#the wildfire smoke is making everything in the sky all red and yellow so the moon is really orangeish

[5499h]

What's the point of owning a cloak if u don't take walks at 1 am when it's super windy 2 stare at the moon n feel the wind make ur cloak and all the trees go whoosh whoosh

[caffeineivore]

For @apsaraqueen

This was written as cheerupemofic for BAMF a few weeks-ish ago, I think? Never got around to posting it but here it goes. Somewhat experimental R/J. Some angst but... it’s, uh, for BAMF? So. Yeah.

***

“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” - Pablo Neruda

I.

The Moon is beautiful and stately, all marble palaces and graceful domes, but leached of colour in an eerie wash of silvery white. Jikokuten takes a knee in the throne room and looks askance at the royals, for even they blend into this ghostly dream-world with their pearlescent gowns and platinum locks. The weather and grounds are flawless, not a single leaf or stone out of place. It’s almost too perfect-- ominously so-- and to one whose kingdom only dons white for mourning, it’s jarring. 

And then he sees the High Queen’s court file in, the warrior princesses of legend, flanking the throne two by two, and there she is, a spot of scarlet in the sea of white. Ebony hair and auspicious red skirts, eyes like the twilight sky before it turns full dark. He blinks, and his heart stutters. 

II.

The sheep are languishing in the heat, and getting leaner by the day with nothing but dry brush to eat, and Jochi coaxes some of his own water onto the littlest and weakest of the lambs. It’s foolish, and more than likely the little animal would die anyway, too malnourished to survive the drought which had blighted the steppes this summer. His father had always railed at him for being too soft-hearted, too foolish and un-Mongolian, but a part of Jochi always had perhaps too much sympathy for the foundlings and the weaker ones. There is a nebulous memory, perhaps not his own, of standing up for a boy with eyes like the open sky and a shock of black hair from-- what? He doesn’t quite know.

He hears the sound of hoofbeats-- it is a grand procession, the entourage of one of the Khans, and that is both blessing and curse, for they would surely bring much-needed supplies and victuals if returning from a successful raid, but just as surely would bring death and doom against any interlopers or opposing factions. Jochi’s yellow hair would stand out like a beacon, and so he pulls up his hood despite the summer heat and draws back into the shadows to watch the group. The warriors are fearsome indeed astride their ponies, bows and sabers at the ready. There is an iron-haired Chieftain at the forefront, proud and indomitable with eyes as fierce as a falcon’s. And then right behind him, dwarfed by the stalwarts flanking her, must be the clan’s princess, wearing a fine red dress and ornaments of silver and amber around her neck and atop her raven hair. She’s beautiful, with eyes as fearless as her Sire’s, but more so, something about her face strikes such a pang in Jochi that he forgets himself, and steps forward, right into the path of the procession. He’s knocked senseless not a moment later under the marauding hooves, but he only has eyes for the desert-mirage loveliness of the princess’ face.

III.

Jun doesn’t meet Ru-Yi until the wedding. She’s brought over to his familial estate in a lavish palanquin, amidst loud, raucous music and the rapid pops of firecrackers, and escorted to the altar by the servants to kneel next to his older brother Kai. As the heir apparent, it is imperative that Kai make a good marriage to a wife who would not shame him and brings all the right assets to the match, and Ru-Yi’s father is a very wealthy, powerful man. The newlyweds courtesy to their parents and each other, and then someone lifts the bride’s red veil away from her face, and Jun almost drops his goblet of wine. It is a stunningly elegant face, all cherry lips and willowy brows, but what’s more, though he’s certain he has never met her before, it’s somehow familiar. She, too, seems to feel it, because her eyes linger on his for a moment too long, a thin line of confusion drawing between those brows, before she turns away with a bland smile for the procession of well-wishers. 

Despite the many presents of dates and lotus seeds on the wedding day, and, months and years later, the foul-smelling tonics and powders, she never bears Kai any sons, and Jun watches, heart heavy, as Kai takes on one concubine after another, carouses in the brothels night after night, as the lines between Ru-Yi’s brows grow deeper and deeper with cheated joy and thwarted wishes. He doesn’t care if she doesn’t bear any sons, but she’s not his concern-- will never be his concern. There are flowers left on her doorstep in the mornings, still wet with dew and with neither name nor note. It’s poor consolation for both of them, but she’s not his to love.

IV.

The air is arid and far too hot, almost tinged the same turmeric-yellow as the hot sun blazing down overhead. Captain Geoffrey Lindhurst with Her Majesty’s navy had been in India for all of four months, and is still getting accustomed to the local climate, so different from the ever-present London fog. The local food, too, is a far departure from the starchy Sunday roasts and meat pies and puddings of his boyhood, with its exotic spices and bountiful portions. The servants at his bungalow are politely quiet and do their tasks without complaint, but he has the sense that there is far more to their lives and customs than the scant glimpses that he sees now and then.

He’s out taking a walk on a balmy evening, and passes by one of the temples. He knows nothing of the religious beliefs of the locals, with their somewhat-fearsome-looking, animalistic gods with their fiery eyes and six hands and elephant heads, but many of the locals seem quite devout in their faith, praying several times a day and eschewing certain foods in their diets. Even at this late hour, the temple is open for worshippers, its air smoky with incense, and he sees a young woman emerge, clad in the flowing, traditional garments with a gauzy scarf over her dark hair. His gaze meets hers for only a split-second-- light blue to orchid-- but it jolts his system harder than a glass of raw gin. He has no idea who she is, and moreover, everything in his training and upbringing tells him that he has no business dallying with any of the locals. Geoffrey opens his mouth to speak, against everything that he’s known all his life, but she vanishes down one of the narrow paths and disappears into the night before he can say anything, or be quite sure that she wasn’t just an illusion, a trick of the light. 

He visits the temple enough in his years stationed here that he gets to learn the local traditions and customs, and indeed become quite familiar with their rituals. But he never sees her again.

V. 

The dame walks into his dilapidated hole-in-the-wall of an office on stiletto heels the red of fresh blood. Jack knows trouble when he sees it, and she’s all but radiating it like smoke surrounding a wildfire. “Help you, ma’am?” He keeps his voice brusque and businesslike even as she shrugs off a lustrous black mink stole to reveal crimson silk and fiery diamonds, curves in all the right places. “What brings you to this side of town?”

“I need a private investigator, and they say you’re the best. My driver’s outside, and he’s bigger and meaner than you,” she adds in a snide tone to match the diamond earrings. “My name is Rowena Warrington. Henry Warrington’s daughter.”

The Governor’s daughter has as much business in the seedy part of downtown as he would rubbing shoulders with millionaires in a fancy ballroom. “Don’t you have security, or lawyers, or whatever, to deal with whatever you’re dealing with, Ms. Warrington? This is a bad neighbourhood.”

“And no one’s been able to figure out the truth behind my mother’s death, so here I am.” Presumptuously, she makes herself at home, sitting down in a battered folding metal chair like it’s a throne as she lights a cigarette. “Price is no object, of course.”

“No.”

He won’t be swayed, because this is exactly the type of trouble that he doesn’t want, even though she turns on the wheedle, and later, the tears. He lets her leave in high dudgeon, and shuts the door behind her, and tells himself that his instinct-- one that tells him in no uncertain terms that he’d narrowly escaped a terrible fate-- was spot-on. And he busies himself with the usual mundane work which flows in every day like water through a leaky pot-- fraud cases. Stolen heirlooms. Prisoners on the lam. Cheating spouses.

He reads about the huge, tragic scandal some months later in the paper-- the cover-ups, the blood money, the extortion, the beautiful young woman whose life is tragically cut short because she’d had the audacity to poke her flawless nose where it definitely didn’t belong and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and is shocked at the grief which hits him. He owed her nothing, he tells himself as he broods into his second whiskey. She said herself that her driver was bigger and meaner than him. She should’ve been safe. Should’ve been careful. 

Should’ve been protected, with one’s very life. 

He throws the newspaper into the fire and watches it curl up into ash as he pours himself another one.

VI.

The busful of unconscious mortals is just where he wants them, of course, and Jadeite goes about the business of collecting their energy, siphoning it for Queen Metallia’s use. It’s rote and routine, but then a flash of scarlet catches his eye, and it’s the miko from the temple at the last bus-stop. Black and white and red all over, and he pauses, kneels down to move a strand of her lustrous black hair out of her face. 

“So beautiful. Ever since I’ve seen this girl, there’s something about her…” Something haunting, like a hint of incense smoke that clings to the air or a raven’s feather, black against white pavement, a memory that is-and-isn’t his. With a gentleness that he’s not had cause to employ in a very long time, he carefully shifts her into a more comfortable position, one more like natural sleep than the unconsciousness of a sinister spell, and lingers, unable to tear his eyes away from her exquisite, weirdly familiar face, until the all-too-unfortunate shouts of angry feminine voices tells him that he is not alone, and the Sailor senshi have arrived.

The miko opens her eyes and everything snaps into place a split-second before she transforms and a rage of fire heads for him, and he has but a moment to mouth the word ‘Sorry’, unheard and unacknowledged, before the flame hits in a wall of agony and heat. It’s no more or less than he deserves.

VII

The world is lustrous, glistening crystal, but unlike the Silver Millennium and the Moon Kingdom, the diamond brilliance of the towers bring colours into sharp relief, turning white sunlight into countless prismatic rainbows and reflecting the pale blue of the sky as rich sapphire. Jadeite takes a knee with his compatriots in the throne room and bows his head before the royals-- his King and Queen, united at last. Countless lives had been lived to lead to this-- an entry to a paradise hard-earned. 

There she is, still, raven hair and red skirts, and after, when everyone has broken off into their groups, he seeks her out. He has no reason to expect a positive reception, but the words are long overdue, and she has a right to them. 

“Lady Mars.” He makes an elaborate leg, as one might have done in a decadent court in the era of gilt and Rococo. She raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t storm away or glare, and that’s something.

“No need to stand on ceremony, Lord Jadeite. We’ve met before. More than once, I daresay.”

“And I’ve loved you every time.” The words are baldly spoken and perhaps too blunt, in poor form, but they’ve been buried for far too many years and lifetimes already. She halts, and he notices that her breath isn’t quite steady, and that gives him the courage to remain where he is instead of making a hasty escape.

Finally, a queer sort of half-smile crosses her face as she tilts it back up to his. “You’ve been terrible about showing it up to now, haven’t you?”

“Up to now,” he agrees. “It doesn’t have to remain so. Unless you wish it.”

“Hmm.” She glances away, but stays standing where she is, within reach. “I suppose we’ll have to see.”

[jaimesam]

Sawtooth

We woke up on the morning of our fourth day in the Sawtooth wilderness feeling spry. It can take a day, or two, or three before the rhythm of backpacking— wake up, wolf down some instant oatmeal, slurp up some instant coffee, shoulder a 35 pound pack and start the day’s climb—begins to feel right. This was our morning.

A miracle: the skies had truly cleared of wildfire smoke for the first time since setting off from Grandjean. Good timing, too: our day ahead would be perhaps the best of the trip — up and over Cramer Pass, beneath “The Temple,” down past the Cramer Lakes and up again to Alpine Lake, reputedly a gem. We hit the trail with bounce in our step.

