#the lodge keeper || mama

[abracaxfuckxyou]

Barclay had been chatting in the lobby with Dani, making small talk and catching up on things. After a few minutes something caught his eye, trailing off mid-sentence. Quickly he crossed to the window, staring out at a thick plume of smoke rising from the direction of the hiking trails behind the lodge.

"Hey, Duck! You're gonna wanna come see this!" he called out. The Sylph turned when he heard hurried footsteps, seeing Duck and Mama come running. As they reached the window, Mama let out a horrified gasp.

"Jake went on the trails with his friends! He might be out there!"

Out in the forest, the fire began to spread and grow more fearsome. It had been a particularly dry summer so there was plenty of fuel for the flames.

Jake was using his magic to push back the flames as the trio of Hornets tried to make their way to safety, their gear long since abandoned. It was getting harder and harder to stave it off, his blasts of ice getting weaker. Soon it only came out in sputtering bursts, barely making any difference.

He stumbled, falling to his hands and knees from exertion and heat. The selkie started coughing, the smoke starting to burn his lungs. The heat was setting in and adding to the dizziness and strain.

"Shit! Fuck! Keith!" Hollis called out as they ran over to the younger Hornet. They had a bandana held over their mouth and nose to try and keep the smoke out. "Help me get him up! We have to keep moving!"

@destiny-unchained

[nanshe-of-nina]

Favorite Historical Fiction || The Winter Crown by Elizabeth Chadwick ★★★★☆

The royal hunting lodge at Woodstock, eight miles from Oxford, had been a favourite domicile and retreat of Henry’s grandfather. He had feasted and entertained his barons here, gone hunting in the park, and pleasured himself with his mistresses. The complex had also housed a menagerie of exotic animals that had been his whim to assemble. Alienor was not a frequent visitor but she enjoyed the comfort and the idyllic surroundings.

The children loved Woodstock. There was plenty of room to play and ride their mounts in its rambling grounds. The menagerie, although a ghost of its glory during the old king’s time, was still a huge attraction. Richard was especially taken with the lions and loved to listen to their belching roars and lean over their enclosure to watch the keeper feed them bloody chunks of beef and venison. The stench was choking, but the children barely noticed. Alienor warned Richard not to lean too far over to watch, but smiled to see his affinity with these great beasts, the emblem of his bloodline.

"When I am king, I am going to have a collection bigger than my great-grandsire had,” Harry said, leaning beside Richard. ‘He had camels and a porcupine.’

“You could ask Papa,” Matilda said, tucking a strand of golden-brown hair behind her ear. “He might get some. What’s a porcupine?”

“Like a hedgehog but a lot bigger and its spines come out and stick in your hand,” said Geoffrey, who had been reading again.

Harry shook his head. “Papa would say no. He’s not interested in things unless they are useful.” Alienor listened to her children with amusement. Harry certainly seemed to have his father’s measure.

"You have to ask him in the right way at the right time,” Matilda said in a superior tone. “Animals are useful to show off to your guests or to give as gifts – like the monkeys Papa gave to King Louis. And people are always giving Papa hawks and hounds for his hunting.”

Alienor approved of her daughter’s reasoning. And the child did have a way of getting around her father that no one else did, herself included.

Richard dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “You should rely on yourself to get things,” he said. “If you wait for others it puts you in their power.”

“I was relying on myself,” Matilda retorted. “There is no harm in asking to start out.’ She made a face at him. ‘You don’t have to use siege weapons for everything.”

"Mama.” Geoffrey touched Alienor’s arm and pointed towards her constable Saldebreuil de Sanzay, who was approaching them at a brisk walk.

[olympianreads]

Duodenary

Author: leftfoottrapped (miikkaa_xx)

Pairing: Yixing/Junmyeon

Rating: NC17

Summary: Yixing is the temple-keeper for the god of water, Lord Suho, and lives alone up in the mountain temple, until one winter, a pilgrim named Junmyeon arrives, asking for lodging.

Thoughts: This is such a lovely fic. The author created her own mythology around EXO’s MAMA concept and it’s so beautiful and believable. You really get sucked in and that ending is both heartbreaking and hopeful. *chef’s kiss* Again, another fic that I aspire to get on the same level with my own writing.

[voodoosgirl1]

That Time Sam Confiscated Bucky’s Sleep Pants For the Good of the Team...Or So He Thought.

Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers

Bucky wore his Official Captain America fleece sleep pants every day.  His love for them exceeded all boundaries. Except for Steve. Nothing topped Steve, not sleep pants, not food. Not Bucky, although they were in discussions about that particular point.

Their appearance in the house a low-key affair shrouded in the mists of memory similar to the elusive Origin Stories of fortune cookies, crop circles, and key lime pie. Steve claimed no knowledge of their arrival, Bucky said he found them folded neatly on the kitchen counter one day; an instantaneous invoking of finder’s keepers. Sam waved his hands in the air looking a lot like he was swatting flies. Natasha shrugged, a non-committal gesture not lost on Steve’s keen eye, ignored by Sam and missed by Bucky as he wandered off to permanently attach them to his body.

