#uranium-lord

[cr0wqui11]

Penny: “Love was the law”

Tammy: “And religion was taught”

Do you see the vision chat

[selffagellation]

apparently emerald cut uranium glass is a whole thing so if you want a piece of jewelry that looks like the emerald star but will also make you feel like you're on Vide Noir i guess that's a possibility

[juice-box-addict]

ooo yess

if you got like a 100kilo bag of glitter and opened it up and left it in the path of like a tornado i think that would be interesting. i dont care abt ecological damage btw

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 7: Tell Me That I Won't Feel A Thing]

A/N: Hello besties! Thank you for voting in the poll for Chapter 7. Below are your predictions...let's see how you did! 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is back yay!!!

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Give Me Novacaine” by Green Day.

Word count: 9.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

Billboards ask you as the Tahoe flies across the flat emerald sea of Iowa: Have you heard the good news? Have you been saved? Where will you spend eternity? Are you struggling with same-sex attraction? Do you regret your abortion? Do you fear the Lord? Do you want to end up in Hell?

Aegon snickers, gnawing on a Slim Jim. The sun glare turns his wild hair to gold, etches crinkles into the ruddy skin around his eyes, murky like deep water, oceans you recognize from other corners of the world. “I thought I was already there.”

Jace’s Honda Rebel 300 is left on the shoulder of the highway with its fuel tank uncapped, drained to feed the Tahoe, prehistoric combustion, bottomless mechanical hunger. Rhaena takes over driving so Baela can sit with Jace, touch him, inhale him, convince herself he’s real. Aegon climbs into the passenger’s seat and skips songs on the CD player until he finds the one he wants: In Da Club by 50 Cent. The miles roll by so soft and so infinite that you can’t imagine ever feeling trapped again, warm July air unfurling down the darkest corridors of your lungs, hawks on lifeless power lines and fields dappled with white-tailed deer. And you think: Everything will be better now.

You cross the Missouri River and into Nebraska at Plattsmouth, which—according to a plaque mounted on the outskirts of town—the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through over two centuries ago. Rhaena follows Aegon’s directions to cut between Lincoln and Omaha, avoiding the roiling wastelands of the cities and keeping well north of Cooper Nuclear Station, where in the absence of a successful manual or computerized shutdown before the power grid collapsed, rods of uranium are melting down and irradiating the surrounding area, anemia, cancer, heart disease, radiation sickness, an affliction that eats you alive.

Rhaena takes Nebraska State Route 66 north and then Route 92 due west, lush fields of corn and soybeans and sorghum planted before the dead began to walk, bones of devoured livestock. You stop for the night in a town called Broken Bow, the sky turning the colors of fire and rust and blood, the Tahoe exsanguinated like a man with a slit throat. Every vehicle you pass already has its fuel cap unscrewed; the farther west you go—the scarcer the resources, the longer it’s been since the world began to end—the less the earth will yield to you: less guns, less gasoline, less food, less human settlements scattered across what was once called the frontier. You commandeer a two-story house: white wood, wraparound porch, a long gravel driveway that winds like a snake. There is a small cornfield and a barn, both of which you sweep for zombies before making yourselves at home. You try not to think about what happened to the family that used to live here.

Helaena lights candles, Luke and Rhaena distribute bowls and silverware, Aemond and Rio gather kindling for the woodstove, Daeron keeps watch on the porch, Aegon picks all the Twizzlers out of a mixed bag of Hershey’s candy for Jace. There is a 12-pack of Ramen noodles in the pantry, gallons of water in the cellar, and a pot large enough to cook it all in one batch. Cregan takes Ice and disappears into the cornfield for half an hour at dusk—something none of the rest of you would ever consider—and reappears with an opossum that he’s nearly decapitated with his axe. He butchers it and you brown cubes of meat in a sauté pan placed directly on the glowing embers. The others are horrified and won’t eat a single bite until you do. It’s the first real food you’ve had since you left Saratoga Springs, and you feel satiated in a way you had forgotten existed.

In honor of Jace’s resurrection, some revelry is in order. There are bottles of Grey Goose vodka in a kitchen cabinet, and Aemond allows a two drink maximum for anyone eligible to participate: Baela is too pregnant, Daeron is too young, Aemond himself is too vigilant, too self-sacrificial, too indoctrinated into the religion of his own martyrdom.

“Daddy loved his screwdrivers,” Cregan says. “I remember being five or six and taking a big gulp of one thinking it was Sunny D or Tang or something. Lord almighty, was that a shock!” He guffaws, then inspects the pantry, scratching at the dark stubble on his cheeks. “We ain’t got nothing like orange juice though.”

“Mama made hers with Hawaiian Punch.” You point: there are several jugs of it on the floor between boxes of Pop-Tarts and Welch’s Fruit Snacks and Cheddar Whales, red like crushed blackberries or fresh blood.

Cregan grins at you over his brawny shoulder. “That’ll work, Miss Chips.”

Luke and Rhaena have first watch, Rio and Aegon will take the second. You are blessedly unburdened tonight. This house is big enough for you to get your own room; you climb the staircase with Grey Goose vodka burning in your throat, your head warm and dizzy, a sensation like freefalling as you lie down on the bed.

I left them, you think, the walls spinning around you, echoes of Mama’s voice through the phone as Rio stood there nodding, encouraging you to hang up. I left them and I never looked back. Can someone commit such an act of ancestral betrayal without incurring a curse?

You are still considering this when you feel Aemond’s weight on the mattress and fold into him, the world going dark and hushed and harmless.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I think it’s safe,” you tell Aemond between sighs, his lips on your throat, his hand between your thighs. Late-morning sunlight slants in through the bedroom windows; goldfinches and blue jays flap by chirping blithely. The dead pillage the misfortunate beasts of the earth, but creatures of the air and water are spared. You can hear geese honking from a distance, and the breeze through the cornfield, and calm indistinct voices beneath the floorboards. You can smell pancakes turning from white to gold in a pan sizzling with Crisco. Cregan must be cooking breakfast in the woodstove.

“How sure are you?” Aemond murmurs, his breath warm on your neck, those small teeth he’s always hiding nipping playfully, and if he leaves marks like stains of ballpoint ink you don’t care. He’s whisked every scrap of your clothing away. Beneath him you are bare and helpless and needing more.

“Like…eighty percent sure.”

“I’ll pull out.”

“Like Jace did?”

He laughs and kisses your mouth, not just ravenous but wild like a storm, and all the rest of the world goes quiet. Your ankles are linked around him, his hips rocking with yours. He is wearing only his boxers, black plaid from a looted Walmart, apocalypse chic. “Hopefully better than that.”

“Just try your best. I trust you. I’m willing to risk it.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s worth it to me.” I could be dead in nine months, he could be dead in nine months. I’m not wasting the time we have left.

“It’s your decision. You would be most affected by the consequences.” He draws away and glances down. “I want to look at you.”

“Ohhh.” You stall. “I’ve been trimming with scissors by candlelight. It’s a hack job.”

“I won’t mind.” He grins. “You don’t mind my hack job of a face.”

“I love your face,” you say as you skim your fingerprints down the length of his scar. And then, when he raises an eyebrow roguishly: “I didn’t break any rules. I didn’t say I love you, just your face. I’m totally using you for your face. Your personality is terrible.”

He snickers, kisses you goodbye, retreats to your hips and pushes your thighs apart as you cover your face and whimper, nervous, exhilarated. And then his lips are on you and the trepidation melts away, puddles pooling and then evaporating, and you have a vision of being home again, shivering and dripping in front of the crackling flames of the woodstove after playing outside in the snow and waiting for the fire to take the cold away. Now the fire is growing over you like ivy, tendrils snaking through veins and leaves opening in your lungs, bones vanishing, muscles turning pliant and weightless. You can feel Aemond’s fingers pushing into you, a fleeting second of tension and discomfort, and then a fullness that is delectable, irresistible, maddening.

“Come back,” you plead, and when he does you clasp his face with both hands, kissing him deeply as his fingers remain inside you, thrusting and bathed in your wetness. You’re finally ready for him, you have to be, you need him so badly: like you’re dying of thirst, like you’re running out of air. “Now, Aemond, please. I want all of you.”

And he wants it too. His boxers are gone and he’s positioning himself between your legs, his tongue in your mouth, one hand cradling your jaw as the other guides his cock to where you are slick and aching and aware of an emptiness that has never felt so dire.

He’s so big…

But you are determined to take all of him. You don’t care if there’s pain, if there’s fear. You want to feel what it’s like to be with him before it’s too late.

Aemond presses himself against you, rolls his hips cautiously…and nothing happens. He is a bit more forceful. There is immense pressure, then the beginning of a stretching that is sharp, searing, dreadful, unfamiliar in a way that is completely disorienting. You gasp before you can stop yourself; a wince ripples across your face too quickly to camouflage. Aemond shakes his head and climbs off you, settling beside you on the bed.

“Fuck,” you exhale in frustration, slapping a palm down on the mattress. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why…why I’m like this…”

“Shh,” Aemond soothes, kissing you. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I’ll help you finish and then we can try again later.”

“Why isn’t this easier?”

“You’re just nervous,” he says gently, smoothing your hair back from your face, like it’s no big deal, like he’s pointing out a bird or a rabbit or the shape of a cloud.

“I don’t feel nervous.”

“It’s not always conscious, sometimes the body reacts without the mind even being aware of it. You tense up and things become…more challenging. But fortunately for us, the treatment is very enjoyable. We just keep messing around and working up to it until one day you’re so aroused and so relaxed that I can glide in without any discomfort whatsoever, and then your body adjusts to this glorious new experience and you aren’t so nervous anymore.”

“Can’t you just…you know…sorry, this isn’t very romantic, but like…shove it in?”

“I could, sure,” Aemond says. “If I was a horrible person. And then you’d learn to associate sex with pain, which would just exacerbate the situation.”

“The problem, you mean.”

He smiles patiently. “You aren’t a problem. We’ll figure it out, we have time.”

Do we? You stare morosely up at the ceiling, shadows of clouds, shades of wings. “I should have hooked up with that Marine at Corpus Christi. Then I’d have practice. I was so afraid of giving a man the power to hurt me or get me pregnant or otherwise ruin my life, but I didn’t know I’d meet you one day. And now I just want everything to be easy for us, and it isn’t.”

“Hey.” Aemond turns your face towards his. “For me, you are…” He struggles to decide on the words, his eye drifting to the window, sunlight turning the blue of his iris to a shallow, glass-clear river. “You’re like an island, and everything else is a sea of poison, and violence, and catastrophically fucked up situations, and when we’re alone together it all goes away for a little while. The world gets quiet. It’s never been like that for me before. I don’t mind if it takes time for us to figure this out. I just want to be with you.”

“What happens when we get to Nevada, and you’re supposed to turn south for the Bay Area while I go north to Oregon?”

Aemond shrugs, but his expression is contemplative. “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we’ll all stay together and go to one place, then the other. If Odessa is safe, I can bring my parents, Criston, and Grandfather there. If it isn’t, we can bring Rio’s family south and live in California in that beach house on the cliff.”

“I never thought I’d set foot in a mansion.”

“I never thought I’d eat opossum.”

You laugh and curl up against him, resting your head and a palm on his chest. “How was it?”

“Not too bad, actually. Kind of like dark meat chicken. A little gamey, but I like lamb and venison, so that’s fine with me.”

