#technically they could still do that in messages but it seems to deter them effectively

[hexjulia]

Saw a little bag based on a tin of sardines a while ago and i've wanted to make a tinned foods inspired bag myself ever since... can you all send me your favourite tinned foods packaging please? Well images of them. Still deciding between textile paint and embroidery but for something like that. :)

[ravenbrenna09]

Unattainable - Chapter Two

Read on AO3

...

Based originally on the gifset by @milanhendrickx

...

Bold is the texts that Robbe is sending; Italicized is the messages that he is receiving. 

...

After Noor had left and his headphones been placed on his head, music pumping into his ears to block out the sounds of his best friend and the moans of his best friend’s boyfriend from across the hall, Robbe had hoped to get back to study, or at the very least finish his proof, but neither of them seemed to be happening with Robbe checking his phone at every opportunity that he could. Robbe knew that Sander was out with some friends, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to keep texting him to help him believe that it was all still real, that Sander had texted him of all the people. 

You’re so beautiful. 

The text rang through his head, making him grin like an idiot. Lucas returned into the room, now wearing sweats and one of Jens’ shirts, looking fucked out and sleepy. Robbe raised an eyebrow, pushing down his headphones and hiding his phone. “Feel better?” he questioned.

“Absolutely,” Lucas mumbled, lightly sitting on the edge of the bed. “I was having a shitty day. Feel much better now that I got some frustrations out.” Robbe barked out a laugh, shaking his head.

Jens appeared, fully dressed and crossing the room to where they were sitting. 

“Take good care of him,” Jens spoke, looking directly to Robbe. Even though he knew that Lucas could take care of himself (and that his best friend had been the direct cause as to why the boy was a bit hazy), the brunet nodded his head all the same. “I’ll be back after dinner with Dad,” the comment was directed toward Lucas, who nodded and tilted his head up for a kiss. Jens obliged, pressing his lips against Lucas’ before he left the apartment. 

“So,” Lucas spoke up after their apartment door had slammed shut. The blond’s hair was crazy and wild, but he didn’t move to straighten it and Robbe didn’t point it out, “What’s the plan for Jens’ party? Got any ideas?”

Robbe shook his head. “You?”

Lucas let out a sigh, crossing his legs beneath him. “This is going to be a long process then.” 

After nearly two hours of trying (and failing) to nail down a single item that they could do, the two of them were headed out to get a second opinion on what they should do. Aaron still hadn’t arrived home and they couldn’t exactly go to Jens for his own birthday (at least, not yet). Lucas was upset that he had to change out of his sweats and Jens’ t-shirt. Robbe had replied that he didn’t have to change, but Lucas had changed back into the clothes that he had arrived in. 

Despite not receiving a help message from either one, the two of them arrived at the bar with the intention of getting their help on the opinions for the party. Noor had texted him the address before they had even left the apartment and they hadn’t replied much to Robbe’s texts which let him know that they were at least having a good time (though, Moyo did manage to get a text out about how Britt and her “friend” seemed to be arguing).

The bar was slightly packed. There was enough room to move around, enough room to filter through the groups with relative ease, but not enough to have an accurate idea of where they should be going to find the two that they had come looking for. Robbe noticed that there was a group of giggling girls near the front, surrounding someone, but Lucas tapped his shoulder before he could take much more of a look at the group. 

“They’re back there,” Lucas muttered, pointing towards the back of the bar. 

Lucas was much taller than Robbe so he would be able to see where Robbe was blocked by the back of people’s heads. “I trust you,” Robbe replied, moving towards where Lucas had pointed. 

He spotted the back of Moyo’s head before Noor, who had still been partially blocked by people. Moyo’s hand was rubbing her back and the two of them were listening to Britt. The girl looked exactly the same, blonde-haired and beautiful. Her eyes flickered up to Robbe, the indifference briefly crossing her face, moments before Robbe wrapped his arms around Moyo’s shoulders, placing his chin against his shoulder. 

His friend jumped but stilled at the sight of Robbe on his shoulder. Realizing what was happening, Noor let out a melodious laugh as she turned towards them. She spotted Lucas behind him and grinned at him, reaching out to pet his arm. “Fuck, Robbe,” Moyo hissed, relaxing.

“Whatcha on edge for?” Robbe spoke, rocking them slightly. There was a point in time that Robbe couldn’t have even hugged Moyo without him pulling back or making some crude comment. After Robbe had come out and their friendship hit rock bottom, Moyo accepted Robbe and tried to be a better friend and their friendship was stronger than it had been before. “Hi, Britt,” Robbe greeted the blonde. There was an empty chair beside her with a leather jacket draped across the back. 

“Hi, Robbe,” Britt mumbled. 

“This is Lucas VDH,” Robbe introduced, pointing to Lucas who waved. 

Moyo turned, taking Robbe with him and pointed at his hair, which he had yet to fix back to his normal style of excellence. “How are you feeling? Your hair seems to have somehow managed craft to another tier on the scale of your sex hair.” The blonde grinned, running a hand through his curls.

“Back on topic,” Robbe spoke. 

“What is the topic exactly?” Noor questioned Robbe before turning towards Lucas. He glanced at her in surprise as she held up a compact of makeup. “I’ve got makeup if you want to cover up the marks. Your neck looks like you’ve been bitten half-a-dozen times by a ferocious leech that went overboard.” 

“Nah,” Lucas replied, crossing his arms. “Maybe, it’ll deter girls from actually hitting on me.”

“Oh,” Britt spoke up, eyes flickering between Robbe and Lucas. “Are you two together?”

Robbe shook his head. “Nah, we’re not dating. Unless Jens is out of town and Lucas is wearing eyeliner, then we technically are and only by saying we’re boyfriends. I would never do that to him and, to be fair, Lucas goes right along with it. Jens thinks that eyeliner makes Lucas look a little too irresistible.” 

“And, yet, he wonders why I wear it,” Lucas muttered, beneath his breath. Robbe and Moyo burst into laughter. Noor laughed as well, shaking her head as she ran her hands through her hair. 

There was a look on Britt’s face, one that feels like a need to belong which Robbe used to feel so many times over the years, as Noor spoke up, waving her hands to cut through the conversation, “Boys, what are you two even doing here?” 

“We need a second opinion,” Robbe replied. 

“On what?” Noor giggled. 

“The birthday party,” Moyo guessed. Robbe nodded his head and the man laughed, sitting up and out of Robbe’s arms as he turned towards them. Robbe propped his arms on the back of Moyo’s chair as the latter’s brown eyes darted between the two of them. “Seriously? The two of you are the two most important men in his life and neither of you can come up with one idea for his party.”

“We’ve come up with several ideas,” Robbe remarked, placing his chin into the palm of his hand. “The two of us just can’t agree on one hence the reason we’re here and being bad friends that are interrupting your hangout to talk about a birthday party that’s a month away because we need to figure it out. Between now and then, we’re only getting four Wednesdays!”

“Three,” Lucas corrected. 

“Three?” 

“Yeah, his father’s going out of town next Wednesday so they won’t be having dinner next week.”

“Three Wednesdays!” 

“Okay, okay,” Moyo spoke, laughing, as Noor chuckled beside him, trying to hide behind her hand. “We get it. We get it. What ideas have you come up with for the party?”

“Party?” a foreign voice spoke, behind Robbe. The group turned to stare at the person that was standing behind Robbe. The brunet glanced over his shoulder and his breath caught in his throat once he saw who it was. Sander who had his bright green eyes focused solely on Robbe, paying the rest of his friends and Britt no heed. Sander, who definitely looked so much more beautiful and handsome an arm’s length away from Robbe than in his perfectly edited pictures. Robbe swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. There’s a glint in Sander’s eye like he knew the effect that he had on Robbe. “What party are we talking about here?” he questioned, glancing briefly around the table. His eyes flickered over to Lucas. “What the hell happened to your neck?”

“My boyfriend, Jens,” Lucas admitted. 

“And it’s his birthday party that we’re trying to plan for,” Moyo replied. 

“Robbe, Lucas,” it was Britt, effectively cutting through the conversation. The two boys turned back to the blonde, who was perched at the edge of her stool looking a little lost. Her eyes glanced between them. “This is my boyfriend, Sander.” Robbe’s eyes went wide, dread forming in his stomach. Boyfriend? Robbe glanced back to Sander, who has an unreadable expression that was different from the expressive one that he had seconds ago. “Sander, this is-”

“Let me guess, Robbe, Lucas,” Sander spoke, his voice harsh and as cold as steel. His green eyes were focused solely on Britt, his expression unpassive. “I’m not your boyfriend, Britt, so quit trying to introduce me as such. I told you that last week and so many times in the last month since I broke up with you. I’ve told you that every time you’ve called to see if I wanted to come to this dinner. I only came here tonight to see Noor who I’ve known longer than I’ve known you. I’m not your boyfriend.” 

Sander stepped forward, past Robbe to hug Noor and press a kiss to her cheek. 

“Excuse me,” Sander spoke, grabbing his leather jacket and leaving. As he passed Robbe, their eyes connected and Robbe watched him go, past the gaggle of girls who tried to get his attention

Britt let out a huff of frustration, standing on her feet and collecting her things to follow after him. “Act fucking normal!” Robbe heard her shout before the door was slammed closed, quieting the bar for only a brief moment. 

There was a buzz in his pocket but the brunet didn’t pull it out quite yet. The group was still quiet, still trying to comprehend what had happened in front of them, and Lucas glanced over Robbe’s shoulder in the direction of the door. Robbe had been on the receiving end of Britt’s anger on at least one occasion, back when they went to the same school and the boy had broken up with Noor. He felt bad for Sander especially since it seemed like Britt wouldn’t let him break up with her. 

“He doesn’t normally act like this,” Noor spoke up, breaking the silence. Robbe glanced up at her, finding her eyes on him. “Britt has been trying to act like they’ve been boyfriend and girlfriend all night. He’s corrected her and shied away from her about fifteen times.”

Lucas nodded his head. “I guess he had enough,” he mumbled. 

There was another pause of silence. 

Despite the fact that Robbe’s mind was focused solely on the platinum blonde that had just stormed outside of the bar, he spoke up, eager to break the silence, “The party or get-together, whatever we decide to do. I was thinking minigolf.” There was a laugh from Noor, shaking her head. The girl was starting to get up from her seat and Moyo was following her lead, draining the remains of his beer and grabbing his coat. “What? Mini-golf could be fun!”

As Lucas shared his idea, Robbe glanced at his phone. His chest deflated a little seeing Aaron’s name as his eyes darted back over to the front door of the bar. Both Sander and Britt had disappeared from sight, leaving Robbe to wonder if they would hear their shouts once they stepped outside. 

Where the hell is everyone at? 

I know Jens was going to his dad but where are you and Moyo?

Be home soon. We’ll talk once we get home.

… 

On the walk home, Robbe had managed to convince Moyo that mini-golf would be a decent idea to do as a group. Despite living together, with school, work, and significant others, the four of them hadn’t been able to hang out as friends all together as much as they used to. But, that did little to determine what they were going to do as a large group of all their friends which had formed to be their second family. Once Moyo had asked Aaron what he thought, the curly-haired boy seemed thrilled by the prospect of going out with just the four of them.

“Ouch,” Lucas spoke, returning back, donning his sweats and Jens’ t-shirt again. He sat down on the counter and propped his feet up on the dining table. Moyo was in one of the other chairs, Noor sitting on his lap, and Aaron was leaning against the counter. “I see how you guys are. Why don’t you guys just kick me out of the apartment?” 

From his perch on the kitchen counter, Robbe laughed, crossing his legs beneath him. “We would never do that, Lucas,” he laughed. “We need you. You control Jens’ moods.”

Lucas turned to him, half-laughing. “Is that why you called me last month when he was pissed?” Robbe only shrugged in response. 

Robbe’s phone buzzed in his hands as Aaron joked about the one time that Lucas had come over to find Jens glaring daggers at him only for the black-haired man to completely turn around. The rest of Aaron’s story and the laughter from his friends was drowned out as Robbe read the notification that had popped up across his lock screen. earthlingoddity has sent you a message. His breath caught in his throat and his friends remained unaware as his thumb nervously slid it open. 

I’m sorry about my outburst at the bar. 

I really wanted to make a good first impression. 

Robbe smiled down at his phone.  

It’s okay. I already had a good first impression of you.

Well, in person… it’s different.

How so?

Just is.

“Everything okay?”

Robbe jumped, his eyes flying up to Noor, who stepped to his left to place her empty glass in the sink. The boys were teasing Lucas, who had already gotten his cheeks flushed red as he tried to hide his face, but there was a knowing look in Noor’s eye. Still, Robbe swallowed and hid his phone against his leg, “Yeah, everything’s fine.” 

Noor raised an eyebrow, the smile growing on her face as she stared at him. “Who is he?” she questioned, her tone light so the other boys wouldn’t hear. 

Robbe let out a shaky breath, whispering, “I’ll let you know if it’s serious.” 

If it’s real, lingers in his mind.  

Despite all of Sander’s flirtatious texts, there was doubt in Robbe’s mind. Sander was a famous Instagram personality with thousands upon thousands of followers (Robbe included) that waited anxiously for an update, including his fans in his life because that was just what he did. Robbe wasn’t another Instagram famous personality. He was just Robbe IJzermans and Sander could have anyone that he wanted. It didn’t feel real that someone as beautiful as Sander would look at Robbe, who was plain and hid in the shadows, and think I want him. 

Noor rubbed his shoulder before moving back to her spot in Moyo’s lap. 

His phone buzzed again.

So… I know that we just saw each other.

But, did you want to go out tonight?

Robbe’s heart thumped. 

Unless you have more plans?

Truth to be told, Robbe did have more plans. With his textbook and notes. 

It was Wednesday night. 

He had a test in his class tomorrow afternoon that he still needed to do a little studying for. Yasmina had already been texting him about their upcoming class project and they had plans to meet up after his test tomorrow for about an hour to get a general idea for what they wanted to do. But, none of that seemed to matter as Robbe’s thoughts lingered on Sander and his bleached hair and his black leather jacket.

By the time that Robbe had come to a decision, Robbe was back in the foyer of their apartment, his coat wrapped back over his shoulders, and his excuse had formed in his head as to why he was leaving again.

What do you have in mind?

Meet me here ;)

There was an address that followed next, a simple apartment complex. 

Okay, I’m on my way.

Should be about 15 minutes?

What are we doing?

You’ll see. 

See you soon, beautiful.

…

I’m here.

Standing outside the apartment complex, Robbe released a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair, as he glanced towards the building behind him. The building was nothing special. It was a simple apartment building with dark brick and bright windows. The courtyard outside of the front door was meticulously maintained and there seemed to be an intercom system that allowed people in the courtyard, but he didn’t press any of the buttons. If Robbe hadn’t been sent the address to it, he might’ve blown right past it on his bike to head further downtown. 

His music that was pounding over his headphones dimmed suddenly, replaced by a slight ring, and it took him several seconds to realize that someone was calling, that Sander had been the one calling him. Robbe hurried to answer the phone as he quickly tried to adjust his hair. 

Once the phone was answered, Sander’s entire profile took up the screen and Robbe breathed in through his nose as he stared. “Hey, cutie,” Sander greeted, beaming brightly. The bleach-blond was half-bent over his phone, seemingly working on something, before he was bouncing to his feet, taking his phone with him and moving around the apartment. 

“Hey,” Robbe responded shyly.  

Sander laughed and a bright grin that spread across his features which lit up his face. “I was right,” Sander declared, passing by a box as he moved around. He opened it with one hand and dug around for something before fetching out a pair of socks. “You’re even more adorable in person.” 

Robbe bit down on his lip. “Are you moving?” he questioned, nodding towards the box that Sander was now leaning against. 

As Sander hobbled and put on his socks, he glanced towards the box before nodding his head. “Yeah, I just moved into a new place. I’ve been unpacking boxes all day, but you wouldn’t know it with how many are leftover in my living room. I guess you never really know how much stuff you have until you pack it all up and move.” Sander straightened up again and ran a hand through his hair, picking up the phone. “Maybe once I’m all moved in, I’ll bring you up and give you the grand tour.” 

Robbe blushed, biting down on his lip. 

“Would you like that?” Sander questioned, a teasing grin forming over his face as he moved through the apartment, putting some things into a plastic bag. 

“Sure,” Robbe replied, letting out a breath. 

“What is it?” the blond spoke up. 

“I’m nervous about meeting you tonight,” Robbe admitted, not fully realizing that he had admitted it out loud to Sander of all people. 

“I’m not,” Sander replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had tilted his head to the side and smiled at him, softer but just as bright and showing all of his teeth, somehow managing in one small gesture to make Robbe fall just a little bit harder, “I just can’t wait to talk to you in person. Well, properly talk to you anyways like I wanted to before Britt decided to introduce me as her boyfriend.” 

Robbe wanted to ask about Britt, but he didn’t, unsure if it was because he didn’t want to upset anger or if it was because he was afraid to know the answer. 

There was a light tap on Robbe’s shoulder and he jumped. After his feet landed back on the floor, he turned to see Sander, leaning against the apartment complex’s iron gate and extending a plastic bag in Robbe’s direction. There was a teasing but sympathetic smile plastered on his face as he stared at Robbe, who pushed his headphones off his head. 

“I hope you drink gin-tonic or rum-coke,” Sander said, almost sheepishly. “It was the only thing other than cheap beer that I had in my fridge.”

Robbe smiled at him, pushing himself up from the wall and taking the bag. “I’m more a whiskey man,” he admitted, lightly as he pulled out a can of gin-tonic. Sander was watching him intently, a smile plastered across his face. Before Robbe had even registered thinking about what he might say to this gorgeous boy in front of him, the words were already out of his mouth, “That’ll be zero starts on booking.com.”

At his words, Sander smiled brightly, the kind of smile that looked like it might split his face in two. It was the kind of smile that Robbe wanted him to make again and against, repeatedly, all the time, (for the rest of his life). Sander’s bright green eyes flickered across Robbe’s entire body, down to his feet, back up to his face, everywhere in-between, before they stopped on his lips for a little too long to be a completely innocent gesture. 

Robbe’s insides turned to goo as he watched him. 

The “zero stars” had been a joke in Sander’s posts long before Robbe had actively followed the blonde, long before his crush had formed on a seemingly unattainable Instagram profile, and had been a long-standing joke in his live streams. The origin was lost on Robbe and the blond had never really explained it (to Robbe’s knowledge), but the famous user used it often and frequently. It was one of the mannerisms that Robbe had subconsciously picked up. On one occasion when Jens burnt food trying to make dinner for the stressed-out group one day, Robbe had found himself thinking “zero stars on booking” and was immediately frightened by this man’s effect on his thoughts. 

“I’ll let it slide,” Robbe added, grinning as he popped open the can. 

“You really are a fan of mine, aren’t you?” Sander spoke, sounding amazed and like he couldn’t really believe the matter himself. The left side of his mouth quirked a little bit higher on his face as the intensity of his gaze on Robbe’s lips increased. His green eyes returned to Robbe’s brown ones and his smile got brighter. “How did I manage to not find you sooner?” Robbe flushed and Sander raised his drink. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Robbe replied, unsure of what to say back and settled for a simple wink. Sander took a sip of his own drink before the former had raised his own aluminum can to his lips. The drink was good, better than the cheap beer that Robbe had long since grown accustomed to. After he took a drink, he found himself looking at the can, unable to look back up to Sander. He was nervous, both at the prospect of being alone with the man he had crushed on afar for so long and nervous that he was hoping something was where nothing actually was. 

“You know what I want?” Sander questioned, drawing Robbe’s attention back to him. There was a soft smile that had formed across his lips and his eyes were on Robbe with an intensity that made the brunet feel simultaneously alive, nervous, and brimming with desire in one coordinated swoop. The green orbs flickered down, but only slightly, and Robbe’s throat went dangerous dry when he noticed it. 

All the same, Sander’s smile was infectious and Robbe found himself copying it, trying to take a drink as he replied, “A real gin-tonic.”

“No,” Sander admitted, shaking his head. “Better.” 

Better sounded a lot like You. 

Sander’s eyes made an obvious sweep of Robbe, his eyes slower this time, dragging across Robbe like he was taking him all in, memorizing every curve. Robbe felt his breath catch in his throat, his mouth falling a bit open as he tried to find something to say. But, he couldn’t say anything in response, unable to get his brain to stop short-circuiting. So, he let his eyes drag down Sander instead, trying to replicate the interest that the blond was giving him, taking in how his leather jacket and jeans clung to his body. When Robbe’s eyes finally returned back to Sander’s face, he realized the blond had been watching him. 

But, Robbe realized as Sander bit down on his bottom lip, looking every bit as beautiful and breath-taking as he did in that bar, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

Sander backed up away from Robbe and blindly reached for another bike on the rack, nearly knocking it and his drink over. “Come, we’re leaving,” Sander announced, keeping his can level as he straightened his bike, undoing the lock quickly. Putting the lock in his pocket, Sander swung his leg over the bike, standing it up once he was fully on. 

Robbe smiled, watching him. “What’s the plan?” 

“Just come,” Sander replied, moving away from him and beginning to pedal. 

Robbe followed after him. “Sander.”

“Come,” Sander replied, tilting his head. 

“What are we going to do?”

As the two of them pedaled towards their eventual destination, Robbe glanced over and found his companion’s green eyes connecting with his brown ones. “I know the perfect place not as populated.” There were only a handful of people on the street. Robbe’s stomach churned, wondering what was less populated than a handful of people on a dimly lit road.

...

Robbe didn’t have any clue about where they were.

The gin-tonics and the rum-cokes from Sander’s apartment were almost gone. Only one or two cans remained in the plastic bag that he had tied around his bike handle. The two of them biked to their heart’s content, having a race in a tunnel and whooping to hear their shouts bounce off the tiled wall. Robbe’s thighs were hurting from how much that they were biking, but he couldn’t force himself to stop. And, frankly, he wasn’t for sure he wanted to. He didn’t know what time it was or where the blond was leading him, but Robbe was certain that he hadn’t felt like this in years, not since Nick, not since Robbe had screwed up with the first guy he would ever admit to liking. 

The sidewalk they were on now wasn’t populated at all, just the two of them and their bikes. Tall, metal street lamps lit their path and Robbe weaved in an out of them, gingerly, careful to stay out of Sander’s path or the two of them would be hitting the pavement. “There it is,” Sander spoke, nodding along the path. Robbe looked, but the only thing he could see was a building with dark wood paneling and a simple wooden door. 

As the building got closer, Sander slowed down, climbing off his bike and promptly depositing it against the bushes. Robbe followed behind him, cautiously slowing down but not dismounting his bike quite yet. Sander moved towards the door, pulling something from his jacket pocket, and Robbe watched him, taking mild advantage of the fact that his back was facing him, unobstructed. 

“Sander,” Robbe spoke. “What are we doing here?”

Sander turned to look at him, looking over his shoulder with his hands still on the door. Despite the lack of light outside the door, Robbe could make out the mischevious smile plastered on Sander’s face. Robbe climbed off his bike, setting it against the ground and Sander let out a quiet, “Shhh, I’m concentrating.”

“Sander.”

“Give me a sec.” 

Nervous, Robbe glanced around, shoving his hands into his pockets. There was no one on the sidewalk or on the nearby street. In fact, Robbe wasn’t for sure the last time he had even seen another person. Because of the low lightning around the door and around them, he wasn’t even for sure if the security camera would be able to make out either one of their faces. 

“Come on, Sander,” Robbe started. “What if someone sees us and calls the police?”

There was a click and Sander turned towards him triumphantly, pulling the white door open. The blond started stepping backward into darkness and Robbe couldn’t help the grin on his face as a thrill ran up his spine. 

“How did you do that?” Robbe questioned. 

A smug smirk worked its way onto Sander’s face, somehow making him look even more beautiful which Robbe had believed was physically impossible. “You should know that I’m full of surprises, Robbe,” Sander spoke, extending his hand towards him and pulling out his phone with the other. 

“Fuck, Sander,” Robbe whispered, eyeing his hand. The blond rolled his eyes, reaching out and taking Robbe’s smaller hand in his own. Sander laced their fingers together swiftly and without blinking before he pulled Robbe inside, into the darkness and into the unknown. The white door closed behind them. Robbe expected to hear an alarm, but it never came. Sander’s hand was wound tightly around his own, warm and comforting, guiding him to their destination with only the flash from Sander’s phone to illuminate their surroundings. 

“Watch your step,” the blond whispered, turning to him as he guided him up the stairs. 

Sander’s words brushed across Robbe’s cheekbone, making him shiver without realizing it. Sander’s hand squeezed his own, sliding the pad of his thumb across Robbe’s knuckles and leaving the skin burning in his wake. Robbe squeezed his hand back, eyeing the outline of Sander’s shoulder moving as he carved through the darkness, pulling Robbe alone with him. As they walked further and then up a flight of stairs, Robbe tried to question where they were, but every attempt was simply answered with “Come” from the owner of the hand intertwined with his. 

At the top of the stairs, Sander turned towards him, extending his other hand to show Robbe where the blond had led him all this way.

It was a pool, large and spanning the entirety of the area in front of them. The other side of the pool seemed to be the main entrance under typical, normal operating hours. As Robbe took it all in (and tried to figure out why Sander, of all people, had led him to a pool that was likely closed down for the winter months), Sander let go of Robbe’s hand and it dropped back to his side. 

“Fuck,” Robbe whispered, turning to Sander. 

Only, Sander was taking off his jacket. “Come,” the blond spoke, depositing his jacket to the floor and bending down to unlace the Doc Martens that he had put on. 

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think?”

“Sander, it’s fucking cold!” 

“Yes, it’s freezing cold,” Sander replied, kicking off his boots. With the laces free, the boots clattered off of his feet and tumbled onto the ground. Sander’s hands went to the hem of his t-shirt, slipping the black fabric up and over his shoulders. Involuntarily (or completely voluntarily, Robbe was not for sure because his brain was on the verge of short-circuiting), Robbe dragged his eyes over Sander’s lean torso that had now been exposed to him. When Robbe glanced back up to Sander’s face, there was a smirk on his lips and Robbe’s cheeks ignited into a fierce blush as he looked away. “Like what you see?”

Robbe felt like he didn’t need to answer that question. “What are you even doing?”

“Going for a swim,” Sander spoke, matter-of-factly. His hands were fumbling with his belt and Robbe kept his eyes pointed squarely at Sander’s face. “Now, come on.” 

Robbe let out a sigh, taking off his own jacket and dropping it to the ground. Next, Robbe kicked off his shoes, placing them beside his jacket and stuffed his socks into them. With the sole exception of his jeans which he was attempting to get over his ankles, Sander was completely stripped down to his briefs. Robbe still remained in his jeans and sweater, watching amused as Sander hobbled on one foot, trying his best to get the skinny jeans off his ankle. 

Robbe let out a slight exhale. 

Were they really doing this? Getting undressed down to their briefs to swim in a pool that they shouldn’t even be in? Robbe bit down on his lip, trying to calm his nerves. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. Robbe had been a surfer for years, but he wore all of his clothes a size too big for a reason. Being exposed in front of Sander was nerve-wracking, more so than he had ever thought so before. He had the same problem with his previous boyfriends.

“Fuck, I’m already cold,” Sander hissed off to his left. Robbe glanced over, spotting Sander discarding his skinny jeans off to the side and hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his briefs. 

Robbe’s mouth fell open in shock, briefly lost for words as his brain short-circuited yet again (which seemed to be a common theme with Sander) and his eyes followed his movements. Robbe swallowed, his mouth and throat impossibly dry, and he managed to choke out, “Fuck, Sander, don’t.”

But Sander was already jumping in the pool, resurfacing a couple of seconds later and pushing back the blond strands of hair that had fallen against his forehead. “It’s amazing, I promise,” Sander boasted, turning to look at Robbe, who was still fully dressed and playing with the hem of his sweater. “Come,” Sander urged. Robbe shook his head, wrapping his arms around his upper body as he watched Sander bob towards the edge of the pool to stare up at him. “Come on.” 

“Fuck no,” Robbe stated.

“Come.”

“No!” Sander raised an eyebrow and Robbe shook his head, smiling, physically unable to stop. “No.” 

