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7deadlycinderellas · 4 years

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If the summer of our lives could just come again, ch31

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Winterfell

Everyone was beyond exhausted. Bags under the eyes, sluggish movements and dim conversation had become the norm.

Then the mammoth showed up. It’s stride barely even notices the trench, now widened the earth shaking.

The Free Folk all hope that the Night King did not count any of the giants among his soldiers.

Ygritte’s arm shakes as she looses arrow after arrow trying to fell the beast. All the others in line do the same. The arm she took the arrow in has begun to feel warm, but she does not fear corruption so much as reopening the wound.

It’s just as the beast over the castle walls has been hit enough to stumble, that Rowan comes behind the archers to warn of an impending call to the trees, so that they could kneel and brace themselves.

The first time they had had an archer fall clear over the ramparts, his neck broken. He’d risen far too quickly, and they’d been forced to burn him. Remembering it made the hair on the back of Ygritte’s neck stand up. They still hadn’t seen any sign of the Night King.

Close to the pull of sleep, Arya had told her once about it before, muttering with her eyes half closed about how she had stabbed him with her little dagger and he had shattered as if made of glass.

This time, Arya is woken from sleep by the shaking of the earth. She sputters a bit before turning to Ygritte.

“Do they need me back?”

Ygritte shakes her head. Better to let her sleep. Arya was a damn good archer, but there wasn’t much that could be done until the snow let up and the visibility improved.

Other than trying to keep them from climbing the walls.

In the Great Hall, Ned’s shoulder still burned, even as he left his cot. He went against Maester Luwin’s advice the minute he’d heard.

The Hunter’s gate was overrun. Val and the other Free Folk were cutting down all they could see, slashing and cutting down the wights left and right.

“Best we’re trying is to let the bodies pile up and block the opening,” she tells him, hacking at a wight dragging along the ground with her dragon glass axe. “And once they do, we’ll set fire to the lot.”

The plan works, to Ned’s shock. Once the fire is burning and the pile stops twitching, several of the largest of the Free Folk make to block the broken gate with empty wagons full of whatever they can find to weigh them down.

But while they are doing this, a cluster of wights have made their way inside the keep.

The one Ned sees used to be a woman, he thinks. She lumbers, jumping on a young squire from behind, before one of the other squires slices her skull from the rest of her, and scooping her remains into the fire.

With a start, Ned realizes the fighter carrying the dismembered wight is Rickon. His youngest son is now a figured smeared in dirt and blood, his hair slicked with sweat and snow.

Ned spins, following the sounds of the screams, the clang of steel, waiting to find a target he could direct them to. Eventually, a scream he recognizes pierces through.

He follows as fast as he can, finding Robb on the ground, a wight’s teeth sunk into one arm, his other flailing, trying to reach his sword where it had fallen. His arm is already beginning to take on an icy hue.

Ned’s muscles snap as he springs as fast as he can. But his movement isn’t necessary, as the wight is seized by one of the Free Folk and pulled away. But even as the threat is gone, Ned sees Robb’s arm, torn to bits, with lines running down it glowing an eerie unworldly blue.

The sight makes him freeze nearly, the sight of his first born child, the sounds of the battle rattling in the back of his head. His stillness is interrupted when Val comes to him, picks up the sword from the cobblestones and in a single quick movement, with barely a grunt of effort and a sickening crack, severs Robb’s arm at the shoulder.

His screams ring out through Winterfell.

“Give me your torch,” she tells one of the Free Folk, and Ned watches as she holds the fire to the wound until it seals and the smell of perverse cooked meat fills the air.

“Help me get him to the Great Hall,” she orders, and though Ned moves to help, he realizes Val’s words were directed at Gendry off beside him, who takes the fallen torch in one hand, and carefully lift’s Robb’s uninjured arm over his shoulder.

Once they are out of sight, that part of the keep is once again quiet of screams, at least for this moment. Ned’s shoulder burns worse than before.

Ned is later glad that he isn’t on the east side when it happens.

Brienne watches later as Gendry pulls two soldiers onto the back of his horse.

“The same fever?” she asks him. An illness of some sort had been passing through those stationed on the east side. With no time for proper food or rest, those who caught it had been dropping like flies. Brienne feared it wouldn’t be too long before it spread to other parts of the keep.

Gendry nods.

“Luwin’s having me quarantine them in one hallway outside the Great Hall. He fears them infecting the injured.”

He doesn’t tell her about the one he’d left a few days ago who had had a violent seizure when he’d come to check on them, his limbs shaking and mumbling fever dreams.

He nods to Brienne before turning to leave with the ill men.

Brienne surveys the meager forces manning the east wall again, as if by going through them again, they might suddenly grow, might suddenly be less haggard and starved.

As if they somehow might stand a chance.

As Brienne dismounts to go and check the archers on this side of the wall, the ground shakes, but not like before. Not like what the trees did.

And she hears the telltale sounds of stone beginning to crumble. The tiny chinks that have built up as the dead continued to slam and pile up against it, until parts of the east wall begin to crack and fall.

In the Godswood, Jon wakes with a start, to find Rowan shaking him.

“Your glove began to peel off,” she tells him, and he rights it. “You must be careful of frostbite.”