“Just wait until you try bear.”

“Bear?!”

There is a knock at the bedroom door. Luke’s bashful voice is muted through the wood. “Aemond?”

“Yeah?” Aemond replies impatiently.

This was not an invitation, but Luke doesn’t seem to know that. He opens the door, and as he does Aemond throws the blanket over you so you’re covered, leaving himself completely exposed.

Luke begins: “I’m really sorry, I didn’t want to bother you, but…” His eyes go wide. “Oh, you’re like, all the way naked.” He turns and stares at the wall to be polite. “If it’s a bad time, I could come back in five minutes. Do you need more than five minutes? Wait, that was rude, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sure you can last way longer than five minutes…um…”

Aemond sighs. “What’s wrong, Luke?”

“Jace is sick.”

“Sick?” Aemond sits up straighter, his eye narrowing. “Sick how?”

“He’s been puking since he woke up.”

You and Aemond exchange a startled glance as you clutch the edges of a blanket patterned with wild horses. Illness, virus, plague, curse.

“He hasn’t been bitten or anything,” Luke says quickly. “So it can’t be…you know…that. And he and Baela don’t seem that worried. But you should probably take a look at him.”

Aemond nods, less alarmed now. “I agree. Can I get those five minutes first?”

Luke smiles. “Yeah. See you downstairs.” He leaves and shuts the door behind him.

You look to Aemond. “Why—?”

He yanks the blanket away and drags you towards him. “I said I was going to help you finish,” he says, grinning, a hand slipping between your thighs.

You bite at his lips when he kisses you and tease: “I don’t need your help.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. But it’s better when I’m here.”

And he’s right; it is.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daeron is out on the front porch sharpening sticks into arrows and using goose feathers for fletching, attaching them to the wood with a tube of Gorilla Glue that Helaena found for him. Helaena herself is presently floating through the house—soundlessly, ethereally, traceless like a ghost—and partaking in what you all call “apocalypse shopping,” pilfering the clothes and accessories of the former occupants. She seems to know everyone’s sizes without needing to ask. Aegon, Rio, and Cregan are sitting in the living room and eating pancakes off paper plates, carelessly spilling Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup on hideous 1970s couches ornamented with scenes of pheasants and autumn leaves. Down on the Turkish-style area rug, Ice is merrily chomping her way through a stack of burnt pancakes.

“So Cregan,” Rio says, his bare feet propped on the coffee table. “What did you do before the whole zombie situation?”

“I was a lumberjack.”

“No way!”

“Yes sir. I cut down trees for the power company.”

“What a coincidence,” Rio says around a mouthful of pancakes. “I was an electrician!”

“Well how about that? We oughta go into business together once the world straightens itself out. Where’d you work?”

“All over. Wherever the Navy sent us.”

Cregan sets his fork down on his plate. “You were enlisted?”

“Yeah, me and Chips both. That’s how we met.”

Cregan, much to Rio’s surprise, seizes his hand and shakes it soberly. “Thank you very kindly for your service.”

“No problem,” Rio replies, then turns to Aegon. “No gratitude from you, huh?”

“I showed my gratitude when I let you have the last pancake, you ogre…”

In the only bedroom on the first floor, down a hallway and towards the back of the house, Jace looks worse than you expected. He is heaving into a reusable plastic popcorn bucket, gluey ropes of saliva dangling from his lips; his skin is pale and bloodless, his dark curls damp with sweat. Baela is perched beside him on the bed and holding a wet washcloth to the back of his neck. Rhaena and Luke are loitering anxiously in the doorway, watching Aemond to determine if they should panic.

Jace casts you a bitter glance. “You poisoned me with your poor people food.”

“There’s nothing wrong with eating opossum,” you say, somewhat defensively.

Aemond feels his forehead. “That wouldn’t give you a fever. And everyone else is fine.”

“Maybe I’m extra sensitive. My digestive system has higher standards. I’m built different.” Jace resumes retching into the bucket.

Baela tells Aemond: “He can’t keep anything down. There’s nothing left in him, but he’s still so sick…it has to be a stomach flu, right?”

“Who would he have caught it from?” Luke asks, and Baela doesn’t have an answer.

“Stand up,” Aemond orders Jace when his wave of nausea abates. “Strip down.”

“Aemond, he wasn’t bitten,” Baela says. “I saw his whole body last night. He doesn’t have any scratches or bruises or anything.”

“Fine. But I want to see for myself.”

Jace stumbles out of the bed, pushing away Baela’s hands as she tries to stop him. “Okay, Nick Fury. If you wish to gaze upon the goods, I won’t deny you. I’m not shy.” Aemond rolls his eye. You turn around to give Jace privacy. “What’s the matter, Chips? The only dick you’re interested in belongs to Mike Wazowski over there?”

“Jace,” Baela says, but she’s chuckling. Amused, you stare at a picture on the wall—a haloed Jesus guiding a flock of lambs—as Jace sheds his clothing and follows Aemond’s instructions: lift your arm, turn around, show me the bottoms of your feet.

“No bites,” Aemond confirms, deep in thought. “But the symptoms…”

“It’s not that, Aemond, I’m telling you,” Jace insists, rasping breaths between each clause. “Listen, I got sick when I was alone, before I found you guys again. My stomach, my head. Maybe it’s the same thing now. It didn’t last long, and I thought I was over it, but I guess not.”

“People don’t get better and then worse again after they’ve been bitten,” Rhaena observes softly. “They just get worse.”

Jace lies back down on the bed, his face crumbling with pain. Baela uses the wet washcloth to cool his cheeks and neck. “My head hurts so fucking bad…”

“Because you’re dehydrated,” Aemond says.

“Helaena brought pills, but every time I try to take one I throw it up before it can start working.” There is a gurgling sound in his guts, and then a horrified expression. “Baela, I gotta get outside again.” She and Luke immediately swoop in, grab one arm each, and usher him out of the bedroom, through the back door of the farmhouse, and into the cornfield to allow him some semblance of dignity.

Rhaena gives you and Aemond an awkward smirk. “Helaena found Jace a 24-pack of Angel Soft toilet paper in the basement. So there’s some good news.”

“He needs electrolytes,” Aemond says. “We can’t let him get so dehydrated that his kidneys shut down. IV fluids aren’t an option. Pedialyte would be the next best thing, Gatorade or Powerade if that’s all we can find.”

“We passed a pharmacy on our way here,” Rhaena recalls. “It’s only a mile back, I think.”

Aemond nods. “Then that’s where I’m going,” he says, and walks out of the room.

You say as you follow him: “I want to go with you.”

“No.” Aemond points to Rio, who is now playing Uno with Aegon on the coffee table in the living room. “You and I are going to a pharmacy to get Pedialyte for Jace so he doesn’t die.”

“Cool,” Rio says, standing and fetching his Remington shotgun from where he propped it against the wall. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We don’t know. Maybe food poisoning.”

Aegon says, a hand pressed to his heart: “Personally, I loved the opossum.”

You stare defiantly up at Aemond. “If Rio is going, I have to go too.”

“Aww, so you can protect me?” Rio teases fondly, patting your back with one monstrous palm, an unintentional battering.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Rio looks at Aemond. Aemond looks at you, touching his chin agitatedly. “You are stressing me out.”

“I’m the best shot. I want to be there in case anything happens.”

“Fine, okay, whatever you want. Just stay near Rio.”

“That’s the idea.”

“A pharmacy?” Aegon asks excitedly. “Can I go?”

“No,” Aemond snaps, and continues out onto the porch. In the gravel driveway, Cregan and Daeron are kneeling by the Tahoe and inspecting the front tire on the driver’s side. “What’s wrong now?” Aemond asks, exasperated.

“Got a flat,” Cregan says. “The little fella here noticed it.”

Daeron is mortified. “Please don’t call me that.”

Aemond peers around mistrustfully, out at the road, into the cornfield. “Someone sabotaged us?”

Cregan shakes his head and taps the tire. “Naw, we just ran over a nail yesterday. You can see it right here. A big one too, a masonry nail, I suspect.”

“Can you fix it?” Rio asks.

“I think so. I saw a jack and a lug wrench hanging up on the wall in the barn, now I just need a new tire, a real one. A spare wouldn’t do us much good, not with all the weight we’re carrying. It’d pop in twenty miles.” Cregan gestures to the main road, but westward, the opposite direction from the pharmacy. “Don’t remember seeing a tire place on our way in. Figured I’d try the other direction. I’ll walk ‘til I find a shop or a truck with the right kind of tires to steal from, whichever comes first. Can’t change a tire on gravel, though. I’ll have to drive the Tahoe out to the road and fix it there. I’m gonna need Rhaena’s keys.”

There is an uneasy lull as Aemond studies him. You, Rio, Daeron, and Aegon—who is lingering on the front porch, not yet ready to admit defeat—glance between them apprehensively. Ice is rolling around in the gravel, coating her grey fur with dust. “How do I know you won’t take off without us?”

Cregan’s face goes dark. His brow, heavy and furrowed, settles low over his eyes. “Look buddy, I’ve done a lot of things for you and your people that I didn’t have to. And now I’m fixing the Tahoe so it can take you west, someplace you decided we’re going. If you don’t trust me, do it yourself. Kill your own opossum. Change your own flat tire. But you can’t, can you? Just like I can’t shoot a zombie straight through the eye or tell you how to cure that sick boy in there. We’ve all got jobs here. Let me do mine.”

Aemond glowers at Cregan, knowing he’s right. Daeron averts his eyes; Rio, grinning, eats a handful of Cheddar Whales from a pocket of his cargo shorts. You lay a palm on Aemond’s forearm. “Aemond…he’s trying to help.”

“Sure,” Aemond replies crossly.

“You want collateral?” Cregan says. “Take my dog.” He whistles, and Ice scampers to his side. He points to you. “Go on, princess.” Ice obediently trots over to stand with you, shaggy ash-colored fur, bestial amber eyes like a rattlesnake’s. “She’ll look after you on your way to the pharmacy and back. And if the Tahoe and I have mysteriously vanished upon your return, you can eat her for dinner.”

“You don’t want a warning if you’re about to run into zombies?” Rio asks.

Cregan chuckles as he picks up his axe off the gravel. “Don’t you worry about me. We haven’t heard a peep since we got into town, and I’m just going a little ways up the road. Any less than ten of those abominations, and I can take care of myself.” He gives you and Rio a parting salute and strides into the farmhouse to collect the Tahoe keys from Rhaena.

Aemond turns to Daeron. “Stay here, keep watch. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Daeron nods, glancing to where his compound bow rests on the front porch. “Got it.”

“Aegon will help you.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Aegon says. “I want to go to the pharmacy too.”

Aemond is losing what remains of his patience. “No.”

“Please?”

“No!”

“Then can you at least bring me something back?”

Rio is confounded. “What do you need?”

“You know…” Aegon gestures vaguely. “Percocet, Vicodin, Oxy, maybe some of that cough syrup with the codeine in it—”

“Grow the fuck up,” Aemond flares, and Aegon falls silent. “You’re thirty years old. Take some goddamn responsibility for something, for anything. I have to go to the pharmacy, Cregan has to fix the Tahoe, someone has to stay here with Daeron to help protect Jace and Baela, and Luke and Rhaena, and Helaena too. Just shut up and do the right thing. You have to start acting like an adult. Who do you think is in charge if I get killed? I’ve never for a single day of my life had the luxury of making selfish choices, and now I feel like I’m not even allowed to die. Leaving everyone else with you would be like leaving them with nobody.”

