#this is useful bc while I have a nice bound journal where i write to preserve memories

[ikyw-t]

hmmm literally just realized she wrote a note on the (fridge) with a joke we made.......... I'm speechless to say the least

[miraworos]

Azira Fell and the Apocalypse Scroll (T)

SUMMARY: The hunt is on for a mysterious and deadly scroll with the power to topple the world into chaos. Will Dr. Azira Fell, professor of Egyptology, find it in time to prevent the impending apocalypse? Or will an evil organization bent on destroying civilization find it first? To have even a chance at saving the world, he'll need to rely on the wily Anthony J. Crowley, professional guide and adventurer. But can Azira trust the inscrutable explorer, or will he lose his heart along with his life?

Or: A Good Omens Indiana Jones AU, because why not?

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford - 1935

Doctor Azira Fell hummed a few bars of Davies’ Op. 51 as he selected a couple of works from the Ashmolean library’s collection. Sunlight streaming through the clerestory window above ignited the gold-embossed lettering on the cover of a book chronicling the Ptolemaic dynasty near the end of the Hellenistic period. To Azira, who practiced knowledge the way others practiced religion, the glow seemed an omen of the treasure within.

Descending the step stool, he carried the volumes to a nearby table. He laid them as softly as possible on the polished oak and tugged the lamp chain. Then he sat in the high-backed chair, wiggling ever so slightly with the anticipation of the chase.

The passages for which he was searching would likely be buried in the usual drivel of martial accounts, rankings, and supply inventories. The Romans really were such tiresome windbags about conquest. Very few saw the forest through the trees with all their facts and figures and mind-numbing reports. Thus, it was up to Egyptologists like Dr. Azira Fell, associate faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, thank you very much, to find the occasional tree that hinted at the actual forest.

Azira took out his small, leather-bound journal, opened it to where the stub of a pencil was wedged into its pages, and began to record the call numbers of the volumes he’d selected. With any luck, he’d have a few hours uninterrupted by students to collect a handful of tidbits meriting further investigation.

“Dr. Fell!”

Azira’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly. So much for uninterrupted hours. He hadn’t even made it five minutes.

“Dr. Fell, you have to see this.”

Anathema Device, Azira’s research assistant and the first American woman to study Oriental Studies at Oxford, popped out from behind a set of nearby stacks, breathless with excitement.

“There you are,” she said. “I knew you’d be prowling around the 932s. Look at this.”

She hurried forward, holding a hardcover book open toward him. He recognized it at once as her mother’s account of her expedition to Nubia at the turn of the century, before Anathema was born. Her mother’s obsession with Egyptology inspired Anathema’s own passion for the profession.

“What is it, dear?” he said, as he took the book from her hands.

“I’ve read this entire thing cover to cover so many times, but I never noticed this before,” she said, her face alight like it always was when she made a new conceptual connection or discovery in her research.

Azira looked at the place on the page to which she was pointing, but didn’t immediately see the source of her excitement.

“I don’t understand,” he said apologetically.

She took the book back and read aloud. “In late 34 BC, authorities on behalf of Emperor Octavian claimed that Mark Antony had stolen a sacred scroll from the Library of Pergamum and gifted it to Cleopatra of Egypt as recompense for the burning of the Alexandrian scroll collection during Caesar’s Civil War.”

“Yes, but that was a false account to discredit Antony. Your mother knew that. We all know that.”

“That’s not the interesting part,” Anathema said, grinning wider. “It says a sacred scroll as in one—not many. Scholars generally accept that the rumor stated Antony gave Cleopatra something like 20,000 Pergamum scrolls. Not one sacred one.”

Azira stood up. “You think she means the scroll? The scroll about th-the—Macedonian, er—”

“The Macedonian spice route,” she finished for him with a significant look. “Yes. I think she could have meant that. Hiding an indicator in plain sight is just like her.”

He took the book from her again and traced the spidery writing with excitement. Anathema’s mother was considered the preeminent authority on all things occult during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. That’s how Anathema had come to learn of the sacred scroll in the first place, through bedtime stories her mother had told her. Azira had learned of the scroll through other means, naturally, but when each had discovered the other knew of it, they instantly formed a bond that, over the last two years, had led to a close and trusted friendship.

“There’s more,” Anathema said, eyes dancing. “I looked up sacred scroll in her index, and the page it has listed is a separate page entirely, with no mention of a sacred scroll at all.”

“Which page?”