“Come,” Sander repeated. There was a grin on his face and Sander had stopped being shy about the fact that he was blatantly checking out Robbe frequently. “There’s no one here but me. The cameras don’t even work anymore.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I’ve been here a couple of times.”

“Oh, so you do this with everyone?” Robbe stated, mostly teasing. However, he was fully aware of the hot flash of jealousy that ripped through his entire body. 

“No,” Sander spoke, his voice certain and steady. “Just you.” Robbe sucked in a breath, running a hand through his hair and biting down on his lip. “Come.” 

Robbe let out a sigh, closing his eyes as he ran his hands through his hair. There was a smile on his face, one that might’ve snapped his face in two if he wasn’t careful. There was a giddiness in his mind that he couldn’t possibly escape and nervous anticipation in his stomach that had been bubbling and festering from the moment that earthlingoddity has followed you appeared on his screen. Robbe didn’t know whether he should be thoroughly thrilled or absolutely terrified. 

But, either way, Robbe hooked his hands at the hem of his sweater and took it off, depositing the fabric on the floor with his jacket. He didn’t have to look up to know that Sander’s eyes were following him the entire time, dragging across his skin and his abs like the blond’s life depended on it. Sander’s gaze was heavy and Robbe glanced up to meet his eyes as he undid his shoes, the intensity from their gazes crackled the air around them. Robbe quickly undid his belt, leaving it in the belt loops, and hook his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans. 

He hesitated, the options weighing in his head. It would be so easy to just jump in the pool before Sander could tease him about his hesitation. It’s not like he didn’t want to (because trust him, he really wanted to) but Sander spotted his hesitation and spoke up, “Hey. All the way or no way.” Robbe let out a shaky breath, his body vibrating with want, and Sander tilted his head towards the pool, a challenging look in his green eyes as he backed away from the edge. “Come.” 

Robbe breathed in, trying not to overthink as he pushed down his pants and briefs in one go. Then, he quickly stepped out of them before jumping into the water. The air bubbles from the jump ran along his body, fighting to get back to the surface, and he could vaguely hear the muffled sound of Sander moving in the water. Once the chill bit along his skin, Robbe’s feet found the pool floor, pushing to get to the surface. 

“Fuck, it’s cold!” Robbe exclaimed, trying to move around to get his body warmed up. He pushed his hair off his forehead as he did so. His body was quickly beginning to warm up and he heard Sander’s laughter somewhere behind him. He turned to see Sander, floating gracefully a couple of breaststrokes away from him. 

“It’s not that bad!” Sander exclaimed, laughing as he shook his head. “Can you even swim?”

“Fuck you,” Robbe laughed, splashing water in Sander’s direction. The edge of the splash hit him square in the face and Robbe felt bad, but Sander was laughing, shaking his head and shoving his hair back again. “I can swim better than you,” Robbe boasted. 

“Yeah? I don’t believe that at all.”

“I can easily swim to the other side, underwater.”

“Yeah?” Sander questioned, raising an eyebrow as he moved closer to Robbe. The brunet watched him carefully, his eyes trained on Sander’s face. There was a teasing look on his face, one that made his grin spread a little wider, and Robbe felt his own grin growing wider in response. “Okay. You know what, let’s turn this into a bet.”

“Okay.”

“See who can stay under the longest.”

“What does the winner get?”

“The winner gets to decide. So, that’ll be me.”

Robbe splashed him again. Because Sander had been closer, he got a higher amount of water splashed into his face but Sander was laughing all the same. “Fuck you,” Robbe stated, pride swelling in his throat. “I’m going to annihilate you.” 

“On three.” 

“And three.” 

The plunge back into the water was a lot easier this time around. Robbe’s body had finally adjusted to the cold temperature of the water, a fact that became more and more apparent the deeper that he sunk into the pool. Plus, as much as Sander had liked teasing him about his thrashing, it had helped his body warm up a little quicker. Robbe kept his eyes closed, lightly moving his hands to keep himself a safe distance beneath the surface of the water. In addition to protecting his eyes, Robbe knew that he didn’t need to be thinking about… other things and he was already teetering the edge already. 

A hand brushed along his ribs. Robbe jerked back, his eyes flying open. 

Sander’s arm fell from where it had been stretched out, a determined look in his eye. Even underwater, the blond looked angelic and breath-taking (the latter of which was bad because Robbe wanted to keep his breath in his mouth at the moment). He moved towards Robbe, his hair moving around him in the water and puffs of bubbles exhaling from his nose, making him look like some sort of water dragon. 

Sander’s hand stretched out, his thumb brushing across Robbe’s cheekbone, before he slid through the water, gracefully to brush his lips against Robbe’s, light and gentle. 

Despite the simple action of it all, Robbe’s entire body lit aflame at his touch, burning beneath the chill of the water. 

Robbe pulled back to look at Sander in the water, keeping his hands on the blond’s shoulders. There was a look in Sander’s eyes that Robbe identified. The majority of it was determination and confidence, everything that Sander always managed to portray. But, there was a brief look of vulnerability, the kind that Robbe felt as he got undressed at the edge of the pool, baring himself completely to someone who was practically a stranger to him. Robbe’s hand slid to the back of Sander’s head, cradling at the nape of his neck, and it’s not that hard to pull Sander back to him, connecting their mouths once again. 

Sander’s hand reached up, hopping at the back of his head, tangling his long fingers into Robbe’s hair, and his lips pressed heavily on Robbe’s lips. His skin lit aflame again, originating at Sander’s touch, and Robbe kicked off, shooting him back to the surface of the water and dragging Sander with him. Once they were finally above the waves, the kiss became more charged and frantic. Sander’s hand gripped tighter against his hair, clinging desperately to the strands of his hair and pulling him tighter against his chest. Robbe gasped in shock, cradling the back of Sander’s head and digging his fingernails into the skin of his forearm.

“I win,” Sander teased between their kiss. 

Robbe pulled back slightly. “Is this all that is?”

“Fuck no,” Sander replied, before launching at Robbe, dragging their lips back together. Their teeth clanked together because of Sander’s enthusiasm, but Robbe didn’t mind, sinking against his skin. The blond clung to Robbe like a lifeline, his other hand balled into a fist on Robbe’s chest, and Robbe clung to Sander’s shoulder to keep himself grounded in his kiss. 

Sander’s mouth moved against Robbe’s, meeting him with every press of his lips. Sander’s tongue darted out of his lips, dragging across Robbe’s bottom lip before slipping into his mouth. The intruding tongue brushed against Robbe’s along the way and Sander chased after it, slipping tighter against Robbe’s body so there was no room between them. Robbe pulled back from Sander’s lips, trying to catch a breath and not far enough to create any real distance between them, before Sander’s hand was tilting his head upward again, crashing their lips together once again. 

Sander’s free hand cradled Robbe’s jaw, briefly and pulling him closer against his body. Their lips were getting more bruised as their kisses grew more heated, crackling with intensity. Their lips were beginning to taste less like pool water and more like each other again, melting together and pulling them closer. Though one of Sander’s hands had remained firmly in Robbe’s hair, his other hand alternating between keeping them floating and touching Robbe’s skin.

Sander pulled away and Robbe blinked up at him, trying to figure out why the older one had stopped. There was a clouded look of desire in Sander’s eyes, unmasked and untethered, and Robbe felt his mouth drop open in shock. Sander’s green eyes scanned Robbe’s face one more time, staring at him intently, his other hand dropping to his ribcage, before Sander was pulling him back in and kissing him with full force. 

Kissing Sander made Robbe forget everything around him. Sander’s hands on his back (and starting to move lower a millimeter at a time) made his head a little dizzy, their surroundings becoming increasingly hazier as their kisses went on, as he focused solely on the bleach-blond in front of him and the lips that were pressed against his own. Their kisses could’ve gone on forever, in this pool that Sander had broken into, getting more and more heated, until one of them was pinned to the side of the pool and everything shifted a little further. 

That’s when the lights came on. Sander pulled away and Robbe was left, slightly dazed. 

The shouts of the night guard pulled him back to reality, a string of curses escaping his mouth as they scrambled desperately out of the pool, collecting their clothes and fleeing. By something equivalent of a miracle, Robbe managed to get his pants partially secured around his waist before he had even made it to the stairs, his sweater partially shoved around his neck. His remaining articles of clothing, including his shoes, were tucked under his arm as he scrambled down the stairs, operating on instinct and shoving the white exit door open. 

Sander was right behind him, somehow dressed in his shirt, leather jacket, and briefs, and giggling like mad.

The two of them climbed on their bikes, partially dressed and clinging to the rest of their clothes, fleeing into the night. 

…

“Fuck,” Robbe gasped, ducking into an alleyway. The pedals of his bike had dug into the soles of his feet and he couldn’t ride all the way back to his apartment without putting his shoes on at the least. Plus, they needed to get properly dressed or else they would be stopped by someone asking why they were on a half-naked bike ride at nearly eleven. Sander followed him into the alleyway, getting off his bike, as Robbe pulled his sweater the rest of the way over his body. 

Sander’s bike clattered against the tiles and fought to get his skinny jeans back up his legs. The black fabric was clinging to his legs as he pulled them back up his legs. Despite the fact that they had managed to partially dry off in their flight from the pool, their clothes still managed to stick against their skin and Sander seemed to be getting the brunt of it all. Robbe’s jeans, which were a size too big, had been relatively free of pain, but that might’ve been the brunt of adrenaline as they fled from the nightguard. 

Sander slid his feet into his Docs, tying them up enough to keep them on his feet, and jumped up with a bright, stunning grin on his face. “That was fun.” 

Robbe chuckled, shaking his head as he returned his gaze back to putting on his shoes. 

“Oh, did you not have fun?” Sander questioned. Something in his voice caused Robbe to glance up, spotting the worried look that briefly broke through the boy’s shell of confidence. 

Robbe grinned at him, sensing his nervousness. “I had fun,” Robbe affirmed him. A small smile formed on Sander’s face as he took a step to where Robbe was leaning against the side of the building, finishing up tying his shoes. “Now, being chased out of the pool partially naked by a security guard in the middle of the night and trying to get dressed while not tripping, that part was not fun but everything else was.” 

“Good,” Sander spoke, his eyes fitting down to Robbe’s lips. The brunet caught sight of Sander’s tongue darting out to wet his own lips and Robbe couldn’t help mirroring the motion. Sander grinned wildly and his eyes were heavy with an intensity that made heat pool in Robbe’s stomach. He leaned over Robbe, his hands braced on either side of Robbe’s head. Robbe tilted his head up to meet his. But, right before their lips finally connected, Sander halted, glancing at him through his impossibly long eyelashes, “Can I collect my prize now?”

“Huh,” Robbe mumbled. 

“My prize for winning our bet,” Sander spoke, grinning. 

“You didn’t win. You cheated.” 

“You didn’t seem to be protesting,” Sander replied. 

Robbe rolled his eyes. “What did you choose for your prize then, you cheater?” 

Sander snorted, his nose scrunching up cutely as he placed his hands against Robbe’s chest. One of his hands moved to the nape of Robbe’s neck, curling themselves between the strands of Robbe’s hair, gripping onto them tightly. The other slid down Robbe’s chest, agonizingly slow and causing the brunet to breathe slowly until his hand settled against his waist. His green eyes were watching Robbe’s chest rise and fall with straggled breaths before they settled on his lips. 

“Sander,” Robbe whispered, reaching out to tug on the sleeve of his jacket to get him closer.

Sander hovered over his lips, whispering, “Tell me what you want.”

“Kiss me,” Robbe replied, sounding a little desperate as he attempted to pull him closer, gripping to the lapels of the jacket. “Kiss me rig-” 

Sander’s lips collided against Robbe’s swallowing the rest of his bargain. Robbe wound his right arm around his shoulders, pulling him tighter against him as Robbe clung desperately to the lapels of Sander’s signature leather jacket, unwilling to let it go now that it was in his hands. Sander attacked his lips hungrily and Robbe responded by catching his bottom lip between his teeth, lightly biting on the skin. Sander let out a moan a little too loud for a public area and Robbe grinned, pushing their lips together again. 

Somewhere between the mesh of their bodies, Robbe’s phone rang shrilly from the pocket of his jeans. He let out a breath of relief and frustration. He was thankful it hadn’t fallen out on their flight, but he was a little bit preoccupied. Robbe lightly pushed Sander away, reaching to fish out the phone from the depths of his jeans. Sander tried to lean back in, to kiss him and chase his lips, but Robbe mumbled, frustrated, “I’m sorry, it’s my mom’s ringtone.”

“It’s okay,” Sander mumbled, even though they both knew that it wasn’t. The blond leaned down to fit his face against the crook of Robbe’s neck. His hands wandered to Robbe’s thighs, pulling one of his legs up to hook around Sander’s hips, and gripping tightly on his hips. By the time that Sander had started pressing open-mouthed kisses to the skin of Robbe’s neck, he was struggling to maintain focus on his phone. 

“Thank God, it’s only a text,” Robbe groaned, feeling Sander’s laugh vibrated through his entire body. 

Hey, sweetheart. My group session went well today. 

Are you still up for coming to see me on Sunday? 

Yeah, Mama. I’ve got nothing planned with the boys that day. I’ll see you then!

With his phone back in his pocket, Robbe wrapped his arms back around Sander and pulled him away from his neck so they could kiss once again. Sander’s lips were warm and inviting, moving across Robbe’s with a frantic desire that made his head spin. The thumb on Robbe’s waist slipped beneath the fabric of his sweater, brushing across Robbe’s skin and leaving him a little breathless. Robbe’s leg tightened around Sander’s waist and the bleach-blond blindly thrust his hips forward, eliciting a moan from both of them. 

Robbe was thankful that there was no one on the street, too late at night in a shopping district for anything to be open or people to be wandering around. 

“Fuck,” Sander hissed.

Their hips rolled together again, Sander’s hand on his hip gripped tighter, and Robbe let out a sigh, his bottom lip caught between Sander’s teeth.  Robbe clung to his hair, dropping his head against Sander’s shoulder as he attempted to keep his breathing even. Sander’s hands were on either side of his face, forcing him to look up and kiss him again, heated and charged again. It was like dropping a flame on gasoline, burning with an unmatched intensity. Sander’s hands slid from his face, agonizingly slow over his body, and settled at his waist, gripping a little harder than he must’ve realized. 

“Sander,” Robbe gasped. 

“Come home with me,” Sander purred, sounding as desperate as Robbe felt.

Robbe let out a sigh. “I don’t think I can,” he admitted. Sander mirrored him with a sigh of his own and pressed his lips lightly against Robbe’s, a little less charged than what it had been seconds ago. “I have a midterm tomorrow,” he explained quickly. “But, I want to… I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Sander replied, honestly. “School’s important.” He leaned down, pressing a lingering kiss against Robbe’s lips before dragging them away, peppering kisses down his jaw before pressing a tongued kiss behind his ear. Robbe groaned, sinking against the brick wall and clinging tightly to Sander’s jacket. “Good luck,” the blond whispered before pressing another kiss to Robbe’s ear, his tongue flickering against the folds of his ear. 

Robbe opened his eyes to stare at the night sky above them and let out a groan, “I just want you to know that you’re making it difficult to want to be a good student.” 

Sander grinned, pulling back to look at him and cradling his face with one hand. His thumb brushed against Robbe’s cheekbone. “Do you want to come over after your classes tomorrow?”

“To your flat?”

“Yes,” Sander spoke, a nervous look on his face. 

Robbe grinned, reaching up to hold his face and nodding his head. 

Sander’s smiled was bright and blinding, bending to kiss him. This kiss was far less chaste than the rest of their kisses had been. Robbe was thankful for it because he was already in need of a shower from the chlorine in the pool. He didn’t need to be doing anything else that would prevent him from studying before he needed to go to sleep tonight (though, Robbe mused that it was probably too late for that). 

“Oh no,” Sander mumbled, his hands pressed against Robbe’s wrist. “Your watch is ruined.” 

Robbe blinked, glancing at it. The silver watch had been a staple point of Robbe’s entire life. After his father had separated from his mother, she had given it to him in hopes that he would use it. But, Robbe couldn’t put it on, not for a while, because it reminded him of his dad and that simple fact made him angry. Eventually, he started wearing it to keep track of time in class without having to risk his phone being confiscated. 

By the time his mother admitted herself to the hospital, it had stopped working completely and Robbe couldn’t part with it. Coupled with his necklace, they made him feel like his mother was always there and they reminded him that his mother loved him. 

“It’s alright. It hasn’t worked in years,” Robbe admitted to Sander, staring at it.

Sander’s eyebrows furrowed. “Then, why do you keep wearing it?” 

“My mother gave it to me,” Robbe admitted, shrugging his shoulders. Sander’s eyes were watching him intently. “Even though it hasn’t worked and I’ve tried to get it fixed, it stills reminds me that she loved me enough to give it to me.” Robbe glanced towards Sander, who was watching him with a small smile. “Is that too cheesy?”

“No,” Sander spoke before he was kissing Robbe again, their lips slotting together like they were always meant to do so. “Come on,” Sander mumbled against his lips, separating them hesitantly gently so Robbe’s leg wouldn’t drop to the ground. “I’m going to make sure that you get home safely.”

[seenashwrite]

Some Dean

Word Count: 4K Category: One-shot, On-The-Hunt, Humor, Creature Feature, Behind-the-scenes Canon-Compliant, Teamwork, Friendship… and, to hell with it: Fluff Rating: Teen & Up Character(s): Dean, Sam, Cas Warnings: None Anti-Warning: There’s no images or links to anything creeptastic below the cut, those of you with squicks/phobias need not worry, I’m not that big of an a-hole Author’s Note(s): *This is a re-post minus tags & links in an effort to get it to show in searches*; if you’ve no knowledge of the children’s story “Charlotte’s Web”, this may not be for you; more post-story Overall Summary: Sometimes good things come in small, albeit eight-legged, packages.

Dean had always liked spiders.

Well, “like” may’ve been overstating; Dean had always held an appreciation for spiders. They weren’t nasty like rats or sneaky like snakes, with spiders you knew where you stood: in his experience, anything supernatural aside, you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone. Plus, they were badass - spiders packed a lot of intimidation into a small package, could be killing machines when they wanted to be, and mostly he appreciated that they were efficient and effective when it came to dealing with the annoying bugs that occasionally popped up. He did live in a basement, after all; the world’s tiniest were not deterred by any amount of warding or weaponry.

So when he’d notice small, barely-there wisps of webs in far corners or between the bottom of a bookshelf and the wall, stretching from the carved wood to the sticky bricks, he’d leave the homemade traps be for a week or two if they were empty, and sure enough, they’d have captured some crawlers next time he made a run-through with the vacuum. It was an amicable relationship - Dean never saw the spiders, just their handiwork, and the webs seldom popped up in the same space twice. Plus, they seemed to know the kitchen was a no-fly… spider… zone, so all was well.

And then came Charlotte.

Charlotte - as Dean had eventually started calling the garden spider, much to Sam’s dismay - did not have any regard for the out-of-sight, you-don’t-get-the-boot arrangement, nor did she have any regard for giving Dean his space. The day they met, he’d sauntered into the garage, popped the Impala’s trunk, tossed in a bag and a shotgun, yelled at Sam to hurry up, then went to reach for the driver’s side handle, caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and froze. And he wasn’t the only one.

The web was thick at the edges and delicate in the middle, stretching from the side mirror to the handle, upon which Charlotte perched, her crafting put on hold. She wasn’t terribly small, but not remotely large; she would’ve easily fit on the pad of his thumb. And she was clearly of the brave - or stupid, perhaps - sort, because she didn’t immediately scurry off. She took in the sight of the giant creature before her - technically, there was eight of him, what with her four pairs of eyes and all - and she opted to see what would happen.

What happened was that Dean turned, grabbed a shop rag, and began cursing under his breath as he whipped the web into nothingness; by the time he stopped, Charlotte had skittered to places unknown.

Dean tossed the rag away, gave the handle a good eyeballing before he grabbed it, opening the door and saying in a low voice through grit teeth, “Not. The. Car.”

“What not the car?” asked Sam, bounding up the garage steps.

“Nothing,” Dean replied.

This nothing continued for six weeks.

Charlotte was a determined artist, it seemed, not to mention a fast one. She spun webs of all sizes and shapes, covering the license plate in quilt-panel squares, weaving long, ropy trails around and between the wipers, and at one point obscured the back window in a lacy pattern that Castiel noted looked like a fine guipure. She liked to travel, too, as more than once the brothers would exit a given roadside motel room to find Charlotte had been busy during the night, Sam’s personal favorite being when she’d decorated a hubcap in a complex Fibonacci design, though he’d never have let on to Dean.

On the initial occasions following such a discovery, if Dean happened to spot her, he would scold her with a sharp “NO!”, walk in her direction briskly, and she’d retreat, slipping into the trunk or under the hood, but it wasn’t long before she’d stay put, even edge closer, cutting the distance between them, eventually so bold as to crawl onto the roof of the Impala, watching as he dismantled her webs.

“Really?” he asked one morning after the latest wipe-down, bending slightly so they were eye-to-eyes.

She calmly extended one leg to the side, held it out til he got the hint, turning his head, following what he’d presumed was a point, and sure enough, he’d missed some cottony puffs that were still stuck on a tail light.

Looking back at her, he said - begrudgingly -  "Thanks.“

Dean had dealt with stranger things.

"One day I’m expecting to come out and see ‘terrific’ in a web,” Sam commented during a return trip from the latest hunt.

“What?” Dean asked.

“You know - the kid’s book. Charlotte’s Web. You read it to me when we were little. About the farm, and saving Wilbur the would-be bacon?”

“Charlotte’s anti-bacon?”

“No, I don’t think— it was— it— she was just pro-pig.”

It was after this conversation that Dean took to calling their frequent tag-a-long Charlotte. To be specific, it was after he’d brought a BLT with him into the garage while working on the car, and she’d happily investigated a bit of bacon that had escaped his plate. A point to the pro-bacon column, he thought.

Dean informed her that he was fine with her hanging around, he was even fine with her fancy webwork, but she needed to cool it when it came to the car, explaining with lots of gesturing to make sure the message got across, just in case. He’d looked it up. Spiders did not have ears.

He’d also looked up things on spider life spans, and arachnid health in general. Sam found him in the library one evening doing just that, frowning at his laptop screen as he scanned. Castiel was nearby, returning some books to their places on the shelves.

“What is he doing?” Sam asked in a hushed voice, and Castiel opened his mouth to respond, but Dean spoke, diverting their attention.

“Did Charlotte look pale to you earlier?”

Now Sam frowned. “Dean… what?”

“I mean, she’s light brown, but she looked a little yellow earlier,” Dean explained, scrolling further down a page, but then closing the window with a huff and turning in his seat to face Sam. “Can’t find anything.” A pause; a thought. “Hey, I should put out a devil’s trap drawing for her, maybe a new pattern’ll perk her up.”

Sam was, in a word, startled. “Do you think of her as a pet?”

“Why do you care?”

“Oh, I dunno - because a spider is stalking us, and you’ve named it, and you talk to it, and—-”

“What, you got a thing about spiders to go with your thing about clowns, even though your imaginary friend was a clown?” Another pause. “Come to think of it, that explains a lot.”

“Sully’s not a clown, and no, I do not have arachnophobia, what I do have is a worry that - if it is a female - it may lay a bunch of eggs, then we’ll have an infestation. Is that what you want? Bunch of spider babies in your Baby?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “She’s not gonna do that.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “Did she pinky swear?”

“Would you like me to have a look at her?” asked Castiel, and the concern in his voice was less for Charlotte and more for Dean, and less in the sympathetic way and more in the tiptoeing around someone who’s slipped into psychosis way.

Sam crossed his arms. “Taking it outside hasn’t worked, neither has trying to leave it wherever we’ve been hunting - this is getting ridiculous, will you just kill it, already?!”

Dean stood, walked over to him, defiant. “We not been doing enough killing for you lately?”

“It’s just a spider, Dean!”

“I know that! Maybe I just don’t wanna be scraping moist spider guts off my boot.”

“Does this spider communicate with you?” Castiel asked, the concern still floating under his words.

He was ignored.

“It’s not your pet, it’s a tiny insect - you don’t even know if it could be poisonous!” Sam exclaimed.

“Not an insect, genius, and Charlotte would never bite us—-”

“What is wrong with you?!”

“Have either of you considered the possibility that this is no ordinary spider?” Castiel suggested.

“Gee, thanks, Cas - no, hadn’t noticed that this is weird,” Dean shot back with a look.

“So you get that this is weird?” Sam checked.

“Our life is weird, what’s some more? And at least this is fun weird, is that so bad?” Dean replied, and the touch of melancholy in his voice caused both Sam and Castiel to stay quiet for a few moments.

The silence was broken by the ring of Dean’s phone - a case awaited them.

And, of course, Charlotte.

Dean looked up from the map as Sam came back into their motel room, six pack in one hand, phone in the other, kicking the door shut as he spoke.

“Jane called. She says a container ship from the UK was bringing in illegal cargo, for some rich people who wanted exotic animals for canned hunts—”

“Douche move.”

“—and apparently when they went to unload, the crates were all busted up. The hold was covered with what was left of the bodies of the animals. All except for one. Three guesses.”

“Big bad bacon?”

“Yup. And she thinks we’re looking at… ah….” Sam trailed off and chuckled.

“Yeah?”

“A cryptid. It’s called The Beast of Dean, a.k.a. the Moose Pig.”

“Why do I think that somewhere, somehow, whatever’s left of Crowley just got a chub.”

They were in a rural area of Virginia, not too far from Portsmouth, and had been for a week, tracking what sounded like a rabid boar, but there was enough of a bump-in-the-night bend to the word on the street that they’d been confident it fell in their wheelhouse. Now that they had confirmation, after a night of research and weapon prep, they were ready to knock out the most recent mission and get back home. The Dean-Moose was large, and it was anything but subtle. The hunt should be an easy one, wouldn’t take long, nothing to it.

Well. One thing. One sort-of big thing. Even though it was also a small thing. Sam’s pro-pig storybook spider and their companion, they’d come to find, had more in common than just a name.

.

STOP

.

There, stretched across the Impala’s grill the next morning, was an undeniable message, and given Dean’s jaw-dropped state, it prompted Sam to speak on his behalf.

“Um, Charlotte? Listen, I don’t know if you… you seem nice, and… really smart, but… look, this thing isn’t like that pig in the book.”

“Because she’s read the book,” Dean said sarcastically, breaking out of his stupor and stomping over to the car, sharp eyes looking for the sassy spider; no joy. “Hey, guess what?” he said loudly. “I’m gonna drive so fast that by the time I do stop, your web’s gonna get shredded, how do you like that? I told you my car was OFF LIMITS!”

With one last glare at the web, Dean got into the car, and Sam followed suit. They put on the radio and chatted about anything but spiders and pigs for the better part of an hour as they bumped along the winding back roads. And after parking at the edge of the woods where the most recent sighting of the beastly hog had occurred, they opened the trunk to find another message, one that unfurled neatly, springing open as the lid of the weapons compartment lifted.

.

REALLY! STOP, STUPID.

.

Punctuation, and all.

“You know…” Dean began, but trailed off with a shake of his head, snatching up the shotgun and pocketing a handful of the shells with the special filling he and Sam had cooked up the night prior.

Sam removed the freshly-etched-with-symbols machete. Dean slammed the trunk shut. Charlotte did not emerge.

As they walked deeper and deeper into the woods, Sam spoke in a quiet voice.

“When we get back, I’m calling Cas. This is out of control, Dean. The spider’s obviously somebody - or something - dicking around with us. Maybe that’s been the plan, keeping us from killing this thing.”

Dean didn’t look at him, rather kept scanning their surroundings as he responded. “Maybe. She… it… came around before that ship got here. But, yeah. Maybe something’s up.”

Sam reflexively sighed in relief, and at that moment Dean stopped, extended his arm to stop Sam’s progress, as well.

“Shhh. Listen.”

The growl was only audible for a moment before the foliage began to stir.

The hunt, it turned out, did not last long. The defeated brothers wearily tossed their dented weapons into the backseat and practically fell into the front. Dean immediately turned off the radio - the chanting of Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys” had come screaming through the speakers.

“It does kinda sound like they’re saying 'wild boars’,” Sam noted.

