protect the paint and bad lighting.

Europe afte the remaining remnants of white overpaint was removed and the the destroyed sections of Spain and North Africa were recreated. You can see the explosions where the ship did shore bombardment at N. Africa, Normandy, and Southern France.

We made the decision to use French Morocco as Morocco was a 'protectorate' of France and French Morroco showed on a lot of 1940s maps.

Once the map was uncovered, OnAim added Kati Ozanic-Lemberger to the team to recreate the destroyed section and features of the map. In consultation with TPWD Cultural Resources, it was a unanimous decision to touch up the paint of the surviving sections of the map, fill in and blend in missing areas within surviving sections, and recreate the large missing sections. We made this decision for two main reasons, 1) it would preserve the existing map longer 2) it would allow us to tell the story of what happened to this map. The artistry of OnAim is phenomenal in how they blended the recreated areas of the map with the original, infilled and blended missing patches, and emphasized the surviving features that were being last. The map blew me away, but the skill of these folks was just as impressive.

The big surprise: TEXAS!

The Eastern seaboard of N. America, with all of Texas's Dec 7, 1941 to September 1944 ports of call. Another discovery OnAim made was the remnants of 'North'. THis do not show in the 1966 photo, Referencing period maps, we opted to infill the missing sections of 'North' and create 'North Atlantic Ocean'. As that seemed the most logical as to what was there -there was no 'South'. Because this was largely on the destroyed section we would not be harming the original map.

The faded areas are what survived of 'North'. The more solid and brighter blue is what was infilled. Same with the gray for the oceans.

I also want to add that Ariane, Kati, Bob, and Zach were working directly under the work going on the Signal Bridge. They performed their magic while having to deal with the sounds of needle guns, grinders, hammers, et al, right above their heads and occasionally getting smoked out from welding and cutting smoke that would get sucked into Captain's Cabin. How they kept steady hands and focus amid the normal cacophony of a shipyard environment is astounding.

Custom matching and blending colors

The detail work....

Bob and Katie recreating the destroyed section of the map.

The on OnAm team: Kati, Ariane, Zak, and Bob

As to the future of the map, we plan to have it on exhibit in the Captain's Cabin shortly after we reopen and are planning to incorporate it into an AR experience."

Posted by Travis Davis on the Battleship Texas Foundation Group Facebook page: link

[preblesboys]

Ooooh, tell me about Preble’s Boys!! If you’d like to ofc

Gladly! Thanks for taking interest!

The formation of the US Navy really took place during the Quasi War with France in Adams’ Administration, then there was the (first) Barbary War with pirates during Jefferson’s Administration.

Presidents Washington and Adams paid tribute to these pirates like other countries like England, Spain and Portugal as bribes not to attack their merchant ships but Jefferson wasn’t having it. He sent two commodores prior to Commodore Edward Preble to handle these pirates to the northern coast of Africa but they turned out to be too meek and other countries began taking the new born United States as a joke.

Enter Commodore Preble who (let’s be honest wasn’t really liked by his men at first because his bipolar personality), quickly established himself as a man not to mess with. He always had his ships cleared for action at ANY given moment (which was something the other American Commodores didn’t do) and was not intimidated by threats.

One event goes is how when he first met the emperor of Morocco, when asked why he wouldn’t bow, the conversation went as,

“Are you not afraid of being arrested?”

“No sir. If you presume to do it, my squadron in your full view will lay your batteries, your castles and your city to ruin.”

The whole court looked out the window and there the ships were guns pointed. Commodore Preble meant business here.

Now to “Preble’s Boys”. These men were under Commodore Preble’s men starting from Stephen Decatur, Isaac Hull, Charles Stewart and the list goes on. These men were trained differently from various experiences such as serving under different commodores to coming from merchant ships but they all would truly learn how to be part of the US Navy under Preble. He was particular and REALLY DID RUN a tight ship. Nothing got past him and he tended to supervise just about everything! How can this one man know what’s going on everywhere at all times??? Micromanaging did get annoying but when you have a master strategist like him getting victory after victory in the battles of the Mediterranean, you give a little. The officers under him like Decatur and Stewart learned from him and started getting victories of their own like the Burning of the USS Philadelphia to keep the captured American frigate out of the pirates’ hands with Decatur and Stewart’s blockade which turned out to be effective.

This old man began rubbing off on a lot of his officers and when the War of 1812 rolled around, just about all the naval battles expected for the Capture of the USS Chesapeake and the Battle of Lake Erie were won by a “Preble’s Boy”.

These men learned to be proactive, be mentors to their own men, always be ready for action which included constant drilling to perfection, trust their own instincts when something needed to be done, in David Porter’s case when he sailed into the Pacific during the War of 1812, he set up American bases in for the most part, unfamiliar territory which was similar to what Preble did. Preble didn’t want to set up base at a British port because he knew his men would get into trouble such as dueling so he found a different and slightly isolated base in Syracuse which greatly benefited him in the long run.

Overall, Commodore Preble left an impression on these men and these men made the US Navy, the navy of a new nation respectable enough for the world stage.

[dailyanarchistposts]

I.8.10 Why did the CNT collaborate with the state?

As is well know, in September 1936 the CNT joined the Catalan government, followed by the central government in November. This flowed from the decision made on July 21st to not speak of Libertarian Communism until after Franco had been defeated. In other words, to collaborate with other anti-fascist parties and unions in a common front against fascism. This decision, initially, involved the CNT agreeing to join a “Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias” proposed by the leader of the Catalan government, Louis Companys. This committee was made up of representatives of various anti-fascist parties and groups. From this it was only a matter of time until the CNT joined an official government as no other means of co-ordinating activities existed (see section I.8.13).

The question must arise, why did the CNT decide to collaborate with the state, forsake its principles and, in its own way, contribute to the counter-revolution and the loosing of the war. This is an important question. Indeed, it is one Marxists always throw up in arguments with anarchists or in anti-anarchist diatribes. Does the failure of the CNT to implement anarchism after July 19th mean that anarchist politics are flawed? Or, rather, does the experience of the CNT and FAI during the Spanish revolution indicate a failure of anarchists rather than of anarchism, a mistake made under difficult objective circumstances and one which anarchists have learnt from? Needless to say, anarchists argue that the latter is correct. In other words, as Vernon Richards argued, “the basis of [this] criticism is not that anarchist ideas were proved to be unworkable by the Spanish experience, but that the Spanish anarchists and syndicalists failed to put their theories to the test, adopting instead the tactics of the enemy.” [Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, p. 14]

So, why did the CNT collaborate with the state during the Spanish Civil War? Simply put, rather than being the fault of anarchist theory (as Marxists like to claim), its roots can be discovered in the situation facing the Catalan anarchists on July 20th. The objective conditions facing the leading militants of the CNT and FAI influenced the decisions they took, decisions which they later justified by mis-using anarchist theory.

What was the situation facing the Catalan anarchists on July 20th? Simply put, it was an unknown situation, as the report made by the CNT to the International Workers Association made clear:

“Levante was defenceless and uncertain … We were in a minority in Madrid. The situation in Andalusia was unknown … There was no information from the North, and we assumed the rest of Spain was in the hands of the fascists. The enemy was in Aragón, at the gates of Catalonia. The nervousness of foreign consular officials led to the presence of a great number of war ships around our ports.” [quoted by Jose Peirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, p. 180]

Anarchist historian Jose Peirats noted that according to the report “the CNT was in absolute control of Catalonia in July 19, 1936, but its strength was less in Levante and still less in central Spain where the central government and the traditional parties were dominant. In the north of Spain the situation was confused. The CNT could have mounted an insurrection on its own ‘with probable success’ but such a take-over would have led to a struggle on three fronts: against the fascists, the government and foreign capitalism. In view of the difficulty of such an undertaking, collaboration with other antifascist groups was the only alternative.” [Op. Cit., p. 179] In the words of the CNT report itself:

“The CNT showed a conscientious scrupulousness in the face of a difficult alternative: to destroy completely the State in Catalonia, to declare war against the Rebels [i.e. the fascists], the government, foreign capitalism, and thus assuming complete control of Catalan society; or collaborating in the responsibilities of government with the other antifascist fractions.” [quoted by Robert Alexander, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, vol. 2, p. 1156]

Moreover, as Gaston Leval later argued, given that the “general preoccupation” of the majority of the population was “to defeat the fascists … the anarchists would, if they came out against the state, provoke the antagonism … of the majority of the people, who would accuse them of collaborating with Franco.” Implementing an anarchist revolution would, in all likelihood, also result in “the instant closing of the frontier and the blockade by sea by both fascists and the democratic countries. The supply of arms would be completely cut off, and the anarchists would rightly be held responsible for the disastrous consequences.” [The Anarchist Collectives, p. 52 and p. 53]

While the supporters of Lenin and Trotsky will constantly point out the objective circumstances in which their heroes made their decisions during the Russian Revolution, they rarely mention those facing the anarchists in Spain on the 20th of July, 1936. It seems hypocritical to point to the Russian Civil War as the explanation of all of the Bolsheviks’ crimes against the working class (indeed, humanity) while remaining silent on the forces facing the CNT-FAI at the start of the Spanish Civil War. The fact that if the CNT had decided to implement libertarian communism in Catalonia they would have to face the fascists (commanding the bulk of the Spanish army), the Republican government (commanding the rest) plus those sections in Catalonia which supported the republic is rarely mentioned. Moreover, when the decision to collaborate was made it was immediately after the defeat of the army uprising in Barcelona — the situation in the rest of the country was uncertain and when the social revolution was in its early days. Stuart Christie indicates the dilemma facing the leadership of the CNT at the time:

“The higher committees of the CNT-FAI-FIJL in Catalonia saw themselves caught on the horns of a dilemma: social revolution, fascism or bourgeois democracy. Either they committed themselves to the solutions offered by social revolution, regardless of the difficulties involved in fighting both fascism and international capitalism, or, through fear of fascism (or of the people), they sacrificed their anarchist principles and revolutionary objectives to bolster, to become, part of the bourgeois state … Faced with an imperfect state of affairs and preferring defeat to a possibly Pyrrhic victory, the Catalan anarchist leadership renounced anarchism in the name of expediency and removed the social transformation of Spain from their agenda. “But what the CNT-FAI leaders failed to grasp was that the decision whether or not to implement Libertarian Communism, was not theirs to make. Anarchism was not something which could be transformed from theory into practice by organisational decree … [the] spontaneous defensive movement of 19 July had developed a political direct of its own.” [We, the Anarchists!, p. 99]

Given that the pro-fascist army still controlled a third or more of Spain (including Aragón) and that the CNT was not the dominant force in the centre and north of Spain, it was decided that a war on three fronts would only aid Franco. Moreover, it was a distinct possibility that by introducing libertarian communism in Catalonia, Aragón and elsewhere, the workers’ militias and self-managed industries would have been starved of weapons, resources and credit. That isolation was a real problem can be seen from Abad de Santillán’s later comments on why the CNT joined the government:

“The Militias Committee guaranteed the supremacy of the people in arms … but we were told and it was repeated to us endlessly that as long as we persisted in retaining it, that is, as long as we persisted in propping up the power of the people, weapons would not come to Catalonia, nor would we be granted the foreign currency to obtain them from abroad, nor would we be supplied with the raw materials for our industry. And since losing the war meant losing everything and returning to a state like that prevailed in the Spain of Ferdinand VII, and in the conviction that the drive given by us and our people could not vanish completely from the new economic life, we quit the Militias Committee to join the Generalidad government.” [quoted by Christie, Op. Cit., p. 109]

It was decided to collaborate and reject the basic ideas of anarchism until the war was over. A terrible mistake, but one which can be understood given the circumstances in which it was made. This is not, we stress, to justify the decision but rather to explain it and place it in context. Ultimately, the experience of the Civil War saw a blockade of Republic by both “democratic” and fascist governments, the starving of the militias and self-managed collectives of resources and credit as well as a war on two fronts when the State felt strong enough to try and crush the CNT and the semi-revolution its members had started. Most CNT members did not think that when faced with the danger of fascism, the liberals, the right-wing socialists and communists would prefer to undermine the anti-fascist struggle by attacking the CNT. They were wrong and, in this, history proved Durruti totally correct:

