#that the plane might have to make an emergency landing on an island with an active volcano?'

[katierosefun]

studying torts and reviewing proximate cause and picturing what the Reasonable Person might be . . . gotta spice my life up a little, so i’m picturing. mostly spock. maybe spock? maybe obi-wan? being that Odious Reasonable Person

[lead-to-light]

Theres a small crackling of the radio causing most of the passengers to perk up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Thank you for flying with us today. If you look out your windows you might catch a lovely view of Station Square down below.

We should be landing in central city shortly, so be sure to buckle up when the lights turn on.

The captain smiled as he put down the radio. He loved his job.

No sooner had he finished that thought did the universe try to make him think otherwise. A thud came from above him. William the Crow and his copilot and Chris the Gopher looked at each other. Scrunching his face in confusion, William asked, "Did something just land on-"

BOOM!

A thunderous impact from above made the plane dip downward nose first. Emergency lights came on as he and his copilot pulled the plane up.

"This is your captain speaking we are experiencing some unexpected turbulence. Please fasten your seatbelts." No sooner did he finish that sentence did another impact hit the plane in the same spot.

BOOM!

Emergency lights came on and William could hear muffled screaming coming from behind him. Grabbing the radio receiver, He yelled into it at all channels, "MAYDAY MAYDAY THIS IS SOUTH ISLANDS FLIGHT 336! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK BY AN UNKNOWN ASSAILANT-"

BO00000OM!!!

The harsh sound of crumpling metal was barely heard above him. William felt his stomach drop as the plane nearly dipped ninety degrees down. With the terrified screams of the passengers behind them, he and his copilot pulling on the flight sticks with every muscle possible, William knew another hit would doom them all.

But one moment became seconds and seconds became minutes and a fourth blow never came. He couldn't help the little laugh of relief from escaping him. Chris however couldn't let the fear leave him so quickly, "What the hell was that?"

**************

An hour later, The semi-rhetorical question would remain unanswered.

"Like, I'm not crazy it it absolutely looks like what we both think it looks like right?"

"Yeah it actually does look like that but doesn't make any sense is no way it's-"

"William, I grew up on a farm, it's absolutely that. You can even see the marks the spurs made-"

"Okay fine it's cowboy boots!"

If anything, they had more questions than answers right now as they looked down on the damage the plane took, now parked within a large hanger. Deep imprints in the metal atop the cockpit silently mocked the two with its puzzling nature. True to Chris's assertions though, William had to agree it looked like a stereotypical cowboy boots complete with spurs had damaged the plane.

"I'm going to make a call," William said suddenly, already making his way down of the plane.

It took a moment for Chris to figure out what he was implying but when he did he rushed over to Williams who was already halfway down the ladder, "Woah hold on the airport manager said not to-"

"The fact that he said not to absolutely means that we should. People almost died today and he just wants to make his stock doesn't go more down than already will," He said without stopping his descent. When he reached the bottom he looked back up and said, "Cover for me will ya?"

************

Miles away and thousands a feet in the air, dinner was being made. The gentle steady stirring of pasta sauce was interrupted by a voice crackling over the radio, "This is MAA pilot William the Crow. Is this the Babylon Rogues?"

The flying bruiser known as Storm the Albatross answered the call, "Make this quick I'm simmering the sauce."

This made William, ready to get to the bottom of things, lose his train of thought completely and ask, "Do you have a radio in the kitchen?"

"Lets just say if given the choice between answering a call for a very lucrative job or not burning sauce, I'm choosing the sauce every time," he explained, still stirring the sauce.

Closing his eyes in strained patience, William tried again, "Could you please get a hold of Jet somehow? This is very important."

"You got it!" With little fanfare, Storm grabbed the gun labeled 'Wave Summoner' off the shelf and began firing into the air. As a result debris rained down onto the simmering sauce.

"SHIT! THE SAUCE!" He screamed in horror. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!" He screamed again, this time into the receiver.

Moments later, Wave the Swallow bursted into the room, Jet close behind.

"DAMMIT STORM STOP PUTTING HOLES IN MY SHIP! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU? CALL! MY! PHONE!" Wave screamed, completely besides herself that they keep having to have this conversation.

Storm shrugged, "Yeah but this way's faster."

Wave let out a battle cry and leapt at Storm with her wrench.

Jet casually walked around the brawl and grabbed the receiver, "This is Jet the Hawk, I'm assuming this is the MAA?"

The captain sighed in relief, happy that things were back on track. "Yes it is. In accordance with the deal made with the Mobius Air Association and-"

Jet rolled his eyes, "Yeah yeah yeah I know the deal we've been through this a dozen times-"

"It's called Earth, dammit!" Wave shouted, pausing her throttling.

Storm also paused, "No it's Mobius! I thought you were the smart one?"

"I'll show you who's smart!" Their fighting resumed with added ferocity.

Already annoyed that his testing of new boosters on his extreme gear was interrupted, Jet raised his voice, "Knock it off you two! I'm trying to have a conversation here! Also, I distinctly remember banning that topic from the ship!"

William smiled sympathetically, growing up his house had a similar rule. Famed thieves or not, they really were mobians just like him at the end of the day. With the sounds of fighting halted, William took the chance to speak, "MAA records show that you were near Central City earlier today, did you pick up any signs of badnik movement?"

Taking up a spot to the right of Jet, Wave spoke up, "Zero activity was noticed. It's why we were taking the time to test some upgrades. Why do you ask?"

This is not what he wanted to hear. The devil you know far more preferable than the unknown, "Are you absolutely certain?" William asked.

"You calling her dumb? A liar? A dumb liar? I oughta pound ya for doubting her!" Any animosity Storm had a minute ago towards her was long gone as he reflexively jumped to her defense.

Nerves getting the better of him, William yelled into the receive, "I'm asking because something jumped up-and-down on my plane like a trampoline!"

"Sounds like you need to guard your airfields better," Jet snarked.

"It happened while I was in mid-air!" He screamed, thoroughly exasperated by their flippancy.

Thankfully, this got the Rogue's full attention attention, Jet himself now dead serious "What?"

Taking a deep breath, William continued, "I was on a flight with a plane full of passengers toward Central City when something jumped up and down on top of the cockpit three times. Each hit nearly brought the plane down."

"How fast was it going on the radar?" Wave asked, now also all business.

The captain was completely unaware of the scab he was about to pick, "when it finally left? I'd say easily Sonic fast."

"EXCUSE ME?!? I THINK YOU MEAN JET THE HAWK FAST! I'M THE FLYING ONE NOT HIM!" Jet erupted into the receiver.

Pivoting quickly, William corrected himself, "It was going Jet the Hawk fast!"

Acting like he didn't just go completely ballistic just then, he continued the line of questioning, "That's better, now, which direction did it go?"

The crow slumped against the console, the conversation being far more exhausting than he anticipated, "It flew straight up then went west. It left radar range quicker than anything I've ever seen," William said.

Putting her hand to her chin, Wave began listing possibilities, "So it was either someone with some amazing extreme gear, which is impossible because I didn't make it. It could have been some new badnik eggman cooked up but he wouldn't have it go bounce up-and-down on a plane, that's not really his MO."

"Maybe Metal Sonic was feeling silly?" Storm suggested.

Jet rolled his eyes, "That robotic killjoy doesn't know the first thing about fun so I don't think it was that."

"What does the top of the cockpit look like? Did it believe any kind of discernible imprint?" Wave asked.

"It looks like if it had landed any harder we wouldn't be having this conversation if that answers your first question. As for the second? This is gonna sound nutty but my copilot and I are pretty positive it looks like a cowboy boot," William said, sounding almost embarrassed sharing that last detail.

"But that's impossible! Everyone knows cowboys can't fly!" Storm yelled like that was the unbelievable thing about it.

Ignoring Storm's dimwittedness, Jet said, "Were there any burn marks in the imprints?"

William shook his head, to which he gave a long blink to remembering he was alone, "No but there were spur marks."

Wrists resting on her hips, Wave shook her head in growing confusion with the mystery dropped on their laps, "Then that rules out extreme gear. Skate type gear would have left some kind of trace."

"Also rules out badniks unless Eggman suddenly started pivoting towards a cowboy theme," Jet added.

Storm slammed his fist into his palm, "Then that just leaves……wait who does that leave?" He said now scratching his head in befuddlement.

"No one, Storm. That's the problem." Wave said, "Given the evidence we have now, it matches no one we know. We're dealing with someone who's stupid fast, isn't using extreme gear, wears cowboy boots and apparently gets their kicks from terrorizing people when they're thousands of feet above the air."

The dread that oft comes with the unknown floated through them. Tiny involuntary shivers shook all but Jet's body, who just narrowed his eyes.

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention. we'll keep an eye out for anything regarding mystery speedster. Over and out," Jet said before hanging up.

Thank you?!? Storm and Wave thought.

Pacing back and forth he continued, "Here's the plan, we're gonna do some training and enhance our extreme gear the best we can. We're overdue for some upgrades and-"

"We're not chasing after them immediately?" Storm interrupted loudly.

"Are you feeling okay, Jet?" Wave asked softly, genuine concern in her voice. She had been a little worried about him ever since that encounter he had with that wolf girl and giant badnik briefly scrambled his personality. Oh God I hope he isn't backsliding….

"Believe me when say that every cell in my body wants to beeline towards them right now but I'm trying to be smart here. Whoever this person is they're deranged enough to nearly kill hundreds of people for shits and giggles on top of being fast enough that they believe they could get away with it. I want us to be ready for this creep when we find them. We're the fast flying ones around here dammit!" Jet said, ending his tirade with a shaking fist in front of him.

Her worries evaporated, Wave couldn't be more proud of Jet. He was showing actual leadership but was still the same proud loudmouth she knew.

"We're gonna show this poser that the Babylon Rogues won't tolerate sharing the sky with lunatics!" Jet shouted, to which Wave and Storm answered with agreeing cheers.

Jet held up a finger, "One last thing before we steal take-out. While we're getting prepared to throw down with this cowboy, we're also gonna be looking for something I learned about recently. An old treasure from our ancestors."

Wave was floored upon hearing this, "Woah really? I thought we found everything there was?"

"What is it boss?" Storm asked eagerly.

Jet smiled excitedly, "The Babylon Blades."

**************

William stared at the receiver for a few minutes, sitting alone in one of the redundant control towers they had built after the war. Finally tearing his gaze away, he walked down the flight of stairs and outside. With sudden trepidation, he looked up and took a shaky uncertain breath.

For in all his years of flying he had never seen that bright blue sky look so unkind.

[toasterdrake]

aaaaa ok i really hope im not bothering you bc i'm requesting two times in a row, but can i have another yelena oneshot with some hurt/comfort? maybe r gets a life-threatening injury and yel mother-hens r back to health? if that's too specific you can do whatever you want for the 'hurt' part of hurt/comfort

my friend, the day has finally arrived. this beast has sat in my drafts for many many months -- years, even, i think? -- and i have finally accepted i'm never going to finish it. i went suuuper off-script so i've condensed it into just this block before things go haywire. other than that, this is entirely unedited as i last left it, notes and gaps and all. i hope the rest of it (of which there is too much) never again sees the light of day.

if i can even say this any more, enjoy. with this, my time in the mcu fandom truly comes to an end.

Angel

Yelena Belova x Avenger!reader

word count: 4K

Engine malfunction, systems failure, hull compromised, oxygen leakage, proximity alert, eject failure -- every alarm blared impossibly loud in the tiny cockpit, barely audible over the rushing vacuum of wind. 

A stream of creative curses spilled from your mouth as your fingers flew across the sparking dashboard, trying desperately to make something, anything work as your jet's descent steepened, plummeting through low-lying clouds.

Coming up with no other option than to try to limp to a nearby island, you yanked the control stick as hard as you could, bracing your legs as you strained with all your might to pull the plane out of its nosedive. 

You fought gravity itself: your arms feeling as if they were about to be ripped from their sockets. You were trying to lift tonnes of metal with one human's strength alone.

You let out a patriotic scream, blood pumping gloriously. Your cry to the heavens was drowned in the violent wind, the strain of the wings in the wrenching of your shoulders.

Alas, the jet wobbled and shook, breathing black smoke.

The cockpit was beginning to feel like a furnace due to the engine fire below. You were burning up in your heavy aviator's gear despite the cracked canopy's icy flood of air. Your breath came in short pants, crackling in your mask, and the broken radio screamed in your ears.

Land -- no, you'd failed, water -- rushed up to meet you. From the cockpit's window, the lake was a giant gaping blue maw opening wider to swallow you whole. And it would; given the chance, the slightest wavering of will.

Not one to simply accept fate, you struggled out of your buckles and into an emergency parachute, fingers shaking as they worked frantically in your small window of time.

The parachute cord caught on a displaced hunk of metal just as you ripped off your helmet. Masses of white fabric filled your vision. 

Senses clouded, the great boom of impact told you you'd hit water. It rebounded like astral ascension through your bones.

With the whiplash, you jerked forward, slamming into the centre console hard enough to elicit an intense ache in your chest. Your head connected with the dashboard. 

You pulled yourself upright, star-crossed for a moment, darkness clawing at the edges of your vision.

A sharp pain blossomed at your hairline; a thousand needles drove into your skull and twisted. You groaned as the dizziness sent you reeling a second later.

Something hot and wet and dark dripped down your forehead. You wiped it from your stinging eyes. You didn't have time for this. Through dancing stars, the jet was sinking rapidly into unfathomable depths; dragging you down with it never to be seen again.

Shaking off the disorientation, you scooped up your helmet from the floor and began attacking the glass canopy. Your movements were hindered by the limp parachute crowding what little space you had, but still the crack grew. 

Water spilled in faster, faster, sloshing around your shoulders. Finally, the entire pane collapsed into shards. You inhaled the deepest breath of air you could muster milliseconds before--

A great puff of depressurising air thrust you bodily out of the cockpit, as water flooded the jet entirely, wholly conjoining it to the lake. 

You tried to yank your rucksack free of where it was wedged, but it was stubborn and you didn't have seconds to spare. You abandoned it in favour of surging upwards.

You kicked your legs wildly, reaching above your head for filtered sunlight in a desperate bid for fresh air. The pressure in your lungs mounted and mounted.

Your heavy clothes and tired limbs weighed you down. You couldn't struggle out of the woolen aviator jacket; couldn't spare the few moments to let it drag you deeper in freefall.

Still, it was as if you had never left the jet. 

The light above didn't seem to be any closer, your progress like revving with the handbrake on. Your desperate kicks and thrusts weakened, bubbles streaming from your nose, dancing to the sky like ash as time trickled out.

It was dark. So dark. Cold. Lonely. You were thrashing. Water was filling your lungs. You were drowning. You were about to be lost to nature's most powerful force, and no one would know.

A muffled splash above echoed through the dark expanse of water. 

An angel from the surface had come to save you. 

Her form was silhouetted by dancing sunlight wings. Golden ringlets of hair splayed around her head in a halo. She swam down to you, powerful limbs propelling her down in an illusion of ease; a true display of power. 

The strength of her arms was reassuring.



Coughing and spluttering, you jolted upright. Water gushed from your mouth, spilling down your already soaked chest as you sat up. You found curious chartreuse eyes. Somehow, instinctively, you knew they belonged to the angel who saved you.

"Where are your wings?"

"What?" Her accent was dark velvet: authentic slavic, you recognised vaguely. It sent shivers down your spine as much as the chill of the water.

"Cause," A wet cough, "Cause you're an angel -- oh shit that's blood." 

"You have internal bleeding, probably," She said, smoothing back darkened blonde hair, peeling it from her shirt by the disturbance. She was just as soaked as you, as was the patch of grass you occupied.

Frothy, bright red spots of blood littered your hand. A sharp pain in your abdomen made itself present. Dizziness washed over you, but you pushed through to pull up your slick shirt and reveal a deep red discolouration on your chest. 

For some inexplicable reason, you poked it, and winced when a wave of pain crashed through the area. You blushed upon noticing her scrutinising gaze, clearing your throat. Your ribs ached in complaint.

You gratefully took the hand she offered, letting her display that strength again as she hauled you from the ground. She led you from the shore up to a cabin, which dominated what appeared to be an island.

"What's your name?" You asked.

A quiet moment of debate. "Yelena. You?"

You owed each other that much. "[Y/N]."

She hummed in recognition.

"Lie down. It'll help your blood flow more naturally," She said, tone not unkind.

You obeyed, then swallowed awkwardly around the dryness in your throat, piping up, "Could I have a drink of water?"

"Not until you've been treated," Yelena said, words accompanied by a privately playful smirk, to which you pouted. 

You drummed your fingers against your leg, looking around at what of the room you could see, as Yelena became otherwise occupied attending to her dog.

A goatskin rug had been draped over the back of a rocking chair in the corner, almost like hotel decoration. A blazer hung from a peg next to the door. A perfectly pruned arrangement of flowers sprouted from a ceramic vase shaped like a stylised duck, something that looked glittery lacing shards together. A misshapen candle's flame flickered cheerily on the windowsill.

Contrast of lived in and new. Yelena trying to make a home and not knowing how.

Yelena reentered, throwing a set of fresh, baggy clothes at you.

"So, you live here?" You said conversationally, looking out a window at the pine forest outside as you changed painstakingly slowly around his injury.

You could just make out a distant shore beyond the mist-obscured treeline, the grey lake lapping at a dark gravel beach.

Yelena stiffened. You watched out of the corner of your eye as she chewed her lip, face turned away from you. "No," She said, wary. "I'm only here to look after the island for my parents."

You nodded, even though she couldn't see you, and returned to gazing outside. Maybe her parents are in hospital or something? Whatever the depth of her reason, it sounded personal. And complex. You shouldn't pry.

And you shouldn't take advantage of an innocent woman's hospitality, your conscience scolded. No choice, you rebutted.

Just then, someone knocked at the front door. Yelena shot you a look that carried a strange cocktail of warning, concern, and apprehension, before disappearing to attend to the visitor.

You weren't left alone for long. Yelena re-entered the room, biting her lip before glancing away and standing awkwardly in a corner. She was followed by a man slightly taller than her, whom you assumed was the doctor by his discoloured beige clinical coat and briefcase.

The doctor himself could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty. He introduced himself as Dr. Graham in his warbly, squeaky voice. His face was mottled by acne scars, his chin weak and bare as if it had never borne a single hair. His babyish eyes popped out of their sockets, making him look like an eternally frightened rabbit. His hairline had already climbed up his forehead, leaving only wispy fawn tuft behind his ears.

Puberty must've hit him like a plastic toy car, you mused.

Dr. Graham did his necessary medical things quickly enough, diagnosing you miraculously concussion-free. You provided an easy lie about falling down the stairs when moving boxes, which the doctor accepted with a degree of coldness and Yelena listened to with something like caution in her eyes.

"You need four weeks of bedrest," Dr. Graham sternly gave his departing orders, crossing his arms over his chest in tepid persistence.

"But--"

"No buts."

"But--" Yelena tried.

"No. Buts. Good day to you." He stressed, glaring at each of you -- the effect somewhat disheartened by his buggish eyes -- before striding out the door.

"We'll see if your hairline lasts four weeks," You grumbled darkly. Yelena snickered at that, which drew your attention to her. 

"So."

"So," Yelena prompted when you trailed off, looking at you quizzically.

"So, is it okay for me to stay with you that long? I can't exactly go anywhere else; the jet had all my money and cards in it." The bandages wrapped around your chest flexed uncomfortably with stretching muscle.

Well, Tony's cards.

"Sure, why not. I don't plan on going anywhere for a while," There it was again; that cautious reservedness showing itself to maintain the simmering distance between you. "I will need to pick up some groceries from town though. Will you be alright here with Fanny?" Yelena said, moving to the doorway again.

"We're on one of the Thousand Islands, right? How does an entire town fit? I mean I can understand a doctor, but--"

Yelena rolled her eyes. "The town is on the mainland. I'll be taking my boat, Paučók." She said, a hint of motherly pride slipping through at that. "Also, the doctor used his own boat. We're alone on this island."

"Oh," Heat rose to your cheeks.

She rolled her eyes again and strode away. An unmistakable bulge in her pocket caught your eye. Your mood darkened. Maybe her parents aren't in hospital after all.

With that fun revelation, you decided to do some harmless snooping once Yelena was out of sight. The front door clicked shut, the lock twisting with anxious finality.

Pulling yourself off the chair, you leaned against the wall, riding out an immobilising wave of pain for a few long moments, your eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted. A little internal bleeding wouldn't stop you!

Fanny fretted at your heels, seemingly unperturbed by your being a stranger. You petted her reassuringly, and she scampered off down the hallway, leaving you to trail behind her at a snail's pace.

Y comes back, confesses past nervously, R guilty, reveals snooping, Y angry, trust lost, R works to apologise and reopens wound



A week later, Dr. Graham called requesting you go to the clinic for a check-up. You took the call since Yelena was in the boat shelter doing maintenance on Paučók. Because you had started a streak of regaining trust, you decided you would obey the doctor. Just this once. 

You didn't like pissing people off, contrary to popular belief -- it was messy to fix and sent you completely out of your depth -- even if it was endlessly amusing to annoy the doctor. Besides, Yelena would give you an earful if you hurt yourself again.

Heading out to find the aforementioned Russian and inform her, you took a plated stack of the pancakes you'd made, just in case she hadn't eaten yet. She'd been up and gone by the time you got moving, just dumping a used coffee cup in the sink as you appeared in the kitchen.

Walking through the bracing early morning mist, you got the sensation it wasn't going to shift for the rest of the day. The icy vapour stung your cheeks and whipped you into full vigilance: a hard slap from Mother Nature. You pulled your aviator's jacket tighter over your shoulders.

Stepping into the boat shelter, you went unnoticed by Yelena. This was strange, considering that in the time you'd known each other she'd always seemed to have a sixth sense for detecting your presence before you'd even walked through the door.

The cause of her distraction was soon revealed, as the whirring of machinery permeated the workshop.

Oh shit. Okay. She's ripped. Damn. Okay. Cool. Okay. Okay. Take a deep breath. One, two, three, release. Okay. Now use your words.

"I-I brought you, um, cakespan -- no, uhm -- pancakes!"