Three, four, five miles into our hike we were still having fun, even as we began to wonder — was it possible that Hidden Lake was, in fact, so hidden that we wouldn’t see it from the trail? When would we hit the killer climb up to Cramer Pass? Slogging through overgrown brush and clambering over deadfall — all of which felt oddly familiar — we encountered a group of five friendly outdoorsmen from Seattle.

“Morning.”

“Afternoon.”

“Am I right that we’ve got a climb ahead?”

“Oh no, it’s all downhill from here.”

“Hmm.”

“Where are you trying to get to?”

“Well we were aiming for Cramer Lakes…”

“Oh you’re a long way from there. This trail goes down to Grandjean.”

“Oh my god.”

Jaime caught up.

“We took a wrong turn.”

“I thought so.”

“It’s a bad one.”

“How bad?”

“The good news is that we’ve been making great time. Covered a lot of miles.”

“And?”

“That lake was Elk Lake. This is the trail we hiked in on our first day.”

“How…”

“Five miles ago. Missed a turn.”

“God damn it.”

“Actually more like five and a half.”

Oh yes, there were signs. Including literal signs made of actual wood. Two of which we somehow blew blindly past, and a third: seen but egregiously misinterpreted. Also the creek we had crossed thrice, which, had we been paying close attention, we might have noticed was flowing in the wrong direction. Or beautiful Smith Falls, which we had passed two days before. Or the 2.4 miles of the South Fork of the Payette Trail we had hiked on day one — the most grueling and unattractive stretch of trail we had yet encountered — you would think we might have realized something was amiss. And yet.

“We could just hike out.”

“It would be eleven more miles.”

“So we backtrack.”

“Five and a half. Uphill.”

“We’re spending an extra night out here, aren’t we?”

“I think so.”

“Do we have extra food?”

“We have enough food.”

“I hate this.”

So we backtracked. An eleven mile detour, all told, with 1500 feet of elevation lost and then gained agin, for no reason, on unremarkable, overgrown, valley trails with views of nothing but dense forest, overgrown with scrubby mountain brush. The last few miles, a steady and grueling climb, brought us back to where we had missed our first sign, six hours before. We collapsed at the intersection, refilled our bottles, and snacked on salami — the promise of which was all that had gotten us up the hill. Mosquitoes and black flies swarmed, and the sky, which had begun the day clear, turned a pinkish gray as wildfire smoke began to dim the sun again.

“Why do we do this?”

“Good question.”

Onward to Hidden Lake, not so hidden after all. After dragging ourselves over 14 miles — 3 miles of forward progress from our last camp — we collapsed on a grassy shoreline, and rinsed our scratched and bruised bodies in the glassy frigid water. The lake sat beneath two pointed cliffs, side by side — one of red stone, the other gray— and the sun set early in the narrow valley. Trout jumped, snatching flies from the water’s surface, and pair of mergansers jetted around the lake, snatching the fish in turn. Exhausted, we fell asleep listening to hermit thrushes whistling their fluting ethereal song over the quiet rush of cascades tumbling down the cliffs, filling the lake.

We woke up, wolfed down some instant oatmeal, slurped up some instant coffee, and began the day’s climb. Up and over Cramer Pass, beneath “The Temple,” a tower of red sandstone capped with a knobby monolith that might well have been the icon of some desert religion. We descended again to the three Cramer Lakes, each one cascading to the next, down further to cross a rushing stream of snowmelt and spring water. We dipped our hats and bandannas in the almost-freezing water to drip down our necks and backs in the hot afternoon. Then we’re climbing again, this time twice as high, twice as far, to Alpine Lake, a pristine tarn carved into the side of the slope, a fine place for a salami break. Then higher, sweating our way up to the day’s second pass. We looked down on the Baron Lakes, where we would camp for the night, and across the lakes to Warbonnet Peak and Monte Verita, grey and purple in the late afternoon shadows.

“This is why we do this.”

“Yeah.”

One reason, anyway. The most obvious reason. If you did a survey of the people who somehow ended up at the top of the pass above Baron Lakes, this would be the number one reason cited for braving the insects and the varmints, dealing with the aches and the rashes, and slogging up a mountain with a heavy pack: the views, the vistas, the landscapes, the panoramas. The drama of the mountains. It’s like cooking your own meal — it tastes better when you’ve worked for it, earned it, done it yourself. The view from the pass is more beautiful for the sweat and exertion dragging your body and your pack up the climb.

We got more the following day as we descended from the Baron Lakes, our final day on the trail. An oceanic valley opened up beneath us, ringed by steep cliffs and rockslides of red and grey and purple, Baron Creek turning into a 30 foot waterfall. You can’t find this outside the mountains, this sense of three-dimensional space. Of looking down a valley two miles wide as it falls away from your feet, three thousand feet down. Like standing in the greatest of civilization’s cathedrals, but one with enough open space to park a carrier group, with more room for a fleet of attack submarines below.

After five nights and six days, we have become the land. Smeared with the dust of an arid country, we blend in with the rock and dirt. And despite our daily dips in the alpine lakes of the Sawtooth, we smell like it too. That first shower will feel great. The first meal — Jaime’s been fantasizing about a tuna melt and French fries, Sam has been inexplicably craving pancakes — even better. This is also why we backpack. It feels awfully good to have done it.

More than just the relief and indulgence of returning to civilization, a week in the mountains offers a welcome reset on city life. I am a city person. I like living in a density of people, living within a stroll of most everything I need, nearby neighbors and friends. But I crave the balance offered by nature, by a week in the woods, a month in the mountains. We’ll return feeling refreshed, glad to be back, awed by the commonplace luxuries of modern urban living: a world’s worth of cuisines, at my doorstep in 20 minutes; humanity’s complete works of recorded music, in my pocket. We’ll be very glad to have done it, for all its ups and downs. And, more immediately, we’re glad to be done.

“I’m sore.”

“Me too.”

“My blister just popped.”

“Ew.”

“I feel great.”

“Me too.”

Leaning on the car, we ease off our boots. The horseflies are back at this lower elevation, and their buzzing takes us back to last week when we tightened our laces and adjusted the straps on our pack in preparation for starting our trip. We had arrived at Grandjean just a few hours behind the first wave of wildfire smoke. Hiking in July, we thought we’d beat the wildfires to the punch; no such luck. So we started our hike in a haze - literal and figurative - wondering if we’d be walking up mountains for 54 miles with the reward of smoggy vistas waiting at the passes and peaks.

The first day’s hike didn’t lift that haze. The trail was overgrown, not often used, with deadfall lying across our path requiring us to clamber over dead trunks or bushwhack through brush to get around. Horseflies dogged us, buzzing and biting. As we climbed, sweating, copses of trembling aspen yielded to a forest of ponderosa pine, white spruce, douglas fir, and horseflies yielded to mosquitoes. Six miles up the trail, we encountered two fellow hikers, who informed us that the first good campsite was another eight miles ahead, and that they were churning out 20 miles in a day to get out of this godforsaken wilderness pronto. Terrific.

Fortunately, they were wrong, and we soon found a very fine place to pitch a tent next to a small waterfall. The Payette River’s headwaters split and cascaded down on either side of a great red rock, and every few seconds, the waters surged and a shower of snowmelt would surge over the rock itself, spraying into the air.

A western tanager — electric yellow body, reddish head, and jet black wings — flitted through the campsite. So did chipmunks, rushing around frantically to spread the good news that a pair of slovenly campers had finally arrived, and the summer’s harvest was here at last.

“Look at the cheeks on that little guy.”

“He’s just dying to fill them up with our trail mix.”

Joke’s on us. His cheeks were already full. We turn around, and our bag of trail mix has been chewed open, our week’s supply of almonds, cashews, chocolate, and cranberries pawed through and looted.

“Oh no!”

“Tou thieving little bastard! You bandit! Son of a bitch!”

He was long gone, and presumably the life of the party in whatever chipmunk den he had retreated to. Not wanting to contract whatever rodent virus the chipmunks might have left on our nuts — and not wanting to reward their banditry — I fed our entire supply of trail mix to the fish, swearing profusely as each morsel washed downstream. We have enough food without it, I think.

Our second morning, we awoke to what appeared as a fine morning mist; the pines in the middle distance enveloped in a grey cloud; the ridgeline hazy. But central Idaho is a dry country, this time of year. There is no mist. The wildfire smoke has thickened, and an image of peace transforms to a vague and grim picture of threat and foreboding. We shoulder our packs and resume the climb; eleven more miles on the trail, plus half a mile vertically.

As we walk we get our first glimpses of sawtooth silhouette. Steep rocky cliffs capped with jagged ridgelines, hazy and dark in the smoke against the grey sky. We cross a cold stream, boots off, sandals on, almost knee deep in the rushing icy water. We stop to rest — our first salami break of the trip! — beside Smith Falls, a roaring cascade.

“Do you have the hand sanitizer?”

“I thought you had it.”

“Nope.”

“Where’s the soap?”

“Packed with the hand sanitizer.”

“We’re disgusting.”

The day has gotten hot, and our final mile is a savage climb, switchbacking up the rough talus slope of Mt. Everly. Closing in on 9000’ feet of elevation, we stop to catch our breath every few steps and soak in the panorama behind us: smoky and grey, but astounding nonetheless, with miles of views into wilderness valleys ringed by sawtooth ridges.

Finally, we climb high enough that a lake reveals itself as a sliver of blue, and then it’s at our feet. Everly Lake is a sapphire droplet, water clear to the bottom, the gently rippling surface sparkling azure in the late afternoon sun. It sits beneath the east face of Mt. Everly, a scree cliff dropping a thousand feet to the water’s edge, across from where we set up camp. We haven’t seen another soul all day, and we have this lake very much to ourselves.

Why do we do this? An interesting question because, in case it’s not obvious, backpacking trips involve a considerable quantity of suffering. We do it for the satisfaction and rejuvenation of completing a trip, certainly. And obviously the views — even when they’re gray and hazy. But this — this is really why we hump heavy packs up rocky cliffs, put up with clouds of insects and wildfire smoke, endure blisters and aches and altitude sickness. There is freedom in solitude (dual solitude, in our case), and real solitude is a hard thing to come by. Hot and sweaty and ragged from the climb, I splash into the glass-clear snowmelt of Everly Lake, naked as a wild animal.

When telling people about our big trip west, our route through Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, the most frequent first response was “ah, you’re doing the parks.” Meaning the National Parks, those natural American wonders with scenic byways leading drivers to the parks’ iconic sights, visitors’ centers full of gifts and amenities and fun facts, and influencers dangling their immaculate bodies over sheer cliffs to rack up the likes. Not so. We are, in fact, avoiding the Parks at all costs, instead seeking solitude in forests and wilderness — the likes of the Sawtooth.

In March, we took a trip to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, hoping to hike and revel in some of the finest scenery you’ll find east of the Mississippi. The joke was very much on us. Day one, we spent two hours in the car, inching toward a trailhead, in a miles-long snake of cars and trucks and RVs. In July and August, Yellowstone National Park transmutes from the largest national park in the lower 48 into the biggest parking lot on the North American continent. People sleep in their cars on the road to Zion, in the hopes of snagging a shot at a sunrise selfie.