“For us it is a matter of crushing Fascism once and for all. Yes, and in spite of the Government. “No government in the world fights Fascism to the death. When the bourgeoisie sees power slipping from its grasp, it has recourse to Fascism to maintain itself. The liberal government of Spain could have rendered the fascist elements powerless long ago. Instead it compromised and dallied. Even now at this moment, there are men in this Government who want to go easy on the rebels. You can never tell, you know — he laughed — the present Government might yet need these rebellious forces to crush the workers’ movement … “We know what we want. To us it means nothing that there is a Soviet Union somewhere in the world, for the sake of whose peace and tranquillity the workers of Germany and China were sacrificed to Fascist barbarians by Stalin. We want revolution here in Spain, right now, not maybe after the next European war. We are giving Hitler and Mussolini far more worry to-day with our revolution than the whole Red Army of Russia. We are setting an example to the German and Italian working class on how to deal with fascism. “I do not expect any help for a libertarian revolution from any Government in the world. Maybe the conflicting interests of the various imperialisms might have some influence in our struggle. That is quite possible … But we expect no help, not even from our own Government, in the last analysis.” “You will be sitting on a pile of ruins if you are victorious,” said [the journalist] van Paasen. Durruti answered: “We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a time. For, you must not forget, we can also build. It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.” [quoted by Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, pp. 193-4f]

This desire to push the revolution further was not limited to Durruti, as can be seen from this communication from the Catalan CNT leadership in August 1936. It also expresses the fears driving the decisions which had been made:

“Reports have also been received from other regions. There has been some talk about the impatience of some comrades who wish to go further than crushing fascism, but for the moment the situation in Spain as a whole is extremely delicate. In revolutionary terms, Catalonia is an oasis within Spain. “Obviously no one can foresee the changes which may follow the civil war and the conquest of that part of Spain which is still under the control of mutinous reactionaries.” [quoted by Jose Peirats, Op. Cit., pp. 151–2]

Isolation, the uneven support for a libertarian revolution across Spain and the dangers of fascism were real problems, but they do not excuse the libertarian movement for its mistakes. The biggest of these mistakes was forgetting basic anarchist ideas and an anarchist approach to the problems facing the Spanish people. If these ideas had been applied in Spain, the outcome of the Civil War and Revolution could have been different.

In summary, while the decision to collaborate is one that can be understood (due to the circumstances under which it was made), it cannot be justified in terms of anarchist theory. Indeed, as we argue in the next section, attempts by the CNT leadership to justify the decision in terms of anarchist principles are not convincing and cannot be done without making a mockery of anarchism.

[sirenjose]

Analysis of the First Officer, Jose Baden

This is a repost of my Jose Analysis.

Profile

Name: Jose Baden

Birthday: September 24

Age: 25

Social Status: Nouveau Riche

Characteristics: Straightforward, Man of Action; Quick-tempered; Sarcastic; Decisive

Interests: Sailing

Talents: Marine Navigation, Gambling

Likes: Treasures, Mechanics, Mysticism

Dislikes: Music

Deduction Summaries

Deduction 1: Tempest

Jose Baden’s family fleet encountered a tempest during a voyage and was forced to enter uncharted waters.

Deduction 2: Sacrifice

The fleet managed to find a safe haven at the price of losing its entire crew. The secrets of the sea troubled Jose deeply.

Deduction 3: At Moonrise

Jose’s reputation plummeted after repeatedly missing the tide due to alcoholism

Character Day Letter Summaries

Character Day: A Sailing Log

The diary states that Jose did not embark on the voyage, and a terrible accident occurred at sea.

Character Day: The Last Page of the Diary

Jose received his codeword from the manor’s invitation, and the way it was written aroused suspicion.

Character Day: A Page from Jose Baden’s Experiment File

?

Backstory

Characteristics:

Outspoken, straightforward, go-getter

Quick-tempered

Loves to tease people with sarcasm

Decisive

Once upon a time, there wasn’t a single man that didn’t know Jose Baden, the First Officer. His father, the captain, and him were protectors and escorts for the British crown’s maritime empire. They were wealthy, heroic, gallant, and very punctual. Whether shielding English ships, or transporting royal treasures, the Baden family were never late. Rumor has it that this was because Baden had obtained a pocket watch blessed by the God of the Sea. The tide and great waves alike would heed his call, never delaying his ships. Thus, they enjoyed the Queen’s favor in no small measure, receiving titles despite being foreigners.

But one day, Baden, who had been delayed by matters in Liverpool, did not set out to sea with his father. At sunset he awaited his father at the port, but the ship that so loyally served the crown did not return on time. In fact, the ship, as well as all its crew, never reappeared upon the sea. The Queen was enraged. Believing that the Badens had stolen her treasure, she stripped Jose Baden of his family’s riches and title. Jose Baden had fallen.

Not long after, Jose received some information. On the list of goods upon that missing ship was a certain antique Chinese umbrella, and now it had appeared in a place called Oletus Manor.

Once a knight of the sea, he decided to set foot on this cursed land himself; to find his father, or at the very least…… to take back what is rightfully his.

Analysis

Deduction 1

At Sunset

3, 2. 1… Sweet dreams.

A Voyage Logbook: We have new identities, new flags, new routes, and everything is going well, or better than expected.

This deduction may be in relation to Jose’s origins. Jose is from Spain. This is based on his 1st name, which is a Spanish name, on Jose’s backstory referencing Jose and his father as “foreigners”, and how Jose’s favorite food in game is Paella. In game, Paella has the description: “Paella, one of Spanish sailors' favorite meals”. There’s also how, in game, Jose is the only one who will eat it. Paella is specifically associated with Valencia, so it’s possible Jose may be from Valencia as well. Paella’s description also specifically talks about “Spanish sailors”, which may imply that Jose and his father initially served in the Spanish navy before they served in the British navy.

Jose’s deduction 1 is about the Baden family leaving Spain to go to Britain and joining the British navy instead. 1 possible reason for this may involve the history of Spain at that time (Identity V takes place around the end of the 19th century, as Emma’s game happens in 1898 based on her and Freddy’s deductions giving the year she was born combined with Emma’s age in game). Spain in the last quarter of the 19th century was going through a number of coups, uprisings, revolutions, and so on (such as the Glorious Revolution in 1868, a coup in 1874 as part of the Bourbon Restoration, Third Carlist War that went from 1872 – 1876, the Cuban War of Independence in 1895-1898, the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898, and the Spanish American War in 1898). It’s also possible the Badens simply hoped for a better future in Britain (considering Jose’s father’s desires/greed, it’s possible he was just going where he thought he could earn the most wealth or reputation, or just where he felt he could find the best opportunities).

Deduction 2

Markers

Don’t lose your way.

A chart: The routes applicable to various ships between multiple royal ports are marked in detail, among which one area is marked as dangerous and not recommended for sailing.

Jose and his father weren’t anything special or famous at first, but Jose’s father was looking for such an opportunity to make a name for himself. They likely weren’t rich yet (from Jose’s backstory, it sounds like their fame only while they were with Britain, meaning not while they were in Spain). They had to work their way up and gain the trust of Britain and the Queen, due to their status as foreigners. As part of their new duties in the British navy, they traveled to a number of different “royal ports”. But besides these ports, one of the areas on their chart was marked “dangerous” and “not recommended for sailing”. This would be where everything changed for both Badens.

Deduction 3

The Windstorm

Trouble always occurs by accident.

A diary: We were caught in a storm, but it was a voyage that could not be delayed, and my father decided to change course. We knew it was dangerous, but we are the bravest sea knights, aren't we?

During one of their voyages, they encountered a storm. Despite the risks, Jose’s father refused to turn back and wanted to continue on with the voyage via a different course. This was likely because Jose’s father was determined to make a name for himself and improve his social status. He didn’t care about the risks, so as a Captain, they were all forced onward. Jose, who sees himself as a “brave sea knight”, wasn’t as confident as his father, but hoped they could survive the dangers anyways.

The alternate route Jose’s father decided to take to avoid the storm was likely the very route from Jose’s deduction 2 that was labeled as “dangerous” and “not recommended for sailing”. That would fit with Jose commenting on the new route being “dangerous” and hoping they could brave whatever they would have to face on it. It would also fit with this “windstorm” being the same “tempest” from Jose’s 1st deduction summary, with means the “uncharted waters” they were “forced to enter” was the “dangerous” area from Jose’s deduction 2.

Deduction 4 and Deduction 7

Entangled

The devil’s tentacles are just out of sight.

A news update: Despite the loss of most of the crew, the Badens fought their way out of their watery grave after two months of struggles. After defeating the marauding pirates and protecting his majesty's wealth, they finally set sail for home.

Jose’s deduction 4 aligns with Jose’s 2nd deduction summary.

The Badens’ ship managed to find “safe haven” after going through the “uncharted waters” of the “dangerous” area marked on their chart. Unfortunately, this cost the lives of most of the crew. According to Jose’s deduction 2, it took them “two months” before they were able to “set sail for home”.

It’s important to note that the information in this deduction is what was reported to the “news”, meaning it may not be 100% true. The news is only reporting based on what they were told by the survivors. I bring this up as we know someone (likely Jose’s father) did lie about what actually happened based on Jose’s deduction 7.

Sacrifice

The costly price of “bravery”.

A diary: There were no pirates or storms; just our conscience and our companions. The nightmarish waters had swept them away, but it also awakened the demons flowing through the Badens' blood.

Back with Jose’s deduction 4, the report given was: “Despite the loss of most of the crew, the Badens fought their way out of their watery grave after two months of struggles. After defeating the marauding pirates and protecting his majesty's wealth, they finally set sail for home.” But Jose tells us that there were no “pirates”. He even says there were no “storms”, which may imply Jose’s father changed course to the “dangerous” route/“uncharted waters” for reasons other than to avoid a storm.

So what did happen? All Jose tells us is that they only had “our conscience and our companions. The nightmarish waters had swept them away, but it also awakened the demons flowing through the Badens’ blood”. The part about “nightmarish waters had swept them away” seems to align with Jose’s 2nd deduction summary, which says “The secrets of the sea troubled Jose deeply.” Based on the last part of deduction 7 saying “it also awakened the demons flowing through the Badens’ blood” combined with the title of this deduction 7 (and the title of the 2nd deduction summary) is “Sacrifice”, with the following line being “the costly price of ‘bravery’”, it seems like the crews’ death were basically caused by Jose’s father. Potentially another way to phrase this is Jose’s father made a decision in pursuit of fame and fortune reckless (or potentially worse his father did this on purpose to make himself look good to the Queen). This is backed up by the fact Jose’s father lies to the Queen and the public about what actually happened during those 2 months, blaming the deaths on “marauding pirates” while supposedly seeking to “protect” the Queens’ “wealth”.

Jose’s father “sacrificed” the crew for his own benefit, then lied about what happened and made himself look good by talking about their “bravery” while trying to protect the Queen’s treasure.

Unlike his father though, Jose was deeply troubled by the crew’s deaths and the truth of his father’s actions/motivations.

Unfortunately, we know Jose’s father is the type to not care about anyone’s lives or wellbeing except his own considering Jose’s deduction 8 (which I’ll bring up later) showing he treated his own son as a tool. All he cared about was ensuring Jose continued to do his job and “get us out of every sandbank and reef”, despite the fact Jose was suffering worsening panic attacks, insomnia, and a lot of trauma from the events of deduction 3 and 4, to the point Jose “can only fall asleep after imbibing copious amounts of alcohol”. The only thing Jose’s father cared about was being told Jose might “no longer be fit to sail”.

If this is how he treats his own son, it’d be no surprise he’d be willing to “sacrifice” the lives of his own crew if it helped him gain fame and fortune.

Jose’s father lying about what happened might relate somewhat to Jose’s White Sail (“What color will the white sail be when it returns from the voyage?”) and Black Mast skins (“The straight and sturdy mast delivers victorious news”), which I believe are references to Theseus (a son of Poseidon, which is another connection to Poseidon for Jose). Theseus was the one to kill the minotaur. When he was sailing back home to his father, he was supposed to raise a white sail to inform him Theseus was alive and successful. Instead, Theseus forgot and raised a black sail, which was to mean Theseus had died. As a result of the misunderstanding, Theseus’ father, thinking his son was dead, killed himself out of grief. This can parallel how Jose’s father also essentially gave the wrong signal, lying to everyone about what happened to them (in deduction) and how his decision killed the crew. It could also parallel how Jose’s decision to not join his father’s voyage (sort of like the innocent mistake Theseus makes) is what caused him to disappear (likely die), based on Jose’s ONCE skin.

But let’s step back to deduction 4 and 7.

I have 2 theories I want to discuss.

Theory 1

The 1st is about the “safe haven” and where I think the “wealth” the Badens’ supposedly protected actually came from.