...What?!

You cringed.

(Gae muscle panic)

The doctor's clinic was, for whatever reason, not located on the mainland. Instead, it inhabited one of the larger islands alongside a few other residences -- enough to form a hamlet -- that sat just a few hundred metres into the lake, near the main feeding river's mouth. The clinic itself was a converted gothic mansion, all arching stone masonry and high, gilded ceilings that made rooms echo eerily.

The place wasn't busy; you were seen after just a few minutes, the only other patient being a pregnant woman accompanied by her wife. Yelena trailed after you into the examination room, stuck on the boundary of limiting your association and keeping you in her sights at all times.

You exchanged an apprehensive look upon noticing an unfamiliar boat moored to the island's jetty.

Yelena pulled in quietly, killing the engine and letting Paučók drift into place on the current. You both stepped out onto the platform, gaze locked on the stagnant house through sentinel trees. Its dark windows gazed back steadily with quiet amusement. 

Yelena bent to secure Paučók's ropes. She reached into her pocket and handed you a loaded semi-automatic handgun, as well as drawing a revolver for herself.

You handled the handgun with familiarity. "God, how many guns do you have on you?"

"Enough to be prepared."

Together, you crept up the beaten dirt track to the house, guns poised to react. The building waited for you patiently.

A bird swooped low over your heads, flapping hurriedly to ascend. You and Yelena startled at the abrupt action. The desperation in its wake left a strange, almost oppressive tension heavy in the crowding mist. 

In the next moment, it was dispelled like a river bursting as Fanny came sprinting after the bird through the trees, barking freely. She skidded to a halt at Yelena's feet, who quickly bent to attend to her dog. She slipped Fanny a treat and ruffled her thick coat, speaking to her as if she could answer.

"What happened, Fan? What are you doing out of the house, huh?" Yelena cooed. Fanny panted happily in response.

"Fanny!" A new voice called jovially through the opaque mist. 

A second later, a hazy humanoid solidified into an approaching silhouette striding toward them. With every muted step, their features sharpened to reveal fiery red hair draped over slim shoulders, a vest secure over a dark bodysuit, green eyes eclipsed by the dreary surroundings.

"Fanny," Natasha said again, scolding this time with a playful lilt, coming to a stop in front of the three.

"Natasha," Yelena answered, wide-eyed. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Yeah, Nat," You piped up. "What are you doing here?"

Natasha looked at him, surprise evident in her expression. "[Y/N]? What are you doing here?"

"Okay, we're getting nowhere with this. Let's go inside." Yelena said, leading the way up to the house. Fanny ran ahead eagerly, twirling in impatient circles as everyone traipsed behind her.

Once inside, the frigid mist shut out behind a heavy wooden door, you immediately moved to the fire. You rolled up the sleeves of his jacket to expose your forearms, but didn't shrug it off, still feeling the chill in your bones. You stirred up the glowing embers; feeding them another log and coaxing a true, strong flame out of it.

Meanwhile, Yelena hung up her overshirt on a peg and stepped into the adjoining kitchen, shuffling through cupboards. The kettle's whistle crescendoed cheerily a few moments later. 

Natasha kicked off her boots at the door, falling into an armchair with a grateful sigh. She produced a dog toy from a pocket when Fanny jumped onto her lap, teasing the Shepherd with it but neither wanting to move too far.

Accepting the mug of coffee from Yelena when she padded back into the living room, you took the other armchair, leaving her to claim the plush loveseat. Fanny jumped off Natasha's lap as she received her beverage, instead lying down on a rug in front of the resplendently roaring fire.

You inhaled the steam, the soft fragrance providing gentle caresses of nostalgia. You blew on the hot liquid until it was cool enough to sip safely, smiling at the taste. 

Yelena and Natasha sipped quietly from their own mugs -- labelled 'blood of my enemies' and 'keep it up and you will be a strange smell in the attic' respectively -- while staring introspectively into the fire. Well, Natasha was. Yelena was admiring Fanny. As she rightfully should.

"So, Natasha," The blonde finally said, facing the other woman with a somewhat annoyed expression, "What has brought you here?" 

Drizzling rain began to fall outside. Fresh symphonies of pine wafted in through a cracked open window, condensation forming in the corners of its rustic frame.

Natasha tore her gaze from the fire to meet her sister's over the rim of her mug. "Mason called me to say you'd requested extra time. He wanted me to make sure you hadn't gotten yourself into trouble."

Yelena nodded absently. Her hazel eyes were glazed over; distant in thought. You looked between the sisters, utterly lost. 

"Mason? Is he your landlord? Are you leaving soon?"

The log crackled and popped, jolting hard enough to cause everyone in the room to startle. Yelena stared into her mug guiltily.

"No. He's… this a safehouse. I'm waiting for some media controversy to blow over." She confessed to the hot chocolate.

"Controversy surrounding the death of an important army benefactor?" You asked.

She looked up at you, clearly surprised and a little wary, but nodded. You sank a little deeper into the armchair, trying to make yourself smaller. Yelena looked to Natasha for an explanation. The avenger smirked.

"[Y/N] here had to leave the states pretty urgently after being framed for that benefactor's murder," She supplied, clearly enjoying every moment of what was to come.

Yelena gaped for a few moments, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, before she finally managed coherency. "Shit, I'm so sorry! I promise I wasn't the one to point any blame at you."

You waved her off, red-faced. "It's fine. We know who it was. Unfortunately, no official will even consider it, and demand I be put behind bars."

"Tony's working on the legal stuff," Natasha reassured you, before returning her attention to her drink. 

"Tony? As in Tony Stark of Stark Industries? Iron Man? You know him?" Yelena gushed, eyes shining.

"WellI'mkindofanavenger," You mumbled sheepishly. Natasha snorted in amusement.

"[Y/N] is one of the cool kids I run around with," She said in answer to Yelena's confused frown.

The Russian was struck speechless. Fanny sighed and shifted, briefly drawing her attention from blank staring, which gave you a breather to compose yourself.

"Yes. I'm an Avenger," you said; steady and strong. You were proud of your occupation. You'd saved lives -- the entire planet! -- countless times, and you'd do it again in a heartbeat. Yelena had every right to understand that.

"So," Natasha said, finishing her drink in one gulp and standing, "I'll be calling Mason to tell him everything's fine, and the other safehouse in Yukon is free since you're both staying here. That right?"



Natasha ended up staying with you. 

In a quiet conversation by the patio firepit after Nat had gone to bed, you and Yelena both agreed that the avenger needed this more than she cared to admit. 

The next morning, Yelena invited her sister to stay with you for the whole run of your supposed bedrest, to which she reluctantly agreed. 

(Honestly, your insistence swayed her more than her own volition. She couldn't resist three sets of puppy eyes.)

It was hard for Natasha to let go of work.

The boys and Wanda were a mess without her, and she received numerous disgruntled or chaotic calls throughout the day. She talked herself into flying back to the states multiple times, but you wouldn't let her. 

Yelena tried telling the team to back off -- to just let her relax -- but they failed to learn how to function without Natasha. 

Eventually, Pepper intervened and the calls stopped. 

Before this, you had put Nat's phone on silent and hidden it while she was showering. Yelena returned with clothing flown over from the compound (she'd been lending hers to her sister until now since Nat didn't bring any) to find you taped to a wall and Natasha in a frenzy.

That day, her paranoia swiftly devolved into a panic attack, which turned into a full breakdown. 

It was heartbreaking to watch your friend fall apart. Yelena helped her through it, and after a therapeutic cry Nat was more willing to ignore the others. The team knew the emergency code. She was finally ready to accept a break.

Released from the tape by a sheepish Natasha, you gave her a loving hug to melt into, then texted Pepper.

Nat was much happier after that. Her soul sang free like the spring songbirds for the first time. Even during the three years in Ohio, the shadow of the Red Room had bound her wings, and the recent ordeal of taking down Dreykov, of Antonia -- coming face-to-face with her greatest nightmare -- had been emotionally intense. To say the least.

Finally getting a true break allowed the reality of those horrors to be released. A huge weight took flight from her shoulders. 

Of course, healing takes time, and is not a linear journey. You and Yelena were there for Natasha every day.

Yelena's mood improved with her sister's, and soon the two were acting as if they'd never been trained assassins separated for twenty years. They were just a normal family. Happy, content.

Mealtimes were filled with cheerful banter and laughter, the result of weaving around bodies crammed into the kitchen and steam clouding cracked open windows.

Mornings were spent lazing in bed, followed by sunbathing on the porch with a coffee. Nights were either filled with alcohol and stumbling to bed; or books, cozy blankets and a roaring fireplace. The rest of their day was occupied with chores, exploring the island, and swimming in the lake. Natasha mostly played with Fanny around the island. She was almost more infatuated with the dog than Yelena, if that was even possible.

At some point, you ended up gravitating into Yelena's bed.

[thecreaturecodex]

Protean, Alengos

“Keeper of the corrupted coppice” © Timi Honkanen, accessed at his ArtStation here

[Our next protean is inspired by my annual teaching my students about ecological succession, and the subsequent explanation that the reality isn’t nearly as neat as the textbook version. I like to think that these guys are why there’s always potatoes in European fantasy settings hundred or even thousands of years before the Columbian Interchange (I’m looking at you, Tolkien.

As a reminder, all of these protean species have names that are anagrams of someone thematically related. Can you guess who “anelgos” is?]

Protean, Alengos CR 6 CN Outsider (extraplanar) This creature has a serpentine lower body and a humanoid torso, and appears to be composed of leaves woven together. Its head bears a crest of foliage, and its face is radially symmetrical, like a closed bud. Its hands are thick pincers, from which structures like the interior of a flower emerge.

An alengos is the protean of ecological succession. As new land is created and fields are left to go fallow, they are colonized by plants. Usually, this occurs in a somewhat predictable, stepwise fashion, but alengoses are perfectly happy to mess with the order of operations by magical and mundane means. Alengoses often seed plant species onto new islands or new continents, and they were fundamental in the creation of the Spawning Stone in the Maelstrom.

Alengoses are more likely to fight on the ground than many other species of protean, as their signature ability, the entangling aura, only functions when they touch a solid surface. Plants spring to life and grab at anyone in the area, except for other chaotic outsiders and plant creatures. An alengos will typically treat entangled enemies as lower priorities while it lobs caustic pollen at those that are not entangled, or merely crushes them to death in its coils. In the wake of a combat, an alengos will often spend some time making sure that dead bodies are broken up into suitable mulch to accelerate decomposition and increase nutrient uptake.

The influence of an alengos can be a boon or a bane to mortal farmers, loggers and other people who work regularly with plants. If properly mollified, or if the whim strikes them, an alengos can create a miraculous crop, or bring novel and useful plant species to the attention of people. On the other hand, their favorite plants are typically considered to be weeds, and their transplantations are as likely to be invasive as they are beneficial. The alengos itself rarely cares one way or the other, preferring the riot of life over any consequence their actions might cause in the long term.

Alengos  CR 6 XP 2,400 CN Medium outsider (chaos, extraplanar, protean) Init +5; Senses blindsense 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., greensight 60 ft., low-light vision, Perception +14 Aura entangling (20 ft., Reflex DC 16) Defense AC 18, touch 11, flat-footed 17 (+1 Dex, +7 natural) hp 66 (7d10+28); fast healing 3 Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +9; +4 vs. mind influencing effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stunning DR 5/lawful and slashing; Immune acid; Resist electricity 10, sonic 10; SR 17 Defensive Abilities amorphous anatomy, floronic, freedom of movement Offense Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft., fly 50 ft (good) Melee bite +10 (3d4+3), tail slap +5 (1d8+1 plus grab) Ranged pollen puff +8 touch (3d6+3) Special Attacks constrict (1d8+3), pollen puff (6/day) Spell-like Abilities CL 7th, concentration +10 Constant—speak with plants At will—bristle, forest friend, soften earth and stone, warp wood (DC 15), wood shape 3/day—burst of nettles (DC 16), fungal infestation (DC 16), thorny entanglement (DC 16) 1/day—arboreal hammer, command plants (DC 17), diminish plants, plant growth Statistics Str 17, Dex 13, Con 18, Int 15, Wis 18, Cha 16 Base Atk +7; CMB +10 (+14 grapple); CMD 21 (cannot be tripped) Feats Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Power Attack Skills Climb +18, Fly +11, Knowledge (nature, planes) +12, Perception +14, Sense Motive +14, Stealth +11 (+19 in vegetation), Survival +14, Swim +10; Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in vegetation Languages Aklo, Protean, Sylvan, speak with plants SQ change shape (animal or plant, beast shape III or plant shape II) Ecology Environment any land (Maelstrom) Organization solitary, pair or grove (3-10) Treasure standard Special Abilities Change Shape (Su) An alengos can change shape at will, but does not gain any healing from reverting to its normal shape, as is typical for proteans. Entangling Aura (Su) An alengos radiates difficult terrain in a 20 foot aura whenever it touches the ground. Creatures in the area must succeed a DC 16 Reflex save or be entangled and unable to move from their square for 1 round. Creatures with the plant type and the chaotic subtype are immune to this effect. The save DC is Charisma based. Floronic (Ex) An alengos receives a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against mind-influencing effects, paralysis, poison, sleep and stunning effects. Pollen Puff (Su) As a standard action, an alengos can throw a ball of magical pollen. Treat this as a ranged touch attack with a range of 40 feet and no range increment. A creature struck either takes 3d6 points of damage or heals 3d6 points of damage, as the alengos chooses, modified by the alengos’ Charisma modifier. An alengos can use this ability a number of times a day equal to 3 plus its Charisma modifier.

[paktderpakte]

Last Flight

The moonlit sea slid by beneath the two Meteors. It felt to Collins like they hadn't seen anyone for hours, but they didn't have that kind of flight time. Every so often the crippled engine sputtered, he felt the plane slow, watched the altimeter bleed the height he was trying to save for the glide, precious feet slipping into the sea like his fuel.

He and Davies had gamed it out on their channel together in the first few minutes after they escaped the blockade, trying to weigh their options and what might have happened on the Island, what might have happened to the relief fleet, where they might go now. Even on a full tank they'd never make it to Papua. Illustrious had to be somewhere in the Philippine Sea, that was certain, far out of reach dueling with Kaga-- or else she and her escort were simply sunk. Flying to her, they would run out of fuel somewhere south of Taiwan and get shot down by Japanese patrols.

The only thing for it, they had decided, was the Philippines. The Americans might throw them in jail, might hand them over to the Japanese, but then they might not. Assuming no leaks, they would run out of fuel a few kilometers north of Luzon, and then they could drift in, make a belly landing on some beach or even land on an airstrip if they could make contact with someone.

It was about the best plan they were going to get.

Speaking of making contact, he decided to try again, flicking his comms to the distress channel for ships. He took a moment to steady himself, then spoke.

"Mayday, mayday, emergency. Survivors from the siege of Hong Kong flying southeast, bearing 1-3-0 toward Luzon. Insufficient fuel to reach land; engines damaged. If any League of Nations or friendly ships are receiving this transmission, please respond. Repeat, emergency, crippled RAF fighters request assistance, en route from Hong Kong to Manila, running out of fuel. Please."

Tenser than ever, he listened for a response. Static. Listened some more, hoping to catch some semblance of speech in the static, and nearly jumped with excitement to hear a human voice until he realized it was Badger. "We might get some shipping traffic, but that's it," he commented, not chastising his friend so much as commiserating. "And it'll probably be Japs."

"I know. Right now-- if I spoke it well enough I might ask them for help too."

"They'd shoot us."

"Maybe." They flew on.

The comment stuck in Collins' mind more than he liked. He thought of Campbell, stumbling back to the Island…the rest of the squadron, left behind, surrendering to the IJA. Would they be shot? Sent off to a prison camp in the interior?

"We wouldn't have to worry about it if Control had done its job." Badger broke his despairing reverie, and anger flared to replace it. This was all down to command incompetence-- incompetence or malice. His fist clenched against the lever thinking of it for the first time since they'd fled. Shattered wrecks strewn on the airstrip at Von Seeckt with his comrades still inside, James' plane blossoming into a ball of fire, Parker sinking under the waves.

He hated that bitch in the red planes. Sylvie Dorn. He had read her file over and over in the brig, burned her face into his memory. He didn't care what Jaeger was like, that he seemed to have a shred of honor-- he had a murderer in his command staff, as far as Collins was concerned, and she would pay for it.

But she only killed James, didn't she.

Adlai. He'd made them stick it out over Guangzhou, he'd refused to send them more fighters over Hong Kong, kept the ceasefire from them too.

He'd killed them all.

He'd pay for it too.

Not that Collins told Badger any of that. His wingman would never rat on him intentionally, but they'd probably be questioned, and having murderous intent toward your former air controller would raise red flags. He just took a breath, tried to calm himself, let the death grip release. "Yeah," he finally radioed back. "They really fucked up bad."

"…anyway. How's your fuel?" Better to get back on survival.

"Little more'n forty. I don't think my fuel lines got hit-- the black squadron's commander, I charged him and it spooked'em. I'll probably make it over land."

Though he couldn't see it, Collins shook his head. "Yeah, you're doing better than me. And that wasn't their commander. It was a stand-in. Whoever it was probably wasn't used to leading so many planes."

"Eh? 'ow you know? Maybe he was just off 'is game."

"Because the black squadron is the first of their wing. Schwarze," he muttered it like a curse. "Their commander was the thief who stole my plane."

Davies whistled. "One 'ell of a trophy. Pilots are a mess without a commander, they teach the Russians that, they say. Kill the head of the snake and the rest falls apart."

"…I hope Temple is having a better time of it than that," Collins finally said, after a long silence. They could see the island at this point, black against the black sky, and yet-- Badger was doing much better than him. Twenty gallons in his tank would be generous, and as Collins stared at the fuel gauge it seemed to drop visibly, ticking away his life, ticking away the time Temple Squadron had a deserter for a commander instead of a dead commander.

The broken engine sputtered again, the airframe shook around him, he sank a few dozen more feet. "I might make it with the glide, but I might have to ditch in the water. We'll see."

"Right."

He made another distress call, but the two pilots didn't say much more to each other. Even when the engine 'ran,' now, it didn't want to put out the same kind of thrust. The speed indicator kept dropping, the altitude indicator, the fuel indicator, all ticking down, grains of sand in an hourglass as Luzon crawled closer.

Maybe thirty klicks out, the pierced engine stopped for good, then the other a few moments later, as the last of the fuel burned up or dripped into the sea. "Fucker. I'm out. I think there's a beach…a little south of our bearing?"

Badger took a deep breath on comms, steeling himself. "I see it. Are you going to try and ditch there?"

"No better options, are there?"

"No." The second pilot hesitated. "I'll bring help back. I still have a ways left to go."

"Yeah. You've been gimping your speed to stay with me too."

The less-damaged plane and its pilot separated from Collins, and started to accelerate, banking away to the south where the lights of a city gleamed. "I'll be back. Really. Even if you're dead I'll be back."

Collins didn't respond. And now he was alone. No men to protect, just his own skin.

They'd practiced engine-out landings, but this wasn't that, there was no runway. He was just falling out of the sky. He pulled the plane into a glide configuration, didn't bother but to glance at the altimeter now, just watched the sea and the strip of sand loom up to meet him. He wasn't going to make it. There would be no leaving a trail screaming onto the beach, he was going to skip across the water like a rock and his plane would shatter and sink and none of them would know what happened to him. God.

An instant before his borrowed Meteor hit the waves, Collins wondered if Davies would make it to an airstrip. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the canopy splintering from the impact.

[ominous-faechild]

This is a continuation post to my explanation of The Faewildes in my writing!

If you'd like to read this, I would strongly recommend starting with part 1! However, it's not the end of the world if you don't, you'll just be lacking a bit of context. Enjoy regardless!

Fair warning: long post!

Why aren't the Faewildes "Real"?

Obviously, the Faewildes are real. They exist and have been plaguing the Real World since the destruction of the Old World. So why aren't they "real"?

When I say "real", I mean that it's (relatively) unchanging and most likely unassociated with magic. The Faewilde Planes are fluid, constantly shifting and changing. Most aren't tethered to any one place, or at least shift around in "location" more than a real place should. So they're not "real" simply because they don't follow the rules of what "real" things should.

Where are the Faewildes?

Well, right here. And... right there. Actually, everywhere!

The Faewildes exist parallel to Reality to a point that realistically, nobody should ever see or enter them. Except... people do? Hm.

As I said before, the Faewildes were formed by countless cracks in Reality. Originally, it was a primordial soup that swept over the Real World, absorbing it and getting absorbed into it. But it's been a long time since then, and the world's done a lot of work sorting itself out. A lot of land has escaped from the Faewildes, settling into Reality wherever it was parallel to at its time of escape, and now makes up the continents and islands known to exist within the Real World.

However, the Faewildes still exist--they're just a lot less solid (or... real 🤔) now that they've lost their ingredients. Now, the soupy Faewildes are primarily broth.

The individual Planes within constantly move around within "the Faewildes", sometimes trading places, sometimes overlapping, sometimes merging, and other times completely destroying each other. But that's a subject for another day.

Due to the shifting, the Plane parallel to Reality could be different from day to day even if you never move from the same spot... and vice versa. To equate this to Our World--say, one day, you're living in a small town in the United States. You accidentally slip into the Faewildes and, shit!!! You saw the portal you came through, you need to find it again and escape!!

So you do.

And you emerge in Beijing, China.

Make it better! Somehow, it's 1652.

Oh, yeah. There's Time Fuckery.

So, you've gotten displaced in time by the Faewildes.

Congratulations! You're never finding your way back. Trust me, you're lucky to have gotten out alive. Don't bother going back in. Y'know... if you even can. Those portals don't usually last for long.

You know those fairy tales where people interact with the fairies, visit them or whatever, and return to their world to find out that an incredible amount of time has passed? Sometimes it's even played for a "oops, time's catching up to you!" and they, like, get Dusted like Peter in Infinity War? (Okay I'm accidentally making too many superhero references now 😂😅)

Yeah, well, GUESS WHO EATS THAT STUFF UP LIKE A STARVING WAR CRIMINAL!?!?

(Me. The answer's me.)