Anathema flipped the pages while Azira held the book for her. She stopped a third of the way further forward in the book, and pointed at a sketch of statue.

“I’m betting it’s some kind of coded location. But I haven’t worked out if it’s the picture or the words or both.”

“Good lord, Anathema. Are you sure it isn’t just a misprint?”

Anathema arched a cool eyebrow at him. “My mother never made mistakes. Not when it came to her study of Egypt. Never once.”

And, of course, she was right. Azira suggesting that the book was flawed was ludicrous. He had found firsthand accounts with less historical accuracy than the meticulously researched analysis he was now holding.

“Agnes Nutter, you sly devil,” Azira said, scanning the page Anathema had indicated. “You realize this means that not only did she know where the scroll was, or at least what happened to it—“

“—she also knew it was too dange—er, valuable, I mean—historically speaking—to let fall into the wrong hands.”

Azira was too lost in thought to chastise her near slip, though heaven knew what spies lurked in the stacks, just waiting for a crumb of information to fall.

“So it does exist,” he muttered to himself. “It does exist, and its location is knowable. It has been found at least once, and if it could be found by her…”

“It can be found by people other than us. Which could be bad.”

Azira tapped his lips, turning the puzzle over in his mind as he gazed at the page. “But where to start? We can’t go haring off into the desert without a proper destination in mind, my dear. We simply can’t afford it.”

“We could ask the Egypt Exploration Fund for an investment.”

“An investment for what? We’d need to tell them what we were looking for—”

“—the Macedonian spice route—”

“—as well as actually produce something of value upon our return. We can’t excavate a ghost, Anathema. No one would subsidize that.”

“On the contrary, brother,” boomed a voice from near the staircase about ten feet away from Azira and Anathema. “We may be able to come to some arrangement.”

Gabriel, patriarch of Azira’s extended family and, regrettably, Azira’s half-brother, approached their table with a jackal’s smile.

“What kind of arrangement?” Azira said with trepidation. He didn’t trust Gabriel any farther than he could throw him, family or no.

“Well, it just so happens Mother has a keen interest in the Byzantium-antiquities trade gaining momentum in the Mediterranean region.”

“What do tourist trinkets have to do with my research on the, er, the evolution of the gastronomical trade in the early Roman Empire?”

“I think your interests overlap quite nicely with the Foundation’s objectives in this case.”

The Foundation was the philanthropic arm of the White Dove evangelical organization Azira’s extended family had founded generations ago. It used monetary inducements to attract vulnerable populations into the fold, often at the price of sacrificing their cultural identity and heritage. That’s what had pushed Azira toward Egyptology and the study of antiquities in the first place. He wanted to protect the cultures and histories and identities of the people that White Dove’s Foundation tended to erase.

“What are the Foundation’s objectives, if I may?”

“Profit, of course. Profit that can then be turned to…charitable causes.”

“And by charitable, you mean missionary, I presume?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Don’t forget that a sizable donation from the Foundation helps maintain this academic institution you love so much.”

“You still haven’t said what it is you want me to do,” Azira reminded Gabriel as Anathema slowly closed her mother’s journal and eased backward to be half-hidden behind Azira. Smart girl.

“We need you to travel to Cairo and make inroads with the traders in antiquities. You have an eye for these things. You can tell when something is worth procuring.”

“And what do you intend to do with any relics I obtain?”

“Why, resell them, of course, at a price more fair for the discerning market,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the mysteries of the pharaohs have caught the imagination of others in the empire, others who happen to have the benefit of deep pockets. And why not indulge their petty interests if it encourages them to give generously to God’s chosen causes? In exchange, you could mount your expedition for your gastronomical …. whatever ... in your spare time, with our resources and our blessing.”

Azira pursed his lips, on the verge of refusing Gabriel’s request, no matter the familial consequence to himself. He didn’t need Gabriel’s blessing to go about his life, nor did he want it. If he was ever given it, he’d have to immediately examine at length whether he wanted to continue doing whatever it was that Gabriel approved of. Azira wouldn’t go so far as to classify Gabriel as evil—he was Azira’s brother after all—but if not outright malicious, then he was something just this side of it.

The refusal hovered on Azira’s tongue, despite the small nudge of a pointy elbow in his back. Anathema clearly wanted him to take the deal. But it was hardly worth the burden of being under Gabriel’s thumb again. The last time Azira had been in a similar position, it had not gone well.

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about setting up an antiquities trade, Gabriel. How would I even find these so-called traders? How would I know I could trust them to deliver a bona fide artefact?”