“Shut up.”

After they’d returned to the motel and showered, cleaned up their scratches and cuts, swapped torn clothing for intact, Sam went back to researching, while Dean went out to the Impala, damp washcloths in hand, and opened the trunk. It was barely even six o'clock, and there was still enough sunlight that he could see every trace of the webbing was gone. But he wanted to check that his little - former - friend hadn’t done anything else.

She had.

Sitting in the driver’s set, Dean’s eye was drawn to the thin, nearly opaque message across the radio, anchored by the knobs and an ejected tape.

.

BAD JOB

.

Dean swiped it away without a word, uttering a small groan and clutching his bruised ribs as he climbed out. He took a few steps, but then pivoted. He opened the door again and leaned in, voice tense as he spoke.

“Tell you what, how’s about I bring you some toothpicks and you join in tomorrow, help us out, get in a few stabs? Be useful, show us how it’s done?”

Dean fell asleep wondering if he’d completely lost his mind.

.

THIS IS DUMB .

Sam ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes - he’d been out the door first, so the newest message, covering the entirety of the hood, immediately made him brace himself for what was coming next.

But, surprisingly, Dean kept his temper in check; he merely set down his bag, returned to the room for a towel, and briskly wiped down the hood.

“Ready?” he asked Sam, forcing a smile that was likely more unsettling than intended.

Sam kept quiet, answering with a thumbs-up.

Their Everything’s Fine! charade was short-lived.

As with the prior morning, Charlotte had chosen to reinforce her message, wrapping the steering wheel so thickly it was barely visible, and her stance on their mission came through loud and clear.

.

THIS IS ACTUALLY DUMB .

Sam thought the choice of having the final “dumb” in bold italic for emphasis was a nice touch. And he noted the copious amount of webbing wound around the gear shift with raised eyebrows. And he gulped when he spotted more strands of said webbing emerging from the ignition. He cut his eyes over to Dean and, upon seeing his expression, took a step back.

This time, Charlotte did not hide. She’d positioned herself on the dashboard, right near the puffed-up wheel, standing with what could be described as quite the petulant posture. And much like the day the spider and the hunter had met, Dean froze.

Charlotte held her ground.

Dean’s nostrils flared.

Charlotte crossed her front legs as if they were arms.

Dean’s jaw clenched.

Charlotte tapped a back leg, as if to say Well get on with it.

Dean was still unmoved, and so Sam said, “You know, when you freeze like that, it’s really not as intimidating as you might—-”

“CHARLOTTE!” Dean bellowed.

She turned and sashayed to the glove box, crawling inside without the first indication she felt in any danger whatsoever.

Thankfully, the motel was just shy of a mile from from a modest gas station-diner combo. Sam talked Dean into a breakfast - with extra bacon, a thumb of the nose to both the beast and its defender. After they easily convinced the owner to loan them his truck, explaining their car’s fuel gauge was apparently broken, buying a can of gas for show, they promised they’d have it returned to him by morning.

As they drove back to grab their gear, Dean asked, “You hear from Cas?”

Sam nodded. “Reception’s crap, though - I can only hear parts of his voicemail. He found something about Charlotte, at least, I think. But he didn’t sound upset, like she was dangerous.”

“Let’s just roast the pig and get the hell outta here.”

“I’m sorry she’s not… you know, fun-weird anymore,” Sam said.

Dean lowered his foot, gunning the engine. “Yeah, well. Story of my life,” he muttered.

The truck was returned way before morning, this encounter with their newest foe having gone as well as the first. Then they found that Charlotte had removed all the web from the Impala, though the door to the motel room held some snark:

.

NICE HEAD

.

Dean barely glanced at it - possibly a little hard to do with the near swollen-shut, a breath away from blackened eye - and didn’t even bother to clean it off. There was no message from Charlotte the next morning. Dean did bother to wonder if she was gone.

The sound of the tree cracking sent both of them diving behind a small knoll, gasping for breath, cringing as it crashed down just where they’d been not seconds earlier.

“I’m empty,” Dean said, returning his gun to his waistband. “You?”

“About ten minutes ago,” Sam answered.

The beast’s growls now turned into a piercing scream, a most furious howl, angry it couldn’t find them. They heard it turning up earth with its tusks, sending rocks flying, then ramming its head into yet another tree, the trunk buckling under the strain. Dean had managed to send a bullet into its snout, likely preventing it from sniffing them out, if the occasional gurgling snorts were any indication. Sam had earned himself a minor goring to his calf, but otherwise they were intact.

“Think you can run?” Dean asked, gesturing to the bandanna-wrapped wound.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, I think so. That the plan? Just make a run for it?”

“You got any better ideas?”

“On three?”

“One… two…. three!”

They dodged trees, though the beast didn’t bother, taking out the smaller ones along the way, picking up speed with every moment that passed, while the brothers were losing speed at the same time.

Dean noticed a large branch in their path up ahead and started to veer off from Sam, pointing to it and yelling, “Keep going! I’ll try to knock Porky out!”

“No!” Sam yelled back, grimacing each time his leg made contact with the ground. “It’ll kill—- HUUUURMMPPHH!”

Sam went down, Dean not far behind, something tripping both of them, causing them to fall with such force that whatever air they had left in their lungs got knocked out. Disoriented, they raised their heads only to immediately duck them, covering up with their arms, as the beast was still plowing ahead. Its hooves hit the ground in between them, tossing dirt everywhere, its speed too far gone for it to stop on a dime. They expected to soon hear it reversing course, so Sam opened his eyes, trying to spot a place to hide, Dean doing the same, trying to spot the branch.

Instead, the sound of the most meek squeal one could imagine reached their ears, prompting Dean and Sam to turn their gazes directly ahead.

They were at the bottom of a small incline, and they watched as the boar’s head rolled their way, their heads slowly turning as they observed it leisurely passing by. It came to a sudden stop against something near their feet. They shared a look, moving in sync onto their knees.

“Uh, Dean?” Sam said.

Dean looked up from inspecting the severed head to find Sam with his hand extended, pushing under something that Dean couldn’t make out, but a shift in position and a tilt of his head allowed him to see the bright moonlight glint off the surprisingly thick, iridescent rope running across Sam’s fingers.

Another look, another in sync movement as they stood, then tentatively walked forward til they reached the body. This time, Dean spotted it right away when he crouched, the finely-wound strands that were stretched between two trees, at just the perfect height to relieve a squatty hog monster of its head. He flicked it with a finger, as one would a string on a guitar, and it was just as taut.

“She clotheslined it,” Sam said, awestruck. “She tripped us so we wouldn’t… That could’ve clipped us at the knees. She… she…”

Dean looked up at Sam, and a slow smile spread across his face. "She’s awesome!”

Sam shifted his weight off of his bad leg, and grinned. “Think she’s any good with stitches?”

How Charlotte managed to spin their salvation in such little time, they’d never know, and they also had no idea how she beat them back to the car, but the evidence was there, across the driver’s side window. .

SOME PIG .

They laughed, Dean saying, “You ain’t lying.”

But before he could say anything else, Charlotte crawled out from under the handle. She scurried up her web, and as they watched, she whipped the “P” into a “D”; the “I” went “E” in a few short passes; the “G” was partially dismantled, then spun into an “A”; and in mere seconds, there appeared an “N”. .

SOME DEAN .

After a quick hop from its tip, a slide to the outside of one of the long connecting end pieces, and a drop of a new line of silk, their eyes followed her as she leapt, letting the momentum swing her clean up onto the roof. And then - Sam would swear to it, many times over the coming years - she curtsied.

“Thanks,” Dean said softly. “You, too.” With that, he opened the back door, gestured for her to climb inside.

Which, she did.

“Yes… yes… that’s very kind of you.”

Dean, Sam, and Castiel were standing outside the bunker, the former waiting patiently - and occasionally impatiently - as the latter had a conversation with Charlotte.

Castiel looked to them. “She says she likes my tie. The material meets her standards.”

Dean’s expression was completely flat, causing Sam to snicker.

“There any reason you didn’t tell us you could’ve been talking to her this whole time?” Dean demanded.

Castiel shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

It turned out that Castiel’s message had been to inform them that Charlotte was indeed a most special spider, more so than what they’d already divined. She was an emissary, an information-gatherer, a spy of sorts, though not a nefarious one. And because she herself was quite the accomplished hunter, she chose to spend time with other hunters whenever her journeys brought her to them.

And now, it was time for Charlotte to start her next journey.

Castiel was nodding his head as Charlotte, who was on his collar, near his ear, told him one last thing. “She’d like you to know that Sam was correct - she does need to prepare to lay her eggs, though she would not have done so in the car,” Castiel related.

Dean shot Sam a smug look.

“And she says she’ll name them Dean.”

Dean blinked. “All of them?”

“Yes.”

“How many we talking?”

A pause as Charlotte answered, and Castiel replied, “Anywhere from fifty to sixty.”

“That’s… a lot,” Dean said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Not really,” Sam commented.

Another look from Dean - actually, he cycled through several.

“Fine. So maybe I did some research, too,” Sam admitted.

“It’s time for her to go,” Castiel announced. “She says she’s enjoyed your company immensely. And she apologizes for the web you’ve yet to find. It seems she was in a cranky mood that evening.”

“That’s okay. Tell her it’s okay,” Dean said, walking closer. “Tell her that, um… it’s been great knowing her. Don’t be a stranger. All that.”

Castiel smiled. “She knows.” He raised his hand to his shoulder, and Charlotte climbed onto it. “I’m going to give her a boost,” he explained, and then to Charlotte he said, “Please do give Mr. Anansi the Winchester brothers’ warmest regards.”

They watched as Charlotte prepped a silk balloon, and after a gentle wave of Castiel’s hand, off she flew.  

“It would be… cheesy of me to comment it is angelic, their flight, wouldn’t it?” Castiel asked.

“Yes,” Dean and Sam answered in unison.

They began to walk back inside.

“What was that at the end? About Anansi?” asked Sam.

“Networking,” Castiel replied.

“I wouldn’t worry about us ever having to tangle with him,” Dean said. “I mean, not with Charlotte on our side. She’ll talk us up. She’s a talker.”

“Plus, there’ll be all the Deans,” Sam added.

“Yup. Exactly. We are cool with the spider kingdom,” said Dean, and with great confidence.

Dean was incorrect on this point, as he and Sam would later learn, during a case involving a young lady by the name of Muffet.

But that’s another story.

Want more stories? My Master Post is linked in my profile, and it tells you about getting on the Tag List, too! If for whatever reason it gives you trouble, don’t hesitate to send an Ask and I’ll link you.

Re-blogs and feedback are fuel for a writer’s soul - please do let me know if you enjoyed. 😘

Author’s Note #2 - The Jane mentioned is a character from my story Supernatural: Revelation, which you can find linked on the master post -or- just go straight to AO3, same author name SeeNashWrite 😁

Author’s Note #3 -  This also included a prompt which had languished in drafts - albeit with the note “Anansi” from the get-go, thankyouverymuch! - which was from the cringeworthy submissions:

You can find all the #Nash300 Follower Celebration Master List of Madness stories (wherein I asked followers to send me prompts consisting of three words to make me cringe) via the Master Post.

Author’s Note #4: The beast of Dean mentioned is actually a thing, give it a google! And so is Anansi, check that out, too. If you don’t get the Muffet reference, well, I can’t help you with that. 😉

[queertazsecretsanta]

Bird Feed

A gift for @call-me-page, created by @aphaceland!

Happy Candlenights!

Title: Bird Feed

“Lup, that better not be the fresh bread you’re feeding them.”

“They deserve the best, Taako.”

Ever since the two of them opened up the Bready or Not Bakery, people had been flocking to the twins to get their fill of the kickass pastries they made. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones flocking. At first it was a group of pigeons that swarmed a warm bun that someone dropped on the sidewalk outside. Then word traveled to the sparrows and seagulls after some poor soul dropped their cupcake frosting-side down, sending sprinkles scattering across the curb. The most recent freeloaders had been a bunch or ravens or crows or whatever cawing up a storm right in front of the shop. At this point Taako had had enough and Lup wasn’t helping at all.

“That’s probably not even good for them.” Taako said, crossing his arms and leaning on the door frame.

“As long as it’s not all they’re eating it’s fine. Just a little snacky snack for some good birdy boys,” she said in a sing-song voice. Great, his sister was baby talking to a bunch of dirty street birds.

“Alright, suit yourself. Just know that ya boy, that’s me, hi, is gonna take your tips if you don’t get your butt inside and help me make the rest of the muffins before the store opens.”

At that, Lup gets up, dusts herself off, and runs back inside, glancing back only once to see the gathering of various birds enjoying the crumbs she left behind. Only after the birds finished their small snack did a raven, much larger than the other ones present, land right in the middle of the frenzy. The other birds flew off, leaving the raven looking for what was left. The large raven flew over to the side of the shop, right beside the display case that Taako was setting up for the day. The raven perched itself on the windowsill and pecked at the glass.

Taako only spared a single cursory glance the raven’s way before he went back to setting up. It was enough that he had to get out of bed early to make the pastries, but he had to arrange the display just right so that it was all appealing as fuck. The taste was already amazing, natch, but you need to make sure the people actually bothered to buy it first. He was positioning a cheesecake slice so that strawberry was just perfect under the lighting when the raven pecked at the glass again.

“What?” he asked, nearly dropping the cake in the process.

The raven pointed its beak insistently at the display. Taako couldn’t tell what exactly it was pointing at, but that hardly mattered anyway.

“Sorry, my man. You missed the feeding frenzy like a minute ago,” he shrugged, not sorry in the slightest. The raven only shook its head and ruffled its feathers, pointing again at the counter. Taako looked over at where the beak was pointing and saw the bowl of elderflower macarons.

“Nope. This is a Taako o-ri-gi-nal. Paying customers only.”

He was talking to a bird. A smart bird, but a bird nonetheless. He made a shooing motion with his hand and it seemed to have finally gotten the message. It flew off to leave Taako in relative peace before the morning rush started.

The raven, however, was not deterred. He waited patiently, with puffed up feathers, outside of the door, not quite feeling the cold breeze of the brisk autumn day. He had closed his eyes and nearly drifted off when he heard the telltale ‘ding!’ of the bell over the door being rung. Someone was going inside. Seizing the opportunity, the raven hopped up and walked in before the door slammed shut. Too short to be within line of sight, he walked over to the back room, making sure his talons didn’t clack too loudly against the tile.

Inside, he saw the elf from before. He looked engrossed in his baking. He was kneading dough for some confection when a kitchen timer went off. The raven clambered underneath a table and tried to hide in the shadows. Taako didn’t seem to notice him, though, and went over to the oven to pull out a tray of cinnamon rolls. The smell of fresh cinnamon wafted through the room, spurring the raven into action.

The raven flew out from under the table directly at Taako. He flared out his wings and yelled, mimicking the elf’s voice. “TAAKO O-RI-GI-NAL!”

Taako jumped with a yelp and fumbled the tray. A few cinnamon rolls fell before he could right it, though the screaming fucking bird in his kitchen was currently taking priority. The raven swooped down and grabbed a roll before it hit the ground and attempted to fly away. However, this gave Taako an opportunity to attack. He put the tray down and grabbed the bird’s leg. It flapped uselessly in his hand, clutching its stolen prize for dear life.

“What the fuck!” he yelled.

A few seconds later, Lup burst in with her wand at the ready. The confused and somewhat frightened expressions of the customers were visible for the few seconds the door was open. Lup looked around the room, seemingly searching for another person. Her worried expression turned deadpan when she saw her brother holding a bird that was awkwardly trying to free its leg.

“Goddamn it Taako, it sounded like you were being murdered in here.”

“Worse!” He pointed the raven at her. “This is what happens when you feed the birds, Lup.”

The raven had certainly found itself in a sticky situation. He could already feel the effects of the polymorph spell wearing off. He threw his head back, trying to eat the cinnamon roll before he turned back. Unfortunately he couldn’t even have that. Taako grabbed the part of the roll that was still hanging out of his beak and threw it out.

“Just toss it out the back door. And wash your hands, you don’t know where it’s been.” Lup said.

“Oh yeah, says the one who was feeding them the good bread in the first place. What happened to your good birdy boys, huh?” he teased, but walked to the backdoor anyway.

At that point, the raven was relieved. He may not have gotten the whole thing, but just tasting it would suffice. More importantly, he needed to get somewhere private or else the spell would end right in the middle of-

It sucked that it was an instantaneous transformation. Suddenly, instead of Taako holding a mischievous raven with half a cinnamon roll in his mouth, he was holding a grown man with half a cinnamon roll in his mouth. By the leg. The sudden shift in weight caused them both to fall over.

Taako was taken entirely by surprise. And, nope! He did not like that shit one bit. He pushed the man roughly off of him. “What the fuck is your- oh shit you’re actually kinda hot.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you hurt? I didn’t- I didn’t think it was going to go like that,” the man said.

“What did you expect to happen?” Lup said, now thoroughly confused.

Taako took the time to study the man as he and Lup argued. Well, it was more Lup arguing and him apologizing. He had shoulder-length dreads and a tastefully short beard. He was fully gothed out, with a black suit, skull patterned tie, and raven skull earrings. Taako also noticed the barest hint of fangs as he spoke. Fuckin’ nice.

“So, what’s your story? Any reason you, uh, busted into my shop, bird boy?” Taako said, almost certainly interrupting his and Lup’s conversation.

The man regarded Taako for a moment and Taako hoped he was checking him out. He fixed his tousled hair and rolled over onto his side so he could have a good look. Lup rolled her eyes.

“Um, my name is Kravitz and I’m not usually a bird. It’s just… the food here is so good and I don’t have any money-”

“You don’t have any money?” the twins asked in disbelief, gesturing at his immaculate suit.

“What, your sugar daddy’s holding out on you?” Taako asked with a giggle in his voice.

Kravitz frowned. “I don’t- I’m not- I don’t have one of those, so no. My job doesn’t really have a salary?”

Mild disbelief turned into full-fledged suspicion. What the hell was this guy talking about? “What do you even work as?” Lup asked.

Kravitz took note of the fact that she still hadn’t lowered her wand, so he had to choose his words carefully. He couldn’t exactly tell these people he was a reaper for the Raven Queen. If word got out that the literal Grim Reaper uses the powers that his Queen gifted him to get food from a local bakery, his reputation would take a massive hit. Especially since he technically doesn’t need to eat in the first place. Gods, he wanted this moment to be over.

“I work… as a… mortician.” Kravitz cringed at his own answer.

Taako rested his chin in his hand and cocked his head to the side. “Pretty sure they get paid.”

“They get paid more than us, I know that much.”

Kravitz stood. “Look, I’m sorry for the trouble and the mess. I really don’t have any money. I can find something to give you, though.”

He reached into his pockets and felt the jingling of trinkets he had collected on the job, as well as the occasional reward from the Raven Queen. He would hate to give those up, so he only pulled out a pair of earrings and a necklace he found on a previous job. They weren’t his style anyway. The earrings were both gold with sparkling rubies dangling from a chain. The necklace was probably part of that set. It was also gold, but it had several chains of dazzling rubies adorning the front. He preferred to wear cool colors, and this looks good enough to cover the losses.

“Um, is this good?”

Both twins practically ran into him to get a good look. Lup snatched up the earrings while Taako inspected the necklace. Their eyes widened as they appraised the jewelry and gave each other a look. Strings of anxiety knotted up in Kravitz’ chest. He hoped it was enough. He clutched the silver pocket watch his Queen gave him after his last job. There’s no way he’d give this one up.

“Yeah, that just about covers it, my man.” Taako said, putting the necklace on. It didn’t fit with the whole ‘flour-covered apron’ look he had going on, but Taako made it work. Taako always made it work.

Kravitz sighed in relief. “Well, if that’s it, I should probably get going.”

“Hold on a second, there’s still an issue we gotta deal with. Lup, could you uh, check out the customers out front, see how they’re doing?”

Lup looked at him, then Kravitz, then back at him. She sighed and put her wand back in her pocket. “Only because you helped me with Barry.”

Kravitz felt even more nervous with only one twin in the room. Taako eyed him up and down and Kravitz felt the need to stand up straighter under his scrutiny.

“So I take it you’re gonna be back tomorrow, yeah? You thinkin’ of going as a bird again or what?”

Kravitz cleared his throat. “No. I’d like to avoid… all of this from happening again. Thanks for taking my offer, and sorry again for… everything.”

Well damn. This guy was way too sweet. Taako was beginning to feel bad for taking advantage of the guy. What he gave them was way more than enough to cover the three cinnamon rolls he dropped. Lup would probably feed them to the birds anyway. Taako sighed dramatically, prompting Kravitz to cock his head to one side as if he’s trying to figure out if he said something wrong. Damn, he was cute. Taako strode over to the tray of cinnamon rolls and tossed Kravitz one.

“Here, since you like those so much. Look, I’ll be real with you. Since you have like no understanding of money whatsoever, I’ll be nice and let you know that this,” he gestures to the necklace, “is way more expensive than a few cinnamon rolls. Now, I’m deffo keeping it, but I figured since you’re such a hungee boy I’d make you something even better.”

Kravitz’ eyes widened and a barely subdued smile crept onto his face. “Like a chocolate cake?”

At that, Taako sported his own lopsided grin. “Yeah, fuck it. I was gonna go for dinner, too. Make a night of it y’know.”

“Taako, I-” he paused to consider his next words. “Thank you. You really don’t have to do this you know.”

“I know, there is no end to my generosity, is there?” Taako turned and searched the top shelf, pulling out a pen and clicking it a few times before walking over to Kravitz. “You got a phone, homie?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before he started scrawling his number on Kravitz’ palm. “No, but I’ll send a raven.”

Taako paused in his writing and looked up to give him another look of utter confusion and disbelief. He was met with a shit-eating grin. Taako rolled his eyes and continued writing. “You ass.”

Kravitz laughed at his own joke like a dork, and also maybe a little bit at how the pen tickled his hand. “I’ll be sure to bring you something pretty.”

Taako definitely wasn’t opposed to that. His wardrobe needed some upgrades, but he was literally doing this because Kravitz got him something too pretty. Well, that and because he’s hot.

“Just bring your cute face and you’re all set, then. Anyway, text me later, I’ll give you the details, cool?”

“Yeah,” Kravitz said, looking at the number written messily on his hand. “Cool.”

“Alright, it’s a date. Now get out of my kitchen.” Taako said, pushing him out the back door.

Even as he was being shoved out, Kravitz felt a smile, wide and genuine, on his face. That went better than he could’ve ever expected. The back alley he found himself in was a perfectly private place to portal himself back into the Astral Plane. He went to his quarters before his Queen could tease him about the dopey smile that had no plan on leaving his face any time soon. He sat at his desk and added Taako’s contact to his phone. He held the phone to his chest as he swiveled from side to side in his office chair. Then he stopped and slammed his hands on the desk.

“Wait, did he say date?”

[shenanigans-and-imagines]

We’re the Bad Guys: Part 2

(not my gif)

Masterlist

AO3 Link/ Support Me on Ko-fi

Poe Dameron x Reader (eventually), First Order!Reader

Summary: From the day you were born, you were taught the rebels and their New Republic were the bad guys. But, after you crash land on a remote moon with only the Resistance’s poster boy for company, things begin the change.

Based off of this drabble and headcanon

A/N: PLEASE REBLOG AND COMMENT IF YOU LIKE THIS! For real guys, nothing motivate writers like validation.

Word Count: 2.3 K

          The smell of burning metal and smoke filled your nose, snapping you back to reality.  Everything was in a haze as muffled alarms blared through the burning wreck that was once your Tie-Fighter. 

          You couldn’t breathe.  In an act of desperation, you yanked off your helmet.  The smoke hit you full force, forcing a hard cough from your lungs. 

          Fighting through the ache in your back and chest, you sat up.  You barely got two inches off the ground before collapsing, sending a spike of pain through your entire body.  You needed to move.  You would suffocate if you didn’t, but every limb was refusing to take orders. 

          Why couldn’t you have just died on impact? At least then you could had gone out with some dignity.  As it stood, all you could do was sit and choke.

          You vision was starting to fade.  The world blinked between blurred and black.  You closed your eyes in a vain attempt to clear your head. When you opened them again, the red of your control board was gone.  

          Above you stood a darkening blue sky with only the tops of trees to interrupt the view. A notion of confusion entered your mind.  It was then you finally noticed a pair of hands tucked under your arms and the sensation of your legs being dragged on the ground.  You came to a stop and black started to enter your vision.

          “Hey. Pilot. Can you hear me?” a muffled voice asked.

          You blinked again.  Now the sky was blocked by handsome man with dark curls and darker eyes.  His brows furrowed in concern as he looked you over.  You might had counted yourself lucky, if it weren’t for the fact he was wearing the orange flight suit of a New Republic X-Wing fighter.

          The world snapped into focus as you jerked away.  Your hand instinctively went to your side, only to find your blaster nowhere in reach.

          “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he assured.  He reached out to you, but you slapped his hand away.  It didn’t deter him.  He only scooted around you, placing a hand on your back to help you upright. You tried to fight him off, but it was an exercise in futility. Your arms were still too weak, and you could feel a steady throb growing in your left leg. 

          He kept his hand on your back to keep you steady as he glanced up at the fading sun.

          “Put your arm around my shoulders,” he instructed.

          You answered with a hateful look, but he only rolled his eyes.

          “It’s either that or I carry you,” he said honestly.

          You stared him down, but, after a moment, you did as he asked. He gave you a small smile of thanks before lifting you to your feet.

          You muffled a cry as you did, the throb in your leg turning into a sharp spike of pain.  If the pilot heard you, he made no mention of it.

          Once you were standing, you finally got a clear view of your ship.  It was damaged beyond repair.  The only reason why it wasn’t worse, was because you had somehow managed to only brush the tops of the trees before crashing into a small clearing.  By all accounts, you shouldn’t have been alive.

          As if feeling your thoughts, the pilot turned your away from the sight and towards the tree line.

          “C’mon, let’s get that leg looked at.”

          His words surprised you.  Hell, every action he had taken had surprised you since the moment you opened your eyes. It was only when he started leading you through the forest did it dawn on you how strange it all was.  Moments ago, this man had made a very clear effort to kill you and you had attempted the same.  And now he was helping you?  What sense did that make?

          Soon enough, you came to another clearing.  Off towards the edge was his ship.  You weren’t sure whether to be impressed or outraged by the sight.

          The pilot had actually managed to land the damn thing.  Sure, it was half buried in the dirt and wouldn’t be lifting off any time soon.  Still, it was salvageable, and he had walked away unharmed.  

          It was at that moment a little orange BB unit blurred into vision beeping and whistling up a storm.  You couldn’t make out a thing it was saying, but the pilot easily translated.

          “I’m fine buddy,” he said with a smile.  “Can you get the med kit from the emergency pack.”

          The droid was taken aback by this comment, looking between you and the pilot with what could only be described as suspicion. It let out an indignant beep.

          “Because they’re hurt, and I said so,” he said.

          The droid then looked to your leg and up your entire body.  It stared at your face for a long while.  You could feel yourself being scrutinized under its tiny gaze.  You wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, but a small part of you knew you had to take it seriously.  You straighten yourself up as best you could and looked right back, never once blinking.

          It then turned back to his master with one last whistle. The pilot then looked at you and back to the droid before shrugging.

          “Beats me too bud.”

          And with that, he guided you to a nearby log watching after your leg the whole time. You wanted to ask what the droid had said but decided against it. You had to protect what dignity you had left.  Asking an enemy soldier what their droid said about you seemed like a silly thing to break your silence over.

          The droid then rolled over, handing the pilot the kit.

          ��Thanks BB-8. Any luck?”

          BB-8 gave a sad beep and shook its head.

          “Alright,” the pilot said, “just keep me updated.”

          It gave one last beep, standing tall at being assigned its new mission and rolled away.

          You didn’t need to ask what they were talking about then.  You could see clearly enough distress beacon set up beside the ship. A small bit of hope filled you.  If the pilot had to resort to the distress beacon, it meant his radio was out.  The beacon would have to be set to all frequencies to be effective.  Which meant, the First Order had just as much chance to pick up the transmission as the Resistance.

          “Let’s take a look at that leg,” he said, bringing you out of your thoughts.