Due to the nature of the Faewildes and how they came from Chaos literally shattering reality, their "time" doesn't work the same as in the Real World. While, to them, time still flows in one direction, the times their Planes connect to in the Real World are disconnected.

To Doctor Who fans, it's not too dissimilar from the Doctor and River Song's meetings! While there's technically no interruption in their lives (or they live from, say, 1 to 30 years old), the other might meet them at 30 first, then 3, then 24, then 18--hopefully you get it!

(I'm making way too many references right now, forgive me. 😅🙏)

Point is, while each (the Faewildes vs Real World) feels like they have a linear timeline, they don't meet up at "the same times", leading to a disconnect that can make people get lost in time.

But that's okay!

People don't tend to survive getting lost in the Faewildes, anyways!

As much as I've enjoyed talking about the Faewildes, I think this is a good stopping point for this post! I'm getting a little tired of explaining them, so I'm going to take a break, work on some other things, and maybe get back to finishing this in a day or few!

Feel free to leave a comment, they're pure serotonin for me!!! 😊

Part 1 |

Divider from @cafekitsune

[northerncopse]

00’00” NCNC NEWS AT NINE 18/10 BROADCAST BLOCK ONE TRANSCRIPT

DONNA MARYWORTH: Good evening, Northern Copse. I’m Donna Maryworth. CLARK HENNING: And I’m Clark Henning. And you’re watching– BOTH: News at Nine. INTRODUCTION MUSIC & ANIMATION (00’08” – 00’23”). MUSIC FADES OUT. 00’ 23” CUT TO STUDIO. BLOCK ONE. (00’23” – 09’57”) D.M.: They said they flew up too high. They said they were filled with hubris and tried to strike the Gods and escape from the cursed island. They said they’ll burn up their wings if they fly too close to the Sun. C.H.: And it seems that our Conspirological League wasn’t wrong. Just this morning a shipping flight under number “8505S” crashed in the nearby field just a few kilometres from Northern Copse. The experts quickly arrived at the scene and discovered the plane to be of unknown origin. The Society of Curious Eyes has already started an investigation. Join our reporter – John Hamlock – as he bravely steps into an unknown territory and investigates whatever it was that the 8505S flight was carrying. 01’12” CUT TO HAMLOCK’S REPORT.

JOHN HAMLOCK: Thank you. My name’s John Hamlock and we’re standing right here, at the Southern Northern Copse’s Airport near which, just a few kilometres over there– [GESTURES OFF-CAMERA] the plane crashed. J.H.: According to certain experts and authorities of Northern Copse, including the Society of Curious Eyes, this plane was flying from east to west at speeds beyond what current technology can prove. Some speculations tell us that this plane might have been a military cargo plane that was transporting creatures of unknown origin. Here, you can see its approximate route.

J.H.: As you can notice, the unmarked plane was travelling in a straight line over the Great Forest of Northern Copse, before losing control near the airport. The plane crashed at 8:43 A.M. according to eyewitnesses. Here is what the locals have to say.

MEGAN HENERY: Oh, it was bloody awful, I tell you. Bloody awful. Oh, and the noise it was making! I was in my garden at that time when the plane flew over my house. Doing my morning exercises, yes, doing them. You know, the doctor, he told me that they’re very good for you. Even gave me some directions on how to do them, when to do them. I tell you, he’s a very goo– J.H.: [OFF-CAMERA] Mrs. Henery, please stay on topic. M.H.: Oh, yes, excuse me! Well, anyway, the plane flew over me and it made such a weird noise. It was like... Like clicking. Or maybe clacking. You know the noises that cicadas do? It was similar to that, but not quite. And then I saw that smoke started coming out of it, pouring in black clouds. I even stopped doing my exercising in the garden! Such awful it was, yes.

HARLEY WAX: Well, I certainly wouldn’t describe it as ‘clicking’ or ‘clacking’, but it certainly was an unusual noise for a plane. I work at the airport, primarily in the early hours, and I was very confused when I saw the plane appear on the radar. It seemingly popped into existence, you get what I’m saying? H.W.: Now, I’m used to unusual situations, that’s necessary for my job, so I contact the 8505S plane. J.H.: [OFF-SCREEN] Why exactly do you contact the pilots of the flight? H.W.: Well, there are many reasons you’d want to contact a plane. Sometimes it’s to give directions, but in this case it was to... Well, you– you don’t get random planes flying over a large airport without it being an emergency. We usually get routes of all the planes that pass on our territory so that we know what to expect. That was different. H.W.: I immediately found it weird and suspicious – the pilots didn’t respond to my attempts at contacting them. I assumed that the 8505S flight had lost their communications and might have needed an emergency landing, which is why I cleared the 3rd lane where another passenger plane was planning on taking off. H.W.: So there I sat with my colleagues who also gathered around their monitors, looking at the updating flight information. I continued to try and contact the pilots, but I eventually gave up. A few minutes later, the plane passed over our airport. We all looked out of our windows. Trust me, I was so shocked when I saw that plane catch on fire. One of my colleagues began calling 9-1-1 when she saw that plane. H.W.: It was also flying incredibly weird. I’d probably say that the computer – I assume that that plane was equipped with a computer, because just look at its size – it was broken and the pilots might have been fighting for the controls of the plane. You know, the plane was flying to the left and then it would jerk to the right, almost zigzagging in the sky. Another few minutes later and we heard a loud crash and an explosion. Then I heard sirens coming from the distance. Despite this, the airport continued to operate. The early morning passengers were getting a bit frustrated from the delayed flights. [CHUCKLES] J.H.: But what do the officials say? What exactly was in that plane and can the public get their hands on it? We interviewed Anne Standing – the Ministry of Internal Affairs Chief, as well as the independent, crowdfunded Society of Curious Eyes.

ANNE STANDING: We want to assure the population of Northern Copse that the public is safe and sound. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is doing everything in our hands to examine the incident. J.H.: [OFF-CAMERA] Can you comment on the rumours about ‘other-worldly’ creatures being carried on the plane? A.S.: The MIA has found nothing of suspicion to be on the plane. The examination of the crash site has shown some non-human skeletons, so we can say that the 8505S flight either carried animal skeletons to a museum of some sort or archeological findings to a research facility. Nothing alive or alien has been found on site. J.H.: [OFF-CAMERA] Do you have anything else to say to the public? A.S.: Yes, the MIA would like to issue some regulations for the following two weeks in Northern Copse. These are to do with the uprising of certain public figures and extremist organisations and I can personally reassure you and the public that it has nothing to do with the incident. It’s just that you don’t get often shown on TV and I will take this opportunity. A.S.: The regulations are as follows: No nightwalks past 0000 hours, that is twelve A.M; children younger than twelve should not be left outside for too long without any adults; lights should be turned off preferably past 0200 hours, that is two A.M., in cases of emergency minimal lightings should be turned on past 0400 hours, that is four A.M.; each household should own an emergency supply of necessities – foods, clothing, clean water, items for personal hygiene; everyone should put their documents – IDs, passports, etc. – in an easily available place in case of an emergency. That is all, thank you.

ANDREW ROBERTSON: We’re still currently investigating the mysterious plane. However, what we can say is this: it seems that the plane was carrying not just skeletons, but live specimens too. There are a few corpses of various animals lying on site. Our agents are already trying to identify their origin, but it’s most likely nothing other than some chimpanzees and monkeys. Possibly a few cats and dogs too. [SPEAKING TO SOMEBODY OFF-PHONE] J.H.: Mr. Robertson, can you tell us where the plane might have been flying? Is it really a government plane? A.R.: Sorry, one second. [SPEAKING TO SOMEBODY OFF-PHONE] Yes, I’m here. Excuse me, we’re still on site and the plane just caught on fire. Luckily we always bring our fire extinguishers with us. A.R.: As to your question, it’s hard to say. There are no marks or any signs on the plane. Which is very weird, even passenger planes have some ways to distinguish them. But there’s just nothing here. I mean, we still haven’t figured everything out. The plane crashed into bits and pieces, there’s wreckage probably for miles away here. I hope there weren’t any passengers there, but for now, we just found the two bodies of the pilots. J.H.: [EXCITEDLY] Do you have names? Badges? A.R.: No, nothing. Just their uniforms; no credentials, no ID cards, no anything. Our experts are working on pinning the identity of the two men. They’re white, around middle-aged, athletic. That’s all we can say right no– [SIRENS] J.H.: Mr. Robertson? A.R.: [SPEAKING TO SOMEBODY OFF-PHONE] What? Why?! [SPEAKING INTO PHONE] Sorry, we have to go. [CALL ENDS]

J.H.: The weird incident will most likely haunt Northern Copse for many days, feeding into childish nightmares. Drawing conclusions at such an early stage and only a few hours later would be a mistake, but we will keep you updated on the situation. Stay safe and stay sane. John Hamlock, Northern Copse. 09’10” CUT TO STUDIO. D.M.: Thank you, John. It seems that this curiosity will remain in our minds for more than we expected. But not to worry, our brave agents and police officers are all on the lookout to keep our town nice and safe. C.H.: Next up: new clues uncover the possible truth about the death of young Robert Williams. Join us after a short ad break. D.M.: And don’t forget that today’s the continuation of ‘Behind the Shadows’, a new drama TV show. In today’s episode we learn more about Mia Lucid and her past, as well as the past of the sleepy town she arrived at. Fighting off ghosts of her past and figuring out the mystery chain of murders in her new town is what awaits us in episode two. This and more at– BOTH: Northern Copse News Channel. 09’57” CUT TO ‘COMING NEXT’.

CUT TO AD BREAK. END BLOCK ONE.

[ask-rp-devra]

A few more days passed, the whole island was preparing to lose two staff members for a short while so ther was a handful of new Pokemon squads on patrols, and a lot of handing over of work to Professor Grey and Pari who were happy to stay behind for the time being. Seeing as the trip to the Crown Tundra area in Galar was looming, peach had put in special permission to bring along Valka, her age and subsequently monstrous skill made her usually unable to travel, trained to a fine point, putting her in a gym battle or a league seemed very unfair, but the locals seemed to think she’d fit the bill, Professor Magnolia had mentioned the abundance of legendary Pokemon in the area, so it would seem wise to take along a Pokemon that was able to hold its own.

With bags packed and bodies in seats the woman and her apprentice began the trip back to Galar, not only to collect more data on the new areas, but also to gather Devra’s team mates up to bring back to the island. The flight back was fine, Peach slept, drooling a bit, legs tucked up in the plane seat, her single Pokemon stashed for the journey, it felt uncomfortable having Valka in her pokeball, it didn’t happen often.

Devra had spent most of her free time packing for the trip, and the rest of it bonding with the two Pokémon she’d be bringing to the tundra. She had to make sure Aliza and her newest Pokémon Coal were strong enough to hold up in the tundra. Fiona helped her load with training her daughter, trusting her human to take care of Aliza but also wanting to make sure she’d be okay too. Now that they were on the plane Devra sat in the window seat, watching the clouds go buy. As they got closer to landing she gently nudged Peach. “Professor? We’re almost there.” She then looked out again, excited to see her mom again, as well as all of her other Pokémon.

Peach grunted, awoke with a jolt, and looked around, dazed and somewhat still very asleep, looking rather disheveled. Drool sticking hair to her face, squinty tired eyes, and a miserable headache. Water and pills as she waited to get the green light to get off the plane, and finally see her partner again, the ball sat in her pocket, in her hand, waiting patiently.

by the time they had disembarked, got their luggage and had caught a flying taxi towards Devra’s home, they had been able to finally take in the scenery, and enjoy the view as they made their way back to postwick, a quiet little town full of wooloo keepers and families.

“you must be happy to get home, see the family, you’re old Pokemon.”

Devra had given the corviknight a warm hello when they were picked up, being familiar with his taxi team. “I’m super excited. I told mom we were coming the other day. I think she’s going to have tea and cake waiting for us. I think you’ll be happy for the tea. She says my Pokémon have all been keeping an eye out for me. I have a feeling there’s going to be a mob when I get of the taxi.” She laughed as she saw her house come into view, here eyes bright and happy.

The pair thanked the taxi driver, and his delightful Pokemon, watching them fly off, leaving them outside a quaint little home, the front door swinging open in haste, a woman stepping out, presumably Devra’s mother? Peach smiled a bit, trying to come off as pleasant, and let Dev take the lead here. In her pocket she could feel the pokeball shake, Val trying to get out.

“not yet bud, let’s just get settled, not long now.” She murmured very quietly, not drawing any attention to herself.

Devra glanced over at Peach, her own poke balls in hand. “You can let her out now Peach. Most of my guys know to be polite around new visitors.” She let out Coal and Aliza, the young ponyta snorting as she was finally able to stretch out. Devra quickly explained things to them before a loud cry was heard from the side of the house. “Oh boy...give me a second.” She got up and quickly put some space between the little group and the hoard of Pokémon coming at her. She soon disappeared in a mass of excited cries, her laugher still being heard.

This was...expected. Peach had caught Devra chatting on her phone across videos to a lot of these Pokemon, all shapes and sizes, so she took a perch on the fence out of the way, and let the mob rush over and get their affection out of their systems. The poor girl within the crowd was far from unhappy about it all, they seemed like relatively well behaved Pokemon. While the ruckus went on, she release her darling fire type, who shook her whole body thoroughly, hating the feel of pokeballs, sending little embers out of her fine fur, before seeing the group, and scaling a tree to be as far out of the way as possible. Peach looked up to her, a small almost unnoticeable grin on her face. “you’re probably right to get some distance, never been one for socialising hey buddy.” She grumbled, folded her legs up under her and sat like a loaf in the tree.

As Devra made her rounds through the mob, four figures bounded over to the grumpy woman. Two of them were applin, both rolling around at her feet. Then a smaller than normal dreepy floating slightly behind the excited little ponyta that stood happily in front of peach.

The quad of new and quite familiar Pokemon approached, Peach for once had no snacks in her pockets, fresh from the airport with its restrictions, she rummaged to no avail.

“ah sorry guys, I normally have snacks on me, I’ll have to go shopping sometime soon.” Instead holding her hand out to see if they wanted to sniff. The applin had her attention in particular, her trip to Galar was cut short due to a medical emergency back at the labs, so she never had a chance to catch any or observe them. “you’re all certainly very strong looking aren’t you.” The ponyta reminded her of home, in a weird way, growing up with the species just being around, she became use to them from an early age, though this youngster was Galarian and very different in appearance.

Devra looked over at peach and grinned, seeing her with four particular Pokémon. She managed to make her way over to the little group, her Gardevoir holding onto her harm as she went. “Looks like you met your surprise.”

“my what?” She was a little dense at times, head empty. By this point they’d gotten a bit closer to her, she had been able to pet them all a little, besides the Dreepy who was a little more shy from the looks of it. Val stayed high up and observed quietly, she was use to sharing her human, this was not new to her.

“Your surprise! You were so excited when you saw the Pokedex entries for applin, and curious about Dreepy. So I thought I’d get you a gift for all the help you’ve given me. The ponyta is kind of a bonus. The dreepy has gotten kind of attached to him, so I don’t think it would be smart to split them up.” She laughed as she was hugged buy the gallede as well, the two obviously fond of their human.

“wow, that’s really thoughtful of you, you know you didn’t have to do all this right? But thank you regardless.” Peach didn’t think she’d be getting a few team mates so fast, some may have to go home for now, they’d be too young for battling in the Crown Tundra just yet. “‘what do you all think then? You want to see if we get along? Don’t have to stick with me if you gave it a try and don’t enjoy it, but it’d be nice to get to know you all a lot more for sure.” She directed her questions to the Pokemon before her, not focusing on the little ghost type too much to not freak them out. It would certainly be nice to have the company, and there was no other fox pokemon so Val wasn’t bothered by their presence at all. With so many around it really felt a bit more like home.

Devra laughed as the applin bounced happily. “Oh don’t you worry. They’ve been super excited to meet you. I’ve been telling all about you and what you do for Pokémon. The dreepy has been excited too, but he’s just a little shy.”

“oh! So you all knew me before I even knew you, well that explains why you all came over so quickly.” The woman laughed a bit, noticing Val descend from the tree behind them, sitting bout a meter back from the others, there was a shimmer you could almost not notice around her, she was putting up a barrier to give herself some space, but seemed rather calm and not at all in discomfort around these new faces. Peach shifted to the side a bit, gesturing to her beloved partner. “well then everyone, meet Valka, she’s...well, family. hopefully you’ll all get along and learn a lot from each other. If you’re worried or want some advice, please ask me or Val and we’ll try to help.” Her attention shifted to the Dreepy who was still hiding a bit behind the Ponyta.

“‘Ah, and don’t worry little guy-“ her eyes glanced about secretively, trying to be a little less scary with her expressions, softening as she whispered a little to him. “‘you and me can be shy together, I’m not great with big crowds or lots of eyes on me either. If you ever think it’s too much for you, you can hide behind me and I’ll scare off whoever’s bothering ya, I’ll be the brave one when you can’t.” She did laugh, this wasn’t the first shy Pokemon she’d had to handle, and they had a lot of love to give normally, just took time to get them comfortable. Her attention now off of him, she let Val so her usual thing, advance to the group, sit in her lap, and discuss with the others, get ting to know them a bit. One applin seemed happy to crawl up onto the professors shoulder, the other wiggling up next to her leg where she sat.

“‘honestly Dev they’re all darlings, I’m sure we’ll all get along great in time.”

She grinned happily as she watched Peach with the little group. “I’m really glad it worked out. I was a little nervous that they still might be too shy. Well, besides the dreepy. Oh!” She dug in her bag and pulled out an odd looking apple. “I almost forgot this! It’s a Sweet Apple. You can use it to evolve one of the applin into an appleton.” There was a happy rumble from behind her as her own Appleton stepped forward. “There’s another apple called a Tart apple that can get you a flapple like mine too. But I haven’t been able to find one yet.”

The mention of the specific fruits found in Galar caught the professors attention, also noticing the big rounded Pokemon approach upon seeing it. The Appleton was actually surprisingly small for a dragon type, shin height, and possibly the cutest looking thing peach had seen in a while. She accepted the fruit thankfully and had to look it over, sniffing it, and all too tempted to take a bite to figure out what it’d be best suited to, from the name, it’d be a really good eating apple, the tart one however would be a cooking sort no doubt.

“ill have to keep my eye out, I must have missed this all last time I was here, good thing you kept your eyes peeled for this.” She let everyone of the new youngsters around her have a chance at looking over the apple too, even Val took a sniff. It was always good to let them see as much of the world as possible, and all the items it contained.

“Maybe one of the pair will like the chance to evolve one day, they’ve probably had time while staying here to meet your pair of Pokemon who chose to evolve, so who knows.” She looked to the two Applin who she had become very fond of quite quickly, they had surprisingly big personalities for such small species, giving each other grief at any given opportunity, like bickering siblings. “they’ll figure it out when they are ready.”

She smiled as she glanced back at the house, waving to her mom as she came to meet them now that the chaos had settled down. “My moms name is Olivia by the way. Not sure if I told you that.”

“you did not.” She said matter of factly, and stood to greet the woman who looked very happy to see her daughter. The woman herself had a fair bit of resemblance to Devra, they shared a few mannerisms too peach noticed while offering a smile and a handshake, which did slightly throw Olivia, she had intended to go for a hug, but saw the social queue and changed it up.

“it’s really nice to meet you, you’re daughters been a real asset out in Johto, you should come and visit her some time perhaps, see what she gets up to.”

Olivia smiles warmly at Peach as she shook hands with her. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you as well Professor. Devra has told me so much about you and the island. I’ll have to make a trip out some time. I’ve been meaning to take a holiday for some time now.” She then turned to her daughter and gave her a massive hug, inviting both of them inside for a rest before they continued their trip.

[blu-joons]

Law Of The Jungle ~ Lee Gikwang

The moment you stepped into the airport, noticing a swarm of crew waiting to greet you, you knew there was no turning back. With a smile on your face, you made your way over, being met by the producer of the episode who introduced you to each member of staff.

“And this is Gikwang,” he announced, introducing you to the last famous face you’d be appearing on the show with. “He’s a part of Highlight, I’m sure you’ll have heard a few of his songs on the radio.”

Of course,” you smiled, waving goodbye to the producer before looking across to Gikwang who stood before you. “Please tell me you’re as nervous as I am about what sort of things are about to be thrown our way?”

His head nodded, “I thought it was just me, I’m terrified.”

“Definitely not, who knows what’s about to happen.”

A quiet chuckle came from him as you told Gikwang about yourself, surprised when he informed you that he had in fact heard your name before. The two of you stayed alongside each other as you waited to be called to the terminal and head off to the island you’d be filming on.

Walking down the middle of the plane, you were unsurprised your seat sat right next to Gikwang who was already waiting to fly. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard the flying is the easy part, it’s what comes after that you should worry about.”

“You really know how to make someone feel better.”

Gikwang smiled back at you, moving his phone off the seat that was yours, making plenty of room for you to take a seat. You kept a small distance between you both as you put your seatbelt on, looking past his figure so that you could get a good look out of the window.

“It’s been a while since I left Korea, that’s why I came, for the adventure really.”

“That’s nice,” you smiled back at him, “my manager told me it would be good for my career, I think the contract was signed before I even had a chance to look over it.”

“That’s the business for you,” Gikwang acknowledged, making himself comfortable too, “don’t worry, I’ll look after you over the past few days, your company might stitch you up, but I won’t.”

Your head nodded, bowing gently down to him, “I appreciate that, but I’m sure I can handle myself. My company must see something in me to put me forwards to be on the show.”

“Profit, that all it ever is, I’ve learnt that the hard way, but you get used to it.”

You sat and listened to much of Gikwang’s advice during the plane journey, hearing the ins and outs of his career and all the experiences he’d had. Some of his stories were incredibly insightful for you, although you’d heard plenty about Highlight before, there were so many details about their careers that you’d never found out about until now.

The two of you were so lost in your conversation, you barely noticed that the plane had landed, as the members of crew began to file out, making sure that all of the stars of the show followed behind them, keeping them safe from everyone.

“I can’t remember the last time I was able to walk out from an airport without fans waiting for me.”

“I reckon it won’t take long before people know that we’re here,” you replied back to Gikwang.