Yes, Jon thinks, frostbite.

Even trying to reclaim his tiny bits of sleep, he reaches out to the outside. He sees the second mammoth, the one who rammed the east wall and caused it to begin to crumble, and his eyes snap awake.

The trees don’t know too much of what to make of the Night King, other than he is heading south, fast, far too fast. Jon thanks all the gods that he seems to be limited by normal means of transportation.

The trees speak again to Jon now, unbidden. They say they will help again, but he does not understand their words this time. He feels the touch they would give to him, the assurance. That what they are about to do will take a lot out of him, and that he should brace himself, but not just physically.

Stumbling wildly out of the visions, Jon backs himself to the trunk of the weirwood, and lowers himself to the ground. Rowan presses closer to his side, and with his eyes trailing shut once again, Jon wishes Ygritte could be here with him too.

When the images pass through his mind, images of another him and another battle, he just lets it slip through him.

Greywater Watch

Sansa and Shireen pour over the harp for days that turn into weeks that turn into months.

“I learned to play in King’s Landing,” Sansa muses, “From Leonette Fossoway. But I was so anxious and frightened all the time, I’m afraid I was quite a poor student.”

“I learned a bit in lessons as a girl,” Shireen adds, “But not too much. I wanted to learn the lute instead.”

And a frozen bog in hiding from the rising dead isn’t quite the best place to try and relearn, but they do what they can.

“Great-grandfather’s fiddle’s around here somewhere,” Meera tells Jojen one afternoon when the soft pings of the plucked strings are ringing out again.

“Waiting for a Reed who’s not an embarrassment to the art of music,” Jojen agrees.

At that moment, the scene is interrupted by Bran sticking his head in from outside and calling out to Sansa. He’s holding a rolled up scroll from the leg of a bird, so Meera and Jojen both follow Sansa to find out what’s going on.

Shireen looks around the table and realizes she’s alone again. Oh well, it never lasts long, there’s not too many places to hide in a keep this size.

It doesn’t even last five minutes, as Lord Reed re-enters from the back end and sits on the opposite side of the table from her.

Shireen nods, and greets him. She never learned too much about House Reed, aside from its allegiance to the north, but they’ve been good enough hosts.

There’s a long bit of silence, when he asks.

“You’re an only child aren’t you Shireen?”

Shireen nods. She remembers having always wanted siblings, but thinking on her parents as nearly an adult, she suspects it might be better that she didn’t.

“I heard about your father at the Wall. I’m sorry.”

Shireen nods again. She’s tried so hard not to think about it.

“With him gone, I guess I should go home to Dragonstone after this. I don’t know if my mother- I should probably just try and do my duty.”

Howland studies her. His gaze isn’t penetrating, but she still feels exposed.

“Is that what you want though?”

She smiles softly.

“I don’t want my house to die out, though I did think I would have a little more time...When I was little, I used to listen to Maester Cressen talk about his training, and I wished I could go to the citadel. I know they don’t let women in, but I always thought maybe I could sneak in at night, or something of the sort. I do at least have a huge stack of writings that I might be able to convince them to be worth reading now.”

Howland’s face has turned serious, and Shireen wonders what it was she’d said. The others have returned from whatever was being carried on the raven, but are on the other side of the room. He watches as Shireen tries to catch Jojen’s eye, hoping for a hint of if the letter was important.

“Are the two of you close?”

Shireen’s face turns pink.

“We’ve found some...very unusual common ground.”

Howland puts his face in his hands. His voice softens so the others don’t over hear, but is unexpectedly rough,

“When this is over, and you leave this place...convince him to go with you, in whatever capacity that is.”

Shireen blinks in shock.

“Don’t you want him home, safe?”

“Of course I do. But I don’t think he will be safe if he’s home. It’s not so bad here in the winter, but come spring...this environment is harsh. Illnesses spread through us like wildfire. In the spring the swamp gas rises. Jojen’s already fallen to Greywater fever once. I don’t worry about Meera, she’s strong-”

Shireen chuckles. A few days prior, Meera had climbed part way onto the roof of the keep to free Una when she had become entangled in a snare, with very little regard to her rapidly swelling abdomen.

“But Jojen never has been. He was always a fragile boy. And even though his mother and I always told him how important his visions were...we all knew that this was not a good place for him. I don’t want him to leave home and die like last time, but I want him to die earlier than he needs to even less.”

Shireen watches the others, solemn.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The moons go on, and Sansa and her can’t make heads or tails of the harp. Once, when Sansa plays, Shireen notes that one of the runes on the side seems to light up, but despite her scribbling it down as fast as she can, they have yet to get that reaction from any of the other runes.

One morning, one the Reed’s lookouts come to report that men have been spotted marching along the causeway from the south.

“What? What banners are they carrying?” Sansa demands.

The lookout couldn’t see them in the snow, so Bran sends Una south.

When she reaches the men, Bran reports.

“House Tyrell, but they aren’t displaying their banners, I could only tell by their armor. And they’re being led by Jamie Lannister.”

The distaste in his voice is prominent.

“Should we tell the men to try and stop them from getting through?” Meera asks.

There’s a long pause.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Bran says slowly. “They’re not traveling under the banner of the crown. We should at least see what happens if they make it through and encounter the Others.”