It’s been fifty years since Edward Abbey wrote Desert Solitaire, which I’ve been reading on the trail. The book is an account of his summers as a ranger in the park that would eventually become Arches. He lamented road-building in National Parks, and proposed banning cars altogether, a fine idea. Many of our Parks did alright for decades, even with their roads and scenic byways; today’s plauge, clogging those roads and viewpoints and even some of the trails, is known as Instagram. The secret is out about the natural beauty of the American west, and the hoards have flocked.

Of course, not everyone out here in nature is seeking solitude. That’s fine. Certainly, every person has a right to see and experience earth’s great wonders. But even for the casual nature tourist, I would posit that the Grand Canyon would be better enjoyed with enough room to swing one’s arms. What to do about it? Who knows. The French are de-marketing their national parks, advertising the flaws and shortcomings of the country’s great natural sites; another fine idea, maybe there are others. At any rate, Abbey is lucky to be dead; the sight of hoards of selfie-snappers crowding for the perfect pic at Mesa Arch would kill him over again.

For those who do seek something approaching solitude, it’s harder and harder to find. We’ve avoided the National Parks, but even many of the forest campgrounds are full beyond the brim. We’ve spent evenings driving around the backwoods, trying in vain to find a good place to camp that isn’t already clogged with RVs. And I’m not here to tell anyone how to enjoy nature, but I am here to tell you that the RV is a blight upon American wilderness. Pulling into a campground in a forgotten corner of the Black Hills, and listening to a fleet of generators run for hours is, shall we say, irritating. If your idea of exploring America’s natural beauty involves parking a bus that costs as much as Lamborghini in the woods and running a generator 16 hours a day to keep your A/C running and your TV on, why not save yourself the trouble — and do the rest of us a favor — and stay home?

As one friend likes to say, gazing up at a spectacular mountain view and taking a contented sigh: “We mean nothing.” In the city, it’s hard to see yourself outside the contemporary, the immediate, the urgent. Put yourself in nature, in the shadow of a great peak or at the bottom of a colossal canyon, and it becomes possible to see your ego and your consciousness in a more accurate perspective: transient, insignificant. There’s freedom in that. And peace.

The chipmunks of Everly Lake share the thieving attitude of their cousins down the mountain. As we sat absorbing the last of the orange sun’s rays, we heard a rustling behind us, and caught one in the act trying to seize our sesame crisps. Rather than chewing through the bag and filling his fat cheeks with whatever they could carry, this greedy fellow had his tiny arms wrapped around the entire ziploc bag, attempting to make off with the whole kit and kaboodle. Not today, chipmunk. We learned our lesson. Our food bag didn’t leave our sight the rest of the trip.

We awoke the next morning to the smell of a campfire burning outside our tent. Poking my head out into the grey predawn light — no campfire, just a thick cloud of wildfire smoke. The far shore was shrouded in haze, and our sparkling blue lake had turned dull; a grim sense of foreboding gripped us as we wolfed down our instant oatmeal, slurped up our instant coffee, and shouldered our packs to descend from Everly.

We hop from lake to lake through the southern Sawtooth, and, mercifully, the cloud of smoke thins as we go. Not a soul on the trail, as we dip our toes in lakes with wonderful names — Ingeborg, Spangle, Ardeth— and some quotidian names — Rock Slide, Vernon, Benedict. I regret leaving my binoculars in the car, we try to ID our avian companions anyway. Most will end up in our books as LBBs (little brown birds), curious peepers and cheepers. We do grow fond of the white-capped sparrow, which looks like it’s wearing a bike helmet and sings a song that sounds like the opening refrain of Baby Shark. Funny little fellow.

We arrive at Lake Edna, our camp for the night, and the skies have cleared. We are treated to sunset over a glassy indigo surface. We watch the sun fall behind the same mountain that it has set behind for hundreds, thousands of summer evenings previous. It’s harder and harder to find pristine nature like this, unaltered by humanity. If some other person had felt compelled to make the same hike, climb the same hill 500 or 5000 Julys ago, they would have seen the same thing, heard the same birds, enjoyed the shade of the same trees. There is magic in that.

We woke up on the morning of our fourth day in the Sawtooth wilderness feeling spry.

This essay borrows liberally and consciously in structure and style from Messrs. Edward Abbey & John McPhee.

[sciencespies]

Meet the Western Soil Scientists Using Dirt to Make Stunning Paints

https://sciencespies.com/nature/meet-the-western-soil-scientists-using-dirt-to-make-stunning-paints/

Meet the Western Soil Scientists Using Dirt to Make Stunning Paints

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | Jan. 26, 2021, 8 a.m.

In September, as wildfire raged in Medicine Bow National Forest, Karen Vaughn watched smoke billow in a choked-off Wyoming sky. The sun was reduced to a matte neon-pink disc behind the haze, and Vaughn worried about her research site in the burning mountains. One of her graduate students still had one more day of fieldwork to complete, and the roads would soon be closed, if they weren’t already. Vaughn’s family—her husband and two kids—were outside too, watching as a light gray layer of wind-blown ash settled onto the landscape. The ash and vivid colors sparked something in Vaughn, who continually sought new inspiration for the paint she makes. She began dashing around, scraping the sediment from every flat surface and encouraging her kids to help collect the fine powder. She decided to incorporate that ash into watercolor pigments with hues reflecting the fire, indelibly preserving the moment. The small batch of paints, distributed to friends and local artists, would be used to create depictions of the destructive forces that allowed their creation in the first place. “You’re breathing that air, even in your house, and you look outside and see that weird orange glow,” says Vaughn. “You couldn’t help but be a part of that.”

A soil scientist and a professor at the University of Wyoming, Vaughn sees a lot more soils than the average person, and certainly knows them more intimately. Over many years spent examining them, she has come to appreciate their natural beauty and immense variability. Two years ago, she began channeling that appreciation into a product she could share with the world, turning the soils she loved into watercolor pigments. Now, she and her collaborator, Yamina Pressler, a soil scientist at California Polytechnic University, use soils to make pigments and paintings, bridging the gap between science and art. By sharing both their creative processes and scientific knowledge on social media and connecting with artists, scientists and the public, they aim to make soil education entertaining.

Vaughn’s research is in pedology, which means she studies minute, subtle changes within a soil. Does the size of the grains change? Do the colors fade into each other or get cut off abruptly? What microorganisms are present at different levels in the soil? The very nature of her field, she says, is subjective. “It is an art form,” she says. “It takes a nuanced eye to really be able to see the changes within a soil.”

Her job requires her to hop in a deep hole, map out tiny changes few people notice and interpret the soil’s history. Her specialty is studying water in soils: How much is there? When is it present? How does it change the soil’s chemistry? What features does it leave behind? Her work helps us understand how soils form in unique environments, like wetlands in the otherwise arid Wyoming mountains, and how fragile soils like permafrost might respond to climate change.

To the uninitiated, the landscape of Wyoming might seem like a monotonous stretch of tan dirt. But that idea is exactly what Vauhgn is trying to change through her art. By explaining to artists and curious laypeople how the myriad hues in soils come to be and sharing them visually through both her own creative works and those by other artists, she hopes to give people the ability to see soil as more than “just dirt.”

Soils, paints and swatches from samples collected throughout Wyoming and Utah allow a glimpse at the belowground natural beauty of the western United States.

(Karen Vaughn)

“Sometimes art opens the door to people wanting to learn about science,” says Laura Guertin, a geology professor at Pennsylvania State—Brandywine. Guertin too has brought art into science, both for her classrooms and her communities, by crocheting temperature records and quilting climate change stories. “Using different perspectives to introduce a topic, like soil, can help people understand and connect with it a little more.”

Soil is often overlooked in basic geology classes, says Guertin, and understanding how it works and where it comes from is important. “Without soil, you don’t have the rest of Earth’s systems,” she says. “It’s such a fundamental material, it’s the basis of our food systems.” And society’s indifference to soil led to the Dust Bowl, one of the greatest environmental disasters in the history of the United States. “With my students, I talk about the Dust Bowl and how it was a loss of soil that triggered a chain reaction, impacting a broad cross-section of society,” says Guertin.

Vaughn began making pigments as a fun way to engage with her kids, now ages 7 and 9, and keep them away from screens. They come soil collecting with her, and occasionally help mix the pigments and paint. But the main reason she makes pigments now is to share her perspective on soils’ inherent beauty with the public. “I found all these amazing soil colors,” Vaughn says, “and I wanted to do something more with them. I wanted them to persist longer.”

She recognized that by making paints she could share science with people who lack her expert training. “Spending all that time as a pedologist looking at soil formation and thinking about how much the colors of the soil can tell us about the natural history of that area, I wanted to let people in, open their eyes a little bit,” she says.

Vaughn collects soils for pigments almost everywhere she goes, from dirt collected in a wetland study site high in the mountains to coal unearthed in her backyard. On a family road trip to Florida in a campervan, for instance, she grabbed a small bag of soil from every stop, with the intent of creating a palette that reflects that memory. One dull pandemic day, she and her kids took to their bikes on a scavenger hunt near her home for as many colors of the rainbow that they could find. It was a change of pace for Vaughn, who is normally more opportunistic than intentional in her soil collecting. She made a palette of red, brown, orange, white, yellow and purple to represent that effort. And, of course, she has the three-hue palette from the September wildfire, corners of which were still smoldering away when we spoke in November.

Because it was just a small batch, Vaughn distributed the ash-infused pigments to local artists and a few select clients to create works reflecting the wildfires. California artist Tina Pressler, Yamina’s mother, painted a patchwork American bison, the West’s once-ubiquitous megafauna, and Bethann Merkle, a Wyoming artist and science communicator, created a series of three abstract paintings of fire-wrought forest textures. The ash-infused pigments felt fluid and heavy, says Tina. “The addition of ash made it seem really tactile, in a way, and I loved it.”

Artist Tina Pressler used pigments made of ancient Wyoming soils and recent ash to paint this bison, which she says “represents a visual amalgamation of flora and fauna over time.”

(Tina Pressler)

“I’ve long had a fondness for rocks—my windowsills are piled up with them at home and at work—but [Vaughn’s] work and pigments have helped me expand that curiosity and appreciation to the soil,” says Merkle.

Before Vaughn began sharing her pigments with artists, she had to spend some time getting the day-long pigment-making process down. It took her a few tries: “My first pigments,” she says with a laugh, “were chunky and terrible. But I gave them away with a disclaimer.”

In the first step of her process, Vaughn removes the sandy portions of the soil, leaving only fine silts and clays mixed in water, which she then pours into a cookie sheet and bakes in the oven for a few hours. After all the water has evaporated, the soil appears cracked and desiccated, like a mudflat after a long summer drought. “Look, mom, it’s all wrinkly like you,” her daughter once helpfully said. Vaughn grinds the baked silt into a fine, homogenous powder. Then comes Vaughn’s most meditative step: mulling, or combining the soil with the watercolor medium— a mixture of water, gum arabic, honey and vegetable glycerin. Only then does she get a sense for what the final hue will be. “You might start with an amazing green soil that, all of a sudden, becomes this dull, greenish white. And that’s okay,” Vaughn says. “It’s always a color I’ve never made before, so I’m thrilled.”