His head quickly nodded in agreement, letting you walk ahead of him as you stepped off the plane, gasping at the heat that struck you. Whilst you’d been told to prepare for warmer climates, you never expected one as warm as the one you walked into.

“Still feeling like this is a good idea?” Gikwang questioned, quickly taking of his jacket as he too tried to combat the sweltering heat. “We’ll have fun and get a good tan if nothing else.”

Your stomach was already sore with laughter from the plane ride with Gikwang, as another chuckle escaped from you, you clutched onto your side to try and keep yourself together. You’d never met someone who could make you laugh quite as much as him.

“If I’m not paired up with you, I think I’m going to be screwed you know,” you informed him as you walked towards the airport to grab your luggage.

His eyes looked back to you with a wide smile, “don’t worry, I’ve done this show before, I’m practically family. If I ask nicely enough, I’ll stick by your side.”

You remembered seeing a couple of the other Highlight members on the show before, slightly kicking yourself for missing out on Gikwang’s episode and not finding out about him sooner.

In just a matter of hours, you could tell you were going to be well looked after by him, and even if something terrible came your way, he was going to do his best to look after you.

“Are you coming?” A voice suddenly called out, unaware that you’d found yourself lost in your thoughts, quickly catching up with the man in front of you.

Your hand nervously scratched the top of your back, “sorry, I guess I was just trying to figure out what sort of things we could be doing in a place like this,” you lied.

“I wouldn’t try, whatever you think, I can guarantee we’ll end up doing the complete opposite,” he smiled, “this is exactly how these programmes work, I thought your company would’ve told you that.”

When your head shook back at him, Gikwang wasn’t surprised. He could tell from the very start that you’d been thrown in at the deep end by your company, feeling guilty for you, even if it was no fault of his own. He couldn’t stand by and let you drown though in amongst the others who were known variety stars, opting to take you under his wing.

You managed to keep up with his pace all the way through to baggage collection, waiting patiently for yours to arrive. “I remember last time I did this show, one of the women brought a huge suitcase, anyone would think she was staying for three weeks.”

“Really?” You squeaked, suddenly feeling your heart begin to race, “it would be stupid to back too much, but I guess it’s better to be too prepared than not prepared enough.”

“She’d bought first aid kits and everything, anyone would think we didn’t have a medical team on standby for those types of situations,” he chuckled.

Your head nodded as the travelator began to turn, feeling your cheeks flush red as a huge case came dropping down, carefully taking a few steps forwards and lifting up, unable to quite bring yourself to look across to Gikwang beside you.

“You’re one of those people, aren’t you?” He laughed, rolling his eyes at how tall your suitcase was as you stood it beside you. “Please tell me you’ve not got a first aid kit lying around in there too?”

“Oh, no,” you sniggered, “I’m not that bad, just bad enough that I’ve got five pairs of underwear in the top pocket for emergencies.”

“You really think that will help you in an emergency?”

Your head nodded, reluctantly tilting your head up to look at him, “like I said, better to be too prepared than not prepared enough, don’t you think?”

“Don’t worry, you’re prepared and safe with me.”

---

Masterlist

[96thdayofrage]

A beautiful late April day, seventy-two years after slavery ended in the United States. Claude Anderson parks his car on the side of Holbrook Street in Danville. On the porch of number 513, he rearranges the notepads under his arm. Releasing his breath in a rush of decision, he steps up to the door of the handmade house and knocks.

Danville is on the western edge of the Virginia Piedmont. Back in 1865, it had been the last capital of the Confederacy. Or so Jefferson Davis had proclaimed on April 3, after he fled Richmond. Davis stayed a week, but then he had to keep running. The blue-coated soldiers of the Army of the Potomac were hot on his trail. When they got to Danville, they didn’t find the fugitive rebel. But they did discover hundreds of Union prisoners of war locked in the tobacco warehouses downtown. The bluecoats, rescuers and rescued, formed up and paraded through town. Pouring into the streets around them, dancing and singing, came thousands of African Americans. They had been prisoners for far longer.

In the decades after the jubilee year of 1865, Danville, like many other southern villages, had become a cotton factory town. Anderson, an African-American master’s student from Hampton University, would not have been able to work at the segregated mill. But the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a bureau of the federal government created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, would hire him. To put people back to work after they had lost their jobs in the Great Depression, the WPA organized thousands of projects, hiring construction workers to build schools and artists to paint murals. And many writers and students were hired to interview older Americans—like Lorenzo Ivy, the man painfully shuffling across the pine board floor to answer Anderson’s knock.

Anderson had found Ivy’s name in the Hampton University archives, two hundred miles east of Danville. Back in 1850, when Lorenzo had been born in Danville, there was neither a university nor a city called Hampton—just an American fort named after a slaveholder president. Fortress Monroe stood on Old Point Comfort, a narrow triangle of land that divided the Chesapeake Bay from the James River. Long before the fort was built, in April 1607, the Susan Constant had sailed past the point with a boatload of English settlers. Anchoring a few miles upriver, they had founded Jamestown, the first perma- nent English-speaking settlement in North America. Twelve years later, the crews of two storm-damaged English privateers also passed, seeking shelter and a place to sell the twenty-odd enslaved Africans (captured from a Portuguese slaver) lying shackled in their holds.

After that first 1619 shipload, some 100,000 more enslaved Africans would sail upriver past Old Point Comfort. Lying in chains in the holds of slave ships, they could not see the land until they were brought up on deck to be sold. After the legal Atlantic slave trade to the United States ended in 1807, hundreds of thousands more enslaved people passed the point. Now they were going the other way, boarding ships at Richmond, the biggest eastern center of the internal slave trade, to go by sea to the Mississippi Valley.

By the time a dark night came in late May 1861, the moon had waxed and waned three thousand times over slavery in the South. To protect slavery, Virginia had just seceded from the United States, choosing a side at last after six months of indecision in the wake of South Carolina’s rude exit from the Union. Fortress Monroe, built to protect the James River from ocean-borne invaders, became the Union’s last toehold in eastern Virginia. Rebel troops entrenched themselves athwart the fort’s landward approaches. Local planters, including one Charles Mallory, detailed enslaved men to build berms to shelter the besiegers’ cannon. But late this night, Union sentries on the fort’s seaward side saw a small skiff emerging slowly from the darkness. Frank Baker and Townshend rowed with muffled oars. Sheppard Mallory held the tiller. They were setting themselves free.

A few days later, Charles Mallory showed up at the gates of the Union fort. He demanded that the commanding federal officer, Benjamin Butler, return his property. Butler, a politician from Massachusetts, was an incompetent battlefield commander, but a clever lawyer. He replied that if the men were Mallory’s property, and he was using them to wage war against the US government, then logically the men were therefore contraband of war.

Those first three “contrabands” struck a crack in slavery’s centuries-old wall. Over the next four years, hundreds of thousands more enslaved people widened the crack into a gaping breach by escaping to Union lines. Their movement weakened the Confederate war effort and made it easier for the United States and its president to avow mass emancipation as a tool of war. Eventually the Union Army began to welcome formerly enslaved men into its ranks, turning refugee camps into recruiting stations—and those African-American soldiers would make the difference between victory and defeat for the North, which by late 1863 was exhausted and uncertain.

After the war, Union officer Samuel Armstrong organized literacy programs that had sprung up in the refugee camp at Old Point Comfort to form Hampton Institute. In 1875, Lorenzo Ivy traveled down to study there, on the ground zero of African-American history. At Hampton, he acquired an education that enabled him to return to Danville as a trained schoolteacher. He educated generations of African-American children. He built the house on Holbrook Street with his own Hampton-trained hands, and there he sheltered his father, his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nieces and nephews. In April 1937, Ivy opened the door he’d made with hands and saw and plane, and it swung clear for Claude Anderson without rubbing the frame.1

Anderson’s notepads, however, were accumulating evidence of two very different stories of the American past—halves that did not fit together neatly. And he was about to hear more. Somewhere in the midst of the notepads was a typed list of questions supplied by the WPA. Questions often reveal the desired answer. By the 1930s, most white Americans had been demanding for decades that they hear only a sanitized version of the past into which Lorenzo Ivy had been born. This might seem strange. In the middle of the nineteenth century, white Americans had gone to war with each other over the future of slavery in their country, and slavery had lost. Indeed, for a few years after 1865, many white northerners celebrated emancipation as one of their collective triumphs. Yet whites’ belief in the emancipation made permanent by the Thirteenth Amendment, much less in the race-neutral citizenship that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments had written into the Constitution, was never that deep. Many northerners had only supported Benjamin Butler and Abraham Lincoln’s moves against slavery because they hated the arrogance of slaveholders like Charles Mallory. And after 1876, northern allies abandoned southern black voters.

Within half a century after Butler sent Charles Mallory away from Fortress Monroe empty-handed, the children of white Union and Confederate soldiers united against African-American political and civil equality. This compact of white supremacy enabled southern whites to impose Jim Crow segregation on public space, disfranchise African-American citizens by barring them from the polls, and use the lynch-mob noose to enforce black compliance. White Americans imposed increased white supremacy outside the South, too. In non-Confederate states, many restaurants wouldn’t serve black customers. Stores and factories refused to hire African Americans. Hundreds of midwestern communities forcibly evicted African-American residents and became “sundown towns” (“Don’t let the sun set on you in this town”). Most whites, meanwhile, believed that science proved that there were biologically distinct human races, and that Europeans were members of the superior one. Anglo-Americans even believed that they were distinct from and superior to the Jews from Russia, Italians, Greeks, Slavs, and others who flooded Ellis Island and changed the culture of northern urban centers.

By the early twentieth century, America’s first generation of professional historians were justifying the exclusions of Jim Crow and disfranchisement by telling a story about the nation’s past of slavery and civil war that seemed to confirm, for many white Americans, that white supremacy was just and necessary. Above all, the historians of a reunified white nation insisted that slavery was a premodern institution that was not committed to profit-seeking. In so doing, historians were to some extent only repeating pre–Civil War debates: abolitionists had depicted slavery not only as a psychopathic realm of whipping, rape, and family separation, but also as a flawed economic system that was inherently less efficient than the free-labor capitalism developing in the North. Proslavery writers disagreed about the psychopathy, but by the 1850s they agreed that enslavers were first and foremost not profit-seekers. For them, planters were caring masters who considered their slaves to be inferior family members. So although anti- and proslavery conclusions about slavery’s morality were different, their premises about slavery-as-a-business-model matched. Both agreed that slavery was inherently unprofitable. It was an old, static system that belonged to an earlier time. Slave labor was inefficient to begin with, slave productivity did not increase to keep pace with industrialization, and enslavers did not act like modern profit-seeking businessmen. As a system, slavery had never adapted or changed to thrive in the new industrial economy—let alone to play a premier role as a driver of economic expansion—and had been little more than a drag on the explosive growth that had built the modern United States. In fact, during the Civil War, northerners were so convinced of these points that they believed that shifting from slave labor to free labor would dramatically increase cotton productivity.

It didn’t. But even though the data of declining productivity over the ensuing three score and ten years suggested that slavery might have been the most efficient way to produce the world’s most important crop, no one let empirical tests change their minds. Instead, historians of Woodrow Wilson’s generation imprinted the stamp of academic research on the idea that slavery was separate from the great economic and social transformations of the Western world during the nineteenth century. After all, it did not rely upon ever-more efficient machine labor. Its unprofitable economic structures supposedly produced antique social arrangements, and the industrializing, urbanizing world looked back toward them with contempt—or, increasingly, nostalgia. Many whites, now proclaiming that science proved that people of African descent were intellectually inferior and congenitally prone to criminal behavior, looked wistfully to a past when African Americans had been governed with whips and chains. Granted, slavery as an economic system was not modern, they said, and had neither changed to adapt to the modern economy nor contributed to economic expansion. But to an openly racist historical profession—and a white history-reading, history-thinking public obsessed with all kinds of race control—the white South’s desire to white-wash slavery in the past, and maintain segregation now and forever, served the purpose of validating control over supposedly premodern, semi-savage black people.

Such stories about slavery shaped the questions Claude Anderson was to ask in the 1930s, because you could find openly racist versions of it baked into the recipe of every American textbook. You could find it in popular novels, politicians’ speeches, plantation-nostalgia advertising, and even the first blockbuster American film: Birth of a Nation. As president, Woodrow Wilson—a southern-born history professor— called this paean to white supremacy “history written with lightning,” and screened it at the White House. Such ideas became soaked into the way America publicly depicted slavery. Even many of those who believed that they rejected overt racism depicted the era before emancipation as a plantation idyll of happy slaves and paternalist masters. Abolitionists were snakes in the garden, responsible for a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of white people died. Maybe the end of slavery had to come for the South to achieve economic modernity, but it didn’t have to come that way, they said.

The way that Americans remember slavery has changed dramatically since then. In tandem with widespread desegregation of public spaces and the assertion of black cultural power in the years between World War II and the

1990s came a new understanding of the experience of slavery. No longer did academic historians describe slavery as a school in which patient masters and mistresses trained irresponsible savages for futures of perpetual servitude.

Slavery’s denial of rights now prefigured Jim Crow, while enslaved people’s resistance predicted the collective self-assertion that developed into first the civil rights movement and later, Black Power.

But perhaps the changes were not so great as they seemed on the surface. The focus on showing African Americans as assertive rebels, for instance, implied an uncomfortable corollary. If one should be impressed by those who rebelled, because they resisted, one should not be proud of those who did not. And there were very few rebellions in the history of slavery in the United States. Some scholars tried to backfill against this quandary by arguing that all African Americans together created a culture of resistance, especially in slave quarters and other spaces outside of white observation. Yet the insistence that assertive resistance undermined enslavers’ power, and a focus on the development of an independent black culture, led some to believe that enslaved people actually managed to prevent whites from successfully exploiting their labor. This idea, in turn, created a quasi-symmetry with post– Civil War plantation memoirs that portrayed gentle masters, who maintained slavery as a nonprofit endeavor aimed at civilizing Africans.

Thus, even after historians of the civil rights, Black Power, and multicultural eras rewrote segregationists’ stories about gentlemen and belles and grateful darkies, historians were still telling the half that has ever been told. For some fundamental assumptions about the history of slavery and the history of the United States remain strangely unchanged. The first major assumption is that, as an economic system—a way of producing and trading commodities—American slavery was fundamentally different from the rest of the modern economy and separate from it. Stories about industrialization emphasize white immigrants and clever inventors, but they leave out cotton fields and slave labor. This perspective implies not only that slavery didn’t change, but that slavery and enslaved African Americans had little long-term influence on the rise of the United States during the nineteenth century, a period in which the nation went from being a minor European trading partner to becoming the world’s largest economy—one of the central stories of American history.

The second major assumption is that slavery in the United States was fundamentally in contradiction with the political and economic systems of the liberal republic, and that inevitably that contradiction would be resolved in favor of the free-labor North. Sooner or later, slavery would have ended by the operation of historical forces; thus, slavery is a story without suspense. And a story with a predetermined outcome isn’t a story at all.

Third, the worst thing about slavery as an experience, one is told, was that it denied enslaved African Americans the liberal rights and liberal subjectivity of modern citizens. It did those things as a matter of course, and as injustice, that denial ranks with the greatest in modern history. But slavery also killed people, in large numbers. From those who survived, it stole everything. Yet the massive and cruel engineering required to rip a million people from their homes, brutally drive them to new, disease-ridden places, and make them live in terror and hunger as they continually built and rebuilt a commodity-generating empire—this vanished in the story of a slavery that was supposedly focused primarily not on producing profit but on maintaining its status as a quasi-feudal elite, or producing modern ideas about race in order to maintain white unity and elite power. And once the violence of slavery was minimized, another voice could whisper, saying that African Americans, both before and after emancipation, were denied the rights of citizens because they would not fight for them.

All these assumptions lead to still more implications, ones that shape attitudes, identities, and debates about policy. If slavery was outside of US history, for instance—if indeed it was a drag and not a rocket booster to American economic growth—then slavery was not implicated in US growth, success, power, and wealth. Therefore none of the massive quantities of wealth and treasure piled by that economic growth is owed to African Americans. Ideas about slavery’s history determine the ways in which Americans hope to resolve the long contradiction between the claims of the United States to be a nation of freedom and opportunity, on the one hand, and, on the other, the unfreedom, the unequal treatment, and the opportunity denied that for most of American history have been the reality faced by people of African descent. Surely, if the worst thing about slavery was that it denied African Americans the liberal rights of the citizen, one must merely offer them the title of citizen—even elect one of them president—to make amends. Then the issue will be put to rest forever.

Slavery’s story gets told in ways that reinforce all these assumptions. Textbooks segregate twenty-five decades of enslavement into one chapter, painting a static picture. Millions of people each year visit plantation homes where guides blather on about furniture and silverware. As sites, such homes hide the real purpose of these places, which was to make African Americans toil under the hot sun for the profit of the rest of the world. All this is the “symbolic annihilation” of enslaved people, as two scholars of those weird places put it.2 Meanwhile, at other points we tell slavery’s story by heaping praise on those who escaped it through flight or death in rebellion, leaving the listener to wonder if those who didn’t flee or die somehow “accepted” slavery. And everyone who teaches about slavery knows a little dirty secret that reveals historians’ collective failure: many African-American students struggle with a sense of shame that most of their ancestors could not escape the suffering they experienced.

The truth can set us free, if we can find the right questions. But back in the little house in Danville, Anderson was reading from a list of leading ones, designed by white officials—some well-meaning, some not so well-meaning. He surely felt how the gravity of the questions pulled him toward the planet of plantation nostalgia. “Did slaves mind being called ‘nigger’?” “What did slaves call master or mistress?” “Have you been happier in slavery or free?” “Was the mansion house pretty?” Escaping from chains is very difficult, however, so Anderson dutifully asked the prescribed questions and poised his pencil to take notes.

Ivy listened politely. He sat still. Then he began to speak: “My mother’s master was named William Tunstall. He was a mean man. There was only one good thing he did, and I don’t reckon he intended to do that. He sold our family to my father’s master George H. Gilman.”

Perhaps the wind blowing through the window changed as a cloud moved across the spring sun: “Old Tunstall caught the ‘cotton fever.’ There was a fever going round, leastways it was like a fever. Everyone was dying to get down south and grow cotton to sell. So old Tunstall separated families right and left. He took two of my aunts and left their husbands up here, and he separated altogether seven husbands and wives. One woman had twelve children. Yessir. Took ‘em all down south with him to Georgia and Alabama.”

Pervasive separations. Tears carving lines on faces. Lorenzo remembered his relief at dodging the worst, but he also remembered knowing that it was just a lucky break. Next time it could’ve been his mother. No white person was reliable, because money drove their decisions. No, this wasn’t the story the books told.

So Anderson moved to the next question. Did Ivy know if any slaves had been sold here? Now, perhaps, the room grew darker.

For more than a century, white people in the United States had been singling out slave traders as an exception: unscrupulous lower-class outsiders who pried apart paternalist bonds. Scapegoaters had a noble precedent. In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson tried to blame King George III for using the Atlantic slave trade to impose slavery on the colonies. In historians’ tellings, the 1808 abolition of the Atlantic trade brought stability to slavery, ringing in the “Old South,” as it has been called since before the Civil War. Of course, one might wonder how something that was brand new, created after a revolution, and growing more rapidly than any other commodity-producing economy in history before then could be considered “old.” But never mind. Historians depicted slave trading after 1808 as irrelevant to what slavery was in the “Old South,” and to how America as a whole was shaped. America’s modernization was about entrepreneurs, creativity, invention, markets, movement, and change. Slavery was not about any of these things—not about slave trading, or moving people away from everyone they knew in order to make them make cotton. Therefore, modern America and slavery had nothing to do with each other.

But Ivy spilled out a rush of very different words. “They sold slaves here and everywhere. I’ve seen droves of Negroes brought in here on foot going South to be sold. Each one of them had an old tow sack on his back with everything he’s got in it. Over the hills they came in lines reaching as far as the eye can see. They walked in double lines chained together by twos. They walk ‘em here to the railroad and shipped ’em south like cattle.”

Then Lorenzo Ivy said this: “Truly, son, the half has never been told.”

To this, day, it still has not. For the other half is the story of how slavery changed and moved and grew over time: Lorenzo Ivy’s time, and that of his parents and grandparents. In the span of a single lifetime after the 1780s, the South grew from a narrow coastal strip of worn-out plantations to a sub-continental empire. Entrepreneurial enslavers moved more than 1 million enslaved people, by force, from the communities that survivors of the slave trade from Africa had built in the South and in the West to vast territories that were seized—also by force—from their Native American inhabitants. From

1783 at the end of the American Revolution to 1861, the number of slaves in the United States increased five times over, and all this expansion produced a powerful nation. For white enslavers were able to force enslaved African-American migrants to pick cotton faster and more efficiently than free people. Their practices rapidly transformed the southern states into the dominant force in the global cotton market, and cotton was the world’s most widely traded commodity at the time, as it was the key raw material during the first century of the industrial revolution. The returns from cotton monopoly powered the modernization of the rest of the American economy, and by the time of the Civil War, the United States had become the second nation to undergo large-scale industrialization. In fact, slavery’s expansion shaped every crucial aspect of the economy and politics of the new nation—not only increasing its power and size, but also, eventually, dividing US politics, differentiating regional identities and interests, and helping to make civil war possible.

The idea that the commodification and suffering and forced labor of African Americans is what made the United States powerful and rich is not an idea that people necessarily are happy to hear. Yet it is the truth. And that truth was the half of the story that survived mostly in the custodianship of those who survived slavery’s expansion—whether they had been taken over the hill, or left behind. Forced migration had shaped their lives, and also had shaped what they thought about their lives and the wider history in which they were enmeshed. Even as they struggled to stay alive in the midst of disruption, they created ways to talk about this half untold. But what survivors experienced, analyzed, and named was a slavery that didn’t fit the comfortable boxes into which other Americans have been trying to fit it ever since it ended.