There are nods all around. Bran spends the next weeks in and out of Una trying to discover why a company of soldiers, but not from King’s Landing, would be coming north.

One night when he had left her and nearly immediately fallen asleep, he dreams of the Night King coming for him in the Godswood. It wakes him in a cold sweat.

He’s just managed to calm his heart, when he realizes Meera’s sitting up on her side of the bed, hunched over.

“Hey-” he reaches out to touch her on the shoulder. “Is it the babe, should we call for the midwife?”

She shakes her head, and Bran sighs in relief. She should have at least a moon’s turn left.

“It was back before, when I left Winterfell,” her voice shakes. “It was snowing so hard, and I could barely sleep. I hadn’t slept alone, or been alone at all really, in so long…”

He rubs his hand along her shoulder and reaches for his cane beside the bed.

“Come on, lets get some tea.”

But when they reach the table, they aren’t alone.

Shireen’s muttering about fire, and Sansa says something about the crypts. But it’s not just them, but others within the keep, awake and speaking quietly.

Jojen is the last to join them, looking confused at everyone else.

When he sits, his only words are.

“That was a green dream. But I’ve never had one like that before.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Sansa responds, “The things we saw really happened.”

There’s a long silence, interrupted only by the rustling of the others waking.

“But only you lot remember that these things happened,” Shireen says slowly, “The rest of us see this as new.”

They sit in silence again as this washes over them.

White Harbour

At White Harbour, Theon sits up with a jolt. They’re still on the ship, surveying before they disembark.

In the dark, he gropes his way out of the cabin before finding Yara on watch. Her eyes meet his, and her terror he feels must be mirrored on his own.

Yara stares at him steadily, before looking back out to the land in front of them.

“We do not sow. Remember our house words. We are here, we are Ironborn. We will not go down with the dead.”

Her words are enough, at least safely at sea.

Gliding on the air above them all, Danaerys jumps when her vision shifts, finding herself aboard Rhaegal again instead of Drogon like she had in the vision, and wonders at what could have made that seemingly small thing different. Much moreso, she is confused by the memory of her own feelings, her nearly arrogant certainty. She steels herself in the darkness, running a hand along Rhaegal’s scales. It would be wrong to admit she has no such certainty now.

The Kingsroad

Jamie’s arm is too light. This is the first thing that registers when he wakes. His arm is too light and it seems to flop around of its own accord.

But it’s not just his arm weighing him down, but the memory of Cersei’s betrayal.

She had begged him to find a way to stop Father sending her back to Casterly Rock, and he’d been plagued by guilt over it. Now he questions why. His whole life he’d tried to spend in her service, and what did he get in return for it? Now with this memory, though hazy and rapidly fading, his guilt begins to lighten.

When the first light comes, he orders the men on. His guilt does begin to rise, when he recalls what he suspects they will find at the end of the Kingsroad.

King’s Landing

Margaery had found the necklace among her things ages ago, and she had also noticed the stone that came loose. She had kept it in her personal effects, close, planning to bide her time.

In the moons since she had sent Jamie away, Joffrey had become increasingly paranoid. Rambling on during council meetings about the rumors and correspondences with the Targaryen girl, even lashing out after being reprimanded by his Hand, his own grandfather.

She spends several days observing routines, finding the best time. Night time would be too obvious, too many servants who might take the blame.

The visions that pass over them all don’t even seem to phase Joffrey at all, to Margaery’s disgust. Breakfast provides the perfect distraction. Especially since breakfast today is fried fish, complete with their tiny bones.

Especially since it seems everyone else in the keep awoke in the same fugue state Margaery found herself in. Her maid had looked at her as though she had seen a ghost. She fingers the jewel tucked into her pocket. Her dream did nothing but spur her on.

In the Great Hall, everyone has gathered among the breakfast spread, no one much meeting others eyes and bumbling about, confused. Only Joffrey is already eating, licking the greasy batter of the fried fish from his fingers.

The jewel dropped its way easily into the goblet of red wine. She hasn’t even have the opportunity to sit down before Joffrey’s hand snatches it away.

“Far too early for a queen. Wouldn’t want you ending up like my dearest mother.”

Margaery lets him take the goblet and place it to his lips. And she waits.

Winterfell

Ned’s shoulder burns anew when he wakes. At least he knows he’s alive.

Robb jerks awake on the cot in the Great Hall. Only an arm, at least there’s that.

Gendry doesn’t even quit moving as he drags a man with a broken leg from the rubble of the east wall.

Brienne grips her sword tighter, the word ‘knight’ echoing in her mind.

Up on the ramparts, Arya stares straight ahead. She squeezes the dagger at her waist, and dares the Night King to come this time.

Beside her, Ygritte rolls on her side and mutters, “Gods, I hope someone killed that fuckin’ kid.”

In the Broken Tower, Benjen stares across the horizon, looking for the figure he imagines must still be coming for him.

In the Godswood, Jon touches his stomach and chest where the stab wounds had been, takes a deep breath, and tells the trees thank you.

“Do you think this will help?” he asks them, the tongue feeling more natural on voice now somehow.

“Unknown. But we’ve done what we can.”

