#then they can both retire and move to the country and just visit periodically

[firebirdsdaughter]

Don't mind me…

… I'm not finally having the courage to catch up on Tiger & Bunny s2 and crying about it.

I'm not.

I'M NOT

[ladylooch]

You can save for the next flashback day but what was Lexi’s thoughts about moving to Switzerland when Nico retired did she genuinely not care or was she unsure at first about uprooting her and her families whole life

Let's dig into this more below!

If Lexi was being honest, in the initial conversation with Timo and Emma her first thought was "no, you guys just stay 🥺". Then immediately she reprimanded herself for being so selfish. Then she flipped back to "Nico and I can convince them to stay." It's not that she didn't like Switzerland. She has spent enough time there at that point to know how beautiful it was, how kind everyone was, but also experienced how out of place she continued to feel as an American. Not from anyone that said or did anything, just from the concept of being the only non-Swiss native in the group. An outsider... always the one who needed the English menu brought to her while all the kids knew and understood Swiss German even.

Nico and Lexi had the lake home that Nico built in Switzerland before they were together. They had since done renovations to it, including expanding it once, and it became the perfect summer home for them. But... it's in a remote part of Switzerland. Not in a big city. Lexi had concerns about that especially for them coming from such a busy metropolis - schools, grocery stores, language issues, accessibility, living in the mountains! How would that change their life in ways they maybe didn't quite understand? It was a lot to digest. Not just a new city, but basically a whole new way of living.

Leaving her friends... She had a great group of friends still in NJ/NY that she formed when she was a nurse and leaving them, plus starting over at an older age, in a new country, with a language and cultural barrier... felt daunting. She knew, realistically, she could make friends. She does have connections in and around town through the three Swiss nationals in the group. But she worried about having something for herself outside of the family. Making friends as an adult is so hard and it was just as hard as she thought it would be.

The education system in Switzerland is different than the US and getting all three girls into schools AND being advocates for them made her brain mushy. Nico, trying to be sweet and supportive, had a tendency to wave off some of these concerns like "I'll handle it." But that's not what Lexi wanted. She wanted to understand- to be able to do her own research- not just be told by her husband what to expect.

Lexi was going to go move to a country she would not be considered a citizen in for quite some time. She had concerns about the dynamics of what could happen because the kids were dual citizens, and Nico was a Swiss citizen with a green card, but she would have a waiting period to be granted the opportunity to apply for citizenship, regardless of how long her and Nico had been married. Although extremely unlikely, those worries affected her and she would wake up at night with dreams of being deported and separated from their family.

Ultimately, all of those worries were things that they could navigate together. There were solutions and compromises that could be made to ease some of the big change.

Also, Nico and Lexi have significant wealth and status, so their journey to living in Switzerland is much different than the average person deciding to move there. Nico tries to tell Lexi this, but it's something she had to experience when she got there to really understand what Nico meant.... So, easy enrollment for the girls including specialty tutoring to get them caught up with heir classmates, easy healthcare access, tons of sponsorship benefits from Swiss companies helping them adjust to their new living arrangements, attorneys and tax professionals to navigate being expats and Americans etc. In the end, it's a change they both are so happy they made. They enjoy visiting the U.S. but going back to Switzerland is truly going home for both of them.

[luvhughes43]

https://www.tumblr.com/luvhughes43/762521546150526976/thinking-about-baby-blake-at-skating-competitions?source=share

OH 😃 Thanks for breaking my heart...

Now I'm thinking about her and jack being each others' best friends and how hard it must have been for them to be apart from each other 🥲 I mean, they were together from the womb (and even before that) and suddenly they're forced to be apart in order to pursue their dreams...and maybe, selfishly, they both (but mostly jack) wish that they could just be together again even though it means one of them has to give up what they love...........

BUT ALSO baby blake seems like the type to just be like "Don't worry mom and dad! I'll be fine on my own! You can just watch the boys so you don't need to travel so far!" and also "Don't worry guys! You don't even have to watch this competition! It's not even a big one!" And she says it every time because she doesn't want anyone staying up late for her or worrying when/if she falls during a jump.....and it kills her to say it because deep down all she wants is for her family to be there with her or to watch her skate her program even if it's not live....

im sorry😭😭

its hard because the split happens as soon as the family moves back to the usa. so not only are they being separated but now theyre in a new country and neither of them really know anybody. jack definitely wishes that one of them quit their sport so it wasn't so hard but at the end of the day they both love what they're doing so it was never really a question. they try to stay in contact as much as they can but blake was already competing in major competitions (ISU juniors, etc.) that it was so hard for them to be as close as they were.

they were definitely separated from age 13 till basically blakes injury (do we think she quarantined with her family? because if she was living with other family members so she could skate theres a high possibility they didnt get reunited until their 20s (of course they visit each other - but still)). it definitely makes blakes move to nyc after she retires from skating so much fun. she goes from seeing her twin only a few times a year to basically being neighbours. blake dating nico and being a part of the team that way also helps solidify hers and jacks bond which is soo special !! they definitely spend so much time together now that theyre closer.

baby blake is sooo truly a sad girl😭 this is the time in her life where her coaches abuse was really starting to increase and build pressure and the distance from her family didnt help at all. it made it easier in a sense, because blake knew she didnt have to try so hard to hide what was happening behind the scenes (she definitely struggled with an ed, injuries, mental abuse, etc.).

it was the absolute saddest/hardest period of her life but she truly loves figure skating and would do anything for the sport !! shes also so young and without her parents around she doesnt understand the scale of the abuse she faced until shes older and starts to unpack what happened to her in therapy.

she was soo the type of kid to tell her parents/family that she didnt care whether they missed her events !! i think her family also had a hard time connecting with her figure skating so it was just easier (not saying its right) to overlook her smaller competitions. it was definitely a really hard adjustment to make but her family did watch all her live streams. she just wished they couldve showed up in person more.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hi, i am looking for a very specific johnlock case fic on ao3 with an au where they are in america and on the oregon trail, possibly traveling to wyoming, or probably just western america!lock in generally. thanks! :)

Hey Nonny!

Ahh, I don’t know which fic this is, but I have a few American AUs in my MFL list, maybe one of them is it? If anyone knows which one it is for sure, let us know!!

AMERICAN AUs (TO READ)

Gone and Changed by cwb (E, 4,617 w., 1 Ch. || Farm/Ranch American AU || Teenlock, Friends to Lovers, Angst, High School, Summer Vacation, Swimming, Hot Weather, Oral Sex, Car Sex, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Falling in Love, Mutual Pining) – John and Sherlock are best friends, until John goes and changes. Part 1 of the Just Like That series

At All Material Time by dizzylittlesunflowers (T, 7,029 w., 1 Ch. || 1930′s Farm/Ranch AU || One Shot) – When John Watson first met Sherlock Holmes, the dark-haired stranger had told him he'd never make the mistake of falling in love. Set in 1930's Southern America, the mysterious Holmes family move into the deserted house opposite John Watson's farm. Intrigued with the strange newcomers, the young farmer lets his priorities slip. But not without consequence.

How to Sleep with Your Enemy in One Semester by 221b_careful_what_you_wish_for (M, 9,699 w., 6 Ch. || College / Uni Professors AU || Professor John/Sherlock, Enemies to Lovers, Rivalry, Bickering, Office Sex, Blow Jobs, Fluff, Domestics, John’s Beard, Idiots in Love, Humour) – Visiting professors John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are longtime academic rivals — and now unwilling office mates — at a prestigious American university. When their tense arguments give way to an undercurrent of mutual attraction, their war of wits turns into something more personal — until it goes off course. A party, a phone number, and deserted office at night might just bring them back together.

The Rainbow Connection by honeybee_motorcyles (M, 13,161 w., 7 Ch. || Post-TRF, Autistic Sherlock, American Road Trip, Understanding, Communication, PTSD Sherlock, Regression, Aspergers, Angst and Fluff) – A Road Trip is the best cure for Sherlock and John's relationship.

Wild Skies by darkestbliss (E, 13,339+ w., 9/? Ch. || WiP || American Farm/Ranch AU || Age Difference, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Bottom Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Teen Sherlock, Summer Camp, Older John) – Sherlock Holmes, show jumping champion turned druggie, is sent to a small, remote ranch in Wyoming for the summer as part of his rehabilitation process. There, he meets John Watson, a beautiful and good-natured ranch hand who was raised by the West.

The Reawakening of John Watson by 221b_careful_what_you_wish_for (E, 20,463 w., 14 Ch. || Historical 1800s American/Victorian AU || Artist Sherlock, Writer John, Angst with Happy Ending, Bisexual John, Period Typical Homophobia, Sensuality, Experienced Sherlock, Pining, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Love Confessions, Flirty Sherlock, Frottage, Outdoor Sex, Trust Issues, Minor Character Death, Sexual Tension, Colorado / London, Rimming, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs,  POV John) – Trying to escape his troubled past in England, John Watson has started a new life in the American West. When he meets the handsome artist Sherlock Holmes, a smoldering attraction is sparked, complicating his quiet, carefully guarded existence. Maybe taking a risk with Sherlock is exactly what John needs to feel alive again...

Learning Curve by thpontiacbandit (M, 41,422 w., 22 Ch. || Teacher / Parent AU || America, Fluff and Smut, Parentlock, Frottage) – John is a Kindergarten teacher. One of his students, a boy named Henry Holmes, refuses to speak in school. John is determined to get to the bottom of it, and that is how he meets Sherlock Holmes.

The Bone Fiddle by htebazytook & Vulgarweed (E, 61,167 w., 13 Ch. || American Historical 1970′s AU || Appalachia, West Virginia, Vietnam War, Watergate, Murder Mystery, Case Fic, Drama, Humour, Romance) – In November 1973, Vietnam vet John Watson returns to his family's old home in Arthel County, West Virginia, deep in coal country. His low expectations include recuperation and boredom. Instead he finds a ruined landscape, a series of grisly murders, and one of the world's weirdest neighbors. Part 1 of the The Bone Fiddle series

Next Right: Welcome to Westbound Rest Area 818 by elwinglyre (E, 73,618 w., 16 Ch. || American Unilock AU || Bunk Beds, Anonymous Sex, Homophobia, Closeted John, Roommates, Angst with Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Music, Rape/Non-Con, Hurt John, BAMF John) – Sherlock Holmes dreams of escape from his smothering family and space to breathe. Studying chemistry at the University of Michigan, he's almost far enough away to fill his lungs. Almost. While John Watson dreams of being a doctor, he also dreams of being with another man. John knows that with hard work and study, he can make the first a reality, but he's certain the second can never be. Until a secret encounter in the dark at Rest Area 818 changes everything. When Sherlock meets his new roommate, John Watson, he sees a man in the closet. Sherlock hides from no one. Except from his own family, a detective inspector who wants his evidence returned, and his secret encounter at Rest Area 818. Setting late 1970s, Michigan, USA. POV third person alternates between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock, P.I. by Callie4180 (E, 83,264 w., 11 Ch. || Magnum P.I. Fusion || Past Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Canon-Typical Violence, Stalking, Creepy Moriarty) – For the Fall TV Sherlock fusion project. Sherlock, P.I. is an American television show that follows the exciting adventures of genius private investigator Sherlock Homes and his friends as they live their lives on the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii. Sherlock solves crimes as he wrestles with the ghosts and demons of his past.

Boyfriend Material by PoppyAlexander (E, 151,282 w., 58 Ch. || American Hockey AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Closeted John, POV John, Pining, Casual Sex / Hook Ups, Rom-Com) – Boston Brawlers' team captain John Watson longs for two things: a championship before he retires, and a boyfriend. Assigned to room with goaltender Sherlock Holmes--known around the league as both a genius and a "weird dude"– on Brawlers' roadtrips, John discovers the things they have in common that lead to an easy friendship and a convenient arrangement.

Nine and a Half Weeks by CumberCurlyGirl and Kameo (E, 175,094+ w., 35/? Ch. || WiP || American AU || Different First Meeting, Daddy Kink, Bottomlock, Anal Plug, Riding Crops, Spanking, Light Bondage, Anal/Oral, Aftercare, Posh John, Virgin Sherlock, Homophobia, Sugar Daddy John, Rimming, Coming in Pants, Light Dom/Sub, Past Sherlock / Victor, Light BDSM, Public Sex, John in a Kilt, Vibrators, Happy Ending) – Sherlock Holmes is about to graduate from high school in midwestern America. Despite his intelligence, his prospects are bleak due to poverty, an indifferent, alcoholic father and poor choices. One day, at work, he sells a riding crop to a handsome blonde Brit and his life is changed. He doesn't know what hit him - until he does. This is a story of a journey to love and self-acceptance and explores many themes along the way: drug abuse, grief, coming out, age difference, consent. Lots of sex but so much more.

Just Like That Series by cwb (E, 201,462+ w. across 4 works || Series WiP || American Teenager / Farmer AU || Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Angst, High School, Summer Vacation, Swimming, Friends to Lovers, Car Sex, Mutual Pining, Falling in Love, Kissing) – John and Sherlock are best friends, until John goes and changes.

The Devil's Blaze by DulcimerGecko (E, 296,121+ w., 25/? Ch. || WiP || American Cowboy / Rodeo AU || Vet John, Case Fic, Texas, Slow Build, Manipulative Sherlock, Masturbation, Developing Relationship, Dancing Lessons, Drunk Sherlock, Safe Sex, Blow Jobs, Horny John, Cowboy Sherlock, Cowboy John) – Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only Consulting Equestrian Expert, is the individual called when horse owners are out of their depth. At the behest of his elder brother, Sherlock travels to Amarillo, Texas, to investigate why a valuable bucking stallion has seemingly gone berserk for no reason and killed his trainer. The local authorities suspect the owner of fraud and possible animal abuse, but Mycroft sees parallels to an unsolved case from the 1980s wherein a racehorse killed a groom. Complicating the situation is John Watson: bronco rider, rodeo veterinarian and one of case’s primary suspects... Part 1 of the The Devil's Blaze series

[kanri-tea]

Ageswap! AU

Some headcanons for a HypMic ageswap! Au

Except everyone's ages are all over the place lol.

Ichiro is 32, Jiro is 30, and Saburo is 27

Samatoki is 29, Jyuto is 25, and Rio is 26

Ramuda is 30, Gentaro is 34, and Dice is 34

Jakurai is 14, Hifumi is 22, and Doppo is 22

Sasara is 31, Rosho is 31, and Rei is 16

Kuko is 32, Jyushi is 31, and Hitoya is 14

Otome is 19, Ichijiku is 26, and Nemu is 23

Buster Bros!!!

Ichiro is a bit of a mess, but he's getting better. He used to be pretty bad, working as a debt collector for Mozuku, doing drugs, and drinking, etc., but thanks to his brothers, he's gotten out and gotten clean.

Unfortunately, during that period, his relationship with his son, Rei, turned sour and Rei ran away at a fairly young age. Ichiro has been trying to repair his relationships, especially with Rei, but Rei isn't interested or receptive at all.

Jiro and Saburo live together, Jiro as a PE teacher at a middle school and Saburo as a white hat hacker/computer security stuff.

Jiro and Saburo's relationship with Ichiro isn't the best, but after Ichiro started getting clean and shaping up, their relationship has improved enough to form a team.

Jiro and Saburo are aware of Rei's existence but haven't actually met him before.

Mad Trigger Crew

Not huge changes here, Samatoki still works with the Yakuza, Jyuto is still a cop, and Rio is still Rio.

Jyuto isn't quite as experienced in being a corrupt cop as canon, so Samatoki makes sure to cover for him whenever he stumbles.

Samatoki is a big brother through and through, so he keeps an eye out for both Jyuto and Rio. His relationship with Nemu is okay, though sometimes she thinks he's the dumbest fool in the world.

Rio is more than well-aware that his survival cooking is not for the faint of heart. He finds it hilarious how Samatoki and Jyuto stutter and flinch whenever he brings it up, as well as how easily they falter under his puppy eyes.

Fling Posse

Ramuda deliberately makes sure as little people know his actual age as possible

It's one thing for a 24 year old to act cutesy and call girls "onee-san," it's a whole other thing when it's a 30 year old, no matter how cute and small he is

Ramuda finds Jakurai small and cute, so he sometimes goes and harasses coo over the boy, though, there have been times where the cops have been called for suspected pedophilia.

He's free from all the Project lambda stuff since it got exposed years ago and after a long hospitalization, he's completely healthy. You might even run into another clone occasionally, though they're all split to the four winds, each having chosen to pursue their own dreams.

Gentaro still is a writer, though he usually wears normal clothes. Honestly, he's way too old to continue to wear a kosode and hakama everywhere. It is way too hot out, plus he's not in his 20s anymore, when he thought it was cool and unique.

Dice is Dice. He's a gambler, though he does make sure to keep enough money around for rent and food. He's old enough that he's not so dumb enough to gamble away everything. Plus, he doesn't want to worry his daughter, Otome. She's already pissed at him enough.

Dice and Otome have a fairly good relationship, though that might just have been a result of Dice being an attentive and easygoing parent and never having to live with each other. Otome cares a lot for Dice, though she hates his gambling addiction.

Matenro

Everyone's pretty sure Jakurai is a mob boss or something. There's no way 14 year old should be able to live alone and be financially well off. Jakurai just smiles through everyone's suspicions, and since there's no proof, no one can do anything about it.

Jakurai acts like a literal angel, though, if you anger him, he might actually stab you (*cough* Ramuda *cough*). Jakurai, Hitoya, and Rei are friends, though no one knows how are when, they just are.

During the TDD era, Ramuda, Ichiro, and Samatoki acted a bit like pseudo-parents for him, though nowadays, while they do their best to keep an eye on Jakurai out of a sense of responsibility, Jakurai is content to ignore them.

Doppo and Hifumi are together and happily so. They still tell most people they're just roommates, due to Doppo's lack of confidence, but they're pretty content together.

Hifumi still works at a host club, though he does fumble sometimes from having less experience. Sometimes he doubts himself because he's not as old as his peers at the host club.

Doppo is just as self-deprecating as always, though there's a whole helping of fatalistic humor as well. His favorite way to relieve himself of stress is to hug Jakurai.

Both Hifumi and Doppo love Jakurai and really worry if a 14 year old living alone is okay. They like taking turns hugging and cuddling with the boy and Jakurai is somehow okay with it.

Dotsuitare Honpo

Sasara is in a pretty happy relationship with Rosho. They've moved past their issues in their youth and are now together.

They live separately, though that's mostly because of convenience for their workplace rather than because they want to

They planned to move in together soon, but their plans are put to halt when they meet Rei

Rei is a student at Rosho's school. He's not a bad student, just a bit inattentive and laissez-faire when it comes to others.

Rei helps them out of a bad situation and shows that he's good with a hypnosis microphone, but nopes out of the situation before either Sasara or Rosho can talk to him. He gets caught by Rosho the next day at school though.

Somehow, he gets roped into joining Dotsuitare Honpo, but there's a gleam in his eyes that tell Sasara that he's pretty pleased with the outcome.

When they find out that Rei lives on his own in a really rundown and small apartment, they freak out a bit and then try to make him move in with one of them.

It... kind of works? Rei still works on a near daily basis and insists on paying rent, but at least he's not living in a shitty apartment anymore.

Rei isn't used to people caring for him, having pretty much raised himself, and it shows. Any bout of affection is waved off with a laugh, light teasing, or a strained grin. When Sasara and Rosho find out that his dad is Ichiro, Sasara gets a little bit more than just mad at at his former teammate.

Bad Ass Temple

Kuko is a full-on monk at the temple, having taken over the temple after his father's retirement. He met Jyushi there, who was praying for luck for his next concert.

Kuko has calmed down a lot since being a teenager. There's still bouts of anger sometimes, but he's mostly exasperated, especially at Hitoya. Kuko is super interested in Jyushi, but not sure how to make his intentions clear without startling the other man or inciting Hitoya's ire.

Jyushi is still a sweetheart, though he's not as permanently attached to Amanda as before. He's a very popular idol/music artist, primarily is visual kei, though he does do other things.

Hitoya originally was a homeless kid, though he did occasionally crash at Jakurai's place. His pride wouldn't let him do it too often, scared of becoming too reliant on the other boy or showing himself as weak.

Jyushi met Hitoya when he was in Tokyo for a concert. Somehow, he convinced the boy to come live with him. He took him back to Nagoya and that's where he's lived since.

Hitoya is very, very protective of Jyushi. He thinks Jyushi is too naive and air-headed for an adult, so he does his best to protect Jyushi from his stalkers and any other people that could hurt him. He's a bit of a hothead and comes off as overzealous and even hissing at people who stand too close to Jyushi.

Jyushi is very patient with Hitoya and thinks he's the cutest kid in the world, an opinion that Kuko very much disagrees with.

Kuko sometimes feels like apologizing to his father after dealing with Hitoya, because damn, was he ever this bad as a kid?

Chuuoku

Otome is young, but she's not stupid. The world sucks and she's doing her best to make it a better place, especially for women. Being responsible for an entire country is overwhelming at times, so she's grateful for Ichijiku's help.

The men vs women agenda isn't quite as fervent as it is in canon, and Otome does her best to include all LGBTQ+ in her equality agenda

Ichijiku still hates men, but she softens a bit when it comes to Otome. The girl is young, but dang if she isn't doing her best.

Nemu willingly works with the Chuuoku, though she is very tired of her brother's dumbassery. Seriously, who actually calls themselves Mr. Hardcore without being embarrased?

Otome used to live with her mother, but she got sick of all the "being a lady" BS that traditional family spout and ran away once she was old enough. Dice being her dad, helped her settle on her own and sending whatever money has sometimes.

Once she overthrew the government, she has a steady home and paycheck, so she regularly sends money and visits him. Thankfully, the money is never spent of gambling because Dice finds it too precious to throw away like that.

[dreamofelectricmareep]

What’s our sorely-missed Calzona and company doing RIGHT NOW?

Headcannons from your favorite Calzona-obsessed and barely updated fangirl!

Callie is the chief of ortho at NewYork Presbyterian, with a huge research grant to take her artificial cartilage to clinical trials and to finish her and Derek’s work on robotic limbs for amputees. Amelia is consulting on her late brother’s work and flies out help (and see her friends) every few months. Callie is loving the baby time she gets with Scout during Amelia’s visits, and is not-so-subtly eyeing Arizona whenever a baby is in sight. Arizona begrudgingly agreed to be the face of NY Pres’ campaign for the robotic limb research, and Callie really loves pointing out to coworkers and patients alike that the hot blonde plastered across banners and walls and elevators is the woman she comes home to every night. The Chief of Surgery at NY Pres announced his upcoming retirement recently, and Callie just learned she’s been placed on the short list for his replacement.

Callie works just a short subway ride from the Robbins-Herman Center for Women's Health, where Arizona’s carts have reduced maternal mortality rates by a decent percentage. Herman is licensing off the rights to the carts across the country given how promising the results have been. Nicole and Arizona are teaching a promising “flock” of students. Nicole insists on referring to them as a flock, with Arizona being their mama bird, as she is Dr. Robbins. Arizona pretends not to be amused by Nicole’s less-than-stellar running joke, but she secretly loves being the rare, exotic mama bird, helping the new nestlings learn to soar in the field that she and Nicole are pioneering, saving lives in the process. Somehow, Nicole manages to, despite the blindness, always know exactly what’s going on, be it in a surgery or in Arizona’s love life. 