I read Lorenzo Ivy’s words, and they left me uneasy. I sensed that the true narrative had been left out of history—not only American history in general, but even the history of slavery. I began to look actively for the other half of the story, the one about how slavery constantly grew, changed, and reshaped the modern world. Of how it was both modernizing and modern, and what that meant for the people who lived through its incredible expansion. Once I began to look, I discovered that the traces of the other half were everywhere. The debris of cotton fevers that infected white entrepreneurs and separated man and woman, parent and child, right and left, dusted every set of pre–Civil War letters, newspapers, and court documents. Most of all, the half not told ran like a layer of iridium left by a dinosaur-killing asteroid through every piece of testimony that ex-slaves, such as Lorenzo Ivy, left on the historical record: thousands of stanzas of an epic of forced separations, violence, and new kinds of labor.

For a long time I wasn’t sure how to tell the story of this muscular, dynamic process in a single book. The most difficult challenge was simply the fact that the expansion of slavery in many ways shaped the story of everything in the pre–Civil War United States. Enslavers’ surviving papers showed calculations of returns from slave sales and purchases as well as the costs of establishing new slave labor camps in the cotton states. Newspapers dripped with speculations in land and people and the commodities they produced; dramatic changes in how people made money and how much they made; and the dramatic violence that accompanied these practices. The accounts of northern merchants and bankers and factory owners showed that they invested in slavery, bought from and sold to slaveholders, and took slices of profit out of slavery’s expansion. Scholars and students talked about politics as a battle about states’ rights or republican principles, but viewed in a different light the fights can be seen as a struggle between regions about how the rewards of slavery’s expansion would be allocated and whether that expansion could continue.

The story seemed too big to fit into one framework. Even Ivy had no idea how to count the chained lines he saw going southwest toward the mountains on the horizon and the vast open spaces beyond. From the 1790s to the 1860s, enslavers moved 1 million people from the old slave states to the new. They went from making no cotton to speak of in 1790 to making almost 2 billion pounds of it in 1860. Stretching out beyond the slave South, the story encompassed not only Washington politicians and voters across the United States but also Connecticut factories, London banks, opium addicts in China, and consumers in East Africa. And could one book do Lorenzo Ivy’s insight justice? It would have to avoid the old platitudes, such as the easy temptation to tell the story as a collection of topics—here a chapter on slave resistance, there one on women and slavery, and so on. That kind of abstraction cuts the beating heart out of the story. For the half untold was a narrative, a process of movement and change and suspense. Things happened because of what had been done before them—and what people chose to do in response.

No, this had to be a story, and one couldn’t tell it solely from the perspective of powerful actors. True, politicians and planters and bankers shaped policies, the movement of people, and the growing and selling of cotton, and even remade the land itself. But when one takes Lorenzo Ivy’s words as a starting point, the whole history of the United States comes walking over the hill behind a line of people in chains. Changes that reshaped the entire world began on the auction block where enslaved migrants stood or in the frontier cotton fields where they toiled. Their individual drama was a struggle to survive. Their reward was to endure a brutal transition to new ways of labor that made them reinvent themselves every day. Enslaved people’s creativity enabled their survival, but, stolen from them in the form of ever-growing cotton productivity, their creativity also expanded the slaveholding South at an unprecedented rate. Enslaved African Americans built the modern United States, and indeed the entire modern world, in ways both obvious and hidden.

One day I found a metaphor that helped. It came from the great African-American author Ralph Ellison. You might know his novel Invisible Man. But in the 1950s, Ellison also produced incredible essays. In one of them he wrote, “On the moral level I propose we view the whole of American life as a drama enacted on the body of a Negro giant who, lying trussed up like Gulliver, forms the stage and the scene upon which and within which the action unfolds.”3

The image fit the story that Ivy’s words raised above the watery surface of buried years. The only problem was that Ellison’s image implied a stationary giant. In the old myth, the stationary, quintessentially unchanging plantation was the site and the story of African-American life from the seventeenth century to the twentieth. But Lorenzo Ivy had described a world in motion. After the American Revolution—which seemed at the time to portend slavery’s imminent demise—a metastatic transformation and growth of slavery’s giant body had begun instead. From the exploitation, commodification, and torture of enslaved people’s bodies, enslavers and other free people gained new kinds of modern power. The sweat and blood of the growing system, a network of individuals and families and labor camps that grew bigger with each passing year, fueled massive economic change. Enslaved people, meanwhile, transported and tortured, had to find ways to survive, resist, or endure. And over time the question of their freedom or bondage came to occupy the center of US politics.

This trussed-up giant, stretched out on the rack of America’s torture zone, actually grew, like a person passing through ordeals to new maturity. I have divided the chapters of this book with Ellison’s imagined giant in mind, a structure that has allowed the story to take as its center point the experience of enslaved African Americans themselves. Before we pass through the door that Lorenzo Ivy opened, here are the chapters’ names. The first is “Feet,” for the story begins with unfree movement on paths to enslaved frontiers that were laid down between the end of the American Revolution in 1783 and the early 1800s. “Heads” is the title of the second chapter, which covers America’s acquisition of the key points of the Mississippi Valley by violence, a gain that also consolidated the enslavers’ hold on the frontier. Then come the “Right Hand” and the “Left Hand” (Chapters 3 and 4). They reveal the inner secrets of enslavers’ power, secrets which made the entire world of white people wealthy.

“Tongues” (Chapter 5) and “Breath” (Chapter 6) follow. They describe how, by the mid-1820s, enslavers had not only found ways to silence the tongues of their critics, but had built a system of slave trading that served as expansion’s lungs. Most forms of resistance were impossible to carry out successfully. So a question hung in the air. Would the spirit in the tied-down body die, leaving enslaved people to live on like undead zombies serving their captors? Or would the body live, and rise? Every transported soul, finding his or her old life killed off, faced this question on the individual level as well: whether to work with fellow captives or scrabble against them in a quest for individualistic subsistence. Enslaved African Americans chose many things. But perhaps most importantly, they chose survival, and true survival in such circumstances required solidarity. Solidarity allowed them to see their common experience, to light their own way by building a critique of enslavers’ power that was an alternative story about what things were and what they meant.

This story draws on thousands of personal narratives like the one that Lorenzo Ivy told Claude Anderson. Slavery has existed in many societies, but no other population of formerly enslaved people has been able to record the testimonies of its members like those who survived slavery in the United States. The narratives began with those who escaped slavery’s expansion in the nineteenth century as fugitives. Over one hundred of those survivors published their autobiographies during the nineteenth century. As time went on, such memoirs found a market, in no small part because escapees from southern captivity were changing the minds of some of the northern whites about what the expansion of slavery meant for them. Then, during the 1930s, people like Claude Anderson conducted about 2,300 interviews with the ex-slaves who had lived into that decade. Because the interviews often allowed old people to tell about the things they had seen for themselves and the things they heard from their elders in the years before the Civil War, they take us back into the world of explanation and storytelling that grew up around fires and on porches and between cotton rows. No one autobiography or interview is pure and objective as an account of all that the history books left untold. But read them all, and each one adds to a more detailed, clearer picture of the whole. One story fills in gaps left by another, allowing one to read between the lines.4

Understanding something of what it felt like to suffer, and what it cost to endure that suffering, is crucial to understanding the course of US history. For what enslaved people made together—new ties to each other, new ways of understanding their world—had the potential to help them survive in mind and body. And ultimately, their spirit and their speaking would enable them to call new allies into being in the form of an abolitionist movement that helped to destabilize the mighty enslavers who held millions captive. But the road on which enslaved people were being driven was long. It led through the hell described by “Seed” (Chapter 7), which tells of the horrific near-decade from 1829 to 1837. In these years entrepreneurs ran wild on slavery’s frontier. Their acts created the political and economic dynamics that carried enslavers to their greatest height of power. Facing challenges from other white men who wanted to assert their masculine equality through political democracy, clever entrepreneurs found ways to leverage not just that desire, but other desires as well. With the creation of innovative financial tools, more and more of the Western world was able to invest directly in slavery’s expansion. Such creativity multiplied the incredible productivity and profitability of enslaved people’s labor and allowed enslavers to turn bodies into commodities with which they changed the financial history of the Western world.

Enslavers, along with common white voters, investors, and the enslaved, made the 1830s the hinge of US history. On one side lay the world of the industrial revolution and the initial innovations that launched the modern world. On the other lay modern America. For in 1837, enslavers’ exuberant success led to a massive economic crash. This self-inflicted devastation, covered in Chapter 8, “Blood,” posed new challenges to slaveholders’ power, led to human destruction for the enslaved, and created confusion and discord in white families. When southern political actors tried to use war with Mexico to restart their expansion, they encountered new opposition on the part of increasingly assertive northerners. As Chapter 9, “Backs,” explains, by the 1840s the North had built a complex, industrialized economy on the backs of enslaved people and their highly profitable cotton labor. Yet, although all northern whites had benefited from the deepened exploitation of enslaved people, many northern whites were now willing to use politics to oppose further expansions of slavery. The words that the survivors of slavery’s expansion had carried out from the belly of the nation’s hungriest beast had, in fact, become important tools for galvanizing that opposition.

Of course, in return for the benefits they received from slavery’s expansion, plenty of northerners were still willing to enable enslavers’ disproportionate power. With the help of such allies, as “Arms” (Chapter 10) details, slavery continued to expand in the decade after the Compromise of 1850. For now, however, it had to do so within potentially closed borders. That is why southern whites now launched an aggressive campaign of advocacy, insisting on policies and constitutional interpretations that would commit the entire United States to the further geographic expansion of slavery. The entire country would become slavery’s next frontier. And as they pressed, they generated greater resistance, pushed too hard, and tried to make their allies submit—like slaves, the allies complained. And that is how, at last, whites came to take up arms against each other.

Yet even as southern whites seceded, claiming that they would set up an independent nation, shelling Fort Sumter, and provoking the Union’s president, Abraham Lincoln, to call out 100,000 militia, many white Americans wanted to keep the stakes of this dispute as limited as possible. A majority of northern Unionists opposed emancipation. Perhaps white Americans’ battles with each other were, on one level, not driven by a contest over ideals, but over the best way to keep the stream of cotton and financial revenues flowing: keep slavery within its current borders, or allow it to consume still more geographic frontiers. But the growing roar of cannon promised others a chance to force a more dramatic decision: slavery forever, or nevermore. So it was that as Frank Baker, Townshend, and Sheppard Mallory crept across the dark James River waters that had washed so many hulls bearing human bodies, the future stood poised, uncertain between alternative paths. Yet those three men carried something powerful: the same half of the story that Lorenzo Ivy could tell. All they had learned from it would help to push the future onto a path that led to freedom. Their story can do so for us as well. To hear it, we must stand as Lorenzo Ivy had stood as a boy in Danville—watching the chained lines going over the hills, or as Frank Baker and others had stood, watching the ships going down the James from the Richmond docks, bound for the Mississippi. Then turn and go with the marching feet, and listen for the breath of the half that has never been told.

Excerpted from the book THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD by Edward Baptist. Copyright © 2014 by Edward Baptist. Reprinted with permission of Basic Books.

[alolowrites]

After All These Years

Summary: After being apart for six years, you wonder if you are ready to see Toshinori again. 

Tag: @centerhabit (Tagging you as promised! Sorry for the long wait!)

Author’s Note: It is finally here! After four months (I think?), I finally finished writing the sequel for The Point of No Return. For anyone who is new, I highly recommend you read that story first! Apologies for taking a long time getting this story out; I was playing around with a new formatting style. 

Once again, I appreciate the incredible response The Point of No Return received from everyone! I’m still touched by all the comments, likes, reblogs, etc it got!! Thank you once again!!

Without further ado, please enjoy the story!

Word Count: 2.3K+

Six years.

It’s been six long years since you’ve returned home.

Stepping off the plane, you bow at the flight attendant and follow the crowd through the gray tunnel. You find your luggage with ease and quietly walk away. Various shops appear, each selling items travelers needed last minute; one man rushes inside to buy a neck pillow while a woman debates between two beverages.

There’s one store that catches your eye with its colorful display. Hero merchandise spews out the door as pop music plays to lure interested customers into the shop. A familiar color scheme stands out from the rest, tugging your heartstrings a bit too harshly; the imaginary marionettist enjoys seeing you suffer.

“I AM HERE!”

You jump from your spot. The famous phrase repeats and you look below to see a little girl squeezing the All Might plushie toy with glee. She skips away, the toy dangling in her hand and All Might’s comical smile mocking you until it disappears into the crowd. Not even thirty minutes in Japan and already you are regretting your decision.

No, no. You can do this.

You had more than enough time to heal from the pain. At least that’s what you tell yourself to soothe the nerves squirming around. You push them aside. As much as you enjoyed your stay in America, you missed Japan; it is your real home. No matter how far you travel from the island, a part of you stays behind.

And it’s that part of you which holds you back from ultimately moving on. A shuffling noise grabs your attention. An employee proudly adjusts a life-size cardboard cutout of All Might outside the store, and a few tourists stop to admire him. Despite not being real, you feel his eyes stare deep into your soul; your fingers twitch and your skin suddenly becomes itchy. Sighing, you drag your feet down the hall to find the exit.

You need a drink.

—

Glass cups clink over the loud noise bursting inside the restaurant. Laughter erupts at the table after you shared a hilarious story during your time in the States. The mood is lively and relaxing as you savor the rich sake flavor exploding in your mouth like fireworks. Oh, how you missed these fun outings with your friends. Seconds later, a waiter passes by with actual fireworks fizzling on a delicious looking plate. It must be someone’s birthday today.

Your eyes follow the plate and blink. Peeking out from a distance are strands of blonde hair. They are like a batch of wild yellow wheatgrass flowing in the meadow. Someone’s large frame is blocking the view. Another waiter brings more appetizers to your table, but you ignore the food begging for your attention. Nothing matters except for the hair currently teasing you from afar. It can’t be him…right?

You stop breathing when the boulder moves, and you're disappointed. It's just a random stranger laughing into a guy's shoulder. You slump back against the booth. The sake is clouding your mind and making you see things. Maybe you need some fresh air; it is getting kind of stuffy in this dimly lit sauna.

Just as you stand, the whole restaurant rattles. You grip the table as the lights sway and flicker uncontrollably. Confused murmurs buzz in the air until the building shakes again with greater force. Dust puffs out from the ceiling, and tiny cracks spread through the walls. Everyone rushes outside, the streets filled with headless chickens panicking like no tomorrow. You grab onto your friend’s hand for dear life to avoid getting separated.

The vibrant district spirals into chaos as the screams deafen your loud heartbeat. You have no idea where the crowd is going nor what is happening. You are a fish who got caught in a net trap with no way to escape. Suddenly the madness stops, and a live shot appears on the large TV above you. Glowing on the screen is a bloody All Might fighting against the incarnation of evil itself. As the battle rages on, you stumble forward when you see him.

Toshinori Yagi. The man behind the All Might mask.

You watch in horror as Toshinori—in his real, but weak form—persisted on with the fight. Grown men wail in pure agony that their throats turn red. A woman desperately bites her fingers that she almost chews them off. The tension in the air is so palpable that it suffocates you. Clutching your shirt, you hopelessly witness the bloodshed battle getting progressively worse until a miracle happens.  

Toshinori rises from the ashes to deliver the final blow. It rocks the entire ground and makes everyone lose their footing; even the TV screen flickers, but doesn’t lose the picture. When the black smoke clears, you see Toshinori is alive with a victorious fist in the air.

He won.

That’s the last thing you remember before passing out in your friend’s arms.

—

A rainstorm hurls through the city.

The water droplets lightly tap on your black umbrella, the noise surprisingly soothing to your ears that you almost fall into a small trance. A bright light illuminates half of your face, exposing the conflict swirling through your eyes. One car rushes down the street, and you go back to avoid the tsunami wave coming from the sidewalk.

Once the coast is clear, you walk forward but stop when you reach the sidewalk’s edge. You can’t go beyond this point. You’re afraid you’ll drown, not from mini sea emerging on the road, but from your guilt that is deeper than an oceanic trench.  

The hospital’s bright lights glare back at you. Toshinori is in one of those rooms recovering from the severe wounds he received days ago. As much as you want to visit him, see him in person, hold him in your arms…you just can’t. Not when you feel so guilty for leaving him six years ago in roughly the same state—a damaged hero.

You grip the umbrella’s handle. Someone calls your name.

Whipping around, you relax at the sight of a tan overcoat standing a few feet behind. The man walks over and dips his chin to greet you. “Welcome back. It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Detective Tsukauchi.” Your lips curve into a faint smile. “How’s work treating you? Still hectic as ever?”

“Crime never sleeps,” he jokes, and you two chuckle. The rain furiously falls all around you, drowning out the brief happiness you felt. Tsukauchi gazes at the hospital. “You should visit him. I’m sure he’ll appreciate seeing you again.”

“I can’t. Not after what I did to Toshinori six years ago.” Your chest tightens as you fight back the tears. “There’s no way he’ll forgive me after I broke his heart.”

A hand squeezes your shoulder. Watery eyes stare up to meet Tsukauchi’s reassuring smile, the warmth shielding you from the cold rain pouring down. He murmurs, “Something tells me he will.”

You stare back at the hospital; a light turns off, and you wonder if that is Toshinori's room. Tsukauchi’s words echo through your head like a soft chant. You shuffle forward and stick one boot out on the street; it hovers above the fast stream running toward the drain. With a deep sigh, you pull the foot back and hang your head low.

You couldn’t do it.

—

Toshinori adjusts his arm sling until he’s comfortable.

Despite being sickly frail, he feels the bed mattress sink under the weight of his heavy thoughts. He hasn’t been the same since the Kamino incident. The power of One for All no longer flows through his veins, making him feel like an empty vessel. Toshinori was the Symbol of Peace—the strongest hero in the world. Now he is a retired hero after defeating All for One, for good this time. Yet Toshinori wonders if this is all just a dream. The sharp pain shooting down his arm convinces him otherwise.

It will take time for Toshinori to get used to his new life.

A soft knock interrupts his thoughts. Toshinori glances at the door with furrowed eyes; he’s not expecting any visitors today. The doctor medically cleared him this morning.  

“Come in,” Toshinori answers, fixing his arm sling. The person enters, and he glances up only to do a double-take; his blue eyes land on you, mouth agape in astonishment. Sitting straight on the bed, he chokes out your name and asks, “Is it really you?”

“Hi, Toshi,” you weakly smile, putting aside the wet umbrella as you calmly approach him. “It is me. Do you mind if I sit here?”

He numbly shakes his head as you take a seat on the chair. The dam bursts, and all his memories of you swarm at him like a massive tidal wave. Toshinori endures the brutal force even if he nearly drowns on the spot. He blinks and notices something off about you. You’re smiling, but your eyes tell a different story. They are empty and full of despair as if you are in mourning; it worries Toshinori very much.  

An awkward silence falls between you two. Your finger anxiously scratches the chair’s armrest while Toshinori’s feet shuffle on the floor. Every ounce of your self-confidence goes down the drain the longer you stay quiet. Guess that pep-talk you did outside moments ago had a time limit. You bite the bullet by breaking the silence.

“How are you feeling?”

“To be honest with you, broken.” There’s a brief pause before he profoundly sighs, “And also a bit lost.”  

“I know what you mean.” Toshinori’s ear twitches at your whisper and snaps his head up. You squirm under his intense gaze. Your eyes roam to the gauzes tightly wrapped around his injuries he received from the fight; it gives you a deja vu moment. You clench the armrest, the guilt eating you alive. “I’m sorry…”

The hero frowns. “Why are you apologizing? You didn’t do anything—”

“Yes, I did! I left you, Toshi!” He hears the pure anguish tainting your voice as watery eyes come into view. With quivering lips, you croak, “When you proposed to me, I accepted it knowing fully well the sacrifices you must make for the greater good. Yet, I got scared after you decided to go down the path that might result in your death and just…abandoned you. You trusted me, loved me, and I left you.”

A tear rolls down your cheek, which breaks Toshinori’s heart.

“I thought I made the right choice by staying far away,” you whimper, hands curling into fists on your lap. “But the longer I did, the more it hurts me knowing your inevitable fate was getting closer.”

Toshinori unconsciously scoots closer to you, ignoring the pain shooting from his sensitive wounds; they don’t matter to him right now. He opens his mouth to speak, but stops. Out of nowhere, you shoot up from the chair and stand in front of the retired hero.  

“I was in Kamino the night you fought All for One, probably nearby too. When I saw you, the real you, on TV and at death's doorstep, I-I just thought about the day at the hospital six years ago. During that moment, I realized one important thing…”

Your body trembles as you unleash everything with a swift but powerful confession that leaves him speechless.

“I still love you, Toshinori. I always have, and I always will. If you had died on that night before I had the chance to say this—”

You choke as your throat goes dry…

…and then break down, crying into your hands.

The intense feelings you kept buried deep inside your heart finally manifest into the light. No one knew you carried this agony for so long. Toshinori grunts as he stands up from the bed and carefully comforts you with his good arm. He holds you close, not caring if your tears bleed through his white shirt and wet his bandages.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into your ear. “I’m sorry for making you feel this way. It was never your fault; if anything, it was mine. I’ve made many mistakes throughout my life. However, my biggest mistake was losing you.”

He steps back to graze your damped cheek gently. His fingertips twitch as they remember the softness of your skin. You close your eyes and enjoy his feathery touches.  

“I should have fought harder for you, for us, all those years ago.” Toshinori bores his majestic blue eyes into yours. They are alive and filled with deep admiration for you. “Despite what happened, just know that I love you, and I never stopped loving you. Not once.”

Your heart skips a beat while his throbs like a steady bass drum. He reaches inside his pocket, and you gasp when you see the engagement ring shining against the light. It’s the same one you left behind all those years ago.

“Although my time on Earth may be dwindling, I hope to cherish every last second I have with you. It’s still your choice, but…” Toshinori clears his throat and grasps your left hand. Determination swirls inside his eyes while asking, “Will you accept this ring and marry me?”

“Yes.”

You squeeze his hand as elation surges throughout your body. Toshinori slips the ring on your finger, the cold metal snugging around your skin. Oh, how you missed the feeling of it after six long years. Without hesitation, he captures your lips for a sweet but passionate kiss; the pain washes away and you are giddy.

Pulling away to rub your eyes, you pout, “I probably look like a mess.”

“Nonsense, you look beautiful.”