Jon hopes that it’s enough.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #time travel fix it #gendrya #fic

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kieraembers · 5 years

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Valyrian Steel

Chapter 36

Gendry

Allow me to preface this by saying that I have not updated this fic in a long time. I had two deaths in my family and have been plenty depressed. But the leaks have me spitting mad so I'll probably finally update. Also, not watching the show, living in fanfic world, where Missandei is ALIVE.

Gendry woke up when Nymeria let out a growl in her sleep and Arya fidgeted besides him. He looked towards the messy head of brown hair to his right and the grey direwolf to his left, then he noticed his feet were up against a warm black mass. Shaggy opened one bright green eye and fixed Gendry with a sleepy stare before, he blinked once then rolled over to his side with a tired yawn and settled back to sleep.

This was how he would die, it didn't matter that he told Arya to stop sneaking into his tent, it didn't matter how many times he told her that he was fine, that he was never improper with her, that the wolves were always present, or that Jon actually liked him. No, as soon as any of the Northern lords popped their heads into his tent, or spotted Arya leaving they would string him up by his toes and feed his cock to the wolves who never said no to a meal. He knew the consequences for a base-born bastard to try and reach above his station, and Arya was most definitely above his station.

It started innocently enough, Arya continuously popped into his room before and after her nightly hunt to poke him awake and make sure he had not died in his sleep. It became an annoyance and no matter how tightly he locked his room or where he hid his tent she found him. He'd spend the days exhausted from lack of sleep because it was difficult to go back to sleep when Arya would rest her head on his chest to check his pulse, touch his neck when he bundled himself up in furs, or slip her hands under furs and shirt to check that he was warm. Every night since leaving the Twins it was the same and every night no matter how much he insisted he was fine, she had to check and frustrate him to no end.

Till one night he was driven to near insanity from lack of sleep and he dragged her under the covers with him and held her tight. "Sleep" he had muttered, and held firm even when she wriggled in his arms. If she wanted to leave she had her knives and her teeth, and all Gendry wanted was sleep, even if she rubbed maddeningly against him. From then on she would slip in and sleep under the furs with him no matter how much he objected. But when had any one ever been able to control or deny Arya?

Gendry tried to shift closer to Nymeria and farther from Arya, but she stubbornly stuck close to him muttering in her sleep and burying her face into his side. She was still so small and thin, but she didn't look half starved so Gendry didn't worry if she had enough to eat in the years she was away. He looked down at her, the frown that he so often saw in her face melted away when she slept and the sharpness softened. Gendry brushed some of her hair back from her face then tucked her into his arm.

They would kill him as soon as they noticed Arya leaving his tent, so he might as well get some happiness from the situation. She opened an eye and smiled before resting her head on his chest. Gendry was sure she wasn't fully awake but that smile was all he needed. Her legs tucked into his and he stroked her shoulder with his thumb until he finally fell asleep again.

)O(

In the morning Arya was gone, she always slipped out before daylight and considering his cock was still attached to his body he was sure no one had seen her make her way back to her tent. Gendry sat up and began packing up his tent and bed roll, he could hear the camp being moved around him .

The fires were being put out and the horses saddled while the men scarfed down what they could. The Crannogmen helped them set up camp in the swampy Neck the night before. They laid out logs and rugs made of reeds and twigs so the men would keep dry. Summer, Meera Reed, Howland Reed and a group of Crannogmen had met them at the Neck and helped the army's barges find their way through the treacherous swamp lands. Greywater Watch was a floating wonder, but the Crannogmen could not sustain such a vast force for long, Jon made sure to only impose on them for two nights before continuing through the Neck.

They were camped a day's march away from the Bite where a ship would wait off the coast to take them to White Harbor, then up the White Knife river towards Winterfell. Arya wanted to attack from the Wolf Woods so that Stannis' men had less time to respond while Jon insisted that he could speak to the man. Tyrion, Daenerys and Aegon were not convinced that Stannis would ever bend the knee.

Gendry spotted Willas Tyrell drawing a dead lizard lion that Shaggy-dog had dragged in early in the morning. He had stopped mid stroke and stared off into the distance, the man was given to bouts of deep thought, so Gendry thought little of it and made his way across the camp where he knew Jon and Arya would be training with Viserion.

Viserion was eating some of the meat Jon was tossing at her and drawing closer to him. She came nose to nose with Ghost, then with Jon before shooting off into the trees.

"She's almost ready, a few more days." Arya said watching the pale dragon weave through the tree's till she found a clearing in the tree's canopy.

"We may not have the time." Jon grumbled while scratching Ghost behind the ears, he noticed Gendry approaching and smiled.

"Sleep well?" Jon asked innocently enough.

Gendry cleared his throat and avoided looking at Arya, "Well enough."

"The ground is softer here." Jon said off handedly and made his way towards Gendry while Arya scampered off towards Meera who had appeared from deep within the swamp. The Crannogmen had fed the men frogs, lizard lion and rice, while some of the men grumbled at eating frogs Jon and Arya focused on making sure they did not insult their hosts. The men could not complain about the frogs when their lady bragged about eating bugs in the past. Gendry didn't mind after his third frog, as long as there was some salt. It reminded him a bit of chicken, a few of the men had even asked for seconds.

