#white volcanic ash

[rabbitcruiser]

Earthquake Point/Broken Mountain, WA

Take a step back in time to December 14, 1872 in what was at that time Washington Territory. Ulysses S. Grant had just been elected president for his second term, and Boston was still recovering from the Great Fire that destroyed much of the city in November of that year. You had to draw water from a well, light your cabin with oil lamps, and typically folks would retire for the night shortly after sundown, when the evening chores were completed, and supper dishes were cleaned.

On that night, at almost 10pm, folks across the region were awakened by a massive earthquake. Contemporary accounts describe the earth rolling from North to South, no jolting bumps, just the feeling like walking on the deck of a ship in rough seas. 

The earthquake impacted an area of the Pacific Northwest over 625,000 miles – from Salem Oregon in the South, to Victoria, BC in the North, across Idaho into Montana and much damage was sustained in the populated areas west of the Cascades. In Seattle buildings rocked, trees shook, items and fell off shelves. Pendulum clocks were stopped by the offsetting rocking, or started up again, if they had been stopped. Plaster walls cracked and lamps tipped over. 

Prior to the event, Lake Union had been flat calm, but the quake caused a tidal wave several feet high. In Olympia there were reports of fireplaces crumbling.

Jack Splawn (also known as Moses Splawn) was a cowboy and resident of Yakima City at that time. He explained that he and the other cowboys on the ranch had just completed the year’s branding and were celebrating at the Sagebrush Saloon, when the building began rocking and they ran outside to see what hoodlums were trying to tip the house over. 

While some folks dealt with milk sloshed out of the pail, and knickknacks falling off the shelf, the residents of North Central Washington, especially indigenous tribes who lived along the Columbia river near Chelan witnessed a far more catastrophic event. It is known locally as “the night the mountain fell.”

As you drive along Highway 97A just past Entiat on your way to Chelan, there is a roadside pullout and marker explaining “Earthquake Point.” Here you can view what the native people named “Ribbon Cliffs”. A giant portion of the hillside of Broken Mountain fell into the Columbia river that night. Of course, the river was not as high then as it is now, as the hydroelectric projects along the river have raised it, however, the amount of earth and granite that fell blocked the river and flooded the lands behind it, including the ranch of the Wapato family. You might recognize that tribal name from the peninsula of land at Lake Chelan, called Wapato Point. 

At some point the following day the water broke through the earthen dam, the flood receded, and the river began to flow again. It must have been a sight to behold if you lived in Wenatchee to wake up to a dry riverbed! Witnesses to the event reported that it took several days for the earthen dam to break up and the river to return to its previous level. 

While there was no seismologic equipment in place seventeen years before Washington became a state, experts studying the damage and geologic features believe the quake was between 6.5 and 7.5 in magnitude. That makes it one of the largest on record in the state. 

For 143 years it was a mystery where the epicenter of this earthquake could be found. In 2015 geologist Brian Sherrod painstakingly surveyed a canyon between Chelan and Entiat, where he found a fault and was able to definitively prove it to be the source of the quake. 

Source

[c-kiddo]

working on hatzegopteryx (adjacent) oc named Eerie (after mount eerie) and she's cool . she falls in love with a shooting star/piece of comet type creature

[maaarine]

Mystery of why Roman buildings have survived so long has been unraveled, scientists say (Katie Hunt, CNN, Jan 06 2023)

“Roman concrete, in many cases, has proven to be longer-lasting than its modern equivalent, which can deteriorate within decades.

Now, scientists behind a new study say they have uncovered the mystery ingredient that allowed the Romans to make their construction material so durable and build elaborate structures in challenging places such as docks, sewers and earthquake zones.

The study team, including researchers from the United States, Italy and Switzerland, analyzed 2,000-year-old concrete samples that were taken from a city wall at the archaeological site of Privernum, in central Italy, and are similar in composition to other concrete found throughout the Roman Empire.

They found that white chunks in the concrete, referred to as lime clasts, gave the concrete the ability to heal cracks that formed over time.

The white chunks previously had been overlooked as evidence of sloppy mixing or poor-quality raw material.

"For me, it was really difficult to believe that ancient Roman (engineers) would not do a good job because they really made careful effort when choosing and processing materials," said study author Admir Masic, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (…)

Additional analysis of the concrete showed that the lime clasts formed at extreme temperatures expected from the use of quicklime, and "hot mixing" was key to the concrete's durable nature.

"The benefits of hot mixing are twofold," Masic said in a news release.

"First, when the overall concrete is heated to high temperatures, it allows chemistries that are not possible if you only used slaked lime, producing high-temperature-associated compounds that would not otherwise form.

Second, this increased temperature significantly reduces curing and setting times since all the reactions are accelerated, allowing for much faster construction."

To investigate whether the lime clasts were responsible for Roman concrete's apparent ability to repair itself, the team conducted an experiment.

They made two samples of concrete, one following Roman formulations and the other made to modern standards, and deliberately cracked them.

After two weeks, water could not flow through the concrete made with a Roman recipe, whereas it passed right through the chunk of concrete made without quicklime.

Their findings suggest that the lime clasts can dissolve into cracks and recrystallize after exposure to water, healing cracks created by weathering before they spread.

The researchers said this self-healing potential could pave the way to producing more long-lasting, and thus more sustainable, modern concrete.

Such a move would reduce concrete's carbon footprint, which accounts for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the study.

For many years, researchers had thought that volcanic ash from the area of Pozzuoli, on the Bay of Naples, was what made Roman concrete so strong.

This kind of ash was transported across the vast Roman empire to be used in construction, and was described as a key ingredient for concrete in accounts by architects and historians at the time.

Masic said that both components are important, but lime was overlooked in the past.”

[themodernwitchsguide]

altars for nordic gods

keep in mind that altars like these have very little historical backing, and this information is mostly for the use of the modern pagan. also pretty much every god can be honored with offerings of meat, mead, wine, and your own blood.

ODIN

Colors: grey/silver for justice; deep blue, black for magic; red for war

Offerings: nine sacred herbs (chamomile, nettle, fennel, crab apple, mugwort, plantain, watercress, chervil, betony), runes, food for ravens, poetry

Crystals: sodalite, lapis lazuli, amethyst, lepidolite, obsidian, labradorite

Animals: his ravens (Huginn and Muninn), his wolves (Geri and Freki)

THOR

Colors: yellow, white, grey for thunderstorms; red for war; blue for the sky

Offerings: rainwater, hawthorn, oak, garlic, onion, hearty meals

Crystals: fulgarite, blue quartz/calcite, yellow jasper, sodalite, obsidian, hematite

Animals: goats

LOKI

Colors: black, green for mischief; yellow/gold for wealth; red, orange when he is combined with Logi

Offerings: yellow rattle, birch, mistletoe, snake shed, cinnamon, dandelion, coins/money

Crystals: labradorite, jade, malachite, pyrite, citrine, bloodstone, gemstones, serpentine

Animals: birds, horses, snakes, foxes

TYR

Colors: dark blue, silver/grey for justice; red for war

Offerings: holly, mustard seed, bread, oak, ash, good deeds are especially emphasized with Tyr

Crystals: lapis lazuli, sapphire, red jasper, bloodstone, obsidian, hematite

Animals: wolf, dog, bear, eagle

BALDR

Colors: gold/yellow, white for opulence; sky blue, pink for beauty

Offerings: chamomile, daisies, white blossoms, honey, juniper berries, laurel leaves, sunflower

Crystals: sunstone, celestite, selenite, pearl, rose quartz, pyrite, milky quartz

Animals: foal

FRIGG

Colors: blue, silver/grey, white for the moon; yellow/gold for opulence

Offerings: cardamom, allspice, sweet wines, milk, handspun fiber, feathers, moss

Crystals: moonstone, selenite, celestite, pyrite, milky quartz, rose quartz, agates

Animals: falcons, hawks, geese

HELA

Colors: red, orange, black for the underworld; white, grey for the dead

Offerings: white flowers, apples, willow, dark chocolate, coffee beans, mushrooms, clove--leave food until rotten

Crystals: bloodstone, jet, onyx, obsidian, black tourmaline, volcanic stone, red jasper, hematite

Animals: owl, raven, dog, wolf

FREYJA

Colors: red, pink, white for love; green, brown for nature; gold/yellow for her cape; purple, dark blue for magic

Offerings: jasmine, rose, verbena, collecting cat whiskers, honeycomb, fruit, fresh flowers, chocolate

Crystals: amber, petrified wood, agates, garnet/ruby, pyrite, lapis lazuli, rose quartz, emerald, jade, tiger's eye, cat's eye, amethyst

Animals: cats, pigs, horses, falcons

FREYR

Colors: green, brown for nature; yellow/gold for sunshine

Offerings: grain, apples, bread, nuts/seeds, venison, anything phallic, antlers, birch, hawthorn, coins/money

Crystals: green aventurine, agates, petrified wood, jaspers, jade, citrine, zoisite, pyrite

Animals: deer/stag, boar, horse, bee

NJORD

Colors: white, blues for the sea

Offerings: fish, sea salt, shells, beads, tobacco, fishing gear

Crystals: aquamarine, larimar, gemstones, pearls, malachite, sodalite, azurite, iolite

Animals: seabirds, sea mammals

SKADI

Colors: white, light blue for winter; brown for the hunt

Offerings: raw meat, berries, nuts, clear liquors, pelts, antlers

Crystals: milky quartz, bloodstone, blue calcite, chalcedony, jaspers

Animals: arctic fox

[literaryvein-reblogs]

More Geology Vocabulary

for your next poem/story (pt. 2)

Luster - The reflection of light from the surface of a mineral, described by its quality and intensity.