“No worries on that score,” he said with false amiability. He took a black card out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Azira. It simply read “Crowley,” with no address or number, only a snake sigil curled along the left-hand side. “This man is affiliated with a trusted business associate of mine. He’ll see to you, help you set up when you arrive.”

“And how do I find him, then?” Azira asked, agitated. “There are no details on this card.”

“Oh, he’ll find you,” Gabriel assured him. “Your accounts have been furnished with whatever funds you might need for travel and expenses.”

Guide or not, funding or not, Azira simply didn’t have the wherewithal to do what Gabriel was asking.

“Gabriel, I don’t think—“

Gabriel took that moment to lean into Azira’s personal space, looming over the shorter man with a deceptively mild expression.

“Listen, Sunshine. I may have understated things when I posed this as a request. You will do as I say, or I will be forced to withdraw my protection from you and my financial support from this fine academy. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Azira swallowed. Much as he’d regret the loss of the funds to the university, the larger threat lay in the euphemistic “withdraw my protection from you,” which meant far more sinister things than the words themselves invoked.

“I look forward to monitoring your progress,” Gabriel said with barely concealed contempt as he shook Azira’s hand and tipped his hat to Anathema. “And, as always, Godspeed.”

Then with a dramatic swirl of his argent coat, he took his leave.

Azira stared speechless after his brother. He hadn’t even agreed to go. But that was how White Dove, and its founding family, operated. No one was permitted to say no. Questions were forbidden unless strictly necessary. Only the most powerful family members were chosen to lead, and if those leaders dictated that something be done, it was done—end of conversation.

Azira had thought he’d escaped it by becoming an academic. For the last fifteen years, he’d managed to skirt most family engagements and nod politely at the ones he couldn’t avoid, until almost no one in the family even remembered he existed, but for the annual expense in the ledger with Oxford as the payee. Or so he’d thought. It appeared he was still very much on Gabriel’s mind, in the event that he might prove useful.

“Well, that was…something,” Anathema said, returning to her position by his side. “Is he always that pushy?”

“Most times, he’s worse,” Azira admitted glumly. Then he looked at the card in his hand, the snake sigil sending a thrill of foreboding down his spine. “Cairo.”

“Don’t look so downtrodden. This is exactly what we wanted,” Anathema said, laying a reassuring hand on his arm.

“It’s not the expedition that worries me,” Azira answered softly, tucking the card in his coat pocket. “It’s the demons we will owe when we return.”

Read Chapter 2 on AO3

Start at Chapter 1

[jaceythejester]

Kamilah x MC x Priya Fan Fiction: Bloodbound The Way of The World

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Pairing: Kamilah x MC x Priya. Poly.

Cast: The whole cast (as of Book 1 chapter 11) are featured.

Synopsis: Diana falls in love with Kamilah and Priya while trying to save the Clanless who are left to die by the other vampires.

Author’s note: Please separate the artist from the work. You wouldn’t ask an actor who plays a serial killer if he kills people in real life. Like people, each character has different facets to them. In this story, no one is entirely from the light side and no one is entirely from the dark side. That’s all I can say without spoilers.

About author: f / http://youtube.com/JaceytheJester Check out Becca x MC: Two Sides of The Same Coin (ongoing) on http://wattpad.com/JaceytheJester

Rating: 15+

Prologue word count: 2,663

Chapter I: TBD

Chapter I word count: A bit over 10k. I might not reply any asks until chapter I is posted.

BLOODBOUND: THE WAY OF THE WORLD PROLOGUE

  If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, Diana remembered. That’s what they say about New York. Lily had told Diana that the people she met in New York would help her realize her dreams. Diana didn’t know how but she wanted to believe so.

  The life in this concrete jungle, where tall buildings rise so high they seem to pierce the sky, may not be for everyone. Here, people talk fast, walk fast and do everything fast. Nobody has time. Everyone who isn’t rich or won’t have a large inheritance from their family anytime soon, has to work to live or live to work to keep themselves in New York City; the capital of the world and the centre of business and finance. Only the best of the best are here. You either go hard or you go somewhere else.

  It was already four in the morning. Diana just finished brushing her long blond hair when she realised she couldn’t sleep in the luxurious and secure suite inside Raines Corp Tower. She set her large green eyes on the writing desk at the opposite site of the bed and thought she should write something down in her deep red leather bound journal which she just bought last week to make sure she wouldn’t forget anything or any details about the serious situations in her new life.