Howland Reed appeared besides Meera and motioned for Jon to join him. The man took a special interest in Jon and Arya, mainly because of their father. Meera was impatient to leave with them, she wanted to make her way back to Bran Stark. Arya and Jon had welcomed Meera with open arms for the loyalty and love she showed for Bran even when he was not present. Arya became attached to Meera, since the girl cared for Bran beyond the wall and seemed to deeply love him. Then again Arya could make friends with anyone, it was a skill he had not mastered.

Gendry remembered how big of an ass he was towards Edric Dayne and Arya simply for the fact that they got along. Edric was a likeable boy and Arya had a knack for befriending anyone. All he could focus on was his own shortcomings, imagined and real. Even before leaving King's Landing he had a hard time getting along with others. He either scowled and scared others away or avoided people all together. Arya was never scared away, she stuck to Gendry and the rest even when it wasn’t convenient.

Arya let out a large laugh at something Meera said and Gendry smiled. Hopefully she was letting go of some of her anger. He helped some men load the tents and camping equipment onto the barges. A few of the older Crannogmen had volunteered their services to fight the undead. Tyrion and Jon mentioned that their first group of recruits would be older men trying to ease the strain on their families.

Gendry admired the northmen, they ran headlong into battle knowing that if they died there would be more food for the rest of the North. It was selfless in the extreme.

Gendry noticed Aegon approached Arya holding a colorful frog in a glass jar. They talked excitedly over the frog and Arya dipped an arrow in and run it along the frogs back. Gendry could not read lips but he was certain that they were speaking of poison. Arya continued to poison the tips of her arrows, a lock of her hair slipped and Aegon tucked it behind her ear. She smiled thankfully at him and Gendry felt something burning in his gut as he watched Aegon continue to loom over Arya.

He stormed away towards where he knew Daenerys was. He found her talking to Jon and Tyrion and bowed as well as he could.

"If the offer still stand I would be honored to become the new lord of the Stormlands."

Daenerys seemed a bit taken aback but she recovered quickly enough and bowed her head with respect.

"Then let me be the first to greet you, Gendry Baratheon, Lord paramount of the Stormlands and Storm's end."

Jon and Tyrion went to greet him as an equal and Gendry tried to mimic them as well as he could. He was a lord, he could barely read, yet he was a lord. No one could say a damn word if they ever caught Arya leaving his tent.

Gendrya

young griff

#asoiaf #fanfic #fan art #gendrya #gendry #arya stark #got #myart #my art #myfic #my fic

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envir480 · 5 years

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T-Mobile Park Tour

By May Xie, Jacob Huskey, and Fiona Cromarty

T-Mobile Park (PC: Seattle Times)

Introduction

In 2011, the Mariners at Safeco field became a founding member of Green Sports Alliance, a non-profit alliance with the mission to help sports teams enhance their environmental performance. Now with over 50 teams joining the alliance, this was the starting point of T-Mobile Park (then Safeco) becoming a leader in sports sustainability.

Vice-President Scott Jenkins set the groundwork for Seattle having one of the greenest stadiums. Switching to compostable goods costed much more upfront, which was a risk Jenkins and his team took, but quickly the cost difference was made up. They discovered that they were actually saving over $70,000 just by avoiding landfills because transporting waste to a compost facility costed much less than to a landfill. They also saved money by not needing to hire someone to separate the trash, as nearly everything inside the ballpark was compostable.

The Mariners cut water usage by 60% by installing dual-flush toilets in women’s bathrooms and low-flow urinals in men's’ bathrooms. They also saved 70% on their lighting bill for parking garages by putting in fluorescent lights and motion sensors. In 2013, the park also switched to LED lighting for the entire stadium and since the shift in 2016, the Mariners were able to save about $1.2 million.

The stadium is also using innovative ways to be green. The park has an urban garden that supplies their concession stands with vegetable and herbs. Thanks to their continual efforts of changing to a green facility, the Mariners received the Green Glove Award in 2017 for their recycling efforts. 96% of stadium waste was put towards recycling, making them the club with the highest waste diversion rate.

Urban Garden at the Field (PC: KOMO)

Field Operations

Our tour guide spent a significant amount of time discussing how the field was prepared for game days. Since the quality of the field is of the utmost importance to coaches, players and owners, grounds crews operations can often be very energy and resource intensive. The Mariners don’t advertise their green initiatives regarding grounds work, but our tour guide highlighted some of the ways in which the Mariners are trying to reduce the impact of taking care of the field.

Waste disposal stations on Game Day (PC: CleanRiver Recycling Solution)

The process actually starts in the stands, as hired staff go around and collect waste, compostables, and recyclables from each section of the stadium. After these large items are cleared, the crew pressure washes each section of the stands. It’s this grey water that's collected and used for the field. This grey water is combined with collected rainwater and used to keep the grass green on the field. The tour guide mentioned that this greywater is used, recollected, and re-used five times before it leaves the stadium and goes into city stormwater drains.

It’s worth noting that none of this information is published on the Mariners website, even where they discuss other green initiatives (Mariners Sustainability). In fact, water is only mentioned once on the page, and it's not in the context of stadium operations. It’s also was not mentioned in the NRDC report we read in class. However, if the Mariners are upholding these greywater and water re-use practices, it would be another way they are a leader in sports sustainability.