Microcrystalline - Describes a rock texture consisting of crystals visible only with a microscope.

Moonmilk - A soft, white, initially deformable deposit that occurs on the walls of caves.

Nuée ardente - A swiftly flowing, turbulent, sometimes incandescent gaseous cloud erupted from a volcano, containing ash and other pyroclastic materials in its lower part.

Orogeny - A mountain-building event.

Parabolic dune - Crescent-shaped dune with horns or arms that point upwind.

Perlitic - Describes the texture of glassy volcanic rocks characterized by numerous curving cracks roughly concentric around closely spaced centers.

Permafrost - Any soil, subsoil, or other surficial deposit, or even bedrock, occurring in arctic, subarctic, and alpine regions at a variable depth beneath Earth’'s surface in which a temperature below freezing has existed continuously for a long time (from two years to tens of thousands of years).

Phreatic - Of or relating to groundwater.

Phreatophyte - A deeply rooted plant that obtains water from the water table or through the overlying capillary fringe.

Pictograph - A picture painted on a rock by primitive peoples.

Pillow lava - A general term for lavas displaying pillow structures and considered to have formed in a subaqueous environment; such lava is usually basaltic or andesitic.

Pluvial - Describes a geologic process or feature resulting from rain.

Reservoir - An artificial or natural storage place for water, such as a lake, pond, or aquifer, from which the water may be withdrawn for such purposes as irrigation, municipal water supply, or flood control.

Roundstone - Any naturally rounded rock fragment larger than a sand grain.

Schistose - Describes a rock displaying schistosity, or foliation, which imparts a silky sheen.

Scour - The powerful and concentrated clearing and digging action of flowing water, air, or ice.

Strand plain - A shore built seaward by waves and currents, extending continuously for some distance along the coast.

Tree mold - A cylindrical hollow in a lava flow formed by the envelopment of a tree by the flow, solidification of the lava in contact with the tree, and disappearance of the tree by burning and subsequent removal of the charcoal and ash. The inside of the mold preserves the surficial features of the tree.

Vitreous - Having the luster and appearance of glass.

Source Part 1

[wjbs-bonkle-au]

Redid my Bionicle primary-element palettes! They all use official colours that are available by default in Studio, so they can be used in digital MOCing.

List of all colours below.

Fire:

Volcanic - Black, Dark Red, Red, Orange, Yellow

Ash Cloud - Dark Grey, Dark Tan, Sand Red, Bright Light Orange, Light Yellow

Swamp - Dark Blue, Dark Red, Reddish Orange, Light Blue, Light Yellow

Spectral - Purple, Rust, Red, Light Purple, Dark Pink

Forest - Dark Brown, Dark Red, Reddish Orange, Medium orange, Yellow

Gas Field - Maersk Blue, Sky Blue, Light Orange, Bright Light Orange, Light Yellow

Water:

Coastal - Dark Blue, Blue, Sand Blue, Medium Blue, Lime

Polluted - Black, Dark Blue, Dark Purple, Lilac, Blue-Violet

Tropical - Dark Turquoise, Light Turquoise, Maersk Blue, Sky Blue, Light Blue

Sulphuric - Bright Light Orange, Dark Turquoise, Dark Azure, Medium Azure, Medium Green

Aquifer - Dark Blue, Dark Bluish Grey, Sand Blue, Dark Azure, Medium Blue

Swamp - Medium Brown, Dark Turquoise, Dark Azure, Medium Azure, Sand Green

Earth:

Cavern - Black, Dark Grey, Purple, Orange, Tan

Desert - Black, Dark Grey, Dark Tan, Light Grey, Tan

Diamond Mine - Dark Bluish Grey, Dark Grey, Dark Tan, Light Grey, Dark Azure

Jungle - Dark Bluish Grey, Olive Green, Light Grey, Sand Green, Very Light Grey

Bog - Black, Brown, Light Brown, Medium Brown, Olive Green

Magma - Black, Dark Red, Dark Grey, Reddish Orange, Light Grey

Air

Jungle - Dark Green, Green, Dark Turquoise, Light Green, Lime

Polluted - Dark Grey, Sand Purple, Olive Green, Sand Green, Light Green

Fog - Dark Grey, Dark Tan, Olive Green, Medium Lime, Light Lime

Coastal - Sand Blue, Dark Turquoise, Medium Green, Sand Green, White

Swamp - Black, Dark Green, Green, Olive Green, Light Lime

Desert - Dark Tan, Medium Lime, Light Lime, Tan, Yellowish Green

Stone

Desert - Black, Brown, Dark Grey, Medium Brown, Tan

Sulphuric - Dark Bluish Grey, Dark Grey, Orange, Bright Light Orange, Light Bluish Grey

Mesa - Dark Brown, Light Brown, Dark Orange, Reddish Orange, Salmon

Mountain - Light Brown, Dark Gray, Olive Green, Medium Tan, Very Light Grey

Coastal - Sand Blue, Dark Tan, Light Grey, Tan, Light Blue

Geode - Purple, Magenta, Dark Grey, Light Bluish Grey, Very Light Bluish Grey

Ice

Mountain - Sand Blue, Dark Grey, Light Grey, Light Blue, White

Glacial - Dark Blue, Dark Blue-Violet, Dark Azure, Bright Light Blue, Light Blue

Iron Oxide - Dark Red, Red, Sand Red, Very Light Grey, White

Tundra - Dark Green, Brown, ???, Bright Light Blue, White

Cavern - Dark Turquoise, Dark Azure, Bright Light Blue, Light Blue, Light Aqua

Auroral - Medium Violet, Dark Azure, Light Turquoise, Medium Azure, Light Blue

[jymwahuwu]

hi lani ☺️ I was wondering how you think yandere jing yuan behaves when he’s jealous? the same au where he spam calls/texts reader. what if they ignored him. explaining that they didn’t reply because they were on a phone call for a long time. (and it’s during the late hours) 😗 who would be calling his baby this time of the night? reader has been using dating apps. they even tried to sneak out to go on a real date without telling him!! >_< the general isn’t really their boyfriend by choice, so they are still trying to date 🫢 how would he react to this??

>_< wren please accept my digital hugs!! reading this got me bouncing in a good mood! i was also thinking about what happens when jing yuan is jealous, your creative mind gave me this scenario!!

CW: yandere, dub-con, surveillance, taking photos without permission

Jing Yuan's jealousy is harmless, and that's before you're dating or in a relationship. He just hugs you and mutters that you won't be allowed to meet those people and plans to ruin their good impression on you. But if in this case, it is that you have not responded to his messages, perfunctory, or even sneaked out to date someone…

Jing Yuan has been monitoring your network usage, but he tries to give you a comfortable feeling that you are not in control, so he turns off some detailed feedback, and just checks what you are doing, such as which apps you are using, what The website you are visiting. He misses you late at night and keeps sending you messages asking how you are doing. He sent you a photo, but you still ignored him. He wants to go to your house, but turns on the surveillance camera and finds that you have gone out. What are you doing late at night?

Jing Yuan found that you are using an interstellar dating app. What is his baby doing with the app? Do you want to betray him? You want to cheat on him? He felt his heart tighten. He removed the privacy permissions that were set during the Xianzhou Technology hack to view your personal data on dating apps. Did you… click "Likes" to those people? Which of them has better conditions than him? Who seduced you? He checked your chat history. And these are the content of messages that send messages to each other and are interested in each other. You reply frequently, tell the other person what you like, and even reply to some flirtatious messages. This is totally different from treating him (“Hmm. Got it. Morning. I’m going out, we’ll chat later.”). Jing Yuan's mischievous and relaxed smirk disappeared. The general checked the messages on his phone without expression. Quiet rage; quiet volcanic ash.

No matter what you do for a living, you have found your residence seized for "suspicious criminal reasons." You're forced to look up house information and spend a few nights in a mess. You call your crush on a dating app and ask if he/she/they can help. However, the call cannot be connected. Then, you're shocked to find that person matched with someone else on a dating app and blocked you. Betrayal stings in your heart. With tears in your eyes, you received a message from Jing Yuan. In the message he asks you why you don't live in that place anymore and claims to miss his baby :( He arranged for you to live in his mansion. You have no choice but to say yes.

Jing Yuan didn't hide his intentions and groped you. This is the sweet thing couples should do. The general's strong hands wrap around your waist, pushing against your walls and stretching your pelvis, pumping the warm white seeds inside you. “Jing- Jing Yuan…!!” Like electricity flowing through your depths, and you are convulsed and forced to declare your love for him. That night, in the Xianzhou-style mansion, the birds were resting on the trees, or flying on the windows curiously looking at you carefully. Jing Yuan caresses you while you enjoy your peaceful sleep. He muses for a moment, smiling, before he explores between your thighs with his thick thumbs. He mercilessly gave you another orgasm with his fingers in your sleep before applying the seeds to your face.

The camera of his cell phone is facing you. A photo was taken and sent with an obscene message to the person who had been banished to a remote planet many light-years away. He's already figured out how to pamper you for the rest of the day ^ ^ Maybe it's a little rough, but that's the price of cheating, right?