This idea is largely based on the essence trailers for Season 18 Essence 3 and Season 19 Essence 1.

The notable man should be Jose’s father (the scar is reminiscent of Jose’s, though it is clearly an older man, and doesn’t look like Jose). The storm him and the others survived in the trailer should be the same “tempest” Jose and his father dealt with. Jose’s father’s “safe haven” should be Lakeside Village, while the place he is shown attacking should be Oletus Manor. Based on young Orpheus and the Little Girl being present, along with the essence backstories and how they call this their home, this should be the same attack that leads to the death of the DeRoss couple, and the same “mob” or “bandits” Burke and Bonbon reference in their deductions.

This (+ whatever encounter they had after Jose’s father changed course) is what leads to Jose’s trauma and panic attacks/night terrors. Jose’s father and surviving crew would’ve stolen from the manor to potentially make up for their losses after they shipwreck and lose almost everything/everyone, likely so they had something to offer the Queen (and make themselves look good). This connects with deduction 4 and how it says “after defeating the marauding pirates and protecting his majesty’s wealth, they finally set sail for home”. It’s likely that the Lakeside villagers or the DeRoss couple (who we already know had many builders and craftsmen based on Burke’s deductions) could’ve helped build them a new ship. This could also explain why it’d take them “two months” before they could sail home. The fact that the back of the Lakeside map has an area where they are building a boat helps prove this idea is at least possible (that they or the builders at Oletus Manor were capable of helping build them a new ship).

The wrecked ship they left behind might be the same one in Hastur’s 2nd letter, as it mentions a man living “in the Shipwreck”. This letter is before the villagers disappear. Speaking of Lakeside, it’s already mentioned to have had a hurricane happen there according to its backstory, which would connect to or prove a “tempest” could’ve happened there that’d affect Jose’s ship.

Maybe when Jose’s father lied about dealing with “marauding pirates”, he was actually referring to the people at Oletus Manor (aka, making those at Oletus Manor out to be the bad guys). He lied by saying him and his crew were the ones defending against pirates and protected the Queen’s wealth, when it was actually the other way around (they were the pirates, and they stole the treasure from Oletus Manor). The design notes for Jose’s ONCE skin (Departure Date) actually calls them “pirates”. It likely even confirms Jose was horrified by his father’s actions as it says he wanted “the horrible/painful memories of being a pirate” to have only been a “joke”. Jose was wishing none of it had been real (which to me feels like Jose wouldn’t have participated in the attack based on this, as he just wanted to be a “sea knight”).

There’s also Jose’s Night patrol skin: “As he's getting bored on his night patrol, he notices the little girl ahead”. This may be referring to the actual “Little Girl” aka Miss DeRoss (Alice), the same one we see with Young Orpheus when he’s helping the shipwreck survivors in the S19 E1 trailer. Night Patrol may help confirm Jose met her, meaning he’d have to have been at the manor before/during the tragedy.

Burke did say the Little Girl was “curious about the Forest of No return” and that she and Orpheus “started to venture into the dangerous forest”. It’s possible on 1 of these ventures, they went to Lakeside and discovered the wreck of Jose’s and his father’s ship, like we see in the S19 E1 trailer. This could connect to Jose’s Bobolink skin, as its description talks about a “seemingly boundless forest” and encountering “natives”. In the essence trailers, Orpheus, the Little Girl, and the inhabitants at Oletus Manor are depicted like the “natives” of an island “paradise”, while the forest can be a direct parallel to the Forest of No Return. Going further into Bobolink’s description it says the “captain” talked of this being their “last treasure hunt before… retirement”. Considering Jose’s father’s actions at Oletus Manor, as well as what they get upon returning home (rewarded very well by the Queen and made her personal escort), this could be why Jose’s father would say they could “retire” after this.

In any case, if Jose and his father were at the manor in the past, maybe Jose’s father was the “friend who passed away”, with the reason the owner might (sarcastically) refer to Jose’s father as a “friend”, and Jose’s father did “pass away” based on his disappearance later, as well as why the owner “treasured the opportunity to use [Jose] in the experiment”, could be because of this event/past experience and if they came to the manor in the past.

Theory 2

The 2nd theory I wanted to discuss was in regards to the “nightmarish waters” that “swept” away the crew, as well as the line from his 2nd deduction summary which said “The secrets of the sea troubled Jose deeply”. Basically, I’m wonder if it could relate to Grace.

In part it’s because of Lost Sailor and Reef Songstress. Lost Sailor’s description is: “I hear the song from the depths of the sea calling out to me”. For Reef Songstress, her description is “On those stormy nights when the waves crash against the shore...Will anyone hear my forlorn song atop the reef?”.

“Depths of the sea” and “secrets of the sea” is referenced by Jose’s Ocean Blue skin: “People who have never been to the ocean will never know how blue it is, or how many secrets are hidden beneath”. He also references it in the deduction star quote I mentioned earlier, more obviously in the translated version: “My destiny is already intertwined with the sea. The deep sea may be where our family should return”. The “depths” is also where Grace is said to have sank after the villagers attempted to sacrifice her (it’s also where nereids, which are similar to sirens/mermaids are said to be, specifically the “depths” of the Aegean Sea).

Then there’s Reef Songstress’ reference to “stormy nights” and “waves crashing”. This can connect to the “tempest” Jose and his father encountered in deduction 3 and 4. The “shore” can refer to the “safe haven” from the “tempest” that came at the cost of the crew (or specifically back to the Season 19 Essence 1 trailer when we see the shipwreck survivors). The fact Reef Songstress asks if anyone can hear her “forlorn song atop the reef” could parallel the idea the “uncharted waters” had a reef which could’ve caused a shipwreck and lead to what we see in the S19 E1 trailer. It could also mean the reason they shipwrecked was because they’d been lured by her “siren” song. If the area was “uncharted”, it could’ve had reefs there, which could be why it was listed as “dangerous” or “not recommended for sailing”. Luring sailors to their demise, causing ships to crash on rocks or a reef, is what sirens are known for. Reef Songstress may be a way of hinting that Grace could’ve done this. Also, Lost Sailor says he hears “the song from the depths of the sea”. I’ve mentioned Grace was said to have sunk to the depths, and with Reef Songstress singing, that could mean the “song” Jose heard was Grace’s. Therefore, maybe what happened was Jose’s ships (and/or those of the fleet) shipwrecked (crashed on the reef or any other rocks or something) due to “siren” song. It’s even backed up with how in the essence Lost Sailor is from (Captain Hook’s) had a Siren (Yidhra) in it, which is proof the “song” Jose is mean to have heard was from a siren, which is exactly what Grace’s S-Tier Halberd of Silence is in her essence backstory.

I want to continue by going to Halberd of Silence, who’s description mentions she has “no interest in the temptations of the sea”. A “siren’s song” (the name of a drug on the manor owner’s list interestingly) is meant to “tempt” sailors. Her design notes even emphasized that she was a “predator” and was disgusted by people’s “hypocritical beliefs”.

Then there’s how Jose mentioned “nightmarish waters” swept the crew away, and Grace does use water in game (to damage survivors).

There’s also the essence backstory in general. Fiona as Pilgrim was luring people to Halberd of Silence, based off a “legend of the sea demon” she’d heard, which said she needed to “offer her the purest evil, and she shall bestow power upon you rivaling her own”.

Jose’s father and crew can also parallel the people Pilgrim lured to Halberd of Silence in that essence, especially Treasure Digger. Treasure Digger describes himself as “brave” despite “any challenge the high seas throw at them”, which parallels Jose’s deduction 7 title the “costly price of ‘bravery’”. Bravery in that title (sarcastically) describes his father’s actions during deduction 3 and 4 during the tempest (“bravely” tried to continue the voyage, but his decision leads to the crew’s deaths). The “tempest” + whatever happened when they changed course while seeking “safe haven” would connect to that “challenge” on the “high seas”. Then there’s how it adds Treasure Digger will “defeat those who encroach on their territory swiftly”. This parallels deduction 4 and how it was said (the lie spread by Jose’s father) they “fought their way out of their watery grave” and “defeated marauding pirates” to “protect [the Queen’s] wealth” before sailing home. Then there’s the treasure hunter bit, which I believe relates to the idea they stole “treasure” from Oletus Manor.

The part about “legend of the sea demon” can relate to the area in Jose’s deduction 2 being described as “dangerous”, though the part about a “demon” can also relate to Jose’s deduction 7 and how he said the incident with the “nightmarish waters” also “awakened the demons in the Baden’s blood”. The idea of the area having a “sea demon” can also help prove Jose’s ship may have been attacked by something inhuman. Going to the essence backstory, it says Pilgrim is luring them to “an uninhabited island regarded by fishermen as a forbidden area”. “Island” relates to how Orpheus’ and Little Girl’s home in S18 E3 and S19 E1 is referred to as an “island” or “their island of Eden”. “Fishermen” connects to Lakeside (mentioned in both Grace’s and Margaretha’s backstories).  The area being “forbidden” parallels the chart in Jose’s deduction 2 describing the area as “dangerous”, while the character relations page calls it “uncharted”.

The backstory continues by adding it’s an area where “sirens/sea monsters are rumored to be roaming” and that “it is shrouded in dense fog all year round, perilous, and full of rolling waves and pitch-black reefs”. “Sirens/Sea Monsters” connects to Reef Songstress singing and Lost Sailor hearing her “song”. “Rolling Waves” references the “tempest” Jose encountered, while “reefs” (and the emphasis on reefs as dangerous) could connect to what their ships wrecked on + is where Reef Songstress is singing from.

Altogether, it feels possible for Grace or sirens to be what attacked Jose and his father’s ship.

Jose’s skins may also help give some evidence. Basil’s description is: “Perhaps the most delicious dream of young girls is not limited to the chef's worktop”. With a chef, if it’s saying they want something besides the chef’s “worktop” which would refer to the food a chef is making, this implies the “young girl” want the chef himself, aka Jose. Sirens want to lure sailors to them.

There’s also Departure Date, who’s description is: “Dreams of romance offer no safe harbor to a truly great captain”. “Dreams of romance” again can refer to when sirens lure sailors to them, who in the myths were so enchanted by their song and beauty, they stayed on their island and starved to death. The no “safe harbor” could relate to the incident in deduction 4, as while going for “safe haven” is when most of the crew died. But as this is Jose’s ONCE skin, who’s backstory ties to Jose’s father’s disappearance, “safe harbor” is likely what Jose’s father and ship thought they were going to, as a result of “dreams of romance”, when in fact they were getting lured to their demise. Jose saying “dreams of romance offer no safe harbor” ties to his ONCE skin’s backstory, and how Jose being with his father that day would’ve kept him from disappearing.

Deduction 5

Redemption

A sin the gods can’t forgive, but a king can

New appointment: From this day forward, the Badens will not only serve as the king's royal escort but will also embark on a "special mission" for the royal family.

*Considering the games at the manor take place during the 1890s, I use the term “Queen” instead of “King” as this should be when Queen Victoria ruled (her rule began in 1837 and ended in 1901). That as well as during Jose’s backstory trailer, we are shown a Queen, as well as the trailer uses the term Queen rather than King.

After finally returning home after their “two months of struggles”, Jose’s father gave his (false) report about what happened to them, how the crew died, as well as offered the Queen the “wealth” they had “protected” (which I actually think was stolen so he had something to offer the Queen and to make him look good). This made the Queen quite happy, and she decided to appoint the Badens as her “royal escort”. At the same time, she had them embark on a “special mission for the royal family”.

Since Jose’s Departure Date skin talked about them being “pirates” in the past, I believe this “special mission” is likely what Jose’s ONCE skin was referring to. One thought to back this up is, even though privateering (seizing enemy commercial property at sea, aka pirates) was abolished in 1856, Spain didn’t sign this declaration that abolished it. That may be why Jose’s backstory states the Badens “enjoyed the Queen’s favor in no small measure, receiving titles despite being foreigners”. It may have been because they were foreigners that they could do this.

Another idea is Jose’s father simply didn’t tell anyone what he was doing, but as we have no other info or clues as to what this “special mission” was besides Jose’s ONCE skin talking about pirates, and considering the Queen believed Jose’s father stole her treasure (even though one of the items was an antique umbrella from the “Far East” that she likely acquired from someone else), that’s the idea I’m going to go with for now.

Jose’s father was quite happy with his new position and fame. It’s because of this that the Badens’ family received titles (we know Jose was a “Viscount” according to Jose’s deduction 6) and why their social status became “nouveau riche”.