          Your eyes narrowed as you moved your injured leg out of his reach.  You let out a hiss in pain at the effort.

          The pilot let out a huff of frustration.  “Your leg needs to be set.  Let me help you.”

          You refused to comply, hitting him with the strongest look of contempt you could muster.

          He got the message.  With some reluctance, he left the med kit on the log beside you and lifted his hands in surrender.

          “Fine.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

          He backed away to a respectful distance, all while keeping his attention right on you.

          If he thought you were going to cave from stage fright, he was sorely mistaken. With as much care as you could manage, you pulled your boot off your foot. You let out an involuntary cry of pain as you did.  The pilot’s eyes widened at the sound, and he made a move toward you.  You shot him a glare at he did.  There was a long moment of silence before he nodded a took a seat once more.  

          You turned your attention back to your leg. It was more certainly broken. You gathered what supplies that you could from the med kit, and tore a few branches laying on the ground around you.

          “So, what’s your name,” the pilot asked, breaking the silence.

          You didn’t answer right away as you kept your focus on binding your leg.

          “I don’t talk to traitors,” you answered coolly.

          He raised an eyebrow at your answer. “Oh, so you can talk,” he said sardonically. “And here I was thinking all First Order pilots took a vow of silence or something.”

           You said nothing, allowing the silence to speak for itself.

          “Well, I’m Poe, Poe Dameron,” he said conversationally. “I take it you’ve heard of me.”

          The name did surprise you.  Poe Dameron had made quite a reputation for himself.  You had heard his name tossed around casually as the best pilot in General Organa’s not so secret Resistance.  You hated to admit it, but the rumors didn’t do him justice.  Of course, you would never say it to his face.

          “Only in passing,” you said dryly. 

          “Oh really?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.  “What do they say in passing?”

          “That you’re one of the bad guys.”

          He snorted out a laugh.  “Well there’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

          “Is that so,” you said as you tied the list knot in your splint.  “Who shot me down exactly?”

          “If fairness, you tried to kill me first.”

          “Only because you attacked our ships,” you countered sharply.  You were starting to take issue with how casually he was taking the situation. “Last time I checked, the New Republic and First Order had a pact of nonaggression.”

          His smile faded, and his expression grew serious.  It looked odd on him.  Something told you it wasn’t a look he used often.

          “I don’t act in the name of the Republic.”

          “Of course, you just act in name of Resistance, funded by the New Republic.”

          He didn’t have a ready come back.  His expression grew blank.  You had to wonder if the attack on the supply run was even ordered by General Organa in the first place.  

          “Not to worry Commander,” you said ironically. “Your little indiscretion isn’t going to make the First Order declare war on anyone.  We’re subject to the same technicalities as you are.”

          He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  Good.  Let him be the one of edge for once.  His easy smiles were starting to get on your nerves.

          “How’s your leg?” he asked, changing the subject.

          You gave a hollow laugh. “Don’t pretend you care about my well-being.”

          “Who’s pretending?  I saved your life.”

          “Only to ensure your own.”

          “What’s that supposed to mean?”

          You rolled your eyes.  Just how naïve did he think you were?

          “The distress beacon transmits to all frequencies,” you said in a condescending tone. “We’re in First Order space. If you think saving my life will somehow lessen your punishment, you’re sorely mistaken.”

          He stared at you in stunned silence, blinking a few times as he came to grips with what you just said.

          “Wait, you’re telling me that you think I saved your life not because it was the right thing to do, but to save my own skin?” he asked.

          “Yes.”

          The man continued to gape at you.  His ran his hand over his jaw, shaking his head in bewilderment.

          You felt your own uncertainty fill you.  Either he was the greatest actor you had ever met, or he truly didn’t understand why he would save someone for his own gain.  It made you uncomfortable.  You didn’t want his kindness to be sincere.  He was your enemy.  He needed to stay your enemy.

          “So, I take it if the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t have done the same?”

          Your stomach twisted unpleasantly.  You didn’t know.  Would you had let him die?  You thought back to a moment during your battle.  You had wanted to reach out to him, to warn him not to jump to hyperspace in a damaged ship.  

          No. It was just a moment of weakness. You couldn’t let him win.  

          “No,” you said stiffly. “I would have let you burn.”

          He stared at you for a long while.  His dark eyes peered into yours, making your insides twist under their scrutiny. After what felt like an eternity, he looked away, shaking his head.

          “I can’t buy that.”

          Your eyes narrowed as frustration started to build within you.  Why couldn’t he just hate you?

          “You don’t know me Commander. I don’t take mercy on my enemies that way you do.”

          He scoffed as his exasperation grew. “You really are a piece of work.”

          “I don’t like being patronized,” you said matter-of-factly. “I never asked you to be nice to me and I certainly didn’t ask you to save my life.  Don’t expect me to be grateful.”

          He opened his mouth to say something, but his own anger and frustration was becoming too much.  Shaking his head, he got to his feet and walked away from you.

          Good.  Let him hate you.  It would make everything easier.

          Before you could settle into the new status quo, however, he spun back towards you.  

          “No. You know what? Screw you!” he snapped. “I’m not going to apologize for rescuing you.  Cause I’d do it again, and again, and again because that’s what good people do. That’s what a decent person does!”

          Your eyes widened at his outburst.

          He wasn’t looking for a response.  He had said his piece.  Without another word, he turned around and walked back towards his ship.

          You sat there in awkward silence for a long while.  Guilt began to creep into your thoughts and stomach.  He was making this so unnecessarily complicated. 

          He was a member of the Resistance.  His parents were undoubtedly rebels.  The same people who had torn the life you should have had away from you. You weren’t his friend.  You could never be his friend.  

          On the other hand, he had saved your life and you were stuck on an alien moon with no clear chance of rescue anytime soon.  You could be spending days, maybe even weeks in each other’s company. Maybe he had the right idea of at least being civil too each other.  

          You watched him as he sorted through supplies, counting out rations, heat blankets and whatever else he could find.  It didn’t slip past your notice how he was making two piles of equal proportion.

          You ran your hand down you face letting out a long sigh.  Unnecessarily complicated indeed.

Permanent tag list: @sassy-satanunicorns, @roseslovedreams, @stargeek727, @kaliforniacoastalteens, @yourwonderbelle

Poe tag list: @readytourie, @starwrite-er, @xenwayy, @whymak, @thefirebreather00, @cobalt-one, @aroseamongthestars, @tlittlet, @bobateaandchocolatepudding, @mrsdaamneron, @giggleberts, @natureandfanfiction

Story tag list: @mae-laufeyson, @sithskywalkers, @phoenixsolo, @badwolfandtimelords

[journeysintowebcomics]

Stand Still Stay Silent Liveblog #46

UPDATE 46: Flee and Get Cornered

Last time the ghosts Mikkel, Tuuri and Reynir had unknowingly disturbed from the abandoned medical building had followed them to the tank. The results were...largely unpleasant for everyone. Onni’s magical intervention saved the day, and now it’s time to drive away and hope ghosts can’t follow them anymore, I guess, or at least that it’ll take them a while to find them. So let’s continue.

Sigrun wakes up, and since she was adamant about not moving the tank from the royal palace and exposing themselves to every troll in Copenhagen. They have to search for a new camping site. Hm...that’s a problem. Lalli is the one who found the last few camping sites, and he’s unconscious right now. Without his help, how are they going to find a good place to rest at? I suppose Sigrun could help with that, since she’s experience with all things related to trolls and their behavior, but still, this could be difficult.

I don’t think they managed to get too far away before they encountered a troll. Or...more like they crashed into a troll. Literally. Hey, at least this killed the troll or made it unable to pursue them, so it’s all okay, right?

Did we get into a crossover with the War of the Worlds? Is there going to be a twist that says Minna Sundberg secretly is H.G. Wells?

Is this going to be the cover of the next SSSS book? Leaving aside that this clearly is London instead of Copenhagen.

That’s not the only troll around. Many more, looking just like that one they just ran over, come to attack. Sigrun and Tuuri aren’t deterred, they keep driving, while Mikkel makes sassy comments and Emil expresses confusion. The usual team dynamic, you see.

Silly Sigrun, those jellyfish things don’t have any skulls.

Tuuri drives the tank to a place I think is out the town, judging by how they’re driving along a shed and a river. I’m not sure what’s safer, the city or the countryside. Over the road they encounter a blockage on the way, it seems to be a bunch of roots crossing the street from the side and into the water. Knowing this story, these aren’t mere roots. This size sure is a bad sign, whatever they’re connected must be humongous.

There’s no time to turn around and look for an alternate route. Sigrun makes the tank stop, and they get down to examine the obstacle. A quick axe swing shows the roots are dead. That’s unexpected, I thought for sure something ugly was going to happen. Maybe the tall trolls they encountered along the way will corner them while they tear apart the roots. Emil is assigned guard duty, for everyone’s sake. He must defend them all without using his guns. That’s going to be a problem, a knife isn’t going to be very effective against those stilted things.

It’s because you’re reliable to some extent, Emil! Kind of. Well, enough to kill trolls, especially when he has no other option than to defend himself. He can do it, somehow.

It’s still sunset. If I remember this correctly, it takes around an hour for the sun to fully set, and this will take a while. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. They keep chopping, Tuuri waits at the wheel, I suppose Reynir is currently trying to calm down in some corner of the tank, and Sigrun and Mikkel chop down the roots.

...I knew it. I knew it! This thing is alive! This is going to be a nightmare.

Whatever this enormous beast is slithers into the water, dragging all of its tentacles. It doesn’t seem to be too deterred by the large man with an axe. It grabs Sigrun on the way down, into the channel, catching her off-guard, judging by her deer-in-the-headlights face. She still has her weapon. I hope she’ll be okay, fighting underwater is going to be difficult, especially in constant movement and murky water.

...for some reason, the giant lets go of Sigrun when they touch the water. That gives her the chance to swim to the wall and call for Mikkel, since he’s pretty strong, surely he can pull her up with something. Perhaps with a piece of troll tentacle.  He goes for a rope, and while he’s gone, the giant surfaces. Not a good sign. When Mikkel returns, he’s told to pass Tuuri a message: drive as far away as possible, out of the town. While this is a reasonable order, it gives me a bad feeling. It sounds a lot like she doesn’t think she’ll survive and is giving an order to ensure the survival of the rest. If it wasn’t because she wants Mikkel to stay with her so he can drag her up, I’d think she was about to die! Since the captain gave the order, they can’t go against it. Good luck, Sigrun.

She had barely gotten halfway up the wall when a tentacle burst out of the water and grabbed Sigrun, dragging her into the water. Hm...I wonder...no way Tuuri didn’t see this, so what will she do now? Will she refuse to go on, or will she obey Sigrun’s orders? Will she try to help her somehow? Trying to help could put herself and Sigrun in more danger. I’d say following Sigrun’s orders would be the best thing to do, if only because disobeying them and trying to rescue her could lead to more injuries and/or deaths.

The noise of underwater struggle gets Emil’s attention, who looks back and wonders if he’s needed. Technically he is! Also, is he supposed to stay or to be in the tank, now that they’re leaving? I think they kind of forgot Emil was kind of far from the tank. Before Emil can move, the War of the Worlds trolls arrive.

So now Sigrun and Emil are in danger, there are two completely different and separate attacks going on. Things looks pretty dire right now. Judging from Ms. Sundberg’s note here, this was the last post of the week, leaving it in a cliffhanger until next week. I’ll stop too – because this looks like a good stopping point!

Next time: in seven updates

[lonnysapotheek]

Comments on Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled “Importation of Prescription Drugs, FDA-2019-N-5711, 84 Fed. Reg. 70796

Below is a copy of Gabriel Levitt’s comments on the FDA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled “Importation of Prescription Drugs” that were submitted Monday, March 9th, 2020.

Comments on Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled “Importation of Prescription Drugs, FDA-2019-N-5711, 84 Fed. Reg. 70796

Docket No. FDA-2019-N-5711

Date: March 9, 2020

Submitter: Gabriel Levitt, Co-founder and President, PharmacyChecker; Founder and President, Prescription Justice

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). Founded in 2002, and launching its website in 2003, PharmacyChecker provides consumers with online pharmacy verification and comparative drug price information to help them make the best decisions for themselves and their families on how to afford prescription drugs.

Prescription Justice was founded in 2015 to help end the crisis of a high drug prices in America. Prescription Justice advocates for policies that are supported by overwhelming majorities of American voters, Republican and Democrat. They include ending the ban on Medicare negotiating drug prices; banning reverse patent agreements among brand and generic drug companies, also known as “pay-for-delay; legalizing the importation of lower-cost, safe and effective drugs; and advocating for the use of FDA enforcement discretion to allow Individuals the freedom to import affordable medications for their own care.

The FDA should be commended for its effort to create rules, pursuant to Section 804 of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, that can lead to a regulated and safe channel of wholesale drug importation from Canada to help reduce cost burdens on states and consumers. The agency has created a well-thought-out roadmap for states and other non-federal entities to safely import medications directly from licensed and qualified Canadian wholesale pharmacies that charge lower prices than their U.S. counterparts.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 29% of American adults (74 million people) do not fill a prescription as directed because of cost.[1] That the U.S. tolerates this magnitude of cost-related medication non-adherence, in which people die because of drug prices, should shock our national conscience.[2] About four million Americans import lower-cost medicine for personal use each year, and about 20 million say they have done so at some point because the prices are much lower in other countries.[3] In doing so, they often technically violate federal law.[4] For many, they have no other choice.[5]

The NPRM accurately and importantly distinguishes wholesale from personal drug importation (“personal importation”). Problems often related to personal importation should not be viewed as roadblocks to implementing parts (b)-(h) of Section 804, which have nothing to do with expanding personal importation.

These comments will focus on Part J of Section 804, pertaining to personal importation.

While the NPRM recognizes the importance to Americans of buying more affordable drugs outside the U.S., the FDA seems to defer actions that are not only permissible but encouraged under Section 804(J) to expand access to personally imported FDA-approved and foreign versions of FDA-approved drugs. In the NPRM’s brief coverage of personal importation, the focus is solely on the Internet and problems from “rogue online pharmacies,” in a manner that may overlook opportunities for personal importation that have nothing to do with the Internet.

Where personal importation is related to medicine orders placed on the Internet, it’s more critical than ever to harness the agency’s limited budget to tackle unreasonable risks that Americans may be taking when obtaining cheaper medicines online, while not deterring them from affordable and safe prescription drugs available in other countries through orders placed online.[6]

According to a report by the House Ways and Means Committee, prices on 79 drugs that comprise 60% of drug spending in Medicare are almost 75% lower in 11 high income countries compared to the U.S.[7] Drug prices in Canada are actually higher than in most countries, but still far lower than in the U.S. It’s for this reason that the FDA states “that some American consumers have sought to import drugs from other countries in an effort to obtain treatments that may be otherwise inaccessible to them because of cost.”

Part J(1) of Section 804 is Congress’s Position on Personal Importation

The NPRM states: “FDA is not proposing to implement the personal importation provisions in section 804(j) through this rulemaking.” The FDA’s decision doesn’t lessen the importance of Part J in protecting the current ability of Americans to obtain personal use quantities of more affordable FDA-approved and foreign versions of FDA-approved drugs from other countries. Part J is written in three sections. Section (1) does not appear to require implementation. It’s Congress’s declaration on what the agency “should” do. It states:

“(j)Waiver authority for importation by individuals

(1) Declarations. Congress declares that in the enforcement against individuals of the prohibition of importation of prescription drugs and devices, the Secretary should—

(A) focus enforcement on cases in which the importation by an individual poses a significant threat to public health; and

(B) exercise discretion to permit individuals to make such importations in circumstances in which—

(i) the importation is clearly for personal use; and

(ii) the prescription drug or device imported does not appear to present an unreasonable risk to the individual.”

The standard required to permit lawful wholesale importation, part (b)-(h) from Canada is that it “pose no additional risk to the public’s health and safety and would be expected to result in a significant reduction in the cost of covered products to the American consumer.” In contrast, the standard for permitting personal importation via enforcement discretion is purposefully not as strict, which is that it can’t represent an “unreasonable risk.” In most circumstances, personal imports of drugs that are the same as FDA-approved or high-quality foreign versions of FDA-approved, dispensed by licensed pharmacists for patients with valid prescriptions, cannot logically be viewed as an “unreasonable risk.” That’s especially the case if the patient looking to import cannot afford the medication domestically.

Recommendations to the FDA for adhering to Section 804 J(1)

Generally, revise the FDA’s public message that warns Americans against buying medication from foreign pharmacies where that warning may lead to even more people going without prescribed medicines due to cost.

Provide guidance on the FDA’s website to explain the differences between rogue pharmacy websites and safe international online pharmacies.

Ensure that Congress’s funding for agency enforcement efforts against illegal drug importation, whether to combat counterfeit drugs or opioid ingredients ordered online, does not prevent patients from obtaining personal use quantities or prescribed medicines that do not present an unreasonable risk to their health.

Release personal drug imports that have been refused and detained at international mail facilities of non-controlled, FDA-approved or foreign versions of FDA-approved medications to patients who have provided the agency with a letter of testimony demonstrating: 1) possession of a valid prescription, 2) possession of the U.S. label relevant to consumers for that prescription, found at https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/, 3) the source of the medication is a licensed pharmacy. 

Conduct an internal audit to ensure that the FDA is providing due process to patients, as required by Section 801 (21 U.S.C. 381), if their imported prescription orders are refused so that they are released to those patients who provide ample evidence to the FDA that their medicine is not an unreasonable risk. 

The recommendations above are respectfully presented for the FDA’s consideration in light of what the law states the FDA should be doing pursuant to Section 804 (J)(1), and to asses if its resources are being allocated accordingly so that unreasonable risks – but not safe personal medicine imports – are curtailed.

(J)(2) Waiver authority

Dangers from the Internet are the only reasons given for why the agency is not implementing regulations and waivers pursuant to J(1)(2). Millions of Americans travel to Mexico, Canada and other countries each year and return with prescription medicines for their own use because the prices are much lower.[8] Border crossing imports have nothing to do with the Internet and more people could benefit from them. Failure to implement waiver authorities to expressly permit personal importation may unnecessarily deter more Americans from importing prescription drugs at much lower prices for personal use when traveling outside the U.S.

Pursuant to (J)(1)(2), the agency should announce a general waiver for people who bring back medicines through travel. Alternatively, the general waiver could be specific to travel from countries known to have comparable regulation to the U.S. for drug safety.

Part (J)(2) of Section 804 looks to the FDA to grant specific waivers by regulation or on a case-by-case basis. Whereas above, in (J1), the law establishes what the FDA “should” do; (J)(2) directs what the FDA “may” do. This means that the FDA may grant waivers to individuals to import more affordable drugs that would otherwise be prohibited. It can also establish a general regulation that individuals could use to determine the appropriateness of a personal import.

Presumably, the aforementioned waivers and regulations are what the NPRM was referring to by stating it is not implementing Part J. The FDA’s reasons fall short in clarity and appropriateness. Most conspicuously, the NPRM implies that the agency’s main reason for not “implementing” (J)(2) is due to threats from “rogue online pharmacies…that sell medicines at deeply discounted prices, often without requiring a prescription or adhering to other safeguards followed by pharmacies licensed by a State in the United States.”

There are many such rogue sites, as the NPRM warns, but they don’t negate the existence of safe international online pharmacies, ones that require a prescription, adhere to strict safeguards and process orders filled by licensed pharmacies, dispensed by licensed pharmacists in countries outside the U.S. Independent, peer-reviewed research has demonstrated  that such pharmacies are comparable in safety to U.S. online mail order pharmacies.[9]

Since the only reason given by the FDA for not implementing Part J was threats from the Internet, the agency should consider waivers for personal importation that are not related to the Internet. Here are some examples:

Permit, through a new general regulation, personal imports of FDA-approved and foreign versions of FDA approved drugs through travel for patients with valid prescriptions.

Permit, through a new general regulation, personal imports of FDA-approved and foreign versions of FDA approved drugs through the mail for patients with valid prescriptions who order directly from a licensed brick-and-mortar pharmacy by phone.

Permit personal drug import waivers to individual patients who must apply for the waivers, including with consent from their licensed practitioners. 

Permit personal drug import waivers for specific drugs, such as insulin, so that Americans can travel to Canada and other countries with express permission to bring back life-sustaining medicines that they can afford.

These are general examples of how the agency can implement (J)(2) to expressly permit more forms of safe personal drug importation, ones that don’t include ordering medicines online.

(J)(3) Personal Importation from Canada Only

This part of section 804 is very straightforward. If implemented, Americans would be expressly permitted to import FDA-approved drug and foreign Canadian versions of FDA-approved drugs from Canada for their own use, pursuant to a valid prescription.

Part J(3) states:

“Drugs imported from Canada. In particular, the Secretary shall by regulation grant individuals a waiver to permit individuals to import into the United States a prescription drug that—

(A)is imported from a licensed pharmacy for personal use by an individual, not for resale, in quantities that do not exceed a 90-day supply;

(B)is accompanied by a copy of a valid prescription;

(C)is imported from Canada, from a seller registered with the Secretary;

(D)is a prescription drug approved by the Secretary under subchapter V;

(E)is in the form of a final finished dosage that was manufactured in an establishment registered under section 360 of this title; and

(F)is imported under such other conditions as the Secretary determines to be necessary to ensure public safety.”

The above provisions were drafted to codify common practices of safe personal importation from Canada, including by mail. However, the FDA should at a minimum, immediately, expressly permit prescription drug imports for personal use from Canada that are carried across the border. In fact, that channel of importation is not only not an “unreasonable risk” but would “pose no additional risk to the public’s health and safety and would be expected to result in a significant reduction in the cost of covered products to the American consumer.”

For assurances on safety, just look to the remarks of former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb during testimony before Congress in 2019:

“Canadians have safe drugs and if you go into a brick and mortar pharmacy and you purchase a drug, you’re getting a safe and effective drug. I have confidence in the Canadian drug regulatory system.”[10]

In terms of significant savings, according to the House Ways and Means Committee price report, brand name drug prices are on average 71% lower in Canada than the United States.[11]

The FDA is aware that people with diabetes are going to Canada to import for personal use insulin products. In one highly publicized example of a “Caravan to Canada,” it was reported that one vial of the same medication under a different name was $320 in the U.S. vs. $30 in the Canada. That’s a 90% savings: clearly significant.[12]

Based on these simple assessments, it’s not only unreasonable but unjustifiable not to expressly permit this at the earliest time possible. An argument against this might be to point out that people are already doing this, and the FDA does not stop them.[13] Also, in some Department of Homeland Security appropriations bills, the law specifically bans the U.S. Customs and Border Protection from stopping personal imports of FDA-approved drugs.[14] Nonetheless, a clear policy of express permission for Americans who take insulin to get it in Canada would improve adherence to their treatments, save them money and probably save some of their lives. 

Using Advanced Electronic Data to Track Personal Drug Imports

The FDA is rightfully concerned about opioids, opioid ingredients and counterfeit drug imports coming in through international mail facilities (IMFs).[15] To try and stop illegal opioid imports in particular, the provisions of the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act (STOP Act), which became law, included requirements mandating that advanced electronic data is provided to the U.S. Postal Service for packages coming through IMFs.[16] That AED lets the USPS know the source of a package. Illegal opioids and non-controlled safe and affordable medicines both come in through IMFs.

Before its passage, there were concerns that requirements under the STOP Act could be misused to intercept safe, personally-imported medicines.[17] Reporting by independent media source Tarbell appears to show that the FDA is using funding that was appropriated to help prevent illegal opioid imports to refuse and, in some cases, destroy safe imported medicines in route to patients.[18]

FDA personnel who process refusals and destructions of personal use imported medicines sometimes document that the sender is “unknown.” AED can be employed to ensure that a personally imported medicine is obtained from a licensed pharmacy. In those cases, FDA personnel tasked with examining such imports will know the source. Thus, for example, the path of a drug from a licensed pharmacy in Canada to a patient in the U.S. could be guaranteed using AED. FDA personnel could quickly permit such imports, allowing more time to focus on intercepting packages of dangerous drugs, such as illegal fentanyl.

Personal Drug Importation Related to the Internet

Above, I have provided examples on how the FDA could implement regulations and/or waivers, pursuant to Section 804(J)(2) and (3) to expressly permit safe personal importation. Those regulations or waivers could specify that they do not create or confer any rights, privileges, or benefits to individuals for the purpose of buying medicines over the Internet that are then imported by them for personal use. However, the FDA should also implement regulations and waivers to either expressly permit orders on “white listed” international online pharmacies and/or provide special guidance to consumers that provide commonsense tips on how to avoid unreasonable risks when buying medication online from another country.

Part J of Section 804 provides the FDA with wide latitude on the use of enforcement discretion for personal importation, which includes the role of safe international online pharmacies. One of the main points made by the agency against Internet purchases of medicine is that rogue online pharmacies pose as safe Canadian pharmacies, but the medicines ordered are coming from outside of Canada or are being transshipped through Canada. The implication is that pharmacies in Canada are safe and orders placed online filled by Canadian pharmacies are safe, too. At a minimum, the FDA could expressly permit online orders that are filled in Canada, from licensed Canadian pharmacies.

There are many rogue pharmacy sites that pretend to be Canadian. There are also Canadian-based online pharmacies and international online pharmacies based in other countries that fill orders with pharmacies in several countries – including Canada. The safest among those are usually accredited by or members of third-party organizations, such as PharmacyChecker or the Canadian International Pharmacy Association. Such safe international online pharmacies require valid prescriptions and do not sell controlled drugs. Independent testing for over a decade of pharmacy practices and prescription drug quality has consistently demonstrated the safety of these international online pharmacies.[19]

The FDA should provide guidance that 1) warns the public against rogue online pharmacies; 2) articulates the regulatory prohibitions on importation and the lack of FDA assurance over personally imported prescription medicine; and 3) communicates what the safer international online pharmacy options are for those who choose to personally import a more affordable medicine.

Enforcement Against International Online Pharmacies and Part J

While the FDA has taken actions against and shut down thousands of rogue online pharmacies, the NPRM confusingly brings up the case of Canada Drugs Ltd. (“Canada Drugs”) – “an internet-based pharmacy corporation located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.” Canada Drugs Ltd, its owners and affiliated entities were indicted for and some plead guilty to illegal wholesale importation, in part because two batches of counterfeit Avastin drug were discovered in its supply chain, but also because it was importing misbranded FDA-approved or foreign versions of FDA-approved medicine through wholesale channels.[20]

In contrast, that company’s retail-facing online pharmacy, called CanadaDrugs.com, required valid prescriptions, provided patient consultations, processed prescription orders filled by licensed pharmacies for about 17 years and was never found, or accused of, selling a counterfeit or even substandard drug.[21]  As part of a plea bargain with the U.S. Department of Justice, Canada Drugs had to forfeit its online pharmacy sites but was granted three months during which to continue filling prescription orders for its U.S. patients.[22] Presumably, the reason the FDA might have allowed that is to not interrupt the continuity of care for its patients. That decision must have been based on the recognition that those personal imports were not an “unreasonable risk.”

Unlike with personal importation, the law does not affirm that illegal wholesale importation should be permitted where it does not represent an unreasonable risk. While Canada Drugs was not indicted for intentionally selling a counterfeit drug, the severity of a counterfeit drug breaching the U.S. drug supply, especially an oncology medicine, demanded a serious effort by the FDA to hold those responsible accountable and prevent future illegal wholesale importation.

Instead of CanadaDrugs.com, the NPRM could have included an example of an actual rogue online pharmacy, such as AllMedsPharmacy.net, which advertised the sale of prescription drugs without a prescription, and, according to the FDA, was found selling counterfeit and controlled drugs directly to Americans, and without requiring a valid prescription.[23] Common estimates of rogue online pharmacies in operation are in the tens of thousands, potentially as high as 70,000.[24] Yet it appears that the FDA continues to spend a considerable part of its Internet-related enforcement dollars against safe personal drug importation, in some cases that have little or nothing to do with “online pharmacies.” A prime example is an FDA warning letter last year to CanaRx, a Canadian-based company that works with U.S. municipalities and other self-insured organizations by connecting their employees and retirees to licensed pharmacies in Australia, Canada and the UK.[25] Such programs have operated without safety problems for over 15 years and are closed to the participating local governments and organizations.