[mysteryshoptls]

R Leona Kingscholar - Outdoor Wear Vignette

"Beside myself with worry"

To the requestor: Outdoor Wear voice lines can be found here.

[Dwarfs' Mine – Campsite]

―First Day of Vargas Camp

Epel: Woah, here come the fairies again for our campfire! Everyone, be on your guard so it doesn't blow out…!

Spelldrive Club Members: YEAH!

Leona: ….Tch. Yer all so noisy.

Epel: Oh…? Leona-san, you're out of your tent already?

Epel: It was only 20 minutes ago that you said you were gonna take a nap…

Leona: This time of day's got sun so bright it's even lighting up the inside of my tent.

Leona: And right whenever I feel like I could get to sleep, there's you lot all yappin' about them fairies every time they show up...

Leona: There's no way I can grab a few z's like this.

Epel: I'm sorry… Oh, what about heading to the mine, then?

Epel: Just a bit ago, Ruggie-san said something to that regard as he was leaving the campsite.

Epel: He said, if you were to wake up saying it was impossible to sleep here…

Epel: That a "secluded, quiet, and dark mine would be the best place for a nap."

Leona: Ugh… I'm betting Ruggie's planning on roping me into something annoying.

Epel: Huh…? Something annoying?

Leona: Whatever, I guess I'll bite.

Leona: I'm heading to the mine. Don't let those fairies run you ragged.

Epel: Yessir, we'll definitely protect our campfire!

[Dwarfs' Mine – Interior]

[clank, clank, clank!]

Jack: Whew… I can't find a single magestone… What about you, Deuce?

Deuce: I've tried picking all over the place, but… No luck here.

Deuce: Looks like the Spelldrive Club down the way is having trouble too… Guess collecting magestones is actually pretty difficult.

Leona: Can't believe you're all getting tripped up by something this easy. You're all so pathetic, huh.

Spelldrive Club Member A: Oh, Leona-senpai! Did you come to check up on your club members?

Leona: Oh, yeah, sure. I was just so beside myself with worry, 'cause it was taking you all too long to get back.

Leona: …Hey! Listen up, each and every single one of you here! I'll teach you all the trick to finding magestones.

Jack: Eh, you are…?

Deuce: Every one of us…? Does that include all us other clubs too?

Leona: It's just a waste of time if you're just randomly swinging your pickaxes at the rock wall.

Leona: Don't you guys even know how magestones are made?

Leona: Basically, gemstones absorb power from its surroundings and become magestones.

Leona: When you're mining for 'em, you want to locate the faint traces of magical output from those magestones, and start digging in that general area…

Jack: Oh, right. Now that you mention it, we learned that in class. Guess I didn't look over it enough to remember to do that.

Deuce: I see!! Then, I'll get down to it…!

Leona: …Buuut, that's just what they say in the textbooks. That's just what inflexible blockheads would do.

Leona: If you just use your brain, you can get it done faster and easier.

Deuce: Huh? Faster and easier…?

Leona: Just think about what kind of "power" turned those gems into magestones.

Leona: For the Dwarf Mine here, that's "volcanic activity." You shoulda learned that in history of magic.

Leona: So, you just gotta look for tuff in the walls that show evidence of volcanic activity.

Deuce: Tuff?

Leona: It's a type of rock that's built up from an accumulation of volcanic ash. It'll look whitish here.

Deuce: Uhh… So basically… If we can find some white bits in the wall and dig, we should find some magestones!?

Leona: Sure, that's probably the simplest way to put it. It's probably more of a reliable method to find the locations to dig, than to ask some untrained novice to try and trace magical energy.

Leona: I'll even show you how as an example. Hey, you, Spelldrive guy. Come dig where I tell you.

Spelldrive Club Member A: Yes, sir!

[clank, clank, clank…]

[…thunk!]

Leona: …See, there it is. A piece of a magestone.

Deuce: He found one in 5 minutes, even though we had been digging for 2, 3 hours and didn't find anything…!

Deuce: Hey, Jack! Your Housewarden's amazing.

Deuce: Plus, he helped all of us, not just the Spelldrive Club guys. He's a real nice guy.

Jack: Y-Yeah.

Deuce: Hm? Something wrong? You're looking grim.

Jack: No, I mean, I know that Leona-senpai is a amazing, but…

Jack: I always thought he wasn't the type to just proactively help others out, so I was just a little surprised.

Jack: But yeah, you're right. He really is someone worth looking up to!

Deuce: Yeah! Alllright, I'm gonna try looking for a magestone using the method he taught us!

Deuce: Kingscholar-senpai, I successfully found a magestone.

Deuce: THANK YOU VERY MUCH, SIR!

Leona: Well, ain't that good for you.

Deuce: Yes, sir! We're going to head out to receive our badge from Vargas-sensei now. Excuse us.

[Deuce and Jack leave]

Spelldrive Club Member A: Leona-senpai～ Why'd you help out those guys when they're not even a part of our club?

Leona: Don't be stupid. It's not like we're competing against each other or anything. Ain't worth gettin' all heated for nothing.

Leona: No one wants to see their club get abolished. Doesn't that mean we're all on the same team?

Spelldrive Club Member A: You're thinking on a completely different level, Leona-senpai! I should've been as compassionate as you!!

Leona: Hmph… If you've gotten your hand on a magestone, go and collect our badge already.

Spelldrive Club Member A: Yes, sir!

[Spelldrive Club Member leaves]

Leona: …Finally, they're all gone. Ugh, what a pain having to help out all those dunderheads.

Leona: Yaaaawn......… Now I can get some quiet shut eye, at last.

Leona: …Zzz…Zzz…

Requested by Anonymous.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Dry Beast Monday: chinchillas

For over a year now I've been doing weekly Wet Beast Wednesday posts where I do a deep dive on some aquatic animal, and you know what? I'm tired of it! This is now a dry beast blog!* And where better to start than an animal that can literally die if it gets wet? Beasts can't get much dryer than that. So strap in for the first Dry Beast Monday... Dmonday?... Drunday? Whatever, it's the chinchilla.

(Image: a pet chinchilla in a cage, standing upright on a wood platform that has been heavily chewed. It is a rotund mammal with a similar body plan to rabbits, featuring a large head distinct from a round body. Its hind paws are larger than the forepaws and have more distinct toes. Its eyes are almost completely black and it has a flat nose with very long whiskers. The ears are large, rounded, and mostly furless. The tail is bristly hair like a squirrel's and is curled up. Most of its fur is a dark grey but the fur on its underside is white. End ID)

Chinchillas are rodents (the best mammals, fight me) that are members of the family Chinchilladae along with the viscachas. There are two living species of chinchilla: the long-tailed chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera) and the short-tailed chinchilla (Chinchilla chinchilla, formerly Chinchilla brevicaudata). The two species can produce sterile hybrid offspring. Domesticated chinchillas are descended from the long-tailed chinchilla. All chinchillas are medium-sized rodents with powerful back legs, long whiskers, large ears, and extremely dense fur. In comparison, the short-tailed chinchilla is larger and has a shorter tail, thicker and less distinct neck and shoulders, and smaller ears. The most famous feature of chinchillas is their fur. At about 20,000 hairs per square centimeter, chinchillas have the second densest fur of any mammal, second only to sea otters. Each hair follicle grows up to 50 hairs, compared to human follicles, which only grow 1. The fur is famous for being incredibly soft, often described as velvety. If you've never felt a chinchilla its really hard to describe just how soft they are. The fur is so dense because Chinchillas live in the highlands of the Andes mountains where it gets very cold. The fur is used for insulation and even with it being so thick, chinchillas still need to bask in the sun to warm themselves up. The fur is actually the reason why chinchillas can't get wet. Their fur is so dense that wanter can't evaporate easily, instead remaining around long enough for fungus to start growing in the fur. This can lead to a lot of different skin conditions and infections that can be lethal. When chinchillas bathe, they take dust baths. By rolling around in volcanic ash, the can work the ash into their fur, where it absorbs oils, moisture, and other contaminants. This keeps the fur clean and healthy. Domestic chinchillas need specially made dust for their baths. It cannot be substituted with sand or other materials. Chinchillas can release chunks of their fur in order to escape from predators, leaving the predator holding nothing but a tuft of hair while the chinchilla runs away. This is called fur drop and in domestic chinchillas it can be a sign of mishandling or stress. Wild chinchillas have grey fur, but domestic breeds have been bread to have other colors of fur, including white and black. Chinchillas can't sweat, which isn't a problem in their natural habitat, but is for domestic chinchillas. The only way for them to cool down is to expose their ears (which are hairless and heavily vascularized) to wind. Chinchillas in temperatures at or above 26 degrees C (80 F) are at risk of having heat strokes. Daytime in the Andes can exceed those temperatures, so chinchillas hide in burrows during the day. Chinchillas are very skilled at jumping, able to leap up to 1.8 meters (6 ft). Their hind legs are longer than the forelegs and provide propulsion when walking or jumping. The toes has fleshy pads called papillae that help them grip onto surfaces. Chinchillas live in arid, rocky conditions and are skilled at leaping between rocks. The tails act like rudders, providing stability and direction when leaping. The front feet are capable of gripping and picking up objects. Females tend to be larger than the males, but there is otherwise little visual difference between the sexes. Wild short-tailed chinchillas can reach 38 cm (including tail) and 800 grams while wild long-tailed chinchillas can reach 26 cm (including tail) and 450 grams. Domestic chinchillas can get up to twice the size of their wild relatives.