In comparison, Jose was not happy at all. Jose wanted to be a “brave sea knight”, not a “pirate”. He didn’t support his father’s “sacrifice” of the crew or his lies or having to steal treasure from others.

Deduction 6

Snooze

Sleeping isn’t the only way to escape.

A diagnostic note: Viscount Baden's panic attacks are getting worse. We've tried a variety of drugs with no obvious effect. It seems that the Viscount can only fall asleep after imbibing copious amounts of alcohol. In the long run, I'm afraid he will no longer be fit to sail.

The English version uses the term “panic attacks”, while the Chinese version uses the term “night terrors” (based on Pascal’s translations).

Night terrors are episodes of screaming, intense fear and thrashing while still asleep, and the individual typically won’t respond to another’s presence or talk. They’re often paired with sleepwalking. Night terrors are considered a parasomnia — an undesired occurrence during sleep. Other symptoms include: rapid heart rate, increased breathing rate, sweating, confusion, and be inconsolable.

A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause. Panic attacks typically begin suddenly, without warning, and can strike at any time. You may have a feeling of being out of control, feel like you’re having a heart attack or dying, or fear certain places. Other symptoms include: rapid heart rate, sweating, chills, trembling, difficulty breathing, dizziness or weakness, numbness, or chest pain.

The one key difference between night terrors and panic attacks is awareness.

People experiencing night terrors are often unaware they’re having them. They may look like they’re awake, but they’re actually asleep, and it’s difficult (and often not recommended) to wake them. When a night terror ends, a person falls back to sleep. They may not remember the event in the morning.

A panic attack wakes you from sleep. You’re aware of the feelings of fear and other panic attack symptoms. It may take a long time to fall asleep again.

Jose was traumatized after the events from deduction 3 and 4 that caused the deaths of most of the crew. He suffered panic attacks and night terrors, which likely also gave him insomnia, that no medicine or drugs could fix. The only way he was able to sleep was by “imbibing copious amounts of alcohol”, meaning this was likely how and why Jose started drinking: so he could sleep and try to deal with his trauma.

Unfortunately for Jose, Jose’s father wasn’t happy about the possibility of Jose “no longer be fit to sail”, despite Jose’s issues, pain, and trauma.

Deduction 8

Drugs

To forget is the best cure.

A torn letter: I don't need my son to remember how to be a good man. I just need him to get us out of every sandbank and reef.

Jose’s father wrote a letter to someone who could help ensure Jose would continue to be “fit to sail”. It’s unknown who it was to. Based on the title “drugs”, “forgetting” being the “best cure”, and Jose’s father saying he doesn’t “need my son to remember how to be a good man”, it seems like he wanted Jose to “forget” the things that are causing his “panic attacks” and trauma. It’s possible he wanted to use “drugs” to do this, which may could have made Jose forget “how to be a good man”.

Considering the letter is described as “torn” (Pascal’s translation says it was “torn to shreds”), it’s possible Jose found this letter his father wrote and tore it up out of anger over what his father was implying (and over being seen as only a tool). The other option is it was torn up so Jose couldn’t find out about it.

In regards to who the letter was sent to, my current theory is the recipient was Sam Bourbon.

Sam Bourbon was the one who made Dovlin. We know from Demi’s deductions and backstory that he went to work for the manor owner, who we know has drugs that can make a person forget, not to mention the 2nd half of Wu Chang’s 3rd letter may have even been written by Sam. It’s possible Sam either helped the manor owner make his drugs and/or that the manor owner helped Sam perfect Dovlin so he could send it back to Demi. We also know from Jose’s 2nd letter that 1 of the Bourbons was working with his father, as Jose recognized the handwriting of the “B” of his codeword as the same handwriting of the one who signed as “Bourbon” on his father’s ledger of goods. Maybe Jose’s father was looking to acquire some of these “drugs” that would make his son forget.

Whether or not Jose’s father did manage to make Jose forget, if Jose indeed was the one who tore up that letter, it seems like this may have been the point when Jose started going against his father.

I also want to discuss why I think it was so important for Jose’s father to ensure Jose joined him on his voyages. The reason I think is because of Jose’s “blessing”.

Jose’s Blessing

The summary for Jose’s 1st letter states “Jose did not embark on the voyage, and a terrible accident occurred at sea”. The phrasing makes it really suspicious, as it says it like the accident happened all because Jose wasn’t there. Jose’s ONCE skin seems to confirm the idea that Jose brings some kind of good luck as its backstory states Jose’s father and the ship would never have disappeared if Jose had just been on that voyage. This idea probably relates to the “blessing” he received from the “god of the sea”/”Poseidon” according to his release backstory, which says he can control the tide and the waves + keep their ship from being delayed. Further proof for this idea seems to come from Jose’s “Poseidon’s Blessing” accessory, which is in the shape of the dolphin and has the description: “It's said that when dolphins appear next to your ship, you will have a smooth journey”. Jose (or at least his watch) is like the dolphin, the thing ensuring the ship stays safe.

If this idea is true, it seems of interest to call out how Jose fails to board a number of times according to his last deduction. The idea seems to imply the chance that, each time Jose fails to board, the voyage won’t have the best ending. This could explain why in deduction 8 Jose’s father really wants to make sure Jose does his job. Jose being there brings them good fortune and lets them look good for the Queen (as Jose’s backstory says this helped earn them the “Queen’s favor”). Jose not being there means the voyage won’t go as well, and thus he won’t receive as much of the “Queen’s favor”. This fits with the sort of person Jose’s father is considering he tried to continue the voyage in deduction 3 despite the storm and ended up causing the “entire crew” to be lost, which he lied about by saying they died due to struggles with pirates.

We have even less info on how Jose received this blessing than we do on what exactly killed most of the crew. The fact it’s supposed to calm the seas and keep them from being delayed, yet it didn’t help them during deduction 3 with the tempest or what swept the crew away implies Jose didn’t have the blessing until after the incident in deduction 4. If true, it could parallel something from Halberd of Silence’s essence. Specifically, the part where Pilgrim’s description mentions sacrificing “evil” people to receive power rivaling Halberd of Silence’s own. As Jose’s deduction 7 described the incident as a “sacrifice”, what if the deaths of the crew, like those sacrificed by Pilgrim, led to whatever gave Jose his “blessing”? Maybe this could parallel how Jose’s deduction 7 says “the nightmarish waters swept them away, but it also awakened the demons flowing through the Badens’ blood”. That “awakening” could connect to however Jose got his “blessing”?

Going back to his deduction 7, the “nightmarish waters” and “awakening the demons in the Badens’ blood” makes me think of what happened at the end of Grace’s backstory after the villagers tried to sacrifice her and drown her in the water. If Jose’s ship did indeed wreck, and most of the crew died, and if they ended up in the water like we see in the trailer for S19 E1, maybe Jose, after he ended up in the water and maybe almost drowned/died himself, had an experience similar to what happened to Grace (possibly also including whatever “voice” spoke to Grace in her last deduction), especially if they were near Lakeside Village and in the water there (which would be the same place Grace was “sacrificed” and heard the “voice”).

It's possible that Grace could be the “god of the sea”/”Poseidon” mentioned in Jose’s backstory that gave him his blessing. Halberd of Silence is likely meant to be based on or at least be similar to Poseidon. In Halberd of Silence’s design notes, it includes how “the sacrificed girl became a ‘god’” and later says the theme was the “mermaid queen” (she is wearing a crown). It continues by talking about the crown and jewels symbolizing “her absolute dominance of this sea area” (similar to how Poseidon is the ruler of the sea), she uses a trident (like Poseidon is depicted with), emphasizing how under her “beauty, there are endless dangers hidden” (which reminds me of the “dangerous” area on Jose’s chart). Even later it calls her the “queen of the sea” as well as refers to her as a siren, connected to how it adds “her beautiful face and graceful body are used to confuse people”, and that her trident “is only aimed at those rude intruders”. That last bit about her “trident” and pointing it at “rude intruders” could be referring to Jose’s father and crew (especially after the tempest and deduction 4, and if they really did end up at Lakeside).

If Grace is meant to at least somewhat parallel “Poseidon” or “god of the sea”, that could mean she may have been the one to give Jose his “blessing”. At the very least, Grace may parallel Amphitrite, the goddess of the sea and Poseidon’s wife. Grace being the one to give Jose his blessing also parallels well with Pilgrim. Pilgrim lured people to a “forbidden” and dangerous area just like the one Jose and his father went through, an area with possible monsters (or sirens) just like the ones mentioned to roam the area in Halberd’s essence backstory. Those that were “sacrificed” to Halberd would parallel the crew that died in deduction 4, which Jose refers to as a “sacrifice” in his deduction 7. The offering is what is said to give the person power rivaling Halberd’s, likely meaning whether Jose wanted it or not, like Pilgrim, he did offer a “sacrifice” (of “evil” people), and thus would’ve received “power” similar to Grace’s, aka he got his “blessing”. If Grace or Halberd parallel Amphitrite, Jose getting power similar to Grace’s makes sense as Amphitrite in the myths was said to have the exact same ability to control the tide and waves, to “silence” the winds and “calm” the ocean.

Captain Hook could also connect as, besides having a Siren involved in the essence that is putting everyone to sleep, he also has the image of a mermaid on his hat (similar to Halberd of Silence), and in his showroom we can see him controlling water (like the part about having “power” rivaling Halberd of SIlence), not to mention in the essence poster we can see him potentially able to breathe underwater.

There’s also how Jose’s Doubt skin could back up this idea: “I had a friend once, a happy-go-lucky fool of a person...But something happened one day, and they gave up their most prized possession in exchange for a strange ability: the power to know every smell but one - a salty astringent odor...can you guess what it is?” I think that “happy-go-lucky fool” is Jose himself.

Considering how he says “once” has this friend, it’s referring to the past. Then the reason he’d describe himself as “happy-go-lucky” could parallel how we see ONCE Jose (Departure Date) acting based on his design notes + showroom, while “fool” is Jose’s (usual) self-depreciating, as that’s how he thinks of how he was in the past.

The part about “something happened one day” could refer to the incident from deduction 4. Giving up his “most prized possession” could parallel how most of the crew died due to whatever happened while seeking “safe haven” (going through the “dangerous” area), as Jose is a “knight” so maybe you could say he values people’s lives.

In exchange (due to the “sacrifice” of the crew), the “strange ability” would refer to Jose’s blessing. The part how it lets him know “every smell but one” may be hinting to a similar message as Hook’s description: “That ‘little magic’ is dangerous and will not always have a good ending”. It may be that his blessing isn’t perfect. The “salty astringent odor” could refer to blood (based on how Doubt is from the Stormy Night Surprise event, specifically related to William’s story, which involved discovering someone ate a man aka cannibalism). This can go back to the idea I suggested previously, how Jose brings good luck when he’s on the voyage, but bad luck or tragedy strikes whenever he isn’t around. That “bad luck” coming with his good luck may parallel Doubt’s description mentions the inability to know all but the smell of blood. It could also relate to Bobolink, as it says “’4’ is indeed my lucky number”. 4 is similar to the word for death in Chinese, and is therefore considered an unlucky number. This may be meant to symbolize that if 4 is his “lucky number”, that could prove the whole idea of him being associated with good luck as well as bad luck.

Theory: The 1 who gave Jose his watch + blessing was the 1 who conducted “deep hypnosis” on Jose

The person who conducted "deep hypnosis" on Jose and left a "spiritual anchor" for him could've been the same person who gave Jose his watch. It seems like Jose couldn't have had the watch or blessing before deduction 3, as the blessing would've prevented the storm or whatever that forced the course change. So, he must've gotten it during or after the event in deduction 3 and 4. Jose’s father isn’t implied to know anything about hypnosis considering he reaches out to someone else to make Jose “forget”. Jose’s 3rd letter comments on his hypnosis not lasting too long. Therefore, if Jose got his watch and blessing from someone else, maybe they also knew how to use the watch (or some other method) to perform hypnosis. Anyways, maybe whoever “blessed” Jose would’ve also felt the need to leave that “spiritual anchor” for Jose to help with his mental state/defenses.

Deduction 9

A Chart

With no way forward, the only way left was to return the same way.

A chart: The route has a large number of corrections, and the amendment was signed by Jose Baden.