After Vaughn bakes the pigment, cracks appear that reflect patterns seen throughout nature—such as in this ancient orange soil pigment collected in the Red Desert of Wyoming.

(Karen Vaughn)

The colors of the paint come straight from the soil’s geologic past: Bright reds and oranges mean the soils were exposed to the oxidizing effects of intense climates, long stretches of time or both. Dark browns and blacks represent rich organic matter, reflecting the cycle of life and death at the Earth’s surface. Brighter hues result from minerals with specific elements; the presence of copper lends minerals blue-green colors, sulfur creates vibrant yellows and manganese presents as faded purple. Stark whites could mean acid once trickled down through the soil from a pine copse, or that ash once settled over the landscape, like that which Vaughn collected in September.

“Everything has a story,” Guertin says. “What’s been here in the past? Where do these colors come from? Where do these materials come from that give us these colors? I love that [Vaughn is] taking the soil science and showing how you can break it down to materials, to these pigments that have cultural meaning and to painting, which people already have a familiarity with.”

Vaughn describes her soil collecting, her artistic process and the science of each soil on Instagram, where she answers questions about chemistry, location and geology. Sometimes artists send in questions about the science of pigment-making itself, but many are just interested in learning more about the natural world. Depending on how much detail people want, she’ll even send along some scientific papers in a private message. Because so many of her clients are interested in learning about the soils, Vaughn is planning to start including a “soil story” with each palette shipped out.

Vaughn’s connections with artists sometimes grow from the virtual world to working together in person. Diana Baumbach, a Wyoming artist who Vaughn collaborated with a few years ago, loved going into the field with the scientist to forage for natural materials, including soil. “I really hadn’t thought about soil or considered it as a material before,” Baumbach said. “Looking at soil profiles with [Vaughn] was totally new for me. We both pulled each other into our worlds, which I thought were quite different. In the end, it was surprising how many intersections there actually were between my work and her work.”

While Vaughn does paint with her pigments, she doesn’t typically share her work; she leaves that to the younger Pressler, for whom painting has become a public affair. Growing up with an artist mother, Pressler says, meant that art was always in the background. “But it wasn’t until I started painting soils that I began to embody being an artist as part of my identity.”

Created during a soil art live stream on Instagram, this piece by Yamina Pressler is painted on post-card paper as a reminder that the beauty of soils is meant to be shared far and wide.

(Yamina Pressler)

Pressler also connects with an interested audience through social media. She hosts live paint-along sessions in her ‘virtual soil art studio’ on Instagram, inviting participants of all backgrounds to create soil-focused art inspired by where they live. These two-hour public sessions are open to children and adults, scientists and laypeople.

Tatiana Prestininzi, who has a bachelor’s in agricultural science but never cared much for soil science, now brings her young niece and nephew to Pressler’s paint-along sessions. “It’s not only from the artistic side, but we’re also getting the educational side of things,” she says. “It’s not just the 15-to-30-somethings on Instagram, she’s got 7 and 5-year-olds learning about soil profiles… so now I can go hike around San Diego with my eight-year-old niece and have a conversation about the soils she sees. She’ll ask to paint it and send it to the ‘soil doctor.’”

Through Vaughn’s art outreach and Pressler’s educational outreach, the scientists aim to inspire in the public the feelings children have while digging in the dirt and wondering at the world around them. Vaughn’s process of finding soils for pigments has a sense of play that is really infectious, says Baumbach. And while Pressler does draw soils realistically, she’s more drawn to whimsical doodles that reflect her feelings towards soil, which she shares on her Instagram sessions, along with the science stories behind them.

Yamina Pressler’s painting “Mojave Dreaming 28” was inspired by the unexpected winter tones of the Mojave desert.

(Yamina Pressler)

Tapping into her artistic side has helped Vaughn re-imagine what college soil science classes can be. She has her students sketch frequently, and she occasionally has them paint with soils. Her collaboration with Baumbach led the pair to cross-pollinate art and science further, with Baumbach bringing her art students to Vaughn’s science labs to talk about color and Vaughn giving guest lectures in Baumbach’s art materials courses. “Really, basic things like observation and analysis are at the core of what we both do, and we’re communicating through materials and visual forms,” Baumbach says. “The students are just starting to think broadly about materials, so hearing Karen talk about soils as a raw material is really interesting for them.”

In addition to giving talks about soil science and life as a researcher at K-12 schools and museums, Pressler works directly with teachers, taking them into the field and lab so they can get firsthand experience with soils. “They can then go back to their students and talk about soils and ecology, and the process of science, from their perspective,” says Pressler. “It’s more meaningful to the students that way.”

Michelle Bartholomew, a middle- and high-school science teacher, jumped at the chance to head into the field with Pressler in Colorado and Alaska. They developed soil science classes together, did some drawing and studied soils. “That was the highlight of my time with her, working on those tundra soils,” Bartholomew says. “It’s doing science, you know? Even though we’re science teachers, we don’t get to do that. It rejuvenated me… and gave me new ways of teaching old concepts.”

Artist Bethann Merkle, who has worked with scientist Karen Vaughn for two years, used soil pigments created from a burned area to paint scenes of the charred landscape.

(Bethann Merkle)

Pressler and Vaughn also believe in the importance of being role models who break out of the compartmentalization so common in science today. “It’s about showing young people that there are lots of different ways to be a scientist,” Pressler says, “that you can be colorful and explore different parts of your curiosity and still be a scientist.”

“We used to be Renaissance people,” Vaughn says. “Now it’s, ‘You need to stay in your box so you can do well at that.’ I feel like we’ve almost made it okay to be artistic while also being a scientist.”

#Nature

[wlwoodnymph]

apocalypse diaries

a little account of living in oregon during the 2020 wildfires/COVID-19 pandemic. mostly under the read more :)

Monday, 9/7

This morning, the sky was blue. Hot, the sun harsh for September, but blue and clear. I went on a walk with my mom, threading through shaded forests, cresting the hilltop with a view of town, and passing by fields rimmed with sweet ripe blackberries on the bush. We saw lots of people -- a perfect late summer day in a perfect little town, where the grand brick buildings of campus and small downtown storefronts are ringed by rolling farmland, a smooth-flowing river, and forested hills that grow into sheltering mountains.

Of course, we walked six feet apart, and hid our noses and mouths behind masks whenever we passed others on the narrow trails. And almost everyone else did too, in a show of courtesy -- it felt perfectly normal. I am still occasionally taken aback when I shy away from others or try to trap my breath or hear an announcement beginning “To stop the spread of the virus...” while grocery shopping. But these things don’t surprise me as much as seeing a photograph of two people unmasked and nearly touching, or watching the neighbors have a birthday party, people and music spilling out of their kitchen and onto the balcony. The connection and celebration I had known my whole life, now completely foreign.

Despite it all, that morning felt perfectly normal. After discussing our birthdays, my classes, and my mom’s anxiety about going backpacking, I returned home and made vegetable soup, watched Prince of Tennis with my roommates, and practiced taking integrals. The afternoon passed quietly, doing calculus at the table, until I glimpsed a sliver of strange sky through the blinded window. I stepped onto the balcony and into another kind of apocalypse.

The most welcome thing about outside was the breeze, making the dry air just bearable after the hot day. The concrete was still warm under my feet, comforting. It seemed the wind had blown in smoke from some fire, far-away until now. The sun, setting and shrouded by the smoke, glowed red and foreboding. The rest of the air was tinted yellow, and if not for the sepia tones, it might have just looked foggy, everything smudged and faded. 

Notably, the smoke hadn’t stopped the games of beach volleyball in the park across the street. Quiet shouts and static-y pop music filled the air along with the wind, which rattled the trees’ dry leaves. Someone walked their dog by, pausing to take a picture of the sun. A car started and pulled out of our complex. A leaf scraped across the ground, and the smoke filled my nose.

I stood outside for longer than I needed to, somehow trapped by the warm concrete under my feet and soothing breeze on my arms. The smoke scent was light, and seemed innocuous until I thought about how far away the fires must be -- out in the Cascades, not the little hills that sheltered my town. The wind suddenly seemed a bit less friendly, carrying them closer. I thought about the emergency alert for high heat and winds earlier that day, and (among other things) the big signs along I-5 that discouraged travel during the pandemic, and slipped back inside.

Instead, I raised the blinds, to observe the progress of the red sun and the shrouding smoke and just-green trees buffeted by the wind. I did try to go outside again, to write, but the smoke was thicker, enough to make me cough. I thought about the virus, and watched bits of ash float past, and went back inside. It wasn’t worth the worry of giving myself a sore throat. 

So now I’m sitting in my kitchen, and watching it grow unnaturally dark as the clock passes 7:00. The sky is yellower, and the trees and volleyball players have faded, drifting into the thickening smoke. I looked up the air quality a bit ago -- unhealthy for people with sensitive lungs, which is better than I expected. It all feels very strange, but mundane. The volleyball continues even as the sky grows dark. Cottonwood seeds float by with the ash. And I am just watching from a quiet kitchen, with dishes that still need doing. I wonder how long the smoke might last -- I’d love to open my window tonight. 

This morning had felt so normal in comparison, even though the smoke is such a small thing in comparison to the shuttered schools and stores, the cancelled concerts, and the rules of six feet and masked faces. But still, I get up and do the dishes, move my laundry to the drier, and watch a movie with my sister (over Zoom, of course). I can hear the wind whistling outside, and the smoke scent begins to seep in even though all the windows are closed. I hope that I don’t wake up smelling smoke and that I can open my window soon. Wishful thinking, and I realize that I barely bother to wonder anymore when I might dare to touch someone I don’t already share air with.

Tuesday, 9/8

 I wake up a few times as night fades into morning, mostly from the growing light, but once from the shower starting on the other side of the wall -- my roommate has work at 8:30. My comforter is on the floor, my battery pack and earbuds are in the bed where I discarded them before going to sleep. I am almost too warm under just a sheet, but I curl back into it each time I wake. The whole sky is yellow-orange, as if the sunrise fills all the air, but it’s just smoke shrouding my surroundings. It is alien, this dusty neon sky, but I go back to sleep anyway.

When I get up, the downstairs is dark, one window covered and smoke filtering light out from the rest. It feels like evening, but I make an egg and toast and eat a beautiful nectarine, which reminds me of yesterday morning, a flawless piece of summer. It is hard to think of anything about this summer as flawless. I can see bits of ash flutter by the window, like snowflakes, and I long for last winter.

After breakfast, I water the balcony plants. The smoke scent is strong, sharper than yesterday, and the fires creep closer. There is ash layered in the pots, and on our table and chairs. My bare feet leave prints. I also mist the plants with water, to make the balcony air, dry from the wind, more bearable. Balcony life is ill-suited to most plants, and I wonder if they know where they are, if they know that the salvatory humidity on their leaves is man-made.