And Arizona’s love life is, for the first time in a long time, super awesome. She and Callie are stronger than ever, going into their relationship with better boundaries, coping mechanisms, communication skills, and understandings of each other. What hasn’t changed is the easy chemistry, laughter, and palpable, mutual attraction Arizona and Callie always seemed to share. Originally, Arizona had rented the apartment across the hall from Callie’s, but once her year-long lease was up, she, Callie, and Sofia, now a proper family again, made themselves comfortable in the far-more-spacious penthouse, with surprisingly low rent. Well, it was surprising until they found out that Carlos Torres of Torres Enterprises had ventured into Manhattan real-estate. He wanted nothing but the best for his Calliope, but Arizona doesn’t believe in handouts, so they pay a fair but below market-price rent for the four bedroom apartment. Between visits from Amelia and Teddy with Scout and Allison, Callie’s pleading looks, and her surprising ability to sic Sofia on the baby train, Arizona got on board. Callie and Arizona are in the process of becoming registered foster parents, as well as putting applications in with a few adoption agencies. 

When they realized that the fostering/adoption process would be much simpler if they were married, Callie popped the question (it was her turn, after all) during dinner at a three Michelin star restaurant. Callie had previously made a list of all the restaurants in New York she wanted to try, and although Arizona is a far less intrepid eater, she’s been holding her own on the adventure. Arizona said yes, not that it was even a question. After all, they’re Callie and Arizona, the great love story. They’re meant to be. Callie and Arizona had a quiet (legally-binding!) ceremony at their local courthouse with Sofia, but plan to have a destination wedding in Spain with the whole GSM gang once COVID travel restrictions lighten up. Sofia, a genius like both her moms and her dad, got to skip fourth grade and is loving fifth grade. She’s really excited for middle school, regularly claiming she’s all grown up now, but she’ll always be her moms’ baby girl no matter how many grades she skips or how old she gets. She has weekly FaceTime calls with Zola on her brand new phone. Arizona was staunchly against it, as The Colonel’s daughter, but seeing as Sofia took the subway on her own, Callie talked her into it.

Callie and Arizona keep up with all of their Grey-Sloan Memorial friends, past and present, but are definitely thankful to have gotten away from the drama that seemed to follow them around in Seattle. Meredith, aside from her comatose period during her battle with COVID, has done a remarkable job keeping them in the loop, with Maggie filling in when Meredith couldn’t. While Callie and Arizona couldn’t visit Meredith when she was sick, they hounded Bailey and Webber with endless phone calls for progress reports. Bailey was beyond happy to hear that the wedding she officiated ended up in a happy marriage, despite what she referred to as a little bump in the road. Richard is also happy he no longer has to be Arizona’s wingman, but the whole GSM gang still gets together for weekly trivia nights on Zoom every Wednesday, at Richard’s insistence. And whenever Callie gets into a disagreement with her soon-to-be former chief at NY Pres, one reminder that she is a close personal friend of Webber and Bailey seems to end with her getting her way. She promised she wouldn’t use that to her advantage, but she does. Her temper still gets the best of her, but not when it comes to Arizona or Sofia, which is all that really matters to Callie.

Arizona was overjoyed to hear about April’s move thousands of miles closer. She has booked train tickets to Boston for herself, Callie, and Sofia to help with the move. Sofia can distract Harriet, Arizona can be her type-A control freak self and make sure every box is put exactly where she thinks it should be, and she can stare at Callie’s ass while she carries boxes around, so, for Arizona, it’s a win-win-win-win scenario. Her apartment-warming gift to April is a very large Expedia gift card so that she feels obligated to visit Arizona often as she can get away from work. To say Arizona misses the woman she’d never have expected to become her best friend is an understatement.

Alex is still a little bitter he missed a number of years of the twins’ lives, but Arizona is helping him through that and he and Izzie are doing well. He’s, of course, the star at their dump truck Kansas hospital (not that Arizona would ever use that characterization to his face), having been Arizona’s protégé for all these years. He still calls Arizona when he needs to make a plan for a complicated case. Sometimes the cases he calls Arizona about aren’t all that complicated, but both Alex and Arizona know it’s Alex Karev’s way of checking in and catching up. He isn’t one to admit to calling people just to chat.

Cristina is hoping to make a trip out to see her god-daughter, who she still refers to as a chicken, when the pandemic restrictions relax. Until then, she and Callie talk every couple weeks, catching up on the latest groundbreaking, kick ass procedure Cristina has brilliantly invented. She says she’s married to her work, but there is a Swiss surgeon at the hospital who seems to be infatuated with Cristina, from what Callie can gather. And it appears to be mutual. Cristina is still not one to gush about boyfriends, but Callie can get bits and pieces in conversation. Every so often, Callie, Arizona, and Sofia get fancy Swiss chocolates in the mail, with a note to keep sending pictures of Aunt Cristina’s little chicken.

Addison has an open invitation to join the Robbins-Herman Center. Arizona even offered to amend the name, but Nicole was none too happy at the prospect of getting her name booted from second to third. But, again, the Robbins-Herman-Montgomery Center makes it sound like they are a man. Addison is still mulling it over, happy with her life, friends, and family in LA, but Callie and Arizona are still trying to wear her down. And Addison still regularly reminds them to thank her for Callie’s gay awakening, She was, after all, the first one to point it out.

Mark is beyond thrilled to see that all of his yelling has been working, not that he’s getting the credit. Now that Callie and Arizona woke up and aren’t missing the best part of life, Mark can enjoy watching Sofia grow up with Lexie by his side. Sofia is certainly growing into her Sloan looks, and will certainly be a heartbreaker once she gets a bit older. 

[my-darling-boy]

what about California suits you poorly?

A LOT and I’m so stressed I’m just going to vent about it, I’m sorry I need to let this out:

1. Weather is fucking awful in so many counties, especially where I live. It gets to 110-120F in the summer for 2 months, half the year it’s 90+. We get rain/grey skies MAYBE in total for 2 weeks out of the entire year. I’ve suffered for years from reversed seasonal depression (where you get so much sun you get depressed) which means my mental health is only at it’s best in the cold or with grey skies and gloomy weather, can’t take pills for it because of the side effects. I also have a skin condition that flares up in the heat which means I can’t go outside, at the worst part of the year, for anymore that 30 seconds without stinging horrible pain over my whole body, can’t get the injection to take care of it cos that’s just one more injection I’d have to worry about

2. We’re on constant wildfire watch about half the year, sometimes more. We’ve been at risk of evacuating 3 times but thankfully haven’t had to ever evacuate. However, my grandparents have had to twice and I have family that lost their houses in the Tubbs Fire which also destroyed my home town and so many people are still displaced from the fires. Even counties that don’t have to evacuate suffer from the purple-red zone for air quality due to smoke and I have high sensitivity to smoke which means I have a constant sore throat for all of fire season which is like 7 months out of the year and I would prefer not to look out my window and see a charcoal sky or a burning Star Wars Tattooine red sunset so often that it becomes normal.

3. I dunno what ads are shown in other states about California, but unless you are a millionaire, but I’ve found it’s near impossible to live here without at least two roommates all working a 40 hour week. Everyone my age has roommates or a partner mainly cos it’s so difficult to live on your own. It is in the top 3 most expensive states in the country. Low income housing 2 minutes away from me is priced at $600,000-$700,000 and the homes just next to those in gated communities are $1,000,000+. “”“Affordable””one bedroom flats just near me are $2,500-$3000 a month. And I don’t even live in a major city. If I moved out now, I would be classified as living in poverty with what money I have. For a look at how bad it’s gotten, my dad’s childhood home in the 70s was once $100,000 and it just sold last year for over $1,500,000.

4. There are no outlets for my career or job wants. At all. My main interest/knowledge is in Western Europe around that 1880-1920 period and mainly around WWI, and I reenact a British soldier. I love that history, theatre, art.... but on the off chance I had $60,000 a semester to go to the universities here I wanted to get a degree after transferring from a junior college, I have nowhere to apply that here. There are practically zero WWI events for me to reenact here, minus Newville and a couple others and there is no target audience for all my WWI writing and art because barely anyone gives a damn about WWI here (the Joke I’d always hear in school was “WWI? What even was that?” and we would learn about it for MAYBE two weeks out of 12 years of schooling). There aren’t museums I’d want to work at here, there aren’t shops I’d love to work for, there aren’t historical places I feel attached to to work there. I cannot tell you how fucking ECSTATIC I was to see actual WWI items in museums in England because I’d never seen anything like it here!! Like??? I could’ve fucking cried because I was so happy to be in a place where my interests had meaning to people?? Like last time I was there, literally a man in an elevator got into a Deep conversation with us about how sad WWI was and how it’s still emotional for people which was WILD because here I’m always told to “be smart and get interested in something that actually matters”. Like I’m sorry but it is SO draining to be so passionate about something it feels like no one around you ever cares about

5. The Style I specifically have is SO unnecessarily pricey to have here. California never had an Edwardian Period the way they did in the countries I studied, which means that there are, surprise, pretty much zero places to buy clothing/items from that period and if you do happen to find them, they’re outrageously expensive and the cuts of the garments aren’t even the ones I’m looking for, for instance, because America had slightly different fashion. No one here sells the clothing I dream of having, I have to order a majority of my stuff from England meaning it costs A LOT and I pay like $80+ in shipping for some things. My reenactment gear is so expensive to have shipped here as well!! I’m also so ://// cos I see all my friends from Europe just going out and causally finding items I’d love to have at decent prices cos they’re just staple antique shop items there which would be classified as rarities here. Like...... to know I could just walk into a physical shop somewhere and pay £15 for a collar or something that would’ve cost me $45 to have shipped here is just AAAAAHHHH??? Like the only reason why my dream life Brand isn’t as developed as I would like is because that Brand just doesn’t exist anywhere here and it’s so disappointing

6. Additionally, I plan on going to Europe when it’s much safer to travel anyway throughout my life just to visit all these places I want to, if I don’t end up living there somewhere, but flights from California to these places are so expensive because I’m always traveling so far and my flight is always 11-12 hours straight which would be fine if it wasn’t in cramped quarters filled with strangers

7. Ultimately, I just feel so alone and empty here. I look out around me and see an American capitalist wasteland, Hollywood drama in my backyard, stark blue skies with a blazing unforgiving sun, no places I Vibe with, no place I feel interested to live, no place I feel interested to work at, and nothing to be happy about. My parents are planning to move after my dad retires, my grandparents on both sides are getting quite older now, and my family on both sides I’m not all that close with, I used to see a lot and now I see maybe once every 1-2 years. I’m not a little kid anymore and it’s just time for me to leave and everything just feels so wrong about living here in ways I don’t even have words for

8. Adding: the job situation here has been so bad for a long time and because of that, I’ve reached a point where I’m selling my car to have the money I need to move out! I’m either going to have to find a place to live where I can walk or take the metro or something because I don’t have cash left over to by another car once I sell the one I have so RIP

[scotianostra]

 Johnny Ramensky, the Scottish safe cracker was born on April 6th 1905 in Glenboig, Lanarkshire.

This is the type of story that would make a great film, so settle down to enjoy the life of the man born Jonas Ramanauckas, who became known as  John Ramsay, Gentleman Johnny, and Gentle Johnny

His father was a miner who died when Johnny was young and the young Ramensky also became a miner. It was while he was down the pit that he learned his skills with dynamite which were to prove so useful to him in later years.

Johnny drifted in and out of trouble from the age of eleven and moved to the Gorbals area of Glasgow during the Depression with his mother and two sisters. He developed an amazing physical strength and acrobatic ability but in order to obtain some money, he became a burglar, specializing in robberies involving climbing up external rone-pipes to gain entry to premises. He also developed skills in picking locks and safe-cracking with explosives.

While his activities were criminal, he had his own code of conduct and raided business premises rather than people's homes. And when he was caught, he never resisted arrest. His philosophy seemed to be "if you are caught, you are caught - it's all part of the job".

His life of detention began at age 18 when he was given a term in Borstal but later he served various terms in both Barlinnie and Peterhead Prisons. He eventually spent more time behind bars than outside. It's often easy to sentimentalise and sugar-coat the past, there was something about him which meant that even the police who snared him and the courts which he frequented as regularly as others visit their local supermarket, regarded him as somebody who was more interested in eluding an alarm and breaking a code than becoming rich from his forays.

Johnny was married during one of his spells out of prison and the couple had a baby daughter. But in 1934, while he was serving a sentence in Peterhead, he was told that his young wife was dead. He was refused permission to attend the funeral and Johnny's sense of justice was outraged. So he made the first of many escapes from the prison.

  In 1942, he was serving yet another jail sentence in Peterhead Prison. The army offered to give him special commando training and Johnny accepted. After all, it meant he was out of prison, earning a wage - and fighting for his country. Part of a crack commando unit, he was dropped behind enemy lines and used his skills with both explosives and burglary to good effect, stealing important German documents.

During the war in Italy, he entered Rome with the first troops to reach the city and blew open the safes in 14 foreign embassies - all in one day!

For his commando service and dangerous exploits, he was awarded the Military Medal and given a free pardon at the end of the war. But not longer after his return to Glasgow he was back to his life of burglary and was caught and jailed again.

In November 1955 he was sentenced to 10 years’ "preventive detention" at Peterhead Prison, which should have given him a few privileges. But he found there were none. He served over two years with exemplary conduct and still there was no move to the better conditions of "preventive detention". So Johnny responded in the only way he knew how - he escaped. Of course, he was later recaptured but he was at least given an opportunity to put his case to the prison authorities - which achieved nothing. Johnny escaped (and was recaptured) from Peterhead (Scotland's strongest jail) no less than five times including three times in 1958. Sometimes the prison warders didn't know whether he was inside or outside the prison. His fifth escape evoked wide-spread sympathy amongst the public which was illustrated by a song "The Ballad of Johnny Ramensky" by Norman Buchan (a Member of Parliament), which was printed in the Scotsman newspaper, and another musical tribute, Let Ramensky Go, was penned by none other than Roddy McMillan, the star of Para Handy.

Not long after starting a prison sentence in Barlinnie in Glasgow, Johnny was in the exercise yard and suddenly threw off his boots and shot up the wall, using cracks in the mortar as toe-holds. He reached a roof - but could get no further. Equally, the warders couldn't get him down - and Johnny was demanding to see the Chief of the Prisons Department! Attempts to reach the roof were met by a barrage of roof slates - watched by a growing audience outside the prison walls. He stayed out on the roof for five hours, eventually coming down when it started to get cold.

In 1962 Detective Superintendent Robert Colquhoun (retired), said "Like most policemen who have come in contact with Ramensky, I find him an engaging character, the kind of man who, applying his brain to another, more acceptable, type of occupation, could probably have made good." Before he had retired, DS Colquhoun received a message from Johnny (who was once more in prison). He had heard that the policeman was seriously ill. The message contained his good wishes for his speedy recovery, plus the advice that he’d been taking too much out of himself chasing Johnny around! As he grew older and the escapes continued one question was being asked: Why does he keep on doing it, at his age and in his state of health? A police officer who knew him well said "Johnny never expects to get far when he breaks out now ... he's just got to do it to prove that he still can."

Johnny remarried and started a second family during his all too short periods out of prison but persisted in his life of crime into his old age - by which time his abilities as a cat burglar were beginning to fail him. In 1972 he collapsed in Perth Prison and died shortly after in hospital. In addition to his family, the many people who attended his funeral came from both the law enforcement and the law breaking sides of society. Whatever his faults, Johnny Ramensky was respected by them all. His obituary appeared in every Scottish national newspaper.

That's not the end of Johnny Gently though, he lives on at Peterhead Prison, now a museum where Ramensky served so many years behind bars, has created a exhibition space which highlights different aspects of his career.

I couldnae find the Roddy McMillan  version of Lat Ramensky Go, but former BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year, Claire Harings makes a great job of singing it, the lyrics below are the original version, Claire sings a slightly different version. 

Let Ramensky Go

There was a lad in Glesga town, Ramensky was his name Johnny didnae know it then but he was set for fame

Now Johnny was a gentle lad, there was only one thing wrong He had an itch to strike it rich and trouble came along He did a wee bit job or two, he blew them open wide But they caught him and they tried him and they bunged him right inside

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go

And when they let him out he said he'd do his best but then He yielded tae temptation and they bunged him in again Now Johnny made the headlines, entertained the boys below When he climbed up tae the prison roof and gave a one-man show

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go

But when the war was raging the brass-hats had a plan Tae purloin some information, but they couldnae find a man So they nobbled John in prison, asked if he would take a chance Then they dropped him in a parachute beyond the coast of France

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go

Then Johnny was a hero, they shook him by the hand For stealing secret documents frae the German High Command So Johnny was rewarded for the job he did sae well They granted him a pardon frae the prison and the cell

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go

But Johnny was in error when he tried his hand once more For they caught him at a blastin', and it wasnae worth the score

The jury pled for mercy, but the judge's voice was heard Ten years without remission, and that's my final word Ten years, my lord, that's far too long, wee Johnny cried in vain For if you send me up for ten I'll never come out again

Oh give me another chance, my lord, I'm tellin' you no lie But if you send me up for ten I'll sicken and I'll die

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go

Now Peterhead's a fortress, its walls are thick and stout But it couldnae hold wee Johnny when he felt like walking out Five times he took a powder, he left them in a fix And every day they sweat and pray in case he makes it six

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go

Alley-ee alley-ay alley-oo alley-oh       Open up your prison gates       And let Ramensky go..........

Here are some reports on him.......[1958:] Twelve hours after Johnny Ramensky had done his fifth and most baffling "vanishing act" in Peterhead jail yesterday it was not known whether he was INSIDE or OUTSIDE the prison. This was admitted late last night by a Scottish Home Department spokesman. Here is the sequence of events leading up to the cracksman's third escape in ten months.

Because of rain, 45 prisoners, including Ramensky, were being exercised in one of Peterhead's large prison halls. At 1.40, the exercise ended and the squad began a 50 to 70-yard march, in organised lines to the tailor's shop. At 1.43, they arrived at the shop WITHOUT RAMENSKY.

The alarm was raised. Every corner of the prison was searched. But there was no trace of the "King of Peterhead". No rope or ladder with which he could have scaled the jail's 18-foot wall was found. One theory was that Ramensky had a key to the back door of the tailor's shop, which is only ten feet from the wall. For it is believed that he had a key for the tailor's shop door on his October break-out. Out went the word to police all over the country:

 "Ramensky's free again."

Two hunts went on - in swirling snow and at temperatures below freezing point - for the 53-year-old convict who, despite ill-health, had made another freedom bid. Throughout the whole of the North of Scotland road blocks and police checks sprang up. Tracker dogs went out. A strong cordon was thrown round the immediate prison area. For on his last bid in October, Ramensky was found, after 40 hours of freedom only 200 yards from the prison. It was ill-health that beat him then. He collapsed after a child spotted him in a barn.[...]. 

Last night people living in the Peterhead area spoke of him without fear. For he is known as "Gentle John" and those beside the prison take bets on how long he will stay free. His escape in February this year lasted 24 hours, before he was caught in Peterhead's main street wearing a warder's cap and a long black coat.

One question was being asked: Why does he keep on doing it, at his age and in his state of health? A police officer who knows him well said last night: "Johnny never expects to get far when he breaks out now ... he's just got to do it to prove that he still can.

"Here is a description of the clothes worn by the wartime Commando who cracked safes behind enemy lines: Brown moleskin trousers, brown battledress tunic, brown jersey, blue and white striped shirt, black leather shoes ... and possibly wearing a cap. (Daily Record, Dec 18)

The six-day hunt for gentle Johnny Ramensky was called-off last night. And baffled police admitted: "There are still no clues." [...] The authorities believe that 53-year-old Ramensky, if still alive, is bound to make a mistake sometime, or to leave a clue somewhere. It is understood that police opinion is split over the reason for the absence of a "trail." Some feel he is dead in the sea, but others are convinced he is in the Peterhead area, possibly quite near the prison, and is being fed and sheltered. (Daily Record, Dec 23)

[1959:] Johnny Ramensky (53), the safe-breaker who made a sensational jail-break from Peterhead prison, remaining at liberty for nine days, is back in prison. He was caught at Persley, on the north bank of the River Don about three miles from Aberdeen. A police spokesman said after the capture that Ramensky was looking wonderfully well, apart from being footsore, and considering the long period he had been on the run. He was dressed in blue dungarees and a green jersey and his shoes were cracked and torn. It is understood that no police charges are impending against Ramensky on account of his escape. There have been no reports of break-ins or thefts. His fifth escape has evoked wide-spread sympathy amongst the public. During the war Ramensky was an instructor to Allied agents in blowing safes. (Weekly Scotsman, Jan 2)

[crewhonk]

Of The Line (10)

Summary: Ross presents the “Sokovia Accords”, Steve receives some news, the team flies to Geneva and London, a question is asked, and an old familiar face reappears. 

Warnings: Funeral, Fluff, Sad!Steve

Songs: “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)”- The 1975 / “Waves”- Dean Lewis / “River” - Bishop Briggs

Words: 3.9K

Till The End Masterlist / Of The Line Masterlist

______________________

YN was swaying back and forth in her chair, across the table from Steve and in between Sam and Giovanna who were both pretending (far better than YN was) to listen to the Secretary drone on and on about something to do with golf. 

YN had dealt with powerful white politicians her whole life. She had learned the ins and outs of international governments to help her and her dad stay under the radar and live as legally as they could for the first sixteen years of her life, and having Secretary Ross look at her as if she was no more than a spec of dirt on a white shirt reminded her just how much she didn’t like the American government. 

She was openly not paying attention, sure, it was an immature move, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care much about what he was talking about until Giovanna passed her a note from her notebook. 

‘this guy is totally never going to be the white man of the month.’ She read and chewed her top lip to stop a smile.

‘stan twitter would, in fact, be disappointed.’ She passed the note back and heard Gio breath through her nose a little too loudly. 

‘seriously, if he has to talk about golf for much more I might just leave. Or die. Whichever comes first.’ Giovanna passed back and just as YN was about to pass another note back that read something about a double mystery death, Sam caught her wrist, not looking at her, but at the secretary who was already looking back. 

“And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Natasha asked, a cool, easy tone to her voice. The Widow voice that sent a chill straight up YN’s spine. 

“How about "dangerous"? What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?” He replied, stalking back and forth across a screen that was used for mission briefings. The first word YN could think of, but with tremendous guilt, was the word ‘Terrorist’.

“New York.” Ross moved and pressed the switch which turned on the screen behind him, and YN sucked in a breath as she saw her father as Hulk, soaring from building to building until a pile of debris landed on the person filming. The video cut out, and YN dug her fingernails into her palms, refusing to look up from her fists at Steve or Giovanna or Ross who she knew were all watching her for any reaction. 

“Washington.” The three Insight helicarriers, firing on each other. The destroyed Triskelion. A helicarrier crashing into the Potomac and throwing up a massive wave, engulfing citizens and the camera. Sam was the one to look down, the movement caught by YN’s periphery. 

Steve watched his teammates react to the footage rather than the footage itself, and seeing the hurt on their faces was so much worse than the carnage on the screen. 

“Sokovia.” Steve watched as YN’s head shot up, her eyes glassy as she scanned the screen for any trace of her dad— any video of him the day he disappeared. When there was nothing, he watched her brow furrow and her bite her lip and he extended his leg under the table to rest his foot on top of hers. She looked up at him and blinked away a tear, smiling shyly at the motion of comfort and nudging his foot back with a twitch of the corners of her mouth. 