(Image: a wild long-tailed chinchilla sitting under a rock. Its body plan is the same as the pet chinchilla above, but its fur is a lighter grey End ID)

(Image: a short-tailed chinchilla in captivity. It has a less distinct neck than the long-tailed chinchilla, making it look like its head merges with the body. Its tail is shorter than that of the long-tailed chinchilla, making up about 1/5th of its length as compared to the long-tailed chinchilla's 1/3rd. End ID)

Chinchillas are social animals that live in colonies called herds that can reach up to 100 members. Females dominate the herds and can be aggressive toward each other, though physical fights are rare. The herd cooperates when finding food, always having at least one member acting as a lookout to spot predators while the rest feed. They communicate vocally, with 10 types of vocalizations on record for. Social behaviors include grooming, playing, and friendly nibbling of each other's ears. Pet chinchillas should never be kept alone. They should be in same-sex groups of at least 2. Chinchillas are crepuscular, active mostly at dawn and dusk. During the day and night, they are usually found hiding in burrows or crevices between rocks, where they can avoid predators and high or low temperatures. They are primarily herbivores, but will supplement their diets with insects and other bugs. Most of their diet consists of grasses, seeds, and succulents and cacti. Wild ones almost never drink water, instead getting all of their hydration from their food. Chinchilla digestive systems are fairly specialized to their food. Domestic chinchillas need special-formulated food and can only have wooden chew toys form certain species of wood. Fresh or dried fruit is good for a treat, but should not be a regular part of their diet as they have a lot of sugar. As with all rodents, the incisors grow continuously through the animal's entire life and need to be worn down by chewing on things.

It is surprisingly hard to find good-quality images of wild chinchillas. Most of the time when you search for wild chinchilla pictures what you get are either domestic chinchillas or viscachas.

(Image: a trail-cam shot of two wild long-tailed chinchillas. The photo is i black-and-white. One is in the foreground on all fours while another is on its hind feet in the background, standing on a rock. The terrain is rocky and the chinchillas are next to a shrub. The camera's light makes their eyes appear to glow white. End ID)

(Image: a wild short-tailed chinchilla that is part of a relocation effort. Its fur is light grey with darker patches. A gloved human hand is reaching in from the right side of the image. End ID)

Male chinchillas appear to be fertile year-round, but females only enter estrus during the winter, from May to November in their natural habitat. Gestation takes around 120 days in both species and both species typically have two litters a year (a low rate for a small mammal). Offspring (called kits) are born well-developed, with fur and open eyes, and can run as soon as they are born. They nurse for 6-8 weeks before being weaned. 1-6 kits are born at a time, with 2 being the usual number. Chinchillas are monogamous, mating for life. Either partner can initiate mating, which they do so with hair-pulling. Unusually for rodents, male chinchillas do provide care for their offspring. Members of the same herd will help each other with parenting. Female chinchillas have been known to adopt the kits of other females who can't nurse due to health issues. Females are usually dominant due to their size. Chinchillas become sexually mature at around 8 months. In the wild they can live for 10 years, which is doubled in captivity.

(Image: an adult domestic chinchilla with a juvenile. The juvenile is smaller than the adult, with proportionally larger head and limbs and proportionally smaller tail. The two of them are nuzzling their snouts together. End ID)

The name chinchilla comes from the Chincha people of the Andes, who hunted chinchillas for their fur and meat. This hunting increased vastly after European colonization of South America. Between hunting and trapping, both species of chinchilla were brought to near extinction and vastly reduced their native range. Both species are now only found in Chile and have been granted legal protection. The IUCN switched their classifications between Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered for a while. As of 2016, both species are classified as Endangered, upgraded from Critically Endangered as their populations have seen some improvement. Poaching, both for fur and capture for sale as pets, is still a large threat to wild chinchillas. Their close cousins, the viscachas, are doing much better as they were not hit as hard by the fur trade. The domestication of the long-tailed chinchilla is thanks to Mathias F. Chapman, an engineer who became fascinated with the animals after meeting a native person who was trying to sell one. He ended up getting permission from the government of Chile to capture several and import them to the USA. It took him 3 years to catch enough that he considered suitable for breeding, 11 in total. He then spend over a year gradually bringing them down from the highlands to sea level, giving them plenty of time to acclimate to the lower altitude. Once in the USA, Chapman started breeding his chinchillas in a farm in California, though he had to deal with medical problems and a thief stealing half of his stock. Eventually, though, his experiment paid off. The vast majority of all domesticated chinchillas today are descended from those original 11, brought to the states in 1923. Chinchillas today are raised in captivity for their fur, for use as laboratory animals, and as pets. While both species are raised in captivity for fur, the domesticated chinchilla is descended from the long-tailed chinchilla and short-tailed chinchillas apparently do not make as good pets.

(Image: a black-and-white photo of Mathias F. Chapman, a white man with a large nose wearing a shirt and tie. A chinchilla is standing on his leg and looking at the camera while he looks at the chinchilla. End ID)

* April Fools

[metamorphesque]

I feel things happening around me that are not real. I must be in a dream, or in a movie, or watching a movie on an airplane in a dream. On the other side of the field there are blossom trees in full bloom. They are pale, barely pink, like branches covered in fake snow. I hear the wind begin to rise and think of how in movies, the wind is always a sound at first. I push my hair out of my eyes and see petals fall from the trees in thick waves like something from a Miyazaki film. The sky is that same imaginary blue. My first thought is not of snow but of volcanic ash, of children shaking white dust out of their hair. A layer of white petals on the grass. If the wind kept shaking the trees and the ash flowers kept falling and everything became coated in dust petals they would soon get in our eyes, in our pockets, in our shoes, inside our mouths. You belong nowhere in this spring apocalyptic scene—I didn’t build it for you—but soon you are standing next to me looking at me but not straight at me and we are laughing and making handprints in the dust, listening to the wind blow them away.

Miyazaki Bloom, Nina Mingya Powles

[chronically-ghosted]

Third Base.

rating: 18+, explicit

pairing: max phillips x f!reader

word count: 9K

summary: after the last session went awry, you and max don't know how to be around each other. two months after a blow out fight, max catches you in the parking lot and decides it's time to talk.

warnings: angst, is that plot i smell? period sex (oral), impossible positions but he has super strength and doesn't breathe so shut up, semi-public sex, car sex, some briefly scary imagery (it's a dream), monsterfucking, mentions of a car accident and injuries related, arguing, max being a dick

a/n: MASSIVE shoutout to @jupiter-soups , @beardedjoel , @gasolinerainbowpuddles , @covetyou and @huffle-punk for giving me their blessing to do a vampire + period sex fic. The discord ladies really came in clutch here 👌i hope this makes you as horny as that thread made me

i wanted to get this out by halloween, but that didn't fucking happen so here's a fic that mentions halloween as a plot device. fun fact: orgasms can bring on your period early so no it’s not your 🐈 that’s sore it’s your uterus lining shuffling off

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You’re warm. Everything is warm. You’ve sunk beneath a fresh layer of volcanic ash, heartbeat pulsing with the lazy roll of molten lava at the heart of the mountain. Hands outstretched, you can’t find the edge of the mattress because there isn’t one. 

There is only warmth and rocking, gentle waves.

There is only this.

There is only him. 

Shoulders hunched between your legs, his tongue is a hard muscle, leverage against which you grind and shift and when you find that spot together, you throb in sync with the rush of blood to your cunt and sink a little deeper into the endless sheets that flutter against your skin like paper in the wind. 

Your lips form the shape of his name but in the sigh that leaves your mouth, you can’t be sure if you called out to him or if everything coherent had been swallowed up in a cry of listless pleasure. But he responds all the same. The vibrations in his chest between your thighs, his tongue wrapped around your clit, nearly tear you over the edge that very second – you cry out, not wanting this to end, not wanting to leave this hearth of him, folded over you as if you were made of fine ceramic and he was a fiery kiln. You arch, your release dangerously close, and his grip around your thighs tightens, tightens, pulling you deeper down into his face, his nose, that wicked, wicked tongue, and his grip tightens and it hurts. His fingers, his nails, pinch down into you, your flesh swells between his knuckles as if he’s going to tear straight through your skin, your muscles, your bones – and you yelp. 

It’s not fun any more.

You struggle, but he’s on you too tight, a riptide sucking you under. You try and kick him off, push him off with your hands but it’s no use.

Everything is cold and metal and it hurts and you’re begging him to let you go, let you live, when those fangs, as sharp and jagged as steak knives, suddenly embed themselves in your thigh. Your hips jerk with the force of it, with the agony as he slices your femoral artery and drinks deep. And then he bites your other thigh, tearing through your flesh, turning the cradle of your thighs into dripping viscera. 

Max, you think you beg, the fight all but drained out of you as your blood flows freely from between his fingers, from the gashes in your thighs, your throat, your wrists. He’s torn out chunks of you and swallowed them whole. 

Max.

The creature lifts its head, its eyes blood-red, pupils black as the darkest night, mouth twisted and wrenched open screaming, four glistening bone-white fangs, dripping blood, your blood, your life, your flesh. Begging won’t save you now. 