Jose had been unhappy with his father since his actions caused the sacrifice of the crew (and potentially the other deaths + theft he caused during the events of deduction 3 and 4 before they sailed home). Considering Jose’s ONCE skin and 2 of his official birthday artworks, Jose was likely quite fairly young during that 1st incident during deduction 3 and 4, so it’s no wonder this had a strong impact on him. Then there was how the “special mission” potentially involved Jose’s father caring out more acts of piracy. Jose didn’t want to do any of these things. He wanted to be a “brave sea knight”. He wanted to do the right thing, to be a good person.

Therefore, after seeing his father’s letter in Jose’s deduction 8, I think Jose made all those “corrections” to that specific “route” on the chart as an act of protest against his father, an attempt to resist and get his father to stop. Considering the deduction only specifies changes were made to a single route, that must mean the amendments were to the route Jose and his father took during deduction 3 that led to the tragedy in deduction 4 that cost the lives of the crew.

Jose rebelling against his father could tie in with how 1 of Jose’s skins is Akechi (as ||*SPOILERS for Persona 5* 1 big thing about Akechi is his strong hatred for his father to the point he desires revenge *END OF SPOILERS*||). Considering Jose’s panic attacks and trauma after deduction 4, and how Jose wants to be a “sea knight” yet his father acts like a pirate and attacked innocents at Oletus Manor (+ whatever else he may have done since then), it’s not hard to assume Jose wouldn’t like his father much (especially after having it confirmed that Jose’s father only sees Jose as a tool and not a person).

The line after the deduction’s title is “With no way forward, the only way left was to return the same way”.

I think Jose was trying to prevent his father from being able to repeat the same thing over again. Jose didn’t want this father to risk anyone else’s lives.

As the 1st deduction summary described the “dangerous” area as “uncharted waters”, and as we know 1 of Jose’s talents is “navigation”, not to mention Jose was so talented his father didn’t want to let Jose stop doing his job or stop sailing + the fame and reputed skills/talent reported in Jose’s backstory, I think the “amendments” Jose made to the chart were to map those waters. He made sure that area was no longer “uncharted”. By ensuring the safety of anyone who used that route, Jose could prevent anyone else from dying.

Especially if the crew’s deaths and the “nightmarish waters” were caused by something other than a storm, Jose would ensure no one else ran into the same thing they did.

At the same time, I think this is also the exact point Jose began avoiding joining his father’s voyages. He didn’t want to continue being apart of what his father was doing if he refused to stop.

Deduction 10

At Moonrise

3, 2, 1… Wake up.

A punishment: First Officer Jose Baden has missed the tide several times due to alcohol abuse. If this happens again, he will be stripped of his position and title.

As I said above, I think Jose only began “missing the tide” due to “alcohol abuse” after he saw his father’s note, after he reached his breaking point, and after he began to resist, beginning with the changes to the route on the chart from the previous deduction that caused the tragedy in deduction 3 and 4.

We know Jose couldn’t have missed too many voyages before this point based on the fame and reputation Jose and his father seemingly acquired that’s reported in his backstory. We also know he was reported to begin drinking back in Jose’s deduction 6, yet it’s only now in Jose’s last deduction that it calls out Jose began to allow his alcohol abuse get so bad as to miss voyages. We know from Jose’s deduction 6 that he didn’t drink alcohol because he enjoyed it, especially as “alcohol” isn’t listed as 1 of his likes. He only drinks to be able to sleep. Therefore, I think the only reason he lets it become a problem is because he’s started to rebel against his father and doesn’t want to be apart of his actions anymore.

Jose’s father disappears

Jose’s backstory trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk_0z_zAIy8

Part of Jose’s backstory:

But one day, Baden, who had been delayed by matters in Liverpool, did not set out to sea with his father. At sunset he awaited his father at the port, but the ship that so loyally served the crown did not return on time. In fact, the ship, as well as all its crew, never reappeared upon the sea. The Queen was enraged. Believing that the Badens had stolen her treasure, she stripped Jose Baden of his family’s riches and title. Jose Baden had fallen.

Not long after, Jose received some information. On the list of goods upon that missing ship was a certain antique Chinese umbrella, and now it had appeared in a place called Oletus Manor.

Once a knight of the sea, he decided to set foot on this cursed land himself; to find his father, or at the very least…… to take back what is rightfully his.

Some amount of time after Jose’s last deduction, Jose’s misses a voyage. From Jose’s Departure Date skin, combined with Jose’s last deduction, we know Jose missed the voyage due to alcohol abuse (which I’ve already explained I think could’ve been on purpose so he wouldn’t have to join his father without being too obvious about it), but he still waits for his father’s return.

But Jose’s father never returns.

From Jose’s ONCE skin combined with the summary of Jose’s 1st letter, it’s phrased as Jose’s father wouldn’t have disappeared if only Jose had simply attended that voyage. I’ve already discussed earlier that I think this was because of Jose’s blessing.

I believe Jose’s 1st letter should describe what happened during that voyage and hint at what caused his disappearance. The summary of Jose’s 1st letter stated a “terrible accident” occurred during that trip. The fact it’s emphasized to be a “terrible” accident, the only thing it could be referring to is Jose’s father disappearing.

We know from Jose’s deduction 6 that “Viscount Baden” is referring to Jose. Due to Jose’s failure to board, someone else had to take over Jose’s duties.

The author describes having to take the “Parthenope’s voyage log”. This means the name of the Badens’ ship was the Parthenope.

Parthenope (“Maiden Voice”) is the name of one of the sirens in Greek myth who, after failing to kill Odysseus when he hears the sirens’ song, kills herself (one source says she drowned herself), with her body washing up on the shore of Naples, which was originally called Parthenope in her honor. One source has the sirens located near the south-western coast of Italy. Sirens are sea nymphs that, according to one myth, were handmaidens that were given the bodies of birds or given wings. In later portrayals, they appear more as mermaids (with fish tails) rather than part bird.

The destination is said to be “a set of coordinates at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean” instead of a “port on the previous trade route”. It’s specified to be “uncharted territory”, somewhere they haven’t gone before. I wonder if the reason they were going somewhere they hadn’t gone before is because of the changes Jose made to the chart. If Jose’s father was trying to repeat what he’d done before, but couldn’t now that Jose had mapped out the “uncharted waters” of the “dangerous” area they’d taken before, Jose’s father had to find somewhere new.

It was said they took “in addition to the daily necessities for the voyage, the ship is loaded with power guns and cannons instead of other cargo to play it safe”. According to Jose’s backstory and trailer, we know the ship had an “antique umbrella” on board that day (for whatever reason).

This goes with Jose’s backstory referring to the ship as an “antique carrying ship”.

If the Badens’ “special mission” was indeed to perform acts of piracy (which could fit with the Queen getting angry when she thinks the Badens’ stole her treasure, as well as why she’d think they’d steal it), it’s possible Jose’s father went out here in search of another ship or someone to steal from. That could also go along with all the weapons they brought along, which could be used against any “enemy” ships.

According to Jose’s 1st letter, the last line of that log is “A line of distorted handwriting: The cannons couldn’t kill them…”

Considering what we learned in Wu Chang’s 3rd letter, combined with how this letter curiously found it important to describe the weather as being “cloudy”, it’s possible that the “them” the “cannons couldn’t kill” was Wu Chang. In Wu Chang’s 3rd letter, the owner talks about an anomaly that, when the umbrella is “placed in a humid environment, magnetic fields of varying strength are detected”. The owner controlled the humidity “to reach the point where the highest degree of change is observed in the magnetic field”. Once Jose reached the location, the letter states that Jose had “seen something that is beyond observation” and “seems to have been affected and fallen into confusion”.

Right after this, it says “the content is smudged”, which is quite similar to how the last line of Jose’s 1st letter says the handwriting was “distorted”.

The weather being “cloudy” could imply a storm may have been approaching, or at least that the weather was beginning to become “humid”. This is important for Wu Chang as Fan Wujiu (Black Guard) died when the rain caused the river to rise. Rain is also stated to be Xie Bi’an’s (White Guard) 1 dislike (since it’s what killed Fan Wujiu).

If those aboard the Parthenope had also “seen something that is beyond observation”, that could mean they like Jose potentially saw Wu Chang. At the very least, the crew and Jose’s father likely also were “affected” and fell into “confusion”. Either due to their confusion or because they’d begun to hallucinate, or even because they’d seen Wu Chang’s spirit or something, that could explain why the Parthenope would try to use their cannons and yet fail to kill “them”.

What happened to Jose’s father and the rest of the crew of the Parthenope can compare to part of Wu Chang’s backstory after Wu Chang had died (after Xie Bi’an killed himself and both his and Fan Wujiu’s spirits were trapped in the umbrella). It talked about a merchant buying the umbrella but hearing “the sounds of men sighing and crying as he hears walking around at night”. Later, after the merchant tried to have a Taoist do something about it, as people believed Wu Chang haunted the umbrella, the merchant encountered bandits and died on his way to visit relatives, chaos of some sort, and ends with the umbrella disappearing.

Like the merchant, Jose’s father and the crew also encountered Wu Chang’s spirit and met with bad luck that resulted in all of their deaths (and likely the ship sinking). Jose’s “blessing” and good luck, based on his ONCE skin (Departure Date) apparently would’ve countered this bad luck. I think Jose being there would’ve kept his father from disappearing specifically because of what Jose’s blessing was said to do. In his official release announcement, it describes that “the winds would be silenced, the ocean calmed”. With his blessing, the weather would never have gotten so bad or so humid, and thus the umbrella wouldn’t have had a reaction the way the owner describes or the way we see it in Jose’s 1st letter.

Also, considering Wu Chang as a deity of the underworld that rewarded those who did good and punished those who were wicked, this could also explain why he might’ve punished Jose’s father but not Jose.

In any case, due to Jose’s father failing to return, the Queen assumes they stole her treasure and has the Baden family punished by taking away their wealth and titles.

Jose eventually hears a rumor that an antique umbrella that had been aboard his father’s ship that day had turned up at Oletus manor. He decides to go there to either find out information about his father’s disappearance or to regain his family’s honor.

Despite how much Jose hates his father, he never wanted him to disappear or die. This is proven by Jose in his release backstory and trailer, where he says he waits from the beginning to the end of sunset (which he says felt “long” that day). If he truly didn’t care if he lived or died, Jose would never have waited. Even though Jose’s father treats Jose horribly, and doesn’t even see him as a person, only a tool, Jose still cares about him to some degree, likely because it is his father (and likely only family). One of Jose’s tweet replies (https://twitter.com/IdentityVJP/status/1440992250587013120) regarding his ONCE skin proves this, as he is completely torn up and feels absolutely horrid at the thought that, if only he’d been there, his father would never have disappeared:

What good am I now?

Don't flatter me...

I was confident in my skills...as a navigator...

That's why...I was so conceited...

That day...if only I hadn't made that mistake...

You mean to tell me that I could have led my father in the right direction?

That instead of disappearing with the ship...I would have saved them?

That's not...it's just...ugh...aaa...

(´⊗ ⸍⸌Ⓑ `) I can’t...I can't take it...

If he didn’t care, he’d never say something like this. If he truly wanted him gone, he wouldn’t have gone to the manor to (according to his release backstory and trailer) “find my father”, or at least attempt to do so or even just to find out what happened to him. I think Jose wanted his father to be better, to stop acting like a “pirate”, and to stop committing any crimes (and to start acting like the “sea knight” Jose wants to be).

I think Jose’s Captain Hook skin reflects this. In this essence, Jose is the very thing he doesn’t want to be: a pirate. In the story of Peter Pan, Captain Hook is the villain, but in this essence, he is the hero. The original Captain Hook should parallel/symbolize Jose’s father, while Jose’s version reflects what he wants to be (the reality he wishes was the truth). In this essence, Hook is the one to rescue Eversleeping Girl (Wendy) and defeat Forgotten Boy (Peter Pan), which is the opposite of what happens in the actual story. This can represent Jose’s desire to find his missing father, as well as a combination of his fear of becoming like his father but has a desire to be a “good” person (a “sea knight”).

There are also “Lost Sailors” in this essence. Lost Sailor Freddy’s description is “No matter how accurate the map, it’s impossible to locate the final destination”. This parallels the “uncharted waters” Jose sailed through in deduction 4 that killed most of the crew. Another possibility, related to the “final destination” being “impossible to locate”, is it connects to when Jose’s father disappeared, who’s “final destination” is also proving “impossible to locate”. I’ve already discussed “Lost Sailor” Jose, who hears the “song” of a Siren (Yidhra). Siren’s description is “Come on, now. Follow the master’s song and sail into your dreams”. This relates to the other characters in this essence, which are all “Man in Dream”, all whose descriptions imply they are sleeping. Based on Siren’s description, it seems like the Siren is the cause for all of them being asleep, which could help imply sirens are behind Jose’s father’s disappearance (and possibly behind the incident in deduction 4 and the “things” in Jose’s 1st letter).