Enforcement actions against the safest examples of personal importation, whether self-insured municipalities working with companies like CanaRx or properly credentialed international online pharmacies strongly appear to go against the direction and the purpose of Section 804(J)(1). The legislative record speaks to this point. For example, the Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act of 2000 was passed into law as Section 746 of an appropriations bill applicable to the FDA and other agencies in 2000 (H.R. 4461).[26] In this law, Congress articulates these findings:

“Patients and their families sometimes have reason to import into the United States drugs that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (‘FDA’).”

It’s noteworthy that these findings are the only “findings” included in the U.S House of Representative’s online publication of Section 801 of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. 381, which codifies the rules for which drugs are lawful to import, and include the only mention of the word “patient.”[27]

Due to this finding, three years later, in the Medicare Modernization and Prescription Drug Improvement Act of 2003, Congress amended Section 804 of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic act to include Part J, which tells the FDA unequivocally that it should allow personal importation that is not an unreasonable risk.[28]  More recently, The STOP Act, which added new authorities to quell illegal drug importation,  included a provision to carve out protections for personal importation.[29]

The law gives special consideration to Americans for whom personal importation of more affordable prescription drugs is important. For Americans to effectively and safely import lower cost prescription drugs into the U.S. they must have options to do so and those should include safe international online pharmacies.

Recommendations to the FDA on enforcement actions against online pharmacies and guidance to consumers, pursuant to Section 804(J):

Prioritize enforcement actions against rogue online pharmacies: those websites found to intentionally sell falsified drugs; not require valid prescriptions for prescription medications; make fraudulent claims; or exacerbate illegal distribution of opioids and other controlled drugs.  

Avoid enforcement actions against international online pharmacies that the FDA knows to be the safest international options available to Americans.

Enforcement discretion should be applied by the FDA to the safest international online pharmacies as well as individuals who personally import medicines. Balanced use of that discretion, and guiding consumers through public education to safe international online pharmacies will reduce the numbers of Americans who do not take prescribed medicines due to cost and protect them from rogue online pharmacies. Those actions are encouraged and in line with what is permitted under Section 804 (J).

[1] Kirzinger, Ashley, Lunna Lopes, Bryan Wu, and Mollyann Brodie, KFF Health Tracking Poll – February 2019: Prescription Drugs, Kaiser Family Foundation, March 1, 2019, See https://www.kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-february-2019-prescription-drugs/.

[2] Jones, Sarah, “Another Person Has Died After Rationing Insulin,” New York Magazine, Intelligencer, July 15, 2019. See https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/another-person-has-died-from-rationing-insulin.html.

[3] Bluth, Rachel, “Faced With Unaffordable Drug Prices, Tens Of Millions Buy Medicine Outside U.S.,” Kaiser Health News, December 20, 2016. See https://khn.org/news/faced-with-unaffordable-drug-prices-tens-of-millions-buy-medicine-outside-u-s/.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Change.org petition with comments from thousands of Americans who import medicine for personal use, posted here: https://ift.tt/2TJHOxU and here https://www.change.org/p/kathleen-sebelius-please-don-t-stop-americans-from-gettingmedicine-at-lower-cost-outside-the-u-s.

[6] For an expanded argument on this topic see Gabriel Levitt, “Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation and Public Health: Ill-Considered Enforcement Prevents Access to Safe and Affordable Medication,” GAO Report on Internet Pharmacies Can Mislead Lawmakers and the Public about, For the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the

House Committee on Energy and Commerce, February 2015. See https://cdn.pharmacychecker.com/pdf/online-pharmacies-personal-drug-importation-public-health.pdf.

[7] “A Painful Pill to Swallow: U.S. vs. International Prescription Drug Prices,” a report prepared by the House Ways and Means Committee Staff, September 2019. See

No Title

No Description

[Last accessed 10/29/19].

[8] Wolfson, Bernard J., “Shopping Abroad For Cheaper Medication? Here’s What You Need To Know,” California Healthline, August 21, 2019. See https://californiahealthline.org/news/shopping-abroad-for-cheaper-medication-heres-what-you-need-to-know/.

[9] Bate, Roger, “Personal Medicine Importation: What Are the Risks, and How Can They Be Mitigated?” American Enterprise Institute, September 11, 2019. See https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/personal-medicine-importation-what-are-the-risks-and-how-can-they-be-mitigated/: [Last accessed 10/29/2019].

[10] Testimony by Scott Gottlieb, MD, former FDA Commissioner, before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related. February 27, 2019. See  video at 1:34.20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZc7Ka5SM5E&feature=youtu.be&t=5661.

[11] Ibid at Note 7.

[12] Choi, Tyler, “American caravan arrives in Canadian ‘birthplace of insulin’ for cheaper medicine,” June 29, 2019, Reuters. See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-health-insulin/american-caravan-arrives-in-canadian-birthplace-of-insulin-for-cheaper-medicine-idUSKCN1TU0T4.

[13] Freed, Meredith, Tricia Neuman, and Juliette Cubanski, “10 FAQs on Prescription Drug Importation,” February 24, 2020, Kaiser Family Foundation Issue Brief. See https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/10-faqs-on-prescription-drug-importation/

[14] Section 206 of H.R.244 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017.

[15] Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. on the agency’s 2019 policy and regulatory agenda for continued action to forcefully address the tragic epidemic of opioid abuse, February 26, 2019, FDA Press Announcement. See https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/statement-fda-commissioner-scott-gottlieb-md-agencys-2019-policy-and-regulatory-agenda-continued.

[16] “H.R. 6 — 115th Congress: SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act.” www.GovTrack.us. 2018. March 9, 2020 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr6.

[17] Levitt, Gabriel, “A tale of two drug bills — one proposed bill will worsen the drug prices crisis,” The Hill Blogs, February 23, 2017. See https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/339214-a-tale-of-two-drug-bills-one-proposed-bill-could-worsen-the

[18] McAuliff, Michael, “Trump administration seizing cheaper medications from Canada and other countries,” June14, 2018, Tarbell. See https://tarbell.org/2018/06/trump-administration-seizing-cheaper-medications-from-canada-and-other-countries/.

[19] Ibid, see note 9.

[20] Levitt, Gabriel, “What Really Happened with CanadaDrugs.com,” July 13, 2018, PharmacyCheckerBlog. See https://www.pharmacycheckerblog.com/what-really-happened-canadadrugs.

[21] Ibid.

[22] See CanadaDrugs.com’s announcement https://web.archive.org/web/20180626082814/https://www.canadadrugs.com/website-closure.

[23] U.S. Department of Justice Press Release, FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, “January 21, 2011: Internet Pharmacy Sold Counterfeit Viagra, Misbranded Drugs.” See  https://web.archive.org/web/20170112003651/https://www.fda.gov/ICECI/CriminalInvestigations/ucm240823.htm .

[24] The FDA cites data by LegitScript in its proposed rule to implement Section 708 of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012, stating, “34,000 active rogue Internet pharmacies as of April 2013.” On LegitScript’s website today, you’ll see that there are 72,291 active Internet pharmacies but the percentage of those categorized as “rogue” is not readily apparent.

[25] Galewitz, Phil, “Cities And Counties Unlikely To Heed FDA Warning On Importing Foreign Drugs,” March 6, 2019, Kaiser Health News. See https://khn.org/news/cities-and-counties-unlikely-to-heed-fda-warning-on-importing-foreign-drugs/.

[26] Public Law No: 106-387. Sec. 746. (a) Short Title.–This section may be cited as the “Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act of 2000.” See https://www.congress.gov/bill/106th-congress/house-bill/4461/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22%5C%22Prescription+Drug+Import+Fairness+Act+of+2000%5C%22%22%7D&r=2.

[27] See https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:21%20section:381%20edition:prelim).

[28] Public Law No: 108-173. Section 1121 ofH.R.1 – Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003.

[29] McAuliff, Michael, “Buried In Congress’ Opioid Bill Is Protection For Personal Drug Imports,” September 27, 2019, Kaiser Health News. See https://khn.org/news/buried-in-congress-opioid-bill-is-protection-for-personal-drug-imports/

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Throne of Night Theory Builds Part 11: The Veiled Commander

In September 2014, Gary shared a couple monsters that the players could expect waiting for them while sailing the Sunless Sea. One of them was the CR 20 nightwave undead monstrosity, which I’m mentioned previously in another entry, and at the time I didn’t know, but the other creature showcased was the veiled master. At the time, the veiled master was not OGL, and couldn’t technically be used for anything out of Paizo adventures. I say “technically” because with having special connections with Paizo staff, I would assume that Gary could gain special permission to use it and possibly others. Now, however, the creature is part of Bestiary 6, and much more available. At the time I thought it still couldn’t be touched, and made the picture of the three aboleths waiting in the water, the end boss encounter, and it could still very well be the case. The veiled master might not even be the end boss of Book 5, nor is there anything saying that it would be as advanced as I’m making it now. It might even just be a straight sorcerer, or it could even be an eldritch knight (which was my initial idea).

The ecology for the veiled master says that they are the nobles of the aboleth hierarchy, but aren’t considered the masters of the aboleth, per se, because all aboleth know that their are things far more powerful and can pull the strings of the noble veiled master. Funny enough, that’s what inspired today’s build.

As always, the encounter is cropped for space purposes.

All images shared here were done by the forever fantastic and amazingly talented Michael D. Clarke, aka SpiralMagus.

This picture doesn’t appear to be in colour, but it also could be done in a way such as to convey the darkness of the depths and the shine of the light from the creature. When I first saw the nightwave I thought it was unfinished as well, but there’s not much light when you’re that far underwater. Especially when, from the point of the view of those with darkvision, everything’s basically in black and white anyhow. The only colour in that particular was the dark crimson colour of what was likely blood. It’s not like either picture is black and white. Just not very vibrant. That really adds to the atmosphere and terror of the situation.

The veiled master’s original M.O. (modus operandi) was to transform into something that looked like one of the locals, infiltrate, and secretly look for any secretive uprising or rebellion among the slaves/citizenry. While that still works here for the underwater tribes of skum-like drow, and any other underground races, that they’ve warped and transformed, it makes more sense for this particular one being the one behind all the recent disappearances.

The reason for Book 5 and 6 existing is that after the fight with the drow army and the demon entourage, the PCs learn of a series of random kidnappings that have slowly been increasing as of late. Most of them took place near the waters. This is supposed to spurn the party to go rafting and find out what’s going. Because veiled masters can transform into other creatures, it would sense that this one would learn about the drow, steal some memories of nearby victims, show up on land, infiltrate and learn as much as it could, go back and talk it over with the other aboleth, and then over time mind control a bunch of drow to go out into the waters, expose them to the mucus, and convert them into loyal slaves.

When I was coming up for this build, I wanted it to be a terrifying encounter, but I also wanted to give it a fitting background. The original idea was just go all sorcerer, then I thought fighter/eldritch knight, but that seemed so boring. Then I thought, mystic theurge. What if this particular aboleth was receiving visions from the star spawn of Cthulhu from the end of the series? This was already supposed to be Lovecraftian in a way, so why not go even further? Have the veiled master start to receive visions, dreams, and telepathic messages that it didn’t understand. Have it slowly corrupt the creature and empower it. Even better, what if the sudden rush on more slaves wasn’t for the sake of the aboleth, but for the new master pulling the strings. The Sun Killer isn’t going to build itself. It might need a structure built to help power the crystal or magnify its power and radius.

Something to note, even when it transforms into a drow or other creature, it still has the clouded vision look in its eyes. Its disguise ability likely wouldn’t help with that. Not that anyone would ever question it. There’s plenty of oracles out there. That said, the veiled master could wear contacts to hide that fact. It has no way to produce faerie fire like a real drow, but it does have access to glitterdust, and it can use other drow-like spells to make it look like it has their spell-like abilities, despite being actual spells. I will mention that there is a D&D 3.5 item called ring of drow blood that gives you “dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell-like abilities, each once per day.” It costs 4,800 gold to create. Not out of the realm of possibility to have a custom version of it made for this adventure, or because it’s a home game, it could be the original version.

This creature could be something hanging out in the background during the time PCs are in town taking it over, or stopping the current regime. It could easily observe them and learn of their abilities. It would help determine whether they could be a threat or not. As well, how much the veiled master and the other aboleths will have to prepare should the PCs ever go looking where they shouldn’t. They could even discover the veiled master while out at sea, in a female drow form. Female drow, typically, do have more divine power than males, so it shouldn’t set off any alarms. It could say it received visions about tentacled creatures taking “her” people out into the water, and despite telling the drow nobles and their courts, “she” couldn’t convince them of sending help, and decided to head out on “her” own. She could even help the PCs. The veiled master will likely know about the undead threats, and not want to deal with them on its own.  Even going so far as to heal the PCs or aid them with spells, if need be, to help with the ruse. Its own name isn’t that far from a drow’s name so it shouldn’t be that suspicious sounding to a dwarf PC, but a drow might get suspicious of it. If it thinks anyone suspects it after it says its name, the veiled master will say that’s “her” official name, but her drow family name is “Sharril“. If possible, it will try to play up a sorrowful background of being a half-drow with a demonic parent, and “her” name is honour of “her” birth.

Btw, while it says “unique”, all I really did was switch a couple of spells around because clerics and wizard spell lists are so similar. It also makes sense that if there’s undead swimming around, the aboleth master would have something to deter them from trying to eat it and others of its kind.

SHAIODRR’RUL    (CR 20; 307,200 XP) Unique veiled master oracle 8/mystic theurge 2 LE Large aberration (aquatic, shapechanger) Init +13; Senses darkvision 60 ft., blindsense 30 ft., blindsight 15 ft.; Perception +25 Aura mucus cloud (30 ft.) DEFENSE AC 34, touch 19, flat-footed 25 (+4 armor, +9 Dex, +1 insight, +11 natural, –1 size) hp 383 (26 HD; 24d8+2d6+268) Fort +18, Ref +19, Will +23 Defensive Abilities evasion; Immune electricity, mind-affecting effects; Resist cold 20; SR 25 OFFENSE Speed 10 ft., swim 80 ft. Melee bite +27 (2d6+5 plus consume memory and slime), 2 claws +27 (1d6+5 plus slime), 4 tentacles +22 touch (2d6 electricity plus thoughtlance) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (20 ft. with claws and tentacles) Special Attacks brain drain 2/day (8d4, W-DC 24), delayed suggestion Spell-Like Abilities (CL 21st; concentration +31)   Constant—mage armor   At will—detect thoughts (W-DC 22), dominate person (W-DC 27), hypnotic pattern (W-DC 22), illusory wall (W-DC 24), mirage arcana (W-DC 25), persistent image (W-DC 25), programmed image (W-DC 26), project image (W-DC 27), veil (W-DC 26)   3/day—dominate monster (W-DC 31), quickened dominate person (W-DC 27), geas/quest, mass suggestion (W-DC 28) Oracle Spells Known (CL 11th; concentration +21)   5th (5/day)—mass inflict light wounds (W-DC 26), slay living (F-DC 26)   4th (7/day)—cure critical wounds, black tentacles, blessing of fervor, inflict critical wounds (W-DC 25)    3rd (8/day)—aura of cannibalism (F-DC 24), bestow curse (W-DC 24), dispel magic, inflict serious wounds (W-DC 24), prayer, tongues   2nd (9/day)—aid, dust of twilight, ghostbane dirge, inflict moderate wounds (W-DC 23), shield of fortification, spiritual weapon   1st (9/day)—cure light wounds, entropic shield, forbid action (W-DC 23), know the enemy, inflict light wounds (W-DC 22), murderous command (W-DC 23), shield of faith   0 (at will)—bleed, detect magic, detect poison, guidance, mending, read magic, resistance, stabilize, virtue Mystery dark tapestry Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 15th; concentration +25)   7th (4/day)—mass hold person (W-DC 30)   6th (7/day)—globe of invulnerability, symbol of persuasion (W-DC 29)   5th (8/day)—feeblemind (W-DC 27), symbol of pain (F-DC 27), teleport   4th (8/day)—dimension door, enervation, phantasmal killer (F/W-DC 24), symbol of slowing (W-DC 27)   3rd (8/day)—clairaudience/clairvoyance, explosive runes (R-DC 24), hold person (W-DC 25), secret page   2nd (9/day)—blindness/deafness (F-DC 23), invisibility, levitate, symbol of mirroring (W-DC 23), touch of idiocy   1st (9/day)—charm person (W-DC 23), comprehend languages, erase, ray of enfeeblement (F-DC 22), silent image (W-DC 21)   0 (at will)—arcane mark, dancing lights, daze (W-DC 20), disrupt undead, ghost sound (W-DC 20), mage hand, message, prestidigitation, touch of fatigue (F-DC 21) STATISTICS Str 20, Dex 28, Con 31, Int 21, Wis 23, Cha 30 Base Atk +19; CMB +25; CMD 46 Feats Arcane Strike, Combat Casting, Combat Expertise, Deceitful, Eschew MaterialsB, Extend Spell, Greater Spell Focus (enchantment), Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Quicken Spell, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (dominate person), Spell Focus (enchantment, necromancy), Weapon Finesse Skills Bluff +30, Diplomacy +21, Disguise +23, Intimidate +21, Linguistics +9, Knowledge (arcana, history, nature) +23, Knowledge (planes) +18, Knowledge (religion) +14, Perception +30, Sense Motive +30, Spellcraft +25, Stealth +30, Swim +32, Use Magic Device +29 Languages Aboleth, Abyssal, Aklo, Aquan, Common, Draconic, Drow Sign Language, Elven, Undercommon SQ change shape (any Small or Medium; greater polymorph), combined spells (1st), oracle’s curse (clouded vision), revelations (brain drain, cloak of darkness [+6 AC/+4 Stealth], gift of madness), runemastery, swift transformation Gear spellguard bracers, circlet of persuasion, ioun stones (deep red sphere, dusty rose prism, incandescent blue sphere, orange prism, pale green prism, pink rhomboid, pink and green sphere), page of spell knowledge (1st—identify, magic missile, shield; 2nd—darkness, glitterdust, mirror image, silence; 3rd—displacement, fireball, nondetection; 4th—greater false life), ring of counterspells, ring of evasion, gold rings and jewelry worth 3,500 gp in all SPECIAL ABILITIES Consume Memory (Su) When a veiled master bites a creature, it consumes some of that creature’s memories. The creature bitten must succeed at a DC 28 Fortitude save or gain 1 negative level. A veiled master has 5 hit points restored each time it gives a creature a negative level in this way, and it also learns some of the target creature’s memories (subject to the GM’s discretion). This is a mind-affecting effect. A veiled master can suppress this ability as a free action. The save DC is Charisma-based. Delayed Suggestion (Sp) Whenever a veiled master successfully uses dominate person or dominate monster on a creature, it can also implant a delayed suggestion that triggers when the dominate effect ends. Typically, this suggestion (which functions as a spell-like ability, CL 20th, Will DC 23 negates) is for the previously dominated creature to seek out the veiled master and submit to a new domination attempt, but sometimes, a veiled master implants other suggestions (such as a suggestion to attack the first person the creature sees). Mucus Cloud (Ex) While underwater, a veiled master exudes a 30-foot-radius cloud of transparent slime. All creatures in this area must succeed at a DC 28 Fortitude save each round or lose the ability to breathe air (but gain the ability to breathe water) for 24 hours. Renewed contact with this mucus cloud and failing another save extends the effect for another 24 hours. The save DC is Constitution-based. Runemastery (Ex) A veiled master is particularly skilled at casting spells that create magical writing, such as explosive runes, secret page, and spells with the word “symbol” in their names. It never requires material components or focus components when casting such spells, and the save DC of these spells increases by 1. A veiled master’s symbol spells are difficult to disarm—the Disable Device DC for these symbols increases by 2. Slime (Ex) A creature hit by any of a veiled master’s bite or claw attacks must succeed at a DC 28 Fortitude save or have its skin and flesh transform into a clear, slimy membrane over the course of 1d4 rounds. The creature’s new flesh is soft and tender, reducing its Constitution score by 4 as long as the condition persists. If the creature’s flesh isn’t kept moist, it dries quickly and the creature takes 1d12 points of damage every 10 minutes. Remove disease and similar effects can restore an afflicted creature to normal, but immunity to disease offers no protection from this attack. The save DC is Constitution-based. Swift Transformation (Su) A veiled master can use its change shape ability as a swift action. Thoughtlance (Su) Four of a veiled master’s tentacles end in glowing spheres of light. These spheres deal 2d6 points of electricity damage on a successful touch attack and also blast a creature’s mind with waves of mental energy. A creature touched by one of these tentacles (regardless of whether the touch deals electricity damage) must succeed at a DC 28 Will save or be staggered for 1 round. Additional touches increase the duration of this effect by 1 round. While a creature is staggered in this manner, it must attempt concentration checks to cast spells as if it were experiencing extremely violent motion while casting (DC = 20 + spell level). The save DC is Charisma-based.

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Next time I’ll be working on drow nobles. There’s one picture in particular I shared around, and thankfully someone was far more observant than any of the others. Was most definitely a huge boon.

[guiltytuning]

a little bit of normal

diamari / 3.6k / ao3. Happy birthday Mari!

Japanese characters blink to life on Mari’s laptop screen after over a year of its absence. The email’s title only displays her name – the Japanese rendering of Ohara Mari that she hasn’t seen since she left Uchiura just over a year ago. With suddenly cold fingers, she clicks open the email and then stares for a moment, not wholly seeing the characters in front of her. A quick scan down and she can see a signature: Kurosawa Dia. The effect is immediate: her heart starts thumping a rugged pattern against the interiors of her ribcage, and her hands start trembling with unbridled adrenaline.

She pulls back to the top of the message, printed in black Meiryo-font text and lacking any colourful borders or photos that usually accompany the majority of the emails she receives either from her family’s business or her school’s announcements, and reads it.

 Greetings,

As of today in Uchiura, Shizuoka Prefecture, the time and date is June the 13th. Thus, I sincerely wish you a happy birthday. While the time zone in America may be different, I still hold to the fact that it is indeed June 13th on my side of my globe. So technically, I am not incorrect about sending this now.

I hope you are doing well, Mari.

 Best regards,

Kurosawa Dia

She remembered my birthday, is Mari’s first though. She had my email all along, so why did she wait until now to message? is her second thought. She reads it at least ten times, always slowing down on I hope you are doing well, Mari. The email is formal and professional in a way that is distinctly Dia and it brings an unbidden smile to Mari’s lips. On the twelfth reading, Mari thinks if she sears the words into her brain, maybe she can uncover the unspoken meanings behind each character.

Typical of Dia, the true meanings remain carefully encased in their perfectly hand-picked characters. It is unfortunate, Mari thinks, that the email cannot even convey the tremble in a stroke of a character that would give her some insight into Dia’s mindset. Instead, slight of hands are erased by the monotony of the sans-serif typography.

The only way to get something else out of Dia is to write back, Mari thinks. Hands poised over the keyboard, she begins to type a response, hoping to garner just a glimpse of what the other girl is feeling. Despite the ways they parted, surely the other girl had some semblance of feelings about it, even after a whole year. Mari definitely still has feelings about it: not a day went by without her thinking about the dark-haired girl’s enthusiastic voice and infectious smile whenever she was talking about μ’s or the way her eyes looked down, turning her back on Mari when Kanan quit being school idols.

The memory brings forth a sharp clench in her chest that she can’t help, and she closes her eyes and exhales, willing the feeling away before she continues typing.

Hello! (This part is written in English.)

I’m glad you asked because I’m doing very well! America is very fun! Recently it’s been a little hot for my liking, to be honest. Nonetheless, I’m still having fun with my American friends! Sushi is cheap here! Though it’s not as good as it is in Japan.

(Biting her lip, Mari quickly types the last few lines and presses send before she can regret her decision. Though she’s not quick enough to send it without second-guessing Do you hate me? and promptly erases the question.)

I haven’t heard from you or Kanan in a while. I know we weren’t expected to keep in touch after what happened but you can video call or phone call me anytime.

 Looking forward to hearing from you,

Mari (This part is written in English too – call it a habit of being in America.)

The moment the email blips out into cyberspace, she wants to reach out and snatch it back, tearing it into pieces and flinging it out the window.

“That was a bad idea,” she whispers out loud.

Purposefully torturing herself, she clicks her ‘Sent’ folder and rereads the message, groaning inwardly at the first paragraph’s overuse of exclamation marks. “Yeah Ohara, we get it. You’re fake,” she grumbles. America is not fun. She doesn’t really have friends. The others don’t like her heavily accented English and she knows that the Americans make fun of her. It doesn’t take much to decipher their giggles and snorts every time she says something in class. (She’s made it a point to be more exuberant now – emphasizing her accented English so hard that she hopes they get tired of making fun of it. So far, there seems to be no end to their snickers. The jabs at Mari’s accent never gets old for them.)

Though it is getting hotter recently. And the sushi is definitely cheaper and less heavenly-tasting than in Japan.

A ping from her laptop snaps her out of her thoughts, and she focuses back down on her opened email server. There’s a new email from Dia. Mari hadn’t expected her to reply so quickly, especially not immediately after sending her reply. To be honest, she didn’t really expect to hear back from Dia at all and spend the rest of her days poring over the meaning of Dia’s overly formal email. Now counter-evidence was lying right in front of her. She opens the email and takes in the brevity of Dia’s answer.

Dear Ohara,

I would be honoured to receive a call from you any time.

 Sincerely,

Kurosawa Dia

Mari pushes her laptop to the side of her bed, grabbing her phone and opening the messages app that she hasn’t touched for years. The screen loads and at the top of the list below their group chat, two contacts line up: Kurosawa Dia and Matsuura Kanan.

She’s not surprised to see that they haven’t left any messages for her there even after a year. Their group chat still has a slew of messages she sent all the way back from last year. She smiles bitterly when she scrolls through them.

[April 25, 14:26]

MARI: Kanan, please. We can talk about this.

[April 25, 14:27]

MARI: Dia, listen to me. If this is about what happened in Tokyo, I just want to let you guys know that I’m fine about it. We still have a chance to do this. We can’t give up so easily.

[April 25, 18:52]

MARI: Why did you tell me to go study abroad?

[April 28, 1:38]

MARI: Why are you ignoring me? Did I do something wrong?

[April 28, 12:42]

MARI: Kanan. Dia. Please answer me.

She exits the group chat and clicks on Dia’s name. The app is telling her that Dia is offline, but that doesn’t deter Mari from pressing the call button and bringing the phone up to her ear, the staccato of her heartbeat so loud that she feels like the other side can hear it against the phone.

It rings, once, twice –

“Hello?”

Mari exhales a breath she doesn’t realize she was holding. The voice on the other side is tentative but distinctly Dia in her deep, warm tone, cautious-sounding as it is.

“Hello Dia,” she says in Japanese, the words flowing out of her mouth freer than any English phrases she’s forced herself to utter under the American flag. “I thought you were offline.”

“Then why’d you call?” Dia says teasingly, and in that moment, Mari feels like they can go back to where they were a year ago – friends on the verge of something more, playful poking at the bounds and limits of where they can stretch their relationship. But the moment dissipates in the silence, and Mari is once again aware of the distance between them. “Never mind,” Dia backtracks. “It only shows I’m offline because I turned off my status. Anyway… Um… How are you?”

The hesitancy in Dia’s voice is a punch to the heart. They’re not like this; this isn’t how they’re supposed to be. A year later and hundreds of thousands of miles apart, Dia sounds like she’s talking a total stranger. The connection has fizzled away and Mari is left grasping at the straws left of her relationship with Dia.

Which only makes Mari want to reclaim it. She’s made a mistake of burying her feelings and not looking back. If this is her chance to turn back time in whatever way she can, she’ll take it.

“Ah-mazing!” she exclaims in English. “The sun is beautiful and the people are fantastic!” she continues, interjecting English within her sentences. “Oh! I really wish you were here. And Kanan too of course,” Mari adds.

There’s a brief silence where Mari thinks in fear that she’s gone too far with her exaggeration but then she hears a short chuckle on the other end of the line. “Seems to me like America was a good decision after all.”

No, Mari thinks. It really isn’t. I want to come back. I hate it here. I don’t get along with a lot of people. I don’t really have friends here. I miss Japan. I miss Uchiura. I miss Uranohoshi. I miss you so much, Dia.