“Lagos.” Steve watched as YN’s eyes moved from his to the screen again, flinching when she saw Steve in the background with his uniform top unzipped— great purple splotches leaving no normal skin tone behind as Natasha pressed her fingers to his ribs. Steve watched as Wanda turned her chair away from the screen and watched as Giovanna took Wanda’s hand in her own. 

“Okay. That's enough.” Steve said sharply, and Ross nodded with a grim expression, shutting the screen off. 

“For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.” He placed a thick book on the table in front of Wanda who read the title and pushed it down the line towards YN who read the words the ‘Sokovia Accords’ on the title page. The United Nations symbol was just under the title and she raised an eyebrow incredulously. 

“What is this” YN asked, flipping over the first page and feeling Sam peek over her shoulder. She pulled her feet away from Steve’s (much to both parties dislike) to sit up straighter as she began to read.

“The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries . . . it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.”

“The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we've done that.” Steve grumbled, watching YN begins to disappear in the words she was reading— something she only did when she was wholly focused on something. Or concerned.  

“Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” Steve glared up at Ross who was standing over him, challenging the older man to say much else about Bruce Banner to his face. 

“Neither of them are a threat to any living person.” YN snapped, not taking her eyes off the paper in front of her. Her cool voice was betrayed by the way her hand holding the book shook angrily. 

Ross only shrugged. “If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes . . . you can bet there'd be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground. Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.”

“And if we come to a conclusion you don’t like?” Giovanna snarled quietly. Ross smirked, and Giovanna wanted nothing more than to rip that smile off his face with her freshly done acrylic nails. 

“You retire. Talk it over.” 

_________________________

The had moved to the living room soon after Ross had taken his departure— the meeting room appearing too stuffy for the whole team who had each decided their viewpoint on the Accords. YN stalked into the room last, book in hand and handed it to Steve who held his hand out for it. In another situation, she could trick herself into thinking that he was holding his hand out for her, but the tension in his and her shoulders told them both that this was not The Occasion. 

She stood a foot to the left of Steve, on Sams flank as Rhodey pointed his finger aggressively at his friend. 

"Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is one more than you have.” 

“So let's say we agree to this thing. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?” Sam asked and Rhodey scoffed, pinching his nose. 

“117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam, and you're just like, ‘No, that's cool. We got it’.” He glowered and YN was reminded of the way she used to talk to Giovanna when they were younger and mocking each other. 

“Rhodey.” YN snapped, and both Sam and Rhodey looked up in shock at the sharpness of her voice. Even Steve, who was skimming through the tray looked up, eyebrows raised. He never expected her to take his side after everything that had been through, but seeing the fire in his eyes made him feel something flutter feebly in his chest— something like hope. 

“Think about this logically, okay?” She started. “We aren’t going to be able to do anything under this council if it’s anything like what the treaty describes. It’s a version of the Security Council, and you and I both know that that's not going to work.”

“Why wouldn’t it work?” Giovanna asked, and YN turned to her. 

“Well, each country that’s apart of this council would need to meet quickly if we needed to be somewhere. First problem. The second problem is that if every member has a ‘no’ vote, the issue is immediately dropped and can’t be re-visited.” YN explained, sitting on the couch across from Giovanna. 

“Which means?”

“Which means if it’s something domestic— in America— Russia and China won’t let us do anything because our country is a competing superpower with them. They don’t want us to succeed. And if it’s something international, other countries are going to say no because while this Treaty is garbage, Ross was right. We do act without restraint, and while we should be in contact with some form of government this is not the way to do it!”

“We can’t go against the United Nations, YN!” Rhodey said, exasperated. 

“They have no means of treaty enforcement anyways! What’s the worst they could do, okay?” YN shot back quickly. She was not going to submit to a government leash unless it was a damn good leash. 

“I have an equation.” Vision piped up, and YN’s head spun towards him she almost got whiplash. She had genuinely forgotten the robot was still a part of the team. 

“Oh, this will clear it up.” 

“In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate.” He explained slowly, and YN crossed her arms and leaned back against the cushions, offended. 

“Are you saying it's our fault?” Steve voiced her thoughts for her.

"I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe. Oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.” He replied, and YN rolled her eyes so hard she felt something pop. 

“Boom.” Rhodey finished. 

“Did you just say ‘boom’? How old are you?” Giovanna asked, half angry, half amused. 

“Tony. You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal.” Natasha piped up and YN looked at her uncle, who was covering his face with his hands until Natasha spoke. 

“It's because he's already made up his mind.” 

“You were in on this?” Giovanna almost shrieked, and Tony flinched. 

“It’s the middle ground, Kid.” He replied, voice sad. “There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys.” And Giovanna let out a sound of protest. 

“Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up.” Steve sighed.

“Who said we're giving up? We’re not giving up.”

“If we’re signing something to make us sit and wait on our asses and just do what we’re told, yeah— we are giving up.” Giovanna barked as she rose to her feet. YN mirrored her. 

“Maybe Tony's right.” Natasha’s voice was quiet as she spoke and everyone looked at her in shock. “If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off—“

“Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?” Sam cut her off and Natasha bit her lip nervously. She and Sam had ended up getting…. Close to each other and seeing him about to tear her a new one made almost everyone uncomfortable. 

“I'm just— I’m reading the terrain. We have made some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back.” She said carefully and Sam shook his head, turning his back on her. She dropped her expression to her lap and pinched her wrist. 

“Nat, it doesn’t feel right,” YN whispered in the sudden, pressing silence. 

“I’m done with this bullshit. I’m not signing anything.” Giovanna growled and stomped from the room. Before YN could make a move to follow her, Steve’s phone went off, and he rose as well, halfway to the door before he said ‘I have to go’.

Torn between which persons o follow and comfort, YN turned to Wanda who had appeared at her side. Her touch was gentle on her hand, and she felt Wanda’s calming powers flood her body. A sharp turn from their time on the African Coast. 

“Go to him. I’ll make sure she’s alright.”

“Thank you, Wan.”

________________________

YN tore off after Steve jogging to see if she could catch up with him. She turned the corner of a hallway just in time to hear the sound of a stairwell door ‘click’. She walked to the door and pressed the handle, opening it and letting herself in. There was the sound of a sniff from a flight below her and she tried quietly down the step, stopping only when She saw Steve sitting on a bottom step, curled in on himself. 

She walked down the steps and sat beside him, the left side of her body against his right, as she rested her head on his hunched shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his large bicep and traced patterns in the crook of his elbow. 

“What happened,” YN asked, voice soft and steady and enough to make Steve look up at her. His eyes were red again— they seemed to be more red than any other colour these days, and her heart broke. 

“Peggy’s dead.” He whispered thickly, voice shaking and chin wobbling. When he said the words out loud, his face crumpled and he dropped his head into the crook of her neck, whimpering. She pulled away slightly, pushing him back before climbing into his lap and awkwardly straddling him on the step. She was immediately greeted with his trunk-like arms wrapping tightly around her waist, face pressed into the fabric of her shirt as his body shook with the will to not cry in front of her. 

She wrapped her arms around his head and shoulders, pulling him tighter to her and combing her fingers through his hair as soothingly as she could. 

“You can cry, Steve. Please, cry.” She whispered, knowing the grief he was going through— the loss of an old life— a life before this team and this life in New York. 

He gave a great, shuddering gasp and once he pulled her so close to him she thought she would disappear into his body, he let out the most heart wrenching, gut turning sob she had ever heard. 

Steve Rogers was now, and officially, a broken man, crying into the arms of the last, truly good thing in his life. 

________________________________

“You’ll be fine, okay?” Giovanna said, standing beside YN and staring at the church in London she knew held the funeral of Peggy Carter. 

“What if I’m intruding on a moment or something. This is weird. And a bad idea.” YN rushed, turning around and making to walk away, only to be stopped by Natasha with both arms on each of YN’s shoulder. 

“He wants you there. I know because if Clint died I wouldn’t want to be alone.” She said, staring hard enough into YN’s eyes she had to look away. 

“Okay. Yeah. Sure.” YN mumbled, curling her hands into fists and turning back at the grand church doors. Just as she took a step forward to enter the church, they swung open. 

A blonde stepped out, then. Her mid-length hair was curled just slightly and her skin was perfect and it seemed to glow under the sun. Her pantsuit was classy, yet form-fitting and it showed off a beautiful, strong figure. She was tall, too— taller than any of the three women watching her walk towards them. 

“Can I help you?” She asked, and her voice sounded like honey dripping on perfectly toasted white bread. 

“We’re— uhhhh,” YN tried to say, but she was honestly blown away by this woman.

“We’re here to see if Steve Rogers is still here, we wanted to make sure he was okay. Well, as okay as someone can be in his place.” Giovanna piped up, and YN was flooded with gratitude for her. 

“He’s going to need a few weeks to be okay, I think. With everything going with the Accords and that girl who ran away and now this— it’s like his world is falling apart.” She said solemnly and the other three women tensed. YN raised an eyebrow and shifted her weight to one foot. 

“Who are you, again?” She grumbled, and a smile blossomed on the blonde strangers face. 

“Sharon Carter. I was Steve’s neighbour for the year and a bit he was in Washington. I don’t think I caught your name, though?” She explained and offered her hand for YN to shake. 

“I’m YN Banner. The girl who ran away.” She shook Sharon's hand with a grip that was a little too tight and Sharon’s smile fell off of her perfect face. 

“I’m sorry— I—“ She tried, but YN cut her off with a slow smile. 

“It’s okay, Sharon. Thanks.” She let go and led them all into the church, leaving her new friend on the steps alone. 

“Bitch,” YN grumbled when Natasha and Giovanna caught up to her in the foyer. 

“We are in a place of God, YN.” Giovanna chastised and YN only rolled her eyes angrily. 

“Perfect bitch.” She replied and Giovanna coughed, smacking her in the arm. Natasha only smirked.

All previous amusement or contempt was cut off by the sight once they entered the main cathedral. Steve was leaning against one of the pews, head bowed and silhouetted by the glowing light streaming in the stain glass window over the stage. The sight was beautiful and sad, and everything to do with Steve Rogers. 

“Go, we’ll join you soon, okay,” Natasha whispered in her ear and she nodded, nervously stepping forward and walking down the aisle. Steve, ever the one for impeccable senses, looked up at who was walking towards him. His shoulders slumped in relief when he saw it was her, and He pushed off the pew, making his way to her and meeting her halfway. 

His solid arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her close, and she only wrapped her arms around his neck and pull him to rest in the crook of her neck. 

“I’m so sorry, Steve.” She whispered, and he hugged her tighter, nuzzling his face into her. She wasn’t sure if it was to be closer to her or to wipe tears and snot onto her shirt, but frankly, she couldn’t care less which was which. 

“Thanks, Sweetheart.” He mumbled, and she scratched the back of his head soothingly. They could have stood there in the heart of the church for seconds or hours or years before Natasha and Giovanna joined them. For their sake, Steve let YN go, and she remained by his side. 

“Who else signed?” Steve asked, looking over at Natasha and wiping his nose. 

"Tony. Rhodey. Vision.” She listed, her voice soft. 

“Clint?” 

“Says he’s retired.” YN hummed, smirking. She hoped Laura was doing okay— with the baby and Clints never-ending desire to remake the house. 

“What about you two?” He looked from Giovanna to YN, and Giovanna scoffed. 

"I’m not signing if it kills me, but dad wanted me to come to the signings to 'see it with my own eyes’.” She mocked her father's voice and everyone could see how hurt she was with her father decision. 

“You’re so dramatic, always.” YN teased quietly. She looked up to Steve, then and her gaze was warm and everything he wanted to drown in. “I’m not here for that. I’m here for you.” 

He could have died right there and then.

_____________________

YN and Steve strolled the down the street in London to the hotel he was staying in. He had taken her arm in his— ‘for the sake of being a gentlemen’— he had said, but it had made YN flush bright red, nevertheless. They had chatted about the beauty of downtown London, and the accents and the few times he had been here with Peggy for meetings and awards. The conversation lulled into a comfortable silence before a thought came to YN.

“So, you’re retiring, then.” She commented, and he sucked in a breath, squinting into the distance as if trying to spot something on the horizon. 

“I guess, yeah. Never thought I would do it so young, but I guess so.” He hummed, looking down at her and smiling. There was a peace in his eyes she had never seen and it made her heart swell fondly. 

“You are too then.” He replied, and she shrugged.

“I’m young enough. Maybe I’ll get an official degree or two— be like a normal 22-year-old for once.” She said and he chuckled. 

“I don’t think you could be normal if you tried, Sweetheart.” He nudged her and laughed when she let out a squawk of indignation, pushing him away playfully. 

“Excuse you!” She laughed, and he giggled right back, throwing an arm over her shoulder and pulling her close. 

“Well, since we’re just a pair of retirees, when we go back to the States, would you maybe wanna— I don’t know—“ He stumbled, his voice was nervous and the natural flush of his cheeks seemed to be getting darker by the second. How Steve stayed single for his whole life, she didn’t know. An image opened in her mind, then— a sight of an impossibly shy, small Steve Rogers with a second-hand suit and a bruise under his eye nervously asking a pretty girl out and her heart grew warm. 

“Ask me, Steve.” She smiled, her voice serious and firm and inviting. 

“Wanna grab dinner or something? Maybe a movie?” He mumbled, and she reached forward and wrapped her fingers through his. He looked up at her, then— his face a glowing ray fo hope and a small smile on his lips. 

“Just us?” She whispered, and he stepped closer, pulling her chin up to look at him in the eyes. 

“Just us for as long as you want it to be, my girl.” He mumbled and her stomach flipped aggressively in her body, making her sway and heat up ten more degrees. 

“Then yes. It’s a date.” She whispered, slightly leaning forward on her tip-toes and he ducked his head slightly.

“I’m looking forward to it, then.”

“Steve! YN! Hi!” A chirpy voice appeared from somewhere to their left and YN wanted to take Sharon's hair, and throw her into the busy street.

“Sharon, hey.” Steve greeted her warmly and with a hug and the butterflies that were fluttering in YN’s belly turned into scorpions, angry and venomous and red hot. “YN, this is Sharon! Sharon this is YN— the woman I was telling you about last week!”

“We’ve met.” YN interrupted coldly, shocked by the news that Steve and Sharon hung out regularly. She took a side-step away from him and Sharon seemed to swoop in, further greeting him with a hug that made YN want to snarl.

“Yeah,” Sharon smiled nervously. “I’m really sorry about that, by the way.” She seemed genuine, but the scorpions in YN’s stomach were stinging and painful so she just offered Sharon a tight smile. 

“It’s fine. Like I said. I think I see Sam at the bar, I’m gonna go say hi.” She grumbled and without saying goodbye to Steve, turned and walked into the hotel. 

________________________

“She’s really nice, YN.” Sam offered pathetically and pushed another beer in YN’s direction. YN just frowned and took a sip.

“She could shit rainbows and I wouldn’t give a damn.” She bit back and Sam laughed. She had always, always liked Sam, so it was nice that he was here for her.

“He likes you, YN. He really does, he’s just… oblivious to a fault.” Sam commented and she lifted her drink. 

“I’ll fucking cheers to that.” She took a sizeable gulp and glared over at the place where Steve and Sharon were sitting and laughing like friends. 

“Wait— hold on.” Sam stopped YN from opening her mouth and motioned for the bartender. Instead of paying attention to what he was saying, she watched gloomily as Steve and Sharon left the bar together and into the lobby. 

“YN— look.” YN tore her eyes off of the now-empty doors, and to the TV which was now at full volume and showing the wrecked remains of a large, shiny building. YN squinted and read the news broadcast title and a noise of shock and anxiety left her throat. 

‘United Nations Bombed’

The sound int he room seemed to turn down in volume, and all she could hear was the broadcast that was certainly going to change her life in one way or another. 

“More than 70 people have been injured. At least 12 are dead, including Wakanda's King T'Chaka. Officials have released a video of a suspect who they have identified as James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier. The infamous HYDRA agent, linked to numerous acts of terrorism and political assassinations.”

YN and Sam looked at each other, shocked and anxious and looking ready to vomit. 

“We need to get Steve.” They said at the same time and they both got up, threw a fifty dollar bill on the counter each and ran out of the bar. 

_______________________

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[sapphicsaro]

anya || infinity war

here is the next installment of the “anya” series. i tried to put as much fluff as i could before it got depressing... 

enjoy!

---

“Ahh!! She’s gonna get you Anya!! RUN!!”

The little girl giggled and ran as fast as she could, her mother chasing behind her, arms reached out to grab her daughter. The three, almost four, year old was laughing hard, running towards her father, her mother close to catching her.

Just as she neared her father, Natasha grabbed the toddler from behind, lifting her into her arms. “Gotcha!” she growled into the little girl’s ear, dragging her down to the grass with her. She hovered over her daughter, who could not stop the giggles from coming out of her. 

“No! Ha, ha! No, mama!”

“And now, I’ll use my secret weapon... TICKLES!” 

“No!!” Anya laughed as Natasha took her fingers and tickled her young daughter’s sides. 

Little Anya’s giggles were even louder now, and Clint ran towards his two girls. “I’ll save you, Anya!” He grabbed Natasha from behind, pulling her down on top of him as he laid on the ground. He held her close to him, restraining her, “Get her Anya!”

Anya got up, climbed on top of her mother and flopped against her, “I got you!!”

“Oh no!” Natasha shouted, faking her fear, as she wrapped her hands around the small child’s body. “You got me!”

Anya continued laughing, now wrapped in her mother’s arms, her father below them both. 

It seemed like a picture perfect moment. A family of three playing outside on a beautiful day, running through the backyard of their farmhouse in the rural country. This didn’t look like the family of two assassin parents with their unexpected child; for once, the Romanoff-Barton family seemed like every other mother and father with their child. 

Clint rolled over, knocking Natasha off of him, Anya still tightly wrapped in her arms. Natasha moved, placing Anya upright in between her two parents who stayed lying on the ground. 

Clint looked over at Natasha who smiled widely at her daughter; she was so beautiful. 

She noticed him staring and looked back over, “What?”

He shook his head, smiling, “Nothing.”

“Mama, Papa? Can we eat dinner soon?” 

Clint chuckled, “Of course, pigeon. What do you feel like eating?”

“Hmm... sandwiches?”

Natasha smiled, “Is that so? Well, I must say I’m an expert on how to make the perfect peanut butter sandwich. If that sounds good?”

Anya nodded, “Yes please!”

The three got up, Natasha carrying the three year old in her arms, and made their way back to the house. As they walked up the steps, Natasha placed Anya down, grabbing her hand.

“Go wash up with papa, I’ll start lunch.”

Natasha watched her little girl head up the wooden stairs with her father, laughing as her dad kept poking her sides. 

This was the longest she had gotten to be home since Anya was born. After letting Steve and Bucky go, Tony had warned her they would be after her, and she ran. A bottle of hair color later, she was back in Missouri, her little girl snuggled up in her arms. She wasn’t retired like Clint, but she definitely had fewer missions. 

Which meant more time at home. 

Natasha no longer spent her days fighting and killing; instead, she was making pancakes and playing tag with a three year old. It was nice to have a break every once in a while, and after the team was torn apart, this was the perfect time. 

She still went on missions when Steve called. She needed to. 

Clint had this wonderful ability to stop his work and be perfectly fine being a stay at home dad. She couldn’t do it. She needed to continue fighting; Clint understood that. 

But, she made more of an effort to be home. After Vienna, and seeing her daughter scream when being separated from her, she knew she was going to have to spend more time in Missouri for her daughter’s sake. 

So, she had found a balance of work and home. 

Look at her go; progress. 

She cut the peanut butter sandwiches diagonally, one for her, one for Anya, and a peanut butter and jelly for Clint. She got apple juice into a bottle for Anya, and poured two glasses of lemonade for her and her husband. Natasha got the table set when she heard the little pitter patter of her daughter’s footsteps coming down the stairs, Clint close behind. 

Anya had changed from the striped shirt and overalls she had ruined while playing, and into a baggy sweater and leggings. Natasha came over, lifting the young girl and placing her on her booster seat at the table. 

“Here you go missy. Make sure you eat it all, and finish your juice.”

“Okay, mama.”

Clint came around the corner, silent, and leaned against the doorframe.

“What?” Natasha asked, clearly something was wrong. 

“You got a phone call.”

Oh.

“Which phone?”

“Your work phone. It was Steve.” 

Natasha took her seat at the table, taking a sip from her lemonade. “Did he say what he needed?”

Clint sighed and went to the table, sitting down in the chair across from her, their daughter glancing between them periodically. “He’s stopping by tomorrow morning. There’s another mission.”

Natasha, her mouth full, just nodded. 

“You have to leave again, mama?”

Natasha swallowed, “Maybe, маленький (little one). Is that okay?”

Anya took a sip from her juice, nodding. “Duty calls!”

Clint laughed, “Who taught you that?”

“Uncle Tony.”

“Of course,” Natasha rolled her eyes. “Well, we’ll see what he wants tomorrow. Maybe it’s not what we think.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot how often Captain America likes to just drop by and visit by calling your work phone and being vague.”

“Clint.”

“I’m just saying, think realistically.” He took a big bite of his sandwich, “He wants you back for a mission. So, let’s have some fun together before you leave again.”

Natasha raised her eyebrow, “Movie night?”

Anya’s face lit up, “Movie night??”

Clint smiled, “That’s what I was thinking.”

Natasha locked eyes with Clint, knowing the two needed to speak in private about this phone call, but kept the mood light for now, for their daughter. 

Movie night was a tradition to help Anya with the transition of Natasha going away. She would get to spend the whole night with her mom, cuddling, eating snacks, and would be so tired that she easily fell asleep. If Natasha left without doing a movie night, Anya’s anxiety took the best of her and Clint would be up all night trying to ease her mind. 

And thus, tonight would be a movie night. Anya always got to pick what they watched. Clint would sigh, and Natasha would remind him that she is a three year old, and to knock it off. 

Tonight’s selection was Brave. Wow, what a shocker. A movie about a redheaded archer? Why wouldn’t it be their daughter’s favorite?

After their meal, Clint started to clean up and Natasha sent Anya to go play in the living room, knowing that they were going to have to talk. She sat down at the table, watching him scrub their plates. “So we going to talk, or are you going to keep pretending like you’re fine?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His back stayed to her, hands still scrubbing away at the dishes.

“If you don’t want me to go, I need you to say it to me.”

“Who said that?”

Natasha rolled her eyes, “Clint.”

He turned off the water, finishing the last dish, and dried off his hands. “It’s not that. I don’t not want you to go.”

“…but?”

“If you think I’m ever going to say I want you to go, it’s not going to happen. I obviously love having you here, and us being all together. But, I know work is important.” 

Natasha stood up, walking closer to him, arms crossed. “So, you’re fine with me going?”

“Of course. I just-jeez, I don’t know. I’ll...I’ll miss you,” He said, looking down at the ground. 

Natasha closed the distance between them, pulling his arms around her as she rested against his chest. “You know I miss you guys too, it’s just-”

“You need to work, I know.” He rubbed her back, pushing his face into her (now blonde) hair. “I miss the red.”

She laughed against him, “I heard a rumor blondes have more fun.” She looked up at him, and he bent down, giving her a kiss on the lips. 