It snarls, the sound pinching off like a dying woman’s scream, inch-long talons tearing up your hips as it crawls forward, crawls into your throat and just before it delivers the killing bite, it whispers:

You asked for this.

The first thing you see when you jerk out of the nightmare is the crease of your pillow, looking up at it from the plush of your mattress. Your cheek smushed into your blue sheets, duvet tangled between your legs, the horror of the nightmare still pressed into the corners of your brain like a tacky, sticky film, you can’t quite understand what you’re looking at. The adrenaline is fast in your blood, heart pounding, your unconscious mind unable to determine what is real and what is not, safety or danger, and your fingers dig into your sleep shorts, arms tucked up underneath you. You blink twice, the headache from yesterday returning, your swollen, black eye almost immediately painful, and then you realize the pounding you hear is not your final heartbeats, but someone at your door. 

That buzzing is not the last conscious thoughts in your head fizzling out, but your phone on silent, humming incessantly. Groaning from the pins and needles that shoot up your arm after having slept on it all night, you flop onto your back, your other wrist twinging painfully in its flesh-colored wrap, as you crawl to the edge of your bed – which is thankfully in sight. You can’t pick up your phone with your dead-fish arm and your twisted wrist so you answer the call without looking and put it on speaker.

“Hello?” 

“Why aren’t you at work?” His voice is clipped, short, pissed. As if he was your actual boss and not the sales manager, while you worked in legal. After the dream, it immediately sets you on edge. Every major part of you is sore and hurts, either from the accident, or sleeping so hard you figured you briefly went into a coma. 

“What’s it matter to you? I called my department and told them I’d be out.”

“Yeah, and I had to find out from Tim.” The pounding from down the hall gets louder and suddenly you connect the two. It should be illegal to be this furious minutes after waking up. “Open the door,” he snaps into the silence over the phone. 

“Are you fucking serious right now? You’re at my apartment?”

“Yes, now open the fucking door.” 

You chew your lip because you genuinely do not want to see him right now. There’s a reason you called Tim to pick you up after someone T-boned the back of your car yesterday evening and the plausible excuse is that he lives in the same apartment complex as you. 

“Open the door right now or I swear –,”

“Alright, jesus. Gimme a fuckin’ –,”

You shrug on your cardigan, hissing as you bend your shoulder. 

“What was that?” You swear his voice takes on an edge, catching on something and tearing just enough to let something vulnerable bleed through. 

“It’s nothing – I –,” you twist your other shoulder into the arm of the cardigan, the phone pinched up against your ear. “Jesus – okay, fuck this, just stay there and don’t break down my door.”

You pound the red button with your thumb and launch your phone onto your bed before you limp lightly down the hall, the weight on your right ankle just a little less than on your left. It’s half a second difference in your regular gait, but something tells you he’ll know.

He’s across your threshold before you have the door fully open, glaring around your dark apartment as if it personally had a hand in keeping him outside in the hallway. There’s something frenetic in the way he moves, in the way he stands, even if he is completely still. It’s the same sort of wired energy that is usually reserved for end-of-quarter deadlines, isolated to sustained knee bouncing or wearing out the spring of a pen with one too many clicks. Max is . . . uneasy.

“Well?” He rounds on you, hands on his hips, as if you’d just been caught pilfering through the company supply cabinet for ink cartridges to sniff and get high. You’d never been on the receiving end of Max’s bad temper before – in fact, you’d been the solution to it for quite some time now. You’d seen him go off on a vendor that screwed up an order or chew out the competition, but not this. Not that tense jaw that can’t find a place to settle, eyes narrowed in warning. Don’t test me. 

“Well, what?” Maybe you should have changed out of your pastel blue pajamas before coming to face your co-worker/occasional sex-fiend/boyfriend(?) but it’s too late now. You try to stand as tall as you can, arms crossed. 

“You wanna tell me why you weren’t at work today and I had to hear from Tim – fucking sandwich-eating, wormy-mustache, sword-dildo Tim – that you’d been in a goddamn car accident.”

“It was minor and he lives in my building,” you respond, chin high.

His eyebrows arch as his mouth twists indignantly. “So minor your car wasn’t drivable?”

Point 1 for Max. You bristle, fighting the heat on your cheeks. “It was just easier to call him. He picked me up, dropped me off with some painkillers and some juice, and left. I didn’t fuck him if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

He picks up on a thread you didn’t expect him to follow. “He gave you . . . juice?” 

“Yes. His sister is a nurse and it was something about the adrenaline and sugar in orange juice – and I don’t know – it was comforting, at the time.”

“Comforting?” He asks like it’s a foreign concept. Something alien and unnatural. “What, like he gave you a hug or something?”

Your stomach turns on something sour. “Sure, Max, yeah. He could see I was upset and he did the terrible, horrible thing of giving me a hug when he saw I was in pain.”

“So was it a minor accident or not?” He takes a step forward and you remember how much bigger he is than you. How wide his hands are. “Fuck, can you turn on a light? I’m fucking straining to see anything.”

The migraine had set in moments after you closed the door behind Tim and like a creature retreating to lick their wounds, you shut off every single light in your apartment and close the blinds tight. You stick a comment about vampire sight up between your teeth and switch on the lamp by your couch. 

You catch a glimpse of that pretty face cut with sharp, angry lines and flared nostrils, before it flickers, fades out when he spots the black eye, the wrist splint you forget to hide with your sleeve before it’s too late, the way you hold your weight off your sensitive ankle. 

For some reason, you can’t look him in the eyes, so you watch as the taut line of his shoulders deflates, his wide hands with his thick fingers slide bonelessly off his hips, how he stands up right instead of that aggressive forward lean, reserved only for what you thought he saw as enemies.

He swallows whatever was sitting behind his teeth and stares.

Where he had been even temporarily vulnerable with you days ago, it’s your turn to shy away, hiding your tender spots. 

Guilt washes up to your eyeballs the longer he stares silently, taking in every bruise and bump. You hate the fact you feel guilty, and you hate that you don’t know where the guilt comes from or why it sits so heavy in your chest. 

The truth of the matter is you did think about calling him. In fact, he was the first name you pulled up on your now cracked phone, but sitting on a curb outside of a gas station as a tow truck came to take your car away, you scrolled down past him. 

The truth of the matter is Max hasn’t been back in your apartment since the night you went to second base and he bit you on your tit. In fact, he’s been avoiding you in the office for days now. When he wouldn’t meet your eyes over the coffee machine, it became easier and easier to wonder if this was the same man who set out all those candles for you, who put down all of those insane precautions to keep himself from going too far, who couldn’t help but vibrate with pleasure as he drank from you. First base had gone over without a hitch, but something went wrong that night and he’d sooner let the relationship fizzle out than talk about it. 

The following shower that night had been awkward and uncomfortable, too close and the steam too hot. He left shortly there after, only a handful of mumbled words exchanged, and he hadn’t come back.

So, maybe, sitting there, your head aching, your wrist pinching, you wanted him to feel as abandoned as you had.

“I’m a little . . . banged up, alright?” Your fingertips brush the edges of the Ace bandage around your palm when your fingers curl and uncurl, your head tilted just off center as if you could hide the swelling from him. “Nothing that a few days of rest can’t fix, so you really didn’t need to come over.”

“Rest and juice, right?” The look in his eyes is raw, rubbed down into nothingness, blackness, totality. 

“Oh, fuck off,” you snap, “it wasn’t like that and you fucking know it.” 

His head tilts as if considering your words, or considering something else, and by the time you open your eyes in a millisecond blink, he’s got your chin in his palm, his fingers curled up your cheek, thumb firmly pressed into your jaw. Dark eyes roving, he’s inspecting every cut, every bruise, every hair out of place. 

Irate at the hot flush low in your stomach at the way he grips you, you push against his chest, yowling out some disgruntled noise, but that only makes him squeeze you tighter. He doesn’t even look you in the eye. 

“I’ve healed much worse than this,” he murmurs, breath smelling deliciously of mint and not a hint of anything metallic. “Especially on you.” 

His thumb brushes dangerously close to the rim of your purple and green eye and while even the slightest touch stings, it’s nothing compared to the bite of pain his words and soft tone inflict. You give him one more good shove and he backs off, thumb swiping briefly against your chin. His mouth is a straight line when he finally meets your glare. 

“I didn’t call you because I didn’t think you gave a shit, Max.” You’ve been in tense business negotiations all your adult life so standing your ground and not crying is something that has become second nature to you. And yet, your eyes grow hot and tight all the same. You’re not crying, but your body is remembering how good it feels to do so. “Ever since that night, you’ve been acting like I’m diseased or something. You made it pretty clear we’re not actually dating, so I called Tim because it was the path of least resistance. I was tired and I hurt and I didn’t want anything complicated. And I didn’t tell you because quite frankly I didn’t think you’d notice I wasn’t there unless the breeze blew the wrong way and your dick got hard.” Every unanswered text and call straight to voicemail over the last two weeks flashes in your mind and your wrist twinges painfully as you gesture to your bedroom. “Because that’s what this is, right? Just a good fuck? A good time? For the record, you didn’t ruin that lingerie set. I put it on cold in the washer and the blood came right out, okay? Everything is totally fucking fine.”

You don’t realize how loud you’d gotten until your apartment rings with silence. It is the absence of noise, of only one set of lungs in use, that makes it so loud. 