Aegon gazes up at him, not offended but childishly, mortally wounded. His oceanic eyes are huge and glistening. “But you’re not going to die before me.”

“That’s not the point,” Aemond pitches back, cutting, caustic. Then he starts down the long gravel driveway towards the road. You give Aegon a small, apologetic half-smile and then follow after his younger brother, Ice loping alongside you.

Rio thumps Aegon encouragingly on one shoulder. “See you soon, Honey Bun.” And Aegon watches the three of you disappear, standing in the dazzling midday light with his arms folded over his chest and his hair in hie face, kicking at the gravel with the Sperry Bahama sneakers he once wore on yachts and golf courses.

“Please try to be nice to him,” you tell Aemond when you’re far enough away to be out of earshot. Rio is humming a song you don’t immediately recognize—probably Enrique Iglesias—and acting like he’s not listening. “You don’t know how much longer any of us have. And if that was the last thing you ever said to him, you’d feel awful about it.”

“You have no idea what it was like being his brother. Since I was born all I’ve done is try to plug the holes he blasts into ships. But there’s always water on the floor, I’m never done bailing it out. He needs to learn how to do things for himself.”

“Yes, he does. But he loves you, and he wants you to be happy. He would never intentionally take anything from you. He’ll grow into his purpose, whatever that is.”

“He needs to do it faster,” Aemond says harshly, and you walk the rest of the way without speaking, listening for snarling or lurching footsteps, hearing nothing but birdsong and wind whispering through leaves.

The pharmacy—a diminutive family-owned business, not a chain—has been ravaged. The glass of the large bay window has been broken out and the shelves looted, empty containers and wrappers littering the floor, crystalline shards threatening to gash, stab, infect.

“Stay out here with the dog,” Aemond tells you. Ice is panting calmly, her ears relaxed, her strange yellowish eyes taking in the scenery without any concern. “If she gets her paws sliced up, Cregan will have yet another accusation to levy against me.”

“You’re going to have to get used to him.”

“Not much of an adjustment for you, it seems,” Aemond says, then steps through the shattered window, glass crunching beneath his shoes. Rio gives you a wink and goes after him. They rummage through the remaining merchandise, strewn about randomly and interspersed among trash. Aemond peeks behind the counter where pharmacists once filled prescriptions and climbs over it, searching for any bottles or boxes that were left behind.

“Sorry guys, no condoms,” Rio announces, then laughs at his own joke.

“Be careful,” you urge from outside. “Look underneath, check the bottom racks. Rio? Rio, down low, check them!”

“Relax, ain’t nothing going on in here. It’s silent as the grave.” He laughs again. “Get it? As the grave.”

“Aemond?”

“I’m fine,” he tells you as he squints to read medicine bottles.

“Okay, okay,” Rio says, squatting to examine the shelves closest to the cluttered floor. “I’m checking all the racks. There’s nothing scary under the racks. Happy now?”

“Very. Helaena said something that freaked me out.”

“She can be a bit of an enigma,” Aemond admits. He is taking a tiny box from a drawer to keep.

“Oh, we got Pedialyte!” Rio says, yanking a jug of pink fluid from a pile of debris. “You think Jace likes strawberry?”

Aemond hurries over to help him hunt for more. “Yeah. It’s like a Twizzler, right?”

Ice noses your hand and whimpers softly. You look down at her. “What?”

She whirls and canters around the side of the pharmacy, then returns to make sure you’re keeping up. You go after her, slow and wary, a hand on one of your Beretta M9s. There’s nothing of note to be found in the narrow, shadowy alleyway other than an overflowing dumpster and two skeletons stripped of every shred of fabric and flesh; even the bones were licked clean.

You turn to Ice. “Did I need to see this?” She whines and shifts her weight from foot to foot, ears perked up. Something else? You look down the alleyway. Far behind the pharmacy and the shops that surround it is a church on a jade green slope, old-fashioned, white wood and a belltower. There is a cemetery beside it, and amidst the small grey blurs of headstones are… “Oh,” you breathe. “So that’s where the rest of the town is.”

The graveyard is full of limp, swaying figures that can only be zombies. You are far away and draped in shadows; you retreat back to the pharmacy without any indication that you’ve been spotted, Ice trailing close behind. Aemond and Rio are climbing out of the window just as you arrive. They are each carrying three jugs of Pedialyte in various flavors.

“Where the hell’d you go?” Aemond says; but he sounds more relieved than irritated.

“There’s a church about an eight of a mile away. And there are a lot of zombies in the cemetery.”

Rio sets his Pedialyte down on the sidewalk and reaches for the Remington 12 gauge hanging over his shoulder by its leather strap. “Okay, let’s go clear them out.”

“No, I mean a lot. Like a hundred.”

He freezes. “Oh.”

“We should leave town,” you say.

“While Jace is puking and shitting everywhere? You want to be stuck in a car with that?”

Aemond is thinking, toying with the little box you saw him pick up earlier. “We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

“What’s that?” you ask him.

He shows you the label. “Injectable morphine. All the pills were gone, but I found one vial of this, and I have syringes in my medical kit. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated. It should still be useable.”

“For Baela?” For when she delivers the baby?

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Just in case.” Then he looks at both you and Rio meaningfully. “Don’t tell Aegon I have this.”

“We won’t,” Rio promises. And Ice begins trotting back towards the farmhouse, as if trying to rush you along.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Tahoe is at the mouth of the long gravel driveway, still up on a hand-cranked scissor jack. The tire appears to be new, but the lug nuts haven’t been tightened, and the wrench is nowhere to be found.

“Cregan?” Rio says uncertainly, peeking through the cornstalks as they bend in the wind. “Hey, Cregan? Aemond’s sorry he was a bitch to you earlier. He wants you to return ASAP and do manual labor for him.” Aemond grimaces; Rio beams in reply. But Cregan does not appear.

You can hear them long before you reach the farmhouse, muffled chaotic chattering, raised voices and rushing footsteps. As you ascend the steps of the front porch, Rhaena bursts through the door.

“Thank God you’re back,” she says; there is blood on her hands. “It’s Jace, he…he…come look at him. Aemond, you have to do something. He’s sick, he’s really sick. He’s bleeding.”

“From where?” Aemond asks, urgent, bewildered.

“From everywhere,” Rhaena replies, and beckons for him to follow.

The bedsheets Jace is swathed in are blooming with crimson, flowers of doomed gore. Blood drips from his nostrils and his eyes; when he retches into the popcorn bucket, clots of pink and red spew out. Everyone is gathered around him and speaking at the same time, except Helaena. She is crouched on the floor of the hallway just outside his room, her arms wrapped around her bent knees and her face stricken. Ice curls up beside her.

Above the other voices, Baela screams at Aemond, a desperate horrified moan: “What’s wrong with him?!”

Aemond pushes by the others and feels Jace’s forehead, then grabs his wrist to measure his pulse. As Aemond’s fingers tighten, Jace’s skin rips beneath them, the top layer sliding off and leaving only glistening, raw pink. Jace howls, tears of blood streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t know,” Aemond says, his voice unsteady.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?!” Baela shouts back. “You’re a doctor! Fix him!”

“It hurts, Aemond,” Jace gasps, fresh blood on his teeth. When Baela touches his hair, locks of it fall out into her hand.

“He’s turning, right?” Rio says to you. “This is what happened to Snowflake, the blood and the skin and everything—?”

“He wasn’t bitten!” Luke insists, positioned in front of Jace’s bed as if he’s guarding it.

“I don’t care if we can’t find a bite mark, he’s decomposing for Christ’s sake, what the fuck else could it be?!”

Daeron returns with more blankets and towels. Aegon grabs a strawberry Pedialyte out of Rio’s grasp and tries to help Jace drink it. Cregan is muttering: “I ain’t never seen anything like this…”

Decomposing, you think dizzily. He wasn’t bitten, but he’s falling apart…what else does that to a person?

Baela cleans blood from his lips, a towel turning from snow to rubies. “Jace, baby, it’s going to be okay, we’re going to help you…”

“Could it be rat poison or something?” Cregan is saying. “Rabies? Mad cow disease? Ebola?”

“How the fuck do you think he got Ebola?!” Aemond exclaims. “You think he took a jet to sub-Saharan Africa when he was on his own? Use your brain.”

“I’m just trying to come up with ideas here, doc, and I don’t see you with any bright ones!”

He’s decomposing. He’s decomposing.

And then you remember. You kneel down beside the bed so you can look into his face, so you can make him pay attention. “Jace, listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” he replies faintly. He coughs, wet and gurgling. Fresh blood paints his lips. There are blisters beginning to form up and down his arms, you see now, the skin bubbling and separating.

“Jace, do you remember Three Mile Island?”

“What the fuck.” He is baffled, dismissive. “Three Mile what? Huh? What are you talking about…?”

“You’re upsetting him,” Baela says fiercely, tears glittering in her eyes.

But you are determined. “Outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after we left Fort Indiantown Gap. There were these huge concrete cooling towers. We saw them from the Wawa parking lot.” But he wasn’t there when we talked about radiation. He was still inside searching for guns. “Remember, Jace? Do you remember?”

Now Aemond and Rio are looking at you, petrified, realizing what you must be thinking. No one else understands yet. After a long pause, Jace nods feebly. “Yeah. I remember the towers.”

“Good,” you say, smiling to encourage him. “Okay, this is important. After we lost you at the river, before you found us again, did you see anywhere that looked like Three Mile Island?”

“Yeah,” Jace murmurs as he stares back at you with glazed, bloody eyes; and Rio sighs and shakes his head. “I drove right by it on the Honda. The sign said Byron.”

And it’s been over for him since that moment.

“Alright, Jace.” You want to touch him, to embrace him or cup his cheek. You know it will only make his suffering worse. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to ask.” He begins to gag again, and Baela hurries to place the popcorn bucket so it can catch his liquefying organs. You turn around and walk through the doorway.

“What’s happening?” Aegon asks you, hushed voice, frantic eyes. He has followed you to the living room, along with Aemond, Rio, and Cregan. You nod to Aemond. He knows.

“It’s radiation sickness,” Aemond says, low and bleak.

“What?!” Aegon gapes at him. “I mean, are you sure…?”

“It fits all the symptoms. He was in close proximity to a nuclear power plant, something the rest of us have intentionally avoided. If there was a meltdown, there are miles and miles that are poisoned with radiation. Passing by on a motorcycle could definitely result in a lethal dose.”

“Poor guy,” Rio says. “Not a good way to go.”

“No,” you agree. It isn’t.

“So how do you treat something like that?” Cregan asks Aemond.

“It can’t be treated,” Aemond replies tersely. “Not here, not by me, not by anyone. Not even if the world was normal again.”

“What do you mean it can’t be treated?! Everything can be treated nowadays! Cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, hell, my cousin got testicular cancer and he was fine a month later, he even got to keep one of his balls!”

“Radiation sickness can’t be treated. He’s going to die.”

“But how is that possible when—?!”

“I need you to try to not be stupid for five minutes,” Aemond snaps.

You say quietly: “He’s not stupid, Aemond. He just doesn’t know about this.”

“You are always defending him.”