Lost Sailor Jose implies he heard the song, but based on Captain Hook (and the essence poster), he seems to have been the only 1 that avoided the same fate as all the others (either he resisted, or maybe he broke free). The backstory for this essence mentions sailing towards “the Neverland in everyone’s heart” and that “Before everything is forgotten, the captain made a wish”. The part about Neverland may be a way of referring to everyone falling asleep. With “Before everything is forgotten, the captain made a wish” may imply before Captain Hook (Jose) could fall to the Siren’s song, he managed to resist, with his “wish” possibly allowing him to save everyone (or being what kept him from falling into “dreams” like everyone else). Another option is Jose’s father was the “captain” and the one behind people “forgetting”, while Jose was a “Lost Sailor”, member of the crew (or first mate), but became the “captain” when everyone else had forgotten/fell asleep/gone, and wished to get everyone back (including his father). It would fit considering Jose’s father is the one who said he didn’t care if Jose “remembered”, and was responsible for the crew’s deaths in deduction 4. This idea would also fit with Hook saying that “’little magic’ is dangerous” and doesn’t always lead to a “good ending” as if he’s berating or warning someone.

Jose’s Wish Bottle though shows Jose is aware that his “wish” won’t come true, as the description for this accessory is “One day, he finally realized that all the wishes are like bubbles in a dream, and that they will burst at dawn”. His father will never change, and he never returned by dawn after Jose waited throughout sunset for him. His desire to “escape” from his trauma also will never come true, no matter how much he sleeps or drinks, and now he has to deal with his father’s disappearance and losing out on his honor, positions, and title.

Because it relates a little to this, I want to bring up Departure Date. Jose’s ONCE skin alludes to Jose’s own dislike for himself, as the design notes discuss how “he was making merry all night long” and indulging in “music”, which likely explains why Jose dislikes music. He hates who he was.

Pirate Radio is another good parallel to Jose’s rebellion but also desire to regain his honor. We know he was trying to fight against Metropolis and Eternal Aurora, which parallels what I said about Jose rebelling against his father (which “rebelling” would also fit the theme of Persona 5 and Akechi). Later, he appears in another video where we see him in jail, but we know he breaks out based on the fact he has the key (not to mention the poster showing him and the others fighting against the city, along with the main COA5 trailer where they confront Eternal Aurora) + Hairdresser (Violetta’s) description proves he was successful in taking down Eternal Aurora and Metropolis.

My point though is that Jose likely knew he might be arrested. He knew the risks, but he did it anyways. I think this represents how Jose was willing to lose his position and title, because he felt so strongly about wanting to rebel against his father and because of how strong his guilt/trauma was. Jose’s “honor�� is the 1 thing Jose wants back, which was the same reason he rebelled against his father. This is also proven by Jose’s trailer which has as the last line in it “I must set foot upon this cursed land, find my father, and retrieve our honor”. He says “honor”, not position or titles or wealth. Jose wants to make up for his father’s past mistakes, to reveal the truth, and to be a sea knight. This can again tie back to Pirate Radio, as he does get put in jail, like Jose being stripped of everything, but manages to break free and win the battle, meaning Jose has a chance to succeed in his quest to retrieve his honor.

[trickphotography2]

Looking at a couple of my fic ideas, and wondering who you best see for this fic:

Reader is a DODEA teacher in Spain. A ship comes into port, and the Dagger goes on liberty to a club called the Black Cat, where he runs into Reader. After they leave, they walk around Rota/Puerto, have adventures and talk until he has to go back onto the ship.

(I have a feeling where this is going to skew, but I’m interested in input.)

(Also, I’ll be writing Rota from my memory of being there from 7th-10th grade, and I know it’s changed a LOT since then 🙃)

[artemisianmusings]

Update on Wallace Harrison

I have made a lot of progress over the last several days and am SO excited to share what I've found so far. After scouring quite literally thousands of records on ancestry.com and newpaper archives, this is what I've managed to learn so far:

Wallace was born in June 1900 in Preston, Lanchashire, and moved to Auckland, NZ when he was around 11.

I did also find his parents and grandfather's names and it turns out he was named after his paternal grandfather!

He lived in California for a while, starting in the 20's.

There, he met Caroline (Carol) Wurtenberger and they got married in 1929.

They lived there until the 40s when they ended up in New York until the 50's. Carol was an art teacher/art professor in both places they lived; Wallace's occupation was listed as "painter" "commercial painter" and "unemployed" through the years.

In 1933, Wallace was shown in an exhibition at the Valentine Gallery. The exhibition catalogue for his pieces was written by writer and friend of his, Maurice Sachs.

A review of this show in the New York Times praises his works and states that the influence of both Matisse and Picasso are evident in his work.

At some point in the 40s, he taught both Helen Frankenthaler and Charlotte Park. Possibly in conjunction with Cooper Union University, though I'm still trying to confirm.

Him and Carol took a trip to England in 1930

In 1954, he left America and headed off for France, arriving in a port in Cannes.

In '56, he left France and moved to Spain. He lived there until his death in 1980 in Palma.

This little project of mine is FAR from over, there's still a million questions plaguing me (who the fuck is henriette!!), but I'm ecstatic that I've been able to even get this much. And there's even bits that aren't super important that I'm leaving out, such as where Carol was from, where she worked, her family, etc. It's very exciting and it really does feel awesome that like this has actually panned out and my efforts have results instead of it being a complete dead end like i was beginning to think.

[smarchit]

I Could Make You Care, chapter 3

Simon "Ghost" Riley x OC; enemies to lovers, slow burn, hurt/comfort

Word count: 6.9 (nice lol)

Warnings (will update to add more as the story progresses!!): angst, canon typical violence, sexism, depiction of injuries

Summary: The 141 gets a break in their latest mission. Annie and Ghost aren't even pretending to like each other, but when plans shift south, can they work together? No. They're not even trying.

"That's another lap!" Ghost barked. He was standing next to Price, watching the newest batch of recruits struggle after already putting in several miles that morning. Their pained replies went ignored as he sat back down beside the captain.

"We have a name," Price murmured, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He glanced back at Ghost, who was watching them with feigned interest. "I talked to Kate earlier this morning. The tip came in from an informant a few weeks ago. It's been verified."

Ghost nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. The name of their most recent target had been somewhat of a challenge to procure. Every time, it ended up being a false lead, and the weeks had dragged on while they tried to find it. They'd been working on this mission in broken parts for months, it was time they finally got a break. "Good."

Price nodded in the direction of the hills far off in the distance. "It's not going to be an easy one. He's slippery. PMC, FBI, InterPol, KorTac, no one's been able to get anywhere near him. KorTac came the closest, I heard. They apprehended a few of their suppliers near a port in Spain in the middle of a product exchange."

"KorTac?" Ghost asked, giving Price a curious look from the corner of his eye. He did his best to focus on the runners on the far side of the track to distract himself. KorTac was incredibly capable and very dangerous, if they couldn't get anything, how would the 141 fair?

"On the hunt briefly last year for about nine months," Price explained. "Took their prisoners in for questioning a few weeks before they called the dogs off, and they couldn't get so much as a "fuck off" out of 'em before they went home to meet their maker. And you know how thorough KorTac can be with their interrogations."

Ghost hummed in agreement through his mask. "Cyanide, it's the better way to go if that's what you're up against."

Price shook his head and crushed his spent cigarette under his boot. "Wasn't cyanide capsules. They just... dropped. Like a switch in their brain turned off and they all went lights out. Laswell's sending us the video from their interrogation attempt."

"Should I round up the kids then?" Ghost asked as he stood up. He stuffed his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie and glanced at Price for an answer.

The captain nodded. "Go ahead. I'll watch your greenies for you."

"Don't treat them too nicely!" Ghost called back with a chuckle as he walked back towards the base.

An hour later, the 141 was crowded around a table in the briefing room on base. Kyle and Johnny had been sparring with a few other sergeants in the gym when Ghost collected them, and Annie arrived directly from the firing range. She rushed in at the last moment, out of breath and red in the face. She took the open seat next to Ghost and breathed an apology to the captain.

Ghost eyed her up and down, a silent judgment on her lack of punctuality. He had gone looking for her to tell her about the briefing, but hadn't really looked too hard. Accidentally, of course. Besides, Price said he told them all earlier about the meeting. Ghost leaned over and yanked one of her earplugs out and handed it to her with a smug expression under the mask.

Annie glared at him and snatched it out of his hand. She stuffed it into the pocket of her leggings and brought her leg up to rest her foot on her chair.

Yellow sneakers, Ghost noted. His eyes rested on the sunny canvas high tops, faded and dirty from years of wear. Infuriatingly cheerful shoes for an infuriating cheerful soldier.

Annie caught him staring and swiftly put her foot back down below the table. She leaned forward and scooted the office chair a bit closer to the table.

Maybe not so cheerful. More of a brat.

Price nodded in acknowledgement once Annie got situated. He pulled up a few images of their newest objective - a private airfield near the Baltic coast. He flipped to an image of notable targets in the area, checkpoints and way stations.

"Our man has some private contractors - local boys, on standby," he said. He nodded at the stack of files in the middle of the table and flipped the pictures on screen over to a slightly out of focus shot of a tall, dark haired man in a long coat standing in front of a few crates. "There's several chains of command at play, of course. But our man here, he's our meal ticket. Gusev Petrovich."

"Petrovich, that name sounds kind of familiar. Wasn't he an operative for Zakhaev before he went tits up?" Ghost asked as he leaned back in his chair. "Old friend of yours, John?"

The captain shot him a look before he continued. "Petrovich fell off the map shortly after Zakhaev gave Makarov the order to detonate a warhead that took the lives of almost fifty thousand people," Price elaborated. The slideshow stilled behind him on a few of their previous targets - Zakhaev, Hassan, Makarov, and now Petrovich. He rested his palms flat against the table and leaned forward slightly. "We lost track of him, as well as several others of Zakhaev's closest officers, and figured he was among those killed in the bombing. We never saw mention of him in any of the reports we were able to obtain."

"Why's he popping back up now though?" Kyle asked. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Guess he figures with Zakhaev and Makarov gone, there's demand for a new warlord?"

"If he was still dealing arms to the cartels, I would say you're right," Price said with a shrug. He changed the slide to a bird's-eye shot of a warehouse tucked deep in the mountains. There were half a dozen box trucks lined up outside, unmarked and idling in the gray winter landscape. The satellite image was a little blurry, but the stacks of tarp-covered crates were clearly unmistakable. "Petrovich has deals with a dozen or more companies, all producing mass quantities of deadly chemicals, carcinogens, hallucinogens, those sorts of things, which he then turns and sells to the highest bidder for a very pretty profit."

"So he's a glorified drug dealer?" Annie asked as she flipped through the file. She scanned the report and raised a brow as when she looked at Price.

"In a sense," he replied. "Most of the chemicals he distributes are made to be released into the air or water supplies. I don't need to remind you lot of the attacks in London and Berlin?"

A tense silence filled the briefing room. The 141 remembered in vivid detail the extent of damage caused by the explosions in the UK and Germany a few years prior. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost as a result, hundreds missing, and countless others still suffering long term injuries.

"When do we ship off, Cap?" Johnny asked. He ran a hand through his mohawk and stretched a crick out of his neck.

"Tomorrow morning," Price replied. He gestured towards them all with both hands. "Go rest up. Make sure you get your beauty sleep, Ghost. Get your bag ready, meet up at Dock 6 at 7 AM."

Ghost grunted in reply as the others all left to use the remainder of the evening to prepare for their newest mission. Everyone on base had their own rituals and superstitions, some were meticulous in packing their gear, some drank until their fear felt like confidence, some acted like the night was no different than any other, many prayed, others called their families to hear their voices one more time. But he was always alone.

He didn't mind, really. The silence and solitude of a near-empty base in the predawn hours always made the transition from Simon Riley to Ghost that much easier. Not that there was much to transition between these days. It was alright, really. Less Simon meant less people would miss. No one can miss a ghost.

He gave a half hearted wave to Price before he left the briefing room, in search of a quiet place to sit until morning. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Johnny and Kyle headed in the direction of the elevator. Annie was still chatting with Price in the doorway, and Ghost hesitated for a moment on which direction to go.