Max’s jaw still hasn’t found a place to settle, to calm himself. He purses his lips as his bottom teeth grind against the top. His eyes are unreadable, black coals in his head, instead of that gooey warmth you swear you’ve only seen in your direction. He swallows once before opening his mouth.

“So then, do you want me to fix you? Just so we can get back to fucking and I can get what I came here for.”

Soft. Quiet. A rattlesnake you don’t see coming until its fangs are in your foot, pumping you full of poison. 

“Get the fuck out of my house. Right now. Leave.”

As if mocking you, he walks out the front door. He could be out and gone before you draw your next breath, but he chooses to click his fucking Armani leather shoes across your tile, open the door – the knob demonstrably small in his massive hand – and slam shut so hard the painting on the wall shudders. 

If the shower had been a separation by omission, this had been the real thing.

The heat behind your eyes becomes unbearable, sharp, painful as you begin to choke on everything you didn’t say to him lodged in your throat. Vision blurry, you yank your curtains close and flip the light switch, plunging the apartment back into darkness. 

It’s not until you’re curled up on your side in bed, duvet over your head, that the tears come. They’re silent, you’ve only ever known how to cry silently, but they fall fast, dripping off your nose. You squeeze your eyes shut and your black eye throbs, a thunderbolt in a storm. You cry out and touching it makes it worse and you cry because it hurts and you cry because you’re pathetic and you cry because, worst of all, you didn’t make Max realize what a fucking asshole he is.

It’s not until you wake up at two in the morning, suddenly and without a descent, that you realize Max walked into your apartment without a jacket on, his sleeves rolled up and his tie loose. As if he had heard the news and immediately left the office to come to you.

Days pass. And days turn into weeks. It’s two months later and you haven’t heard a word from him.

Everyone at the office has been very considerate about your injuries – holding doors for you as you hobbled through them, your team taking on more client-facing calls while your eye healed, typing up the last bits of the reports when your wrist started to ache. For a company that employed literal hell-spawn, you’d been rather touched by the kindness everyone showed you. 

Even Tim. Who offered, after clarifying he definitely wasn’t hitting on you (if only because he feared the legal repercussions you could bring down on him like a smiting hammer) to drive you home while your car got fixed. Those nights when Evan sat in the back because they were headed to a DnD session afterwards were always a little awkward. 

Everyone helped out, except one person. A significant person that made your chest twinge every time you saw his door close seconds after you came into the breakroom. You could hear your sister’s scolding voice now: never fuck where you eat.

For sleeping with a vampire, you supposed that statement was doubly true. 

As the world turned towards winter, night came early and stayed longer, eager for mischief. The air grew thin, cold, trees sagging, turning brown, and molting. There’s a smell to the air that usually excites you, usually makes you smile and yearn for your couch and a long movie night. But not this time.

Halloween falls on a Monday this year and given the majority of its workforce still remember when it was called Samhain, it’s a company holiday. Ahead of a long weekend, this late, the office is empty. With nothing (and no one) to greet you at home, you stay until it could be officially counted as pathetic to keep working in an empty and dark building, before powering down your laptop, gathering your things for what you foresee as just a long working weekend, and locking your office for the night. 

Paper bats hung from the ceiling, with orange and black table clothes thrown over tables in the break room. Cardboard witches and zombies grinned wickedly from the dark corners, woolen webs with freakishly large spiders hiding near the ceiling. The office manager, Carla, has really outdone herself this year, you think, as you unplug the rows of purple and orange lights looping around the ceiling tiles. With your leftover lasagna from Amanda (who insisted you still needed someone to make you dinner), you flick off any remaining lights, the red exit signs guiding you out in the dark. 

His office door is open, not unheard of but not common. 

The room is dark, so maybe he left early and just forgot to lock up. Your chest tightens at the thought that he ran out of there in a hurry because he was eager to meet up with someone, a pretty someone who looked great in a set of heels and had a fang fetish. You swallow; one of a dozen scenarios you’ve tortured yourself with over the past few weeks, particularly painful. 

It’s strange, to go on and live your life when there has been a fundamental and irrevocable change, when there is nothing where there once was something – an outline almost visible as though the air itself was trying desperately to remember, to hold on. 

Your eyes grow hot and you blame it on season allergies when you wipe your eyes with your palm. You blame it on the steady headache you’ve had all day. You blame it on the irritability that’s been rubbing you the wrong way for days now. You blame it on the lack of sleep you can never seem to get enough of. Fuck, is it possible to drink yourself into a wine coma? You’d really love to find out. 

Without the sun, the wind is particularly chilling, curling over the collar of your jacket and pinching the back of your neck. Your feet ache, the plastic holding the lasagna is starting to sweat, and you’re pretty sure you’ve got a run in your nylons. Fighting back a shiver, you unlock your car and toss everything into the passenger’s seat when you hear your name. 

For a fraction of a second, you think it’s the wind. That your mind has been circling its own loneliness for so long, it’s taking pity on your pathetic ass and imagining comfort out of thin air. But you hear it again, stilling with one foot in your car, hand on the door. Your name – quiet, reserved, purposeful. 

So unlike him. 

“Can we talk?”

Just get in the car. Just get in, turn it on, and drive. Your fingers bite into the cold metal. 

“Max, it’s late and I’m exhausted –,” 

“Then I’ll make it quick.” 

His long coat flutters around his knees in the uneasy breeze, his hands in his pockets. You can’t really see his face in the shadows between the streetlights. 

You haven’t moved. One foot on the floor of your car, hand on the door. He sighs and tugs at the tie around his neck. You wait.

“You said you’d be quick –,”

His jaw ticks, finds your gaze for the first time. “It’s fucking freezing out – can I at least sit in the car?”

“There’s lasagna.” Max had the unique capacity to trigger your most basic instincts seemingly out of nowhere. Where did he get off demanding anything? You want to stomp your foot and stick your tongue out. “I mean, you have to move the lasagna . . . and some other stuff.”  

Briefly thankful for the dark shadows to hide your childish blush, you plop into the car seat without looking back at him. His figure moves around the car and you make the express decision to make him deal with all your shit in the passenger's seat. But to your enormous surprise (and swelling embarrassment), he gathers your briefcase, the plastic container, and your empty coffee mug without comment and puts them gently in the backseat – without flinging them or sighing like he just moved mountains. 

Your fingers curl over the stiff steering wheel as he folds his long legs into the car, fighting with his jacket, and grunting a bit when his knees press up against the dashboard. The click as his seat slides backwards to make room is painfully audible. 

The overhead light in your car fades long before either of you say anything. 

“Max, it’s cold and I wanna go home–,”

“Okay, okay, sorry – fuck –,” he twists the coat tighter around his chest, sliding low in his seat like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Okay. It’s just . . . this isn’t easy and I don’t –,” 

“You don’t what?” You snap, rounding on him, patience finally running out. “You don’t know how to apologize for being a fucking asshole?” 

“No – I mean, yeah, but –,” 

“So you admit it! You were being a shit and you know it!” 

“It’s not like it’s that fucking simple–,” 

“Yeah, it is. It really is, Max. You got scared the last time we were together and you took it out on me the first chance you got.” 

He shoves his palms into his eyes. “Okay, yes, I was scared, but not then. I mean, it freaked me out a little bit, but . . . it wasn’t the bite that got to me.” 

“Yeah? Then what was?” 

He huffs, lowering his hands slowly, his shoulders curving in as his hands drop into his lap. “You told Tim and not me. And,” he adds quickly at your rapidly reddening face, “and for about fifteen minutes, I didn’t know if you were alive or not. I just heard ‘not at work’ and ‘car accident’ and I assumed the worst . . . and because of the way I’ve treated this relationship, you didn’t think about calling me just to let me know you were okay. And . . . I fucked up.” 

You blink. Slowly, then several times rapidly. “You were scared that you lost me.” 

That pained grimace deepens and he scowls at you like you called his Tonka Toy Truck stupid. 

“Don’t say it like that. It makes me sound pathetic.” 

You scowl back. “Would it kill you to be genuine for two seconds? It’s okay to have feelings. Even ones about me.” 

“Of course I have feelings for you,” he rolls his eyes and you want to bite him on his finger. “Why would I put us both through the fucking ringer just so I can bite you if I didn’t care about you?”

“So then if you can easily admit that you have feelings for me, why were you so fucking awkward that last time? Why didn’t you answer your phone? Why were you so fucking mean to me at my apartment?”

“Because I don’t wanna keep this a secret anymore!” 

Your car feels abnormally cramped as all the air is sucked out with a vacuum. But, as a vampire, maybe that’s not a problem for him. 

Or maybe if he stops, he’ll never be able to get it all out. 

His eyes are wide, his broad shoulders pressed up against the door, as if he is trying to escape the confines of the car, or look at you straight on. 

“I want to be the one you call when there’s a problem, not fucking Tim. I want you to know I’d never, ever hurt you, no matter how blood drunk I was. I want . . . I want to stay overnight at your apartment and I want . . .” he trails off, swallowing over the words that are seemingly choking him. “I want to be your . . .”

He murmurs something and you assume you didn’t hear him because you are simply too shocked.

“What?”

Max groans and puts his hands over his face as if he is being physically tortured. 

“I wanna be your boyfriend. In public. At work. All the time. I wanna . . . I wanna tell people I’m your boyfriend and you’re my girlfriend.” He makes a face and sticks his tongue out, grimacing. “And I wanna fucking graduate kindergarten apparently. Get married on the blacktop. Blegh.”  