In addition to these water re-use practices, the Mariners are trying to keep it “green” with their fertilizers on the field. Our tour guide said that the Mariners only use natural fertilizers on the field, rather than synthetic one that can linger in runoff and cause environmental harms. Again, this is not mentioned on the Mariners website.

There’s still plenty of work to be done, though. Like many MLB teams, the Mariners use multiple mowers and other heavy equipment every day to create a pristine playing surface, even on days when the Mariners are not playing at the stadium. We also learned that in the winter, the Mariners remove and replace the entire playing surface every year. While the tour guide Siam the sod is diverted from the landfill, this practice of removing and replacing the field every year is hardly sustainable.

Waste/Recycle/Compost:

Although the T-Mobile park has converted plates, knives, forks, cups, straws, among other items to become non-plastics that are recyclable or compostable, they still continue to sell plastic water bottles and wrappers such as potato chips bags at the stadium which are somewhat unsustainable, and usually are thrown in the landfill. Although they provide clear instructions to ensure waste is disposed of correctly, they also have cleaning crews to hand separate plastics and compostable items after each game.

For their overall recycling and composting rates, they have averaged with an 85% recycling rate, one of the highest in all professional sports. They also collaborate with the Northwest Harvest, Operation Sack Lunch and the Salvation Army to donate leftover concessions goods. Due to these factors, most recently the T-Mobile park in 2018 received the Environmental Protection Agency Food Recovery Challenge Sports & Entertainment Venues Award for diverting more than 761 tons of food waste.

In conclusion, T-Mobile has been making strides to set sustainability standards, and hopefully other teams will begin to follow suit and even compete through similar efforts. The industry itself is somewhat environmentally unsustainable due to transportation, consumption, and maintenance costs. Considering this, overall T-Mobile Park’s decisions to switch to LED lighting, reduce food waste, and focus on sustainability as one of their guiding principles within internal development and management demonstrate how important sustainability is to their corporation.

References

Danigelis, A. (2017, December 7). Seattle Mariners Win 2017 Green Glove Award for Recycling. Retrieved from https://www.environmentalleader.com/2017/12/seattle-mariners-green-glove-award/

EPA presents Mariners/T-Mobile Park with national award for food recovery. (2019, April 25). Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-presents-marinerst-mobile-park-national-award-food-recovery

Mariners Sustainability. Retrieved from https://www.mlb.com/mariners/ballpark/information/sustainability

Zelen, R. (2011, December 22). Seattle Mariners Go Green: Time to Give Praise to Those Who Take Responsibility. Retrieved from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/993831-seattle-mariners-go-green-time-to-give-praise-to-those-who-take-responsibility

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autumnal-rains · 7 years

Photo

Hidden Castle. By me!

It’s acrylics on paper (finally figured out how to do that, what you do is to add water to it). Also the bird thingys are supposed to be swampbats, like those from men of greywater station.

#fantasy #art #acrylic #painting #artists on tumblr #the octopus draws

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sending-the-message · 7 years

Text

I'm still having nightmares about the day I found the door to Hell by Aaron_Abysmal

The nightmares have started again.

Hell, I don't know that they ever went away. But I'm remembering bits and pieces of the horror again when I wake, covered in cold sweat, goosebumps spread across my arms and legs like a rash. Two nights ago I screamed so loudly that I woke myself up.

I'm just an old man now, mind and body used up by years of manual labor and hard alcohol. I just celebrated my 78th birthday last week. When you're young you never think something could fuck you up for that long.

You see, I used to work for the Water Department in a small city when I was in my early twenties.

For a kid pretty much fresh out of high school, the pay was decent and the work wasn't hard if you were good with your hands. Every once in a while you'd have to go fix a pumping station, maybe, or unclog a sewer drain after a hard rain, but other than that it was easy and uneventful work. Until the day I saw the door to Hell.

That particular day I remember coming in and seeing my supervisor, Al Nell, buckling his utility belt. A green hardhat with a headlamp sat on the table next to him. That was never a good sign.

"What's up, boss?" I asked, dreading his answer before he gave it. These kinds of work orders came up from time to time when the canal overflowed or the sewers backed up, and nobody liked doing them.

"Good, you're here," Al grunted. "We got a main pump on the fritz. Jansen's still out sick, Denton and Gorcizca are on call, and Brewer's still on his honeymoon 'til next week. Looks like you, me and Gordon are going down on a little field trip."

I opened my locker with a sigh. It was going to be one fuck-all of a day.

Nobody liked going down into the sewers: the smell was awful, it was cramped and dark, and God forbid you got lost down there. The sewer system was old (very old) and somewhere along the course of time some shitpot had lost the blueprints. It was like going into a dark, shit-covered labyrinth without a map. Actually, that's exactly what it was.

Jimmy Gordon came out of the bathroom as I was tightening my utility belt. I could hear the faint sound of the toilet flushing as the door closed behind him.

"Just sent some supplies down, in case you guys need lunch while we're down there."

I shot him the bird.

"Gordon quit fuckin' around. It's going to be a long day and I want to spend as little of it as possible wandering around in the dark with you assholes." Al said.