“Yeah, but you were freaky as a redhead, too.”

She slapped his chest, “Our child is in the other room!”

“Well, how do you think she got here in the first place?” He laughed.

“I swear to god…” She tried to pull out of his arms, but he just pulled her closer.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Forgive me, I was joking!”

She kissed him once more, “You’re lucky I like you.”

“That’s exactly what my other wife says,” he said, smiling. 

Natasha smirked, “Well maybe your other wife can fuck you tonight after I tuck our kid into bed.” She walked away, leaving Clint in the kitchen, mouth dropped open. 

— 

Clint and Natasha have seen Brave far too many times. But it made their daughter happy, so who were they to say no to another round? The family cuddled up on the couch all together, Natasha against Clint, Anya against Natasha.  

The coffee table in front of them was coated with snacks from popcorn to cookies; Clint was in charge of the food and, honestly, it was mostly for him then Anya. Anya was resting on her mother, back to her chest, her tiny hands over her mother’s. She was intently watching the screen, even though she almost had this movie memorized. 

The little girl bounced in her mother’s arm as Merida shot her arrows, Anya’s face beaming at the screen. Natasha laughed, glancing over at Clint, who shrugged his shoulders, “What can I say? Everyone loves a good bow and arrow.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, and Clint kissed her before placing a small kiss on Anya’s head. 

“Papa, look! It’s like you!”

Natasha smirked, “You two are practically twins.”

Clint pretended to toss his hair, “I know.” 

Anya shook her head, “No papa, I’m Merida! See? Red hair!” She tugged at her short red head curls.

“Yeah, daddy, don’t be ridiculous,” Natasha said, smiling as she placed a gentle kiss on her daughter’s cheek.

They continued this for the rest of the movie, cracking jokes, sneaking kisses, and watching Anya’s excitement as the princess on screen did anything. 

Normally, Anya would begin to get tired, calming down in Natasha’s arms, eyes struggling to stay open, but this wasn’t the case tonight. Natasha couldn’t blame Clint because Anya hardly ate anything (one cookie an hour ago, and some popcorn would hardly keep her this awake). The movie was starting to end, and Anya quieted, but was still wide awake in her mother’s arms. Clint looked over, seeing his daughter’s eyes get big and her bottom lip sticking out slightly.

“What’s wrong, little red?” 

Natasha glanced down at her daughter, the credits starting to roll on the screen, “Anya, are you okay?” 

Anya turned in her mother’s arms, facing both of her parents, “Yeah. I’m just going to miss you mama.” She curled into Natasha’s chest, her mother wrapping her arms around her and squeezing her gently.

“I’ll miss you too.” Anya was still pressed up to her mother’s chest, eyes squeezed shut as her mother rubbed circles on their back. Clint half-smiled, leaning over to kiss his wife, and placed a hand on their daughter’s back, reassuring her.

Anya lifted her head, and Natasha kissed her nose, “Papa will be here the entire time, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

The little girl smiled slightly and nodded, “Okay, mama.”

“I think it’s bedtime though, my child,” Natasha said, looking over at Clint for backup.

Clint glanced at his non-existent watch on his wrist, then back at Anya, “Mhmm. Most definitely. All little girls under four must be in bed immediately. Or the tickle monster is going to come and get them.”

Anya’s eyes went wide, “No!”

Clint nodded furiously, “Oh yes.”

Anya pushed her way out of Natasha’s arms, running towards the stairs, her parents both slowly following behind. 

“Nice one, Clint. Let’s scare our child right before bed.”

Clint shrugged, “Is she going to bed or what?”

Natasha slapped his chest lightly, “I hate you.””

Clint grabbed her hand and pressed it to his lips, “No you don’t.”

They finished getting upstairs, both heading into Anya’s room to tuck her in.

Natasha and Anya recited their poem, the little girl snuggled into her blankets, her mother sitting on the bed beside her. She ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair, rubbing her fingers across her cheeks too. 

Clint walked over, pressing a kiss to Anya’s forehead, “Night night, Merida.”

Anya giggled, “Goodnight, papa.”

“I love you, goober.”

“I love you too.”

Clint left the room, leaving Natasha with their daughter. Anya’s eyes stayed opened, not wanting to sleep still. Natasha smiled, nudging Anya to scoot over, as she laid down in the tiny bed with her. Anya rested her head on her chest, listening to her mother’s heart beat, Natasha’s arm wrapped around her little one, tracing small circles on her skin. 

“Are you getting sleepy yet?”

“A little.”

“Hmm, what will help you get to sleep?”

Anya shrugged, “Moon song?”

“Moon song? What, are you too old for La Vie En Rose?” 

Anya giggled, “I like them both. I just want moon song tonight.”

Natasha grinned, cuddling closer to her baby girl, “Okay. You start it off.”

Anya little voice sheepishly began, “I’m lying on the moon...”

“My dear, I’ll be there soon... It’s a quiet and starry place... Times we’re swallowed up in space ... We’re here a million miles away ...”

Anya’s eyes began to get heavy. 

“There’s things I wish I knew... There’s no thing I’d keep from you... It’s a dark and shiny place... But with you, my dear, I’m safe...”

Her eyes shut.

“And we’re a million miles away.”

Natasha kissed her head, “Goodnight маленький (little one).”

Anya grumbled, “G’night. I love you.”

“I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

—-

“She out?”

“Like a light.”

“Damn, one more point to mama. I don’t know how you do it.”

Natasha smiled, stripping off her sweats and stealing one of Clint’s shirts for bed. “Tonight I had to sing, too. Our child is getting picky.”

“Like father, like daughter.” Clint had only his boxers on, heading into the bed. 

Natasha flicked off the lights and crawled in beside him, resting her head on his bare chest, pressing her lips to his skin. “Mhmm.”

Clint tilted her head up, hand under her chin, and pressed his lips to hers. “I’ll miss you too.”

“It’s just another mission. I’ll be back soon.”

“I know. It just... It just feels different. I don’t know why.”

Natasha sighed against him, “I’ll be home before you know it.”

He held her close, breathing her in, “I know.” 

Her eyes met his, and she pulled him down for another kiss. He smiled against her lips, and pulled her on top of him so she was straddling his legs. 

This was another perk of being home. Sure, Anya was the first positive, but having the chance to be with her husband was definitely another plus. 

Truthfully, they both missed the sex. 

It was hard not to miss it. Back before Anya, it was almost impossible for the two to keep away from each other. Now, they had to wait until bedtime and make sure she was actually asleep or else they would have another incident like two months ago. Luckily, they were still clothed for the most part, but boy, were they caught off guard. 

Tonight, the sex was passionate. Much more “making love”, then “fucking”. 

Ah, domestication, how it changes everything. 

He placed kisses against her neck and jawline, as he entered her, her eyes rolling back, fingernails digging into his back.

Yeah, she was going to miss him, too. 

——

Natasha left early in the morning. Steve landed in the quinjet, and she was gone in less than an hour. Natasha kissed the sleepy Anya goodbye, and hugged Clint tightly, him placing a sweet kiss to her temple.

“Kick some ass.”

The jet left, and the father-daughter duo was left alone. 

“You want pancakes?” He whispered.

The little girl, her head resting against his shoulder, nodded, “Yeah.”

The rest of the day Anya was a little quiet, obviously missing her mother. Clint did everything he could to ease her mind; he was going to spoil her today. 

He decided to take her into town, going to the local shops, just for her to look around. She picked out some things, including two new toys, and a small music box that had a ballerina spin when it was opened. She kept opening it up the whole day, the soft music getting stuck in Clint’s head. 

Anya started perking up around dinner time, as Clint started cracking jokes while they made his “famous” pasta. He couldn’t get enough of her giggles. 

She was clingy, constantly asking to be held, which did not mind Clint at all. He obliged, letting her snuggle up to him as much as she wanted. 

Natasha called later, damn timezones made him confused. But she told him about Wanda and Vision, and how she was headed back to their New York home. 

Things were complicated; she might not be home as soon as thought. 

He told her to take her time, he could hold down the fort here; just kick ass and get home safe. 

Anya told her about the music box, pressing it up to the phone so her mother could hear it. 

“It’s beautiful, honey.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too. Be good for papa, okay? I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Okay.”

“Uncle Steve, Sam and Rhodey say ‘hi’, Anya.”

“Hi.”

“I love you so much, маленький (little one).”

“I love you, mama.”

She slept in their bed that night, using her mother’s pillow which smelled like her shampoo. 

She knocked out.

——

The next morning, Anya woke up at 6am, for what reason? God knows why. But, Clint got up with her, rubbing his eyes from exhaustion, and went to make breakfast. He put her in her booster seat, giving her paper and crayons to keep her occupied.

Today’s menu? Pancakes again. Wow, such a creative dad. 

Whatever. It was easy and didn’t take long to make. Plus she liked them.

He stopped behind Anya’s chair, plate full of cut up pancakes balancing in his hand, bending down to kiss the top of her head, “Hey Birdie, breakfast.” 

Her focus stayed on her drawing, switching from crayon to crayon, not even noticing the fluffy piece of pancakes placed in front of her.

“Hello? Earth to Anya? It’s time to eat.”

She continued furiously scribbling away, gripping the red crayon tightly, “Just…one…second…” She put it neatly back in the box and smiled, “Done.” Anya looked up at Clint, eyes wide, “Do you like it?”

Clint hugged her from behind, “I love it, Birdie.”

She picked up the paper, once blank, now with a doodle of the Avengers and her in front of the team tower. “It’s all of us! I drew Uncle Tony here, but if you look in the sky, you can see his suit flying. And here is us: you, me, and mama.” She handed it to Clint whose fingers traced over all of his team, before landing on a very colorful interpretation of Natasha, with bright red hair. “I colored her hair red so we would match, even though mama’s blonde now.”

He chuckled, “It’s perfect, Anya.” He kissed her head once more, “Now, please eat and maybe mama will call us later.”

“Okay!”

Clint scarved down his own breakfast (which if Tasha were here, he would been chewed out for eating: “Really Clint, pancakes again?”) before cleaning up after Anya. Somehow that kid gets syrup everywhere. 

Clint picked her up, “Go change and we can play outside.”

Anya practically leapt out of her father’s arms and ran to her bedroom, changing at the speed of light out of her Star Wars pjs (which were so wonderfully gifted to her by Sam last Christmas: “The kid needs a good cinematic education!”). 

She put on her favorite sweater and leggings, her hair still braided from when Clint did it the night before and the two made their way outside to play.

He hadn’t been in contact with Natasha today, although it was early and she was probably busy. She did call him when she landed in the tower yesterday, which probably inspired Anya’s drawing. She continued saying that “things were complicated”, and mentioned how “Thanos” had “big plans”, but they were unsure of what they were exactly. 

Thanos?

He remembered when their missions were executing weapons dealers. Not aliens and magical stones. 

He could hear the slight concern in her voice, but she would never admit to it. Fuck, they were trained assassins. They shouldn’t be scare of shit. (Except wasps, fuck wasps.)

She could handle another big, stupid alien. He wasn’t worried.

“Look papa! I can do a cartwheel!” 

“Nice one, pigeon!”

Anya ran back towards him, smiling widely, “Can we shoot targets?”

“Of course we can baby girl.” He picked her, grabbing their practice bows and arrows, and heading towards their makeshift target on the tree. 

Anya was good for a three year old. Sure, she missed the tree completely sometimes, but other times she managed to hit the target without her dad’s help. Yet, more often than not, she still would end up shooting arrows far past the tree, giggling as Clint jokingly sighed before fetching them back. 

She did it once more, this time Clint thought on purpose, laughing loudly as he trudged to pick up the arrow. “You’re lucky you’re cute!” he shouted, heading back towards her.

Her giggles stopped. “Papa?” Anya stood still, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

Clint ran to her as fast as he could, kneeling down in front of his three year old. “What’s wrong? Are you okay-”

“I don’t feel good papa.”

He held her shoulders, looking at her face, tears still streaming. “I got you baby-”

“I’ll be good, I promise, I’m sorry about the arrows-“

“Shhh, shh, you’re okay.” He refused to let go of her, her body starting to fade slowly away.

“Papa?”

And just like that she was gone: dust in his arms.

What. 

Clint fell to his knees.

There were no words, his baby disappeared, right there in his arms. He couldn’t speak, just tears flooding down, then a gut-wrenching scream. 

---

author’s note: i am so sorry. please don’t hate me lol unfortunately the next chapter is equally as sad bc of endgame. BUT! i’ll start writing happier fics soon!

[zaffrenotes]

(1)Your thoughts on TRH chapters are really good and raise many (many) issues that TRH has and the latest chapter is no less. The ranch of Bianca named after Jackson makes no sense either and I felt it is really weird too. But to ease my thoughts I came up with headcanon that maybe the ranch was brought by both Jackson and Bianca when they were married.... Like we don't know how Drake's parents met and maybe they met when Jackson was in college or something in States and they

(2) they fell in love and married and MAYBE decided to settle in Texas for simple life and brought a Ranch and lived there for sometime ( Drake does say their parents visited the river often before they were born so..) .. and for some unknown reason Jackson took up job as King’s guard and maybe they both moved to Cordonia ( may be Jackson wanted it be a temporary thing) and kept Aunt Leona in charge of ranch thinking they can come back again.. and when Jackson died Bianca came back alone.

Your theory is an interesting one, Nonny, and it got me thinking about the whole situation more as well. This got… much longer than I thought it would.

THEORY 1: BOUGHT A RANCH, HAD TO SERVE

Your theory could make sense. We don’t know how long the ranch has been operating, only that Drake’s parents got married there, and Leona ran it while Bianca was in Cordonia. They very well could’ve met and fallen in love in Texas, deciding to buy the ranch after their wedding. That makes sense for naming it the Walker Ranch, but what would’ve caused them to relocate to Cordonia?

So we know Cordonia’s close to Greece, and they’ve used locations in Croatia for scenes of what the kingdom would look like. Let’s pretend that Cordonia’s sandwiched between the two countries, so their culture/customs/etc. are a combination of the two.

Male Greek citizens (born in Greece and/or have at least one Greek parent) have to serve mandatory military service (also called conscription) of at least 9 months in the Army, and 12 months with the Navy or Air Force. If/when discharged from active duty, they still serve in the Reserve forces, where they’re subject to being recalled for 1-10 days at regular intervals. This military service is mandatory for men between the ages of 19-45; women are accepted but are not required to enlist. You can get a waiver to avoid serving, but it’s not guaranteed. 

Croatia’s military service used to be mandatory, but conscription was abolished in 2008 so enlistment is voluntary. Males and females between the ages of 18-49 can serve in the military. 

Greece and Croatia don’t have monarchs ruling over the country the way our fictional Cordonia does, but for the sake of argument, let’s say Cordonia has a similar system in place for their military forces - men and/or women between the ages of 19-45 could, at the very least, be drafted into military service if they didn’t willingly enlist. The exception to this would be to train and serve as a member of the King’s Guard for a shorter period of time.

I don’t know much about military life, but I know an active tour of duty (for US military) can last anywhere from 6 months to four years, and active soldiers tend to serve more than one tour.

Instead of X months/years of active military service and the possibility of being called back for duty for the next 20+ years, one could become a member of the King’s Guard for, let’s say, 10 years. Once that time is up, they’re free to continue on as a King’s Guard, or retire. It’s a high risk position, considering you’d have to lay down your life for any of the royal family, so they could compensate accordingly. Most King’s Guards stay on since they’ve already put in the time.

Let’s say that not long after getting married and buying the ranch, Jackson was drafted to serve. He opts to go with the King’s Guard to minimize his time/service to Cordonia, and Bianca goes with him to help him settle in. She asks Leona to look after the ranch so she and Jackson don’t have to spend the first few months of marriage apart, and Leona agrees, thinking it’s just a temporary thing. Bianca extends her stay to a year; Leona gets a little irritated but agrees to keep looking after the ranch, and once the King’s Guard equivalent of boot camp is complete, Jackson and Bianca visit Texas as often as the job will allow.

And then Bianca discovers she’s pregnant. I can see her being the type of wife/mother that wouldn’t want to deny Jackson the ability to be an active parent to his own child, so she makes the difficult decision to stay in Cordonia, promising Leona that she’ll work out some kind of schedule where she and Drake (and Jackson, if he can get time off) would come back to the ranch a few times a year to help Leona, until Jackson’s time with the Guard is up.

Cue more bitterness from Leona for having to look after things, but she does it for family.

And then Savannah comes along, and traveling alone with two kids several times a year for weeks at a time is too much for Bianca to handle. Jackson’s duties with the King’s Guard increase so he takes less time off, and Bianca’s visits to Texas become fewer and far between. They’re able to plan one family trip to Texas, but Bianca and Leona have some kind of falling out while they’re there, and that’s the reason Drake and Savannah have only been to the ranch once.

Walker family stays in Cordonia, and Jackson dies. Maybe something happens on the ranch and Leona calls Bianca for help as a last resort, Bianca goes…and ends up staying in Texas.  

THEORY TWO: GOLDEN CHILD AND BITTER BETTY

One theory that I’ve been playing with is that the ranch was in Bianca and Leona’s family for at least one generation, so that their parents owned the property. Perhaps Bianca was the favored child, and whenever and however their parents passed, the ranch was left to her and NOT Leona. Bianca would then go on to meet and marry Jackson, and she makes the decision to rename the ranch in his name; he’s her family now too. Just as she’s about to show him how to be a rancher, something happens and he’s called back to Cordonia - maybe Jackson’s father passed and he was on the King’s Guard and he feels the need to serve as well, or we use the King’s Guard incentive from Theory One.

This could explain some of the bitterness coming from Leona, compounded by having to manage the ranch for Bianca when she moved to Cordonia with Jackson and they started their family.

Maybe having kids in Cordonia wasn’t what they planned, and they reasoned staying a few more years wouldn’t hurt, while Leona was still there to manage the ranch for Bianca. Cue more bitterness on Leona’s end. Then Jackson dies trying to protect the royal family; Bianca’s grief-stricken and doesn’t know how to cope on her own, and add some kind of setback in Texas that results in her leaving Cordonia. Maybe she thought it would only be for a few weeks while Drake and Savannah were still in school, and ended up being a whole thing so she just stayed.

That’s my theory, to work in why Leona seems to have problems with Cordonia/nobility in addition to the ranch name. If we’re lucky we’ll find out at least some of what happened in the next couple chapters, because it looks like we’re going to have to help the Walkers in Chapter 8. [Personal note - I REALLY don’t want to help them out of whatever issues are going on.]

[rimalovegood]

Hey quick question, would all the ikemen be in the same universe? Or that wouldn't work cause of time periods? What do you think lol

Actually I’ve thought a bit about this…but the short version is: it’s possible for all beside MidCin.

I think it’s safe to say MidCin it’s set on it’s universe because it happens on a fictional country (or countries) and doesn’t feature any clear time period, it’s more like a classic fairy tale setting. (you could argue about the Sirius visits Stein story but during it it’s said he was transported to other world, it never states it is the land of reason)

Now for the others games, they all start off in a setting that follows the same time line and rules that our real world till the normalcy is disrupted by something supernatural… now the origin of said supernatural phenomena changes from game to game… for Ikevamp, Ikerev and DTL it is attributed to diferent kinds of magic meanwhile for ikesen it’s supossed to something scientifically explainable… thought you could argue the wormwhole is not very different from magic…. I mean it allows bending the rules of time and space just like the other two and follows a somewhat predictable pattern like the door in ikevamp and the rabbit hole on ikerev…. also it’s not exclusive, we could say this world allow both the existence of magic phenomenom like the rabbit whole, the count’s door and whatever that cherry tree does on dtl (sorry, I didn’t understood well how does that work) while more scientific paranormal stuff like the wormwhole also exists…also it would mean that “the land of reason” it’s quite a misleading name

The real problem starts with the time line… Ikerev doesn’t count on this discussion because by going to live on Cradle Alice doesn’t change history also I’m taking out Ikevamp because for most, the vampires don’t change the story besides putting in XIX century Paris a bunch of people that would be weird seeing, but it’s stated that all those figures died before going to the mansion so they fulfilled their role in history (even Arthur that someway exists twice on that time period)

But DTL is set on the Edo period which is closely related to the Sengoku. For the Edo period to happen Nobunaga has to die in Honno-ji, Hideyoshi has to take over his unification effort and Ieyasu has to stablish the Tokugawa shogunate… And now it’s where it gets tricky…because MC saving Nobunaga’s life changes that course of events…but like we see in all stories she returns to the future it doesn’t change much… but it does change stuff, on Yukimura’s route she even notices changes on the Sengoku travel guide. but that is not the point; the only scenario in which the change of leadership from Nobunaga to Hideyoshi ever happens is on Nobunaga’s route where he retires to control his army from the shadows in order to “dissapear from the history books”, also in an event (Heart Spark “clean up war”) it’s stated quite clearly that the decisive battle between Ieyasu and Mitsunari was avoided by MC’s presence on the time period. On the other hand on both Ieyasu’s and Hideyoshi’s routes the MC is convinced that someday they both will take the place history gives them,

And as you can see it’s getting quite confusing…

Other point to take into consideration is that on Sasuke’s route when he and MC return to the future and are having their last date before going to live on the Sengoku. They are set to visit the “Angel and Devil brothers pancake only bakery” (a clear reference to Vincent and Theo) and watch “Alice on the land of reason part II”

it would be fun to see the mansion’s inhabitants living there for 200 years, seeing the world change around them and somehow Vincent and Theo decide “we are going to move to Japan and open a pancake store” but it would also be very weird considering the reason they became vampires… so it’s probably just a little easter egg that could be written off as a coincidence. 

Also it would mean that in the ikesen universe ikerev is a fictional story… but on ikerev world Alice in wonderland is also a fictional story so nothing says they could not be on the same timeline.

Basically I think it’s up to us to decide whether we consider it’s one or several timelines, I usually take them separately but also crossovers are fun so I don’t have a clear preference.

Thanks for letting me ramble about this anon!! also, sorry for the long post

[radiumeater]

Alcoholics Anonymous is famously difficult to study. By necessity, it keeps no records of who attends meetings; members come and go and are, of course, anonymous. No conclusive data exist on how well it works. In 2006, the Cochrane Collaboration, a health-care research group, reviewed studies going back to the 1960s and found that “no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA or [12-step] approaches for reducing alcohol dependence or problems.”

The Big Book includes an assertion first made in the second edition, which was published in 1955: that AA has worked for 75 percent of people who have gone to meetings and “really tried.” It says that 50 percent got sober right away, and another 25 percent struggled for a while but eventually recovered. According to AA, these figures are based on members’ experiences.

In his recent book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry, Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor from Harvard Medical School, looked at Alcoholics Anonymous’s retention rates along with studies on sobriety and rates of active involvement (attending meetings regularly and working the program) among AA members. Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent. That is just a rough estimate, but it’s the most precise one I’ve been able to find.

I spent three years researching a book about women and alcohol, Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink—And How They Can Regain Control, which was published in 2013. During that time, I encountered disbelief from doctors and psychiatrists every time I mentioned that the Alcoholics Anonymous success rate appears to hover in the single digits. We’ve grown so accustomed to testimonials from those who say AA saved their life that we take the program’s efficacy as an article of faith. Rarely do we hear from those for whom 12-step treatment doesn’t work. But think about it: How many celebrities can you name who bounced in and out of rehab without ever getting better? Why do we assume they failed the program, rather than that the program failed them?