“Always the charmer,” you playfully tease, sniffling a little. A ray of sunlight shines through the windows, basking the whole room in a warm, golden glow. With soft eyes, you caress his cheek and smile. “Now how about we get out of here and take a nice stroll through the park, for old times’ sake?”

“I would love that.”

It’s as if nothing has changed between you two after all these years.

As always, thank you for reading!

[atlafan]

Take it Slow - Part Fifty-Two

a/n: okay this is my first shot at a harry:y/n fic, and it will be multiple parts. y/n had a bad experience with an ex over a year ago, and finally accepts her coworker and good friend Niall’s invitation to go on a blind date with his friend Harry.

Warnings: Wee bit of angst.

Masterpost (all previous parts can be found in the masterpost)

The Friday before he was going to Florida, Christin came into Harry’s office to go over the small details.

“Okay, so you, Julia, and I are going to meet at the airport around-“

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Julia.”

“Why is she comin’?”

“I want her to see how these expeditions work. Dana’s going to join in on the next one. Why? Do you have a problem with her?”

“No…it’s just…I don’t know. It’s fine.”

When he got home to the barren apartment that night he slammed the door shut, making you jump slightly.

“Jesus.” You say to him.

“Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?”

“They’re sendin’ fuckin’ Julia with me.” He groans. “I don’t want to be alone with her all week.”

“Well, you won’t really be alone with her.”

“You don’t care that she’s gonna be around me?”

“What’s there to care about?” You shrug. “What’s wrong Harry, can’t handle a little girl?” You smirk. “You’ll be fine.”

//

Of course you got your period the weekend of the big move. You and Harry were still able to have a good romp before he left, but it wasn’t the same. Your brother and mom came to help you with everything. Thank god for his truck. Niall, Sarah, and Rachel helped as well. Everything went pretty smoothly.

//

Harry had the aisle seat on the plane, Julia had the middle, and Christin had the window. He hadn’t said much to Julia. She eventually fell asleep, and her head landed on his shoulder. He tried to nudge her off, but she wouldn’t budge. He sighed loudly and tried to fall asleep himself. When she woke up she couldn’t help but marvel at just how beautiful he was. She looked at the pearls around his neck and wanted to know what he might do with them when he wasn’t wearing them. She was hoping to find out at some point during the week.

Harry helped carry the luggage out to the cab Christin had set up for them. The second he was alone in his room he FaceTimed with you. Everyone was eating pizza and laughing.

“Hey babe! You in your hotel?”

“Yes, finally. How’d it all go?”

“Amazingly! Say hi to Harry!” You yell off to everyone. They all say hi, making him chuckle.

“Have a great week off.”

“Anything you want me not to touch?”

“Nah, do whatever you like. M’sure there’ll be plenty left for me when I get back. Save the heavy shit f’me.”

“Can do. The girls are gonna sleep over here with me tonight.”

“Oh good. Wish I could be there.”

“Soon enough. Enjoy the nice weather! Love you!”

“Love you too.”

He sighs and flops onto the bed. This was going to be a very long week. There’s a knock on his door. He looks through the peephole and sees Julia. Here we go. He thinks to himself.

“Yes?”

“Hi.” She squeaks. “Um, Christin and I were gonna go down to the pool for a bit and get some lunch. Would you like to come?” He looks down at her. She had flip flops and a cover up on.

“No. Thanks. You can just have Christin text me when it’s time for dinner. Know she wants to go over all the plans then.”

“Could I have your number?” Both of his eyebrows raise. “You know, just in case.”

“Gimme your phone.” She hands it to him and smirks when he see the picture of Joe Jonas as her lock screen. “My girlfriend loves this guy. Could ya unlock it?”

“Oh sure.” She presses her thumb to the button. He adds his contact information and hands it back to her.

“For emergencies only, alright?”

“Alright…so you’re not going to eat lunch?”

“I might come down in a bit. I’m certainly not goin’ swimming. S’not a vacation.”

“True, but Christin said we could have some fun before working hard all week.”

“How nice for her. That all?”

“Yeah.”

He closes the door, practically in her face, and goes over to his bag. About an hour later he goes down to the hotel restaurant. He puts his sunglasses on and goes outside with his salad that he had made to go. Christin was lounging under an umbrella, he goes over to her and sits down.

“How are you wearing all black?”

“S’not that warm yet.” He shrugs.

“I think it’s perfect weather.”

“Where’s Julia?” Christin points to the hot tub. Harry rolls his eyes. “Thought you weren’t hungry for lunch.”

“I wasn’t earlier, now I am.”

“Hi Harry!” Julia says walking by, dripping wet in a purple two piece. She quickly wraps a towel around herself.

“Hi.” He says without looking at her. She was an attractive girl, and if he was a different type of man he wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of the situation. But he wasn’t like that…not anymore anyways.

“Wasn’t it your birthday over the weekend?”

“Yes.”

“How was it? How old are you?”

“It was good, I turned twenty-six.” He takes a bite of his salad. “My girlfriend threw me a huge surprise party.”

“She buy you the necklace too?” Christin asks. “Haven’t seen you wear pearls since you first started.”

“Yeah she did.” He smiles. “She’s the best. We’ll have been together six months on Friday.”

“Wow! Good for you, H.” She chuckles.

“How long you and Dan been together?”

“Little over ten years now. Never thought I was going to meet anyone worthwhile until he and I got together.” He nods.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m never going to meet anyone.” Julia says.

“You have so much time, you have no idea. Just enjoy being young.” Christin says with a smile. “Harry, did you even bring a bathing suit with you?”

“I mean Y/N had me pack one, but I doubt I’ll be wearin’ it.” He finishes up his salad and stands up. “Text me when it’s time for dinner, I’m gonna hang in my room for a bit, decompress.” Julia watches him walk away.

“He’s been so private since I met him, it’s so nice to hear him talk about someone like that. He must really love that girl.”

“Yeah.” Julia puts her sunglasses on and rolls her eyes. “Must be nice.”

//

That night at dinner Christin goes over the plans for the week. She tells them what time they’ll need to be up and out, and headed to the site. They’d be going out to an island where a weed had been taking over and the natural plants of the landscape couldn’t grow anymore. Julia would be interviewing the volunteers that go out to get rid of the weed.

“I’m so excited!” Julia says stepping off the elevator with Harry. Of course their rooms were on the same floor.

“Make sure you pack a hat and some sunscreen for yourself. Oh, and water. We’re goin’ to be out for a long time.”

“Right, thanks.” She beams at him. “I’m excited to check out the butterfly garden at the manatee habitat Wednesday too.”

“Yeah, they’re nice people. This is a follow up piece, they started the project last year.” He stops at his door. “Well, this is me.”

“Goodnight, Harry.”

“Night.”

He calls you immediately.

“Is that Harry? Hiiiiii Harryyyyy.” He hears Sarah say through the phone.

“Gettin’ drunk in our place already?”

“Wouldn’t be a proper sleepover now would it? How was your day?”

“Long. I miss you already.”

“Awww. I miss you too baby.” He hears the girls make kissy noises through the phone. “Stop it you guys, be cool! Sorry.” You giggle.

“S’okay. Where are you all sleepin’?”

“We’re camping out in the living room. We all brought our sleeping bags.”

“Oh fun.”

“Mhm. You gonna be able to sleep?”

“Hopefully. I just wish I was there with you, I’m sorry.” He sighs.

“It’s okay. Only six more sleeps til your home.”

“Oh I like that. Six more sleeps.”

“Exactly. I’m gonna go now, I love you. Sweet dreams.”

“I love you too.”

//

The next morning, Harry puts on a white t-shirt, and lathers himself up with sun screen. He puts on a snapback and rests his sunglasses on the collar of his shirt. He packs the cameras and batteries he’ll need. He goes with a pair of light blue jeans and his boots. He meets Julia and Christin down for breakfast. Julia has to stop her jaw from dropping. The t-shirt looked snug against his muscles, and she could make out more of his tattoos. He looks at what Julia’s wearing.

“You might wanna wear pants. Don’t want your legs gettin’ scarped up do ya?” He puts his things down and goes up to the buffet.

“He’s right Julia. You can pack your shorts with you if you get too hot.”

“Okay.” She leaves to go change. Harry sits back down.

“How nice of you to act as her big brother.”

“Just helpin’ her with the tricks of the trade.” She comes back in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. “Much better. You’ll thank me later.”

The three head out to the site once they’re done with breakfast. They take a car out and meet a man at a dock. They have to take a small boat out to the island. Harry puts his sunglasses on. Julia can’t help but watch the curls from under his hat blow in the wind.

Christin and Julia talk with the volunteers at the site while Harry starts walking around. He begins snapping away. Julia was thankful she listened to Harry about everything. From the pants, to the hat, to the extra sunscreen. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when he took his shirt off. He tucked it into the back of his pants and continued taking pictures.

“Oi! Chris!” She whips her head to look at him. “Couldja spray some lotion on my back?”

“Yeah!” She hustles over to him and sprays the cool lotion onto him.

“Thanks. Sweatin’ my ass off.”

“I know.” She looks at her watch. “Let’s take a break and get you into the shade a bit. I packed some lunch.”

“Sounds good.”

“Julia, c ‘mon it’s lunch time.” She says to her.

The three sit in some shade and eat the sandwiches Christin brought. Julia can’t help but stare at Harry. He looks up and catches her gawking at him.

“You act like you’ve never seen a tattoo before.” He says to her.

“Sorry.” Her face blushes. “Um, when did you-“

“Got ‘em all years ago. Late teens and early twenties.” Harry’s phone buzzes and sees a text from you. He immediately smiles. You had sent him a video of the kitchen. He hits play.

“Hi! Okay, so I unpacked most of the kitchen. My mom helped a lot yesterday. Our bed is all made up too, but I can show you later. Isn’t it so nice in here? The girls were really jealous. Hope you’re having a good time! Please make sure you reapply your sunscreen, I don’t want you burnt to a crisp when you come back. Love you!” He chuckles and texts you back.

“Is she your mom or girlfriend?” A snide remark from Julia. Harry looks over at her slowly and squints.

“Nothin’ wrong with her checkin’ in. She loves me and wants me to be safe.” He gets up. “In fact, I’m gonna go send her a video a quick.”

He walks away so neither of them can hear him. He shows you where he is. When you get the video you can’t help but just stare at his sweaty torso. He looks really cool with the snapback and sunglasses. You text him immediately with a kissy face.

“Alright, let’s get back to it.” Christin says.

Harry grabs his camera and walks around the vegetation more. Julia got all she needed for the article that needs to be written, so she decides to follow Harry around. She watches the way he snaps the photo and looks at it to see if he likes it. He knew she was following him, but he didn’t mind. Maybe she just wanted to observe.

“Here, what do you think of this one?” She leans in to look at the upclose shot.

“Really cool! It’s crisp.”

“Mm.” He agrees. “Hey, I think we have everything we need.” He says to Christin.

“Let me look through.” He hands her the camera, and take his shirt out of his pants to put back on. “Oh these are amazing! I knew I was smart to bring you. I can’t wait to get you into that butterfly garden Wednesday.”

“What are we doin’ for the next couple of days?”

“Your favorite; under water shots. These same people are deploying oysters near the coast in this bay to help stop the erosion.” A smile grows on Harry’s face. “You’d be pissed if I did this without you, now wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe a little. And technically, my favorite shots are at night.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s head back to the boat.”

//

That night you decided to have a glass of wine while organizing some boxes. You didn’t want to go through too many of Harry’s things. You stumble upon a smaller box that said “X Photos” on it. Were they pictures of ex-girlfriends? Your buzzed curiosity takes over and you open it. You gasp when you see the first photo. It was of Harry. Only he was fully naked, lying on the floor, his legs leaning up against a wall, tastefully covering his manhood.

“Oh my god.” You say to yourself. “Who the fuck took these for him?”

You sit down and go through them. There were dozens more. He looked good, really good. The pictures didn’t look too old either. You were amazed at how the camera captured every curve of his beautiful body. Then there it was. A picture of him holding his fully erect penis with a smirk on his face. You realize the x on the box meant it was rated x.

“Jesus.”

Your eyes dance over the way he grips himself, and you need to put it down before your mind wanders. There was a more serious photo behind it. There were a couple of him wearing boxers too. He looked like an underwear model. Despite them being so revealing, the pictures were gorgeous. The lighting was perfect.

“Where did he take these?” You squint at one photo. You sort of recognize it and you gasp. “His flat in London.” Your phone goes off and you nearly jump. A FaceTime request from Harry. “Shit.” You put the pictures away quickly and answer the phone. “Hey babe.”

“Hey!”

“You looked cute earlier.”

“Thanks. And I didn’t get sun burnt. Got a nice tan comin’ along though.”

“Can’t wait to see it.”

“You look a bit flushed, are you alright?”

“Um.” You look back at the box. You weren’t sure if you should tell him about finding his very personal photos. “Okay, I wasn’t snooping through your things, but I found some photos…of you.”

“Oh?” He furrows his brows trying to think. “Oh! The naked ones?” He had zero shame or embarrassment.

“Yeah.”

“Good, was hopin’ you’d find those.” He smirks. “What’d you think?”

“They were gorgeous of course. Who…took them for you?”

“I took ‘em myself. I was home for a few weeks last summer and I was bored. I had just gotten a new lens, and I was testing out some black and white effects.”

“And you had them printed?”

“Printed ‘em myself too. I had gotten a fancy photo printer.”

“You were…hard in a few of them.”

“Mhm.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know, I was just havin’ fun.”

“Oh.”

“Was that your favorite?”

“Actually, this one was.” You go into the box and take out the first photo you saw.

“Oh yeah, there’s some left to the imagination with that one.”

“You should seriously just be an underwear model.” He chuckles. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are.” He smirks at you.

“What?”

“Nothin’, just thinkin’, like, would you ever let me take pictures of you like that? You know, tasteful ones?”

“Like a boudoir thing?”

“Sure. We could set the loft up all nice, and the pictures would just be for us.”

“I’ll think about it. I feel like I would be so awkward.”

“I’d tell ya exactly what to do. Totally professional.”

“Has someone ever paid you to take boudoir photos?”

“God no. Although, I have taken a few pictures of some naked pregnant women before.” He laughs.

“So, how was your day?”

“It was good. I’m going under water tomorrow, I’m actually kind of excited.”

“Oh that sounds like fun!”

“Yeah…I wish I could go to sleep with you.”

“Me too. Bed feels too big when you’re not there.”

After some more chatter, you both hang up, and you go do your nightly routine. Just as you’re getting into bed, you get a snapchat text from Harry.

“What in the…” You open it.

Harry: textin ya on here so the messages disappear.

Your cheeks heat up. He was in the mood.

You: Alright

Harry: I’m really fuckin hard

“Jesus.” You feel your lower stomach twist in knot.

You: oh? Just from seeing my little face?

Harry: yes

You: are in bed?

Harry: yes

You: would you like to know what I would do if I were there?

Harry: enlighten me

A wicked grin grows on your face as you dial his number.

“Hello?” He says chuckling.

“Hey, I just thought of something fun and I thought you might like to hear my voice as I say it.”

“Alright, lay it on me.”

“I have a challenge for you, and I’ll do the same so you won’t suffer alone.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t want you to touch yourself at all while you’re gone.”

“No way, it’ll be easier for you since you’re on your period.”

“I usually get off in the shower without telling you.”

“Jesus, don’t tell me stuff like that.” He groans as his cock twitches. “Why do you wanna do this to me?”

“Because imagine how fucking good it’s gonna feel when you come home. Please?”

“What will I get as a reward? There’s gotta be a really good incentive here.”

“Reward? Babe, I’m going to let you fucking annihilate me when you get back.”

“Fuck.”

“But that’s only if you do as I ask, okay? We’re on the honor system here.”

“And you’re not gonna do anythin’ either?”

“Nope.”

“Alright, challenge accepted.”

“Sweet dreams, hope you don’t wake up with sticky sheets thinking of me.” You giggle and hang up.

//

By mid-week you were really starting to miss Harry. It wasn’t like you could just go hang out with Niall or your other friends during the day because they all still had to work. There was plenty to do in the apartment, but you didn’t want to do any of it without him. You decided to spend some time getting a jump on your assignments for class. There was a big research paper you had to do, and now was as good a time as any to start it. Niall said you could come over for dinner that night, and you were excited you didn’t even have to drive to go over. You loved your new place, but you knew you’d love it more once Harry was home.

//

Harry was exhausted by the time Wednesday rolled around. He spent two days diving under murky water just to get some pictures of oyster shells in bags. He got some great shots, but fuck, at what cost? He’d be spending the rest of the week at the manatee habitat. He wasn’t super thrilled.

“This is beautiful!” Julia exclaims, stepping into the butterfly garden. “Harry, do you think we’ll see any manatees?”

“Probably not, they’re not usually here this time of year.”

“Oh.” Her smiles slowly fades.

“But, um, you can certainly look. There could be some.”

Christin was inside the building talking to the couple of people that worked at the habitat. She walks out with them and Harry wants to blow his brains out.

“H, you remember Molly and Beth right?”

“Sure, hi.” He shakes both of their hands. He had slept with Molly last time he was here. Not super professional, but so it goes.

“So glad you’re back.” Molly says to him. Julia comes walking back over.

“Ladies, this is Julia, she’ll be interviewing you for the next couple of days.”

“Great! Should we start with the garden?” Beth asks.

“Sure!” Christin and Julia follow her. Harry fiddles with his camera.

“How you been?” Molly asks him, her cheeks flushed.

“Good, really good. How ‘bout yourself?” He takes a test shot of a tree. “So fuckin’ bright out today, wish it was overcast.” He says to himself. She raises an eyebrow at him. “Less shadows when it’s overcast, can get a clearer picture. I’m gonna have to fuck with all the settings.”

“You’re a talented guy, as I recall.” She winks at him and walks to catch up with the others.

Once he gets things how he likes, Harry starts snapping shots. The benches in the garden were painted a vibrant blue. He thinks of you, knowing you’d love the color. He takes his phone out quick to take a picture to send to you. He gets a reply immediately and smiles big, then puts his phone away.

“What do you suppose made him smile like that?” Molly asks Julia. She sighs.

“Probably his girlfriend that he’s gaga for.” She rolls her eyes.

“Girlfriend?” She watches Harry squat so he can take a picture of a butterfly that’s just landed on top of a flower. “Damn, that’s too bad.”

“Why’s that?”

“Oh, nothing, never mind.” She shakes her head.

Harry comes walking over to Julia and Molly.

“Where’s Chris?”

“Inside with Beth.”

“Right, well she has all the water.”

“Thirsty, Harry?” Molly was trying to be cute with him, but he wasn’t having it.

“I can get it myself, but thanks for offerin’.” He says sarcastically, brushing by her.

“Pleasant as ever.” She crosses her arms.

“Did, um, something happen between you two?”

“Not super appropriate to talk about while on the job.”

“It’s off the record.” Julia jokes.

“Yeah, when he was here last year we hooked up. And I’ll be honest, I still think about it. He, uh, really knows what to do with it.”

“Did you stay in contact at all?”

“Nope, he totally ghosted me after he went home. Don’t blame him though.” She shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t expect a long distance relationship or anything. But I am disappointed that he’s not single. Wouldn’t have minded picking up where we left off.”

Harry comes back out with his Julia’s water bottles. He hands it to her.

“Thanks Harry! I could’ve gotten it.”

“I know.” He smiles at her. “This one wants to see a manatee, could ya walk her around and show her where they usually are?”

“I’d be happy to, come on Julia. The habitat is pretty big.”

Julia mouths thank you to Harry and he nods. Selfishly he was happy to be alone in the garden to walk around and snap shots as he pleased.

“He seems to like you.” Molly says to her.

“He was just being nice. He’s not always so nice though. He can be kind of snippy, but also mysterious.”

“Definitely mysterious.”

“I have a huge crush on him, it’s so hard.” She looks back at him.

“Look, it’s not like he’s married.” She shrugs. “It’s okay to flirt a little.”

//

“Harry these are beautiful! Well done!” Christin says looking over the days’ worth of shots. “Can’t wait to come back tomorrow so we can get some more.”

“Thanks, beautiful garden. Very tranquil.”

“You both ready for some dinner? There’s a restaurant around here we can go to.”

“Sounds great.” Julia says.

The three end up at a bar and grille.

“Okay, so, as a rite of passage, we’re ordering the fried alligator.” Christin giggles. “I know you won’t eat it Harry, so we’re also getting the fried pickles.”

“Fine.”

“Why fried alligator?”

“Because we’re in Florida and it’s a tradition when we come down here.”

“The girls at the habitat were really nice.”

“Yeah, they were great to us last year. Harry even got a private tour of the area.” He chokes on his drink. “Remember? Molly took you for a drive to some other sites.”

“Yup, I remember.” His cheeks started to turn a light pink.

“So, what’s your new place like?”

“It’s massive. Two bedrooms and two full baths. And there’s a loft. Not entirely sure what we’re gonna do with it yet. She said I could use it as a home studio, but I think we should just both put our desks up there and have it as a more formal working space. We’ll see.”

“That’s great, H. Sorry all this got in the way of your move.”

“S’okay, she was really understanding.”

“Julia, any boys come into your life at school?”

“Not this semester since the internship is full time.”

“You must still go to parties and hang out with friends though.”

“Oh I do…no one’s really caught my eye. Guys my age can be really immature.”

“Take it from me, guys at every age are immature.” Harry gives her a look as he scoffs. “It’s true! That’s why I opted for an older man. Hubby’s got five years on me, that’s why it worked. Our maturity levels are the same. You’re older than Y/N, right Harry?”

“Yeah, but only by a year and half.”

“Still, older is the way to go.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Julia says.

//

After his shower, Harry couldn’t wait to settle into bed with his book. He had cranked the A/C and got cozy in his favorite joggers and a t-shirt. Just as he was getting his glasses on, there was a light tap on his door. He sighs heavily and goes over to the door to see Julia.

“Yes?”

“I didn’t…I didn’t know you had glasses.” He pushes them up like a headband to rest on the top of his head.

“They’re for readin’.” He crosses his arms. He looks down to see her holding some toiletries and some pj’s. “What’s all this?”

“My shower doesn’t have any hot water.”