“Because not going to med school isn’t a character flaw.”

Cregan asks mildly, looking at Aemond: “Could you explain it to me?”

“It’s pennies in a jar, man,” Rio says. “Radiation stacks up and at a certain point it kills you. It destroys your DNA and your body falls apart. You can get it just by going near someplace contaminated, and you might not even feel it happen. And there’s no way to undo the damage. The pennies never leave the jar.”

Cregan raises an eyebrow at Aemond. “Was that so difficult?”

Aemond ignores him. “We have to tell Jace,” he says instead.

Back in the bedroom—a mineral stench in the air, coppery blood and the salt of sweat—Aegon sits on the edge of the bed and takes one of Jace’s swelling, blistering hands carefully in his own.

“Don’t hold my hand, you loser.” Jace mumbles, and Aegon respectfully releases him.

“Jace,” Aegon begins. “We think you have radiation sickness.”

Jace blinks up at him, wincing and disoriented. “Which means…?”

“Which means, um, it’s going to be…not great.”

“Why are you the person explaining this?”

“You’re right, I really shouldn’t be explaining it. Can someone else explain it…?” Aegon glances around hopefully.

“Jace,” Aemond says. “Those cooling towers you drove by were part of a nuclear power plant that melted down when the power grid collapsed. You received a fatal dose of radiation. It’s the only thing that explains what’s happening to you.”

“Fatal…?” Daeron ventures.

Rhaena gasps and reaches for Luke. Baela’s face is a mask of numb shock. Jace stares up at Aemond for a long time before he speaks. “Aemond, fix me.”

Aemond’s words are brittle and fracturing. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Stop fucking around, man, you’re a doctor. You can fix me. I know you can. You’re a genius. You’re a total freak but you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Give me the pills, give me the shots. Cut me open if you have to. I won’t scream, I promise. Fix me. I trust you.”

“Jace, I can’t do anything. No one can.”

“I have to meet the baby, Aemond,” Jace whispers, scarlet tears bleeding down his cheeks. “I have to be here for Baela and Luke. Fix me, man. I’ll do anything you tell me to.”

“Jace,” Aemond says, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you.”

Jace looks to Baela, Luke, Rhaena, and at last back to Aemond. “How long?”

“Not very. A few days, maybe.”

“Days?” he echoes, dazed. “What happens?”

Aemond shakes his head. You don’t want to know.

“Yeah I do. Tell me.”

Aemond can’t respond; clear silent tears snake down the right side of his face. Rio answers for him. “You continue to bleed out of every orifice and the rest of your skin falls off. And eventually you die.”

Jace breaks down in sobs. “I was trying to find you guys.”

Suddenly, Baela turns to you and Rio and Aemond, wrathful, hissing. “This is your fault.”

Aemond pleads: “Baela, please don’t—”

“You made me leave him at the river. I knew he was still alive, but you forced me to leave him. If he’d been with us, this never would have happened. But he was alone, and it was because of you. You did this to him. You stole him from me.”

Rhaena tries to console her. “Baela, no one meant to—”

“I just got him back!” she screams, and then shelters Jace in her arms as he clings to her, the skin of his fingers and palms flaking at the pressure, holding onto her anyway. No one knows what to say; everyone has tears burning in their eyes and embers in their throats. “Get out,” Baela demands. “Leave us alone. This is the last time I’ll ever have with him and it’s your fucking fault. So get out.”

And you leave them to their final moments, failing flesh in a dying world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Only Luke and Rhaena flit in and out of the bedroom, carrying soiled linens and the plastic popcorn bucket to be periodically emptied. The rest of you are engrossed in a grim, thunderstruck deathwatch in the living room. You discuss the inevitable in hushed murmurs. It is cruel to let Jace suffer; it is unspeakably horrible to let Baela witness it. Ice alternates between receiving scratches from Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon, never trying to enter Jace’s room. You can hear Jace and Baela talking in there, his retching and groaning, her sobs.

It is not until dusk that Rhaena summons Aemond. Luke is weeping as he paces back and forth in the bedroom. Baela is still sitting on the bed with Jace, resigned now. She does not apologize, but she doesn’t have any more venom to spit either. The rest of you watch from the hallway, keeping a respectful distance. Ice nudges your hand with her nose, but you ignore her. Jace’s bloody eyes roll to Aemond.

“I’m keeping you here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Aemond replies. There’s no point in lying.

“And I don’t need to feel myself melting like this for days. I get the idea.” Jace looks at Aemond for a while. His voice is anemic but calm; there are fresh blisters on his face and neck. “What can you give me?”

Aemond opens his medical kit and shows Jace the vial of morphine. “I found this at the pharmacy today. It would be painless, like going to sleep and never waking up.”

“Why do you have that?”

“I was thinking a small amount might help Baela during labor.”

“Is it the only morphine in your kit?”

“Yes.”

Jace nods. “Save it for Baela.” His gaze drops to the Glock in the holster at Aemond’s waist. “Can I borrow that?”

Rhaena stifles a dismayed yelp. Baela closes her eyes, but does not protest. Aemond says: “I don’t think you want to do this.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Cyclops,” Jace says, smiling. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

“It’s heavy,” Aemond warns. He clicks off the safety and gives the Glock to Jace. “Are you able to use it by yourself?”

“It’s a very simple two-step process. Barrel to skull, finger on the trigger. I think I’ll manage.”

Again, Ice bumps her nose against your knuckles; again, you barely notice. Baela kisses Jace on the mouth, her lips coming away bloody. Rhaena says goodbye to him, then Luke, whispered parting words you don’t try to listen to. Before Aemond exits, Jace grasps his hand.

“Take care of my family, Aemond.”

“I will.”

“Don’t let the zombies eat me afterwards.”

And then it becomes real. Aemond’s composure falters. “Jace…I’m so sorry…”

“Go,” Jace urges him. Then there is a coughing fit, fresh blood and pieces of stomach and lungs. “Right now. Before I lose my nerve.”

Baela is the last one to leave the bedroom; she shuts the door behind her. Almost immediately afterwards is a deafening bang. Baela sinks to the floor and wails, one hand on her belly, the other embracing Rhaena and Luke when they rush to her. Ice is whining and pawing at the floor, her nails screeching on the hardwood. Aemond alone returns to Jace’s bedroom and reappears with his Glock. He places it back in his holster, his scarred face vacant. There’s blood on his fingers, you see. Jace’s blood, the last he’ll ever shed. Aemond hasn’t noticed yet.

You reach for Aemond’s hand; he flinches away. You ask him, pained: “Do you think if you don’t touch me, it won’t hurt you when I die?”

“Please don’t say that,” Aemond responds in a hoarse, splintering whisper.

Ice yowls, and Cregan is abruptly aware of her. “Oh shit, the Tahoe is still up on the jack. I’ll go get it.” He opens the front door. Under the moonlight, there are upwards of a hundred zombies stumbling down the long gravel driveway. Everyone begins screaming. Cregan slams the door shut and shoves one of the couches in front of it. “What now?!”

“We go through the cornfield,” Aemond says as you are all frantically gathering your sparse possessions. “It will be more difficult for them to see us. We kill as many as we can and we make our way to the Tahoe. Cregan, how long will it take you to get it ready to drive?”

“Maybe a minute. But I’ll need someone to spot me while I tighten the lug nuts.”

“Sounds like my kind of job opportunity,” Rio says, pumping his Remington. Helaena gives you a flashlight. Cregan secures the lug wrench under his belt and picks up his axe. Rhaena has her Ruger out and is telling Baela to breathe, to stay focused, to let her and Luke lead the way.

Aemond comes to you and leans in close so the others can’t hear. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Not enough. Maybe fifty.”

“Do what you can. Stay near Rio.”

“I’ll try.”

Now there are zombies at the front windows, beating their spongy swamp-colored palms against the glass. Baela, Rhaena, and Luke are leaving through the back door with Daeron; you can hear the whizzing of his arrows and the sick soft sound they make when they pierce rotting meat. Under the weight of so many hands, one of the living room windows pops from its frame and clatters against the floor. You open fire, bullets exploding skulls and spraying brains, corpses jolting and then diving to the ground. You shoot until both M9s are empty, then pause to reload, boxes of bullets that Cregan gave you back in Iowa.

“Let them in,” Helaena says.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Aegon shouts at her. He’s firing his Marlin .22 beside you, quite poorly; Rio and Aemond are in the backyard killing any zombies that find their way towards the cornfield. “We’re not letting them get through the house!”

“Not through,” Helaena says placidly. “In.”

“Oh.” Aegon understands. “Oh! I get it! Trap them inside!” He races to the kitchen and tears the remaining bottles of Grey Goose vodka out of the cabinet, then begins spilling them onto the wood floor. “Helaena, give me a lighter.”

She places one in his outstretched palm and then leaves with Cregan as he escorts her away, leading her by her fragile hand. They vanish together into the cornfield, Ice on their heels.

“Time to go, Chips!” Rio booms; he can’t be far behind Cregan.

“We’re on our way!”

Zombies are pouring through the front of the house; another window has given way. You pull the trigger over and over again as you move with Aegon towards the backyard, his clear river of vodka drawing a path from one end of the house to the other. You hit the grass before he does, then wait for him by the edge of the cornfield. Aemond and Rio are shouting for Aegon to hurry up. He crosses through the threshold, flicks the lighter to life, and throws it into the house. His plan works—the farmhouse is abruptly aflame, cooking zombies like long-spoiled hams—but he neglected to realize that in his haste, he had also accidentally doused his own left leg and Sperry Bahama sneaker. The fire licks up over Aegon’s skin and blazes there radiantly. He shrieks and falls to the ground. Rio yanks his own shirt off and uses it to smother the inferno, then throws Aegon over one shoulder to carry him.

“Go to Cregan!” Rio tells Aemond, shoving him in the direction of the Tahoe. Rio will be slower now, but no one else could still run with Aegon’s added weight. “You and Daeron spot him until I get there!” When Aemond is gone, Rio glances back at you.

“I’m fine,” you say, felling zombies as they round the house. “Get Aegon to the car!” And Rio listens to you like he always does, vanishing with Aegon through the cornfield.

You weave through the leafy stalks, investigating each growl and rustling with the beam of your flashlight. Grotesque, fetid faces plunge through the greenery, and you demolish them. You’re in the rhythm now, wheeling for a target and locking in, squeezing the trigger and watching ghoulish faces disappear. And then you spy a zombie lurching towards you from fifteen feet away, a twenty-something in a red Nebraska Cornhuskers t-shirt making her way down the dirt aisle between two rows of corn; and when you pull the trigger, there is only a dry click in reply. Your other M9 is already empty. You’ve used all the ammo Cregan gave you.

“I’m out of bullets,” you say, but no one hears you; you are alone. Aemond always told you to stay near Rio and you never did. Too late, you realize what an oversight that has been. “Rio? Aemond?!”

There are human voices and gunshots, but reverberating from a distance. Far closer are snarls and groans of the dead. You click off your flashlight, drop to the earth, and crawl until you are as far under a row of corn as you can be, long leaves tickling the back of your neck and damp soil in your nostrils. Clumsy, lumbering footsteps trod by you. From the road, you hear the Tahoe’s engine start with a rumble.

They’re leaving.

You shake your head, here with no one to see you in the dark. Still, the thought persists.

They’re leaving. I left my family and now my family is leaving me.