Dark blue with tiny silver, white and red shields in a random swirling pattern, adorned with bright red Captain America cursively-written across the fabric, the signatures strategically embracing his junk.  Bucky’s bold statement of adoration clear as he sat legs spread wide on the sofa; or sprawled in the middle of the mahogany table in the tactical room --- during team briefings; or grappling with Steve pretty much everywhere. Bucky wanted to wear Steve twenty-four-seven.

The sleep pants soon became the accepted norm. Nat ignored them. Steve’s preference; how slow can fleece be dragged down Bucky’s body, across his groin, catching just right on his cock before he groans in frustration and pins him to the floor. His research a work in progress, ever being refined and edited. 

Steve loved the sleep pants.

Sam grew to despise them. 

It wasn’t jealousy or his claim to a more refined sense of style, or that Barnes’s predilection for going commando beneath them was on full display.  The sleep pants were innocuous enough, even while being worn by Barnes; daily, every minute of every day. Unlike Steve’s pumpkin-colored button down, the color didn’t interfere with the room décor. The comforting softness seemed to soothe Bucky’s more irritable moods. Sam’s loathing of the sleep pants grew exponentially with every moment they spent without ever seeing the inside of the washing machine. With the water running. Soap being involved as well.

Sam did not welcome the Cap sleep pants in the gym. A highly egregious offense since Sam used the mats to do push-ups; up and down, face to the mat, often face flat on the mat when he tried to keep up with that asshole Barnes. Herein lies Sam’s problem; not so much the sleep pants per se but their close association with the low huffed moans and groans of Steve/Bucky grappling on those specific gym mats that got Sam’s eye to twitching. The faux work-out sessions; yes, there would be the damp towel evidence in the corner, the faint sweat swirls on the flooring. The distinct rumbled, “Fuck me, Stevie” that wafted up through the heating grates coupled with Steve’s rhythmic groans, culminating in the loud, eye-popping audible evidence of Steve giving Bucky exactly what he asked for was all too much for Sam. Sex on the gym mats had nothing to do with the Captain America sleep pants, admittedly; they were guilty by association.

  Those sleep pants got right under his skin, collecting dirt, day-in, and day-out; absorbing sweat and other they-shall-remain-nameless Steve and Bucky body fluids that Sam did not want to allow into his imaginings, all deeply embedded in the microfibers of their pathetic existence. The final straw arrived unceremoniously when Sam walked in to see Bucky’s blue with white and red shielded sleep pants-clad butt perched on the kitchen island precariously close to lunch. Right butt cheek flirting with the sliced honey roasted turkey, aged swiss cheese, dill pickle, and arugula plated side dish. Steve tucked between his legs, hands roaming across skin much too exposed for Saturday afternoon brunch in mixed company. Sam's semi-considerable patience evaporated when Bucky's left butt cheek rolled to smoosh the spilled bag of bulkie rolls as Steve practiced his best face-to-face thrusting position, dragging Bucky closer by his knees. Natasha swiped a roll out from under Bucky's ass when he rocked forward chasing after Steve's mouth. Adaptability; a strong-suit of former Widows.

The whole thing merited one of Sam's best eye rolls and the fateful solo plan took form, to be mapped out and executed within hours. 

Sam Wilson for the good of his housemates and the protection of their health, under cover of darkness and the unabashed throes of wall-banging, bed squeaking sex between two well-endowed super soldiers, undertook the ultimate self-sacrificing mission. Obtain the offending garment and autoclave it, or at the very least soak them in bleach for a week. Falcon night-vision goggles strapped to his face, his best sneaking around clothes on his body, he belly crawled into Steve’s bedroom, the silent litany of “Don’t sweat, he’ll smell you,” dancing through his mind. He carefully, sneakily pulled the coveted Captain America sleep pants from the bedpost and stealth-crawled backward out of the room.

Sleep eluded Sam the rest of the night, the electric buzz of one-upping Barnes coursing through his veins. He was pretty damn proud of himself for this mission-accomplished moment. He braced for the aftermath.

A sweat-filled moment before dawn when Bucky confronted him in the living room, a tremor shaking his unbrushed hair, plain black sweats; Steve's sweats, a touch too long hanging low on his hips. Winter lurking in his intense stare, the desperate rasped question spoken an angry inch from Sam’s nose, "Did you steal my Cap pants, Wilson?"

An ignored fleeting second of remorse as Sam lied, "Nope. I did not steal your Cap pants, Barnes." Technically not a lie, the pants were not 'stolen' only confiscated.

Semantics. 