“Didja give it a minute?”

“Gave it like ten minutes, just wouldn’t heat up.”

“So…why are here?”

“Could I use your shower?”

“Go use Christin’s.”

“I can’t, she wouldn’t answer her phone. She must’ve passed out after dinner. Please, Harry?”

“Alright, fine. But make it quick.” He lets her into the room.

“Thank you so much!”

“Should still be a dry towel in there.”

She nods and goes into the bathroom. How the fuck did he get himself into this? He picks up his phone and immediately calls you.

“Hey baby, you ready to read to me?”

“I was…”

“What do you mean?”

“Julia’s in my shower.” He whispers.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“She said her hot water wasn’t workin’.”

“And yours was?”

“Well…yeah. I hope she fuckin’ leaves right after. I don’t know what kind of game she’s playin’.”

“Oh, you’re paranoid.”

“I don’t know, this seems weird.”

“Harry, she knows you’re in a relationship, she’s not going to try anything funny.”

“Not everyone’s a nice as you.” You sigh.

“Look, it’s not like I can come down there and save you. Do you wanna stay on the phone with me so she leaves right away?”

“No…I think that’ll make it more awkward.” He hears the water turn off. “Shit, I think she’s done. At least she listens.”

“What?”

“I told her to make it quick.” He sighs. “I’m gonna turn the TV on. I’ll call you back in a bit.”

“Alright.” He hangs up.

He flips the channels to see if anything good was on. Reruns of The Simpsons, that’ll do. He hears the door click open, she comes out in a tank top and shorts. Her hair was down and still pretty wet, causing the top of her shirt to get wet.

“Were you talking to someone?”

“Hm? Um, yeah, I was just on the phone quick.” She looks at the TV.

“Anything good on?”

“Just The Simpsons.” He sighs.

“Oh I love The Simpsons!”

“Aren’t you a little young to love this show? You probably don’t get half the references.”

“Some of the older episodes are a little confusing, but for the most part I just think it’s funny.” She sits on the corner of the bed, and Harry inches backwards.

“Listen, um…”

“Is it okay if I hang out for a bit? These nights have been a little boring and lonely. I can only check my social media so many times.”

“You can stay for one episode, but that’s it. I’m pretty tired…been out all day in the sun ya know?”

“Alright, thanks Harry.” She turns around to look at the space next to him on the bed. “Do you mind if I-“

“You can sit in the chair if you’re back hurts sittin’ like that.” He points to the chair near the desk in the room. She sighs.

“That’s alright, I’ll just sit like this.” She shifts to lay on her stomach, propping her face up with her palms. Ass fully on display for him. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Harry pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He tries to just concentrate on the TV. It was a pretty good episode too. He finds both him and Julia giggling at certain parts.

“Harry?” She turns to look at him, laying on her side.

“Hm?”

“Did you always know you wanted to be a photographer?”

“No…it was just a hobby for a long time. When I got to uni I took an intro photographer course and realized it was what I wanted to do.”

“You do a lot of freelance work right?”

“Mhm.”

“Does that get tiring on top of all this?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“What types of-“

“Why are yeh askin’ me all these questions?”

“Just trying to get to know you better…I’ve been working for you for nearly two months and I feel like I don’t know a single thing about you.”

“You don’t work for me.”

“I work with you…I know Isaac really well, even Myk at this point. She’s gotten a little nicer. I think she was happy I got sent here instead of her.”

“She wouldn’t have wanted to be on a plane with me for three hours, that’s for sure.” He smirks.

“Did you two used to date?”

“I think that’s enough with the personal questions.”

“That’s a yes.” She smiles.

“We didn’t date.” He sighs. “Sometimes when you’re young and stupid…you do stupid things.”

“You’re still young, Harry. Really young.” She giggles. “Remember the day you said I could just call you Harry?”

“Um…”

“I actually kind of miss just calling you Mr. Styles.” Yup, he knew exactly what she was doing.

“Julia, I-“

“And you thought my name was Julie, that was so cute. You could’ve called me whatever you wanted, and I probably wouldn’t have cared.” She laughs. Harry looks at the clock on the night table.

“Look, it’s gettin’ late, and I’m supposed to call my girlfriend back.”

“That was her earlier, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. And I need to call her back.”

“What’s so important?” He sighs heavily.

“She is.” He gets off the bed and walks towards the door. “You came here for a shower, remember? Should I call maintenance for you tomorrow so this doesn’t happen again? Or will everything be miraculously fixed?” She gets up and stands near him.

“You think I lied about my shower being broken? Why would I lie about that?”

“You tell me.” He crosses his arms. She swallows hard. “I think you’re a nice girl, I do. I think you have a lot of potential as a writer. But you’re out of your fuckin’ mind if you think I would ever do anythin’ to hurt my girlfriend. So, whatever you thought might happen by comin’ in here, needs to leave your head because it’s not.”

“I…”

“Even if I was single, you’re like six years younger than me, I wouldn’t take advantage of someone like that. Trust me, you don’t wanna fuck someone you work with.”

“But you can fuck the people you see on business?” She crosses her arms. “Molly told me.”

“Of course she did.” He rolls his eyes. “Listen-“

“Stop telling me to listen! I’m an adult, same as you, and I-“

“Really? Because comin’ in here the way you did makes you look like a child, a brat actually. Tryin’ t’get your way. Did you really think a little pair of shorts was goin’ t’be enough to seduce me?” She blinks at him, she feels tears prick at her eyes. “Shit.”

“I just…I don’t know…I really like you, Harry.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel!”

“But you don’t even know me, Julia.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “You know some version of me you see at work every day.”

“I’m really fucking attracted to you, I can tell you that.”

“I’m sorry about that, really I am. But it’s just not gonna happen.” He takes his hand off her.

“What does she have? What makes her so goddamn special?”

“For starters, she’s out of undergrad and has her life together.” He knew what he said would slice right through her, but she needed to hear it. “I can’t really explain the rest of it. I quite literally think she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life, she brightens my day just bein’ herself, and I love every little fuckin’ thing about her, even her less than favorable qualities. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and I hope to god you meet someone that makes you feel the same way too. It’s the most amazing and awful feeling at the same time. If I were to lose her, especially over somethin’ like this, I don’t know what I would do. A quick fuck isn’t worth it, and maybe someday you’ll learn that. And honestly, shame on you for comin’ in here and tryin’ to make somethin’ happen when I’ve told you time and time again how in love I am with her.”

“I’m sorry, okay! I know I was wrong.” He sighs again.

“I forgive you. Look, I’m happy to be friendly with you, give you any advice I can about the job, whatever you need, but that’s where this ends, that’s where the line is, alright? I know how a lot of people at the studio look at me. I see it on Isaac’s face every mornin’ when I walk in, and I see it when I look at some of the other people. Don’t you think I feel bad? It’s partially why I keep my distance. I don’t want to make anything worse for anyone else.”

“But that adds to it! The mystery is so sexy.” She laughs. “When I say that out loud I just sound pathetic.”

“You’re not pathetic, you’re a girl with a crush…and I’m sorry I can’t return your feelings.”

“It’s not your fault.” She sighs. “I’m really sorry about all of this, I made such a fool out of myself…”

“It’s okay. Let’s just move on, yeah?”

“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll go now. I’m really sorry again, I didn’t mean to spoil your night.”

“Don’t think much of it, not spoiled at all.” He smiles at her and opens the door.

“Can you not mention any of this to Chris? I, um, lied about texting her.”

“I assumed so, and yeah, I won’t tell her.”

“Thanks…you’re really cool you know that?”

“Goodnight, Julia.”

“Night.”

He closes the door and locks it. He wants to scream. He can’t believe he just had to lecture her like it was his child or something. He jumps to the bed and FaceTimes you immediately.

“It’s about time, I was just about to fall asleep. Did she just leave?”

“Yeah…she made a pass at me.”

“What?!”

“Well, nothing physical…but she was wearing really short shorts and said something like how she missed just calling me Mr. Styles…so I gave her a stern talking to and had her leave.”

“A stern talking to from Mr. Styles.” You giggle.

“This isn’t funny! She thought I was goin’ t’fuck her.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t.”

“I would never.”

“I know that.”

“You really weren’t worried about her at all?”

“Harry, you’re a big boy, and more importantly, I trust you. You said you’d never do anything to hurt me and I believed you. What we have is solid, I know you wouldn’t risk it just for some college girl’s loose vagina.” He bursts out laughing.

“Not exactly a woman supporting another woman are yeh?”

“I don’t have to talk nice right now, she just tried to get into your pants.”

“Wish you were here to get into my pants.”

“How are you doing with the no touching?”

“I’ve refrained, just like you told me to. It’s fuckin’ torture.”

“It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

[mst3kproject]

Voodoo Island

Leonard Maltin thought this movie was boring, which is, honestly, kind of terrifying.  Its ostensible star is Boris Karloff, who somehow managed to avoid ever being on MST3K, but it was produced by Howard Koch, the director of Untamed Youth, and was written by Richard Laundau, who did the same for Lost Continent (uhoh).  It’s also got Jean Engstrom from The Space Children, and if the voice of the radio operator sounds familiar that’s because it’s 🎶 Adam Weeeeeest.

A hotel company wants to build a resort on a tropical island, but the scouting party they sent never came back – except for one guy, Mitchell, who has been reduced to a catatonic state by whatever it was he saw there.  Worried, the hotelier sends renowned skeptic Mr. Knight to find out if it’s true that the island is under some kind of voodoo curse.  After much wasting of the audience’s time, Knight’s party reaches the island and finds it infested with man-eating plants, coconut crabs, and unfriendly natives.  I wish I could tell you more of the plot, but that’s basically all there is.

Voodoo Island is unusual as bad movies go, in that you don’t actually realize how bad it is until it’s over.  Things that seem to be the plot move merrily along, always feeling like it’s building up to something cool… and then at the last moment it just deflates like a gas station tube man with his fan turned off.  In hindsight, the audience realizes that very little of what they just saw had anything to do with what was supposedly going on. In many ways, you never do find out what was going on at all!

The middle section of this movie is not quite as obviously padded as Lost Continent with its endless rock climbing, but almost all of it is, retrospectively, pointless.  On the first leg of their journey to the island, the party’s plane is caught in a storm and forced to make an emergency landing – only to find that the weather has mysteriously cleared right up!  After repairing their radio they set off again, and nothing much comes of the incident.  They stop on another island where they have trouble hiring a boat, and where somebody puts a curse of some sort on them.  Nothing comes of this.  Later still, their boat stalls out and refuses to start again, even after they’ve cleared a blocked fuel line.  This has no real consequences, because the tide carries them in anyway, and the movie never deals with what happens when they try to leave the island again.

Along for the ride is Mitchell, the guy who was so terrified by what he saw on the island that he hasn’t moved or spoken since. He has a couple of medical emergencies that resolve themselves without long-term consequences, and then simply drops dead before they ever reach the island.  They don’t learn anything from him or his condition.  A similar fate later befalls another character, Finch, but this time the movie ends before he has a chance to either die or snap out of it. Mitchell is only in this movie to make it longer, and possibly so it could claim it had a zombie.

With the movie already half-over, we finally reach this mysterious island.  The group are greeted by a trail of clues that make Knight thing somebody is trying to lead them somewhere… perhaps to answers, perhaps to a trap.  Eventually they’re captured by the natives, but there’s no reason they had to be in a particular place for this to happen – the natives have been following them the whole time and could have intervened at any point.  None of this stuff reads as padding because it feels like it’s going to lead to something.  Again, it’s only when the credits unexpectedly start to roll that you realize almost the whole movie was irrelevant.

Padding is not Voodoo Island’s only problem – the dialogue is awkward at best.  Most of it is on a Revenge of the Sith level, where characters just say exactly what they’re thinking in a way that might have sounded poetic on paper but just doesn’t work out loud.  The boat captain, Gunn, gets a Gunslinger moment in which he narrates his traumatic backstory in a single talking head shot.  Knight is forever going on about Rational Explanations and then suddenly declares his change of heart when confronted with a voodoo doll.  There’s no meat to this arc at all, no sense of Knight questioning his worldview or coming to terms with anything – he just says I do believe! like he’s in a Santa Claus movie and then it’s over.

The worst of both the dialogue and the supposed character arcs occur in the love story.  There are girls in this movie, so of course there has to be a love story, and it’s terrible.  The lady half of this one is Knight’s assistant Miss Adams, who is very poised and professional and doesn’t smoke or drink, and spends the first half of the movie being tutted at by just about everybody.  The other woman in the group, Claire, tells her she could just be so pretty if she’d only change the way she did her hair.  Gunn calls her a ‘machine’ and asks if she even knows how to be a woman.  This raises some hackles in the modern viewer, who wants to see Adams appreciated for what she is rather than what she has the potential to be if she changes everything about herself.

But Voodoo Island was made in the fifties, when changing yourself to please a man was what women aspired to!  Miss Adams therefore swears off being a nerd and kisses Gunn, whose main personality trait is being a stunning asshole.  He’s drunk and bitter, and earlier in the movie he tried to hit on Claire, who had to tell him to fuck off about four times before he got the idea.  Later he insults and threatens Adams because her intelligence makes him feel like less of a man.  Apparently one kiss from her completely undoes his PTSD and he’s a better person now.

These two getting together also totally dismisses the healthy and supportive friendship Adams has with Knight, who is not only her boss but has some fatherly affection for her.  He praises her work ethic and tells her that she shouldn’t listen to people who think she’s boring.  I guess we’re supposed to think it’s good that she quits working for him so she can run off with a drunk who’s threatened to slap her, because Gunn will make her life more exciting.

At the supposed climax, the natives (an assortment of ethnic-looking extras who never speak) take the group prisoner, and they are brought before the chief (a white guy in dark makeup), who tells them why outsiders aren’t allowed on the island.  The prisoners are taken to a hut where they are tied up.  One of them is possibly murdered by voodoo, and then the chief… just lets the rest of them leave.  No conditions specified, although it’s implied that the islanders have more voodoo dolls and plenty of pins.  We don’t even find out if they actually made it back.  To get to their boat, the party will have to pass back through the carnivorous jungle without a guide, and once they reach the beach, they’ll have to fix their engine.  It really feels like there ought to have been more of a climax, never mind a denouement. As the credits begin, I was just going, “that’s it?”

The actors are mostly mediocre.  Boris Karloff tries really hard to rise above the material but never gets there, which is understandable when his lines are things like, “no, you fool, they’ll slaughter us to bits!”.  All this badness really is a terrible shame, too, because Voodoo Island’s setpiece monsters, the man-eating plants, are actually incredibly cool.  They never look real, but they’re much more creative than the standard giant Venus’ flytrap.  There’s a thing that wraps long bean-like leaves around a swimmer and drowns her, another than catches its victims with a sticky bulbous stem, and yet a third that folds ferny fronds around prey and digests it!  A movie that made proper use of these monsters would be a great time. I hope the prop people went on to the better things they deserved.

(At the other end of the effects scale are the coconut crabs I mentioned.  These are not actual coconut crabs, but dead specimens of some other, much more gracile species.  This, too, is unfortunate, because coconut crabs are living crustacean nightmares capable of killing and eating seagulls.  One theory about Amelia Earhart’s ultimate fate is that she was devoured by coconut crabs.)

As for Voodoo Island having anything to say… it has some kind of muddled point about not dismissing the supernatural out of hand, but its ‘magic’ is pretty lame, and Knight’s arc is handled so badly that it passes by without making much of an impression.  The story does seem to have another possible theme, though.  As usual I can’t tell if this is intentional or not, but Voodoo Island seems to have something to say about concepts of ownership.

The hotelier has taken an interest in the island because he did an inventory of his properties and discovered he owned it. How he came to do so, we have no idea… it must have been sold to him by somebody else who’d likewise never been there, since the tribal chief tells us that Mitchell and his companions were the first white men to ever go there.  What made that person think they owned it?  Does the concept of ownership even mean anything when you don’t know that you own something?  Does owning something entitle you to destroy it?

The natives own the island in the much less abstract sense that they live there.  The chief tells the party that his people went to this island on purpose, because they thought its nasty flora would keep white people from following them there. They want no part of modern civilization, and seem completely unaware that somebody outside their community is claiming he owns this land.  Whether the idea of ‘owning’ land is even a meaningful one to them, we can’t tell. When the Lenape allowed the Dutch to live on Manhattan Island, they probably had no idea the settlers would consider the land exclusively theirs.

These are some things that still need thinking about in the twenty-first century, and if you’re going to watch Voodoo Island do it for that and for the fun monsters.  Even then, you’re likely to be disappointed.

[europetraveltips]

THE 6 BEST PLACES TO VISIT IN EUROPE IN 2021

Anticipating how travel will glance in 2021 is a waste of time. However, what's without a doubt is that this year has hit the delight business hard: the meaningful ventures, the mother and-pop organizations, individuals doing things right. So going in 2021 will not simply be an opportunity to reconnect with ourselves and feel the buzz of showing up in another spot and another headspace, alive to additional opportunities. As it were, it will be our opportunity to decide in favor of the sort of world we need to live in: one of maintainable organizations, environments and networks, instead of people gazing into the seductively empty bereft of a cell phone screen. It will likewise be an opportunity for a considerable lot of us to recall that we live in a mainland that is one of the extraordinary interwoven designs mankind and topography. Here's the place where we'll be going in Europe in 2021, and it feels progressively basic that we as a whole get out and do likewise – and make a decision in favor of euphoria. For more future motivation, look at our manual for the best occasion objections for 2021 and the best UK objections to visit in 2021.

6. THE AZORES

With the conceivable exemption of Iceland, no place in Europe does land dramatization very like the Azores – the Hawaii of the mid-Atlantic, with thickly forested islands bordered by rough precipices that appear to emerge from the nothingness like goliath green knees from an early stage shower. The archipelago, 950 miles from the bank of parent country Portugal, is a position of volcanic cavities, sulphuric natural aquifers, penetrating whales and surf breaks ignored by epic stacks. The archipelago of biospheres and marine stores has likewise been a calm paragon of practical the travel industry, a kind of European response to Costa Rica.

There are ships and little planes to islands like Faial, Pico and São Jorge, yet the majority of the activity occurs on Sao Miguel, which is all around loaded with great spots to remain. The exemplary twofold header is to put in a couple of evenings each at two sister inns: the Azor, with fresh mod-store calculation and a roof pool ignoring the harbor in the principle town of Ponta Delgada; and the Furnas Boutique Hotel up in the mud-percolating volcanic focal point of the island, where the superstar is the dark stone, Japanese-style warm pool.

In Vila Franca do Campo, the whale-watching and plunging area of interest thirty minutes along the south coast from Ponta Delgada, Convento de São Francisco is a 10-room shop in an exquisitely stark seventeenth century religious circle. Different features incorporate the Sete Cidades Lake Lodge, a progression of wood lodges on a kayak prepared lake in the wild north-west; and the Santa Bárbara Eco-Beach resort , a position of low-threw substantial innovation ignoring a long surf sea shore on the north coast.

By need, the food is consistently locavore, from the islands' popular cheeses to uncommon however delightful fish, for example, wreckfish and blue-mouth rockfish, and cozido das Furnas, a seven-meat stew slow-prepared in Furnas' volcanic earth. This is an immortal kind of spot; a profound nature escape, which feels about directly in 2021.

5. DUBROVNIK AND ITS SURROUNDS, CROATIA

Dubrovnik might be a little overwhelmed with Game Of Thrones sightseers, yet there's constantly been a sure wizardry to this limestone fortification on the Adriatic. Also, what's regularly neglected is the thing that an extraordinary beginning stage it is intended for a legitimate experience. Toward the south, it's not exactly an hour's drive past the languid harbor towns of the Dubrovnik Riviera to Montenegro – a country which has step by step been rediscovering its post-war magic, particularly with the impending appearance of a biophilic-innovator inn from Janu, Aman's new more youthful sister brand. Toward the north, it's under three hours to Mostar, an impeccable Bosnian town of fairylit millhouse cafés and Ottoman stone scaffolds, not a long way from the Kravice cascades, with a turquoise swimmable tidal pond encompassed by Niagara-like falls.

Yet, the alternate approach is offshore, towards the vehicle free, tumbledown Elaphiti islands of Koločep, Sipan and Lopud, handily came to by neighborhood ships. The one to visit in 2021 is Lopud, an island of Renaissance-time stone houses, outlandish gardens and demolished fortifications. Its Franciscan religious community is presently open as the five-suite Lopud 1483, following a meticulous 20-year redesign by Swiss workmanship supporter and donor Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza. She and her family have filled the 5,000-square-meter religious community with Renaissance and contemporary workmanship, a Franciscan drug store and a reflection garden planned by an Arctic shaman, while protecting the unpleasant plasterwork and patina of the antiquated cloister.

4. SKÅNE, SWEDEN

Sweden's southernmost region infrequently gets the inclusion it merits – in huge part in light of the fact that such a lot of buzz is drawn across the Øresund Bridge from Malmö to Copenhagen. Yet, Skåne is certainly worth investigating, from the interwoven appeal of the city to the lakes, wineries and Nantucket-esque clapboard waterfront towns of the rich open country, frequently alluded to as Sweden's larder.

Malmö has large numbers of the things making it work that have put Copenhagen and Amsterdam on each most-liveable rundown going: youthful, bikeable, streaked with trenches and substantial espresso joints, yet additionally home to a wonderfully saved Dutch-Renaissance old town. However it stays more blended than the disobediently elegant Danish city across the water, particularly in regions like Möllevången, a refined, multicultural piece of town referred to local people as Falafel City. Furthermore, Sweden's generally loosened up Covid-19 guidelines have implied that hip locavore frequents, for example, Bastard, Vollmers and the Höganäs Saluhall food corridor, just as zero-squander lunch most loved Restaurang Spill, have clutched their magic heading into 2021.