I finish as quickly as possible, and return inside, where the air is already too warm (the cool morning outside had been a relief), but clear and clean. I would like to drive to the stormy coast, to go swimming in the cold water of the nearby river, even to cool myself with a mist from the plants’ spray bottle, but I don’t. Instead, I wash my face and brush my teeth and get my calculus workbook and another cup of coffee. I open to the chapter on motion problems and watch a dog-walker drift by with the ash. There is no volleyball today, the air hazardous.

-

The first part of today passes like yesterday. I finish my calculus and eat yesterday’s soup for lunch. I call our internet provider to complain about our abysmal internet speeds. The call takes 30 minutes, and we get nowhere. She asks about the weather where I am, and I hold back a laugh. I glance out the window, as if to check that the smoke hasn’t up and left and say “Not too bad. We have some smoke blowing in from wildfires though.” I guess it’s not too bad -- I’m safe, at least.

Afterwards, I go up to my room to get something, and wince at the scent of smoke inside. My throat has started to catch, and my roommate’s eyes are watering. We decide to venture out to get sealing tape. It’s nice to do something, and for a moment, this feels like an adventure, a brave expedition into the unknown to protect us and ours. For one of the first times since March, I am present, letting the moment, the heavy smoke sink into my skin. I will remember, but who will I tell about these days? What will still be here, who might still be shocked by it when this is all over?

The feeling of adventure only lasts as long as the Home Depot parking lot, where the smoke chokes thick in my throat and the wind whips ash into our eyes. It is evening, and the sun must be sinking again, because the sky turns from dusty brown to red-orange, far too dark for a summer 6:00. It makes the grass a plastic shade of vibrant green and suddenly, I want nothing more than to be home, out of the smoke. The adventure is gone, and even when we return home, the sickly orange from the windows and bright ceiling light makes me feel melancholy, lonely and lost.

I’m not sure what to do with the feeling, but I know that I need to start taping our doors and windows. I go downstairs, where it is the worst, and as I run tape along the seams of the front door, I feel ash beneath my feet. The flames seem to lick at our walls, and for the first time, I wonder how far the winds will drive the fires. Where would we go, when the rest of the state is already fleeing to us? 

I think of March 11th, when my university announced they would go online for most of finals week and the first week of spring term. I remember how we watched other states, other colleges, shutter, and wondered when or if we might do that. I remember March 23rd, when the governor ordered us into our houses to stay, and how we planned grimly for a few weeks’ change. I wonder how long this will last.

Thankfully, we watch Prince of Tennis and read our dumb romance novel, and I forget for a bit -- it is nice to be stuck inside with these people, at least. As the evening winds down, we finish taping windows. We tell our other roommate, who is away, to come in through the garage when he gets home. It’s the only door we don’t tape, the double entrance acting like an airlock. I even carry the balcony plants inside, so we can seal it off. They are dry and ashy, but probably happier to be inside. Even coated in ash, the basil, sage, and tomato still smell like lovely and herby, and it makes me smile.

Wednesday-Friday, 9/9-9/11

    The next few days pass like this. We stay inside, and watch the shifts of the sky from orange to yellow to sepia, a strange fog settled over us. We monitor the smell of smoke in the house, how it changes from day-to-day and room-to-room. At least the smoke blocks the sun, and keeps it cool while we can’t open the windows.

    I am reading a Money Diary on Friday morning, and the author mentions how “shocking the images coming out of Portland are”. For a moment, I am amused -- Portland has some of the least smoke in Oregon right now. Then I realize she probably means the protests, or the detainment of protestors in unmarked federal vans.

    I thought it was a good thing, how little the smoke bothered me. I’m a natural resources major -- I know that forest fires are inevitable. Even though they are unusually bad right now, in part because of climate change, their existence does not alarm me. It is tragic that people are losing their homes, but that is almost inevitable, as long as we build in forests and let fuel grow thick and close to what we love.

    But even so, this has never happened before, and in some moments, it hits me. It is scary the fires have stretched so far, that they may continue to be this bad for many years, that we are so ill-equipped, that this happens as people go hungry and are evicted and die from this pandemic. As I typed the words “detainment of protestors in unmarked federal vans.” I wondered if I had become numb. I know this is bad, but it feels so distant, so unreal, so unavoidable. I am almost powerless, so what does it matter if I care? It’s easier to not feel anything, to fixate instead on the hundreds of tiny crises my mind makes of my body and life. I finish my coffee and do my math and try to ignore the pain throbbing in my elbow.

Saturday-Thursday, 9/12-9/17

    It was supposed to clear up on Friday. When it didn’t, Tuesday and even Wednesday looked better, the air quality “moderate”. However, it remains “unhealthy”, and I cancel my trips to The Arc and Goodwill, so I can at least meet my mom outside for her birthday. She is struggling with the smoke, but glad to get outside for a bit. Instead of the long hike we had planned, we sit six feet apart on a bench, and I feel like a monster for cringing away from her. The breeze on my skin, though, is a blessing, salvation after a week of the same stale, still air in our house. I want to open my window.

    There is rain coming, and wind, and maybe later this week the smoke will clear. We plan for my birthday, assuming that outside, the only safe place to meet our friends, will be safe itself. I imagine pulling all the tape off, and wonder if it will have to go back on. When will we feel safe enough to let the air in? Will I ever shake hands with a stranger again? Will I continue to recoil at the very thought of entering a store without a mask? It feels like being naked.

    The rain does come, in drizzles, on Thursday night. It comes with flashes of lightning and rolling purrs of thunder, soothing, while we make pretzels and fondue, and I feel joyous, unhindered for the first time in more than a week. When we finish our cooking, we go outside. It is still smoky, but muted, and the smell is mixed with the delightful scent of a long-needed rain. I grin and hop onto the curb as we walk to the park. We talk and I climb on the play structures (I dropped my bouldering class, even though I miss it fiercely) until the thunder roars too close, and we return inside. It feels like a gift, something I could pray for.

Friday, 9/18

    I’m listening to ASMR in bed (it’s after midnight, so technically Friday), and when I take my headphones off to go to sleep, I realize it is pouring. I briefly entertain the idea of going outside, but it doesn’t quite seem worth drying off after. Instead, I lay awake, listening to thunder and rain, and think about what could have been. I am still happy, finally given a good form of novelty.

    I wake up that morning and the sky is clear as can be. I grin. As soon as I eat breakfast, I grab my bike to go shopping -- the air quality is “moderate”. I take deep lungfuls, uncaring that the air is public. It smells so good, smoke-free and rain-filled. 

    The first rain of autumn always feels like a return home. I don’t like the dry grass and merciless heat, especially when I am stuck inside, watching. It feels so strange, to see the exact same yellow-brown leaves littering the ground, feel the same cool damp air on my skin, the same weak, soothing sun. So much has changed, but this is still the same. I think of my middle and high school soccer games, of watching my favorite YouTubers play Undertale with a cup of tea on stormy Saturday nights, of sitting next to my dad’s fireplace with our kittens, of doing homework while my mom’s partner watches football. The season reminds me of home, but I’m not sure that I feel comforted. 

    I know that I’ve changed, and so has the world. I desperately, desperately, want this place to still feel like home, and maybe it will tomorrow, maybe it will next fall. I also don’t want to think about next fall -- what will have happened by then? What will have happened in five years? I have my hopes, but they feel slim. I hope that I am home and safe, and that I can take a breath without fearing smoke or virus or tear gas. And I am lucky, in the grand scheme of things.

    At least I can breathe right now. I bike home from the Arc, and revel in cold rain dripping from my legs when I stop at Fred Meyer, where I get prints of my friends for our living room. At home, I pull off the tape and throw open the windows. Cold, fresh air rushes in, and it feels like life. The sound of pouring rain and thunder is refreshing, after so many days of static. Here, now, maybe not in five minutes, but now, I feel relieved, unweighted, even if just briefly. It will not be a long reprieve, but I am grateful nonetheless.

[sleepwalker-in-me]

Dark red blooms

Dany and Bran book parallels - part 13

1) Burning rose and magic rose.

Bran is trying to convince Maester Luwin of the resurgence of magic, but Luwin contests the claim by saying what may look like real magic is a trick, like pulling rose out of air. When Dany’s bloodrider calls the fiery ladder magic a trick, Quaithe says it is not a trick put real power increasing due to Dany becoming Mother of dragons. Earlier mage was able to do only simple tricks like creating a burning rose in the air. Bran also tries to point out to Luwin the events in the east like magic of mages that Dany encounters.  Luwin says that residual magic left in the world is weak like wisps of smoke and Dany witnesses wisps of smoke after the magic is performed.

When the fiery ladder stood forty feet high, the mage leapt forward and began to climb it, scrambling up hand over hand as quick as a monkey. Each rung he touched dissolved behind him, leaving no more than a wisp of silver smoke. When he reached the top, the ladder was gone and so was he. "A fine trick," announced Jhogo with admiration. "No trick," a woman said in the Common Tongue. Dany had not noticed Quaithe in the crowd, yet there she stood, eyes wet and shiny behind the implacable red lacquer mask. "What mean you, my lady?" "Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets." Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty. "And now?" "And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it." "Me?" She laughed. "How could that be?" The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany's wrist. "You are the Mother of Dragons, are you not?"( A Clash of Kings - Daenerys III)

"All those who study the higher mysteries try their own hand at spells, soon or late. I yielded to the temptation too, I must confess it. Well, I was a boy, and what boy does not secretly wish to find hidden powers in himself? I got no more for my efforts than a thousand boys before me, and a thousand since. Sad to say, magic does not work." "Sometimes it does," Bran protested. "I had that dream, and Rickon did too. And there are mages and warlocks in the east . . ." "There are men who call themselves mages and warlocks," Maester Luwin said. "I had a friend at the Citadel who could pull a rose out of your ear, but he was no more magical than I was. Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem . . . but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes. "Perhaps magic was once a mighty force in the world, but no longer. What little remains is no more than the wisp of smoke that lingers in the air after a great fire has burned out, and even that is fading. Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone. The dragons are no more, the giants are dead, the children of the forest forgotten with all their lore.( A Clash of Kings - Bran IV)

2) Flowers blooming in Dothraki sea and King’s Landing - dark red flowers & dark red blooms of dragon’s breath.

“The Dothraki sea,” Ser Jorah Mormont said as he reined to a halt beside her on the top of the ridge. Beneath them, the plain stretched out immense and empty, a vast flat expanse that reached to the distant horizon and beyond. It was a sea, Dany thought. Past here, there were no hills, no mountains, no trees nor cities nor roads, only the endless grasses, the tall blades rippling like waves when the winds blew. “It’s so green,” she said.“Here and now,” Ser Jorah agreed. “You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows. Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end." That thought gave Dany the shivers. "I don't want to talk about that now," she said. "It's so beautiful here, I don't want to think about everything dying." (A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III)

The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned's cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon’s breath surrounded the girls where they lay. "I dreamed of Bran,” Sansa had whispered to him. “I saw him smiling.” (A Game of Thrones - Eddard V)

3) Reluctant Bride and Bridegroom - dark red veil & dark red vein.