He attributed the queasy feeling in his gut to the bratwurst he had for breakfast, a greasy burp seemed to encourage Barnes to move on, which prompted a mental note to add burping to his anti-Barnes arsenal of tactics.

Sam spent the rest of the week alternately avoiding and observing Barnes literally tear the house apart searching for his beloved Cap sleep pants. A relaxing pensive lounging on the deck sipping his Pina Colada, quiet caution employed with the plastic faux palm tree stirrer after the first sip. He began to develop a whole new respect for Bucky’s throwing ability as pot after pan flew past his head; a self-imposed challenge not to flinch as the projectiles zinged past his ear, stirring the air against his skin. A lasagna pan landing fifty feet out, a moment of remorse that he hadn’t thought to set up a betting pool with Natasha about how far the various sized pots would fly, sort of like Olympic shot put only without the painted lines. A silent marvel at the strength of the metal arm when a frying pan lodged in a tree trunk a mile out.

Sam offered a frowny-face faux sympathy look when Bucky finally collapsed face-down on the kitchen floor three hours later despite Steve’s best efforts at persuasion to visit Amazon, under supervision of course. Natasha stepped over him, Sam tried not to stare. Steve laid head pressed to head with him. Ultimately, he dragged him across the floor by both hands, pulled him up to his feet, threw him over his shoulder and off to bed they went rocking the wall once again. 

Sam kept his regret a close-guarded secret, even from himself. Mostly it was a small tickle in the back of his brain that called him an asshole. Once. When Barnes drowned his sorrow soaking in the cold water tub, and Natasha had to run all the way to the basement bathroom, dancing as she went. The hot pissed I-know-what-you-did glare she threw his way, sent a shiver down his spine for about five minutes. That was the extent of his remorse. Three weeks later said sleep pants were discovered by Steve in a bucket of bleach on the back porch, a faded murk of blue and white, streaked with red threads hanging like the guts of roadkill. Utterly unrecognizable as an homage to the First Avenger. Sam, in a regrettable fit of guilt and remorse, admitted to the terrible deed. Needless to say, the aftermath was painful for all involved except Natasha who has a ton more sense than the boys and decided she’d lay low in Paris for a week and leave them to find their Kumbaya moment on their own. She padlocked her bedroom door, wired it to the electric socket and went on her man-free week unencumbered.

It took Steve thirty-six hours to find Bucky sitting in a tree overlooking the house, his loaded sniper rifle cradled in hand. Black shoe polish smeared across his face, a bag of Doritos tucked in the crook of a branch; he finally climbed down when Steve promised to have sex with him on the bike. The one spot they’d missed during the Great Flavored-Lubricant Sex-All-Over-the-House Experiment. It took a whole lot of scrubbing to get that black stuff off both their faces. 

As fate at times intervenes, Sam had a head cold while Bucky sought his revenge and dodged both figurative and real bullets by staying in the house the whole time. It helped that he restricted all movement to the dead center of the house with the lights off, relying again on his well-honed stealth skills. His mama didn’t raise a fool, he knew that damn sniper rifle had disappeared and wherever that Barrett M82 went --- Barnes would be in close proximity. 

That night, basking in the amber glow of a Himalayan Salt lamp, Sam Wilson laid his head on his pillow resting in the sweet arms of sleep, under the benevolent protection of the former Captain Ameria, now known as Nomad, aka Bucky's boyfriend. Normally the headboard's rhythmic thud against his wall got on his nerves, but not tonight, not this night, it told him he would be safe as long as the sounds of Steve demonstrating proper topping techniques for Bucky kept going all would be well in their little valley. 

[horde-of-impressions]

Thoughts on TAZ: Amnesty ep.1

This is long, and I’m sure not everyone wants to know these, so here’s a read more. 

Griffin’s monologue at the very beginning reminds me of the ones at the end of Balance - I enjoy that these “cutscenes” have become part of Griffin’s DMing, because it helps tell the story, letting the audience know things that the PC’s dont

Gonna be honest, I didn’t really like the Amnesty theme in the setup episode, but after hearing it in this episode, I think it’s perfect. It reminds me of American folk music, something like The Avett Brothers or Mumford, which I think actually came out of that area of West Virginia, so that’s cool

That stone archway seems important (Duh) 

I like that the players say what the characters do, then the keeper decides what they roll. I think that’s good for the podcast storytelling format.

Smokey is described by Clint as “a talking bear wearing bluejeans” -- a Beary Bluejeans one could say???

I really like that the questions that the players get are very clearly laid out. It’d make it easier to prep to run a session.

It’s a little weird to me that Duck’s scene happened first in the podcast, as it seems to have happened last chronologically

It’s weird to hear Justin do a somewhat normal voice, after Taako and Kardala.

The gate is definitely the stone archway.

I’d put money on mama being the owner of the Amnesty lodge

I think that Griffin should have told Clint about the relationship between Kirby and Ned, it’s a little weird to hear Clint try to figure out what it is