When my book came out, dozens of Alcoholics Anonymous members said that because I had challenged AA’s claim of a 75 percent success rate, I would hurt or even kill people by discouraging attendance at meetings. A few insisted that I must be an “alcoholic in denial.” But most of the people I heard from were desperate to tell me about their experiences in the American treatment industry. Amy Lee Coy, the author of the memoir From Death Do I Part: How I Freed Myself From Addiction, told me about her eight trips to rehab, starting at age 13. “It’s like getting the same antibiotic for a resistant infection—eight times,” she told me. “Does that make sense?”

She and countless others had put their faith in a system they had been led to believe was effective—even though finding treatment centers’ success rates is next to impossible: facilities rarely publish their data or even track their patients after discharging them. “Many will tell you that those who complete the program have a ‘great success rate,’ meaning that most are abstaining from drugs and alcohol while enrolled there,” says Bankole Johnson, an alcohol researcher and the chair of the psychiatry department at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Well, no kidding.”

[...]

AA truisms have so infiltrated our culture that many people believe heavy drinkers cannot recover before they “hit bottom.” Researchers I’ve talked with say that’s akin to offering antidepressants only to those who have attempted suicide, or prescribing insulin only after a patient has lapsed into a diabetic coma. “You might as well tell a guy who weighs 250 pounds and has untreated hypertension and cholesterol of 300, ‘Don’t exercise, keep eating fast food, and we’ll give you a triple bypass when you have a heart attack,’ ” Mark Willenbring, a psychiatrist in St. Paul and a former director of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told me. He threw up his hands. “Absurd.”

Part of the problem is our one-size-fits-all approach. Alcoholics Anonymous was originally intended for chronic, severe drinkers—those who may, indeed, be powerless over alcohol—but its program has since been applied much more broadly. Today, for instance, judges routinely require people to attend meetings after a DUI arrest; fully 12 percent of AA members are there by court order.

Whereas AA teaches that alcoholism is a progressive disease that follows an inevitable trajectory, data from a federally funded survey called the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions show that nearly one-fifth of those who have had alcohol dependence go on to drink at low-risk levels with no symptoms of abuse. And a recent survey of nearly 140,000 adults by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nine out of 10 heavy drinkers are not dependent on alcohol and, with the help of a medical professional’s brief intervention, can change unhealthy habits. We once thought about drinking problems in binary terms—you either had control or you didn’t; you were an alcoholic or you weren’t—but experts now describe a spectrum. An estimated 18 million Americans suffer from alcohol-use disorder, as the DSM-5, the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, calls it. (The new term replaces the older alcohol abuse and the much more dated alcoholism, which has been out of favor with researchers for decades.) Only about 15 percent of those with alcohol-use disorder are at the severe end of the spectrum. The rest fall somewhere in the mild-to-moderate range, but they have been largely ignored by researchers and clinicians. Both groups—the hard-core abusers and the more moderate overdrinkers—need more-individualized treatment options. The United States already spends about $35 billion a year on alcohol- and substance-abuse treatment, yet heavy drinking causes 88,000 deaths a year—including deaths from car accidents and diseases linked to alcohol. It also costs the country hundreds of billions of dollars in expenses related to health care, criminal justice, motor-vehicle crashes, and lost workplace productivity, according to the CDC. With the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of coverage, it’s time to ask some important questions: Which treatments should we be willing to pay for? Have they been proved effective? And for whom—only those at the extreme end of the spectrum? Or also those in the vast, long-overlooked middle? For a glimpse of how treatment works elsewhere, I traveled to Finland, a country that shares with the United States a history of prohibition (inspired by the American temperance movement, the Finns outlawed alcohol from 1919 to 1932) and a culture of heavy drinking. Finland’s treatment model is based in large part on the work of an American neuroscientist named John David Sinclair. I met with Sinclair in Helsinki in early July. He was battling late-stage prostate cancer, and his thick white hair was cropped short in preparation for chemotherapy. Sinclair has researched alcohol’s effects on the brain since his days as an undergraduate at the University of Cincinnati, where he experimented with rats that had been given alcohol for an extended period. Sinclair expected that after several weeks without booze, the rats would lose their desire for it. Instead, when he gave them alcohol again, they went on week-long benders, drinking far more than they ever had before—more, he says, than any rat had ever been shown to drink. Sinclair called this the alcohol-deprivation effect, and his laboratory results, which have since been confirmed by many other studies, suggested a fundamental flaw in abstinence-based treatment: going cold turkey only intensifies cravings. This discovery helped explain why relapses are common. Sinclair published his findings in a handful of journals and in the early 1970s moved to Finland, drawn by the chance to work in what he considered the best alcohol-research lab in the world, complete with special rats that had been bred to prefer alcohol to water. He spent the next decade researching alcohol and the brain.Sinclair came to believe that people develop drinking problems through a chemical process: each time they drink, the endorphins released in the brain strengthen certain synapses. The stronger these synapses grow, the more likely the person is to think about, and eventually crave, alcohol—until almost anything can trigger a thirst for booze, and drinking becomes compulsive. Sinclair theorized that if you could stop the endorphins from reaching their target, the brain’s opiate receptors, you could gradually weaken the synapses, and the cravings would subside. To test this hypothesis, he administered opioid antagonists—drugs that block opiate receptors—to the specially bred alcohol-loving rats. He found that if the rats took the medication each time they were given alcohol, they gradually drank less and less. He published his findings in peer-reviewed journals beginning in the 1980s. Subsequent studies found that an opioid antagonist called naltrexone was safe and effective for humans, and Sinclair began working with clinicians in Finland. He suggested prescribing naltrexone for patients to take an hour before drinking. As their cravings subsided, they could then learn to control their consumption. Numerous clinical trials have confirmed that the method is effective, and in 2001 Sinclair published a paper in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism reporting a 78 percent success rate in helping patients reduce their drinking to about 10 drinks a week. Some stopped drinking entirely.I visited one of three private treatment centers, called the Contral Clinics, that Sinclair co-founded in Finland. (There’s an additional one in Spain.) In the past 18 years, more than 5,000 Finns have gone to the Contral Clinics for help with a drinking problem. Seventy-five percent of them have had success reducing their consumption to a safe level. [...] In the United States, doctors generally prescribe naltrexone for daily use and tell patients to avoid alcohol, instead of instructing them to take the drug anytime they plan to drink, as Sinclair would advise. There is disagreement among experts about which approach is better—Sinclair is adamant that American doctors are missing the drug’s full potential—but both seem to work: naltrexone has been found to reduce drinking in more than a dozen clinical trials, including a large-scale one funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that was published in JAMA in 2006. The results have been largely overlooked. Less than 1 percent of people treated for alcohol problems in the United States are prescribed naltrexone or any other drug shown to help control drinking. To understand why, you have to first understand the history. The American approach to treatment for drinking problems has roots in the country’s long-standing love-hate relationship with booze. The first settlers arrived with a great thirst for whiskey and hard cider, and in the early days of the republic, alcohol was one of the few beverages that was reliably safe from contamination. (It was also cheaper than coffee or tea.) The historian W. J. Rorabaugh has estimated that between the 1770s and 1830s, the average American over age 15 consumed at least five gallons of pure alcohol a year—the rough equivalent of three shots of hard liquor a day. Religious fervor, aided by the introduction of public water-filtration systems, helped galvanize the temperance movement, which culminated in 1920 with Prohibition. That experiment ended after 14 years, but the drinking culture it fostered—secrecy and frenzied bingeing—persists.In 1934, just after Prohibition’s repeal, a failed stockbroker named Bill Wilson staggered into a Manhattan hospital. Wilson was known to drink two quarts of whiskey a day, a habit he’d attempted to kick many times. He was given the hallucinogen belladonna, an experimental treatment for addictions, and from his hospital bed he called out to God to loosen alcohol’s grip. He reported seeing a flash of light and feeling a serenity he had never before experienced. He quit booze for good. The next year, he co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous. He based its principles on the beliefs of the evangelical Oxford Group, which taught that people were sinners who, through confession and God’s help, could right their paths. AA filled a vacuum in the medical world, which at the time had few answers for heavy drinkers. In 1956, the American Medical Association named alcoholism a disease, but doctors continued to offer little beyond the standard treatment that had been around for decades: detoxification in state psychiatric wards or private sanatoriums. As Alcoholics Anonymous grew, hospitals began creating “alcoholism wards,” where patients detoxed but were given no other medical treatment. Instead, AA members—who, as part of the 12 steps, pledge to help other alcoholics—appeared at bedsides and invited the newly sober to meetings. A public-relations specialist and early AA member named Marty Mann worked to disseminate the group’s main tenet: that alcoholics had an illness that rendered them powerless over booze. Their drinking was a disease, in other words, not a moral failing. Paradoxically, the prescription for this medical condition was a set of spiritual steps that required accepting a higher power, taking a “fearless moral inventory,” admitting “the exact nature of our wrongs,” and asking God to remove all character defects. Mann helped ensure that these ideas made their way to Hollywood. In 1945’s The Lost Weekend, a struggling novelist tries to loosen his writer’s block with booze, to devastating effect. In Days of Wine and Roses, released in 1962, Jack Lemmon slides into alcoholism along with his wife, played by Lee Remick. He finds help through AA, but she rejects the group and loses her family. Mann also collaborated with a physiologist named E. M. Jellinek. Mann was eager to bolster the scientific claims behind AA, and Jellinek wanted to make a name for himself in the growing field of alcohol research. In 1946, Jellinek published the results of a survey mailed to 1,600 AA members. Only 158 were returned. Jellinek and Mann jettisoned 45 that had been improperly completed and another 15 filled out by women, whose responses were so unlike the men’s that they risked complicating the results. From this small sample—98 men—Jellinek drew sweeping conclusions about the “phases of alcoholism,” which included an unavoidable succession of binges that led to blackouts, “indefinable fears,” and hitting bottom. Though the paper was filled with caveats about its lack of scientific rigor, it became AA gospel. Jellinek, however, later tried to distance himself from this work, and from Alcoholics Anonymous. His ideas came to be illustrated by a chart showing how alcoholics progressed from occasionally drinking for relief, to sneaking drinks, to guilt, and so on until they hit bottom (“complete defeat admitted”) and then recovered. If you could locate yourself even early in the downward trajectory on that curve, you could see where your drinking was headed. In 1952, Jellinek noted that the word alcoholic had been adopted to describe anyone who drank excessively. He warned that overuse of that word would undermine the disease concept. He later beseeched AA to stay out of the way of scientists trying to do objective research. [...] As the rehab industry began expanding in the 1970s, its profit motives dovetailed nicely with AA’s view that counseling could be delivered by people who had themselves struggled with addiction, rather than by highly trained (and highly paid) doctors and mental-health professionals. No other area of medicine or counseling makes such allowances. There is no mandatory national certification exam for addiction counselors. The 2012 Columbia University report on addiction medicine found that only six states required alcohol- and substance-abuse counselors to have at least a bachelor’s degree and that only one state, Vermont, required a master’s degree. Fourteen states had no license requirements whatsoever—not even a GED or an introductory training course was necessary—and yet counselors are often called on by the judicial system and medical boards to give expert opinions on their clients’ prospects for recovery. Mark Willenbring, the St. Paul psychiatrist, winced when I mentioned this. “What’s wrong,” he asked me rhetorically, “with people with no qualifications or talents—other than being recovering alcoholics—being licensed as professionals with decision-making authority over whether you are imprisoned or lose your medical license?

[margridarnauds]

001 olympe/solene please!!! (also i know i haven't answered in 8 years but please bear with me, i haven't forgotten i'm just very late)

Thank you! (Also it’s fine; I was just a little worried I’d finally scared you away!) The following thoughts might be slightly rambling, given my family’s doing our daily rewatch of Toho!1789 and Maniaque just came on, thus short circuiting my brain. 

when I started shipping it if I did: I seem to recall a conversation between you and @couldntgiveafox some ages ago where you were discussing alternative 1789s, and I believe I stumbled across it in my fall to 1789 Hell. I don’t think I really started actively SHIPPING it until I was writing Pour la Peine and the (still a WIP) Modern AU where they go to Disneyworld, since it showed off more how they would WORK as a couple. (Yes, really. In my defense, there’s something about Solène and Olympe working together to get Artois stranded on “It’s a Small World” that warms the cockles of my shipping heart.)

my thoughts: I think they have a lot of potential as a ship; I would REALLY love to have seen more of them in canon because I think that they’d have had a lot more potential than our canon ship. (Not that that’s SAYING much, but…) The two of them have two very different ways of dealing with things that really make them complement each other well. Like, Solène has a much more direct way of doing things; she probably had to shut down most of Ronan’s fights with the other kids in their village when they were younger, whereas Olympe…can handle herself, obviously, but she tends to prefer sidestepping it if she can and tends to prefer using the gun only as an absolute last resort. And Solène and Olympe both…fill in the gaps, with each other? Like, Olympe’s a woman who everyone sees as this simple little governess who can be walked over but has a spine of steel beneath those stays, whereas Solène is a woman who presents herself as being basically untouchable and unbreakable, but she has a lot of vulnerability beneath the surface. 

What makes me happy about them: Solène has this blunt, rough edge that really works well against almost everyone, but the second that Olympe enters the room? She melts. Even if she’s terrified of what exactly that means and trusting someone again. She’s basically the embodiment of “I’ve only had Olympe for a day and a half, but if anything happened to her, I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself.” And Peyrol. Even if he’s not in the room and had nothing to do with it, she’d still kill Peyrol for good measure. And for Olympe, she has someone who’s genuinely in love with HER and would be willing to bend over backwards for her. (It’s not that I dislike Antoinette or that I’m even particularly criticizing her, but I do think that she can be insensitive when it comes to Olympe’s crush right until the very end when she lets her go and that sometimes, she takes advantage of Olympe’s feelings without realizing it, causing Olympe to get into trouble. See: Je Suis un Dieu.) Like, Lazare and Solène would never ADMIT it, because fundamentally they have way too much between them, but they have more in common there than they’d ever admit. 

Finally: BLESS the Toho for giving me, like, five seconds of interaction between them. It might not have been much, but THEY TOUCHED HANDS. While watching Solène’s brother being brutally shot by his boyfriend, but hey, it’s not the WORST first date idea. And Solène’s CLINGING onto this girl she’s just met in that scene, after rushing herself in front of Peyrol’s line of fire to do it. 

What makes me sad about them: Obviously, the lack of interaction between them, even though, on the positive side, it means the show can’t ruin it for me. Solène is hard as a character to write, because all three Solènes are written so very differently from one another that it’s hard to get a grip on her, especially since it’s obvious that the French really didn’t…CARE about her, as a character, and that also means that trying to get their dynamic can be hard. Like, I still feel after all this time that I don’t have them down as well as I have L/R, which is something that I’m always trying to rectify. 

Also, from an in-universe perspective: I think…Solène is very like her brother, in the sense that she doesn’t see HERSELF as inherently inferior or incapable of love (the one thing no one has EVER accused the Mazurier Siblings of is a lack of confidence), but that so much has happened to her that she kind of takes it for granted that this isn’t going to end well. Our girl’s canonically lost her brother and father, she’s PROBABLY lost her mother (I mean, unless she’s just…living as a hermit somewhere since Ronan and Soléne ran away or left Papa Mazurier to become a famous adventuress, I think it’s a safe assumption), and it’s safe to assume she’s lost at least 2-3 siblings, if not more, and…as much as I’m against the idea of the Tragic Sex Worker, she’s also probably seen Things in her time on the streets. If nothing else, then sex work was very much a transitory job for many women, who would take it up in off seasons in-between other jobs (or marriage, for some women), so there are probably plenty of women who she knew and tried to get attached to who just…moved on. 

And I think that Marie Antoinette’s ghost is always kind of going to be there, in the background, even as Olympe moves on from the full force of her old feelings. And Olympe has her own issues when it comes to loss, not just with Ronan (who was a friend if nothing else) and her mother (if we’re going with the musical-canon where Charlotte du Puget’s been dead for awhile), but also with probably seeing Louis-Joseph die in front of her. 

things done in fanfic that annoys me: WHAT FANFIC? There’s so little of it available that it’s kind of impossible for me to find ANYTHING to really annoy me. The thing that annoys me when I’M writing them is that there’s this…odd tendency, with femslash, for things to be sanitized and clean and saccharine, as opposed to M/M and F/M ships. And, on one hand, I DESPISE that mentality, but on the other hand, I find that I’ve internalized some of that, even though realistically S/O have…so much that they could bicker over. If they wanted to. So I try to keep at least a realistic level of conflict in their relationship, without reaching R/O or even R/L levels. 

things I look for in fanfic: Existing is always a lovely thing. 

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Olympe/MA is always going to be a tragic crush for me; I’m not sure if it’d have worked in the long run as an actual RELATIONSHIP, but I’d be perfectly comfortable with Olympe being happy. Or accepting Artois’ offer, biding her time in London while slowly poisoning him so that she can retire in an obscene amount of wealth when the new king of France “tragically” dies only a few months into his new reign. 

Even though I’m pretty attached to Olympe being a lesbian and Lazare being gay and/or ace, I’m also not OPPOSED to them marrying each other as a matter of convenience post-canon, though…obviously. After the Takarazuka and Toho productions, there are going to be…issues with that one. (Lazare is incapable of being with someone when he hasn’t at least tried to kill their father.) Matthieu Carnot and Camille Lou in the original cast had HELLA chemistry with one another, and I’m not entirely willing to toss it all away.     

And for Solène…I’m not sure I’d go with ANYONE in the main cast. My main headcanon re: Solène and sexuality is that she’s bi, but the whole “Betrayal by her idiot of a brother” thing has really put her off the idea of being romantically involved with dudes for an extended period of time. Sexually? Sure, for the money involved. It’s her JOB, but she’s not going to go for anything that requires trust. Lucile is the obvious alternative, but I’m not sure how Lucile’s upper middle class upbringing would work with Solène and her profession, and the entire business with the engagement +…Lucile’s ultimate fate would work. (Also Lucile’s part in The Scene in the Toho version…it hasn’t put me off her as a CHARACTER, I still love her very much, but…it’s made me…less keen on her with Solène.) I also crackship her with Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette gets all the ladies in the main cast. 

My happily ever after for them: In the canon verse? They leave Paris, either getting out of the country or quietly running into the country, where they can live in peace without the Reign of Terror getting them. They establish a domestic life together, where both of them learn to trust again, even as Solène keeps her own funds Just in Case, because some things are a little harder to move past than others. Lt. du Puget knows, but he’s been too traumatized by his own experiences with the Bastille, as well as too grateful to the Mazuriers for all they’ve done to raise a fuss, and he becomes like a second father to Solène, with Françoise being a sister and partner in crime to her. Solène doesn’t lose track of her friends in Paris and visits them from time to time, even as she gets used to middle class life, and she never entirely loses her fire. They both die of old age, many, many years after the Revolution (because, as we all know, Olympe does not die at the end, and there has never been a time where she died at the end; it is her destiny to outlive the rest of the cast with her girlfriend.) And then, in the afterlife, Solène gets at least one slap in on her brother before they’re one big, happy family again. Because he does deserve it, tbh. 

Out of canon, I would honestly love to see a world where Solène/Olympe and Lazare/Ronan could have co-existed with each other as a family, albeit an insanely unorthodox one. I could see Olympe and Lazare having a marriage of convenience, with both of them having their own sections of the house that are just theirs, and with sex not even being a consideration. (Solène takes it more as a matter of course and the best possible option, even if she doesn’t LIKE Lazare; Ronan runs off and spends, like, a week crying somewhere before they can get him calmed down enough to explain.) Like, their wedding night is spent playing cards in bed until they can sneak out to their separate rooms, and at some point Ronan’s in-between them, drooling on Lazare’s shoulder while Solène glares daggers because if he hurts her girlfriend or her brother, she will not HESITATE to destroy him. Everyone knows that they’re gay AF and that a former under-governess to the royal family is sleeping with a former sex worker, mainly because Artois never shuts up about it (because if he can’t have Lazare under his thumb and he can’t murder the hypotenuse, he’s at least going to do his best to make his life miserable), but, does it matter? No. What are they going to do, not invite Lazare or Olympe to one of their salons? The horror, the horror. One year, for her New Year’s present, Ronan gives Solène a pair of earplugs so she doesn’t have to hear some of the ungodly sounds that come from his and Lazare’s side of the house. Everyone’s happy. 

who is the big spoon/little spoon: See, my GUT instinct is Solène for big spoon, since it gives her a place of security without her feeling pinned in, but also I love the thought of Olympe sometimes taking over, nuzzling into Solène’s neck and having Solène wake up and being like “Holy shit, this is real” even years later. 

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Taking walks together, reading. I like to think that Olympe helps Solène learn how to read (which is one of the areas where I feel like they differ from R/L. Even though I think Lazare would read out loud to Ronan, I’m not sure he’d go through the trouble of TEACHING him, especially since that’s…giving Ronan some serious power as far as being able to page through any of Lazare’s papers.) Sometimes, Solène just prefers to hear Olympe read out loud, with her absently putting her hand on Olympe’s arm as time goes on and she relaxes, since Olympe has a very bright, expressive voice that suited her well when she was an undergoverness, and even if she doesn’t mean to, she finds herself taking on different voices for different characters, which makes for an entertaining reading experience,. The two of them also help each other with their daily toilette, getting each other’s hair and clothes prepared. 

This? Is an Olympe innovation. 

And this? Is a Solène. She Tries. And Olympe loves her for it. 

[mymisguidedfairytale]

[fanfiction] Hunter x Hunter - ORCHiDELiRiUM

Title: ORCHiDELiRiUM Word Count: 14,390 words Pairing: Cluck x Kanzai Summary: ORCHiDELiRiUM: the name given to a period of time where the acquisition and discovery of rare orchid plants reached a fever pitch among the collectors and enthusiasts of the wealthy and titled. None were prized more highly than the rare Black Orchid, native to a small republic whose only access point was severed by a tremendous rockslide during the plant’s last cyclic bloom nearly seven years ago. Professional Botanical Hunter Cluck is contracted to not only recover a specimen of the rare flower, but protect it from any and all intruders. She is more than up for the first task, but for the second, she enlists the help of her colleague Kanzai, and the two find themselves battling mafia legions, the strangely misanthropic people of the once-isolated nation, and a living forest in pursuit of their prize. A/N: Written for the Hunter x Hunter Big Bang 2018 Challenge. Takes place an indeterminate amount of time pre-canon. Huge thanks to awitchyghost who will be doing some lovely art for this story! I hope you enjoy! [FF.net] [Ao3]

ORCHiDELiRiUM

Cluck stares across the flat, nearly empty surface of her desk. Not at her own, impeccably-ordered files and the thin stack of leaflets one of the secretaries had dropped off earlier with the latest updates from the various committees for her to review before she left Swaldani City for any personal business. Her desk forms a co-working space with those of three of the other members of the Zodiac Twelve, and her gaze is affixed firmly towards Saiyuu's desk.

And the plastic, purple plant that rests in an almost equally insulting ceramic vase. It has two ugly, perfectly uniform leaves, and a dusting of uneven white paint along the tip of the clustered petals.

Behind her, along the wall, the printer beeps as it continues to slowly churn out papers for her. She taps manicured fingernails along to its rhythm, before groaning and swiveling in circles in her desk chair.