She swallows down the words so they are locked deeply within her.

“Yes, well,” Mari begins carefully, “I still think Japan is more fun, you know? And well, there’s not a lot of…school idol stuff here in America. They’re not about that.”

“Oh,” comes Dia’s stunted reply. There’s an awkward silence and then, “Isn’t it really late over there right now? It’s eleven in the morning over here.”

“Yeah, it’s nighttime over here. It’s only ten though,” Mari says, looking out the window of her bedroom. “It’s not that late. Plus, I’m not going anywhere tomorrow morning so I’m not in a rush to go to bed.”

Dia makes a shocked sound at that admission. “Ohara Mari! It’s a school night! How could you be so casual about this?”

That elicits a laugh out of Mari, and it’s been so long that she starts doubling over while laughing, clutching the phone to her ear and listening to Dia’s scandalized scolding before bursting into more peals of laughter. She finally wipes the tears from her eyes and responds, “Dia… Dia – it’s summer vacation over here,” she says, lips curved into a smile.

That stops Dia in the middle of her lecture. “Oh. Well – I, I definitely knew that!”

She can picture it now – Dia on the other side of the line, face flushed red with embarrassment. Maybe she’s sitting in the courtyard of the school, since it seems to be around lunchtime. Mari giggles, wondering what other students would think if they saw Dia like that. Perhaps they’d think she was talking to her crush – that thought makes an involuntary smile rise to Mari’s lips, cheeks warming slightly.

“Sure you did,” Mari drawls. “I’m absolutely sure you knew,” she says, dropping an English word within.

“Yeah, I did!” is Dia’s indignant reply.

And just like that, everything falls back into place again. Mari and Dia chat for the next half hour about, catching up on each other’s lives while carefully avoiding the topic of Kanan or idol activities. Mari is cautious to keep the unpleasantness of her life under careful wraps; Dia doesn’t need to know about how Mari thinks about returning every single day. She doesn’t need to know that Mari dreams of returning to Uchiura in that stupid magenta helicopter that flew her to the airport and surprising Dia and Kanan. Sometimes, she pretends that instead of leaving without a word and waiting for friends that never came to stop her, she takes actions into her own hands and confesses her own feelings to Dia, no matter how unrequited they may be.

Dia sounds wistful on the other hand – her life has mellowed out after their half year of being school idols. She’s now a member of the student council with eyes set to become student council president. “Just like Ayase Eli. You know? In μ’s?”

It’s clear to Mari that Dia still thinks about their lost days while the three of them were Aqours. When Kanan had left the clubroom, Mari didn’t miss the way that Kanan had abandoned her final costume on the table while Dia collected hers back. She wants to ask, Why did you quit with Kanan? Why didn’t you say anything to stop her? Why did you leave with her? I thought we had something, Dia. Aqours was the three of us, no doubt, but we could have stuck together until we convinced Kanan to come back. Why did you leave? Why did you leave me? There are so many questions swimming in Mari’s head, but she knows that the moment she asks them, Dia is going to stiffen up again and they’ll once again be consciously aware of the circumstances that had led to this moment of them talking on the phone, an entire world apart.

“I’m getting tired,” Mari finally says after an hour has passed. “I’m going to hang up now. I’ll talk to you next time?”

“I’ll call you again to say happy birthday,” Dia replies before hanging up. Mari frowns, but decides not to think much of it as she heads over to turn off the lights of her bedroom and lies face-down on her bed to sleep.

Mari’s eyelids are drooping and she’s half-asleep when the buzzing of her phone wakes her. Hand fumbling around her bed, she finds the phone under her stomach from when she had flopped face-first in her bed. The display screen shows Dia’s name. “Hello?” she says groggily, slipping into English out of habit.

“Happy birthday!” Dia says back excitedly, and Mari can almost hear the grin in the other girl’s voice. She looks over at her bedside table to see the numbers 12:00 on her clock blinking back at her. “Well, at least on your side of the world. Like I’ve said in my email – it’s already June thirteenth over here.”

“Mmh, yeah thanks Dia, but I was sleeping,” Mari says, a complaint that isn’t really a complaint at all.

“Don’t get snarky with me,” Dia says but then softens on her next words. “Good night, Mari.”

“Good night,” Mari whispers back. There’s silence for a while where the both of them listen to each other breathing on the other side. It’s calming, Mari thinks. She could fall asleep to this, imagining Dia on the other side of the bed, curling closer to Mari.

Then there’s a beep of the call being ended that snaps her out of her imagination, and Mari is left conscious of the empty space in her bed.

The concert that Mari goes to for her birthday is…not what she really wanted to go to. A few friends – well, classmates really – had convinced her to buy front row tickets for them to see it since it fell on the date of her birthday. The man singing onstage was amazing, but there is just something empty about it. She wants to see girls in frilly costumes dancing and singing their hearts out, braving through hardship and despair and working to make a name for themselves on stage. And to be honest, Mari doesn’t really care about so-called attractive men the same way that her classmates do.

After the concert is over, the other girls leave together, Mari having declined to ride back with them and stating that she already has her chauffeur picking her up. There are other people leaving now – mostly girls her age or younger. All of them are starry-eyed or in tears with joy. Mari smiles, wondering if this is how school idols make people feel. She’s certain that tears were shed during the overwhelmingly emotional performance of μ’s’ KiRa-KiRa Sensation performance that she owns on tape.

She gets a call from her chauffeur telling her that traffic is heavy and that she’ll be a few minutes late. Mari ends up sitting on a bench, watching the concertgoers leave en masse. She thinks of playing a game on her phone but then checks the time and notices that it should be around the end of lunchtime at Uranohoshi. She calls Dia despite Dia’s status being offline. Once again, Dia picks up on the third ring.

“Mari? What is it?” Dia asks.

“I just went to a concert and I’m waiting for my chauffeur to pick me up,” Mari says. She can almost feel the way that Dia gets excited, thinking that it’s about idols. “No – it wasn’t idols,” Mari says quickly before Dia can say anything. “It was some middle-aged man. There were a lot of girls in the crowd.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting,” Dia says in a tone that gives away the undercurrent that she doesn’t feel interested at all.

“It wasn’t, really,” Mari says with a chuckle. “I just…” She takes a deep breath in and then says the next words so quickly that she’s almost hoping they’ll be loss through the phone. “It made me miss being an idol and watching other school idols.”

There’s a pause where Mari thinks that she’s gone too far and Dia will hang up on her and never speak to her again. She’s about to take it all back when Dia says, “Yeah…me too.”

Then why did you turn your back on me? is the question that bubbles up. Instead of voicing it, Mari swaps it out with something else. “Do you think about it a lot? Not just μ’s but also us. Aqours,” she specifies.

Instead of replying instantly, Dia clears her throat – and then she starts singing the song that brought them enough attention to attend the preliminaries in Tokyo. “Go ahead and tell me what you wanna do, please!” Dia sings a line that’s originally hers. It’s clear from her intonation that Dia has still been practicing singing even with Aqours disbanded. Mari pauses in hesitation for a second, looking around furtively to see if anyone is looking at her but then decides that she doesn’t care what people think after all.

“’Cause I wanna go have fun!” Mari sings, her voice a little scratchy from disuse over the course of the year.

“Even if it’s totally out there, we’ll do it,” they both sing together, melodies mixing together that is profoundly them and Aqours even if it is missing one member, and then Mari starts laughing.

“That was fun,” she admits to Dia, ducking her head and smiling at the ground, her hand pressing her phone against her ear. She misses it so much – the blend of melodies, the fluidity in her trained dance movements, and the feeling of being on stage.

She knows that Dia can hear the longing in her voice. “I miss it too,” Dia says. “I miss performing with you and Kanan. But most of all,” her voice lowers until it’s almost a whisper, “I miss you,”

Mari’s heart picks up the pace and she’s sitting very still in her seat.

“Not just Aqours,” Dia says, voice wavering a little. “But I miss you – just…you. I want you here with me and not in America where I can’t even see you everyday. I just miss you enough that I sometimes dream about you returning and – and I can’t control how I feel about it…” She cuts herself off with a chuckle. “Was that weird? Sorry. Ignore that.”

“No, no,” Mari replies hastily, hating the way she sounds shaken to the core. Though vague, Mari can almost swear that it was half of a confession. If only she were there in front of Dia – perhaps the other girl would say her true feelings instead of masking it in apologies. “I – Dia, I feel the sa– “

Dia cuts her off very quickly. “Um, even though we’ve disbanded, I’ve still been writing lyrics. They’re very rough, and I know there’s a very low chance of…becoming idols again. But do you want to look it over?”

Their confession moment has been pushed away, and Mari can understand why Dia did it. It’s something that only feels right face-to-face. Mari doesn’t know if she can do long-distance with Dia while there’s no guarantee that Mari will return to Uchiura or even Japan. She shuffles her feet, looking down at the cobblestone ground. The sounds of the concertgoers are distant now, and the leaving crowds have thinned considerably.

“I’d love to look at your lyrics,” Mari says, letting go of her unspoken confession. “But they better be very good,” she says, dropping another phrase into English, chuckling when Dia tries to defend lyrics that she hasn’t sent over yet.

Despite snapping back to their easy jocular friendship, Mari is almost certain Dia is aware of her feelings too, but for now, she allows it to slip by quietly.

Dia sends her an email of the lyrics she’s been drafting on the next morning.

Dear Mari,

Here’s a verse of the lyrics I was talking about the other day. I’m not sure what I should name it yet. But, it’s a song that has been sitting in my head for a while. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do it, because I imagine it having a more EDM genre type to it and it’s…a very personal journal of my feelings but… Here it is.

 Is this the last step? The person

That understands my heart is waiting…

That someone is…

You.

 “I’m here,” I can hear your voice say

Please, guide me with your gentle voice.

With just that, it seems like

I can really come to like this planet

Let’s hurry and meet each other,

I’m calling calling you.

 Yours,

Dia

It doesn’t take much to make her decision after reading those lyrics.

After the American school year is over, she’s going back to Japan. She’s going to confront Dia and kiss the other girl stupid – or at least until Dia understands that her feelings are reciprocated.

That thought brings a wide grin to Mari’s face. A happy birthday indeed.

[starcitizenprivateer]

Whisperer in the Dark

Writer’s Note: Published originally in Jump Point 1.1, this story takes place before the events of The Lost Generation.

People complicate things. That’s what they’ve always been good at. Take a look at any functioning civilization and you will see chaos, confusion, and frustration. It could be human, Xi’an, Banu, Vanduul, whoever. We may look different, be built different, but boil us down and you’ll find the same insecurities, fears, and anxieties gnawing.

Tonya Oriel watched the yawning abyss outside the window. Kaceli’s Adagio in 4 gently wafted through the otherwise empty ship. Scanners cycled through their spectrums on the hunt for any flagged anomalies.

The void. It was pure. It was simple. It was permanent.

A calm serenity huddled around Tonya’s shoulders like a blanket, the kind that can only exist when you are the only person for thousands of kilometers. Everyone else can have Terra, Earth, or Titus, with their megacities teeming with people. Never a moment where there wasn’t a person above, beside or below you. Everything was noise. Tonya needed the silence.

Her ship, the Beacon, drifted through that silence. Tonya customized almost every hardpoint and pod with some form of scanner, deep-range comm system, or surveying tech to get her further and further from the noise.

The problem was that the noise kept following.

* * * *

After three weeks on the drift, Tonya couldn’t put it off any longer. She was due for a supply run and to sell off the data and minerals she’d collected. After repairs, new scrubbers, and a spectrum update, she hoped she’d have enough for some food.

The Xenia Shipping Hub in the Baker System had been the closest thing to a home she’d had for the past few years. Tonya set her approach through the shifting entry/exit patterns of ships. The station’s traffic was busier than usual. As soon as the Beacon docked, her screen buzzed with a handful of new messages from the spectrum. She passed them to her mobiGlas and went to the airlock.

Tonya paused by the entry and savored this last moment of solitude as the airlock cycled, then hit the button.

The sound of people swept inside like a wave. She took a second to acclimate, adjusted her bag and crossed into the masses.

Carl ran a small information network out of his bar, the Torchlight Express. An old surveyor for a long-defunct terraforming outfit, Carl traded moving minerals for slinging booze and information. Tonya had known him for years. As far as people went, Carl was a gem.

The Express was dead. Tonya checked local time. It was evening so there was no real reason why it should be like this. A group of prospectors sat at a table in the corner, engaged in a hushed conversation. Carl leaned against the bar, watching a sataball game on the wallscreen. His leathery fingers tapped out a beat to some song in his head.

He brightened up when he saw Tonya.

“Well, well, well, to what do we owe the honor, doctor?” He said with a grin.

“Don’t start, Carl.”

“Sure, sorry, doctor.” He must be bored; he only called her that when he wanted to pick a fight. Tonya slung her bag onto the ground and slid onto a stool.

“Anything interesting?” Tonya pulled her hair back into a tie.

“I’m great, Tonya, thanks for asking. Business is a little slow, but you know how it is.” Carl said sarcastically and slid a drink to her.

“Come on, Carl. I’m not gonna patronize you with small-talk.”

Carl sighed and looked around.

“At this point, I’ll take any patrons I can get.” He poured himself a drink from the dispenser. Tonya swiveled her mobiGlas around and showed him her manifest. He looked it over. “Running kinda light this time, huh?”

“I know. You know any buyers?”

“How much you looking to get?”

“Whatever I can,” Tonya said as she sipped. She could tell Carl was annoyed with the non-answer. “I need the money.”

“I might be able to get you ten.” He said after a long pause.

“I would give you my unborn child for ten.”

“With all the unborn kids you owe me, you better get started.” He said. Tonya smacked his arm.

One of the prospectors drifted over to the bar with empty glasses. He was young, one of those types who cultivated the dirty handsome look. Probably spent an hour perfecting it before going out.

“Another round.”

As Carl poured, the prospector looked at Tonya, giving his looks a chance to work their magic. They failed. Carl set a fresh batch of drinks down. The prospector paid and went back slightly deterred.

“I think someone liked you.” Carl teased.

“Not my type.”

“Living?”

“Exactly.” Tonya watched the prospectors. They were really in an overtly secretive conversation. “Any idea what they’re here for?”

“Of course I do.”

“Yeah? What’d they say?”

“Nothing… well, not to me anyway.” Carl pulled an earpiece out and held it out to her. Tonya wiped it off and took a listen. Suddenly she could hear their conversation loud and clear. Tonya looked at Carl, stunned.

“You have mics on your tables?!” She whispered. Carl shushed her.

“I deal in information, honey, so yeah.” Carl said, almost offended that he wouldn’t listen in on his customers.

Tonya took another sip and listened to the prospectors. It only took a little while to catch up. Apparently Cort, the prospector who tried to woo Tonya with his ruggedness, got a tip from his uncle in the UEE Navy. The uncle had been running Search & Rescue drills in the Hades System when their scanners accidentally picked up a deposit of kherium on Hades II. Being the military, of course, they couldn’t do anything, but Cort and his buddies were fixing to sneak in there and harvest it for themselves.

Kherium was a hot commodity. If these prospectors were on the level, they were talking about a tidy little fortune. Certainly enough to patch up the Beacon, maybe even install some upgrades.

Even better, they obviously didn’t know how to find it. Kherium doesn’t show up on a standard metal or rad scan. It takes a specialist to find, much less extract without corrupting it. Fortunately for Tonya, she knew how to do both. “You’ve got that look.” Carl said and refilled her glass. “Good news?”

“I hope so, Carl, for both of us.”

* * * *

Carl offloaded her haul at a discount so she could set out as quick as possible. Last time she checked, the prospectors were still at the Express and from the sound of it, they wouldn’t leave for a couple hours, maybe a day.

Tonya disengaged the Beacon from the dock and was back in her beloved solitude. The engines hummed as they pushed her deeper into space, pushed her toward a lifeline.

The Hades System was a tomb, the final monument of an ancient civil war that obliterated an entire system and the race that inhabited it. Tonya had it on her list of places to study, but every year Hades was besieged by fresh batches of young scientists exploring it for their dissertation or treasure hunters looking for whatever weapon cracked Hades IV in half. So the system became more noise to avoid.

Tonya had to admit that passing Hades IV was always a thrill. It’s not every day you get to see the guts of a planet killed in its prime.

Then there were the whispers that the system was haunted. There was always some pilot who knew a guy who knew someone who had seen something while passing through the system. The stories ranged from unexplained technical malfunctions to full-on sightings of ghost cruisers. It was all nonsense.

There was a loose stream of ships passing through Hades. The general flight lane steered clear of the central planets. Tonya slowed her ship until there was a sizeable gap in the flow of traffic before veering off toward Hades II.

She passed a barrier of dead satellites and descended into Hades II’s churning atmosphere. The Beacon jolted when it hit the clouds. Visual went to nil and suddenly the ship was bathed in noise, screaming air, and pressure. Tonya kept an eye on her scopes and expanded the range on her proximity alerts to make sure she didn’t ram a mountain.

Suddenly the clouds gave way. The Beacon swooped into the light gravity above a pitch-black ocean. Tonya quickly recalibrated her thrusters for atmospheric flight and took a long look at the planet around her.

As was expected, it was a husk. There were signs of intelligent civilization all around but all of it was crumbling, charred, or destroyed. She passed over vast curved cities built atop sweeping arches meant to keep the buildings from ever touching the planet itself.

Tonya maintained a cruising altitude. The roar of her engines echoed through the vast empty landscape. The sun was another casualty of this system’s execution. The cloud systems never abated so the surface never saw sunlight. It was always bathed in a dark greyish green haze.

Tonya studied the topography to plot out a course and set the scanners to look for the unique kherium signature she had programmed. She engaged the auto-pilot and just looked out the window.

Being here now, she kicked herself for not coming sooner. It didn’t matter that this was one of the most scientifically scrutinized locales in the UEE. Seeing the vastness of the devastation with her own eyes, Tonya felt that tug that a good mystery has on the intellect. Who were they? How did they manage to so effectively wipe themselves out? How do we know they actually wiped themselves out?

A few hours passed with no luck. Tonya had a quick snack and ran through her exercise routine. She double-checked the settings on her scans for any errors on the initial input. A couple months ago, she was surveying a planet and found nothing, only to discover on her way back that there had been one setting off that scuttled the whole scan. It still bugged her. It was an amateur mistake.

She brought up some texts on Hades. Halfway through a paper on the exobiology of the Hadesians, her screen pinged. Tonya was over there like a shot.

The scope gave a faint indication of kherium below. She triple-checked the settings before getting her hopes up. They seemed legit. She looked out the front. A small city sat above endless sea of dead trees lay ahead. It looked like an orbital laser or something had hit it excising massively deep craters from buildings and ground.

Tonya took a closer look. The craters went about six hundred feet into the ground, revealing networks of underground tunnels. They looked like some kind of transport system.

Tonya looked for a suitable landing spot with cover from overhead flights. If she was still here when the prospectors showed up, her ship would be a dead giveaway and things would get complicated.

She strapped on her environment suit and respirator. She could check the ship’s scanners through her mobiGlas but threw another handheld scanner/mapper in with her mining gear just in case. Finally, she powered up her transport crate, hoping the anti-gravity buffers would be more than enough to lug the kherium back.

Tonya stepped out onto the surface. The wind whipped around her, furiously kicking up waves of dust. She pushed the crate in front of her through the blasted forest. Gnarled branches clawed at her suit as she passed. The city loomed overhead, black silhouettes against the grey-green clouds.

Her curiosity got the better of her so Tonya decided to take a ramp up to the city streets. She told herself the detour would be easier on the crate’s battery. Smooth streets are easier for the anti-grav compensators to analyze than rough terrain.

Tonya moved through the barren, empty streets in awe. She studied the strange curvature of the architecture; each displayed an utterly alien yet brilliant understanding of pressure and weight dispersal. This whole place seemed at once natural and odd, intellectually fascinating and emotionally draining.

The kherium signature was still weak but there. Tonya maneuvered the crate around destroyed teardrop shaped vehicles. Pit-marks in the buildings and streets led her to suspect that a battle had taken place here however many hundreds or thousands of years ago.

The crater closest to the kherium was a perfect hole punched through the middle of the city into the ground. Tonya stood at the edge, looking for the easiest way down. The crate could float down but she would have to climb.

In a matter of minutes she secured a line with safeties for herself and the crate. She stepped over the edge and slowly rappelled down the sheer wall. The crate was making what should be a simple descent a little more complicated. The anti-grav buffers meant that any kind of force could cause the crate to drift away, so Tonya needed to keep a hand on it at all times. To make matters worse, the wind started picking up, flinging small rocks, branches and pieces of debris through the air.

A shrill scream tore through the air. Tonya froze. She heard it again and looked for the source. The screaming was just exposed supports bending in the wind.

Suddenly she realized, the crate had slipped out of her grasp. It slowly drifted further out over the crater, the swirling wind batted it around like a toy. Tonya strained to reach it but the crate floated just out of reach. She kicked off the wall and swung through the churning air. Her fingertips barely snagged the cargo before she slammed back against the wall of the crater.

Her vision blurred and she couldn’t breathe from the impact. The HUD went screwy. Finally she caught her breath. She took a moment or two before continuing down.

The scanner from the Beacon couldn’t isolate the signature any clearer to determine depth so she had to rely on her handheld. The kherium looked like it was situated between two tunnels.

Tonya secured the crate, climbed into the upper tunnel, and tied off her ropes. She checked her suit’s integrity in the debris-storm. The computer was a little fuzzy but gave her an okay.

She turned on a flashlight and activated the external mics on her suit. The tunnel was a perfectly carved tube that sloped into the darkness. Tonya couldn’t see any kind of power or rail system to confirm her transport tube theory. She started walking.

Hours passed in the darkness. Tonya felt a little queasy so she decided to rest for a few minutes. She sipped on the water reserve and double-checked her scanner. She was still above the kherium and it was still showing up as being in front of her. That much hadn’t changed.

She heard something. Very faint. She brought up the audio settings and pumped the gain on the external mics. A sea of white noise filled her ears. She didn’t move until she heard it again. Something being dragged then stopped.

IR and night vision windows appeared in the corners of her HUD. She couldn’t see anything. In the vast stretches of these tunnels, there’s no telling how far that sound had travelled. Still, she went to the crate and pulled the shotgun out. She made sure it was loaded, even tried to remember the last time she had cause to use it.

Tonya started moving a little more cautious. She doubted it was the prospectors. For all she knew it could be some other pirate or smuggler down here. Regardless, she wasn’t going to take any chances.

The tunnel started to expand before finally giving way to a vast darkness. Tonya’s night vision couldn’t even see the end. She dug through her supplies and picked out some old flares. She sparked one.

It was a city. A mirror city to be precise. While the one on the surface reached for the sky, this one was carved down into the planet. Walkways connected the various structures built out of the walls on the various levels. She’d never heard of anything like this before. Everyone speculated that it was civil war that destroyed this system. Was this a city of the other side?

She came to an intersection and the first real sign that the fighting had spread here. A barricade of melted vehicles blocked one of the tunnels. The walls were charred from either explosions or laser-blasts. A shadow had even been burned into the wall.

Tonya stood in front of it. The Hadesian seemed to have a roundish bulky main body with multiple thin appendages. A thousand year old stain on a wall is hardly much to go by, but even as a silhouette, it looked terrified.

A cavernous structure was built into the wall nearby. Tonya approached to examine the craftsmanship. It was certainly more ornate than most of the other buildings down here. There weren’t doors down here, just narrow oval portals. There was some kind of tech integrated into the sides.

Tonya decided to take a look. It was a deep bowl with rows of enclosures built into the sides. All of them were angled towards a single point, a marble-like cylinder at the bottom of the bowl. Tonya descended toward it. There was a small item sitting on top. She kept her light and shotgun trained on it. It was made from a similar marble-like stone as the cylinder. Tonya looked around. Was this some kind of church?

She leaned down to get a better look at the item, careful not to disturb anything. It was a small carving. It wasn’t a Hadesian shape. Not one she was familiar with. She weighed whether she should take it.

Tonya’s head suddenly swam. She stumbled back and steadied herself on the enclosures. After a moment or two it passed. A subtle stabbing pain started to ache in her arm. She stretched it, trying to work out the ache. She took a last look at the small carving.

Tonya stepped out of the ornate building and brought up her scanner. The kherium was close. She followed the scanner’s directions into the dark and twisted tunnels. Her eyes stayed locked on the growing glow of the screen. She tripped over something. The scanner clattered across the floor. It echoed for a minute.

Tonya shook her head slightly. This place… She turned her lights back right into the face of a rotted corpse, its mouth open in a silent scream.

“Hell!” she yelled as she scuffled away from it. She looked around. There was another form on the floor about twenty feet away. A strongbox sat between them. The initial shock subsided.

Tonya got up, grabbed her scanner and walked over to the first body. Its skull had been cracked open. There was no weapon though. No club or bar nearby. That was odd. The other one had clearly shot himself. The gun was still in his hand. They were definitely human and based on their clothes; they were probably surveyors or pirates. She didn’t know what kind of elements were in the air here so she couldn’t give an accurate guess how long they’d been dead but suspected months.

She shuffled over to the strongbox and kicked it open. Kherium. Already extracted and carefully wrapped. Sweet relief drifted through the exhaustion.

“Thanks guys.” Tonya gave them a quick salute. “Sorry you aren’t here to share it.” Something flitted across her IR window.

Tonya snatched up her shotgun and aimed. It was gone. Her breathing became rapid and shallow as she waited. Her finger hovered over the trigger. She pumped the gain on the external mics again and scanned the hall. The whole time, telling herself to calm down. Calm down.

Every movement of her suit amplified a hundred times in her ears. She tracked the rifle through the tunnel, looking for whatever was in here with her. Something came through the static. Close.

“Welcome home,” it hissed.

Tonya fired into the dark. She spun behind her. Nothing down there. She racked another round and blasted anyway. The shots blew out the speakers in her helmet.

She grabbed the strongbox and ran.

Ran through the slippery, sloping tunnels of pitch-black, now in total silence. She passed the intersection, where the Hadesian still raised its arms in terror. She kept looking back. She could swear something was there, just beyond the range of the IR, watching from the static.

Tonya sprinted up a rise to see the grim overcast light of the exit, now just a pinhole. Her legs burned. Her arm killed. All she wanted to do was go to sleep but she wasn’t going to stop. If she stopped, she knew she would never leave.

She pulled herself up the rope and pushed through the blasted forest back to the Beacon. Thirty seconds later, the thrusters were scorching earth. One minute later, she broke atmo.

As Hades II drifted away, she tried to steady her nerves. Her environment suit slowly twisted on the hanger in the decontamination chamber. She noticed something.

The respiratory functions on the back were damaged. The fall in the crater must have done it. It bashed up the feeds and she was getting too much oxygen. The headaches, nausea, and fatigue… even that voice. Even though it chilled her still. They were all probably just hallucinations and reactions to oxygen poisoning.

Probably.

Tonya set a course back for the Xenia Shipping Hub in Baker. She had goods to sell, true, but right now, she wanted to be around people.

She wanted to be around the noise.

Back in the decontamination chamber, the tiny Hadesian carving sat on the floor.

THE END

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[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: Whisperer in the Dark

Writer’s Note: Published originally in Jump Point 1.1, this story takes place before the events of The Lost Generation.

People complicate things. That’s what they’ve always been good at. Take a look at any functioning civilization and you will see chaos, confusion, and frustration. It could be human, Xi’an, Banu, Vanduul, whoever. We may look different, be built different, but boil us down and you’ll find the same insecurities, fears, and anxieties gnawing.

Tonya Oriel watched the yawning abyss outside the window. Kaceli’s Adagio in 4 gently wafted through the otherwise empty ship. Scanners cycled through their spectrums on the hunt for any flagged anomalies.

The void. It was pure. It was simple. It was permanent.

A calm serenity huddled around Tonya’s shoulders like a blanket, the kind that can only exist when you are the only person for thousands of kilometers. Everyone else can have Terra, Earth, or Titus, with their megacities teeming with people. Never a moment where there wasn’t a person above, beside or below you. Everything was noise. Tonya needed the silence.