  Being the classic case from a small town, Diana decided to leave for New York after her college graduation. People didn’t see her off. They just said things that were anything but supportive. Do you really think you can make it? How are you gonna do that? What if you fail? Diana remembered those words well. It made it easier for her to pack her things and catch a flight to New York. Some people from this young city craft their own way and become a part of history in this world. Diana wanted to make people see that there was something special about her. Most importantly, she wanted to be free from family values that branded certain things forbidden for women but not for men.

  In this sleepless city, bright neon lights and the big, high definition digital screens make night more beautiful than day. Diana found that she really preferred dusk to dawn which was a good thing. Night had become Diana’s regular time of work merely a week ago after she became a personal assistant of a vampire CEO, Adrian Raines, the owner of Raines Corp; one of the leading companies in technology industry in the world.

  One of the very important things anyone should know about vampire race was that not all of them were gorgeous and glamorous like they were made when featured in vampire films and fictions. In reality, there were all kinds of them. Some were utterly ugly and murderous. Some were incredibly kind and universally beautiful. Diana had met the former and she was very lucky to still be alive. She made a bunch of blood thirsty vampires her enemies after all.

  Fortunately, the vampires around her were people she could trust. Adrian might look like a man in his mid twenties but in fact, he was around three hundred years old and he wanted to be the force of greater good in the world.

  Kamilah Sayeed, the perfect beauty and the Egyptian vampire queen was the CEO of Ahmanet Financials, one of the most successful companies in financial industry on earth. Kamilah was royal by birth and reserved by choice. Even though she was two thousand and sixty three years old, her appearance was that of a woman in her late twenties. She would never grow old or deform. Her beauty was eternal like the universe itself.

  After Lily Spencer, Diana’s roommate and best friend was attacked and was on the verge of dying, Diana begged Adrian to save her. The only way was to turn Lily into a vampire. Adrian did and Kamilah was furious at both Diana and Adrian. The action could jeopardise him and his whole clan. But what else was I supposed to do? Watching my best friend die? Diana thought. Kamilah threatened to kill Diana as a result but Diana wasn’t really afraid. She thought it was just something close to what a protective sibling sometimes say to their sister’s boyfriend; If you break her heart, I’ll break your neck.

  Not only Kamilah was there the whole time during Lily’s turning process, she offered to teach and train Lily herself. Kamilah told Diana about Lysimachus, her twin brother who sacrificed himself for a good cause when the Egyptians were attacked by the Romans in 35 BC. That was five years before Cleopatra who was Kamilah’s cousin, passed away. Diana was convinced that Adrian reminded Kamilah a lot about her brother. Adrian and Lysimachus had a lot in common. It was plain to see why Kamilah was fiercely protective towards Adrian. The fact that Kamilah remembered precisely that they met two hundred and thirty four years ago said it all.

  During her years as a human, Kamilah served as a nomarch. A governor of some sort and a title very rarely earned by a woman. Diana didn’t expect any less from a cousin of Cleopatra specifically when the last Queen of Egypt was known to be strong and fiery too.

  A lot of things about Kamilah remained to be discovered. All Diana knew was that there was no one else Adrian trusted more than Kamilah.

  Diana glanced at Lily who was lying on her stomach on their bed and was probably asleep. Lily was one day old in her vampire age and so it was her time to get some rest. When Diana was certain that her friend would not bother her, she got her journal out of a drawer and set it on the desk. She casually flipped through the pages without so much as glancing at what she had written. There were things she had already remembered by heart.

  According to Adrian, there were one hundred and eighty vampires in New York City and six of them were the most powerful ones who had seats on The Council of New York vampires. These were also the leaders of other twenty nine members of their own clans. Each clan ruled in six different sectors. Kamilah in finance and Adrian in technology.

  The Baron was a short, chubby man in his late sixties. He was a criminal before and after he became a vampire. A nightmare that no one ever wanted to come true. He was a gangster in 1920s, he still dressed like one and he was a gang leader today too and he probably would be until the end of time. Diana believed that if having been turned into a vampire couldn’t change a man then nothing else would. He reigned ruthlessly in organised crime.

  Lester Castellanos who was neither tall nor nice must have been in his late fifties when he was turned. Lester had thick, untrimmed facial beard and thick greyish hair and a lot of worry lines on his face which definitely didn’t have any bad affects on him in commerce. After he caressed Diana’s arm in front of Adrian and Kamilah simply because he wanted to, Diana quickly went to the bathroom and washed her hands and arms twice. Then she remembered that she slapped his face and she washed her hands again for the third time. This was a kind of man who would make everyone of every sexuality run. Out of disgust, not fears.