“Chips, stay where you are!” Rio shouts. “We’re coming back, we’ll find you!”

You wait until they are within ten feet of you, Rio cracking skulls with his Remington—he must be out of bullets too—and Aemond firing his Glock. “I’m here, I’m here!” you cry, and they are lifting you up from the dirt and dragging you towards Tahoe, and Aemond puts his pistol in your hand knowing you can do more good with it. You fire ten rounds before the Glock is empty, and you think with terror: Do any of us have bullets left?

Then you are being helped into the Tahoe, and the second all the doors are shut Rhaena floors the gas pedal, heading west on State Route 92.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I got my drugs after all,” Aegon rasps as Aemond injects him with morphine on the floor of a laundromat on the edge of Merna, Nebraska, far enough to escape the zombies, not so far that the Tahoe risks running out of gas before you reach the next town. His left leg is burned from the knee down, and burned badly: skin, fat, muscle, blood-red scorched ruin. Even through the modest dose of morphine—Aemond is terrified of accidentally killing him—Aegon can still feel what has happened to him. He knows it’s bad. He knows it could be the last mistake he ever makes. “I’m so thirsty…”

“I got you, Honey Bun,” Rio says, and then uses the butt of his Remington to bust open the vending machines and bring him bottles of Powerade. Baela is sobbing in the corner with Luke and Rhaena. Helaena is shining a flashlight on Aegon’s leg so Aemond can see. Daeron and Cregan are keeping watch by the entrance. You don’t even know why. All the bullets and arrows are gone, Aegon can’t walk, the Tahoe’s gas tank is nearly drained. If you are descended upon now, what will you do?

Aegon sobs and clutches for you, links his arms around your waist, rests his head in your lap. You hold him and comb your fingers through his unruly hair over and over again, like a compulsion, like a ritual. You are so afraid to let go of him. You are terrified he’ll disappear.

I wish I knew what to say. I never know what to say.

He’s shaking uncontrollably as Aemond cleans his leg: peeling away dead skin, wiping down the raw flesh with disinfectant. Aegon’s eyes are wide and glassy. There is blood on the white tile floor, pinkish lymph fluid, bits of charred skin. Ice is whimpering, her muzzle propped on her paws and her eyes darting around the room. Aegon manages through the pain, a reedy, gasping whisper: “Tell me about all those places you went when you were in the Navy.”

You can see it like the miles-deep blue of his eyes: the Indian Ocean, the jewel-tone equatorial sky. “On Diego Garcia, they have these birds called red-footed boobies—”

Aegon barks out a weak laugh. “They do not. You’re making that up.”

“No, really, I swear! They’re like seagulls, but they have blue on their face and bright red feet, hence the name. They’re extremely stupid, and one night a few of us were hanging out drinking Guinness and playing pool, and a booby flew in through an open window. We panicked, it panicked, and then it was flying in circles and couldn’t get out. We opened all the doors and windows, and the booby still just flew around banging into the walls. And of course the whole time it was shitting and bleeding and getting feathers everywhere, we knew it was going to take hours to clean up. After thirty minutes of chasing this idiot bird around, Rio snapped, took off his boot, and smacked the booby with it. He was trying to fling it out the window, like hitting a tennis ball with a racket, but he accidentally hit the bird too hard and murdered it. Its beak literally separated from its body and flew across the room. None of us could believe it, we didn’t even know that was possible. Rio felt so bad he started crying. We took the booby—and its beak, of course—out to the beach for a Viking funeral. We made it a little raft of coconut tree leaves, set it on fire with a lighter, and pushed it out into the waves.”

Aegon is cackling. “Bryan Osorio, terrorizer of the homicidal undead and boobies!”

“What else?” Baela says, and you look over at her, startled. The flashlight incandescence turns you all to ghosts, phantoms, half-shadows. At first you don’t know what she means. “What else did they have on Diego Garcia?”

“Oh, tell them about the coconut crabs,” Rio prompts you. He’s settled down beside Aegon and is resting one broad hand on his trembling shoulder.

“Coconut crabs?” Rhaena asks you, wiping tears from her cheeks with her delicate, small-boned fingers.

You are abruptly aware that you have an audience. You can feel yourself shrinking beneath their gazes. “Rio should tell the story. I’m not good at it.”

“Sure you are,” Rio says, smiling kindly beneath dark, wet eyes. “Go on. Tell them.”

So you do.

[ask-noelgruber]

Do you believe that In your life, you was Noel Gruber who worked at Taco Bell

In Uranium City, Saskatchewan

But, your my dreams, you played a different role

You was Monique Gibeau in post-war France

A hooker with a heart of black charcoal

You wrote poems to burn by firelight

Drink champagne and guzzle gin

Good girls call you "The Town Bicycle"

Don't knock it 'til you've tried my life of sin

Oh, Claude, my pimp, knows never mess with me

Last prick did that faded quick to black

I have no idea where to find him, officers

But if you do, please mention that I'd like to have returned

The pretty knife that I stuck ten times in his back

For I sing songs until the break of dawn

I embrace a new man every night

My life's one never-ending carnival

A whirl of boozy-floozy flashing light

I want to be that fucked-up girl

He said, "I think I am in love with you"

I've heard that lie a million times before

Oh, tonight I give in to the fantasy

Take love when you can, when you're a whore

For I sing songs until the break of dawn

I embrace a new man every night

My life's one never-ending carnival

A whirl of boozy-floozy flashing light

I want to be that fucked-up girl

So now I sell my love for opium

In some rat-infested Chinese dive

At night, I burn myself with cigarettes

Just to somehow prove I'm still alive

Eight months later, I catch typhoid flu

Kicked out, I see the ugly light of day

Dying in an alley, a priest kneels down to me

"My child, do you have any final words to the Lord you'd like to say?"

"Oui, tell him that, like him, I choose to burn out rather than fade away!"

For I sing songs until the break of dawn

I embrace a new man every night

My life's one never-ending carnival

A whirl of boozy-floozy flashing light

For I sing songs until the break of dawn

I embrace a new man every night

My life's one never-ending carnival

A whirl of boozy-floozy flashing light

I want to be that fucked-up girl

I wanna be that fucked-up girl

Broken heart, a flask of gin

Tattooed with a safety pin

Teeth all stained with nicotine

Running nylons, shattered dreams

Super crusty, holy terror

Wild eyes and black mascara

Broken heart, a flask of gin

Tattooed with a safety pin

Teeth all stained with nicotine

Running nylons, shattered dreams

Super crusty, holy terror

Wild eyes and black mascara

If I could have just one dream

(If he could have just one dream)

I'd be that fucked-up girl!

Hey!

[voidartisan]

It's a bit overdue, but, another semester has passed, and so I present

Incorrect Quotes from AJ's Real, Actual Life

Aayla: If you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring three objects, what would you bring? Quinlan: One 500 lb. block of uranium. No further questions. Anakin: DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE FISH LADIES????? Obi-Wan: ... Obi-Wan: ...elaborate. Padme: I may or may not have had a crush on a literal otter, but in my defense, he had a Scottish accent. Obi-Wan: Actually, I think I have one of those fold-out seats in the back. Ahsoka: Well you could have told us that BEFORE we stuffed Rex in the trunk Fives: He was an interm--- intermur--- intermule-- Echo: Intermural? Fives: Amen. Jesse: Hallelujah, praise the Lord--- Obi-Wan: I'm going to get some ibuprofen. Anyone else? I've got the good stuff. Fives: Shaak Ti is my favorite council member. I can't wait for her to die so they can name something in the Temple after her. Echo: Rex: *attempting to suppress laughter* Fives: Wait that come out wrong--- bby!Aayla: *crying* Quinlan: Que pasa, Mufasa? Jesse: I volunteered Fives for latrine duty. Echo: Dang. That's messed up. Echo: I also volunteer Fives for latrine duty Kit Fisto: He doesn't deserve this. Mace is the mitochondria of the Order Jesse: I'd better be getting paid for this. Jesse: I want... two mung beans Jesse: Never had a mung bean Anakin: I'm an idiot, not stupid Kanan, addressing the Ghost crew: If you would like, you may drizzle some of my queso on your tacos. However, if you steal all of it, I will ugly cry in your room for the rest of the night. Fox, sighing: Will someone teach our favorite dingbat to sleep on a blanket? Thorn: I sleep on blankets all the time! >:( Fox: I was talking about Grizzer. Thorn: Oh. Hound: I also assumed you were referring to Thorn Rex, looking Jesse dead in the eyes: Get. Thee. Hence.

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 30

The Second Doctor and Jamie once landed on the nucleus of a uranium atom. An entire civilization lived there and told them stories of their sister planets being destroyed by humans splitting atoms for nuclear power.

Irving Braxiatel once claimed he had a phobia of foreign objects being put in his mouth.

Moments after leaving the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane encountered the Monk.

The Monk is also aware of the existence of Jenny, the Doctor’s daughter.

The Eighth Doctor once befriended and traveled with an Ice Warrior named Ssard as a companion. Upon leaving the TARDIS, Ssard married Stacy, one of the Doctor’s other companions.

Removing a Time Lord’s second heart eliminates their respiratory bypass.

It is incredibly difficult to give Braxiatel presents because his future self will often ship him whatever he wants the second he decides he wants it.

The Eighth Doctor gave Braxiatel socks for Christmas.

Similar to the Greek letter nicknames Omega and Theta Sigma, there was a Time Lord called Epsilon Delta. Epsilon Delta grew to hate the Time Lords and ran away from Gallifrey, eventually adopting the title the President as he had made himself President of St. Matthew's College on Earth.

There are beings that live in the time vortex. If you traverse the vortex unprotected, they might eat you.

The Eighth Doctor once referred to Braxiatel as a "colleague and occasional collaborator in adventures of the mind, the body and the soul." This is a really complex and convoluted way of describing your older brother.

While attempting to seduce the Seventh Doctor, Queen Angvia shoved his face in her breasts. She thought there was "boiling masculine virility under the flimsy of [his] beauty." By shoving his face in her chest, she gave him a dose of her pheromones. He and Mel only realized something was Very Wrong when he almost broke the notorious no-kissing rule.

While fetching a cake for K-9's birthday, Romana II single-handedly foiled an alliance between the Master, the Daleks, and the Cybermen, but when she returned with the cake, it came to life and asked not to be eaten.

After arriving in 1666, the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane were almost run over by a heavily loaded cart being driven by someone in odd clothing. The Doctor didn't know this at the time, but this was the Terileptil leader that his Fifth incarnation was chasing.

Braxiatel's office in the Braxiatel Collection is part of his TARDIS.

Miss Hannigan introduced herself to Irving Braxiatel as a missionary. He responded by saying that missionary was an interesting position.

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[blueiscoool]

‘Curse’ Behind King Tutankhamun’s Tomb Mysterious Deaths Finally Solved

The unsettling curse of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt has bewildered archaeologists since it’s been feared to be linked to the mysterious deaths of multiple excavators who discovered it in 1922.

However, a scientist now claims to have solved the mysteries of the infamous “Pharaoh’s Curse” more than 100 years later.

Toxic levels of radiation emanating from uranium and poisonous waste are believed to have lingered inside the tomb since it was sealed over 3,000 years ago, Ross Fellowes wrote last month in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (JSE).

The burial chamber in the tomb of Tutankhamun, near Luxor, Egypt.