"Lieutenant, want to join us?" Kyle asked with a half smile as he beckoned him over.

He glanced over his shoulder at Annie and Price before nodding at Kyle. The distraction couldn't hurt before a mission. It was better than hanging around, waiting for another option.

Before he walked away with the two men, he briefly wondered about the pre mission rituals the others had. How were they so different from his own? The companionship, the brotherhood, the warmth?

Before the elevator doors shut to carry the three men to the mess hall, Annie's laughter echoed down the hall, bright, silvery chimes cutting through the silence.

×××

"Only one way to go, sergeant," Ghost said softly through the comm. He seemed more smug than usual, and Annie could almost hear the self satisfied smirk he probably wore. He was on overwatch today, but Price had assured Annie that the lieutenant would still be nearby just in case. Joy. "You know how to climb, don't you?"

Annie rolled her eyes. "Trust me, sir, where I grew up, there wasn't much else to do with your free time besides climb trees."

"Didn't think goddesses could climb trees," Ghost hummed, almost amused.

She bit back a response in favor of getting her climbing gear set up. All she needed was to fall on her ass and Ghost would never let her live it down as long as she lived. He still told her to watch her step after she tripped getting out of a truck two weeks ago.

"And last I checked, ghosts don't talk," she finally hissed back after a minute. She tested her rope and gave it a final tug for good measure.

"Mm, there's a whole channel on TV that says otherwise."

Annie rolled her eyes and kept a snide comment to herself and started her slow climb up the cliffside. Figures that Ghost would enjoy those terrible paranormal shows. She did too, but never in a million years would she give him the satisfaction of knowing that. The less he knew about her was less fodder for him to resent her for.

When she reached the top, Annie pulled herself up onto the lip of the cliff and sat there for a moment, her legs dangling off the side. From her new position, she could see the coastline stretched below, extending far beyond what she was able to see. Once she caught her breath and put her ropes away, she scooted back to safety.

"Ghost, I'm at the top of the cliff," she said with a sigh. Her upper arms burned from the exertion, and she made a note to work on that next time she got a chance.

"How's the view from up there, sergeant?" Ghost asked.

Annie took a moment and looked out over the water. She felt the cool sea breeze lift her sweaty flyaways off her forehead and closed her eyes at the feeling. "Actually, it's pretty nice."

"Take it all in," he replied back after a beat. "It only gets worse from here. Think of it like a last memory before you get shot."

"Oh, wow, that's comforting," she said with an annoyed sigh. He wasn't even with her and he still managed to ruin the moment. "Really makes me appreciate this more, you know? Really, thanks. Thanks for that."

"Don't mention it." Fucker.

Annie almost threw her nav off the cliff and into the fucking water. At this point, she knew he was doing it exclusively to irritate her. He had to be.

"Better head to that checkpoint soon," he said after a few minutes of blessed silence. "Get it cleared before dark."

Annie groaned in frustration. "I know, I know. Damn, don't get your undies in a twist. You try climbing a fifty foot cliff!"

"I did it this morning," he responded casually. "Didn't take as long as it took you though."

"Of course it didn't," she grumbled as she stood up and grabbed her gun from its resting place against a rock. She double checked the location of the checkpoint on her nav and set off on foot through the woods.

×××

Annie made it to the checkpoint an hour later. She slung her pack off and stretched out her shoulders while she took a quick break to steady herself. After this, it was go time, and she knew no matter what she did, it was going to be unpredictable and violent. Just another day at the office.

Once she'd gotten a grip on her nerves, she pressed her thumb to the comm button.

"Alright, I can see the checkpoint," she whispered, keeping low and out of sight in the treeline.

"There should be guards at the gate," Ghost replied. "Take them out."

Annie nodded and set up the scope on her rifle. She lay flat on her belly and positioned herself and her gun to take out the two men watching the checkpoint. Two shots and two bodies later, and Annie quickly gathered her pack to advance into the post.

"Move fast, those shots probably alerted the others," Ghost warned. "Don't die."

Annie fumed and pulled her knife from its holster and swung her rifle on her back in favor of her pistol. She slipped under the gate and ducked out of sight into the booth.

Don't die.

He made it sound like an order.

Annie gasped when the glass window of the guard booth shattered above her from a bullet fired from somewhere nearby. Shards of glass dusted her jacket and she quickly shook them free. She gripped her pistol tightly and scooted towards the door to try and see where the shooter was positioned. Another bullet whizzed past her ear and she quickly took cover again.

Footsteps quickly approached her cover spot, and she raised her gun just as a guard appeared in the doorway. She fired at him, hitting him twice in the chest.

"Down you go," she muttered as she watched him fall forward. She stood up and kept her head down as she ran towards the low building to the left of the checkpoint. The blueprints they acquired from a shipping depot a week prior had shown that there was a whole sublevel to the building, with important distribution information stored within.

"I might lose you when you get inside," Ghost warned her. "Keep an eye on your comm, Artemis."

"Please, I couldn't get that lucky."

"Just don't do anything stupid."

"So do the opposite of whatever you would do," she replied. "Got it."

Ghost did not humor her with a reply.

Annie smirked, satisfied with her little victory, and quickly opened the door. She took the stairs down quietly to avoid detection. When she reached the bottom, she kept close to the shadows.

Two guards were nearby, and she crept up behind them both. They were quietly talking and listening to indistinct radio chatter on their walkie talkies. When Annie sprung up from the darkness, the man facing her had no time to react. She drove the knife into the side of his neck and yanked it towards her, sending a spray of crimson into the air. The second guard fumbled with his rifle and misfired in his shock, shooting almost an entire clip up at the ceiling in his haste. Annie dropped him quickly with two shots to the chest. She took a moment to recover before she continued down the hallway.

"What do you see?" Ghost asked.

"Two dead fuckers behind me," she said bluntly. "A surprisingly spacious kitchen, and a moderately supply room."

"I'm not interested in buying property here, sergeant. Nothing else?"

Annie glanced into the supply room and blinked to adjust her eyes to the low light. Bingo. In the corner was another door. She let Ghost know when she moved closer to it.

"Check behind it," he ordered. "There wasn't a door there on the blueprints."

"Ooh, scary door," she whispered as she pulled it open. She was met with another staircase leading down further underground. "Huh. That's not what I was expecting."

"What could you possibly have been expecting?"

"Narnia, obviously?" she hummed as if it were a completely normal response.

"Just go check it out," he sighed, quickly losing patience.

"Aye aye, sir."

Annie slipped her gun back into its holster and readied her rifle before she quickly took the stairs all the way down to the bottom. She dropped to a crouch immediately and was almost spotted by a guard who happened to glance her way. She cursed her luck when he said something to the others and started to walk towards her, drawing his gun.

When the guard reached the doorway, Annie leapt from the shadows and took him down from behind with an arm around his neck, keeping her hand pressed firmly over his mouth until he went down. The body thudded against the ground and alerted the others nearby.

They opened fire as soon as they saw Annie and she cried out when a bullet grazed her right upper arm. White hot heat spread down her arm and radiated in her chest.

"Fuck you!" she shouted, firing at the woman who had hit her. Both her and her two companions fell easily, leaving Annie alone with the smell of gunpowder and blood and death.

"Sounded easy," Ghost said softly. "You're alright?"

Annie winced and touched her arm. She winced at the blood dripping down her arm and nodded to herself. She really didn't want to tell Ghost she'd been shot, he'd probably just berate her for being careless. "Yeah, yeah, I'm alright."

"Good, keep moving," he said. "You'll be going in blind, the lower levels aren't even showing on the blueprints. If I lose you on comm, fall back."

"Yes, sir," she said. She quickly poured alcohol on her arm and groaned through the stinging pain. At least it would be clean.

She continued down the path, thanking her lucky stars it was clear, though distant radio chatter told her she wasn't entirely alone. She could hear footsteps coming down the hallway towards her and quickly swiped her arm across the surface of a low counter to clear it of debris so she could slide, Hazard-style across it.

She crouched down low on the other side, waiting for the immediate danger to pass her by. The radio chatter grew closer, and she held her breath and gripped her gun tightly in anticipation.

"Do you like jokes, sergeant?" Ghost asked her as the footsteps drew nearer.

Annie rolled her eyes and mouthed a silent curse. Of course Ghost would pick this exact moment to hit her with one of the terrible jokes Johnny had warned her about.

"Not at the moment, sir," Annie muttered. She ducked behind the counter just as four more guards jogged past her.

Ghost continued like he hadn't even heard her. "Do you know why stormtroopers have such bad aim?"

She rolled her eyes and checked her nav for a moment, watching them move past the three guards she had taken out, before she sighed heavily into her comm. He really wasn't giving her a choice, huh? Fine. "Okay. I'll bite, sir. Why?"

"They're counter-Fetts," he replied, tone completely serious. He sounded like he had bored himself with his own joke.

"Jesus," she sighed after a few seconds of silence. "That one was terrible. What if I didn't see those movies?"

"I thought you liked movies, sergeant?"

She scoffed and quickly left her hiding spot to continue through the hallway. "Depends."

"On what?"

"The company. Sometimes people talk too much - ruins the experience."

"I don't talk a lot."

"And yet you haven't really stopped since I got in here."

Ghost finally fell silent again, much to Annie's relief. When he wasn't snapping at her every move, he was annoying the hell out of her.

She continued down the path opposite the way the guards had gone, keeping a close ear out for more. In the back of her mind, she heard Ghost warning her about going too far inside and losing contact. Annoying or not, he was still her lifeline while she was deep underground.

When she made it to the end of the hallway, she was met with a heavy steel door blocking her from going any further. She tried the handle and found it was unlocked, much to her surprise. She pulled it open and almost immediately sighed with relief. The air was almost fifteen degrees colder, and the temperature dropped with every step down she took.

When she reached the bottom, she saw a room to the left filled wall to wall with computer monitors and servers. The screens were all flashing black and white static shots of long empty hallways, empty rooms, and exterior shots of what appeared to be several different locations.

"Heads up, lieutenant," she murmured into her comm. "Looks like this place is also some kind of monitoring station for their other locations. I'm going to try and grab a hard drive or two, there's gotta be something we can use on them right?"

She didn't wait for a reply before she moved to a computer to wake it back up. As soon as she started clicking on different programs, a security warning flashed on the screen, bathing her in an eerie red glow. An alarm began to wail nearby, no doubt alerting all available guards in the area that they had a rat.

"Oh, motherf--"

"--fall--" her comm hissed. "Now!"

Annie pressed the button a few times to try and muster the damn thing back to life. Her hand rested on a sleeping laptop on the desk. Nothing she could do with it now, but her fingers twitched as she left it behind. "Repeat, Ghost."

She knew she had to leave now and leave fast, and when she shut the door behind her, she whispered her second attempt. "Lieutenant, can you repeat that?"

Nothing came through, not even a crackle, letting her know there had at least been an attempt on his part to call back.

She stood there nervously, one hand still on the door to the server room, body turned and ready to fly back up the stairs to her freedom and safety. But what if she'd been ordered to grab as much as she could before she fell back and she didn't hear him? She couldn't exactly blame the shitty comm connection if this whole mission was for nothing.

"---- back, Artemis!" Ghost shouted, voice echoing over the wailing of the alarm. His voice crackled over the comm from the shoddy reception deep beneath the checkpoint. "--- too many of them. Fall -- now! Leave it!"

Annie's eyes flicked between the stairwell leading back up, and the door her hand was currently on. The intel was right there. She was so fucking close.

"Fuck it," she whispered as she shoved the door back open with her shoulder. The door gave way and she quickly moved to the desk in the corner. She would have to take the whole thing, there wasn't enough time to download all the data they would need.

Annie quickly stuffed the main laptop into her bag and pulled open all the desk drawers, desperately searching for more information. Ghost and Price would be pissed at how reckless she had been, she needed to make it worth it.

"Come on!" she shouted to herself as she grabbed a second computer for good measure. It wouldn't fit in her bag, and she tucked it under her arm to keep it safe.

Footsteps on the stairs alerted her to more guards quickly headed her way. She ducked behind the desk and readied her gun for another firefight. Just as the door burst open, shots rang out. Before she could duck behind cover, a stray shot ricocheted off the cinder block wall behind her, sending concrete chunks flying at her. One piece flew back and hit her in the temple and she felt dizzy for a moment following the impact. The laptop slipped from beneath her arm and bounced off the ground. Blood flowed down her cheek from the wound and soaked into her T-shirt before she turned and fired at the man rushing at her. He tripped over his own feet as the bullets hit him and he collapsed in the doorway.