Across the room, Kanzai walks in. He gives a half-hearted wave, before jerking one thumb back towards the hallway.

“The office up front just got a power stapler,” he says, moving to the cubbies on the far wall and grabbing the safety-cone-colored knapsack from inside. “Piyon and I have been seeing how far we can make it fly.”

“Stop terrorizing the secretaries,” she answers automatically before turning back to her papers.

“We're not! It's a competition.”

He sounds defensive, and she looks up, watching him as the printer makes an ungodly series of electronic screeches. “You're Pro Hunters, and you're losing?”

“What? No!”

“Just you then. Better redeem yourself by lunchtime.” Cluck reaches out to poke one plastic petal with a pen. If it was real, a petal would have fallen, or a leaf. It would grow or shrivel and die. And it's insulting her personally.

“Round Two will see a weather change,” he says, and makes a few punches in the air for emphasis.

“Don't lose more of your money,” she cautions. “You know you'll get taken for every cent you wager.”

“See you at the meeting.” He's gone, and he leaves the door cracked open, too. The worst.

The printer screeches again, and on the next three sheets the ink is increasingly transparent. She shouts after him, “Don't be late!”

He's late, by a good five minutes, but Pariston is late by ten and gets the full force of the room's blame. There's a variety of things on the docket today, mostly involving minor adjustments, financial proposals, and seasonal updates from some of the more significant committees. The Exam Committee's scouting for representatives, and after volunteering to coordinate one of the phases once , years ago, now when they want involvement among the Zodiacs they look at her. She makes sure to be looking at her phone during the entire report, first scrolling idly and then looking for something more serious among her apps and news sites to make the distraction useful.

So she happens to be checking her email in the middle of one of Beans's presentations. Cheadle is giving her a glare strong enough to melt a glacier, but if there's someone who more accurately embodies all bark, no bite it's the Dog of the Zodiac Twelve. In her professional account are a slew of unread contract proposals—one asking her to give a concert of L'equivoco , like she'd come out of retirement for some new money heir's birthday party—and a second wanting her aide in tracking a series of near-endangered swanbill sighted outside their Yorubian nature preserve. She purses her lips. Probably collectors, from the extremely high numbers quoted in the proposal. The third is from the Razing Society of Arboreal Enrichment , and reads like an amateur academic's exercise in garrulousness.

Surely our esteemed organization needs no introduction, as you may recall both our winning contribution to the Southern Continental's horticulture competition some years ago, upsetting the Federation of Ochima's five-year winning streak, and our meeting at the same event—

Cluck doesn't remember this.

— As you well know, the many prides of the Republic of Razing include its Endeløs Forest, which has provided its citizens with medicinal herbs, flowers, and gourmet fungi of the highest quality and provenance. With the completion of the tunnel restoration project, access to the city center has been reestablished as of this year. The limited resources of the Razing Department of Public Safety have left a void of preparedness in our anticipation of the Black Orchid's returning bloom cycle. We expect a wave of visitors who will want to experience this legendary event, and while we do of course encourage education of the masses we wish to restrict access to both the Forest and the plants to professionals. As one of the foremost Botanical Hunters, you will be able to recover a specimen for our study and ensure its protection in the wild. The city has already seen an increase in numbers and lodging is thin. We can ensure you a place to stay while you work and access to transportation and the best of our equipment and research staff if you require it, although we are sure someone of your caliber and experience would hardly deign to accept our organization's principium. Anyone would leap at the chance to view this once-in-a-lifetime event, and even without our offer you have most likely already made plans to visit our republic and view the Black Orchid for yourself. We await your response. Our office is open Mondays only from 3-5pm.

Cluck's eyes begin to water. She reads the message a second time, and still can't quite figure out what it is these people actually want her to do.

Then she's called on for her opinions on their current debate, and Cluck forgets about any of her contracts—and Pariston gets to repeat his speech on the profits from the Association's current real estate holdings, to his delight.

After the votes are in and they are all dismissed, she dawdles in the office once more, staring at a folder of everything one of the secretaries had been able to acquire on the status of the Republic of Razing. There are very few countries that have had no Hunters to represent them, and this is one of those.

She also wracks her memories for a trade show held across the various states of the Southern Continent, and recalls that the Republic of Ochima has won it every year except one where they were unable to attend—due to catastrophic weather, and a tiny unacknowledged nation had taken the top prize. This was years ago, at least seven, and would have been when she was in deep pursuit of a Star for her license and throwing herself into every bit of study and experimentation. Such shows were a great way to network and hear lectures from top researchers and university professors. And they were useful for reconnecting with old colleagues, and for providing free meals and free drinks to celebrity guests. Huh. Maybe there was a reason she didn't remember much.

The Republic was, in a word, isolated. Located in the exact middle of a ringlike group of mountains, the city-state had a small population and wasn't known for anything in particular beyond the peculiar circumstances of their existence. There was one tunnel, bored through the mountains, for access, and it had been destroyed in an accident—she checks her notes—about the same time ago. They'd used helicopters and had air-drops for supplies they couldn't grow or manufacture themselves, but overwhelmingly the entire country had been separated from the outside world for all that time.

She's still in the office hours later, her interest growing, reading through more research and investigating the mysterious Black Orchid the Society representative had mentioned. There are sketches of it, drawn by the late, famed naturalist Laudubon, and as a Botanical Hunter Cluck is well-versed in the history of orchid collecting and exhibition. It had hit a craze, when the world was beginning to be connected by airship and media and many new species had been discovered all at once, each more intricate and uncommon than the last. There had been the honey orchid, peacock orchid, and the strangely-gimmicky disco orchid, named for its apparent propensity to glitter under any movement or light. But the rarest, and the one that had fetched the highest prices, came from a forest in the very same mountain range of this country, the Black Orchid. In the sketch, the orchid's petals are a deep and glossy black, and of such perfect symmetry and balance, without flaw or blemish. The perfect curl to the edges, the perfect drape of the filaments. She can feel her very soul being drawn into the flowers.

And that was only a portrait. What must the real thing be like?

She understands the desire those individuals must have felt, bidding at auctions in the hundreds of thousands of jenni, for the chance to own those flowers. Airship travel to the region is largely inexpensive, and she hovers over the website with tickets in her cart. She has no major obligations for the next few weeks. It's been relatively uneventful around Swaldani City and the Hunter Association, almost to the point of suspicion.

She glances up to see Kanzai peering over her shoulder, nose scrunched up.

“What are you looking to travel all the way out there for?”

She jumps, spinning around in her chair and reaching out to smack him on instinct. “Kanzai! You shouldn't sneak up on people!”

“I wasn't sneaking. I didn't even use Zetsu .” He drops his shoulders in apology, and rubs his arm as if her punch had done anything at all. He moves to Saiyuu's desk and sinks into a chair. “You're just distracted. Don't tell me another Hunter went missing?”

“No. I'm looking into something for work.” Not that she's officially accepted the contract yet, and not that this Society even seems to want to admit they need her help at all. “How about you? Got anything coming up?”

“Assignment fell through,” he says, kicking his feet up on the edge of his desk. Cluck eyes his sneakers with distaste. “Still, they paid my fee. Can't argue with that.”

She gets an idea, a bright spot in a sea of monotony and solitude. The thought that she could share the brilliance of that sketch in reality with her closest friend. “So you're free. To come work with me, travel a bit. If you wanted.”

“If I wanted to travel to the boondocks with you? But I don't want that.” The edge of his mouth lifts into a scowl, and it twists the tattoos across his upper cheeks. “How much are they paying?”

Her face twists as she remembers the line of the contract that detailed her fee. It was in line with what she believed the country could afford, but hardly in keeping with her level of experience. “The work is its own reward, or something.”

“That's even worse .” He watches as she adjusts her purchase to include a second ticket. “I'm a bodyguard , not a—” And he waves his hand in her direction, as if to encompass everything in Cluck's varied portfolio. Musician, Scientist, Birdkeeper. “I won't be much help to you, unless what you're doing is really that dangerous.”

“I think it could be. Have you ever guarded an object?” she asks.

“Once I was hired to transport a painting. The convoy was attacked. Too bad for the thieves.”

“Which painting?”

“Don't know. I didn't look.”

“You didn't look? ” The strangled croak in her throat grows louder when she remembers with vivid clarity what that assignment had been. It was rare that the Southernpeace Auction even got such masterpieces, and those who could afford them could also afford the best protection detail. “That was a Nonet , Kanzai! A Nonet! His last completed work!”

He gnashes his pointed teeth. “I have no idea who that is!”

“Well, do you want a job or not?” She shouts back, matching his pitch. “I could use the help. I have a lot of ground to cover.” She laughs to herself at the unintentional joke, her mood shifting in an instant.

He sighs, glancing away. “I want to keep you safe. Well, what are you Hunting? Don't keep me in suspense. You know how much I love a good surprise.”

“I'm Hunting a plant,” she says.

A pause. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“I'm not,” she says. “And we're not going to the boondocks. We're going to the mountains .”

–

Despite the elevation, the climate is mild, but the skies are thick with clouds and a light rain begins to fall the moment they leave the airfield. Anticipating fieldwork, she's retired her typical outfit for a strapless romper in the same blue shades and a matching jacket with a thick line of white fur trimming the hood and sleeves. The airship could only take them so far, to a city on the other side of the mountains, where the single road would take them into Razing and towards her mission. So it was that Cluck and Kanzai were seated shoulder to shoulder in the front of a retrofitted utility vehicle being driven by one of the country's native sons.

“So,” Cluck says, staring out the window at rows upon rows of identical-looking trees, leading to an eerily uniform bank of mountainside. “Do you want to put on any music?”

“No.” The driver doesn't even acknowledge her, and she spends a few moments studying his face—brown hair, a thin mustache but otherwise clean shaven, and dark, plain clothes. Young, too—younger than she is, and he would be boring if he wasn't so interesting.

She tries again. “So, what do you like to do around here for fun?”

“I go driving,” he says. Beside her, Kanzai muffles a snort into one arm.

“Yeah? Well let's open this thing up, see what it can do,” Cluck suggests. The vehicle continues on at a safe, respectable fifty-five.

“No.”

She breathes in, counts to five. She is a professional, and while she has no problem being blunt around her colleagues, belligerence around strangers would probably not be very well received.

Cluck eyes the driver again. Probably.

“Is there anything you'd recommend we do, you know, as tourists? Anywhere we should go? Anything we shouldn't do? We want to blend in.”

The driver inclines his head for a moment, to look at her. “That is impossible.”

Cluck's vision goes red for a moment. “ Okay, first off— ”

“We have not had any tourists in almost a decade. Therefore there would not be anything to publicize, as those of us who live here have already seen it all,” he says, and Cluck deflates.

“And how do you feel about that?” It's Kanzai, speaking for the first time since their drive started. He'd been quiet for the majority of their trip, but Cluck is able to read his moods after spending so much time together. When he complains, it is more performative than purposeful, and he has remained by her side, handling whatever details come up regarding security and their equipment with deep consideration. He hasn't cared about how to use the scientific instruments and collection vials and components in her bags, but he handles them with a delicacy she finds heartwarming.

The driver takes a moment to consider the question. “It is better this way.”

And like that, her mood sours again. They pass through the tunnel—it spans a distance of ten miles, and is in itself a marvel of architecture. It would probably have seen more media coverage, Cluck thinks, if the people connected to it were the least bit sociable.

The driver leaves them at their hotel, a government-owned building that used to host international diplomats before being repurposed in-part into a storage facility. The rooms are small and bleak and the décor looks like it came from a period film set more than thirty years ago.

“I'm starving,” Cluck tells Kanzai. “Let's go for a walk, see if we can find something.”

They take a street at random. Only a few blocks outside the city center the buildings change dramatically, from older brick structures set close together to dated-looking strip malls with a wild assortment of tenants, from fashion marts to hardware stores and individual stores for bakeries and butchers instead of one combined grocer. Each intersection is so unremarkable that Cluck has to remind herself, yet again, that this place has been essentially frozen in time.

Cluck squints to read the signs of the stores in one such center. “I think that one's a restaurant? No, never mind. Cheese store.”

“What about that one?”

Cluck follows Kanzai's outstretched hand to a storefront with more than a dozen cars parked out front. “Liquor store. Maybe later.”

The next block sees another strip center, set even further back from the street. Weeds sprout through the cracks in the pavement of the parking lot and as they make their way closer Cluck can see a tiny restaurant tucked in the very far corner.

“There!” She points, before grabbing Kanzai's shoulders and turning him towards the flickering neon sign. “Food!”

The parking lot is mostly empty—there are no cars in front of the restaurant or the laundromat next door, but the lights are on inside and Cluck can see movement past the vertical blinds behind the front window. The door had a placard matching the neon sign that read Jordel's Restaurant .

Cluck opens the deceptively heavy door and slips inside, not even waiting for assistance before grabbing a menu off the hostess stand. She flips through it—it's in the local language, but she can recognize a few words after spending the airship flight with a language primer, and decides that at this point she's too hungry to care whether everything is boiled or covered in unidentifiable gravy, and tries to wave over a server. There's only one visible, a man currently pouring water for one of the other tables.

“Hey, this place must be pretty good,” Cluck says, her eyes sweeping the restaurant. “Look how many tables are full.”

While the tables in the front, sized for couples, are empty, the tables in the back have been shoved together and are full of men in suits, eating quietly. The restaurant itself is plain, with a few framed photographs on the white walls and dated brass fixtures. Finally, the server makes their way over to the front, and Cluck waves her hands at one of the empty tables.

“Hey, can we have that one?” she asks, gesturing with the menu. “And can you show me where the drinks are in this thing?”

The nervous-looking server leads them over to a table and Cluck makes a show of throwing her jacket over the back of her chair before sitting down. With the server's help she picks out a red wine and a bunch of dishes for them to share, and tries a number of different ways to cross her legs to get comfortable in the narrow wooden chairs.

“Hey, relax a little,” she tells Kanzai. “There's no reason we can't enjoy ourselves a little bit while we're here. If that's possible.”

He's quiet, and Cluck drops her chin into her palm. “I know you don't like the rain—”

“It's not that,” he says quickly. “Maybe just keep your voice down.”

“Why?” The drinks arrive, along with a loaf of soft bread, and Cluck busies herself with tearing it into small pieces before eating. “We've got to go over our plans. I was gonna call the people at the Arboreal Society, tell them we've arrived, and arrange transportation to the forests.”

Kanzai makes a pained face, the markings on his face curving more the deeper his grimace. “Cluck—”

“I'm hoping they can give us some maps. I feel lost here already.” She takes a deep drag from her drink. “Not having a car of our own sucks.”

“ Cluck .”

“If we can find a few bulbs it'll be even better. I'd hate to have to transport a fully-bloomed orchid. They're so delicate, and I imagine this one'll be even more so.” She speaks around a mouthful of bread, the words muffled.

“I've been studying the weather and what I can find from the last time the Black Orchid bloomed,” she continues, gesturing with a piece of bread. “There aren't many resources. No one documented this, it was essentially a free-for-all. My research shows that the bloom is actually going to come early. So it's lucky we're here now, before anyone else gets involved.”

Kanzai tries to shush her again, but before he can say anything more the waiter returns, carrying platters of vegetables, lamb, and crispy whole fishes. Cluck pokes one of them with her fork before digging in.

“Hey, this is actually really good.” She chews thoughtfully. “Hey, Kanzai, you're still bristling. Eat up.”

“I am not bristling .” His shoulders are raised and his hair is spiky from the rain, and Cluck narrows her eyes and points her fork at him.

“Eat your fish,” she says.

“ You eat your fish,” he grumbles, before snagging one and beginning to saw into it with his knife. Cluck looks up to see a few of the men in suits watching them, and gives a little wave in return.

“ Cluck , don't,” Kanzai repeats. A bit of fish falls off his fork. One of the men at the farthest table stands up and begins to walk over. He can see the server start to clear everyone's plates.

“My friends!” The man has a deep accent, same as their driver. “I can't help but notice you must be new here. Are you enjoying yourselves?”

“The food's great.” Cluck is all smiles, still chewing. Kanzai casts a serious look down at their plates.

“I couldn't help but overhear something. You are interested in the forests surrounding this city, yes? You are...scientists, perhaps? Not tourists?”

“We're Hunters,” Cluck answers proudly, and Kanzai's palm makes contact with his forehead.

“ Hunters , really.” He turns and says something to one of the others in their native language, and the other shouts back a few words. The man's expression never changes, as implacable as the black suit stretched across his shoulders.

“There is someone here I think you should meet—”

“—Thanks,” Kanzai interrupts. “Now if you don't mind, we really need to get back to our meal—”

“Nonsense. We have a great deal in common, you and I,” he says. “We also have interest in this orkidé you mentioned. We would be delighted to hear more of what you have to say.”

Cluck opens and then closes her mouth. Kanzai can almost see the wheels turning as she begins to put together the pieces. Then, she speaks.

“Sorry,” she says. “I don't work with others.”

Kanzai feels a twitch in-between his eyebrows. Cluck has never sounded less convincing.

“Then who is this?” The man asks. “Your housecat?”

Kanzai stands, abruptly, and at once every suited man pulls a weapon from inside their jackets. The implacable one merely claps a hand onto Kanzai's shoulder—an intimidation tactic, meant to bully him into compliance, as the man is nearly a foot taller than Kanzai—and begins to push him further into the restaurant.

“Cluck, just say the word,” he says.

“No, I want to hear what they have to say.” She stands as well, and collects her jacket, draping it over one arm and shaking it to get crumbs off the sleeves. “Maybe they know something we don't.”

“Come, come.” The man gestures again. “There is a room in the back where our boss is eating. He would very much like to meet you. Nikolaus will take you.”

“And you are?” Kanzai still glowers, even after the man steps back, putting his body squarely in front of the door. As he moves Kanzai can see the holster hidden under his jacket.

“I am Mikkel,” he answers.

A young, timid looking man approaches in a too-large suit, and leads them towards a doorway in the back covered by a curtain of patterned orange polyester. He keeps his distance, and when Kanzai cracks a muscle in his neck for fun the man jumps back even further.

Beyond the curtain is a large space much more ornately designed than the main dining room—which still isn't much of a compliment, considering the overly stylized molding on the tops of the walls and baseboards, and the sprawling wooden chairs and tables, inlaid to excess with lighter wood. The wallpaper is gold and striped, and Kanzai looks down at his own shirt and feels a little put-off by the comparison.

“Malk, these are the Hunters here to see you,” Nikolaus says.

The large, older man at the head of the table rises and adjusts the glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He extends a hand covered in rings towards Cluck and Kanzai. Neither make any immediate motion to shake it; Cluck glances down at the oversized jacket in her hands and makes a show of trying to adjust it to free a hand. After a moment, the man straightens his back and drops his hand, all pretense of politeness disappearing.

“Hunters. How curious. You may call me Mr. Content. I am the leader of the mafia here in Razing. You will tell me what I need to know.” He says the word Hunters slowly, and with a reverence and distance that makes Cluck for a moment wonder if he even knows what that means.

Then she holds up a hand. “Wait a second. Is your name really Malk Content?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

She drops her shoulders in an articulated shrug. “Well, that just seems lazy.”

He slams one giant fist into the tabletop. “Tell me what you learned about the Black Orchid !” His pronunciation is slightly different, using the words in his native language, and when he snarls to the men at his left and right it becomes impossible for Kanzai to understand further.

“We're not tellin' you squat,” he says, and watches the man's face grow red.

Kanzai turns towards her. “Hey, Cluck, I don't think they know anything.”

“And here I was hoping they had access to some kind of mapping software, satellites, something that would better pinpoint their location. They only grow in soil with a specific acidity, you know.” Cluck shrugs again.

“And how do you know that?” Mr. Content says, pulling a knife from inside his jacket.

Cluck could have gone into detail about how the sketches of the flower had all shown the same deeply red soil, and how first-person accounts had shown that specimens stored with soil from the area lasted twice as long as those that had been replanted, and although all remnants of flowers from the last bloom cycle are long dead and disappeared, examples of the soil are still around and Cluck was able to contact a lab outside of Yorkshin for the detailed summary of the soil composition. She doesn't say this, however.

“Cause I'm a Hunter! And we know everything!” She jabs a finger forward, before sweeping it around the room, turning to each gunman in turn. “And we're bulletproof! So you better put those things away!”

About half of the gunmen draw back, visibly unsure. She decides to roll with it, and points instead at Kanzai. “And this one's crazy! ”

He turns towards her, his face drawn up, his eyebrows twitching. “What the hell's your problem?”

Mr. Content steps back, behind the others, adjusting his knife in a stance meant more for protection than offense. “Gentlemen, by your leave. Best not to have them getting in our way in the forests. Take them into secure custody.”

The first man clicks off his safety, and Cluck is running backwards, aura rushing to hands as she grabs the gigantic wooden table and flips it forward, onto its edge. Gunshots ring out, piercing the wood but not passing through. Kanzai ducks in beside her; he does not even need to crouch to get full cover.

Cluck's astonishment grows as more gunshots ring out. There's the curtained entrance back to the main dining room, and a separate closed door she recalled behind where their leader was standing. No windows, and she doesn't much relish the thought of having to work their way through an entire roomfull of guards, no matter which way they go.

There's a moment of silence before they can hear the clicking sounds of the guards reloading. Kanzai elbows her in the side. “Hey, what's with that face? You got a plan?”

“What? No! I didn't think they had any ammo. With the tunnel closed, how would they have gotten any resupplies? I thought they were just carrying around those guns, you know, for tradition. For the look.”

His scowl deepens. “So no plan, then.”

“We could roll the table. Use it for cover.” Cluck gives it an experimental roll, hanging on to the cross-bars at the table's base. It's more oval than round, and nearly topples from the effort. “Or maybe not. Batter up?”

Cluck watches Kanzai rolls one shoulder back, the aura coalescing in her eyes with Gyo as he conjures a baseball bat into his hands. This one is different than she remembers—it looks longer and lighter, and has a giant letter F in the middle of the grained wood. She makes a face.

“It's a practice bat,” he explains, noticing her staring. “Like I'd treat any of these suckers to Ash or Maple.”

“I'll be right behind you.” As they run out, the gunmen resume shooting, and Kanzai angles the bat in a wide arc, ricocheting the bullets like he's returning a four-seam fastball. Cluck keeps her body shrouded in aura in case any stray bullets get past Kanzai's batting stance—unlikely—but as they run back into the main dining room they are greeted with another dozen suits with a variety of weapons from antique-looking revolvers and modern pistols to curved knives and wooden truncheons pointed straight at them.

“Hey, I think that guy has a tazer,” Cluck says. Kanzai looks to her, then at her empty hands.

“You didn't bring a weapon ?” he shouts, and they are under fire again, switching sides and letting him take point as he sweeps away the bullets, sending them harmlessly into the far wall. “Well, find something!”

Cluck begins searching the tables for something to throw, but they've been cleared of all plates, all cutlery, and all glassware. There isn't even a spare wine bottle to use as a club. “See? I told you this was a good restaurant.”

“What?” Distracted, a bullet whizzes past, slicing the sleeve of his uniform. “Cluck, we've gotta go!”

Without any better options, Cluck grabs the white tablecloth off of the largest table, whipping it into a circle and throwing it over the heads of the advancing mafia gunmen. Then they run, out the door—and there's a bell over it, chiming their escape, and isn't that great—before they find themselves once more in the nearly-empty parking lot, running across the pavement and down the street as fast as their Nen -powered legs can take them.