The radiation level inside Tutankhamun’s tomb is so high that anyone who comes in contact with it could very likely develop a fatal dose of radiation sickness and cancer.

“Both contemporary and ancient Egypt populations are characterized by unusually high incidences of hematopoietic cancers, of bone/blood/lymph, for which a primary known cause is radiation exposure,” Fellowes wrote in his study.

However, this radioactivity isn’t isolated to Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Fellowes revealed that “unusually high radiation levels have been documented in Old Kingdom tomb ruins” and spread throughout sites in Egypt.

“Radiation has been detected by the Geiger counter at two sites at Giza adjacent to the pyramids,” he wrote, adding that radon — a radioactive gas — has also been detected in “several underground tombs at Saqqara.”

The “Coffinette for the Viscera of Tutankhamun,” which contained the king’s mummified liver, depicts him as Osiris, holding a crook and flail.

Medical imagery of Tutankhamun is shown above a replica of King Tut’s skull on display during the “Tutankhamun And The Golden Age Of The Pharaohs” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.

These readings were all found to be “intensely radioactive.”

“Modern studies confirm very high levels of radiation in ancient Egyptian tombs, in the order of 10x accepted safety standards,” the study shared.

It’s also theorized that those who built the ancient tombs were aware of the toxins based on the eerie warnings carved on the walls.

“The nature of the curse was explicitly inscribed on some tombs, with one translated presciently as, ‘they that break this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose,’” Fellowes wrote.

Outside the tomb of Tutankhamun during the 1922 excavation in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

Other ominous translations like “forbidden” because of “evil spirits” may have significantly fueled the fear that supernatural curses lingered in the ancient sites.

Those fears intensified with the mysterious deaths of Lord Carnarvon, who funded the excavation in 1922 and reportedly walked through the treasured filled rooms — and multiple others after they unsealed the tomb.

“Carnarvon was dead within a few weeks of the uncertain diagnosis of blood poisoning and pneumonia,” Fellowes wrote.

Egyptologist Howard Carter (R) walks with archaeologist Lord Carnarvon, the patron of his research, outside the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922.

Egyptologist Arthur Weigall allegedly told colleagues that Carnarvon would “be dead within six weeks” upon entering, the study claimed.

Howard Carter, the first person to walk inside Tutankhamun’s tomb with Carnarvon, died in 1939 after a long battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which was suspected to be caused by radiation poisoning.

British Egyptologist and independent excavator Arthur Weigall was present at the opening of Tut’s Tomb and is also credited with starting the ‘myth’ of the curse.

He died of cancer at 54 years old in 1934.

Workers remove a tray of chariot parts from the Tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt, in 1922.

In total, six of the 26 people present when the tomb was opened died within a decade from asphyxia, stroke, diabetes, heart failure, pneumonia, poisoning, malaria and X-ray exposure.

While the deaths can be seen as odd, the curse theory was also likely fueled by the oddities that happened when it opened.

Carnarvon had reportedly suffered a mosquito bite that became severely infected.

Around the time excavators opened the tomb, Cairo reportedly suffered a bizarre power outage and a freak sandstorm, according to National Geographic.’

At one point during the excavation, Carnarvon’s favorite dog allegedly let out a chilling howl and suddenly dropped dead.

A photograph showing guards standing outside the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt in 1922.

A sacred cow being removed from Tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.

From a historical perspective, the discovery of the tomb in the Valley of Kings is considered one of the most fascinating finds that gave modern society a glimpse into the Egyptian royalty voyage into the afterlife.

Five thousand items, including solid gold funeral shoes, statues, games, and strange animals, were discovered inside Tutankhamun’s tombs.

It would take the excavators ten years to clear the tomb of its treasure.

The golden funerary mask of Tutankhamun.

The unsealing and studying of the tomb is also credited with launching the modern era of Egyptology.

Tutankhamun took the throne as pharaoh around nine or ten years old and ruled between 1332 BC and 1323 BC.

However, he died by the time he turned 18.

There are no surviving records of Tutankhamun’s death and how the young pharaoh died remains a mystery.

However, Tutankhamun is suspected to have suffered from several health issues — likely linked to his father, Akhenaten, and his mother, Nefertiti, being brother and sister.

By Richard Pollina.

[amberinn]

Decided to share all my drdt related ideas so that you guys could hear about them at some point

Btw you can yoink and take and do any of those if y'want, with credit and stuff

Fuck 'm struggling with this... My lord

I also have MORE like 1/4th of a notebook+ pinboard full of those haha ;

It's a lot, believe me.

Eeveelutions!

Eevee - Min Jeung

Flareon - Ace Jockey (?)

Jolteon - J Moreno

Vapeoreon - Arei Nageishi 

Umbreon - Xander Matthews

Espeon - David Chiem

Leafeon - Hu Jing

Glaceon - Arturo Giles

Sylveon - Whit 

(Nucleon - Charles) (As in from Pokemon Uranium?)

Shiny eevee - Teruko

Shiny umbreon - Teruko post

______________

Say something

I can't

Then you havе forced my hand

Xander

Lower your weapon

No can do

Don't make me fight you, brother

Xander, Xander, Xander

Teruko, Teruko, Teruko

There is no price he won't pay

I am not letting you get in my way

*Teruko gets stabbed by Xander*

My brothers, why?

How are we supposed to trust you now?

Now your time has come, your luck's run out

Now, the time has come to shut you down

You relied on wit and then we died on it

Woah-oh-oh

___________

You can relax, my friend

Huh?

I can tell you're getting nervous

So do yourself a service

And try to relax, my friend

I'm fine, Eden

Think of all that we have been through

We'll survive what we get into

I know that you're tired of the war and bloodshed

Tell me, is this how we're supposed to live?

Look at how you grip your sword, enough said

Why should we take when we could give?

You could show a person that you trust them

When you stop and lower your guard

Here we have a chance for some adjustment

Give it a try, it's not that hard

I'm telling you

This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms

Whatever we face, we'll be fine if we're leading from the heart

No matter the place, we can light up the world, here's how to start

Greet the world with open arms

Greet the world with open arms

(Welcome)

Stay back (stay back)

My friend, greet the world with open arms

We're only here for food (food)

Six hundred friends are waiting for us to show our faces (food)

Stay back, I'm warning you (food)

If we don't get back safely

My men will turn this place into blazes (here you go)

See?

This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms

Whatever we face, we'll be fine if we're leading from the heart

No matter the place, we can light up the world, here's how to start

Greet the world with open arms

Greet the world with open arms

My friend, I wish that I could say that I agree

But look at the way this fruit is glowing and filled with glowing seeds

It took me a while to notice just what kind of fruit they eat

It's a lotus, it controls your mind and never lets you free

That's what we'd get with open arms

Lotus eaters

I'd like to show my friend that kindness is brave

Could you tell me where there's other food to eat?

(The cave)

A cave!

You're saying there's a cave where we could feast?

And where do we sail to find this food-filled cave?

(East, that way)

Thank you!

(Welcome)

This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms

I see in your face, there is so much guilt inside your heart

So why not replace it and light up the world, here's how to start

Greet the world with open arms

Greet the world with open arms

Greet the world with open arms

You can relax, my friend

___________________

"you will be my girl my girl my girl my girl

you will be my world my world my world my world" - lyrics

Them repairing each others hearts

More papa susheria, ice creameria, donuteria brainrots 

Them during pride

‌The moment Charles realises hes in love

‌(Whit is making batter for cupcakes and has a sliver of cake mass on his cheek and Charles reaches up to brush it out as Whit turns to look at him)

Charwhit playing DS.

One really desiring the other

Them baking with each other

Both of them using Tumblr

Charles with a bnnuuyy (Whit with a bnnuuy too they adopt all the bnuuys the bunny couple everrrr)

‌Them dancing in the rain

___________________

Them chilling in animal crossing esque room, on the island, fishing generally

___________________

Charwhit fishing some sort of cool science fish 

___________________

Rose Lacroix eating doritos

__________________

Areden 

Sweet like honey

Sweet like a summer day

Sweet like honey

Sweet like a summer day

Sweet like honey

Sweet like honey honey

Sweet like honey

Sweet like a summer day~

__________________

Whit pinning Charles down on the bed 

‌Whit protecting/shielding Charles from others when Charles is having a meltdown to give him some privacy

__________________

He's a bombshell blonde, wired up to detonate 

I'm James Bond, live to die another day

_________________

‌Charles distracting someone so Whit could sneak in 

Them meeting (Whit greeting a new neighbour)

Whit teaching Charles how to use a car

‌Charles and Whit creechurs 

Cat flower bouquets (also heart shaped for Whit OR Charles)

Whit on a really pretty pastel pink bike cycling to Charles

Them cuddling

Charles commenting how the cats in the village have been dissapeared along the same time monoTV agents have been appearing, Whit saving kittens from cages distracting monoTV

"Cha!" "What, do I call you Whits...?"

"No! Whit, not Whits"

The agents have left this area, you have now unlocked the flower garden!

You can use this location to collect flowers 

Them surrounded by flowers in a flower room

Charles and Whit catching some fucked up fish for a science experiment

- Them in different outfits

- Them in each others room (Charles, Whit)

- Them on the Night Market (Charles, Whit)

- Them flirting on the Night market (booths near each other)

- Zombie apocalypse setting

- Wearing each others clothes

Prince CHArming?

________

That one song that goes 

"Argh ahh ahh shit, no no no no no no no no no no no, BITCH, SHIT NO, DAMN IT, FUCKING GOD, AGH, STUPID, goddamnit come on Man! Fuck, oh fucking god, fuck, no, why, good, no! Fucking kid.. whatever! Oh. No. ArGHH--"

For everything that goes wrong in drdt

____________

It really does give the Xander reaches for Teruko and dies, Teruko reaches for Xander and watches him die, Teruko isolates herself, Eden gives her hope narrative

https://youtu.be/ChVV5EVL4W4?si=TyHsL-VgXITQ7_rc

_____________

It's Eden and her girlfriend Arei and her boyfriend Whit and his boyfriend Charles and his girlfriend Teruko and her girlfriend Veronika and her boyfriend Arturo

____________

Whitrei laying on the grass 

A sliver of grass on Whit's nose as he looks up, Arei digging the dirt and plomping it down on Whit's hand

____________

‌Charuko where Charles comes back with a grocery back and Teruko is the queen of the crows //both prompts are claimed by my bestie mercuriee theyre actually not up to being yoinked

‌Charuko where Charles and Teruko are plopped down on a lot of fluffy pillows in a nice bed

____________

‌Whit cuddling into Charles hand a blushing mess

____________

https://youtu.be/B85mAai1XZI?si=PHFr3tIL00sFJsIN

Iruoma  ?  And Harumiu irukawa....

_____________

‌Whit finds Charles who is trapped in a mirror, lacking a real friend he befriends him

_____________

Charwhit au where both of them fail to become ultimates and end up going to school that teaches programming

_____________

Teruko:

Argh, it's just that... *brushes finger across a photo of Xander *

Whit: *snatches it and ties it to a brick and throws it out the window *     Isn't here!

Teruko:  WHIT.

Whit: out of sight out of mind, isn't he?