A sample of Skåne produce is a decent antecedent to an excursion to the open country: regardless of whether south to the sea shore hovels and marram-grass rises of the Skanör-Falsterbo promontory, or north to the clapboard coastline town of Mölle, where the Grand Hôtel Mölle remarkably investigates the stone sea shore and the wild Kullaberg Nature Reserve, with its porpoises and beacon climbs. Past Mölle, Båstad is another exemplary coastline town, with a customary kallbadhus (cold washing house) spa toward the finish of a wooden dock, having a place with the legacy splashed Hotel Skansen. All over the area, which is by and large calmer than the Stockholm archipelago, there's a relaxed feeling of provenance at spots, for example, at the zero-squander Hörte Brygga in the south-west, with its superb water-side nursery in the mid year. Like an European response to New England, this is the most polished of breaks.

3. SALENTO, ITALY

For a genuine Italian break in 2021, we'll head right to the lower part of its heel. Habitually under-staffed as the nation's response to Cornwall, on its own hot recurrence, the Salento district offers an unpleasant cut rendition of the best of Italy – from the nearly Caribbean west coast to the plunging bluffs of the west coast; from Brindisi down to southernmost Santa Maria di Leuca through the florid dream of Lecce, all beasts and limestone sections. This is a dry, ochre-toned place where there is olive forests and precipice hopping kids, too drowsy to even consider having a very remarkable scene. The cucina povera will in general be plain and unfussy: take the shockingly awesome gnummareddi, or sheep offal rolls, served in the walled garden at A Casa Tu Martinu in Taviano; or the barbecued bream at Lo Scalo, incorporated into the bluffs at Marina di Novaglie, and run by the Longo family for 50 years.

In any case, a progression of little savvy stays have increased the game here as of late. For example, the nine-room Palazzo Daniele in Gagliano del Capo, a nineteenth century apartment given a rich mod-devout makeover by hotelier Gabriele Salini – where travel disruptor Thierry Teyssier dispatched his 700,000 Heures 'fleeting inn' idea. Or on the other hand Masseria Canali, a low-threw, seven-room estate of curves and collectibles west of Brindisi, which opened for takeovers this late spring with a pool deserving of A Bigger Splash.

2. TIMIȘOARA, ROMANIA

This western Romanian city is regularly alluded to as Little Vienna, with its stupendous Habsburg Secessionist structures and roundabout downtown area. In truth, it's not as glossily refined as the Austrian capital, however that is the point. Indeed, even in its stupendous focus, the primary spot in Europe to have electric streetlamps, Timișoara doesn't feel like a scam. Also, as other Romanian urban communities, including Cluj-Napoca and Sibiu, there's a discernible feeling of energetic good faith in this understudy town. A large number of the city's foundations have the vibe of somebody's parlor – like Scârț Loc Lejer, a bric-a-brac bar possessed by a craftsman's group, with a congested nursery, a bordering theater and a gallery of Communist commercialization in the cellar. Somewhere else, there are hopping club evenings at underground Database and practices at the graffiti'd Aethernativ Café, with faint echoes of early Noughties Berlin.

There are celebrations in Timișoara for everything from world music to film, Romany workmanship and jazz, the last of which has consistently been enormous here, in any event, when Ceaușescu pushed it underground. The National Opera House has drama and expressive dance works of art, with tickets at the cost of an IPA in London, and the craftsmanship goes from a road workmanship display in a street passage to the Muzeul de Arta's assortment of wry pictures by Corneliu Baba. All of which drove it to be named European Capital of Culture for 2021, an assignment which might get pushed back a couple of years in the wake of Covid-19. Name or not, this is a legitimate city of culture, and definitely worth a city break.

1. CHANIA, CRETE, GREECE

While its Ottoman-affected harbor and spaghetti bowl of cobble-stoned roads are gently delightful, Chania is sneaking up all of a sudden with regards to its food. From basic ocean side bistros to lovely Cretan high end food, this city on the north-west shore of the Greek island has a select yet rapidly growing scene that is tricking in master palates.

[crystalgirl259]

How to Train Your Dragonblood 3: The Dragonblood Alpha Ch2

An indisputable shriek filled the air of the boundless sky over the calm ocean that was empty of boats as a bright red Fire Dragonblood soared across the water, causing waves, and rocketed across the horizon. The image of unbridled freedom. Tucked into his riding position, Jay appeared to be part of Kai. They dipped, rolled, and dived over a sea teeming with whales, dolphins, and a few Water Dragonbloods. They pulled off daring maneuvers with honed refinement, making them seem effortless.

"Yeah!" Jay yelled in adrenaline. They heading skyward, rolled, and tumbled through the ethereal cloud-scapes and joining high-flying Speed Dragonbloods as they soar in a formation. Jay was bound head-to-toe in a snug, dark blue, aerodynamic flight suit. An asymmetrical, functional design of leather and articulated plates. "So what do you think, baby? Wanna give this another shot?" He asked his dragonblood boyfriend.

"You've gotta be kidding!" Kai grumbled in protest.

"Come on Kai! It'll be fine." He reassured and with a click of a lever, he locked the pedals in the flared tailfin position so Kai could fly stably. Jay then unhooked himself from the saddle. "Ready?"

"Fine." Kai snorted unenthusiastically. Suddenly, Jay slid off his back, peeling away from him like a skydiver from a plane, yelling as he plummeted. Kai dove after him. They spiraled through the air, face-to-face. Kai was having fun, despite himself. When he saw the ocean, Jay slipped his forearms through a pair of tucked leather flaps and pulled, unfurling sheets of leather as he extended his arms. They caught the wind, snapping like wings, and sent him gliding.

Kai unfolded his wings, too, catching up with his human boyfriend.

The freedom was palpable. Jay and Kai were, for the moment, the same. Feeling the same rush of adrenaline. Independently together. They plunged past cloud formations, splitting apart then crossing paths again.

"This is amazing!" Jay shouted, overjoyed at these feelings. All of a sudden, a cloud layer washed past, exposing a towering rock formation dead ahead. "No longer amazing! KAI!" He screamed as he tried to steer himself away, to no avail. Kai poured on the speed, trying to catch Jay as he hurtled toward the collision. His locked tail made maneuvering difficult. He was unable to pull up at a steep enough angle. At the last second, Kai blasted the jagged rocks just ahead of them, then wrapped Jay in his wings as they flew through it.

The obliterated peak rained down around them.

Kai emerged through the cloud of debris and hurtled into the trees of a neighboring peak. They tumbled down the uneven terrain, coming to rest on a small plateau. Jay emerged from the cocoon of Kai's wings. He switched his prosthetic riding foot to his walking foot and stowed his leather wings. As Kai transformed into his human form, the sea stack cracked and fell.

"That really came out of nowhere." The brunette grumbled as he rubbed his sore muscles.

"We gotta work on your solo flying there, baby; that locked-up tail makes for some pretty sloppy rescue maneuvers, eh?" Jay chuckled as removed his helmet. He walked to the edge of the cliff, taking in the new land. "Looks like we found another one." He beamed and an annoyed Kai threw a small pebble at Jay's head. Jay looked at him, but Kai frowned and avoided his gaze.

"Oh, what? Do you want an apology? Is that why you're pouting, big baby boo? Well, try this on!" He teased as he hugged him and tried to wrestle with him. Kai's frowns melted to a smile at his boyfriend's attempt to overpower him. Despite growing in muscles and confidence to the last five years, they both knew Jay could never face Kai in hand-to-hand combat, with or without fire powers. All of a sudden, the brunette grabbed Jay's wrists, pinned him to the floor, and started kissing his face and neck.

"What's that you were saying?" Kai smirked.

"You're right! You're right! You win! You win!" Jay shrieked in roars of laughter. Satisfied, Kai got off him and let him get up. After catching his breath and with a big smile on his face, Jay got to his feet and looked around at the new island, and pulled out his map. "Whaddya reckon, baby? Think we might find a few Gravity Dragonbloods in those woods? The odd Light Dragonblood or two in the rocks? Who knows... maybe we'll finally track down another Fire Dragonblood; wouldn't that be something?" He sighed sadly as he stopped drawing on the map and looked out at the new horizon. "So, whaddya say baby? Should we just keep going?"

"When did you get so soppy?" Kai teased at his boyfriend's serious face. Jay rolled his eyes and lightly elbowed the dragonblood.

"Gotta make up for what you lack." He smirked back.

"Hey, I don't lack in anything! Especially where it counts, as you know." He purred seductively as he wrapped his arms around the ginger-haired man's neck before he burst out laughing at Jay's scarlet face. A dragonblood screech caught their attention. They turned just as they saw Cole and Rocky landed on the island. Kai gave Jay a quick kiss on the cheek he ran over excitedly to greet Rocky as Cole went to talk to the other rider.

"'Sup Rock?" The brunette smirked as the Earth Dragonblood sneaked him a cigarette while pulling out his own and he used his fire powers to light them. He had promised Jay he would cut down on his smoking, but it was hard to kick a habit like this.

"Not much, Grant almost set the town on fire with a lava ball... again, and Tes and Bolt are trying to tear each other to shreds." He sighed. He loved Adam and the triplets, but sometimes the kids, who were five now, drove them both mad.

"The offsprings of a Lightning and Earth Dragonblood couple are bound to cause chaos." Kai shrugged with a smirk.

"True, but I better the kids of a human and a Fire Dragonblood would be worse." He counted and Kai almost choked on his cigarette.

"What the fuck dude!"

"Oh come on hothead! Everyone's wondering when you two are gonna tie the knot and then have a little junior running around town." Rocky grinned at the bright crimson blush on Kai's tanned cheeks. Kai felt his temper flare up at this statement. They had talked about having children a few weeks ago, but both decided that they weren't ready for that yet, despite dating for five years now. Sadly, this hadn't sat well with Cliff. As soon as he caught wind of his son and Kai talking about having their own children, he began dropping hints about grandchildren or children, in general, every chance he got.

It didn't matter where or when.

Every morning, noon and night, no matter what activities Cliff caught them doing, like fishing or cooking, he would say how he used to do that with Jay, how he did it with his dad, and how great it would be for Jay to do it with his own child. Eventually, the couple had to sit Cliff down and explain to him that they weren't having children anytime soon. They thought that was the end of it. That is until Cliff decided to drop a bombshell on them this morning.

Without warning, Kai suddenly tackled Rocky to the ground and the dragonbloods started wrestling and chasing each other through the trees.

Their human riders glanced at the two dragonbloods, but shrugged it off and returned to their own conversation.

"Hey Cole, where have you been?" Jay asked as he returned to his map.

"Well, winning races, but what else?" He shrugged. "The real question is where have YOU been?"

"Avoiding my dad."

"Oh, no, what happened now?" He smirked.

"Oh, you're gonna love this." He groaned as he handed the pen to Cole. "I wake up, the sun's shining, crows are singing on the rooftop, I saunter down to breakfast with Kai, thinking all is right with the world and I get: Son, we need to talk." He said, imitating Cliff.

"Not now, Dad, Kai, and I have a whole day of goofing off to get started," Cole replied, imitating Jay, which the ginger didn't look impressed with.

"Okay, first of all, I don't sound like that! What is this character?!" He cried, but the light giggles showed Cole that he wasn't actually offended.

"A truly flattering impersonation." He said as he rolled his eyes. "Anyway he goes: you're the pride of Ninjago, and I couldn't be more proud of you; you're all grown up, and since no chief could ask for a better successor, I've decided-"

"To make you chief! Oh, my Gods!" Cole suddenly gasped as he stood up, doing a complete turnaround in the mood. It was clear, however, that Jay didn't share his eagerness though. "Jay, that's amazing!" He exclaimed and to settle his joy he punched him in the stomach. Jay cried out in surprise and stepped back, holding the injured side as the dorsal fin sprung up.

"You-You're gonna wear out the spring coil, the calibration is very sensitive." He scolded and Cole chuckled as he adjusted his armor. Suddenly they both are thrown down by the still fighting dragonbloods when they pass by them. Cole stood up with a huff from where he landed, kneeling over Jay.

"Yeah... so..." Jay sighed as he accepted the offered hand and pulled himself up as well. "This is what I'm dealing with."

"What did you tell him?"

"I- I didn't, by the time he turned around we were gone." He replied as Cole bent down to pick up the map.

"Well, that's a lot of responsibility, for sure; the map will have to wait for sure and I'll need to fly Kai since you'll be too busy, but I'm sure he understands." The noirette hummed as he walked away, pressing the map in Jay's chest. When he turned around, Jay looked at him so miserably.

"It's not me, Cole." He admitted. "All those speeches and planning and running the village, that's his thing."

"I think you're missing the point." He replied. "I mean... Chief! What an honor, I'd be pretty excited!"

"I... I'm not like you; you know exactly who you are, you've always had, but... I'm still looking." He sighed sadly as he stepped away from the noirette and towards the edge dejected while further behind Rocky and Kai started fighting over a fallen tree trunk. "I know that I'm not my father, and I've never met my mother so… what does that make me?"

"I get where you're coming from," Cole replied. "I might not have been as young as you when I lost my Mom, but when she died Dad and I kinda drifted apart, and as I grew older I felt like I didn't know who I was; my Dad barely talked to me and I felt like my Mom was a stranger to me because we never talked about her." He explained. "But after you and Kai changed everything, Rocky helped me reconnect with Dad and I finally realized who I was.

"It's not the same Cole." He muttered as he flopped down on the ground. Cole came from behind and sat next to him.

"What I'm saying is that what you're searching for isn't out there, Jay." He smiled as he placed his hand on Jay's chest. "It's in here, and maybe you just don't see it yet." He added but Jay ignored him and focused on the sky.

"Maybe... But you know... there is something out there." He muttered as he got up on his knees and watched attentively something off-screen.

"Ugh! Jay..." He groaned as he shook his head. Jay reached blindly with his hand and grasped his chin, turning his face to what he saw and Cole gasped. In the distance, over the cliffs, there was a trail of smoke climbing up into the morning sky...

[wondersofdreaming]

Lost Boys - EIGHT

Characters: August Walker / Captain Syverson / Walter Marshall

Word count: 1.524

Warnings: I don’t know, there’s guns?

Author’s note: Everything in this story is a figment of my imagination, with inspiration and snippets from the movies ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout’, ‘Sand Castle’, ‘Nomis/Night Hunter’. This is pure fanfiction. If something doesn’t make sense, it’s not supposed to.

And a little inspiration from ‘Furious 7��.

I do now own any of the characters from the movies that I write about in this story. Only the OFC’s are mine.

Tag: @katerka88 @littlefreya @hell1129-blog @mitzwinchester @mary-ann84 @valkavill @sciapod @henry-cavlll @luclittlepond @iloveyouyen @trippedmetaldetector @radaofrivia @omgkatinka @gothwhopper @fcgrizi @vania-marie @alyxkbrl​ @readings-of-a-cavill-lover​ @singeramg​ @onlyhenrys​ @henrythickcavill​ @madbaddic7ed​ @palaiasaurus64​ @mis-lil-red @queenslandlover-93​ (I’m so sorry I haven’t tagged you until now, love, I think I must have run into some technical issues when I wrote your URL in my document with tags, but you’re there now to stay)

Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the list.

Feedback is appreciated.

MASTERLIST

[ONE] [TWO] [THREE] [FOUR] [FIVE] [SIX] [SEVEN] [NINE] [TEN]

“Don’t worry brother. I’ll save you instead.”

There was a knock on the door. August quickly closed the laptop. He moved with stealth towards the wooden entrance, silently clicking the safety off on his gun. He looked into the peephole and let out a breath of relief.

He opened the heavy door to let his tech-associate inside.

“Were you followed?” He asked as he investigated the hallway, it was empty.

“No,” Marc sounded offended. “Listen, Lark…”

“My cover has been blown, call me Smith.”

“Fine, Smith. You’re in deep shit. The bounty on your head has doubled, and now it’s definitely dead instead of DOA. You need to move away from here, go to some island and lay low for a few years.”

“Marc… I don’t have a few years.”

“Smith, you’re being hunted. Every government agency in the world is looking for you.”

“I know.”

“If you are recognized, I won’t be able to help you out of this country.”

“I know.”

“You need to keep moving.”

“I have a place in mind. But you’re not going to like it.”

“If you say that shitty cabin in Northern Thailand…”

“I won’t say it.”

“But it is that place. Fuck man! That place has no connection to the outer world! No internet. The nearest village is 10K away…” Marc took a deep breath, “But it is the safest place for you right now.”

“When can you arrange a flight?”

“Let me talk to my contacts. I’ll have a plan by tomorrow.”

Melanie could guess from the knocking who was on the other side of the door. She smiled brightly at the grumpy face that met her.

“Good morning, Walter,” she chimed happily.

“Morning, where’s my brother?” He grunted.

“Answering a phone call. Coffee?”

“Yes, black, no sugar.”

Melanie poured the dark liquid into a mug and handed it to him. Lucas walked out of his bedroom with a grim look on his face.

“Luc, what’s wrong?”

“That was Aiden. The bounty on August’s head has doubled. It’s up to two hundred million now, and they want him dead.”

Lucas plopped down on the sofa and ran his good hand over his beard.

“Then we better get started on finding him,” Walter mumbled.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Lucas’ voice sounded hopeless.

“You can start by telling me, when and where you last saw him.”

Walter wrote down the information, Lucas was giving him in a little black notebook that looked brand new.

“My brother, Charlie, works for the FBI, he should be able to help a little with this case.”

“Should I arrange for travel plans for Iraq? That’s where you last saw him,” Melanie inquired. The two bulking men stared at her.

“Don’t think he’s back in the Middle East, Mel. He might have passed through and gone across the border to hide in another country,” Lucas explained.

“Then how are we going to find him?”

“We’d have to speak to the people that know him. His colleagues, his adopted parents, his friends, if he had any, and so forth,” Walter chimed in.

“Alright, then it seems we’re going to Virginia after we’ve talked to your FBI brother.”

Walter and Lucas swallowed their cooled down coffees, they were mimicking each other without knowing it. They held the mugs the same way, on the opposite side of the handle and chugged the black liquid. They would lean their heads back a little to catch the last drops before putting down the empty cup with a loud thud.

Melanie was amazed by the two men, who looked so much like each other, but at the same time looked so different. One with long curly hair, the other with a military styled buzz cut. They both looked intimidating as hell, and Melanie prayed she’d never get interrogated by those two brothers.

Walter led them towards his truck. The drive took almost an hour before he parked at what looked like an abandoned warehouse.

Melanie felt Lucas tensing up next to her. He made sure to walk in front of her. She knew it was to protect her, but at the same time, she was annoyed, because he knew that she knew how to bring a man to his knees, in more ways than one.

Walter opened the steel door. He motioned with his head to follow him.

Inside looked to be a normal old warehouse with an abundant number of wooden crates. The smell of the room was awful. The waft of rotting fish and mould mixed together in the worst way possible hit Melanie’s nostrils. She nearly gagged at the odious place.

A door opened across the room, lighting up the dark room.

“Good to see you out of the police station for once, little brother,” the man said with a smile. He wrapped Walter into his arms. Melanie noticed that Walter didn’t wholeheartedly return the hug. Charlie Marshall was taller than his adoptive brother, but not as broad and muscular. His blonde hair was cut short at the sides and longer at the top. His deep ocean eyes were dancing with mischief until he locked eyes with Melanie. The smile disappeared from his lips and was replaced with a more curious look.

“Charlie, this is my brother, Lucas, and his sister, Melanie,” Walter introduced them. Charlie walked around his brother and greeted Lucas with a firm handshake, while he kissed the back of Melanie’s hand.

“Pleasure to meet you both. Walt told me about you last night, come in and I’ll show you what I’ve found so far.”

Lucas was burning holes into Charlie’s skull. Having not liked him kissing his sister’s hand. Melanie was elated to be shown a little attention.

“Charlie, back off. She’s not here for you,” Walter grumbled and walked into the tiny office space. A black-haired woman was sitting in front of multiple screens, tapping on the keyboard in front of her at lightning speed.

“This is Raven, she’s a hacker and technology expert. We’re doing this behind the scenes because we want to find your lost brother as soon as possible,” Charlie explained.

Raven didn’t look up but grumbled a greeting of some sort.

“How are we going to find August?” Lucas asked.

“With this,” Raven motioned to the screens. The monitors filled out a picture of the earth moving. A picture of August sitting on the top left.

“What does it do?” Melanie asked.

“It’s using all the cell phones with cameras to find him, kinda like God’s Eye from Fast and Furious.”

“Is this legal?”

“Not at all. That’s why we’re here, hiding from the rest of the world. This is only used during emergencies, and I consider this an emergency.”

“Found him yet?” Lucas grunted. He stood behind Melanie with a rank back and stern look. Walter stood almost in the same stance next to him, except he had his arms folded across his chest.

“Last time he was seen, was in an unused airport hangar in Northern Italy last night. He could have travelled anywhere since then,” Charlie said.

“How long?” Walter muttered.

“Hours, days, weeks. I don’t know, he’s really good at hiding,” Raven threw her arms in the air.

“Then there’s nothing to do but go to Virginia. Call us, when you have something, and thank you, Raven, for helping us,” Melanie sent the pale woman a soft smile and went to walk out the tiny room. Lucas, Walter and Charlie followed her to the truck.

“Thank you, for your help so far,” Lucas told Charlie and held out his good hand.

“If I had a lost brother, I’d do anything to find him too.”

Charlie winked at Melanie and walked back into the building. Walter drove the two back to the hotel in silence. Everyone was grumbling over their own things.

“Thanks for your help, Walter,” Melanie cut through the silence when he parked.

“I’m coming with you to Virginia,” Walter told them.

“What about your daughter?” Lucas asked.

“She said, and I quote: ‘You either find your long-lost brother and bring him home, or I’ll be the worst rebellious teenager that’s ever existed in the history of police-dads.’”

“Three tickets to Virginia, coming right up,” Melanie smiled.

The plane ride was fast and short. They landed, got their luggage, found the rented car and drove to the hotel. Another huge suite with three bedrooms. At first, Lucas wanted three separate bedrooms next to each other, but Melanie had stubbornly told him off that he needed her help with his broken arm. Walter didn’t have a say in anything as Melanie shut him up with a fiery glare.

They ventured out towards the house where the lost brother had grown up. The house looked like it needed a loving hand with the front garden, and the paint on the front door was slowly peeling off in large spots.

Walter rang the bell and knocked loudly. They heard a commotion inside before the door was opened. A short woman with greying hair stood in front of them. Her eyes widened and tears formed at the corners.

“August? Is that you?”