“Got a plan now?” Kanzai shouts, holding the bat to his chest as he runs.

“Working on it!” Cluck casts a glance back—they aren't being followed, for now, and she's about to ask whether they're even running the right way or not when a car pulls up beside them with a screech.

“Quick! Get in!”

Kanzai swivels in place, bat raised to swing, when the driver instinctively lets out a scream.

“Hey,” Cluck says, “You're that kid that was with them. You brought us to the boss.” She snaps her fingers, trying to remember his name.

“It's Nikolaus. And quick, get in before they see us.” He unlocks the doors, and begins winding up the front window—Cluck can already feel her lip curling at that, as the car is one of those models she'd thought gone out of style with bell sleeves and the bubonic plague—but she pulls open the back door and turns to Kanzai.

“I think we can trust him. As nervous as he looked earlier, he looks downright terrified of us.”

“And we don't have any other options,” Kanzai finishes. Cluck shrugs in agreement, before sliding inside.

The moment the door closes, Nikolaus speeds away. The inside of the car is nicer than Cluck expects, and she props her feet up on the middle console.

“Hey, I bet you're a driver for the Mafia, aren't you?” she asks. “Is this even your car?”

“No, and don't do that!” He tries to brush her away, but Cluck only shifts to catch his eye in the rearview mirror. Beside her, squashed against the door, Kanzai sighs; the moment he removes his hands from the bat, it disappears.

The car nearly swerves of the road. “How did you do that?”

“Hey! Focus!” Cluck points forward, grabbing onto Kanzai with her other hand for support. The car rights itself, all passengers grumbling, and Kanzai reaches for the seatbelt.

“Kanzai, how did you know they were Mafia? You could've told me.” Cluck pouts, leaning back. The feathers in her hair are getting in his face.

“It was obvious. You're just dense,” he says. “At least the food wasn't poisoned. I can tell these things.”

“I know. You have an extremely sensitive palate.”

“Don't insult me!”

“Hey, hey!” Cluck shouts at Nikolaus, who's continued to hold the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grasp. “Where are you taking us, anyway?”

“Your hotel isn't safe. I thought we could lay low at one of the safehouses I know. No one would be looking for you there,” Nikolaus says.

With every twist and turn of the car, taking them further away from the city center, Kanzai does his best to keep a close guide on their path, just in case. “And why are you helping us?”

They come to a stop at a red light, and Nikolaus turns around to look at them. “Well, you're Hunters, right? They're the greatest of the great! They're like superheroes! Surely you're more powerful than the mafia here. They've kept the country under their thumb ever since the collapse of the tunnel—and it wasn't just the roads that broke. It was the media cables, the water lines, power lines—they said they could get them working again, and they did. But it came with a cost. They own everything around here. They're in control. There's no options for me. And I'd really like to get out of this place.”

“The light is green,” Kanzai says.

“So you help us, and we help you.” Cluck taps her fingers against her chin. “We can do that.”

“What?” Kanzai swivels between the two, the caution in his expression even further exaggerated. “We don't need help!”

Cluck rolls her eyes. “I asked you for help, didn't I?”

“That's different! You needed a bodyguard! What is it that this guy can do for us that your contacts can't?”

“At the Arboreal Society?” Cluck pulls out her phone, scrolling to find their number. “I tried calling when we landed, but got an answering machine.”

“Oh,” Nikolaus says, “they're probably Mafia, too. Maybe they wanted to get a professional here to help them recover a specimen of the orchid—they've been searching all this time, for any sign of it, to no effect. We've been combing the forests for weeks.”

“ Weeks !”

“Hey,” Cluck interjects, “do you have access to a map of the forests? Of the surrounding areas? Because of the mountains, I couldn't get any kind of satellite imaging of this place. Something about the geography or the minerals in the ground throws off most electronics.”

Kanzai continues spluttering. “It's a plant !”

“And I can't wait for you to see it!” Cluck snaps. “I want you to see it! I want to share this part of my life with you! You...ungrateful cretin!”

In the rearview mirror, Nikolaus looks away quickly. At the next light, the thick silence in the car is cut by the loud, foreign hip-hop music blaring from the car stopped beside theirs.

“Yeah, I should be able to get you a map,” Nikolaus says after another minute. Cluck maintains a frosty silence, crossing her arms and pulling up the edges of her fur-trimmed jacket. Still, she doesn't move, doesn't give Kanzai any more space in the backseat. She stares out the window, at the mid-rise apartment complexes and mini-marts they pass by. Every time the car stops, or turns to the right, her shoulder bumps against his.

Nikolaus still won't meet either of their eyes in the rearview mirror. “Malk...Mr. Content already has a buyer lined up. I overheard the conversation, as his driver. The price is higher than any number I've ever heard. And I'd rather help people who appreciate it. And any profits will go a lot farther split three ways.”

“Well, you can take the man out of the Mafia but you can't take the Mafia out of the man,” Kanzai says. “Don't worry, if it's money you want consider yourself officially on our payroll.”

“That's not...exactly what I had in mind...” Nikolaus coughs, his earlier blustery confidence fading away in the face of Kanzai's impudency. “How did you...do that thing earlier? With the bat? Are you like a magician?”

Kanzai glares at him, his lip curled. “Do I look like a magician?”

“It disappeared! I saw it!”

“Listen, kid,” Kanzai says. “You wouldn't understand it even if we told you. So just do your driving, and leave the rest to us, get it?”

Nikolaus is quiet for a moment. Then: “Maybe you can't do it again. Maybe it was a one-time thing. A fluke.”

“ What you sayin'?” Suddenly, the bat appears in Kanzai's hand again, the same fungo bat as before. The driver screams again.

“Yeah? Look at that!” The bat disappears and reappears again, filling the rearview mirror. “Is that a fluke to you?”

“Kanzai, cut it out,” Cluck says. The bat disappears immediately. “He's crying.”

“No I'm not.” There's a very distinctive sniffle in Nikolaus's voice. “We're here.”

The apartment complex they pull into is set back from the road and comprised of several smaller buildings instead of one tall one. The corridors are set outside, facing an exterior staircase of white-painted wooden panels, and there are enough cars in the parking lot that theirs won't stick out as much as Kanzai had worried it might.

“It's on the first floor,” Nikolaus continues. “I picked this one because I've got a key...some of the newer ones have a keypad access, and they might be able to track if someone's accessed it remotely. This one's mainly used for recovery, you know. A place to lie low if you've been hurt or if you need to avoid somebody.”

“Sounds perfect,” Kanzai says. “Been planning this for awhile, have you?”

“Leaving? Yes,” he admits, parking the car in a lot in the back and climbing out. “I've just been looking for the right moment. You still don't trust me, but you can.”

“Is there food?” Cluck asks. “I'm hungry again.”

“Non perishables. But there should be something.”

Her excitement plummets, and she follows Kanzai and Nikolaus—the former's aura spiking, his En reaching out for any sign of hostiles, even though there's nothing to be found—as they enter the apartment.

It's every bit as plain as the restaurant had been—there's a large leather couch and a table and chairs for furniture, one of those dated television sets that's deeper than it is wide, with dials instead of buttons, and a fan with a patterned glass shade that turns on when Nikolaus flips the lights. Cluck takes a perfunctory tour of the place, just to make sure there's no one else crashing there—there are no signs of anyone, no belongings, just an empty bedroom and the most tiny, dingy bathroom and kitchen. Nikolaus comes up beside her and starts opening cabinets.

“See? There's canned sardines! And some soup!” He sounds proud.

“You didn't also cook for the Mafia, did you?” she asks.

“No, that was his aunt, Dis.”

Cluck pauses for a moment, then turns and walks away. “Just give me the map when you find it.”

Five minutes later and they've found not only a series of maps, but a compass, set of radios for communication, and a first aid kit to clean the cut on Kanzai's arm. She's got the map spread out over the dining room table—the sardine cans are anchoring the corners, as she doesn't trust them anywhere near a plate—and she's doing notations in a notepad, trying to map out the curve of the mountainside with regards to what she's read about where the flower is likely to grow.

“This doesn't make any sense!” She drops the pencil on the table to keep from throwing it, grinding her teeth and fuming. “My calculations aren't off, but the math doesn't match up!”

“How so, Miss Cluck?” In the iterim, they'd finally gotten around to introductions, and Nikolaus has not stopped using it, and adding unnecessary formalities.

“It's Doctor Cluck, technically!” She picks up the pencil and goes back to scribbling, re-checking the measurements she's taken with her divider caliper and tugging on her hair in frustration. Unrolling a second map with Nikolaus's assistance, her summations are no clearer.

“And there's supposedly a river that runs through here , but where it's marked in this map doesn't match the other one! And there are these four groves of taller trees, marked here”—she shows Kanzai, even though he isn't looking—“but they're on the total opposite side on this other map! And you say you've been searching for weeks, right? So which is it!”

“Miss Cluck, keep your voice down,” Nikolaus says.

“That's Doctor Professional Hunter Cluck , four-time winner of the Golden Stage award to you!”

“So, why would the maps be inaccurate?” Kanzai asks, curled up on the couch with a thick plaid blanket. “Isn't that their entire purpose?”

“It's been...notoriously difficult to get an accurate reading of the ground in the Endeløs Forest,” Nikolaus admits. “It's thought to be because the ground is weak and always shifting—people go in and get lost, or think they're near one entrance but come out somewhere totally different. The tree cover is so thick, you can't easily see the sky, once you're in the center.”

“But you've been? This was your experience too?” Cluck asks.

“Yes. I spent three days in there, with a team, trying to find our way out after we got lost. What I saw...it was like the forest changed around me every time I turned around. I could not understand it.”

“Huh.” Cluck considers the map again, moving to the other side of the table to look at it from a different angle. “It could be like the Numere Wetlands, in the Kukan'ryu Kingdom.”

“I'm not familiar with that,” Nikolaus says at the same moment Kanzai asks, “What's that?”

“The Exam Committee's been trying to get a permit to use the site for ages. It's a swamp—there's a thick mist, it obscures the view of the ground and the local flora and fauna have evolved to use this to trap prey and take advantage of the disorientation.”

Nikolaus shakes his head. “There was no mist. I could see every step I took, I just didn't know where I was.”

“It's probably a you thing,” Kanzai says, agreeing with Cluck's unspoken sentiments. “We're professionals.”

“And I've lived here my whole life! I'm telling you, people don't go in that forest unless they have to. People say it's haunted. That the ground and the trees will eat you.”

“That's what the bat is for.” Kanzai's words are muffled into the edge of the blanket. Cluck can only see the fringes of black and yellow hair, visible over the top of the couch. “I'm taking a nap.”

“We've been traveling all day. It's probably best to get some rest before we go, and then get to the forest bright and early.” Cluck spends some more time working on the maps, before tossing her calipers aside in a huff. More work is only going to tell her what she already knows—that the forest is impossible to map, and probably for a reason.

Beside her, Nikolaus's nervousness is at a noticeable high. “Can you do that too?” He pantomimes what Kanzai does when he uses his technique.

“Can I make a baseball bat disappear and reappear in my hands? No.” Cluck checks her fingernails, looking for any chips in the polish. Still perfect, and even after all that business at the restaurant. She supposes when she has to dig them into the soil tomorrow that this will change.

“I can do something different. Something better ,” she continues. “But don't tell him that. Not that you'll see it. You'll be in the car. I don't want to have to worry about more than just myself and him.”

“What do you call it?”

“It's called Nen . But don't concern yourself about that. Your job is to drive us and keep us informed. My job is to retrieve a specimen of the Black Orchid.” Not for the Arboreal Society, not anymore, but for herself and for her team and for the world. “And his job is to take down anything that gets in our way.”

She concludes her little speech with a yawn, and makes her way towards the bedroom, shrugging out of her jacket.

“Miss Cluck? Where am I going to sleep?”

She all but shuts the door in his face. “Not my problem.”

The next day sees them awake and unhappy about it, sharing a pot of the strongest coffee Cluck's ever had in her life from among the supplies Nikolaus found in the cabinets. It will take hours, he says, to drive to the Northern-most entrance of the Endeløs Forest, where according to him there will be fewer Mafia grunts around, as the Southern side is more easily accessible, both for cars and for equipment. They've even tried to bring off-road vehicles into the forest, he tells them, with limited success, and gigantic spotlights and sensing machines. Everything gets lost, or breaks, and between them they have no weapons beyond what Kanzai can conjure, a limited amount of flares, and a plant transport container Cluck improvises from the empty, washed can of coffee grounds and a plastic bag from the mini-mart down the street where she buys some donuts.

She gets a few more hours of sleep in the car, leaning against Kanzai's shoulder with her legs tucked into the empty space at her right. As the crow flies, the distance from the safehouse to the edge of the forest isn't far at all, but the elevation changes drastically and the only roads are narrow and zigzag in such a way that it takes them much longer to make their way to their destination. They see no other cars on the road, due to the hour and the remoteness of their location, and as they drive the vegetation changes, from spindly, leafy trees set farther from the road to a wide variety of plants and mosses, curving over the railings and bridges their dark sedan traverses as they climb even higher into the mountainside. Cluck finds herself rambling, now wide awake and her attention fixed firmly on the hunt ahead of her.

“You know how in mountain ranges, the airflow means that one side is rainy and the other is mostly dry? The forests here are a rare result of the geography and weather patterns aligning to produce an area with rampant isochronism and a really diverse ecosystem. Plants rapidly grow and die, and they're replaced by even wilder, more niche species. Then the process repeats itself. And the animal life there must have evolved to live alongside these cycles. I can't wait to see it.”

Kanzai makes a face. “Isohedral?”

“Isochronic. Events occurring at regular time intervals. The Black Orchid blooms only once every seven years. It's probable that it's parasitic on whatever comes before it, a plant or fungi. Myco-heterotropic orchids are uncommon, but not unheard of. Maybe everything there is parasitic in some way—maybe that's even the reason the region is unmappable, if it's literally changing too fast to record. Maybe the maps we have would have been accurate at one point, but now we've moved past it in the cycle.”

“Cluck.” Kanzai speaks slowly, as if to a child. “The river moved between maps. You can't blame that on science .” He puts air quotes around the word with his fingers.

“Kanzai.” Her voice is even slower, with even more affectation. “ Everything is because of science.”

He pokes her in the shoulder. “What about Nen ?”

There's a long, measured silence. “That's...”

Then, she scowls, sitting up in her seat and jabbing her fingers against his sternum. “ That is totally unfair! You know how impossible Nen is to quantify! There aren't instruments that can measure aura beyond the trained eye and the variety in techniques doesn't even seem to be bound to our imaginations, considering how some people have abilities they don't even understand themselves! How can I possibly argue against that!”

Her teeth are gritted, her eyes narrowed, the feathers in her hair drooping. Kanzai matches her expression, growling, “Well, some people can't seem to create abilities that make sense —”

“ Mine makes perfect sense! ”

“It's like a princess in a fairy tale movie for children!” His scowl deepens. “Or like the protagonist in some low-budget animated series from twenty years ago.”

“How dare . My Pied Piper is unflawed. You're just jealous that as an Enhancer-type with a Conjuration ability, you don't have any delicacy with your skills,” she says. “Your strategy is always to just hit whatever you come up against with a bat and hope it dies.”

His head tilts to the side, stretching the marks across his cheeks. “If it ain't broke.”

“If you're done squabbling...” From the driver's seat, Nikolaus raises a hand, and both Cluck and Kanzai swivel their heads around to face him, sporting identical glares. “We've arrived.”

The forest's entry is marked only by the road's end into a cleared area of dirt and gravel, and a few signs and fences that appear to have not been replaced or cleaned in years. Ahead, they can see the slope of the forest curve upward, and the tree canopy growing even thicker the further they look.

Cluck affixes her coffee can to her back with a formless sack they'd found in the safehouse—it had been full of athletic equipment, and now it houses what few supplies they have. One of their two-way radios is left with Nikolaus, who will remain at the car, hidden as best they can behind a grove of bushes, and the other is clipped to Kanzai's belt.

Cluck pulls her phone out of her pocket; it's the newest model, the Beatle-05, and even though they'd had great service in the city center the screen flickers with connection problems. It had even worked in the airship, so she supposes the problem is deeper than the elevation or the isolation.

“We won't be able to contact you if there's a problem,” she tells Nikolaus. “Just be ready for our return. No matter how long that takes. Even if it's days, don't go anywhere. And if others from the Mafia show up here, hide or use your best judgment to confront or take them out. As long as you're ready, I don't care how you pass the time.”

“T-that's fine...” Nikolaus's nervousness is making Cluck nervous, so she steps away and moves towards Kanzai, who is doing calisthenics in the middle of the clearing, doing lunges and stretching out his legs and arms. Nikolaus glances towards the passenger seat, where a few silver cans are nestled next to the spare blankets. “At least I've still got the soup...”

“You good to go?” She does a few quick stretches herself, focusing on her arms and making sure her jacket is zipped to her chin and her pockets are fastened securely. She remembers an early mission, ruefully, where she'd been sent flying by an assailant and every candy wrapper and jenni coin in her pockets had come tumbling out. This had been in a protected wildlife preserve, where every contaminant was carefully detailed and collected and after dispatching the poachers who'd attacked her she'd had to scale a ravine just to get them back. The last thing she wants is to repeat the experience, especially when she worries that the ecosystem is too delicate to support even the most minor interference, not to mention whatever the Mafia had been doing in there for weeks in their search of the orchid.

“Ready when you are,” is his response. A moment later, and a wave back to Nikolaus from Cluck, and the two begin making their way into the forest. There is no path, but Cluck has memorized the maps, and begins traveling South as best she can, making her way between the largest gaps in the trees. In a minute, they completely lose sight of the clearing, and another minute later the trees have grown so much larger, and the tree cover so much thicker, that the light begins to thin and what sky is visible through the treetops looks darkened as if from a storm. Although there is no rain, the air is heavy with moisture and a little warmer than she expects.

“You're looking for something,” Kanzai says. “What is it?”

“Something different.” Cluck scans the forest, taking in the uneven pitch to the soil, and the meager understory above the forest floor. Every so often she stops, to listen for any sign of other intruders or to put her head to the ground to listen for running water. Once they find the river, Cluck is sure the path to the orchid will present itself to them. It will be easier to read the extent of the forest—right now, it looks not much different than any other forest in this part of the world.

She pauses again to listen, Kanzai right beside her. “It's strange,” she says. “I haven't seen a single animal since we've been here. No birds, no squirrels, nothing.”

“Your ability won't work without it, right?”

She makes a hmph in response, straightening and wiping the sweat from her forehead. “There's no berries, no flowers, either...it's springtime, so I'd expect to see some of that. But if there's nothing for the birds to eat, then of course there would be no birds. Unless the Mafia intrusion has chased them away.”

“Of course,” Kanzai echoes. “So, how do you explain that?”

She follows his outstretched hand towards a tree about fifteen feet away, unremarkable except for the faded X drawn on it in white chalk. Cluck bounds towards it in an instant, studying the mark and the ground around the tree. None others in the area are marked that they can see, but a few yards away she finds the remnants of wheel marks in the soft dirt.

“Something was brought through here,” she says. “Good eye.”

He makes a hmph at that, too, shrugging his shoulders and glancing back the way they'd came. “I'm hoping you know the way back. I'm not about to climb one of those to figure it out.”

They travel another few minutes in silence. Occasionally one of them will spot a tree marked with chalk—sometimes the marks are fresh, sometimes they look half worn away, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to their organization.

“I wonder why they call it the Endeløs Forest,” Cluck muses.

“Probably should've asked Nikolaus that.” Kanzai alights onto a boulder with an unfair amount of grace, scrambling up and over a rift in the ground that Cluck ducks around instead. She can tell, he would be moving faster if he could, but he sticks to her pace, acting both as scout and support. They pass another tree with a faded X, and continue down the slope of the mountainside.

“This is so much fun,” Kanzai continues. “We should really work together more often.”

“Shut up!” The constant running, the loud sounds of her breathing in her ears, and the growing humidity is making it hard for her to think. “We're missing something! It'll be obvious once we get to the river, I know it!”

“And you know that how? Because none of the Mafia are here?” Kanzai kicks a pebble off into the distance, watching it clatter against the base of a tree, covered in dark mosses. “I think we've been running in circles.”

“I think you should shut up!” She stops running to spin, turning towards Kanzai when the ground slips underneath her feet and she goes tumbling, sliding down what she thought at the time was a gradual incline in the ground. Instead, there is a nearly vertical drop, hidden by boulders and covered by leaves, and Cluck finds herself plummeting down into a hollow of crumbling leaves and dark loam.

At the last moment she covers her body with Nen , landing and rolling to absorb the impact without injury. Sitting on the ground, she takes a moment to recover her dignity before glancing around. Vines crawl up the rocky surface surrounding her, and her excitement at finding something different is short-lived as she sees Kanzai's face peek over the top of the ledge. She climbs to her feet to study the vines—they're grafted to the spindly tree climbing up the rocks, parasitic in nature just as she'd thought, and she almost misses Kanzai jump off the ledge and manage a perfect, noiseless landing in the soft dirt beside her.

“There should be more growing here,” she says, digging her hands into the ground to feel the earth. “This is some really good soil.”

“You have something on your face,” Kanzai says in response, gesturing with his thumb at a spot at the base of his right cheek. When Cluck brushes a dirt-covered hand across the same spot on her own face, it does nothing. “No, there. There . No, never mind.”

Even further down, the sky is that much darker, but when Cluck listens closely she can hear the far-off sound of running water.

“Come on. It's this way.”

They continue running, and still there are no sign of creatures—no snakes, no mammals, not even any insects, which worries her most. The only way that could be explained is if everything in this forest was nocturnal, which...

She stops in her tracks, stroking her chin in thought. Could it be possible...?

“I think we made a mistake coming here during the daytime,” she says. “It's not that there's nothing to see, it's that everything won't come out until nightfall! The plants are nocturnal!”

Kanzai glances around, at the plain, unassuming trees, branches, and leaves, as if expecting them to suddenly sprout heads and join the conversation. “What? What's wrong with them?”

“They're nocturnal,” she repeats. At Kanzai's blank expression, she continues, “Nocturnal creatures are active at night and at rest during the day. Like owls, and rodents, and some...cats. For plants, it's more common in arid biomes, where the heat of the sun would wither anything that blooms during the day, so native species adapted so that the flowers would only open at night.”

He tips his head up, looking past the rocky curve at their backs to the tree canopy now so much higher up above. “I dunno, it seems pretty dark in here to me.”

Cluck freezes again, before her mouth stretches into a wide grin. “That's exactly it, isn't it? The closer we get to the middle, the darker it's getting...and we've been traveling for what, an hour? A little more? Do you have the time?”

Kanzai rolls up his sleeve, studying the face of his watch. “No...we've been in here for over four hours.”

“What?” She pauses, the sweat on the back of her neck cooling with the realization. She was hungry, her muscles were tired, and as she looked up at the tiny slices of sky visible through the tree canopy she felt the smallest bit of vertigo.

“It's like he said, isn't it,” Kanzai continues. “The same thing happened to the Mafia members. Time slips away from them—what feels like hours turns into days. I thought, since we were Hunters, it wouldn't apply to us the same way, but guess not. It's a little humbling.”

“You don't like it.” Cluck's smile turns soft at his sullen attitude. “Neither do I. Let's keep going.”