In a cool room

________________

Charwhit dancing in that snowball christmas decoration except the insides of that ball are their life

‌Charwhit inspired boba recipes

_______________

https://youtu.be/ph9vQASpv6M?si=Ecu27a5yPsdPY9mt

Charwhit 

_______________

Whit kissing Charles with a draining kiss

Whit kissing Charles collarbone

Charwhit in pokemon trainer gear with a litten between them

Charwhit sensually pre kissing in various shades

_______________

Whit hanging out with Rose in winter outfits

Whit when Rose is painting 

Whit kissing Rose's nose while she is painting something 

Whit kissing Rose's cheek while she's having hot chocolate 

Whit kissing Rose's forehead while they're cuddling on the bed

Rose patting Whit's hair while they're sharing an electric blanket heating up

"It's such a rush, girl

Everytime we touch, girl"

They’re upstairs downstairs neighbours who fall in love au when - missmercuriee's idea

Au ideas where Whit is in a cute heart pink punkband of sorts idk and Rose loves it and is payed to design a poster for their next concert - missmercuriee's idea

Rosewhit slow dancing

Love grows where my (rose)mary goes by Edison light house but it’s just rosewhit - missmercuriees idea and i need to listen to the song

I like the dynamic of aloof quiet girl and loud flirty guy

I was thinking more over how Rose is struggling with everything that is traumatising and Whit is like a soft bandaid and a kiss and a hug

Also Whit describing to Rose what his mom looked like or showing her a picture and Rose sorta just doing her best to recreate a memory Whit has of her

___________

Mai wchodząca na egzamin wiedząć że always to podpaski 

___________

Taco - Puppeteer EPIC

Acevid - Wrecking Ball // mother mother

___________

He’d make hu jing play the zither for him and he’ll pretend like he doesn’t care but sometimes when he misses her he watches her concerts on YouTube to hear her voice and fall asleep - huturo, miss mercuriees idea

Ace with a galarian zigzagoon

_____________

"can't we be seventeen?

is that so hard to do?

if you could let me in...

I could be good with you!"

"People hurt us

Or they vanish 

And you're right!

It really blows... 

But we let go

Take a deep breath 

And go buy some summer clothes!" 

Charuko 

___________

If I can, If I can give them all the execution

Then I can, then I can be your only execution

If I can have you back, I will run the execution

Though we are trapped, we are trapped ah

I've , I've studied how to properly LO-O-OVE

Question me question me I can answer all LO-O-OVE

I know the algerbratic expression of LO-O-OVE

Though you are free, I are trapped, trapped in LO-O-OVE

Execution

MIN

__________

Just imagine being human, hating your confusion

Denying 'til it's proven, laughing at illusion

Thinking institution's the solution

While tyranny and irony float in its pollution

Imagine reducing yourself to your name

Janet, you've got no one else you can blame

You've stuck all your conscience inside of your brain

Charwhit

___________

Rose is really artsy cause she’s the ultimate art forger so she makes Whit funny looking socks all the time //missmercuriee's idea

___________

Rocket ships will take off

Whether you're in them or not

And it's sad, but it's the truth 

The world will still turn without you

And when your bones turn to earth

You'll ask me---

What was I worth?

I'll simply plant a flower above you...

And you can watch it grow

You can watch it grow

You can watch it... grow

Whit

________

Charuko where Charles buys Teruko tiger lily

________

J Moreno 

Copyright copyright copyright copyright 

________

Xander with a slip "take action" and red and blood

________

Goals and values with Charles Cuevas and Whit

Charwhit red string of fate Whit tangles in it

________

Charuko cuddling after an investigation 

Asking about Teruko's stitches 

gently touching through the clothes 

Curled up into Charles body 

Sighing 

Teruko holding onto Charles for protection and from pain 

Charuko where they're at a shop looking over at their wedding bands (the newly weds)

_______

"Nicolas, take the animals from the living room. Now"

"Ma... My name's Nico...?" ;

(While they're reading a book or something)

"Yes 

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes"

Stop spamming me, what the fuck I'm on the stage 

Sorry, my phone crashed 

Honest mistake? My bad

Xanvid

Arei: Mamo, jak to jest mieć najlepszą córkę na świecie?

M: Nie wiem kochanie, musisz zapytać babci 

Levi: Przepraszam

We wtorki mi odpierdala (after the trial)

What's up Nico? 

You're sitting there pretty quietly

(Social interaction, uh oh)

Whit to Charles: 

You know if we met under normal circumstances February 15th this year would be a greeaaaaat birthday party...

Charuko fanfiction where Teruko laughs and banters with Charles as he treats her burn //this IS an actual fanfiction i just wanted to do fanart of it, also why is there only 7 works underneath the Charuko tag wtf i expected more out of this fandom /j

What do you mean I can't come there in jeans 

It's a special occasion, Whit.

But I don't have those kinds of clothes 

Charwhit at school

That gay triangle, but it's just a gay rainbow filled Whit drawing full of symbolism (and or David maybe)

Charles and Whit meet for the first time on Valentine's day

David Chiem eating peanut butter straight out of the jar

Love you so - Xanruko 

 microwaving Charles under that tan machine

Teruko getting a hallucination of Min watching her sleep full of care, before she feels her chest tighten and as Min fades Teruko breaks out into a sob and decides to skip going out that day

i am so happy for you and your ugly fucking boyfriend im serious <- Teruko to Xander about David

Idolising a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you

I need a cigarette and to die - Teruko

Whit kissing Charles hand

(Did you know that the knuckles are an erogenous zone?)

Don’t worry Nico, Ace is just a hater - David

It’s okay I’ll discipline him - Hu Jing (I said that haha)

Min eating bubbly chocolate Milka

Someone: Wait wait wait, is this about Xander? (To David)

Whit: You’re gonna trigger an allergic reaction, careful there! (I said that as well I love DM induced content ideas)

David: *opens his mouth as if to speak*

Whit: There it goes! (Tgere its goes !) *laughing

Arturo with an Altaria

Hu Jing with Swanna (aaaaa it’s like Xan Bing!!! :DD) // Xan Bing isnt exactly what shes called i just don't know chinese v well, me and mercuriees idea

Nico Hakobyan using a yes/no generator wheel to decide whether to murder Ace (it landed on yes)

Nico: This sounds wrong

Hu Jing: THAT’S PLAIN UP WRONG

Teruko: You’ve got that wrong 

Whit: me and my boyfriend are making a new way of creating a chemical war weapon (mentions)

Hu Jing: Come here Arei, and YOU fucker! I bet I can beat BOTH OF YOU. (Ace)

J, sarcastic: Hi fucker! 

Did you stop in to see my mom?

An old and beat up fishing rod (Teruko’s)

Teruko fishing in pokemon 

(shiny magikarp)

David: I feel so sigma with that Ohio gyatt rn 

Kneel before me Whit Young 

Your ass is so flat it’s low placement is not even on the list 

What in the sleep deprivation is this man 

Trans Charles or something 

Rose with Morellul 

Whit with Fidough and Swirlix making Swirlix super sweet pancakes (headcanon that his taste in food is so sweet it’s atrocious, because he makes overly sweet food all the time to keep his pokemon soso healthy)

Also Solosis 

MonoTV with Duraludon protecting it

Min with Ralts

David with a Seviper

Min feeding her Ralts experience candy (eating it herself aswell)

Whit holding his phone by the charger (on his wallpaper is a picture of Arei hanging)

Min and Eden chilling in that Polish Warsaw clock palace 

Veronika and Eden in Polish old town in Warsaw

Charwhit hanging out 

(Whit being a priority)

Whit being excited and looking forward to smooching Charles 

These two creating a love potion

Whit emberrasing Charles by telling him everything that’s just so goddamn good about him

Them cuddling in the relaxation room

Charles trying to be more outgoing (mostly with Whit)

Whit afraid of the visions he sees, if not hopeless 

Three things you love about your life:

-Sweets(?)

- Your mom

- Charles

What inspires you (Marie Curie idk lmao)

What is your big dream? (W: to get into a relationship)

Something you are currently working on (place in here one fun chemical experiment)

How do you procrastinate?

With Charles <3

What are you grateful for?

Whit

One small step you can take towards your big dream, but it’s just Whit holding Charles face nervously 

What bad habits do you have?

Nico and Ace as that 

Your fursona is cringe meme

[twistthescript]

Any Ricky headcannons?

Ricky is probably the most complex to me (aside from Jane and Karnak), because of my warehouse au alone… and I can’t even tell ya everything cause we haven’t gotten to it yet.

I'll just stick to my general headcanons for now:

For his 18th birthday, he was going to get a tongue piercing. His parents were afraid that any open wound would be too dangerous for his condition, worried about possible infections, but eventually conceded when Ricky made a full powerpoint of the pros and cons. He never lived to see that day.

One of his new kittens was a black and white splotched, cerebellar hypoplasia baby. Ricky named him Lord Zolar, since that cat could carry the weight of a world on its shoulders... so why not the ruler of a cat planet? Bonus: Ricky drew him as a humanoid in a sketchbook once.

His crutches are very much an extension of himself. Instead of raising his hand to answer a question, he'd raise a crutch.

Sometimes Ricky will just roll backwards in his wheelchair down the hall because it's interesting. (He's also an expert at going down the stairs in the same manner... Uranium wasn't the most disability friendly town in existence.)

Ricky once tried to skateboard in his wheelchair. It actually didn't go horrible- just a few bruises. He tried again... and ended up breaking his nose when he fell face first onto a concrete ledge. After getting it set at the hospital, Ricky thought it was awesome. His parents did not.

[astra-ravana]

Working With Loki

Lord of Mischief

Colors: Black, orange, yellow, green, red, purple

Herbs: Mistletoe, yellow rattle, mint, patchouli, tobacco, cinnamon, clove, rue, holly, cedar, juniper, elder, ivy, mandrake, wormwood, canabis, mayflower, marigold, alkanet, sandalwood, allspice, ginger, rose

Crystals: Obsidian, serpentine, jade, black tourmaline, danburite, rutilated quartz, onyx, garnet, citrine, carnelian, fire opal, moss agate, emerald, pyrite, hematite, ruby, mookaite, herkimer diamond

Element: Fire/air

Planet: Saturn/Uranus

Zodiac: Aries/Gemini

Metal: Silver, lead, uranium, white gold

Tarot: The Fool, the Hanged Man, the World

Direction: South

Dates: Friday the 13th, the 13th of each month, Autumn Equinox, Samhain, Yule, April Fool's Day

Day: Saturday

Animals: Snakes, falcons, spiders, flies, fleas, salmon, horses, vultures, wolves, foxes

Domains: Mischief, chaos, cunning, flames, destruction, creation, creativity, shape-shifting, blacksmithing, cooking, discovery, trickery, protection, paradox, taboo, catalysts, seduction, passion, breaking tradition, primal instinct

Offerings: Whiskey, canabis, tobacco, candy, sweets, soda, toys, blades and weapons, items from nature, found objects and trinkets, representations of his animals, hand made creations, fire, showing love/kindness to outcasts and misunderstood

Symbols:

[edutainer2022]

Inspired by conversations with @janetm74, here's a little thing based on the idea some time very early on in Jeff's fledgling business phase and before nuclear power got banned, and when the kids were small, the Tracies and the Van Arkles of the Uranium Empire might have been in each other's orbit through mutual acquaintances in high places. This was supposed to be nothing but laughs and wee shenanigans, but hey! Some angst and foreboding seeped in.