  Adam Vega was a tall, broad shouldered Spanish man with the kind of magnificent jawlines that handsome Hollywood actors have. He looked like a man in his forties. His thick dark hair and his thick eyebrows only added up to his charisma. But Diana learnt that at the end of the day, Vega was still a politician who only cared about himself and his own gain. Like the colonial Spanish nobleman that he used to be. Adrian had to pay a generous amount of money to him in exchange for his vote so Lily could be a new member of Clan Raines.

  Despite the fact that Lily was no longer a human being, she still had feelings and she had every right to live as much as anybody else on earth. Yet Vega didn’t care. Lily is now one of his own kind but she is not one of his own clan. Like human society, the discrimination among vampire race existed. Diana couldn’t help but think about Jax and his people. Clanless and rejected. Excluded and soon to be executed. It was Vega’s idea to wipe them out once and for all. She wished she could do something for them. If only she could change Vega’s mind. But he was a kind of man who would not do anything for anyone unless he would receive an irresistible offer in return.

  That is politics, she remembered what Adrian had said to her. Now Diana wondered why anyone should trust and give power to politicians to run their cities and countries when all they cared about was themselves and their benefits. It took Diana a few minutes to shake the thought of Vega out of her head.

  And at last but not least, Priya Lacroix, a famous fashion designer who was gorgeous enough to be a model herself. Despite being the youngest clan leader among them, Priya was confident and comfortable leading Clan Lacroix and having a seat on The Council. On top of that, for the past years Priya thrived in fashion industry. It is one the most fast-paced careers of all time. Anyone who has money can own their own studio in New York but only those who are truly talented get to keep theirs. Priya was one of them. Not to mention, her studio was one of the most popular scenes in the city. Diana had met Priya only once and she found her to be extraordinarily exquisite. Her pair of playful brown eyes and and her full, sensual lips just suited her personality so well. One could never tell that Priya was slightly over one hundred and fifty years old when she looked and acted so naturally like a woman in her mid twenties.

   Then there were the Clanless whom Diana decided to never write anything about in her journal for her and their safety. In case Diana and Adrian failed to get a vote from Priya to keep Lily alive, at least Lily would still have Jax Matsuo and the Clanless to rely on. Diana was convinced that they would never turn her away.

   Another thing that Diana had never mentioned to anyone, not even to Lily, her best friend was her newfound clairvoyant abilities that enabled her to see visions. Fragments of Kamilah’s and Adrian’s past. There was always another man with them. He was called Gaius Augustine. Yet neither Kamilah nor Adrian had ever said his name. As far as she understood, Gaius was ancient and dangerous. She knew this because Kamilah and Adrian were different people when they were with him in the distant past.

   Diana wondered what it meant to have the power that she had but she didn’t mind it at all. It made her feel empowered as though she was some sort of ‘the chosen one’ like those cool characters in fictions and films. She simply hoped that she wouldn’t need saving like a damsel in distress among the vampire race.

   Diana craned her neck to Lily’s direction to make sure that she was still asleep before she started to write on her journal with her casual cursive handwritings that were feminine and rather tidy.

   I am in New York. Is this the right place for me? Even when I’m right here right now, I still have doubts in my mind. Is this really where I belong?

   I feel bad for Adrian. I feel bad for putting him in this awkward situation but there was no other choice to save Lily. I’m thankful for his selfless action. I think he likes me and I have nothing but friendship to offer. He’s a great guy but I just keep thinking about Priya and how perfect she was when I first met her in person. I’d like to meet her again though I’m not sure what I expect. 

   I want to know how she thinks about me or if she thinks about me at all after our first meeting. I want to know what she’s doing right now. When Adrian told me that we’d need Priya’s vote to save Lily, I was glad that it was her. I definitely don’t want to owe Lester or ask him for anything. Baron is cold blooded. He probably smiles when he kills someone. I think Priya will help us. Even though I don’t know her that much, I have a feeling she’ll understand.

   When she was done, she put her journal back in a drawer, charged her phone and left it on the desk. Then she silently slipped into bed beside Lily and was ready for sleep to take her. She didn’t see a text message from Adrian which said that something urgent came up and so Diana would have to accompany someone else to meet Priya instead. Someone he trusted with his life.