A second guard, then a third rushed towards her, blocking the doorway and preventing her escape. She could hear more coming down the stairs behind them. A few rapid shots took the first two down, but they were quickly replaced by two more, all opening fire at her.

She crouched down and pressed her back against the desk and took a deep, quick breath as gunfire rained down on her. With shaking fingers, Annie quickly pulled a grenade from her vest, yanked the pin, and lobbed it into the hallway to try and increase her chances of getting out. She hunched over and plugged her ears just as the explosion shook the ground and resonated in her chest. Dust rained down on her from the ceiling and she pulled her thin t-shirt over her nose to filter her breaths as it settled on her skin and clothes. It clung to the sticky blood on her arm and face and she blinked it out of her eyes.

Annie waited a beat before she cautiously stood up. The guards that had pinned her had almost all been taken out thanks to her grenade.

After finishing off the ones that hadn't been killed, she ran back into the server room and began stuffing files into her bag. She also made sure the two laptops in her possession were undamaged and found room in her pack for the one she had dropped. She swung it back onto her shoulders, grunting at the weight, and made her way back upstairs to the upper level.

Annie pressed her thumb to the comm and cleared the dust from her lungs. "Ghost, got lots of goodies for you," she wheezed, trying not to sound too pleased with herself.

No reply.

Annie scowled and checked her comm. Dread pooled ice cold in her belly when she saw that the signal had been completely lost while she was underground.

She quickly switched it off and back on again to try and restore the signal. Ghost was probably going insane, he had to be furious with her, gnashing his teeth and gathering venomous words to spit at her. She sighed, half in relief and half in fear, as the light flashed green, and clicked it a few times to make sure it was working properly before she called out for the lieutenant.

"Sir, intel is secured, I'm heading your way now," she said, trying to hide the way her voice shook.

"Artemis." Ghost didn't sound mad, but Annie figured he had to be fuming behind his eerily calm demeanor. Honestly, he was probably way past mad now. She didn't even have the term for how fucking pissed he probably was. "Still in one piece?"

"All the important stuff is, anyway," she said as she made her way back up the stairs.

"Good, then I don't have to be the one to explain to Price why you didn't follow my orders."

Annie sighed. There it is. She exited the underground portion of the checkpoint and stepped out into the warm breeze. Just as the sunshine warmed her skin, she was tackled to the ground from behind. Her assailant dropped onto her from above and wrapped thick legs around her shoulders.

She hit the pavement with a thud, turning her head to the side just in time to avoid hitting her face. She felt all of the air forced out of her lungs in a sudden rush, and she gasped wildly for air.

A gunshot rang out from behind her, and Annie jerked away in shock, temporarily deafened by the tremendous sound. She braced herself for the nerve endings in her brain to register the intense amount of white hot pain that came with a point blank gunshot wound. If it didn't kill her before that.

After a moment, she realized she felt nothing, no searing, crippling agony across her body. She hesitantly cracked open an eye and looked around. She hadn't been hit. The bullet had somehow missed her.

She rolled onto her side and glanced behind her. Her attacker tumbled off of her and now lay on his side in a rapidly spreading pool of his own blood.

Annie was suddenly hoisted upwards by the back of her tac vest. She let out an undignified yelp and thrashed a bit before she was set back on her feet. Her gaze shifted from gray, sunbleached asphalt, to her own well-loved boots, up, up, up until she was looking directly up into Ghost's terrifying mask.

Shit.

He holstered his pistol and grabbed the strap of her vest hard enough to send her stumbling forward. His dark eyes were cold and endless when he stared down at her, desperately searching for any reasonable explanation as to why she had just done what she did.

"Ow, nice to see you too, sir," Annie spat, trying to shove him away.

Ghost tugged harder for a moment, just to see her nose scrunch up as she tried to keep her balance. He released her and let his arms fall to rest against his rifle.

"Do you know how much trouble you're in?" he asked in a threatening tone.

Annie sighed and looked down at her boots again. She honestly would have loved to tell him off. To rub his face in the fact that she got what they came for, alone. But he was her superior, and it didn't matter if she hated him. She had to save her ass, even if that meant kissing his. But she refused to apologize. Never apologize.

"Sir, I knew the risk, and I thought I could--"

"You don't think, and you obviously didn't know the risk!" he shouted over her. "The inside of that building was completely dark, you could have easily been overpowered!"

Annie set her jaw and looked back up at him. She glared straight into his mask and put both hands on her hips.

"I know that, sir. But I just--"

"No," he growled. He held up his hand to stop her from talking more. He pointed past her down the road. "Don't even try to explain yourself, I don't want to hear it. Think of what you want to say before we get to the safehouse. Go."

Annie scoffed to herself and followed Ghost down the road. Whenever she tried to talk, he just shot her a look that very plainly told her that he wasn't even in the mood to yell at her. She hated it. Him. This. Him.

The five miles to the safehouse passed in a tense silence. The sun was just beginning to set over the horizon when Ghost and Annie turned onto the final stretch and the safehouse came into view.

As soon as they entered through the locked door, he was right behind her, herding her into the center of the living room, ignoring the greetings of their teammates who had already settled in. He ground his teeth together and kept stepping up closer to her every time she moved backwards.

"You know, if you're that fucking desperate, you should know that I don't even kiss on the first date, lieutenant," she snapped. She quickly turned on her heel and glared up at him.

"You think you're so bloody cute don't you?" Ghost shouted, his tone accusing as he stepped closer to her, invading her personal space. He didn't give a fuck. He crowded her back against the wall, the toes of his boots right against hers.

With a warning shout, Kyle and Price stood at the same time. They cast nervous glances at each other and then at Johnny, who was watching carefully on the other side of the room in the connected kitchen. No one moved, waiting for someone to pounce first.

"Actually, sir, I do," Annie sneered up at him, a challenge written on her face. Ever defiant, she crossed her arms over her chest and straightened up a little.

Rage and anger rolled off of him in waves. He fumed silently down at her for a moment, hating her and her little smartass mouth.

"You've been nothing but a pain in my ass since your arrival, sergeant," he growled. "Picking fights, disobeying direct orders, putting yourself in harm's way--"

Annie barked out a laugh and counted on her fingers as she came to her defense against each of the lieutenant's points. "Defending myself, gathering intel, finishing the mission--"

"Your life, sergeant," he hissed, "Is far more valuable than anything else we accomplish here. That includes the mission."

"I accomplished what we came for!" Annie shouted. "If I fell back, then we came out here for nothing, and I couldn't leave empty handed!"

"Clearing the base would have been enough, Artemis!"

"And wait until God knows when for another opportunity like that? I don't think so. Then it would just be one more thing for you to hold against---"

"You know what's a shame?" he asked, his voice low and threatening and gravelly. He glared down at her and crowded her impossibly closer against the wall. "You have this misguided notion that you need to prove that you belong on this team when you couldn't be further from the truth. There's a dozen people who would do anything to take your place, and yet you're here and they aren't! You're selfish - everything you've done since you've joined us has been for your own gain, and you're so eager to prove that to yourself that you don't think for a single bloody second about what happens after!"

Annie blinked up at him, suddenly speechless, with a shocked expression on her face. She looked as though he struck her, rather than just yell loud enough to leave her ears ringing. Her eyes grew watery and she quickly flinched away just as Ghost leaned back away from her.

Did I go too far? he thought. He so rarely yelled anymore, choosing instead to save it for the battlefield. He hated that he could hear his father in his voice, angry and hateful and cold. Before the vaguest thought of a potential apology came to his mind, he was interrupted.

"Alright, that's quite enough!" Price barked, finally intervening in their argument. He stepped forward over Annie's hastily discarded backpack and shoved himself between them. "This stops. Right now. Or you're both sitting the next mission out, and will spend it scraping shit out of the bathrooms!"

"Recruit punishments, John, really?" Ghost muttered, sparing a glance at the captain.

John shrugged and pushed Simon away. "If you're both going to squabble like recruits, I'm going to treat you like recruits," he replied angrily. He put a hand on Annie's shoulder and gently tugged her back. "You two have been at each other's throats since you started, but you need to work together to survive."

Annie shrugged his hand off of her. She avoided eye contact with the both of them and glared daggers at the ceiling. Unshed tears sat at her waterline, coming dangerously close to spilling over.

"Hey!" Price warned her. He stuck a finger out to her and raised his brows. His expression was very clear. Leave it alone.

Ghost sighed and gently raised his hands from his hips. He gestured vaguely towards Annie and John shook his head in defeat.

"I don't know what's gotten into you," Price hissed at them both. He threw his hands up and sighed heavily. "And I really, really don't care. Just figure it - this - out. You two can find it in you to be civil to each other, even if it's only for missions. That's an order, both of you! For God's sake."

"Yeah," Annie mumbled, shooting Ghost a look that would've killed him if it could. "And it wouldn't kill you to say please. Maybe start there. Sir." Annie shoved past Ghost and disappeared up the stairs, praying that no one saw her angry tears.

"I said both of you!" Price called after her, exasperated.

Ghost scoffed and picked up Annie's pack. He opened it carefully and removed both the laptops she had recovered as well as the stacks of files. It would take days, maybe weeks to sift through the information. He muttered to himself as he passed both to Price, who gave him a look.

"Easy," John muttered as he set them on the table. "I'll see what can be done with these right now. Laswell might want them. And Simon, speaking of wanting things--"

"You'll get your bloody paperwork, John," Simon grumbled, still rooted to the same spot.

John scowled and crossed his arms over his broad shoulders. "I thought you were better than fighting with your own team. Haven't seen you this riled up since Las Almas."

"He's just sore because he's not--" Johnny teased, sliding up beside him.

"Shut up, Johnny," he hissed. He zipped Annie's pack up and glanced at the stairs. "Just gets on my damn nerves is all. Fucking irritating."

Price muttered something to himself and went to pick up his smoldering cigar from the ashtray. He glared at his lieutenant for a moment before he sat back down in the battered armchair.

Ghost sucked his tongue against his teeth, annoyed by the events of the afternoon. He brushed past Johnny and went into the tiny kitchen to grab the first aid kit for himself.

He threw Annie's backpack onto the counter and glared at. The little chunky, homemade, beaded keychains on the zippers were definitely not approved, and he had half a mind to toss them into the garbage and write her up for them. She had obviously had the whole pack for a while, given the patches of assorted fabrics keeping the bottom together and the reattached patches indicating her squad and rank. He noticed she had embroidered her callsign near the shoulder of her right strap and he sighed heavily.

Figure it out, Simon.

×××

A few hours later, after everyone had gone to sleep and the safehouse was silent, Simon woke with a start at the sound of cautious footsteps on the stairs. He had taken the couch for his temporary bed, and angled himself so he would be able to see the locked front door with ease.

The light in the connected kitchen flooded the small room, and when his eyes adjusted to the fluorescents, he saw Annie hunched over the counter, her back towards him. She had changed her clothes at some point during the night, and was standing there in only her leggings and a pale blue sports bra.

Ghost almost shut his eyes again to give her privacy, but stopped when she turned slightly, revealing an angry red gash to her upper arm. He almost sat straight up when he saw all the dried blood crusted down her arm, but thought better of it. He figured she wouldn't want his help or sympathy. How had he not noticed that she had been injured? Had he been too focused on yelling at her to realize it? The thought that she didn't want to tell him flashed across his mind. That could be dangerous, hell, it could be fatal.

His gaze flickered back to Annie as she hissed quietly through her teeth and dabbed at the wound with an alcohol soaked pad. She quickly cleared away the blood with a clean rag and reached for something else in the first aid kit. When she turned, the light caught a smattering of silvery white scars across her back, concealed partially beneath her bra and by a tattoo on her shoulder blade.

He couldn't get a good look at them from his prostrate position on the ancient sofa, but he noted them for another time. When she glanced in his direction, he quickly shut his eyes so she would think he was still sound asleep.

Simon waited a moment and cautiously opened his eyes. He could see her bent over the sink while she stitched up her injured arm with her non-dominant hand. Little curses and whimpers of pain were barely audible, and he could see her hand shaking from across the room. The hand that wasn't working on sewing her arm closed had a white knuckle grip on the edge of the sink.

He almost got up to help her, but by the time he made up his mind to go over, she had finished her stitches. She had quickly bandaged her arm and put a clean t-shirt on, covering the strange scars on her back. He saw her spare a quick glance his way before she flipped off the kitchen light and quietly slipped back up the stairs.