As he wrestles with the apparently juvenile terms, you fall into speechlessness. There’s a dozen emotions flashing through you like fire embers: relief, anger, embarrassment, curiosity, joy, sadness –

Desire.

Watching his tongue roll around in his mouth, even comically, reminds you exactly why you entered into this relationship/not relationship with him in the first place. 

Mouth finally closing, he lifts his gaze to you, chin tilted down, and you can almost imagine the ears turned back and low on his head.

“And I know that’s not what you want. I didn’t want to say anything but then it all just fucking snowballed, and it’s been killing me not being around you, so when I saw you leave tonight, I thought–,”

“Why do you think that’s not what I want?” Your heart rises, just a bit, in your chest, and you feel it tap against your breastbone. “Why wouldn’t I want to go public?”

Max watches you cautiously, eyebrows drawn down. “HR nightmare for one. But in the beginning, since we didn’t, you know, go public then, I just figured . . . Figured you’d want to end it before calling me your boyfriend.”

“But you didn’t want that either, in the beginning, right?”

He nods, suspicious.

“But things changed for you. And . . . you know . . . things might have changed for me too.”

God, maybe your mom can take pictures of you two together at the kindergarten graduation ceremony. Why is this so fucking hard to talk about? 

Max blinks at you, his turn to be struck silent. 

“So, theoretically, if I stop being an asshole and you call me for all your rides home, I can call you my girlfriend to Tim’s stupid face?” 

“If you’re ready to deal with the HR nightmare,” you say, meaning that and a handful of other things. If you really want to deal with all of that for me.

You swear Max’s eyes twinkle gold for a second. 

“Um, yeah. I mean, I am if you are.”

“I am if you are.”

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.” 

A grin sparks across his face, the tension leaving his jaw. Joy crinkles in the corners of his eyes.

“Then I wanna kiss you first.”

Your heart is now knocking between your breastbone and your throat. You nod, swallowing nerves. 

“Finally, something we agree on.” 

For the first time in your memory, Max moves slow, hesitantly, but encouraged by the smirk on your lips. The car still feels small, but now in the best way possible. He leans forward, the console in the middle squeaking as you press your forearm against it, his hand sinking into your hair, nails against your scalp. 

You smell mint, coffee, and finally, something coppery. 

You lick your lip a second before his slot against yours. 

It’s chaste, as chaste as kissing Max Phillips can be. A thoughtful moment of rediscovery, of possibility, of relieved familiarity. He knows just how to turn his head, to press into you, to make you sigh into his mouth.

“Am I forgiven?” He teases, his voice soft and quiet, eyes half open as they take in every pore and feature of your face.

Desire, buttery and warm, melts into sticky arousal between your thighs. The fingers on his chest dig in as you grasp at the material to drag him closer. 

“I think you owe me a base, slugger.”

Max’s eyes widen. “Here? Now?”

“I’m pretty sure the office building is locked up, so unless you have another suggestion–,” 

He groans, hands immediately tugging around your knees to pull you literally out of your seat and into his lap. He grinds your hips down against him, as if he couldn’t help it, and you gasp, embarrassingly turned on from his hands on your hips and his sudden show of strength. That goddamn vampire strength. 

“I missed you so much, you fucking freak,” he mouths against your cheek, his hand squeezing your thigh once before curling around your neck and yanking you into his hot mouth. Your muffled noise comes across as protest and surprise, but he keeps you pinned, his lips and teeth and tongue fighting over themselves to get to your skin first.  “I’ll give you any base you fucking want, but I wanna neck in this car for a bit.”

You nod, quelling the flush of heat between your thighs and the subsequent whimper by burying your hands under his jacket, under his blazer, and tugging his shirt out from his waistband. His skin is cold, despite three layers of clothing and a heated seat. 

Max grunts as you palm his stomach, muscles tightening, and he dips his mouth to your ear, your cheek, your neck. The brush of teeth against your hammering pulse point carries only the threat of pain. His tongue circles your vein like a bullseye. 

His fingers knotted in your hair, Max rolls his hips once, breaking off the kiss to watch the shiver go through you and end in a subtle moan that has you knocking your forehead into his shoulder. 

He mouths your ear, that soft skin just below it, hands rubbing up your hips and inching your skirt up your thighs. 

“Are you sure you want it here?” His words are as gentle as his lips — which is to say not at all. He roughly captures your mouth again before you can answer and sucks your bottom lip between his teeth as if he can bleed the answer from you.

He’s kissing you so hard, your back nudges the dashboard. You respond in retaliation; swirl his tongue with yours like a goddamn preview, hands low on his groin as you push him back. 

“Yes,” you murmur against his mouth. “Yes, Max, please. Here.”

“Then we’re moving the fucking lasagna again.” 

He twists you as he opens the car door, and immediately the wet patch between your thighs is slapped by the cold air. You stumble, shuddering, your nipples tightening in the chilly air. But he’s already knocking everything on the back seat to the floor. Grabbing you and guiding you by your hips to lay back against the pleather and spreading your knees with the brush of his thumbs, his eyes darken as if he can see through your skirt and nylons. Like he can hear your cunt throb for him.

He hovers over you, his Armani fucking shoes hanging off the seat as he kneels on the seat, seemingly struck silent by the sight of you, even with all your clothes on. 

“Max,” you say against the swelling in your chest, “you can bite my calf if biting near my pussy is too much.”

Just the mention of that wet, warm place he is so ridiculously fond of has drawn his attention back from his distant thoughts. 

“So I can’t eat your pussy after I eat your pussy?”

“If you think you can handle it,” you nudge at his elbow with your toes, “go for it.”

Over his shoulder, you can see the wind tug on his jacket, hear it ghost over the treetops, but with his thick, broad body over you, you feel nothing but warm. Max unbuttons his collar and slides his already loose tie from around his neck. He tickles your nose with it before dropping it onto the floor. 

“Leaving this within reach in case you need to scream into something, okay?”

You roll your eyes, flushed hot at the idea that you’re about to have semi-public sex. “You’ve been gone for a while. Maybe you’ve lost your touch.”

Something in his eyes grows dark, sharp, and his chin tilts just slightly. 

“I guess you’ll have to judge that for yourself.” He pushes up your shirt to your throat, exposing your white linen bra (that’s what you get for assuming your sex life was over) and your twitching stomach to his hot, wandering gaze. Before you can pretend to protest being cold, he drops his mouth to the swell of your breast and teases your nipple with his teeth. “You tell me if I’ve lost my touch.”

Immediately, a full body shiver radiates from where his lips suck and you stretch out against the leather, eyes fluttering open and shut. He hasn’t earned a moan yet, a fact he seems acutely aware of when his eyes flick up to watch your face as he palms your other breast. He digs one finger over the cup, curling over the material and grazing your nipple with his nail, when you shake your head. 

“Too public,” you breathe, as you wrap your legs around his waist, tugging him against you because you want to feel how much this affects him too. “Someone could see.”

“But you want me to eat you out? That’s not too public?” He grins as he tucks his face into your neck, lazily rolling his hips because he knows that’s exactly what you want. 

“Just stick your head up my skirt.”

He stills, teeth ghosting your skin. “Yeah?”

You feel him twitch against your thigh and you have to remind yourself not to ask him to full out fuck you in the backseat of your car. You nod, your chin ruffling his hair. His grip on your ribcage tightens, an errant thumb swiping the underside of your breast, as he lets out a noise somewhere between a grunt and a moan.

“Have I told you you’re a fucking freak and how much I love it?”

Your toes curl in your shoes, heart in your ears, and blood hot under your skin. Just as he moves to shuffle back, you cup the back of his neck, turning your teeth and lips to his ear, the hairs there as soft as peach fuzz.

“No. I’m a monsterfucker.”

The sound that escapes him is no longer human, deep, jagged, a warning cry to hunted prey, and you feel just a prick of fangs against your neck. Immediately that rush of endorphins bows your back, a Pavlovian response to be fucked so good over and over again, and you keen into his chest. 

“Max, baby, please–,”

Your cunt actually aches. 

Max shoves himself away from you, yanking off his coat and suit jacket in one motion, and he actually lets them fall to the concrete parking lot. Before his sleeve is all the way out, he curls over you, one hand shoving up your skirt, and the other snagging the front of your nylons. His grip pinches the coarse hairs and your cunt involuntarily clenches as he peels the nylons over your hips and your knees with one hand. To get them completely off, you’d have to stretch out your legs, so he shoves your nylons to your ankles, before grabbing the backs of your thighs and thrusting you up the seat. Your head knocks against the car door, but he doesn’t seem to care – and neither do you. 

The back seat of your ford is not meant for two people, much less two people hellbent on oral sex. And yet . . .

He shoves one knee under your low spine, lifting your hips up and you acquiesce – tightening your muscles to keep the position that nearly folds you in half, but he shakes his head.

“I don’t need to breathe, honey,” he purrs into your thigh and takes your knee around the back of his head, and then does the same to the other. The height gives you enough leverage to balance against the roof of the car, giving your weight onto his shoulders, and your cunt exactly where he wants it. 

“That’s it, pretty girl. Now, let me eat.” He sticks out his tongue, flat against his chin. 

He clutches your hips and tugs you closer, right into his waiting muscle. 