The pace they set now is more measured; considering it's been hours since they've had any nourishment, and with as much as they're sweating they're going to have to replace the moisture they've lost somehow, Cluck doesn't want to risk overexertion or fainting. She's not a medic, and she wouldn't trust Kanzai to put on a bandage correctly, let alone monitor for hypoglycemia.

“I'm gonna steal so much food from the Mafia,” she says, panting, as they stop for another break by a tree with a freshly-marked X. “That restaurant was so good!”

“ Shh .” Kanzai lifts a hand, then begins pointing with a series of hand signals Cluck has no idea how to interpret. At her blank stare, he regards her with open disappointment. “Can't you hear it? Voices, up ahead. Be quiet.”

She can, now that she takes a moment to listen. Voices, and the strange sound of machinery cranking, like a fan belt or belay device. They creep closer, and while the voices become clearer, they're indiscernible—the speech is in the native language, and interspersed with laughter. Peering around the edge of a tall boulder, they are finally able to see the full extent of the Mafia's camp.

The first thing she sees is an oversized generator, whirring loudly and connected with cords to a variety of other equipment. There's some kind of rappelling device, as she'd thought—something large and heavy, with a kind of affixed frame to transport both multiple people and supplies. Luckily for them, the framework is at the top, but four Mafia gunmen sit around it, talking and eating. They're ribbing each other; every so often, one will laugh, or make a joke. None of them Cluck recognizes from the restaurant, but she does recognize the food they're eating, which fills her with understandable envy.

Tents are set up haphazardly in the cleared spaces between trees—and not all the clearings are natural, as she can see hatchets and log clearing machines, discarded and unattended beside jagged tree stumps. Tall, electric powered lights have been drilled into some of the trees about fifteen feet up in a perimeter, washing the area in a bright, artificial light, and beyond that, the ground dips in a brutally familiar way. Just like when she'd fallen into the cavern earlier, a second ledge leads down into an even deeper cave. At a glance, the edges seem to be fringed with a series of strange leafed bushes, but on deeper consideration they appear to be the tops of even taller trees. And below, the sound of rushing water of what could only be the river. Her anticipation grows, her hands shaking. The thought of a hunt—and she hasn't hunted anything in so long—is thrilling beyond all expectation.

“How deep do you think it goes?” Kanzai whispers. “Deep enough they need an elevator.”

“That's not what it is...oh, whatever.” Cluck returns her attention to the gunmen. “How do you want to proceed?”

When she glances back at Kanzai, he's holding a bat; this one is lighter in color, with extremely visible graining and a large letter A emblazoned on the side. He taps the bat into the palm of one hand and raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, fine, but make it quick. I don't want the whole forest knowing we're coming.”

Five minutes later, Kanzai's knocked out all four men before they even have the chance to blink, and tied them up with rope to one of the smaller trees. Cluck sits in their place, leaning against the generator, chewing on a sandwich. Of the thermos bottles around the campsite, only one has water; the others have coffee and vodka, which is worse than useless when combating dehydration, but the river below is promising and after they spend a few minutes burrowing through the tents they come up with even more food—energy bars and protein drinks and similar things she remembers from late nights as a student.

“Cluck.” Kanzai repeats her name twice, standing to the side with arms crossed as Cluck continues to sort all the trash she can find, stuffing the empty food containers into a plastic bag she'd found and retrieving the litter the gunmen had left around their campsite. “ Cluck .”

“Nature preservation is important!” She throws a wrapper into the bag and follows it with an empty soda can. “Who knows what damage they're doing down there!”

“I really think someone so interested in making money isn't going to risk ruining the very thing he's trying to sell with his efforts.” Kanzai tilts his head to the side as he watches Cluck hurl a full pack of cigarettes into the trash.

“ Still .” She stands, straightening her back and dusting off her hands. “I don't feel quite so bad about beating up all these strangers anymore.”

“Did you ever?” They make their way to the rappelling machine, studying it and climbing into the open cage.

“I mean, they don't even know Nen .” She grips one of the metal bars with one hand before leaning over the side, bracing with her toes and tilting her body straight down to get the best view over the crevasse. “It's not exactly fair.”

Below, the first thing that catches her eye are the bright, jewel-pink and orange flowers nestled in the tops of the some of the highest-level trees. The leaves are wide and spiky like a palm tree, the trunk thick and striated, and the flowers look more tropical than anything else. She cannot see any other people on the ground, only a metal surround for the rest of the lift platform to secure it after it descends. Kanzai handles the control levers, and the platform begins to slowly move down the side of the cliff.

As they descend, the air grows even warmer, and Cluck discards her jacket, balling it up and stuffing it inside her knapsack. And as they fall, the view crystallizes into unbelievable, astonishing focus.

Flowers, of every bright color nature could provide, scattered like sequins across the fabric of the forest. Vines crawling with beetles with shells patterned like amber, plants growing out of the rock with spiny protrusions and speckled leaves, everything in the full bloom of life. The darkness grows even deeper, but their descent is slow enough their vision adjusts as they go. Still, she cannot see all the way across this second level of the forest, only a few bright spots of unmoving color before it is swallowed up by blackness and silence.

At the base, they step off the platform—there are no others, or any signs of other Mafia gunmen. She breathes deeply, taking in the spiky grasses growing off to the side of a makeshift path, the rows of vividly-colored mushrooms along the edge of the cliff, the almost glowing mosses lining the roof of the cavern. Where the treetops brush the rocks, the air is heavy with mist and the branches seem to shake as if from some wind current she cannot feel all the way at the ground.

Even standing still, her feet seem to sink slightly into the loam, the dirt as soft as if it was freshly-tilled.

“Ok, you're up,” Kanzai says. He doesn't look fazed at all, but he does sound impressed, and she'll just have to take it. “I'll admit, this is a lot nicer.”

“You haven't seen nothing yet.” Cluck cracks her knuckles, the gesture reminding her suddenly of something Kanzai would do. She smiles, and begins leading a path straight into the forest.

The sound of rushing water grows even stronger—the river must be underground, or at least partially so, and as they approach Cluck can see water trickling down the rocks in places. A waterfall, maybe, or some rapids, depending on the strength of the currents. Bright mosses grow along the rocks, but here there are no insects, nothing else of note.

“Don't touch anything,” she tells Kanzai. “The brighter it is, the more dangerous, probably.”

Movement, up ahead. A few small birds, with bright flocks of color across their backs, resembling the same patterns of the bright leaves of a few smaller trees she remembers seeing around the mouth of the cavern. It's not enough—they're not close enough, and there's not enough of them to risk trying to use her ability. She will only have one shot at this, and she's determined to get it right.

She asks Kanzai for the time again—it's been another couple hours, longer than either of them thinks, and as they continue they see every type of fern, grass, and flower conceivable, except for the orchid she seeks. There are spiders, frogs with spots the color of jewels, and birds with sharp, hooked beaks drifting too far overhead to reach. Where the plants are oversized, almost large enough to be comical, the animal life is diminutive in size, and almost entirely useless to her. What does this say, that the plants are the predators here?

There are more chalk marks on the trees, and boulders jutting out of areas of soft, tilled dirt, and behind one such boulder the ground drops out and Cluck can see the river exposed, rushing over the visible roots of a gnarled tree and disappearing just as suddenly over another small drop in the ground. Narrow silver fish, like the kind they'd eaten at the restaurant, swim with the current, and when Cluck drops down against the ground, holding her palm above the water, she hesitates. The fish are there, perfect in numbers, but still not ideal for her needs. They could not travel with her, could not leave the cover of water.

And beyond, they hear voices. Shouting.

“I told you it was there!” The voice is frantic, half-sob and half-scream. “I saw something move!”

“You saw nothing!” She recognizes the loud, flat voice of Mikkel, and as they creep around a boulder they can see about a dozen Mafia gunmen with their backs to the river; all look dazed, their faces dripping with sweat and their eyes glassy. They clearly spent the night searching, and how many nights before that?

“If you cannot find the orkidé , then you cannot find excuses!” he yells. “When you find it you can rest!”

“I saw...” One of them staggers, trying to find the words. “I saw something! Where did it go?”

The next moment, Kanzai leaps out of the darkness, not even waiting for her cue, baseball bat in hand, swinging. He gets out two before the rest have the sense to draw their guns, and then he adopts a defensive pose, returning each shot as it comes and moving even further forward.

Cluck glances between them all, before looking down at her own feet. She's standing beside the boulder, out in the open, her every instinct telling her to keep moving, to dodge, to go on ahead. The gunmen must be right, they must be close; it is as if she can sense it.

Kanzai volleys another round of bullets, his posture wide, and when the others reload he grasps the bat in both hands and slams it into the ground, sending a shockwave that almost knocks them all off their feet.

What is he doing? He's taking all the fire, drawing it away from her. His mouth moves, although she cannot hear the words. Is he talking to her?

He is, though. He's been shouting to her for some time now. Why are her legs moving so slowly?

She glances up. They all do, at the sudden shadow that falls over them like a blanket. She squints into the darkness, uncertain, before her eyes widen and she staggers back as a branch whips through the air, catching one of the gunmen around the middle and launching them in mid-air back into the dark.

Adrenaline supplies her feet with motion and her mind with clarity, and she leaps out of the way of a second branch, sweeping across the clearing at knee-level. Most of the gunmen clear it, but a few are knocked to the ground, and Kanzai lands beside her, his bat held high and his eyes full of incredulity.

“What the hell is that?!” He holds out the end of the bat, gesturing with it as a gigantic tree, its trunk marked with a faded chalkmark, comes marching out of the shadows on large, disparate roots. It strikes, again, and this time the gunmen turn their weapons on the tree, emptying an entire clip each into its trunk with little effect.

“A tree, obviously.” Cluck has to crane her neck up to even see it all, and when the roots contract, sliding it backwards through the dirt and out of sight, she remembers the maps and their previously-unexplainable inconsistencies.

“You laughed when I told you we were going to be hunting a plant,” she reminds him.

It strikes again, and this time the branch lunges forward, striking the man on Mikkel's right and plunging straight through his chest. It retracts, dragging the body with it, and Mikkel and the others turn to canisters placed haphazardly around the rocks.

“Get the flares!” he shouts. “Burn them down! Use the liquid nitrogen!”

Cluck starts, reaching out for the other to try and knock the equipment out of their hands. “Don't!”

Kanzai instead reaches for her, yanking Cluck out of the way as the tree rushes forward again, two branches whipping out to try and snag any additional prey and missing all targets. It lingers, the branches poised, waiting for any movement.

A second tree, its branches tipped with coiled pink flowers, slinks through the darkness behind the first.

“How many do you think there are?” Kanzai asks. “Do you think they all move like that?”

“I think the entire forest is alive,” she answers, and watches as Mikkel raises a flare gun and blasts it straight up into the canopy of the main tree. It bursts into life, sending flames and red smoke across the treetop—the new light source illuminates the top of the cavern and with it they can see the writhing movement of dozens of other trees, coming closer.

“Retreat!” Mikkel shouts, sweeping out his arm and trying to push his men behind the cover of boulders. “Get back!”

Several of them run, others raising guns to fruitlessly cover their progress, their gait still uneven and their faces still disoriented and eyes glazed. She doesn't know if they're even running in the right direction.

On a whim, she lights up her eyes with Gyo .

It is as though she can see in the darkness as far as her En can go. She sees every rock, every blade of grass, every movement of the gunmen as they blip out of her radar and every minutiae of the tree before her. She glances to Kanzai, and sees that at her approach, he too washes his eyes with Gyo .

“I can't believe we didn't think to use our auras earlier.” Her En stretching out, she's able to track the one tree moving counterclockwise with an ease that completely eluded her earlier. “We're such idiots.”

There's screaming, from the Mafia men ahead of them. The second tree, trapping the others. Kanzai rests the baseball bat against his shoulder.

The next time the tree sends a branch forward, Kanzai is ready, and whips the bat forward, cloaked in aura, and splinters the branch with the force of his swing. The tree staggers back, and Cluck surges forward, spiking her aura and sending a Nen -infused punch straight at the center of the trunk. It splits the tree in two, and she feels the moment it flickers and dies, falling backward with a resounding crash that shakes the already pliant ground. The forest is silent, the other trees creeping backwards, and a moment later everything is still.

She stares into the darkness, her Nen receding. The pitch blackness of the forest reminds her of the black ink of the sketch, and her only thought once again is for the orchid. She finds herself turning, staggering on shaky legs over to the river and dropping to her knees beside it. Silvery fish dart through the water, seemingly unaware or unaffected by the fight that just occurred.

“Cluck.”

She barely hears Kanzai call her name, her hand outstretched towards the fish, her desire so profound to find the orchid that if it was anyone else, she doubts she would have paused at all. But it's Kanzai, and she does.

“Cluck, look at yourself.”

She does, glancing back into the river and meeting her reflection. Glassy, dull eyes stare back at her. A pallid complexion, wisps of hair clinging to the sides of her face from sweat. She looks like the gunmen, like whatever had trapped them here is now affecting her. And she remembers reading about the Black Orchid, about how just the sketch alone moved her to action, and how anyone who caught so much as a glance was bidden to offer every cent they had for the opportunity to own it.

And her mind clarifies, this time, she believes, for good.

She coughs into one shoulder, aware now of how her vision swims, what that means, and what to do when it happens.

“What happened to you?” She's never heard Kanzai sound concerned about her, but this almost seems close. He grips her shoulder tightly with his free hand.

“Spores, maybe. Or some kind of effect from a psychotropic fungus or flower. I wasn't expecting that. I'll be better soon.”

“Why didn't it affect me?”

She considers the options, not wanting to suggest aloud that it could be due to his height, or the fact that his high collar and long sleeves cover more of his skin than her outfit with its exposed arms and legs. It could even be that it merely amplifies whatever natural desires exist in a person, and a Botanical Hunter would already be predisposed towards wanting to enter the forest and unearth its mysteries.

“Maybe it did. Or maybe there's nothing to affect.” She means it lightly, but he takes offense, scowling and curling his lip over pointed teeth.

“Well, excuse me for caring.” He steps back, crossing his arms. As she studies him, he doesn't look like the gunmen—his eyes are focused, his posture is even, and he doesn't seem distracted by anything around him, despite how remarkable it all is. Instead, even as he feigns disinterest, she can feel through his aura the bulk of his attention is still exclusively centered on her.

“Come on,” she says. “We've come this far. Let's find that orchid.”

They walk together; she keeps her aura flexed, and every time they come into range of one of the larger trees, she feels it shrink backwards.

Beneath the lacerated leaves of a fern she finally finds what she is looking for. A cluster of small rodents, with large pointed ears and bushy tails sit together chewing on some kind of large, flat tubers. She holds out a hand, concentrating her Nen , and her Pied Piper flares to life.

The rodents stop, their eyes swiveling to focus on her. She can only use Pied Piper once per day, and once she establishes contact with it she cannot switch it to a new set of targets. Her ability grants her total control over any number of the same kind of animal, with the conditions that she must not have caused them harm, can only give them one command at a time, and cannot give them a new command until they finish the old one.

“Help me find the Black Orchid,” she tells them. “Please.”

The rodents turn and scurry across a rock, glancing back as if to tell her to follow them. And she does, leaping around boulders and under fallen logs, leaving the area by the river and making their way back up a steady slope of the cave floor. And she can feel the forest try to shift around them as they move, but the rodents know the forest well, and are able to correct course and take them straight to where she hopes the orchid is.

In an area blocked by a curtain of moss, the rodents sit and wait, chittering together and staring up at Cluck with black eyes. The air is brighter here, and tinged with something sweet and unfamiliar.

Kanzai uses his bat to sweep aside the curtain. “After you,” he says.

Cluck steps through first, her feet once again sinking into the soft dirt. There are cracks in the rocks above, letting in just enough light that slices of it hit the forest floor at frequent enough angles for her to see the first of the flowers.

She had thought she would only find one specimen, and maybe not even one in full bloom.

Instead, an entire grove of them spreads out before her, as far as she can see. Each flower is equidistant from the rest, open in perfect bloom, the black petals as flawless and beautiful as every documented example.

Kanzai steps into place beside her. She hears his breath catch in his throat, and feels him reach for her hand. But they both cannot look at anything other than the field of orchids in front of them.

Then, he turns to look at her. “Is it everything you wanted?”

She can barely make out the word. “Yes.”

“Great.” He stands beside her for another minute. He doesn't even comment on the tears drying on her cheeks, or the dirt smudged onto her hands and face. But he does still open his mouth to say, “How are we getting out of here again?”

“The rodents,” she says. “the rodents.”

“...And we're going to have to deal with a bureaucratic nightmare to package some of these up and transport them. Plus dealing with all of the dead Mafia. You got a plan for that too?”

She pauses, considering. She'll have to arrange a visa for Nikolaus, agriculture entry permits, and fast-track some laboratory assistance with negating any negative effects of the orchid's spores. Then, her mouth stretches into a grin. “I'll have to call in a favor. But that does give me an idea...”

–

Pariston Hill stands before the press briefing, wearing a black suit patterned with begonias. And gold aviator sunglasses.

To his right, Cluck is silent, arms clasped behind her back as Pariston reads off the teleprompter, some fluff explanation he'd scripted himself after Cluck called in the favor he'd offered her for voting in his interests in some real estate proposal some months ago.

“The Black Orchid will be preserved and cultivated, studied in labs across the continents and, of course, available for display at the museums here in Swaldani City and in Yorkshin!” He spreads his arms wide, a beaming smile gracing his face. It's hard to imagine him in a setting like Razing, covered in dirt and grime, but she manages. She's got to keep herself occupied somehow during this boring briefing.

“And now, my colleague Cluck will say a few words,” he continues, and Cluck startles. She certainly wasn't expecting this—it hadn't been in any part of their discussion. In fact, he'd seemed pleased to be in full control of the media dissemination, but now with little choice she steps up to the podium in his place and reads from the teleprompter.

“Charting the Endeløs Forest will provide us with a wealth of information and will lead to new discoveries in medicine and bioscience. And of course, none of it would be possible without the tireless work of my good friend, Pariston Hill...” She pauses, gritting her teeth. “Who is one of the most generous and selfless men I know.”

Pariston beams, and the crew of media reporters applaud briefly as she steps back.

“Thank you for your time!” He waves, beckoning her back behind the doors into the Association headquarters.

“Now,” he tells her, once the noise from the crowd of reporters outside has died down, “I still have some calls to make. And I was hoping you would be there for the opening of the exhibit here. It's tonight, and the guest list has already been decided, but I'm sure I can get you in.”

How generous indeed. “I can't, I'm afraid. I've got plans.”

“Really?” He tilts his head, his every microexpression a study in curiosity. “What might those be? I've thought your social calendar was a little thin as of late.”

“Shut up!” If she didn't want him to ruin her good mood, the first step should have been not to let him know about it in the first place. Or, she could always rub her happiness in his face. “Actually, I've got a hot date.”

His expression falls immediately, disgust marring the otherwise immaculate features. “You don't need to share every detail.”

“I wasn't. It's none of your business. Have fun at the museum! Bye!!” With reporters blocking the entrance and Pariston standing in front of the lobby corridor leading to the main bank of elevators, she doesn't have many viable avenues of escape. Still, she knows about a back door leading to the parking garage, so she takes it and slips out.

She has a few more hours to kill until Kanzai takes her to dinner. Somewhere nice. A surprise, he'd said.

At the end, he gives her flowers. Real ones. Purple orchids, for her desk.

[clehame]

what other people fantasize about: idk sex i guess

what i fantasize about: it’s the renaissance. i’m the daughter of a germanic baron. germany is still just a collection of states. my twin brother and i are incredibly close. we were taught together for years before my father decided it’s time i learn to be a lady and he learn to be a baron. i’m to develop feminine skills and he will be taught about maintaining an estate and the noble arts such as swordplay and poetry. i convince my father to let me embroider and read the bible in the same room while my brother takes his lessons. i hear and remember every word. at night he teaches me swordplay and i help him write sappy poems to his lady loves.

my father decides it’s time for me to be married. he chooses a wealthy merchant who will pay a hefty bride price. i learn from my lady’s maid he gained his company by marrying a successful merchants daughter and only child. when her father died she inherited his money, with the specification her husband could never touch it and it would pass directly to her child. she died mysteriously soon after and the money passed to her husband for lack of a better heir.

i retire early on our wedding night. my husband stays out a while longer, celebrating. a mysterious cloaked man challenges him to a duel. he loses and is killed. i am a virgin widow.

i inherit my husbands fortune. obviously i am a woman, incapable of handling it on my own, so i need someone to help me. i choose my brother. he understands he is only a name on the bank statements, and i trust him. I leave him in charge of my business and i move to the prussian court.

i am presented at court. i am young and i look gorgeous in mourning black. the prince is intrigued by the mysterious newcomer. later he approaches me and gives his condolences. i thank him, but explain i barely knew my husband.

“he died on our wedding night,” i say.

i see the question in his eyes. i confirm that i am untouched.

we become lovers.

i am placed as a lady in waiting with his sister. she is initially withdrawn and cautious around me, but my intelligence and wit soon charm her and we become close friends.

the prince tells me he wants to marry me. privately i think he is simply swept away by the rush of new love, but i say nothing. we both know it can never happen. his father would never allow it.

his father dies.

it was a freak accident, a hunting accident that left the king and one of his gentlemen dead. the prince cries and i comfort him. he proposes again and this time it’s serious. i accept. we marry as soon as the mourning period allows.

every night we pray for a royal heir. little does he know, i’m taking medicine to stop myself from becoming pregnant. pregnancy is dangerous for the women in my family. i have no intentions of dying so early.

his sister comes to me in tears. i am no longer her lady in waiting, but we are still close. she tells me she is with child. the father was the gentleman who died with the king. she is unmarried and alone, and doesn’t know what to do.

i tell the king i am pregnant. he’s overjoyed. i convince him to order all the ladies at court to wear styles that imitate my pregnancy. it’s silly and illogical, but the court understands the necessity of pleasing the pregnant mother of the future heir. the princess does not have to, but does so, out of sympathy with her friend. eight months later i go into confinement with the princess and a few trusted ladies. we return with the newborn prince. the entire country celebrates. i begin an affair with the princess.

a few years later, my husband dies. the crown prince is our only child, and he is young. i become regent. i have developed a reputation as an intelligent and fair leader, ruling in place of my husband while he is off fighting wars. the people trust me to lead. i institute laws that force lords to be fair to their peasants, and i ensure no common folk starve while the rich gorge themselves. i build up our military, and create a guard loyal only to me. i slowly remove the rights of the nobility, and redistribute land to the peasants. i create labor laws, institute equal rights for women, and outlaw slavery and serfdom. i create schools so the common people can be educated.

when my son is seventeen i institute democracy. the people vote in a president to rule the country. my son is angry. he was about to become an absolute monarch and now he is a figurehead. he tries to lead a coup against me, but my protection guard easily defeats his band of disgruntled nobles. he hates me. i tell him i love him, and i let him and his nobles go. sometimes forgiveness is more powerful than punishment.

on his eighteenth birthday i step down from power. he looks at me with fury in his eyes as he is crowned king. i retire to a castle in the mountains with the princess, my lover. we read books, write poetry, and paint. we spend time with the local people. we help them care for their children, and every sunday i take their products to the market and help them become a thriving town. i’m 35. my so called son never visits me. I die at 80 in happy obscurity.