Her ship, the Beacon, drifted through that silence. Tonya customized almost every hardpoint and pod with some form of scanner, deep-range comm system, or surveying tech to get her further and further from the noise.

The problem was that the noise kept following.

* * * *

After three weeks on the drift, Tonya couldn’t put it off any longer. She was due for a supply run and to sell off the data and minerals she’d collected. After repairs, new scrubbers, and a spectrum update, she hoped she’d have enough for some food.

The Xenia Shipping Hub in the Baker System had been the closest thing to a home she’d had for the past few years. Tonya set her approach through the shifting entry/exit patterns of ships. The station’s traffic was busier than usual. As soon as the Beacon docked, her screen buzzed with a handful of new messages from the spectrum. She passed them to her mobiGlas and went to the airlock.

Tonya paused by the entry and savored this last moment of solitude as the airlock cycled, then hit the button.

The sound of people swept inside like a wave. She took a second to acclimate, adjusted her bag and crossed into the masses.

Carl ran a small information network out of his bar, the Torchlight Express. An old surveyor for a long-defunct terraforming outfit, Carl traded moving minerals for slinging booze and information. Tonya had known him for years. As far as people went, Carl was a gem.

The Express was dead. Tonya checked local time. It was evening so there was no real reason why it should be like this. A group of prospectors sat at a table in the corner, engaged in a hushed conversation. Carl leaned against the bar, watching a sataball game on the wallscreen. His leathery fingers tapped out a beat to some song in his head.

He brightened up when he saw Tonya.

“Well, well, well, to what do we owe the honor, doctor?” He said with a grin.

“Don’t start, Carl.”

“Sure, sorry, doctor.” He must be bored; he only called her that when he wanted to pick a fight. Tonya slung her bag onto the ground and slid onto a stool.

“Anything interesting?” Tonya pulled her hair back into a tie.

“I’m great, Tonya, thanks for asking. Business is a little slow, but you know how it is.” Carl said sarcastically and slid a drink to her.

“Come on, Carl. I’m not gonna patronize you with small-talk.”

Carl sighed and looked around.

“At this point, I’ll take any patrons I can get.” He poured himself a drink from the dispenser. Tonya swiveled her mobiGlas around and showed him her manifest. He looked it over. “Running kinda light this time, huh?”

“I know. You know any buyers?”

“How much you looking to get?”

“Whatever I can,” Tonya said as she sipped. She could tell Carl was annoyed with the non-answer. “I need the money.”

“I might be able to get you ten.” He said after a long pause.

“I would give you my unborn child for ten.”

“With all the unborn kids you owe me, you better get started.” He said. Tonya smacked his arm.

One of the prospectors drifted over to the bar with empty glasses. He was young, one of those types who cultivated the dirty handsome look. Probably spent an hour perfecting it before going out.

“Another round.”

As Carl poured, the prospector looked at Tonya, giving his looks a chance to work their magic. They failed. Carl set a fresh batch of drinks down. The prospector paid and went back slightly deterred.

“I think someone liked you.” Carl teased.

“Not my type.”

“Living?”

“Exactly.” Tonya watched the prospectors. They were really in an overtly secretive conversation. “Any idea what they’re here for?”

“Of course I do.”

“Yeah? What’d they say?”

“Nothing… well, not to me anyway.” Carl pulled an earpiece out and held it out to her. Tonya wiped it off and took a listen. Suddenly she could hear their conversation loud and clear. Tonya looked at Carl, stunned.

“You have mics on your tables?!” She whispered. Carl shushed her.

“I deal in information, honey, so yeah.” Carl said, almost offended that he wouldn’t listen in on his customers.

Tonya took another sip and listened to the prospectors. It only took a little while to catch up. Apparently Cort, the prospector who tried to woo Tonya with his ruggedness, got a tip from his uncle in the UEE Navy. The uncle had been running Search & Rescue drills in the Hades System when their scanners accidentally picked up a deposit of kherium on Hades II. Being the military, of course, they couldn’t do anything, but Cort and his buddies were fixing to sneak in there and harvest it for themselves.

Kherium was a hot commodity. If these prospectors were on the level, they were talking about a tidy little fortune. Certainly enough to patch up the Beacon, maybe even install some upgrades.

Even better, they obviously didn’t know how to find it. Kherium doesn’t show up on a standard metal or rad scan. It takes a specialist to find, much less extract without corrupting it. Fortunately for Tonya, she knew how to do both. “You’ve got that look.” Carl said and refilled her glass. “Good news?”

“I hope so, Carl, for both of us.”

* * * *

Carl offloaded her haul at a discount so she could set out as quick as possible. Last time she checked, the prospectors were still at the Express and from the sound of it, they wouldn’t leave for a couple hours, maybe a day.

Tonya disengaged the Beacon from the dock and was back in her beloved solitude. The engines hummed as they pushed her deeper into space, pushed her toward a lifeline.

The Hades System was a tomb, the final monument of an ancient civil war that obliterated an entire system and the race that inhabited it. Tonya had it on her list of places to study, but every year Hades was besieged by fresh batches of young scientists exploring it for their dissertation or treasure hunters looking for whatever weapon cracked Hades IV in half. So the system became more noise to avoid.

Tonya had to admit that passing Hades IV was always a thrill. It’s not every day you get to see the guts of a planet killed in its prime.

Then there were the whispers that the system was haunted. There was always some pilot who knew a guy who knew someone who had seen something while passing through the system. The stories ranged from unexplained technical malfunctions to full-on sightings of ghost cruisers. It was all nonsense.

There was a loose stream of ships passing through Hades. The general flight lane steered clear of the central planets. Tonya slowed her ship until there was a sizeable gap in the flow of traffic before veering off toward Hades II.

She passed a barrier of dead satellites and descended into Hades II’s churning atmosphere. The Beacon jolted when it hit the clouds. Visual went to nil and suddenly the ship was bathed in noise, screaming air, and pressure. Tonya kept an eye on her scopes and expanded the range on her proximity alerts to make sure she didn’t ram a mountain.

Suddenly the clouds gave way. The Beacon swooped into the light gravity above a pitch-black ocean. Tonya quickly recalibrated her thrusters for atmospheric flight and took a long look at the planet around her.

As was expected, it was a husk. There were signs of intelligent civilization all around but all of it was crumbling, charred, or destroyed. She passed over vast curved cities built atop sweeping arches meant to keep the buildings from ever touching the planet itself.

Tonya maintained a cruising altitude. The roar of her engines echoed through the vast empty landscape. The sun was another casualty of this system’s execution. The cloud systems never abated so the surface never saw sunlight. It was always bathed in a dark greyish green haze.

Tonya studied the topography to plot out a course and set the scanners to look for the unique kherium signature she had programmed. She engaged the auto-pilot and just looked out the window.

Being here now, she kicked herself for not coming sooner. It didn’t matter that this was one of the most scientifically scrutinized locales in the UEE. Seeing the vastness of the devastation with her own eyes, Tonya felt that tug that a good mystery has on the intellect. Who were they? How did they manage to so effectively wipe themselves out? How do we know they actually wiped themselves out?

A few hours passed with no luck. Tonya had a quick snack and ran through her exercise routine. She double-checked the settings on her scans for any errors on the initial input. A couple months ago, she was surveying a planet and found nothing, only to discover on her way back that there had been one setting off that scuttled the whole scan. It still bugged her. It was an amateur mistake.

She brought up some texts on Hades. Halfway through a paper on the exobiology of the Hadesians, her screen pinged. Tonya was over there like a shot.

The scope gave a faint indication of kherium below. She triple-checked the settings before getting her hopes up. They seemed legit. She looked out the front. A small city sat above endless sea of dead trees lay ahead. It looked like an orbital laser or something had hit it excising massively deep craters from buildings and ground.

Tonya took a closer look. The craters went about six hundred feet into the ground, revealing networks of underground tunnels. They looked like some kind of transport system.

Tonya looked for a suitable landing spot with cover from overhead flights. If she was still here when the prospectors showed up, her ship would be a dead giveaway and things would get complicated.

She strapped on her environment suit and respirator. She could check the ship’s scanners through her mobiGlas but threw another handheld scanner/mapper in with her mining gear just in case. Finally, she powered up her transport crate, hoping the anti-gravity buffers would be more than enough to lug the kherium back.

Tonya stepped out onto the surface. The wind whipped around her, furiously kicking up waves of dust. She pushed the crate in front of her through the blasted forest. Gnarled branches clawed at her suit as she passed. The city loomed overhead, black silhouettes against the grey-green clouds.

Her curiosity got the better of her so Tonya decided to take a ramp up to the city streets. She told herself the detour would be easier on the crate’s battery. Smooth streets are easier for the anti-grav compensators to analyze than rough terrain.

Tonya moved through the barren, empty streets in awe. She studied the strange curvature of the architecture; each displayed an utterly alien yet brilliant understanding of pressure and weight dispersal. This whole place seemed at once natural and odd, intellectually fascinating and emotionally draining.

The kherium signature was still weak but there. Tonya maneuvered the crate around destroyed teardrop shaped vehicles. Pit-marks in the buildings and streets led her to suspect that a battle had taken place here however many hundreds or thousands of years ago.

The crater closest to the kherium was a perfect hole punched through the middle of the city into the ground. Tonya stood at the edge, looking for the easiest way down. The crate could float down but she would have to climb.

In a matter of minutes she secured a line with safeties for herself and the crate. She stepped over the edge and slowly rappelled down the sheer wall. The crate was making what should be a simple descent a little more complicated. The anti-grav buffers meant that any kind of force could cause the crate to drift away, so Tonya needed to keep a hand on it at all times. To make matters worse, the wind started picking up, flinging small rocks, branches and pieces of debris through the air.

A shrill scream tore through the air. Tonya froze. She heard it again and looked for the source. The screaming was just exposed supports bending in the wind.

Suddenly she realized, the crate had slipped out of her grasp. It slowly drifted further out over the crater, the swirling wind batted it around like a toy. Tonya strained to reach it but the crate floated just out of reach. She kicked off the wall and swung through the churning air. Her fingertips barely snagged the cargo before she slammed back against the wall of the crater.

Her vision blurred and she couldn’t breathe from the impact. The HUD went screwy. Finally she caught her breath. She took a moment or two before continuing down.

The scanner from the Beacon couldn’t isolate the signature any clearer to determine depth so she had to rely on her handheld. The kherium looked like it was situated between two tunnels.

Tonya secured the crate, climbed into the upper tunnel, and tied off her ropes. She checked her suit’s integrity in the debris-storm. The computer was a little fuzzy but gave her an okay.

She turned on a flashlight and activated the external mics on her suit. The tunnel was a perfectly carved tube that sloped into the darkness. Tonya couldn’t see any kind of power or rail system to confirm her transport tube theory. She started walking.

Hours passed in the darkness. Tonya felt a little queasy so she decided to rest for a few minutes. She sipped on the water reserve and double-checked her scanner. She was still above the kherium and it was still showing up as being in front of her. That much hadn’t changed.

She heard something. Very faint. She brought up the audio settings and pumped the gain on the external mics. A sea of white noise filled her ears. She didn’t move until she heard it again. Something being dragged then stopped.

IR and night vision windows appeared in the corners of her HUD. She couldn’t see anything. In the vast stretches of these tunnels, there’s no telling how far that sound had travelled. Still, she went to the crate and pulled the shotgun out. She made sure it was loaded, even tried to remember the last time she had cause to use it.

Tonya started moving a little more cautious. She doubted it was the prospectors. For all she knew it could be some other pirate or smuggler down here. Regardless, she wasn’t going to take any chances.

The tunnel started to expand before finally giving way to a vast darkness. Tonya’s night vision couldn’t even see the end. She dug through her supplies and picked out some old flares. She sparked one.

It was a city. A mirror city to be precise. While the one on the surface reached for the sky, this one was carved down into the planet. Walkways connected the various structures built out of the walls on the various levels. She’d never heard of anything like this before. Everyone speculated that it was civil war that destroyed this system. Was this a city of the other side?

She came to an intersection and the first real sign that the fighting had spread here. A barricade of melted vehicles blocked one of the tunnels. The walls were charred from either explosions or laser-blasts. A shadow had even been burned into the wall.

Tonya stood in front of it. The Hadesian seemed to have a roundish bulky main body with multiple thin appendages. A thousand year old stain on a wall is hardly much to go by, but even as a silhouette, it looked terrified.

A cavernous structure was built into the wall nearby. Tonya approached to examine the craftsmanship. It was certainly more ornate than most of the other buildings down here. There weren’t doors down here, just narrow oval portals. There was some kind of tech integrated into the sides.

Tonya decided to take a look. It was a deep bowl with rows of enclosures built into the sides. All of them were angled towards a single point, a marble-like cylinder at the bottom of the bowl. Tonya descended toward it. There was a small item sitting on top. She kept her light and shotgun trained on it. It was made from a similar marble-like stone as the cylinder. Tonya looked around. Was this some kind of church?

She leaned down to get a better look at the item, careful not to disturb anything. It was a small carving. It wasn’t a Hadesian shape. Not one she was familiar with. She weighed whether she should take it.

Tonya’s head suddenly swam. She stumbled back and steadied herself on the enclosures. After a moment or two it passed. A subtle stabbing pain started to ache in her arm. She stretched it, trying to work out the ache. She took a last look at the small carving.

Tonya stepped out of the ornate building and brought up her scanner. The kherium was close. She followed the scanner’s directions into the dark and twisted tunnels. Her eyes stayed locked on the growing glow of the screen. She tripped over something. The scanner clattered across the floor. It echoed for a minute.

Tonya shook her head slightly. This place… She turned her lights back right into the face of a rotted corpse, its mouth open in a silent scream.

“Hell!” she yelled as she scuffled away from it. She looked around. There was another form on the floor about twenty feet away. A strongbox sat between them. The initial shock subsided.

Tonya got up, grabbed her scanner and walked over to the first body. Its skull had been cracked open. There was no weapon though. No club or bar nearby. That was odd. The other one had clearly shot himself. The gun was still in his hand. They were definitely human and based on their clothes; they were probably surveyors or pirates. She didn’t know what kind of elements were in the air here so she couldn’t give an accurate guess how long they’d been dead but suspected months.

She shuffled over to the strongbox and kicked it open. Kherium. Already extracted and carefully wrapped. Sweet relief drifted through the exhaustion.

“Thanks guys.” Tonya gave them a quick salute. “Sorry you aren’t here to share it.” Something flitted across her IR window.

Tonya snatched up her shotgun and aimed. It was gone. Her breathing became rapid and shallow as she waited. Her finger hovered over the trigger. She pumped the gain on the external mics again and scanned the hall. The whole time, telling herself to calm down. Calm down.

Every movement of her suit amplified a hundred times in her ears. She tracked the rifle through the tunnel, looking for whatever was in here with her. Something came through the static. Close.

“Welcome home,” it hissed.

Tonya fired into the dark. She spun behind her. Nothing down there. She racked another round and blasted anyway. The shots blew out the speakers in her helmet.

She grabbed the strongbox and ran.

Ran through the slippery, sloping tunnels of pitch-black, now in total silence. She passed the intersection, where the Hadesian still raised its arms in terror. She kept looking back. She could swear something was there, just beyond the range of the IR, watching from the static.

Tonya sprinted up a rise to see the grim overcast light of the exit, now just a pinhole. Her legs burned. Her arm killed. All she wanted to do was go to sleep but she wasn’t going to stop. If she stopped, she knew she would never leave.

She pulled herself up the rope and pushed through the blasted forest back to the Beacon. Thirty seconds later, the thrusters were scorching earth. One minute later, she broke atmo.

As Hades II drifted away, she tried to steady her nerves. Her environment suit slowly twisted on the hanger in the decontamination chamber. She noticed something.

The respiratory functions on the back were damaged. The fall in the crater must have done it. It bashed up the feeds and she was getting too much oxygen. The headaches, nausea, and fatigue… even that voice. Even though it chilled her still. They were all probably just hallucinations and reactions to oxygen poisoning.

Probably.

Tonya set a course back for the Xenia Shipping Hub in Baker. She had goods to sell, true, but right now, she wanted to be around people.

She wanted to be around the noise.

Back in the decontamination chamber, the tiny Hadesian carving sat on the floor.

THE END

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[justinjslone]

Your 9 Step Guide to Building a Successful Webinar Strategy

If you haven’t incorporated webinar development into your inbound content strategy yet, it’s time to start. Webinars don't take a lot of your budget to implement, but provide an immediate lead capture opportunity and enable you to directly engage with qualified prospects. Best of all, they’re an effective way to provide comprehensive, educational content for your buyer personas. If done right, webinars can significantly drive lead generation and boost ROI.

Planning your first webinar can be an overwhelming process, so we’ve created a list of the nine essential steps to take to ensure your next webinar is successful.

1. Be smart about your timeline

Any marketing professional understands that timing is everything and webinar development is no exception.

When it comes to choosing a day and time for your webinar, consider when people are most likely to tune in. If you’re trying to reach business professionals, airing your webinar mid-afternoon on a weekday is a safe bet. Webinars offer the opportunity for prospects to learn in a way that can be more engaging than reading a lengthy ebook or whitepaper. Tuning in to listen to a short webinar on a lunch break is often a much-desired change of pace for busy professionals.

Your webinar should last from 30 to 60 minutes depending on the density of your chosen topic. Avoid hosting webinars longer than an hour. A lengthy time commitment may deter busy professionals from registering. After determining the length of your webinar, organize the script and slide deck to match your time frame.

Your timeline for planning should kick at least one full month ahead of the established webinar air date. This lead time will ensure you can implement effectively and see ROI on your marketing efforts. We recommend allotting a minimum of three weeks for ongoing promotion. The longer you promote your webinar, the more leads you’ll capture and the more revenue you’ll generate in the long run.

2. Identify a prospect list

Now that you’ve set a time and date, you're ready to figure out who your target audience will be.

What buyer persona(s) do you want to reach? What are their pain points and how can you address them through this content medium? Rather than sending out an invitation to your entire contact database, establish an ample prospect list based on specific qualifying criteria. From there, focus on the different attributes and challenges of your targeted personas to shape your webinar content strategy.

3. Choose a relevant topic and knowledgeable speakers

Now that you’ve identified the prospects you aim to target with your webinar, it’s time to a choose a topic and speakers.

Inbound best practices dictate that your content should provide value for your buyer personas in the form of education. Select a topic that is timely, relevant, educational and alleviates a pain-point of your targeted buyer personas.

Next, it’s time to consider connections within your network who are experts on this topic; they’re going to be the most effective speakers. Be aware of your selected speaker’s comfort and skill level with public speaking. Verbal clarity and succinctness are key to conveying your content in a compelling way.

4. Establish a content outline

Once you’ve found the perfect subject matter experts to speak about your topic, you can begin to outline the content of your webinar. Create a script, slide deck and any other documentation necessary to your preparation.

Your script can be cursory or calculated depending on the style of your webinar. Brief, informal scripts are great for conversational presentations. If you are covering a general topic at a high level, this style of webinar is a great choice. Conversely, deep dives into complex topics often demand comprehensive, rehearsed scripts. Determine your topic’s level of intricacy and choose your presentation style accordingly.

Your slide deck should not be text-heavy or overly exhaustive. It should provide sufficient information to supplement your verbal presentation. Bullet points and images are effective ways to keep text minimal and points concise.

  5. Create a gated registration page with persuasive copy

The copy on your registration page must clearly communicate the value of your webinar and include all essential information. Remember to consider varying time zones when sharing your webinar’s air time and date.

To support your lead generation efforts, we recommend requiring users to submit a form in order to register for your webinar. Webinars are usually a middle-of-funnel content offer, so your form strategy should mirror requirements corresponding to this stage of the buyer’s journey. Content at the middle of the funnel aligns with the “consideration” stage of the buyer’s journey — meaning that the buyer is deciding whether or not your solution could be a good fit for their business.

Because the buyer is showing a high-involvement interest, your form can ask for personal details without seeming invasive. Capturing this critical information can help your team better tailor their sales conversion efforts and build rapport with leads post-webinar. Don’t forget to configure your landing page so that form submission automatically registers users through your webinar-hosting software.

Lastly, be sure to route users to a thank-you page that incorporates inbound best practices and a relevant content offer upon submission.

6. Create promotional content with appropriate methods of measurement

Your returns will depend on your promotion efforts. We recommend promoting your webinar via email and social media for at least three weeks prior to the air date. It's critical that you clearly communicate the value of your webinar through concise, persuasive copy. Furthermore, be sure to supplement your copy with engaging visuals and actionable CTAs.

The only thing as important as your promotional content is your method for attributing how it contributed to lead generation. Understand your means and method for measuring the value of your efforts. Define it and share it with team members. Doing so will enable you to identify strengths and weaknesses within your webinar promotion strategy and ultimately improve upon it in the future.

7. Set up an email workflow to urge prospects to register

Your prospects are busy people and it’s likely that a single promotional email won’t suffice to bring in your desired number of registrants. A prospect could initially dismiss your promotion as spam without realizing that they’re missing out on a premium content offer.

Thankfully, your marketing automation platform can help you avoid falling victim to miscommunication. Consider creating a workflow of three to four promotional emails to encourage registration in the weeks leading up to your air date. Once your prospect completes the desired action (webinar registration) they’ll be unenrolled from your workflow and will stop receiving promotional content.

By creating a workflow to nurture prospects who have received promotional content for your webinar but still haven't registered, you can ensure that prospects aren’t mistakenly dismissing your offer.

8. Host your webinar

After weeks of preparation, it’s finally time to air your webinar. We recommend recording a test run with your speakers prior to the actual air date to troubleshoot any technical complications and help everyone get comfortable.

Make sure you’ve configured a platform like GoToWebinar to host and record your presentation. Confirm that all guest speakers who will be attending remotely are given the necessary permissions to attend the webinar as a co-host.

Most importantly, relax and enjoy your experience as a speaker or host. Surely, it can be intimidating to consider the prospect of public speaking, but it doesn’t have to be a stressful experience. Focus on effectively communicating your message to your audience in a way that is both easy to follow and engaging. In the end, what matters most is the value you've provided your prospects — so make sure you take your time to emphasize key insights.

9. Conduct post-webinar follow-up with registrants

After the webinar airs, follow up with registrants via email to thank them for taking part. Be sure to provide a recording of the webinar for registrants who were unable to attend the live airing or would like to re-watch it.

If you’d like to promote the webinar recording to non-registrants, we recommend creating a new landing page to fuel your lead generation efforts. Even though your webinar has officially passed, the recording still has value as a middle-of-funnel content offer, so tailor your form strategy accordingly.

Be a webinar star!

Incorporate webinar development into your content strategy to promote lead generation and drive revenue. As long as you follow the nine steps detailed above, your next webinar is sure to be a success.

Interested in learning more best practices for incorporating video into your inbound marketing strategy?

[touristguidebuzz]

U.S. Tour Operators Optimistic About Cuba Travel Because They’re Even More Essential

U.S. tour operators aren't being deterred by policy changes towards Cuba. Pictured are tourists riding in a convertible in Havana. Marco Derksen / Flickr

Skift Take: U.S. tour operators and travel agents are betting that it will be business as usual, or perhaps even better, as the new Cuba restrictions take effect and individual people-to-people visas get sidelined. But many also find it ironic that the White House announced these changes while Trump was courting leaders of Asian countries that have poor human rights records.

— Dan Peltier

Tour operator and travel agents just returned to their former status as the gateways for Americans seeking to visit Cuba.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy outline of several months ago on U.S. travel to Cuba have become reality: Americans will no longer be able to travel to Cuba without a tour group, or stay in a hotel or spend money with any business that has ties to the Cuban government and military, among other restrictions.

While those changes are likely causing confusion for many U.S. travelers who have reservations for Cuba trips or plan to visit the country, the changes give an advantageous position to tour operators and travel agents that are once again the default gateways for any American wanting to visit Cuba.

Some cruise lines, too, say the changes will make them a more favorable option for visiting the country.

Many tour operators stand to gain from these new restrictions given individual, unguided travel is no longer allowed, but many also worry the changes will send mixed messages that Americans can’t travel to Cuba at all.

U.S. travelers’ dreams of individual travel to Cuba were short-lived — Americans could go by themselves without a tour guide from March 2016 to November 9 thanks to Obama-era regulations that eased restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba. The new regulations will not affect U.S. travelers who already had one element of a trip to Cuba booked prior to June 16, 2017. For educational travelers, this deadline applies for trips with elements booked before November 9.

But some tour operators also feel that the changes aren’t a complete backtrack from the U.S.-Cuba détente that began in December 2014.

David Lee, owner of Cultural Cuba, leads groups of fewer than 12 people from the U.S. to Cuba. “The reality is that no one was supposed to go without having some kind of itinerary that met the full restrictions, but people are smart,” said Lee.

“There are more hotels than there were two years ago,” he said. “There are more nice villas and more boutiques. The Kempinski being on Trump’s banned list is unfortunate because that’s a really nice hotel. I find it strange that the Marriott property in Havana is also owned by the [Cuban military owned Gaviota Group] yet isn’t on the list.”

Lee said one of the main differences with the changes, so far, is figuring out whether a tour leader will need to travel with tour participants to and from the U.S. “Obviously it’s not cost-effective if a tour leader has to travel with a group of two versus a group of 10 or 12,” said Lee. “That’s one of the slight nuances to itineraries that tour operators are trying to figure out since some of the changes are a bit vague.”

The Cuba Trifecta

Charel van Dam, chief marketing officer of Cuba Travel Network, said some U.S. travelers are puzzled by the changes and recent headlines.

Some travelers have been unsure of how to legally travel in Cuba since Trump announced his changes in June. “I was in Havana three weeks ago and I spoke to a lot of people there and I heard a lot of stories about empty casas where before it was buzzing with activity,” said van Dam. “You do already see an impact from the previous announcement.”

Many U.S. tour operators were already facing difficulties in Cuba from other factors such as the U.S. State Department’s Cuba travel warning, and Hurricane Irma damage, in addition to Trump’s changes.

Lee dubbed this three-way combination a “trifecta,” and said there’s no question it’s impacted bookings for tour operators. “With the travel warning, we haven’t been affected as much but a lot of group tours have had lots of cancellations,” he said. “It might take an announcement that they’ve found the source [of the alleged injuries to U.S. embassy personnel] to help travelers’ fears subside.”

Cuba’s hurricane damage seemed to receive less media attention than other Caribbean destinations, said Lee, but general uncertainty about the region has caused some travelers to think twice about going. Cultural Cuba, however, hasn’t seen much impact from recent hurricanes, said Lee.

“Cuba got hit hard from Irma but from a tourism standpoint, the hardest hit areas were northeastern beaches and technically Americans aren’t supposed to be vacationing on beaches and all-inclusive hotels in Cuba,” said Lee. “Havana hotels that were flooded were cleaned up remarkably fast. Just soon after Irma, we had clients in Cuba. The Hemingway House hasn’t reopened yet because it suffered some damage during Irma but it was already undergoing renovations anyways.”

How U.S. Operators Are Adjusting

It’s a new chapter in U.S. travel to Cuba as travel brands must combat fears about a travel warning, negative perceptions about the Caribbean post-hurricanes, and uncertainty about whether the Trump administration will take further action in limiting how Americans can visit the country.

Still, it’s been an exciting roller coaster ride for U.S. tour operators and travel agents that do business in Cuba over he past decade, and especially during the past three years as both countries have begun to normalize relations.

December 17 will mark the third anniversary of former President Obama’s announcement about thawing relations with the Cuban government. Tour operators have learned to be adaptable and respond quickly to change when it comes to Cuba.

“There remain countless ways to legally visit the island and there are many fully compliant avenues for doing business,”said Collin Laverty, founder and president, Cuba Educational Travel.

Laverty said U.S. companies will continue to pursue deals that comply with the new regulations that benefit business owners, workers and consumers in both countries. “At the same time, these limited tweaks to President Obama’s policy demonstrate the popularity of opening up trade and travel with Cuba,” said Laverty.

For many tour operators and travel agents, most of the changes are small and aren’t expected to deter travelers who are truly determined to visit Cuba.

“Since last week, I’ve actually had more Cuban inquiries and bookings than I’ve had in the last few months because all of a sudden everyone who was afraid to go to Cuba because they weren’t sure about the new changes finally had clarification on what the changes would be,” said Lesley Hock, a Boston-based Travel Leaders travel agent who’s planned trips to Cuba for about 100 U.S. travelers since 2014.