BEFORE THE DARK

The dinner ran it's course all the way to coffee and cigars at a drawing room overlooking the gardens of the Creighton-Ward manor. Just as the conversation shifted inevitably on to new bills regulating the nuclear energy production and radioactive ore mining, as well as the looming possibility of a big war. The men stayed standing in a close circle, voices hushed and tense.

Summer evening in the British countryside peeked in through the glass terrace doors with wiffs of the warm wind, infused with birds chirping and gleeful shrieks of children, playing outside, finally free of the formal confines of the dinner table. Jeff Tracy brought his little platoon of sons over to visit Lord Hugh. The Van Arkles too had their young son and daughter in tow. The elder boys, by the sound of it, were now wreaking havoc on the immaculately manicured lawn. The Tidy Twosome, at least - three year old John and Penny - were quiet and primly engrossed in a mutually fulfilling task of navigating a picture book.

The sudden patter of little feet on the terrace tiles and a painful yelp interrupted the cadence of the talk, as a five year old Scott ran inside - all wild blue eyes and windswept curls - made a beeline for his Dad and hid behind Jeff, hugging his knees for extra protection. Jeff barely had a chance to glance down at his (usually) fierce and fearless eldest, as the latter was closely followed by a tiny running girl, brown hair in two matching pigtails, now askew, brandishing a pool noodle about twice her size. The girl was eliciting something closely resembling a war cry. Jeff could feel Scotty squeeze himself into the adult's leg tighter. Jeff reached down and hoisted the boy up into his arms. He saw Willem Van Arkle do the same with the girl, who was yet to relinquish her weapon and waved it dangerously close to Scott's head. Lord Hugh was exercising all of his aristocratic poise not to laugh out loud. Jeff tightened the hold on his son.

"What's going on, Bluejay? Didn't I tell you to look after Virgie and Johnny after dinner?"

Brilliant blue eyes grew even wider, if it were at all possible. Scotty squirmed in Dad's arms to point outside, then at the militant girl.

"I WAS, Daddy! SHE wanted to hit Virgie, but Mommy says I should never EVER hit a girl so I created a dive... diva... diverzhon and she HIT ME!"

Lord Hugh gave up and was laughing by that point, trying not to spill vintage cognac on an antique rug. Jeff tried, unsuccessfully, to school his face out of an amused smile.

"SHE is Marion, right Scotty?"

"Yes, sir."

Van Arkle Sr. was frowning worried at the girl in his arms.

"What did we talk about, missy? We're guests here. We don't go hitting people."

Little Marion appeared less amenable to the idea and directed a glare at Scott, more befitting a mortal enemy than a preschooler. Both fathers put the kids down at that, but Jeff made sure to requisition the pool noodle from a grumpy Marion.

"You two go outside now and play nice. Bluejay, you make sure Virgie doesn't wander off and get lost in the park, okay?"

Scotty sketched an eager salute and beamed up at Jeff.

"K', Daddy!"

Ever the southern gentleman, he even offered a hand to the young lady. Marion contemplated his open palm, a little sticky with freshly mowed grass, slapped it forcefully and took off running outside with a yell:

"Tag! You're IT!"

Never the one to turn down a race challenge, little Scotty was sprinting off in a second, hot in pursuit. There soon was a sound of kerfuffle in the garden maze. Apparently Marion's brother and Virgil had joined the fray.

Van Arkle and Lord Hugh collapsed into the leather chairs, both sniggering. Jeff spared another moment scanning the far perimeter of the spacious grounds, making sure he didn't need to intervene.

"Told you, Tracy, the kids would take it on like a house on fire."

"That's one way of looking at it."

Jeff turned back to face the two men, steel eyes going a shade darker. Lord Hugh's face hardened as well.

"Now, gentlemen, what do we know about Bereznik repurposing those old nuclear warheads?"

Children's laughter drifted back inside through the open doors, but the air got chilly before impending dark.

[dingodad]

act 5 sets a precedent for machines filled with blood (aradiabot) and act 6 builds on that precedent with a similar machine fueled by uranium ("uranian" blood). and just as easily as one can make the argument that nepeta, as a rogue of heart, lives on in splinter form in jade's tablet computer - and with calliope being ideologically descended from nepeta - it could well be argued that it would be thematically appropriate for equius/caliborn/lord english to construct a network of computers to host the spirit of his moirail/sister(/brother) nepeta/calliope(/dave). <- something that is not necessarily true but sounds compelling when you argue it all out like that

[abellinthecupboard]

Memorial Day, 1972

I was too young to clean graves so I waded into the uranium river carrying the cat who later gave birth to six headless kittens. O Lord, remember, O, do remember me.

— Sherman Alexie, One Stick Song (2000)

[red-balloons-and-flashing-lights]

Ride The Cyclone Gender + Sexuality Headcanons

Just because I did the same with IT These are for my main au, they might change depending on the au.

Ocean: Cis girl She/her Lesbian, asexual Was in denial about being a lesbian for the first ~17 years of her life: "it's normal to want to spend all my time with Connie!" "of course every girl feels completely empty when her friend isn't around" "it isn't gay to want to kiss your bestie on the lips!". Noel both hated and loved every single moment of this.

Noel: Amab bigender He/she/neos Gay Has fallen for every cishet boy in school. Literally every single one. He needs help.

Mischa: Cis boy He/him, doesn't mind any Bisexual, poly Dating Talia, who by the way is also poly. He was completely clueless about his own sexuality until she told him, and then he started asking Ricky questions ("yoo Rickster! Talia said she likes lords, what's that mean?" "what???" "...lords-? пан, she sayed she's пансексуал!" ".....OH you mean pansexual" and it derailed from there) and that's how he figured it out.

Ricky: Amab non-binary They/them Pansexual (I genuinely thought they canonically said "the sexy catpeople from Zolar") Goes by Savannah online. Irl, they're only out as an enby to the choir (besides Ocean). In a QPR with Penny :)

Penny: Afab agender She/any Pan aroace In a QPR with Ricky :) Mainly describes her own gender and sexuality as "an empty void". Goes by all Penny, Jane, Sav and PJ

Constance: Cis girl She/they/neos Pansexual/lesbian (<- still questioning) Only completely out queer person in Uranium, since "she's so nice" nobody really cares.

[mariacallous]

Hello there. Today I would like to talk about Charlotte Owen. If you’ve heard of Charlotte Owen, it’s probably because you’ve read someone – unquestionably one of the “good guys” of the discourse – saying some creepy, innuendo-laden thing about the “riddle”, “mystery” or “enigma” of her relationship with Boris Johnson. Before we go on, a word on vocab: all those words are journalese for “I can’t stand up this cobblers but I just want to publish it anyway”.

If you haven’t heard of Charlotte Owen, then (a) you may be the last pure human, and (b) you will need a primer. So here goes: she worked for Johnson’s No 10 operation, and was unexpectedly given a peerage in his resignation honours list. Alongside her House of Lords work, she has recently taken a position in a business Johnson has got with a uranium entrepreneur. Any more background? I should also say I have never met Owen, who is now 31, or had the remotest dealings with her. However, I have watched the absolute deluge of sexism disguised as gossip that has beset her since Johnson chucked her the poisoned chalice. Though entirely fact free, most of it has been frothingly circulated by the sort of person who imagines themselves to be on the side of the angels. So allow me to offer a counterpoint: they’re not.

Listen, I’m sure it’s not great to give a peerage to a 29-year-old. But let’s get real: even if she were totally useless, Owen could still only be about the 200th worst person in the House of Lords. She wouldn’t even make the same postcode as the cut of the true monsters, about whom we don’t get any articles because they’re not youngish and blond. Do imagine if all the good guys casting twice-weekly aspersions at Owen were chucking even half those at fellow Johnson peer Evgeny Lebedev – a serious piece of work, who has somehow garnered fewer bad headlines this past year than Charlotte has this past fortnight. Records and colleague accounts suggest Owen is a diligent peer, turning up very frequently and offering contributions some would estimate put her in the top 10% of speakers. (Lebedev has never even bothered voting and has asked only four written questions in four years.)

As for being unqualified for her latest job – countless 31-year-olds in this country have jobs that I’m sure their elders and betters think they’re not good enough for, and they were often hired for them by people they met through previous jobs. You’re going to need more than that. Yet not one person has produced a single nano-particle of evidence for their theories, while indications that they’re nonsense pile up. Consider the pictures of Owen at Carrie Johnson’s soirees. Seriously, Carrie’s the final boss of this game. She saw off master strategist Dominic Cummings (Carl von Clownewitz). Pretty sure she’d make light work of Charlotte if there were anything to worry about.

Some people will say it was ever thus. Funnily enough, I think I was Owen’s age when I started reading stories about my own affair with the former editor of this newspaper. Not true stories, as it goes, and I’m just trying to think back to it all. Private Eye ran some of them, so I contacted the magazine to tell it they were completely untrue and asked it to correct. Alas, corrections were not a Private Eye thing, I was told – but I was offered the option of writing a letter to its letters page, under my name, to counter the story. I remember sitting and wondering what such a bizarre and inherently unedifying missive would even look like. I pictured a letter reading “Dear Sir, Sorry to trouble you but this is just to say I’m not actually having an affair with my boss. Yours ever so gratefully, Marina Hyde.”

I concluded that would be rather adding insult to injury, so declined to send it, and instead had to come up with a sort of renegade campaign of ways to get the record corrected, which now seem excruciatingly ridiculous in retrospect. I can’t remember all the stupid stuff I did, but I do remember, for example, agreeing to a hideously dreary media panel, purely because the then editor of Popbitch was also doing it, then sitting through it and waiting for an opportunity to confront her in public about what I think I called “my non affair”. This was no one’s finest hour, but I couldn’t think of a better way. In the end, you realise you just have to ignore people and work hard, and maybe that work will displace people’s current view of you in, like, a couple of decades?

Now I am a much older lady, I wouldn’t say I can say exactly what I like – but I can certainly say a lot more of what I like. And I say all this now not because I want to spare Charlotte Owen the ball-ache of having to do some dire panel on climate lies at the next Cop conference, purely to tee herself up for introducing a leaden non-sequitur beginning with the words, “Hey – you know what else is a lie … ?” No, I am doing this because I honestly can’t believe that almost 20 years later, fact-free faux journalism like this has got worse.

Much of it is down to social media being a place where people very much like to look as though they’re insiders (again: they’re not). The other corrosive practice, popular on social media but also with some very online journalists, is that thing of putting two pictures or stories together and saying with some kind of flourish, “You join the dots!” To which the only acceptable response is: no. Would YOU mind joining the dots? You are, after all, supposed to be the professional here. The fact that you can’t confirms you’re not “doing journalism” – you’re doing sexism, you’re doing conspiracism and you’re doing indolence. Still: lovely clicks.

Allow me to end by offering a competition prize. The next person to publish any fact-free innuendo about Charlotte Owen shall be crowned the biggest trouser-rubbing weirdo in Fleet Street – and that’s a tough field. Guys, that actually means something! If anyone has any evidence of the thing at which they have hinted so remorselessly, then let them produce it. Otherwise, maybe they have had their fun, and it’s finally time to shut up and leave her alone. Instead: please tell us more about the uranium entrepreneur. You see, this is the other thing about getting older: you start wanting to know more about the uranium entrepreneurs. But we always look the wrong way in this country – so don’t hold your breath.