Dany’s wedding grab is white with dark red veil and Bran has to eat white paste with dark red veins to wed himself to the trees.

The wedding garb is fraught with meaning too. The bride is dressed in dark red veils above a tokar of white silk, fringed with baby pearls. The queen of the rabbits must not be wed without her floppy ears. "All those pearls will make me rattle when I walk." "The pearls symbolize fertility. The more pearls Your Worship wears, the more healthy children she will bear." "Why would I want a hundred children?" Dany turned to the Green Grace. "If we should wed by Westerosi rites …" "The gods of Ghis would deem it no true union." Galazza Galare's face was hidden behind a veil of green silk. Only her eyes showed, green and wise and sad. "In the eyes of the city you would be the noble Hizdahr's concubine, not his lawful wedded wife. Your children would be bastards. Your Worship must marry Hizdahr in the Temple of the Graces, with all the nobility of Meereen on hand to bear witness to your union." Get the heads of all the noble houses out of their pyramids on some pretext, Daario had said. The dragon's words are fire and blood. Dany pushed the thought aside. It was not worthy of her. "As you wish," she sighed. "I shall marry Hizdahr in the Temple of the Graces wrapped in a white tokar fringed with baby pearls. Is there anything else?" ( A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VI)

Inside was a white paste, thick and heavy, with dark red veins running through it. "You must eat of this," said Leaf. She handed Bran a wooden spoon.The boy looked at the bowl uncertainly. "What is it?"  "A paste of weirwood seeds." Something about the look of it made Bran feel ill. The red veins were only weirwood sap, he supposed, but in the torchlight they looked remarkably like blood. He dipped the spoon into the paste, then hesitated. "Will this make me a greenseer?" "Your blood makes you a greenseer," said Lord Brynden. "This will help awaken your gifts and wed you to the trees." Bran did want to be married to a tree … but who else would wed a broken boy like him? ( A Dance with Dragons - Bran III)

[ingloriousblasters]

Second Chances

Okay, so here it is, the beginning of the story I mentioned last week. A Merle x OC story set in an AU so no zombies. This is Chapter One and I really like backstories, so that is what this is. No Merle yet....Im sorry! But there is a shoutout further in the read! 

(I also made an image to go with the story when I couldn't concentrate, as you can see above lol!)

Alright, so here we go. Hope you like :)

*slowly backs away from computer*

Chapter One

The light blue Plymouth sat idling on the side of the little two lane road on an unusually cool, summer morning.

“We there yet Mama?” Anna asked.

Nora Buckley glanced at her daughter through the rearview mirror and took a deep breath. Memories of years gone by rushed through her body as she shifted her gaze back to the view in front of her. In a way, it felt like she had never left. Of course, that wasn’t true. The little bundle of blonde curls in the back of the car reminded her of that. Nora’s eyes roamed over the same faded wooden bridge that gave access down to the minuscule town of Redwater, Georgia. In the distance she could see the pristine, white chapel of Redwater’s only church against the pink and yellow tinted sky. This view, the one Nora had inked into her memory for nineteen years, the one she thought she had finally forgotten, was staring right back at her.

A light gust of wind moved through the half rolled down windows of the car. It was then that Nora realized she had been gripping the black leather steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were as white as paper.  If someone had told her 5 years ago she would be back in Redwater, she would have dumped a whole pitcher of sweet tea over them. She had vowed to herself to never come back after word got round of her “mistake.”

5 years earlier

Everything’s going to be fine, Nora thought to herself as she stared at the chocolate shake sitting in front of her at DeDe’s Diner. She was meeting Rodger there after he was done with his last exam at the University of Georgia. Nora adjusted her position as the red plastic booth cushion started sticking to the bottom of her legs. Her body had started to become clammy, even while drinking the cold beverage. Everything’s going to be fine, Rodger loves you, you love him. You’ll work it out somehow. It had been a couple weeks since mother nature had rung her doorbell. At first, Nora thought it was just nerves. She and Rodger had been fooling around since they graduated high school, but she had never missed her period before. It wasn’t until the unmistakable nausea, fatigue and bloating started showing up that she knew. She was pregnant. Pregnant, nineteen, not married, and living in the 2,000 population town of Redwater, where word spread like wildfire.

Nora heard the familiar chirping of the singing bird clock above the diner counter, letting her know it was now 9pm. Rodger was late. It was a good 2 hour drive from Redwater to Athens, but Nora knew if he wasn’t going to make it he would have phoned someone to let her know. The ice cream from the milkshake was starting to separate from the chocolate as she stirred the remaining portion of it in haste. The metal of the spoon clinking to the glass in a fast paced rhythm. The later it got, the more it occurred to Nora that she couldn’t, wouldn’t, go home until he showed up. Past the point of no return. If she didn’t tell Rodger tonight, she didn’t think she could do it again until a baby appeared nine months later. Surprise!

As time ticked on, Nora’s thoughts wandered to the future she hoped would come true. That she and Rodger would get married. They had always talked about it every now and then while out in the fields looking at the stars. Get married and start a family. Well, now it would be start a family and get married. Same future, but just different means of getting there. They could all move to the new city while Rodger did his studies to be a doctor. She would take care of the baby, maybe do some more painting on the side. She could try to sell them to the students on campus and help with the income. Nora focused her energy on this future, a decent future. She couldn’t bare to think about the imminent future of having to tell not only Rodger’s parents, but her own mother. At least she knew she could count on Rodger.

The crowd in the diner started to dwindle as the clock was nearing 9:30pm. Every now and then, Nora would glance up at those passing her booth. DeDe’s attracted all types from town. There were the older folks, eating their customary dessert after choir practice, a few teenagers Nora recognized from when she was in school, and a couple families of moms, dads and tired children, trying to stay awake as long as they could. Nora was smiling to herself as she watched the little boy across from her booth slowly nodding his head every now and then, while his father went to the counter to pay the bill.

Just then, the chime of the front door rang and Nora’s head snapped quickly to the door. A tall, slender guy with dark brown hair, parted to the left side and combed back in neat streaks entered. Nora felt her heart rate pick up again, it was Rodger. Rodger glanced over the diner through his thick, black rimmed glasses until he spotted her. Smirking, he walked over to the booth Nora was at and slid in the opposite side.

“Hey doll!” He quipped, while sliding the chocolate shake over to him. “Ya gonna finish this?”

“Uh..nn…No” Nora scratched out, she hadn’t realized how dry her throat had become since waiting in the diner all this time. Rodger eagerly dug into the rest of melted shake while Nora tried to think of something to talk about. Slowly ease the conversation towards what she knew she needed to bring up. She asked him about his exams, about the drive home, and what plans he had for the summer. Rodger’s replies were the typical ones she had come to expect. The drive home was alright, he hated once he left the city and had to maneuver the winding country roads to get back. His exams were decent, he prepared well for them, but thought he could have done better. And as for his summer plans, well, he planned on working all summer at the local doctor’s office just outside Redwater. The more experience he gained, the better he would be prepared for when the time came to do his residency. Rodger wanted to be a doctor more than anything, Nora always knew that. But sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder if it was truly Rodger’s dream, or one his parents subtly thrust upon him his whole life.

After a few minutes of silence, Rodger noticed Nora sitting and staring at her lap. “What’s wrong doll?”

Oh god. This is it. Do it Nora, just move your mouth and spit it out. Nora slowly lifted her eyes from her hands and looked Rodger square in the eye. She inhaled a deep breathe before she spoke. “I’ve���.I’ve got some news.”

“Good news or bad news?” Rodger asked, arching his brow.

“Uh, well, I don’t know.” Nora could feel her entire body tensing as the moment drew closer. She had no idea how Rodger was going to react and the more she realized that, the faster the future she dreamed about was slipping away.

“How can you not know? Come on, just tell me.” Rodger reached out his hand for Nora to take. She looked down at his open palm. Hesitantly, she moved hers from her lap and laid it down in his. “Rodger, I…..Rodger, I’m ppregnant.” Instantly, Nora felt all the tension she had built up within her body release. It finally felt good to let it out, it was not longer a secret she was keeping from him. Nora felt Rodger squeeze her hand, but it didn’t feel like a reassuring one. It was hard, tight and starting to become uncomfortable.

“What?” Was all he said. Nora repeated the statement. “Are you sure? Have you gone to the doctor, done tests?” His voice was starting to elevate the more he started speaking. Nora tried to get him to lower his voice, but nothing she did would work. She glanced around and noticed those left in the diner starting to eavesdrop on their conversation. Assholes. If she had known the diner would be as quiet as it was tonight, she would have asked Rodger to meet her somewhere else.

“I mean are you really sure? The doctor can do better tests. Test your urine and stuff.”

“I don’t need a freaking rabbit test, Rodger. I’m pretty sure it’s a done deal.” Nora could feel herself getting frustrated with Rodger. Of course he wouldn’t show any sign of emotion, he jumped right into doctor mode. They sat in silence for what felt like hours, not looking at each other. Their hands still together, but barely touching now.

“Say something.” Nora said.

Rodger leaned in closer to the table, lowered his head and softly asked, “Have you thought about getting rid of it?” Nora could feel the stinging of tears coming to her eyes. What? What was going on? Why would he suggest such a terrible thing. This was their child.

“NO!” Nora shouted, causing the other patrons of the diner to come out of their dazed state of watching the two and going back to their own business. She got up out of the booth, and started putting on her light pink sweater to head out the door. Nora was pushing through the front door when Rodger finally called after her. She turned around to face him, trying to force the tears in her eyes to go away. Rodger stood in front of her, but didn’t reach out to her, he just looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. Nora felt a little glimmer of hope, before he had finished his statement. “But, I just can’t do this.”

****

Nora didn’t return to her house till almost midnight. After Rodger had tried to reason with her, she walked out of DeDe’s and straight on down the road. She walked all around the perimeter of Redwater, trying to clear her head over what just happened. At one point, she found herself over the railroad tracks and down near the overgrown fields. The sky was clear and she could see thousands of stars in the night sky. Far in the distance she noticed smoke rising in the air from the old farm house. Some family owned it, what was their names? The Dixons, she thought it was. Nora remembered all the stories she heard about them growing up, especially when the first farm house had burned down with Mrs. Dixon inside. She felt a pang of guilt for judging them as she now realized she was soon to become the town’s new favorite topic of gossip.

When she finally reached her home, Nora’s heart dropped as she saw the light in the living room. Oh crap. Her mother was up. See, wildfire. Just like wildfire. Slowly she made her way up the concrete walkway, opened the screen door, and turned the knob on the wooden one. The aroma of alcohol and smoke hit her nose immediately. As she walked through the door she saw the silhouette of her small framed mother sitting in the rocking chair next to the green shaded lamp. The end table on the side holding a small glass of whiskey. Making eye contact with her, Nora forced a weak smile onto her face.

“Mama.” Her mother didn’t respond. Just took another slow, long drag of her cigarette. After a few more minutes of silence, her mother finally spoke.