Some 90 percent of Hock’s Cuba clients have asked her to plan individual itineraries for them rather than going with a bus tour, for example. “I don’t think that the requirement to have a guide even for individuals and small groups will keep people from going,” she said.

“People will either play by the rules or take their ball to another playground,” said Hock. “If you want an all-inclusive experience on the beach, that’s not what Cuba is about and I always recommend a different Caribbean destination if all someone wants to do is relax on a beach.”

Hock said she’s had three to four times more Cuba inquires than actual bookings because about 80 percent of travelers who contact her have unrealistic expectations about Cuba. “Most people don’t want to play by the rules and do the people-to-people activities because they’d rather sit on a beach or they think they can go inexpensively and book everything themselves,” said Hock.

Hock isn’t concerned that the individual people-to-people visa has been eliminated because she specializes in crafting individual and small group itineraries with guides. “Nothing has changed for me and tour buses just aren’t my client base,” she said. “My clients who go to Cuba really want to get off the beaten path. Many people understand that they need to go now if they want to see Cuba untouched.”

Uncertainty Still Lingers

But many travel agents, tour operators and academics aren’t feeling as confident as Hock.

Educational travel visas, for example, weren’t impacted by the changes but Pedro Freyre, chair of international practice at Akerman International, a Miami-based law firm that’s been advising clients on doing business in Cuba for 15 years, said his office received questions from clients during the summer about education visas.

Educational visas remain one of the 12 approved categories that Americans can visit Cuba. “I always advise my clients to keep their records of any travel to Cuba for five years in case there are any questions,” he said.

Cuba Candela, a Miami-based tour operator, said that eliminating individual people-to-people visas will have the opposite effect it’s intended to have. “As a tour company working in this space, our goal is to create meaningful cultural connections between Americans and the Cuban people,” said Chad Olin, CEO and founder of Cuba Candela.

Olin argues that people-to-people interactions will decrease. “That’s what’s going away with this new policy,” he said. “It’s a bit heartbreaking. While you now need to use a tour operator to go to Cuba, we’d much rather prefer for the market to be open and for individual Americans to travel to Cuba has freely as they wish.”

Now, barring further policy changes, it’s up to U.S. travelers who will have to decide whether having a guide tag along on their vacation is worth it for the kind of trips they want to take.

[rollinbrigittenv8]

U.S. Tour Operators Optimistic About Cuba Travel Because They’re Even More Essential

U.S. tour operators aren't being deterred by policy changes towards Cuba. Pictured are tourists riding in a convertible in Havana. Marco Derksen / Flickr

Skift Take: U.S. tour operators and travel agents are betting that it will be business as usual, or perhaps even better, as the new Cuba restrictions take effect and individual people-to-people visas get sidelined. But many also find it ironic that the White House announced these changes while Trump was courting leaders of Asian countries that have poor human rights records.

— Dan Peltier

Tour operator and travel agents just returned to their former status as the gateways for Americans seeking to visit Cuba.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy outline of several months ago on U.S. travel to Cuba have become reality: Americans will no longer be able to travel to Cuba without a tour group, or stay in a hotel or spend money with any business that has ties to the Cuban government and military, among other restrictions.

While those changes are likely causing confusion for many U.S. travelers who have reservations for Cuba trips or plan to visit the country, the changes give an advantageous position to tour operators and travel agents that are once again the default gateways for any American wanting to visit Cuba.

Some cruise lines, too, say the changes will make them a more favorable option for visiting the country.

Many tour operators stand to gain from these new restrictions given individual, unguided travel is no longer allowed, but many also worry the changes will send mixed messages that Americans can’t travel to Cuba at all.

U.S. travelers’ dreams of individual travel to Cuba were short-lived — Americans could go by themselves without a tour guide from March 2016 to November 9 thanks to Obama-era regulations that eased restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba. The new regulations will not affect U.S. travelers who already had one element of a trip to Cuba booked prior to June 16, 2017. For educational travelers, this deadline applies for trips with elements booked before November 9.

But some tour operators also feel that the changes aren’t a complete backtrack from the U.S.-Cuba détente that began in December 2014.

David Lee, owner of Cultural Cuba, leads groups of fewer than 12 people from the U.S. to Cuba. “The reality is that no one was supposed to go without having some kind of itinerary that met the full restrictions, but people are smart,” said Lee.

“There are more hotels than there were two years ago,” he said. “There are more nice villas and more boutiques. The Kempinski being on Trump’s banned list is unfortunate because that’s a really nice hotel. I find it strange that the Marriott property in Havana is also owned by the [Cuban military owned Gaviota Group] yet isn’t on the list.”

Lee said one of the main differences with the changes, so far, is figuring out whether a tour leader will need to travel with tour participants to and from the U.S. “Obviously it’s not cost-effective if a tour leader has to travel with a group of two versus a group of 10 or 12,” said Lee. “That’s one of the slight nuances to itineraries that tour operators are trying to figure out since some of the changes are a bit vague.”

The Cuba Trifecta

Charel van Dam, chief marketing officer of Cuba Travel Network, said some U.S. travelers are puzzled by the changes and recent headlines.

Some travelers have been unsure of how to legally travel in Cuba since Trump announced his changes in June. “I was in Havana three weeks ago and I spoke to a lot of people there and I heard a lot of stories about empty casas where before it was buzzing with activity,” said van Dam. “You do already see an impact from the previous announcement.”

Many U.S. tour operators were already facing difficulties in Cuba from other factors such as the U.S. State Department’s Cuba travel warning, and Hurricane Irma damage, in addition to Trump’s changes.

Lee dubbed this three-way combination a “trifecta,” and said there’s no question it’s impacted bookings for tour operators. “With the travel warning, we haven’t been affected as much but a lot of group tours have had lots of cancellations,” he said. “It might take an announcement that they’ve found the source [of the alleged injuries to U.S. embassy personnel] to help travelers’ fears subside.”

Cuba’s hurricane damage seemed to receive less media attention than other Caribbean destinations, said Lee, but general uncertainty about the region has caused some travelers to think twice about going. Cultural Cuba, however, hasn’t seen much impact from recent hurricanes, said Lee.

“Cuba got hit hard from Irma but from a tourism standpoint, the hardest hit areas were northeastern beaches and technically Americans aren’t supposed to be vacationing on beaches and all-inclusive hotels in Cuba,” said Lee. “Havana hotels that were flooded were cleaned up remarkably fast. Just soon after Irma, we had clients in Cuba. The Hemingway House hasn’t reopened yet because it suffered some damage during Irma but it was already undergoing renovations anyways.”

How U.S. Operators Are Adjusting

It’s a new chapter in U.S. travel to Cuba as travel brands must combat fears about a travel warning, negative perceptions about the Caribbean post-hurricanes, and uncertainty about whether the Trump administration will take further action in limiting how Americans can visit the country.

Still, it’s been an exciting roller coaster ride for U.S. tour operators and travel agents that do business in Cuba over he past decade, and especially during the past three years as both countries have begun to normalize relations.

December 17 will mark the third anniversary of former President Obama’s announcement about thawing relations with the Cuban government. Tour operators have learned to be adaptable and respond quickly to change when it comes to Cuba.

“There remain countless ways to legally visit the island and there are many fully compliant avenues for doing business,”said Collin Laverty, founder and president, Cuba Educational Travel.

Laverty said U.S. companies will continue to pursue deals that comply with the new regulations that benefit business owners, workers and consumers in both countries. “At the same time, these limited tweaks to President Obama’s policy demonstrate the popularity of opening up trade and travel with Cuba,” said Laverty.

For many tour operators and travel agents, most of the changes are small and aren’t expected to deter travelers who are truly determined to visit Cuba.

“Since last week, I’ve actually had more Cuban inquiries and bookings than I’ve had in the last few months because all of a sudden everyone who was afraid to go to Cuba because they weren’t sure about the new changes finally had clarification on what the changes would be,” said Lesley Hock, a Boston-based Travel Leaders travel agent who’s planned trips to Cuba for about 100 U.S. travelers since 2014.

Some 90 percent of Hock’s Cuba clients have asked her to plan individual itineraries for them rather than going with a bus tour, for example. “I don’t think that the requirement to have a guide even for individuals and small groups will keep people from going,” she said.

“People will either play by the rules or take their ball to another playground,” said Hock. “If you want an all-inclusive experience on the beach, that’s not what Cuba is about and I always recommend a different Caribbean destination if all someone wants to do is relax on a beach.”

Hock said she’s had three to four times more Cuba inquires than actual bookings because about 80 percent of travelers who contact her have unrealistic expectations about Cuba. “Most people don’t want to play by the rules and do the people-to-people activities because they’d rather sit on a beach or they think they can go inexpensively and book everything themselves,” said Hock.

Hock isn’t concerned that the individual people-to-people visa has been eliminated because she specializes in crafting individual and small group itineraries with guides. “Nothing has changed for me and tour buses just aren’t my client base,” she said. “My clients who go to Cuba really want to get off the beaten path. Many people understand that they need to go now if they want to see Cuba untouched.”

Uncertainty Still Lingers

But many travel agents, tour operators and academics aren’t feeling as confident as Hock.

Educational travel visas, for example, weren’t impacted by the changes but Pedro Freyre, chair of international practice at Akerman International, a Miami-based law firm that’s been advising clients on doing business in Cuba for 15 years, said his office received questions from clients during the summer about education visas.

Educational visas remain one of the 12 approved categories that Americans can visit Cuba. “I always advise my clients to keep their records of any travel to Cuba for five years in case there are any questions,” he said.

Cuba Candela, a Miami-based tour operator, said that eliminating individual people-to-people visas will have the opposite effect it’s intended to have. “As a tour company working in this space, our goal is create meaningful cultural connections between Americans and the Cuban people,” said Chad Olin, founder and president of Cuba Candela.

Olin argues that people-to-people interactions will decrease. “That’s what’s going away with this new policy,” he said. “It’s a bit heartbreaking. While you now need to use a tour operator to go to Cuba, we’d much rather prefer for the market to be open and for individual Americans to travel to Cuba has freely as they wish.”

Now, barring further policy changes, it’s up to U.S. travelers who will have to decide whether having a guide tag along on their vacation is worth it for the kind of trips they want to take.

[castellex]

Security Fog, Security Strobe-X and Security Siren Blaster-X you can connect to any existing wired alarm system. Castellex security set provides ultimate protection for remote buildings/ villas, Jewelry shops, Cash points, government buildings, Art collections, apartments, commercial properties, yachts, etc...

Security Fog Generator

FAST 03 1C PRO is the ideal fogging system to protect small /medium areas like shops, homes, bank atm machines and generally all professional applications where is needed a top security technology. It is equipped with 1 cylinder for a very convenient , reliable and redundant shooting , shoots up to 200/300 m3 of dense fog in about the 20 seconds. it is very fast and competitive.

Security Strobe-X and Sound Blaster set

The strobe light and sounders both are similar in terms of their proportions, dimensions, and their external appearance. They are also both similar in terms of their functions. Most people should find that they will work well as a set. However, they can work just as well independently. The similarity of their design can help to reinforce the fact that the two of them are part of the same set. It can also make it that much easier to give people the results that they want.

Both of these devices are already effective enough on their own. However, when people put them together, they can turn into something that is truly remarkable. It is possible to engage with a lot of different senses as a result of the strobe light and sound system combination. People will have a much easier time trying to balance out the effects of a security system like this as a result of the sounder and strobe light combination.

Criminals who are armed with ear protection won‘t have enough with a sounder like this, since most ear protection only has people covered at up to around thirty or forty decibels. People also will not have an easy time guarding against both the strobe light effects and the sounder at the same time. Loud noises and bright lights are both difficult to deal with on their own. The combination of bright lights and loud noises can create something that is truly unbearable for the criminals who might try to get around them.

Even if criminals could actually deactivate the devices, which is very difficult, they would have a hard time doing so with all of the built-in protections and the fact that sound and light are so difficult to deal with in their extremes. Most criminals will just want to get as far away from the sound source and the light source as possible the moment that they realize just how extreme both of them can be with this strobe light and sound system combination.

Security Strobe-X

There are few devices like the Castellex strobe lights on the market today. In terms of sheer convenience and efficacy, people often will not find strobe lights like these.

Many criminals have actually learned to get around certain security systems. They will just disconnect the power sources from different elements of the security systems. From there, they can finish the job without interruptions. However, this isn't going to work with the Castellex strobe lights. They have built-in batteries.

These strobe lights are difficult to disarm for other reasons, as well. They are equipped with tamper switches, so criminals will have a much harder time removing or deactivating the strobe lights. These are strobe lights that are largely immune to being tampered with by criminals, making them that much more effective.

With some battery-powered products, people might worry about them running low on the charge. This isn't an issue with these strobe lights, because the alarm console is continually charging them. As such, the strobe lights will always have the energy that they need in order to function as effective deterrents against criminals.

The white LIGHT of these strobe are so bright and so dramatic that they can truly distract and alarm any criminal in the vicinity. However, there are also blue and red LIGHT'S as well. Added together, this will make the strobe lights similar to police light. Some criminals will have sort of a Pavlovian response to red, white, and blue lights. They will immediately associate them with the police.

This can cause them to behave irrationally and to make mistakes. When criminals behave irrationally, they are more likely to get caught. They're also more likely to leave right away. Some criminals might be afraid that they accidentally stumbled onto police property, which is something that most criminals know to avoid at the best of times even if they're willing to rob someone else. Criminals typically know to avoid the police and anything associated with them, and these strobe lights can do the trick.

Sound Blaster

Thanks to the very strong steel body of the sounder, it should be very difficult for criminals to smash it in order to disarm the system. The sounder should also last for a long time as a result of the sounder and its solid steel construction.

The alarm console manages to keep the sounder constantly charged. As such, it is not going to fail on people at the worst possible moment. Criminals will not be able to disconnect the sounder from its power source, either. The built-in batteries make this impossible. They are also hard to find and difficult to remove.

Many people are concerned about the professional criminals who have somehow managed to get past a lot of different security systems in the past. This is understandable, since a lot of these people seem to be unstoppable. However, a lot of professional criminals are able to do this because they are specifically good at disarming and deactivating a lot of the security systems that are tasked with keeping them out in the first place.

It isn't because the criminals have some sort of extreme set of special skills that no one can anticipate. As long as people use security systems that are very difficult to disarm, then it is going to be that much easier to keep out even some of the most extreme professional criminals who are working today. This Strobe light and Sound system should be able to help to make that happen.

There are few forms of deterrent technology that are more effective than sound technology. People tend to freeze up in the midst of a lot of loud noises. Loud noises can cause real pain. They can make people go into shock. They can cause people to want to get away from certain premises as quickly as possible.

There are legal limits for indoor sound levels, of course. Noise pollution is a very real problem. However, these sounders do not exceed 127 decibels, which is the legal limit. 127 decibels, however, is more than enough of a sound level to cause actual damage to the criminals who try to break in, and they will be aware of this right away. They will want to get away from the premises as quickly as possible just on the basis of the extreme sound.

This is a device that should manage to work quickly. This means that the noise isn't going to last for too long. However, it should still last long enough to do its job and to stop the criminals from causing any damage. They are thrones who will have to pay in this instance.

Using this Strobe-X and Sound Blaster Combination

Many people will specifically use a combination like this for burglary prevention. It can technically be used in working hours and after working hours. While some people might object to the fact that something this loud and this bright cannot be used during working hours, employees will often have to deal with similar spikes of sound and light during fire drills and other safety drills.

Obviously, this is all more of an issue after the working hours anyway, since few burglaries will occur during a busy office day. This Strobe light and Sound combination can truly manage to deter criminals very late at night, when the office building is particularly vulnerable.

The Castellex strobe light will be used at many different locations. The fact that the sounder and the strobe lights were designed to be relatively small and unobtrusive certainly helps. It means that it is that much easier for businesses to use them without worrying about the aesthetics of their business buildings being disrupted at any point. People will have a much easier time when it comes to adding security systems like these to their businesses because as long as the Castellex Strobe-X light and sounder are not in use, people usually don't even have to know that they are there.

Lots of areas will have a slow police response. Some areas will have functionally no police response at all. If the police are too late to get to the scene, they will usually be too late in general. Most criminals never get caught after they getaway, in fact, especially when it comes to simple burglaries and thefts. People need a first line of defense that is actually going to work. In a lot of cases, a solid security system will get the job done.

The Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination works really well for the remote areas that will have a particularly slow police response. However, they can work well in busier areas as well. Many jewelers, store owners, antiques dealers, and art dealers will use security systems like these. Liquor stores and other areas that are prone to getting robbed should really invest in security systems like these as well.

Some people will try to protect their machinery using security devices like this, which can certainly work wonders for a lot of people. A Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination like this can stop a lot of crimes before they even start. Many criminals will just run away. They won't get arrested. They won‘t get caught by the store owners or property owners. The Castellex Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination will just help a lot of criminals get the message quickly, and they will be gone. The entire process can be over in a few minutes, and that will work out better for everyone involved.

A lot of people today will want a security system that works but that is ultimately going to make things a lot easier and more convenient for them. The Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination is capable of doing that. Using a Security Strobe-X light as a security device is fairly innovative these days. A lot of people have never tried doing that before, and the people who do use it will have an element of surprise on their sides these days. It's that much easier for a lot of people to be able to truly get ahead when they know that their businesses are perfectly secure. Whether people are trying to guard their boats, their stores, their homes, or their other valuables, the Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination can help a lot of people stay safe and secure.

Security Strobe-X specifications:

Power supply:                   10-20 VDC, 250mA (12.5 VDC charge)

Efficiency:                           up to 175 m3 (70 m2 x 2.5m)

Alarm signal:                      Positive (10-14 V, 5 mA) or Negative inputs (0-0.3 V, 5 mA)

Battery:                                2800 mAh

Full charge time:               up to 8 hour

Battery life time:              up to 3 years

Dimensions (LxWxH):     300 x 180 x 45 mm

Sound Blaster-X specifications:

Power supply:                   10-14 VDC, 150mA (12.5 VDC charge)

Sound output level:         up to 127 dB

Efficiency:                           up to 175 m3 (70 m2 x 2.5m)

Alarm signal:                      Positive (10-14 V, 5 mA) or Negative inputs (0-0.3 V, 5 mA)

Battery:                                1800 mAh

Full charge time:               up to 8 hour

Battery life time:              up to 3 years

Dimensions (LxWxH):     300 x 180 x 45 mm

Fog generator specifications:

Weight of the fog machine:     11 kg

Weight in the packaging:         13 kgDimension of the machine:     30,5x19,0xh39,0Dimension of packaging:         37,0x25,0xh47,0Colours:                                       white/optional colorStandard working time without main power: about 2 hours

Heat up time from cold:          about 70 minutes

Max fog release in a single shoot: up to 300 m3Max seconds of fog release in a single shoot: 15 secMax tot emission with full fog tanks: 900 m3

Fog tank capacity:                   1 x 600 ml

Set includes:

Fog generator FAST 03 1C pro - 1 pcs

Castellex Strobe-X - 2 pcs

Castellex Sound Blaster-X - 2 pcs

Fog cylinder - 1 pcs

[castellex]

Security Fog, Security Strobe-X and Security Siren Blaster-X you can connect to any existing wired alarm system. Castellex security set provides ultimate protection for remote buildings/ villas, Jewelry shops, Cash points, government buildings, Art collections, apartments, commercial properties, yachts, etc...

Security Fog Generator

FAST 03 1C PRO is the ideal fogging system to protect small /medium areas like shops, homes, bank atm machines and generally all professional applications where is needed a top security technology. It is equipped with 1 cylinder for a very convenient , reliable and redundant shooting , shoots up to 200/300 m3 of dense fog in about the 20 seconds. it is very fast and competitive.

Security Strobe-X and Sound Blaster set

The strobe light and sounders both are similar in terms of their proportions, dimensions, and their external appearance. They are also both similar in terms of their functions. Most people should find that they will work well as a set. However, they can work just as well independently. The similarity of their design can help to reinforce the fact that the two of them are part of the same set. It can also make it that much easier to give people the results that they want.

Both of these devices are already effective enough on their own. However, when people put them together, they can turn into something that is truly remarkable. It is possible to engage with a lot of different senses as a result of the strobe light and sound system combination. People will have a much easier time trying to balance out the effects of a security system like this as a result of the sounder and strobe light combination.

Criminals who are armed with ear protection won‘t have enough with a sounder like this, since most ear protection only has people covered at up to around thirty or forty decibels. People also will not have an easy time guarding against both the strobe light effects and the sounder at the same time. Loud noises and bright lights are both difficult to deal with on their own. The combination of bright lights and loud noises can create something that is truly unbearable for the criminals who might try to get around them.

Even if criminals could actually deactivate the devices, which is very difficult, they would have a hard time doing so with all of the built-in protections and the fact that sound and light are so difficult to deal with in their extremes. Most criminals will just want to get as far away from the sound source and the light source as possible the moment that they realize just how extreme both of them can be with this strobe light and sound system combination.

Security Strobe-X

There are few devices like the Castellex strobe lights on the market today. In terms of sheer convenience and efficacy, people often will not find strobe lights like these.

Many criminals have actually learned to get around certain security systems. They will just disconnect the power sources from different elements of the security systems. From there, they can finish the job without interruptions. However, this isn't going to work with the Castellex strobe lights. They have built-in batteries.

These strobe lights are difficult to disarm for other reasons, as well. They are equipped with tamper switches, so criminals will have a much harder time removing or deactivating the strobe lights. These are strobe lights that are largely immune to being tampered with by criminals, making them that much more effective.

With some battery-powered products, people might worry about them running low on the charge. This isn't an issue with these strobe lights, because the alarm console is continually charging them. As such, the strobe lights will always have the energy that they need in order to function as effective deterrents against criminals.

The white LIGHT of these strobe are so bright and so dramatic that they can truly distract and alarm any criminal in the vicinity. However, there are also blue and red LIGHT'S as well. Added together, this will make the strobe lights similar to police light. Some criminals will have sort of a Pavlovian response to red, white, and blue lights. They will immediately associate them with the police.

This can cause them to behave irrationally and to make mistakes. When criminals behave irrationally, they are more likely to get caught. They're also more likely to leave right away. Some criminals might be afraid that they accidentally stumbled onto police property, which is something that most criminals know to avoid at the best of times even if they're willing to rob someone else. Criminals typically know to avoid the police and anything associated with them, and these strobe lights can do the trick.

Sound Blaster

Thanks to the very strong steel body of the sounder, it should be very difficult for criminals to smash it in order to disarm the system. The sounder should also last for a long time as a result of the sounder and its solid steel construction.

The alarm console manages to keep the sounder constantly charged. As such, it is not going to fail on people at the worst possible moment. Criminals will not be able to disconnect the sounder from its power source, either. The built-in batteries make this impossible. They are also hard to find and difficult to remove.

Many people are concerned about the professional criminals who have somehow managed to get past a lot of different security systems in the past. This is understandable, since a lot of these people seem to be unstoppable. However, a lot of professional criminals are able to do this because they are specifically good at disarming and deactivating a lot of the security systems that are tasked with keeping them out in the first place.

It isn't because the criminals have some sort of extreme set of special skills that no one can anticipate. As long as people use security systems that are very difficult to disarm, then it is going to be that much easier to keep out even some of the most extreme professional criminals who are working today. This Strobe light and Sound system should be able to help to make that happen.

There are few forms of deterrent technology that are more effective than sound technology. People tend to freeze up in the midst of a lot of loud noises. Loud noises can cause real pain. They can make people go into shock. They can cause people to want to get away from certain premises as quickly as possible.

There are legal limits for indoor sound levels, of course. Noise pollution is a very real problem. However, these sounders do not exceed 127 decibels, which is the legal limit. 127 decibels, however, is more than enough of a sound level to cause actual damage to the criminals who try to break in, and they will be aware of this right away. They will want to get away from the premises as quickly as possible just on the basis of the extreme sound.

This is a device that should manage to work quickly. This means that the noise isn't going to last for too long. However, it should still last long enough to do its job and to stop the criminals from causing any damage. They are thrones who will have to pay in this instance.

Using this Strobe-X and Sound Blaster Combination

Many people will specifically use a combination like this for burglary prevention. It can technically be used in working hours and after working hours. While some people might object to the fact that something this loud and this bright cannot be used during working hours, employees will often have to deal with similar spikes of sound and light during fire drills and other safety drills.

Obviously, this is all more of an issue after the working hours anyway, since few burglaries will occur during a busy office day. This Strobe light and Sound combination can truly manage to deter criminals very late at night, when the office building is particularly vulnerable.

The Castellex strobe light will be used at many different locations. The fact that the sounder and the strobe lights were designed to be relatively small and unobtrusive certainly helps. It means that it is that much easier for businesses to use them without worrying about the aesthetics of their business buildings being disrupted at any point. People will have a much easier time when it comes to adding security systems like these to their businesses because as long as the Castellex Strobe-X light and sounder are not in use, people usually don't even have to know that they are there.

Lots of areas will have a slow police response. Some areas will have functionally no police response at all. If the police are too late to get to the scene, they will usually be too late in general. Most criminals never get caught after they getaway, in fact, especially when it comes to simple burglaries and thefts. People need a first line of defense that is actually going to work. In a lot of cases, a solid security system will get the job done.

The Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination works really well for the remote areas that will have a particularly slow police response. However, they can work well in busier areas as well. Many jewelers, store owners, antiques dealers, and art dealers will use security systems like these. Liquor stores and other areas that are prone to getting robbed should really invest in security systems like these as well.

Some people will try to protect their machinery using security devices like this, which can certainly work wonders for a lot of people. A Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination like this can stop a lot of crimes before they even start. Many criminals will just run away. They won't get arrested. They won‘t get caught by the store owners or property owners. The Castellex Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination will just help a lot of criminals get the message quickly, and they will be gone. The entire process can be over in a few minutes, and that will work out better for everyone involved.

A lot of people today will want a security system that works but that is ultimately going to make things a lot easier and more convenient for them. The Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination is capable of doing that. Using a Security Strobe-X light as a security device is fairly innovative these days. A lot of people have never tried doing that before, and the people who do use it will have an element of surprise on their sides these days. It's that much easier for a lot of people to be able to truly get ahead when they know that their businesses are perfectly secure. Whether people are trying to guard their boats, their stores, their homes, or their other valuables, the Strobe-X and Sound Blaster combination can help a lot of people stay safe and secure.

Security Strobe-X specifications:

Power supply:                   10-20 VDC, 250mA (12.5 VDC charge)

Efficiency:                           up to 175 m3 (70 m2 x 2.5m)

Alarm signal:                      Positive (10-14 V, 5 mA) or Negative inputs (0-0.3 V, 5 mA)

Battery:                                2800 mAh

Full charge time:               up to 8 hour

Battery life time:              up to 3 years

Dimensions (LxWxH):     300 x 180 x 45 mm

Sound Blaster-X specifications:

Power supply:                   10-14 VDC, 150mA (12.5 VDC charge)

Sound output level:         up to 127 dB

Efficiency:                           up to 175 m3 (70 m2 x 2.5m)

Alarm signal:                      Positive (10-14 V, 5 mA) or Negative inputs (0-0.3 V, 5 mA)

Battery:                                1800 mAh

Full charge time:               up to 8 hour

Battery life time:              up to 3 years

Dimensions (LxWxH):     300 x 180 x 45 mm

Fog generator specifications:

Weight of the fog machine:     11 kg

Weight in the packaging:         13 kg

Dimension of the machine:     30,5x19,0xh39,0

Dimension of packaging:         37,0x25,0xh47,0

Colours:                                       white/optional color

Standard working time without main power: about 2 hours

Heat up time from cold:          about 70 minutes

Max fog release in a single shoot: up to 300 m3

Max seconds of fog release in a single shoot: 15 sec

Max tot emission with full fog tanks: 900 m3

Fog tank capacity:                   1 x 600 ml

Set includes:

Fog generator FAST 03 1C pro - 1 pcs

Castellex Strobe-X - 1 pcs

Castellex Sound Blaster-X - 1 pcs

Fog cylinder - 1 pcs