We put on our hardhats, I grabbed our enormous metal toolbox, and we piled into the utility truck.

We drove down to Pumphouse #3, which was conveniently located amidst an area of lush overgrowth of tangles and bushes that ran adjacent to downtown. We did a few tests and located the pumping station that seemed to be the problem. From there we marched down through the tangles and blackberry bushes and found it just a little way off from the river.

"Weird," Jimmy said as we approached the concrete cylinder. "The cap's already off it. You think Denton or Gorcizca already made the call?"

"Fat chance," Al said and spat out a stringy glob of brown chewing tobacco. "They're laying pipe for a new residential off Broadway."

"Maybe some kids were fuckin' around?" I suggested.

"Who cares what moved it, let's get down there and fix it." Al started climbing down the steel ladder into the pumping station. Jimmy and I exchanged amused glances and then followed suit, me going first then Jimmy.

The pump was fucked, all right. For one, the rotors were all clogged up with thick mats of long orange hair. That alone should have been enough to prompt us to find out just what the hell had been down here. But that wasn't all.

A few feet away from the pump, in the mouth of the drainage pipe that ran from the pumping station into the sewer system, was a small red shoe no bigger than my hand. A child's shoe.

"How in the hell did a kid get that pump cover off and end up down here?" Jimmy asked, his voice a mix of astonishment and unease.

"Doesn't matter how they got down here," Al said as he picked the tiny sneaker up grimly. "What matters now is that we find 'em and hope to God they're in one piece when we do. Looks like they lost a good lot of hair in that pump there."

His eyes trailed to the tangle of hair stuck in the pump, and then back to the shoe.

"Carlton get the pump up and running. Gordon and I are on the search party."

I nodded. Jimmy's face was pale and solemn. They clicked on the utility lights on their helmets and disappeared into the darkness of the sewer pipe.

It took me about 30 minutes to splice the wires that were shorted and clean out all the shit clogging the pump. When I finally managed to pull out the knotted hair I found clumps of bloody scalp came with it. During that time I kept looking toward the opening of the pipe, expecting Al and Jimmy to come back carrying a scared and crying kid. But they never did. I finished up with the pump, packed up all the tools, closed the tool box. Staring into the black O of the sewer pipe I drew a long, deep breath. The newly repaired pump began to whir softly behind me.

I drew the flashlight from my utility belt and entered the narrow sewer pipe.

My boss had been with the Water Dept. for ages, and he'd probably been down in those sewers a dozen times. Nell told me stories of people he'd worked with before that got lost down there and never came back. Just gone. "They belong to the sewers now." He'd say solemnly. "You go down there, you'd do well to take after Hansel and leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back out, or you'll belong to ‘em, too."

I found their trail easy enough. Every fifty yards or so I'd find a burning fusee producing red light, and a large orange X spraypainted at every fork to indicate which tunnel they'd taken. It was dead silent down there. I heard not the sound of scurrying rats or trickling water, but the air was electric like the atmosphere right before a big storm. They'd gone deep - much deeper than I was comfortable with. At one point I came to three pipes, each spewing clean water, greywater, and sewage. And don't you know there was a big orange X above the shitpipe. I couldn't see what made them take this winding course, it seemed too specific for a search.

I sat the toolbox down, rolled up my pant legs, held my breath, and squeezed into the pipe. It sloped down deep. Real deep. As I descended I couldn't help but wonder just how far under the city I was, and who the hell would run pipe this deep. But as I got farther I could hear them talking excitedly. I came out of the tunnel, it wasn't as much a pipe anymore as it was an underpass, and couldn't believe what I saw. It was some grand underground cathedral, bigger than a ballroom. A hundred yards away I could see Nell and Gordon hovering around something.

"What the hell is this place?" I shouted.

"Carlton! Come check this shit out. Ain't never seen nothing like it." Gordon hollered back. Al's face was pale and scared.

It was a door. A small oak door, maybe three feet high, big enough for a child or a dwarf. There was a big iron X across it, and a strange symbol that looked like a devil. A greenish-yellow light glowed brightly under the door. They'd found the door to Hell itself.

"Damn thing's locked." Gordon muttered as he shook the handle. "Whaddaya thinks in there?"

"I'm not sure we want to know." Al replied softly. He pointed to a pile of small bones at the foot of the door. If there was any doubt as to their nature, the tiny human skull that rested on top of the pile settled it.

"How'd you guys find this place?" I asked. This wasn’t something Waterworks put in. This was something else entirely. Some kind of lair. The atmosphere down there was charged and intense, and I swear I could feel the presence of evil itself.

"We heard a little girl crying once we made it in a little way. We kept calling out to her, trying to catch up to her, but she just kept saying 'help me' and running deeper into the damn sewer. Strange thing is, we followed her cries all the way here and now she's nowhere to be found."

"Where's the toolbox Carlton? I wanna see if I can jimmy the-" Gordon suddenly uttered a shrill scream that echoed off the stony walls of the chamber.

I followed his gaze up the wall. Descending the domed stone wall toward us was an enormous scorpion at least eight feet in length. Its hollow exoskeleton glowed a translucent silvery-blue in the shadows. The inner claws of its mouth twitched and clamped with excitement. Al began running backwards, but Jimmy stood there petrified.