“There somethin’ ya wanna tell me?” Nora stood there watching her mother. She knew. She just wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Nora and her mother didn’t always have the best relationship and it only seemed to get worse when her father died. They could barely make ends meet with just the two of them. Her mother cleaned the houses of the rich folks in the next town over, while Nora had taken the year between high school and college off working odd jobs in town to save money of her own. She knew her mother wouldn’t want a baby in the house.

“I said, there somethin’ ya wanna tell me?” Her mother asked again. Nora realized there was no point in trying to work around the question. Her heart was already broken, so she had nothing else to lose.

“Mama I…Mama, I’m pppregnant.” She finally mustered out.

“Mmhmm.” Mother responded, as she tapped the ashes of her cigarette into the tray. “And what? Ya thought you could just hide that little tidbit of information for nine months round here?” Nora tried to explain that she went to Rodger, thought that they would work it out, but that he wanted nothing to with it.

“Boys gotta point though.” Her mother mumbled through her sip of whiskey. “I mean, he’s going to school. Thinkin bout his future. Don’t think his parents would be too pleased to find out he knocked ya up.” Once again, Nora felt the threat of tears trying to escape from her eyes. Frustrated, tired, and heartbroken, Nora didn’t feel like working up the fight in her to argue back with her mother. Instead, she chocked down a sob, and turned around to head towards the hallway stairs and up to her room.

“And don’t think I’m gonna be willin to help ya when you need it. Lord knows how many shifts I’d have to work for that.” Her mother called out.

“Don’t worry Mama. I won’t.” Nora whispered as she started walking up the stairs to her room.

****

With the dreams of her future dashed, Nora finally took a hold of her emotions and planned out a new future for herself. She spent the next couple of months working and saving as much money as she could, but with the small bump that appeared overnight, the tasks she used to be able to do with no thought were now starting to take a toll on her body. Though she was able to find work in the shops around town, she was not immune to the whispered conversations customers had when they thought she was out of earshot.

“I heard she cozied up to one of the carnies from that Fall Festival last year.” Said a brown haired teenager sitting next to her friend at the local bookstore. Nora, in the next row over stacking a shelf, paused. “Oh no, you nimwit!” Her friend responded. “Didnt ya hear? She was going steady with that Pearson guy. He dropped her like a hot skillet when he found out. His family wont even acknowledge it.”

“Wow, poor thing.” The brown haired one uttered. Nora felt the heat radiating off her skin. Poor thing! Poor thing? If there was one phrase that seemed to be repeated whenever she found herself in one of these situations it was “poor thing.” Nora had had enough of the town’s gossip. Everywhere she turned she felt eyes on her, the low murmurs of whispers as she passed by, but most of all, she hated the pity. The pity of these so called self-righteous people. Who really only pitied her, not because they honestly felt sorry for her, but because it made them feel better about themselves. That day was the final straw, Nora knew it was time to move on from Redwater. Her mother all but basically said that once the baby arrived they would no longer be welcomed at the house, and Nora figured she had saved enough money by now to get her out of town and to some new city far away. She thought the best thing would be to leave while her mother was in the town over cleaning that way she could go in peace. She didn’t pack much, just enough to get her by, and by the same time the following week she was on the bus out of Redwater.  

__________________________

“Mamaaaaa, we there yet?” Anna repeated, after Nora didn’t respond. She took a deep breath as her daughter’s questioning knocked her out the trance she was in.

“Yeah baby,” Nora paused. Trying to get the next words out as cheerfully and she could. “We’re home.”

[vizkopa]

Celestial (FallenAngel!Doflamingo x Reader) CHAPTER 1

Chapter 1: To Fall from Grace ~

The sound of the bell signalling the end of the school week—and the beginning of the much anticipated weekend—rang through the corridors. You shouted to be heard over the clamour of your students rushing to be first out the door. “Don’t forget, the Lyrid meteor shower will be at its peak tonight! Before dawn is the best time for viewing!” You received a few looks of horror at the thought of getting up before dawn on a Saturday and you chuckled. Being a high school Physics teacher meant you received those looks on a regular basis, but you wouldn’t trade your job for the world. The room was cleared within minutes, everyone eager for the weekend and you were no exception. You had planned your whole weekend around the meteor shower and damned if you were going to miss a second of it. So you sped through your preparations for the next week and hurried out the door, already calculating the best position in which to set up your telescope for optimal viewing pleasure. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, [Name]-ya?”

Speaking of pleasure… The smooth voice stopped you in your tracks and you fought to control the blush rising in your cheeks. Trafalgar Law never failed to leave you flustered. He was relatively new to the school, assuming the position of Human Biology teacher after the previous one had retired. And you had wanted a lesson in ‘anatomy’ from him since the day he’d introduced himself with that sleek, velvet voice. You turned to face him, smiling pleasantly. “Mr. Trafalgar! I could say the same to you. You’re heading out early.” He smiled—more of a smirk, really. One that made you weak at the knees. “Please, I’ve told you to call me Law. And I was hoping to catch you on your way out, actually.” “What can I help you with?” “Are you free tonight?” You hadn’t been expecting that. “Oh… Actually, I already made plans…” “I should have guessed,” he chuckled, but you could see the disappointment in his eyes. “The way you were rushing just now, you could only have a date tonight, am I right?” “You could say that,” you said with a laugh. “The Lyrid meteor shower peaks tonight. I’ll be observing the whole thing from home for my paper.” He laughed and god you could get used to that sound. “Of course, another time perhaps. In that case, I’ll remember to look to the sky tonight and think of you.” He winked and you felt your face flush red. “See you on Monday, [Name]-ya.” With one last smile he said his goodbyes, leaving a tingling warmth where his arm had brushed yours as he passed. And you were left standing in the empty corridor a blushing mess. You hadn’t even been able to bring yourself to say goodbye, you were so afraid of tripping over your own tongue. You had almost invited him over to watch the shower with you, but it had been a long time since you’d had a guy over and, as much as you wanted it to happen, you weren’t sure that was the message you wanted to send. You shook your head, clearing your thoughts. That man was a walking distraction and you couldn’t afford to fall all over him like a blushing school girl. You had a celestial event to catch. On your way out, you dropped by the school library to return a stack of books you had borrowed. Robin, the school librarian and History teacher, and Nami the Geography teacher were chatting as they sorted through the returns to be placed back on the shelves. You dropped your stack of books loudly on the table in front of them. “Trafalgar Law just asked me out.” They both stopped talking abruptly and turned to you, Robin with a look of smug amusement on her face, while Nami looked like she had just won the lottery. “And what did you say!?” she squealed. You scrunched up your face at her. “I told him I was busy this weekend.” Nami’s face fell. “[Naaaame], why would you do that? You’ve been looking all lovey-dovey at each other for weeks. This was your chance!” “The Lyrid meteor showers peaks tonight and—” “Oh my god, the meteor shower happens every year. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity!” “I’m sure I’ll have other chances,” you muttered, absently playing with the cover of a book. “He said he’d be thinking of me tonight.” “Oh my,” Robin chuckled. Nami rolled her eyes. “Would you rather him be thinking about you, or making love to you niiice and slow like you’ve been—” You blushed furiously. “Woah, woah, woah! That’s not—” Nami raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?” Your blush deepened. “An office romance would only be a distraction.” “Good. ‘Cause you sure need one.” “You work too much, [Name],” Robin agreed. Nami grasped your shoulders, forcing you to look her in the eye. “You two are meant to be, [Name], I just know it.” She let go and sighed. “Just promise me you’ll at least call him? Let him know you’re still interested. Hell, maybe you can watch your damn meteor shower together and make love under the stars—” “OKAY!” you interrupted before Nami could go into too much detail about your non-existent sex life. “Nami, you know I don’t believe in all that destiny crap.” You caved under her disapproving look. “But I’ll call him tomorrow. Promise. Now, I gotta go.” Robin waved you off as you hurried out of the library, Nami calling after you. “I’ll hold you to that!” You shook your head, knowing she was dead serious, and made a mental note to call Law the next day. The drive home was uneventful and by the time you reached your house on the outskirts of town, the sun had already begun to set. You made yourself a quick dinner of leftovers, and put on a pot of coffee for the long night ahead. The night was quiet as you set up your telescope in the highest window in the attic, a steaming cup of coffee close at hand. The window faced west, offering a spectacular view of the setting sun and allowing you to look out over your generous backyard and the forest beyond. The trees stretched away for miles, which is why you had chosen the attic as your viewing position. The rest of the town lay in the opposite direction, so the forest meant no light pollution to dampen the effects of the shower. Unfortunately, this year the peak of the shower happened to coincide with the full moon, which would mean your viewing would be limited to before moonrise and a small window before dawn, but you weren’t about to let that dissuade you. As you were lining the scope up with the stretch of clear sky above the forest, a streak of light crossed your vision—there and gone again in a moment. You pulled back and frowned. That was odd. You shouldn’t be able to even see any meteors for another few hours yet at least. You stuck your head out of the window and looked up. To your surprise, a bright object was hurtling across the sky, far too close to be one of the smaller meteors you had been expecting. Most were so small that they burned up in the upper atmosphere before they could even reach the ground. But not this one. It blazed brighter and swept overhead, leaving behind it a streak of smoke against the darkening sky. You weren’t sure, but at its current trajectory and the speed it was travelling… It’s going to crash in the forest! With a flash of light and a low rumble that shook the foundations of your house, it impacted and you were left stunned, staring out into the dark trees. What the hell was that?! Without a second though, you snatched up your coat as you raced out the back door and through the yard. You switched on the flashlight app on your phone and made your way under the cover of the trees. You shuddered as the shadow of the forest enveloped you. You had practically grown up in these woods and you knew its many trails and hidden tracks like the back of your hand, but you still held your father’s warning clear in your mind. ”Never go into the woods alone after dark!” Once when you were younger, you had been playing in the woods and lost track of time. Before you knew it, the sun had started to set and in your panic to get home, you’d lost sight of the path. You recalled the way the shadows had lengthened in the rapidly fading light, making the trees appear to be closing in around you. For a few, terrifying moments, you though the forest would swallow you whole, until your father had heard your crying and come to the rescue. You cast off the uneasiness that began to creep up now and forged on ahead, following the well beaten path into the heart of the woods. You could smell a faint aroma of smoke in the air and all you needed to do was follow your nose to its source. It wasn’t long before the trail you were following became overgrown and difficult to see by the light of your phone. The light bounced off the tree trunks, making everything appear oddly flat to your eyes, and messed with your depth perception. You felt the seeds of a panic begin to take root in your mind, but pushed your doubts aside. You had a good sense of direction. You were certain you could make it back out again. Besides, from the smell of it, you had almost reached the site of impact. Up ahead, you saw the yellow flickering of fire. The acrid smell of burning was now almost overwhelming in your nostrils. Smoke stung your eyes and you pulled a handkerchief out of your pocket to hold over your mouth and nose as you entered the clearing. The first thing you noticed was the crater: the earth in the clearing was scorched black and smoking, and small spot fires burned where patches of grass had once been. You kicked dirt over them and stamped them out as you made your way through the clearing, halting the flames in their tracks before you had a wildfire on your hands. The second thing you noticed were the feathers—some the length of your forearm and longer, blackened with soot and smouldering at the edges. Your first thought was that the meteor (or whatever it was) had hit a bird’s nest as it crashed through the canopy, but the feathers were far too large for any bird native to the area. Or any bird ever for that matter. You watched them smoulder in the dirt, curling in on themselves before disintegrating into ash. The third thing you noticed was the object at the centre of the crater as you peered over the edge. It wasn’t deep, but it was wide, and at it’s very centre lay something half buried in the earth. You screwed your eyes shut and opened them again. It was a man. The largest man you had ever seen. You pinched yourself for you could only have been dreaming, but instead of waking up in your cosy bed at home, you were still there, the impossible right in front of you. You looked closer, peering through the smoke. He was definitely a man. Standing he must have been over ten feet tall. And he was very much naked. You turned away, eyes wide and face reddening. Never mind the fact you had just found a human being in a crater in your backyard, but he was naked as the day he was born too. You took a deep breath, almost choking as you breathed a lungful of smoke, and turned back to face him. His eyes were closed. From this distance, you could not tell if he was alive or dead. Surely he couldn’t have survived a fall like that? There was only one way to find out. You jumped over the edge of the crater, charred earth sizzling beneath the soles of your trainers as you approached the stranger warily. He didn’t move. When you reached him, you kneeled down beside him, determinedly keeping your gaze above the waist as you searched for signs of life. He was covered head to toe in soot, but he seemed, for the most part, unharmed. He didn’t appear to be breathing. You hovered your ear close to his chest and breathed a sigh of relief when you heard a steady heartbeat. You pulled back. Now you had determined you didn’t have a dead body to deal with (much to your relief; you didn’t much fancy trying to explain this to the police) you debated what to do. You could call the authorities, but again, how were you going to explain that a giant naked man fell out of the sky and crash landed in the forest behind your house? No, you couldn’t call anyone. They’d only think you were crazy. That left only one option: you had to get him back to your house. Which was a feat in and of itself. A man of his size must weigh near half a ton. As you were debating what to do, a movement caught your eye. Thinking that the man might be waking up (which posed a whole lot of other questions and dilemmas over what you should do) you fell back slightly, heart pounding as you waited to see what happened. But instead of waking up, right before your very eyes, he began to shrink. You blinked. Surely you were imagining things? But after a few seconds, there before you was a man of normal size (and by ‘normal’ you meant still well over six foot), still very much unconscious and naked in the middle of your forest. But at least now you thought you might have a chance of getting him home. You contemplated how you should best approach the task. There was no way in hell you’d be able to carry him all by yourself. Perhaps you could drag him? Yes, that could work. If you could hook your arms beneath his armpits, you could probably manage the distance back to your house. You paused, considering his current state and cringed. Maybe dragging him over scorched ground and through a forest was not the best of ideas. You thought of the tarp you kept stored in the garden shed at the back of the yard. But you weren’t confident you could find your way back to the clearing again without the flames to guide you. Perhaps you could fashion some sort of sled out of branches? Well, it was worth a try. It took you the better part of an hour to gather the materials you needed, and all that time, the man slept on. He remained disturbingly unmoving and you felt the need to check to ensure his heart was beating every so often, but it was always there, slow and steady and completely at odds with the rest of his appearance. When you had finished your work, you had a sled of questionable durability, but it was the best you could do. Now came the question of how the hell you were supposed to complete the next task. Wiping the sweat from your brow, you looked to the man in the crater below. You had since discarded your jacket and placed it over his waist to preserve his modesty (hey, it was hard to work with that staring right at you). “Well, nothing to do about it,” you muttered. Hesitantly, you rolled him onto his side and gasped at what you saw. You had previously thought him to be unharmed, but you had been wrong. His back was caked in drying blood and two long, jagged wounds ran parallel from his shoulder blades almost to his hips. You could see the white edges of bone peeking out from between the ragged edges. You frowned. It almost looked like… wings? You could still see tufts of bloodied feathers clinging to the wounds. No way. Nope. You refused to believe it. Clearly there was a logical, sensible reason for all of this, you just couldn’t see it in your dazed and disoriented state. This was a matter to debate in the morning when you’d had a good night’s rest and a cup of coffee. The bleeding seemed to have mostly stopped, so you put the thought out of your mind for the time being and focused on getting him home. Getting the man onto the sled was perhaps not one of your finest moments (you weren’t quite sure where you should put your hands) but you made it work, and soon you were on your way back to the house. You were exhausted, and you were certain you had missed the start of the meteor shower, but right now you couldn’t care less. You just wanted to take a long shower and go straight to bed—if sleep was even a possibility with a naked stranger in your house. You still hadn’t decided what to do about that. You figured you’d let him sleep and when he woke up, he would explain everything and return to his life just as you would return to yours. You prayed he wasn’t some sort of criminal on the run from the authorities. Although you had no idea what kind of criminal would be lying naked at the bottom of a crater in the middle of the woods. Maybe he was some kind of pervert? Were you making a mistake bringing this man into your house? You shook your head. These were all problems for when he woke up. He couldn’t possibly be a threat to anyone right now. As you left the cover of the trees, you looked up to the sky. The full moon was at its peak, flooding the yard with cold, white light. The stars winked at you from where they hung amongst the thousands, every so often a faint streak of light passing between them as the Earth hurtled through the cloud of comet rubble on its path around the sun. Could it even be possible that a man could have fallen from those stars? Every fibre of your being said it shouldn’t be possible. Couldn’t be possible. And yet… You made up the bed in the spare room on the ground floor for him, ensuring you cleaned him up and bandaged his wounds as best you could before laying him down beneath the crisp white sheets. Now that his face was free of soot and dirt, you could see that he was quite handsome, with sharp features and pale, platinum blonde hair. By the time you had finished, your hands were shaking violently—from exhaustion or shock, you couldn’t be sure. You took a shower as hot as you could stand it and watched the ash and grime and blood that caked your hands be washed away by the scalding stream of water. The strange man’s blood was red like yours, but something told you he was not what he seemed. Before you retired for the night, you took your father’s pistol from the locked drawer in his old office and loaded it, placing it on the night stand by your bed. You hoped you would never need to use it.

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

[hundredsofletters]

Summer – Wildfires

Electricity crackles in the air of the summer storm. Lightning flashes, bathing the world in glowing white. Where its bolt strikes the earth – a spark. Its freshly born body gasps for air, each breath of oxygen growing the monstrosity. The world is burning. Smoke curls its way across the forest floor chasing the thundering hooves of frenzied fleeing. The trees are listening and wait with baited breath for the end. Flames lick at the Mother’s body. She’s screaming as they take the life she has created, the gentle souls birthed from her womb now cinders and ash. Embers carried by the wind dance deeper in, swirling higher and higher, flurries of red hot chaos starting hundreds of fires in their wake. The trees can do nothing, roots which once gave them life now condemn them to die. Oh tell me mother what it’s like to die. Red hot fingers caress their helpless bodies, blackening their twisted spines, consuming them. Oh tell me mother does it hurt to die? Boughs break and crash to the forest floor, their mother welcoming them back into her arms soothing their broken bodies. She’s sorry she couldn’t save you. Once it’s taken all they can give the wildfire moves on. The world is silent again. The world is shades of grey, blankets of ash filling her lungs and choking her. Her broken soul weeps, her wretched sobs echo through the blackened wasteland. The burnt bodies of her children silent witnesses to her sorrow. Oh tell me mother why you couldn’t save me.

Autumn – Falling

The world is orange but not like before. This is destruction of a softer kind. Leaves turn golden filling the forest with their soft blaze before falling falling falling to the ground, blanketing the forest floor in orange. The world is fire but there’s no flame. The coming cold soothes mother’s broken heart, her once raw bleeding skin now healed still bears the scars of her sorrow. Blackened trees still remain a reminder of what was taken from her, a silent graveyard amongst the new life born since. Ravens circle above in tangerine skies. Caws echo eerily through the woods below and leaves rustle under the quick feet of woodland creatures hurrying home, seeking shelter before night falls covering the world in its thick blanket. With night comes the hooting owl on the prowl, its beating wings sending tiny mice scurrying, diving into fallen logs holding their breath, the pounding of their tiny hearts thundering in their ears. The quick fox darts through the woods, only a flash of orange. He pauses at the lip of the burrow, fresh earth scattered around it by frantic paws. His ears twitch, listening to the hammering heart below him. Leaping, his body of flame dives down into the earth’s open mouth before remerging holding a tiny grey body tightly in his maw. The trembling creature awaits the dark embrace of death with wide eyes, his feeble struggles nothing to the cunning fox. White jaws now stained red, his black socked paws soaked to the bone. Through the canopy of trees, the moon bathes the world in its silver glow. She’s calling out to the wolf, begging for her return. Silence broken by cacophonous howls, the mournful cries piercing the midnight air. Oh tell me mother why does Selene need her so?

Winter – Blizzards

In the dark of the night blizzards blew across the world, bathing everything in white. Snow flurries swirling in the howling wind. Oh tell me mother, will I ever be warm again? Just when the night feels eternal, that the world will always be cold and dark and oh so lonely, the sun rises again. The soft yellow rays of morning sun gently touch the snow, its fingers creeping slowly over the vast white wasteland. A white blanket void of life, no soft feet trudge through the deep bank of snow, no tiny footprints of tiny creatures wandering this strange new world.  The creatures that call these woods home are nowhere to be seen, curled up in their dens safe from the cold wet snow. The stream that once bubbled is now frozen over, water moving sluggishly beneath the ice. Snow dusts its surface hiding where the earth ends and the ice begins. Fallen trees partly buried under a snowy prison lay across the forest floor. Beside their fallen sisters, pine trees rise from the earth, standing stoically against the frigid cold, their branches pregnant with settled snow drooping towards the ground far below. The trees sigh in relief as they feel the sun’s warm touch returning to them after oh so long. They welcome the golden rays, waiting for the warmth to melt the snow and thaw their frozen limbs. The cloudy sky burns to mist in its wake. Oh tell me mother, why does the sun ever have to go away?

Spring – Rebirth

Pine needles blanket the forest floor, twigs cracking under the soft feet of woodland creatures. The world is muted. Dappled sunlight breaks through the emerald leaves high above, casting speckled dots of light on the carpet below. Rabbits hop through the underbrush, their soft grey bodies bounding and leaping over fallen logs. The bubbling stream fills the air with its music, its body lazily making its way through the forest under the watchful eyes of the trees. The fawns with bright new eyes see the world for the very first time, tails flicking lazily in the midday sun. Her life is her mother, this moment in the sun. She knows nothing else, nothing but the warmth on her fur and the evergreen blades beneath her feet. Beyond the grove, the wildflowers bloom turning once charred earth into brilliant shades of yellow. On and on, colour fills the world. Tiny white butterflies flutter through the long grass zigging and zagging. The world is colour.  The buzzing of bumblebees floats on the soft breeze which tickles the long stalks of grass, bending them softly with its playful touch. The birds sing and they whisper secrets to me, telling me stories of what it’s like to fly. Oh tell me mother, isn’t it wonderful to be alive?

- m.b // seasons