"Run Gordon!" I yelled. Bemused, he turned and looked at me and then back to the hideous creature that had just climbed down the wall.

Jimmy made as if to hit it with his flashlight, but a giant glowing pincer caught him at the forearm and snipped his arm clean off in one motion. A jet of bright blood sprayed onto the tiny glowing door. Jimmy shrieked in horrified agony, and then the scorpion's tail pistoned forward and its orange stinger pierced through his chest with a wet thud.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but we fled. Turned and ran like cowards, and left Gordon there to die. I'm not sure what two men could have done against a scorpion as big as a pickup truck, but I'm still ashamed nonetheless.

We scuttled back up the way we'd came and found orange Xs sprayed at all four intersections of the fork, like someone was trying to throw us off track.

"What the hell, Carlton?" Al wailed.

"I didn't do this. It wasn't like that earlier."

"C'mon, we came in right so we'll go back left." He pointed to the far left pipe.

"We came out of one of those middle pipes. We came out right, but not all the way."

"Damnit boy, I know where I'm going. Now come on!" He grabbed my arm fiercely, but I pulled back.

"Al, I swear to you we came through one of the two in the middle. Look, there’s the toolbox." I pointed to our heavy-duty box sitting in front of two of the middle pipes.

"Suit yourself but I'm getting the hell out of here." He turned and went down the pipe on our far left. I watched him go, staring from him to the semicircle of orange Xs to the toolbox, and then picked one of the middle pipes. That was the last time I ever saw Al Nell.

Maybe Al was right, but still to this day I don't think so. Regardless, I wandered around in that damp, dark and smelly labyrinth and never saw another orange X. Some intersections I came to looked familiar, and I kept going the best I could remember, and when I couldn't remember I went with what felt right.

I'm not sure just how long I was down there but I suspect it was two or three days. Lost in that dark, wet warren I thought I would starve to death, never to see daylight again. At one point, I came to a big pile of our dead fusees, like someone had gone and gathered them all up and heaped them together. By then I was tired and scared and thirsty. I sat down right there with my flashlight and slept for a while in the muck.

I awoke to the sound of Al shrieking somewhere in the distance. His screams seemed to float down there in the dark, echoing from every surrounding pipe. The blood-curdling sounds came in bursts and lasted for several minutes before they finally stopped. I'll never forget hiding there in the dark listening to those shrill screams of agony. Not until the day I die.

I sat there fixed to the damp and filthy ground, clutching my flashlight as a rat scurried past me. I don't know how long passed, minutes or hours, before then I heard something slinking down the sewer pipe towards me.

Plop. Squish.

Plop.

"Carl-ton," I heard Al croak from the darkness. But what came out of that pipe wasn't Al. It was a little girl with matted orange hair, a faded grey dress speckled with spots of dark green mold, and a missing shoe. The top part of her scalp was missing.

"Are you okay little girl?" I asked and got to my feet uneasily.

"I told them there were no monsters in the sewer, Mister. They bet me two bucks I wouldn't touch the bottom of the well."

There was something off about her calm demeanor in this setting. She smiled and extended a tiny pale hand toward me. I went toward her to take it, but stopped when she whispered:

"I won the bet... but I guess monsters are real after all."

That was when I realized, even with my headlight blaring on her, she cast no shadow. Her eyes became cloudy and white, and there was only purple gore where her throat had once been. She started laughing madly but it wasn't the sound of a little girl's laugh. It was deep and booming - the sound of a demon.

"No!" I shouted and threw my flashlight at her head. I turned and ran as fast as I could, twisting and winding down pipes blindly, ducking or crawling in some places. Eventually I saw light up ahead. I went toward it with the desperation of a prisoner with freedom in sight. It was a pumping station. I crawled out of the grimy pipe and gripped the steel ladder that led to my freedom. I risked one last glance back into the dark sewer and saw a pair of enormous yellow cat eyes staring back at me and then I got the fuck out of there.

I packed my shit up that day and headed as far south as I could afford to go. I didn't stop until I was out of money and then kept going. I only ever had one cop question me about what happened once I set up residence in Louisiana, and they didn't sound very interested. A couple of quick questions and then he abruptly wished me a good day. I don't know if they ever found Al but something tells me not. He belongs to the sewers now.

I had night terrors for years. I drank a fifth of whisky every night just to get to sleep. Even then I couldn't sleep unless every light in the room was lit, and I refused to go anywhere remotely dark or cramped. Nyctophobia and claustrophobia the doctors called it. I found odd jobs in manual labor here and there doing electrical patchwork or building fences or painting. But never plumbing. Then one day, the nightmares just stopped completely like someone had flipped a switch.

I'm still not sure what was down there. Maybe it was some kind of Pandora's Box, full of horrors, or maybe we found the door to Hell itself burried down there beneath the city. My heart tells me it's the latter.

Last night I dreamt I was back in those dreadful sewers. I came into that hellish mausoleum and saw Gordon’s skeleton surrounded by the tattered green rags of his uniform. And then Hell's door swung open. I awoke screaming so violently my throat hurt and found I pissed the bed.

As far as I can remember, I haven't had a nightmare about what I saw that day in over 30 years... and now they've come back.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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