Your spine arches even further off the seat when he takes advantage of the position and licks you from the curve of your ass to your clit. He catches the dripping wetness in his mouth, using it to massage that bundle of nerves with the tip of his tongue, his fingers firm against your hip. Any more pressure and he’ll bruise you. Any more after that and he’ll crush your hipbones. 

Your hips thrust weakly, thighs squeezing his head, as he forcibly reminds you that he hadn’t lost his touch, with an additional reminder that no one else touches you like he does. No one. Not a living soul or otherwise.

A side lick to your clit and you bite your lip, eyes shut, your hands above your head to find leverage. You push back against him and he groans into your pussy, aquiline nose breathing harshly into your damp curls. 

“Fuck, Max – yes, right there – oh god –,”

That soft teasing feeling that makes your hips cant forward with a sudden desperate need expands with every swipe of your tongue. 

He’s never going to let you live it down if you come this fast. 

“M-Max,” 

He opens his jaw more, dropping his mouth to your exposed hole and licking so deep inside with a curled tongue, your thighs start to shake. You gasp, head lifting forward before dropping back, as he fucks you with his tongue. You want to ride his face. 

And then Max lets out a grunt, shifting underneath you, his gaze flicking up to yours. With a hand on your knee as he practically hangs you upside down, he pulls back.

“You taste different.” 

It takes you a second to realize he’s said something coherent. “W-what?” 

He licks his lips, smeared with a wetness that makes the lower half of his face shine in the murky street lights. He licks you again as if to make sure. 

“Your taste . . . your cunt, it’s . . .”

Max’s eyes widen slightly like a wolf catching the scent of a deer. 

“Hold on, baby, I gotta try something.” 

Without warning, he plunges two fingers inside of you and sucks on your clit. He times his sucks with the rapid pump of his fingers and you’re at your peak in seconds. Your thighs shake, your cunt tightens, the sudden ascent overwhelming and intense, and with a tap against that spot inside you he’s forever marked as his own, you flatten against the seat, as everything inside you bursts, wet and bright, into his waiting mouth. His eyes flutter at the taste as it drips out of you, corners of his mouth smeared with your release. 

Max slowly slides his fingers out of you, watching you with apparent curiosity, pride evident in his eyes, and immediately your cunt aches, as if he had just given you three orgasms instead of one. There’s a low throb at the crux of your thighs and you groan, the pain only dull. 

But he doesn’t seem to notice. He nudges your thighs back from his ears, opening up you just a bit before he tucks his tongue into you again. The throb, alongside the still settling waves of your orgasm, wants you to push him away, but it’s not overstimulation. After being with Max for so long, you knew what overstimulation felt like and this is not it. 

“Max, c’mon, give me a second — fuck,”

Your eyes widen as you feel something wet trickle out of you and into his mouth, his eyes fixated on you. His grip around your waist pulls you closer to his chest. 

You watch each other the second you realize what’s just happened.

He leans back and there’s blood on his bottom lip.

Embarrassment scorches through your body and all the shitty feelings you had all week suddenly identify themselves as symptoms of PMS. Fuck. 

You immediately push on him, trying to de-tangle yourself from his shoulders, but he shakes his head.

“You wanted me to drink your blood, right? Third base? Well, now we don’t have to worry about where to bite you.” 

“But Max,” you struggle, working to sit up right but he won’t let your legs go. In fact, his grip turns rougher and you feel his fingers crush into your hip bones, his other hand pinning your knee to the back of his neck. “Max, c’mon, you don’t have to do that. This is silly and –,”

His wide palm smooths over your knee, like he’s trying to settle a frightened cat. 

“Who’s scared of genuine feelings now?” He murmurs. 

Only Max Phillips can go soft and sweet with your cunt inches from his face. Your apparently bleeding cunt. 

His hand moves from your knee, down your thigh and over your hip, before making the reverse trail, just as slow, just as comforting, while his gaze never leaves yours. You swallow something harsh in your throat, as your lower pelvis starts to ache. 

“The last thing I want is to hurt you, but I’ve heard that orgasms can actually help with cramps.” Max says softly. This isn’t a ploy to get (further) into your pants. He’s being genuinely – really, seriously, genuine. Your heart beats just as hard as the cramps as they settle. 

“What woman told you that?” 

Max huffs out a laugh, turning his head to nuzzle your thigh. “I was lonely without you and had to make do . . . so I befriended Carla and her gang.”

“The office manager?” You gape at him.

“They all tried to set me up with their daughters,” he chuckles, his hands still roaming over your body. He adjusts his knee so you have something to lean into. “So, pretty harmless. But they are also some of the most incorrigible gossip hounds I’ve ever known.” 

“They didn’t mind setting their daughters up with a vampire?”

“Not all of them are human, honey.” His eyes roll up your chest to your face. “And the ones that are were practically begging me to turn them.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, baby, I didn’t.” He shifts again, tugging you further over his shoulders, thumbs pressing gently into the backs of your knees. “We don’t have to do this if you really don’t want to.” 

“I know. It’s just . . .” You touch his thigh behind your back, needing to feel him to gather up the strength to say what you wanted to. “No one’s ever done this before.”

Max’s solid eyebrow jumps, lips pulling back into that wicked smirk. You swear you catch a glimpse of fang as he focuses back onto your cunt. 

“Well, you’re a monsterfucker and I’m your monster to fuck.” 

His mouth lowers, eyes on you, waiting and begging. You nod and he prods your clit with his tongue again, before licking anything and everything out of your hole.

Max doesn’t eat. He feeds. 

He grunts through his nose, trying to kneel as high as he is allowed in the cramped space. Finally, his gaze falls from you, eyes flickering shut, as the cramp in your pelvis digs deeper – you cry out – but then, it melts. The dull ache is spread across your hip bones until it is just warm, hot with your rushing blood. You moan, throwing your head back, and finally you dig your hands into his hair. 

As that warm bright coil begins to sink into your pelvis, Max groans between your legs. He pulls back just an inch, his lips a gooey red, to say:

“Pull on it if you need to hold yourself up.” 

Why you thought you could ever go back to a human lover after Max is a fuzzy, hazy notion at the edges of your mind when you dig your fingers into his hair, slightly longer than it’s been in the past, and pull yourself even closer to his mouth. 

In a truly impractical position, you feel his iron-hard cock poke your back, his hips stuttering, fucking empty air. His arm bands around your hips, your knees knocking against the ceiling, as he adjusts his grip. 

The inverse of blood has you going dizzy; blood rushing to your head as Max coaxes blood out of your cunt. 

And then you feel it. 

Behind your thighs, his chest vibrates and the air is filled with a delicious, primal sound. The sound of a beast being satiated, of a hunt gone well, a feeding that will sustain for a long, long while. Before you found it rather adorable, funny that a grown man like Max Phillips would purr when deeply satisfied, but now, it’s a hair-pin trigger to your demise. 

You cry out, loud and wet and wanting, as everything from your hips down starts to tighten up again. You lock your ankles together against his back, toes exposed to the night air, and you use the last of your waning strength in your thighs to lift yourself even further to him. Your hips thrust weakly and that grip around your hip bones seals you to his chest. 

Don’t fucking move. 

But it’s enough. Your inner thighs a gooey, hot mess, he prods his tongue deep, licking up every liquid that drips out of you, before coating your clit in your own mess. 

He sucks and you come. Long and loud. 

Your vision slowly begins to unblur, black spots fading, as he lowers you down, careful not to go too quick like he’s trying to not to wake someone from a light sleep. You can feel that sleep, that endless relaxation swelling over you as you go boneless while Max untangles you. 

Your eyes stay open long enough to see the smear of red across his lips before he wipes it away. The cramping in your pelvis has been reduced to a gentle throb. 

Gingerly, Max pulls your skirt down, hand arching your back so you don’t have to lift your hips as he adjusts you back into some modicum of decorum. He reaches back and snags his coat and jacket from the ground before tossing them into the passenger’s seat. With your feet in his lap, arm stretched out across the back of the seat you just debauched, he shuts the door and instantly the smell of his cologne permeates the air. 

You grin, wriggling down in the seat as far you can go like a housecat warmed by the sun. 

You sit in silence for a bit, content to just be, a welcome retreat for your breathing to go steady and his cock to soften. His hands brush against the heels of your bare feet. 

“You made me purr again,” he says with a grin. 

“There’s no way that’s the technical term for it, whatever it is,” you say teasingly as you watch him trace your ankles with his finger. “You should ask another vamp what you’re supposed to call it.”  

He chuckles, squeezing your foot once before glancing up at you. Whatever he sees in you, it makes his eyes go soft.

“You mean ask about the thing that only happens during the most intimate moments a vampire can experience? Yeah, sure, I’ll bring it up at the water cooler.” 

Satiated and warm and a little loopy from a truly record breaking orgasm, you stick your tongue out at him. 

“Fine. I’m going to tell people that you purr like a cute, innocent little kitten until you find a better term.”

He bends your knee so he can press his lips to the curve. 

“Just because you’re my girlfriend, don’t think I won’t turn you over and swat your bottom.” He nips at the hollow of the joint with flat teeth, opening up your legs to him again. You can feel that heavy wetness trickle down again, and you sit up, not embarrassed by your bleeding, but suddenly tired beyond belief. 

Max lets you move out of his lap as you curl a hand around his cheek. It’s a shame you only see that touch of vulnerability, the man without the quips and the teasing and the bravado, after a good fuck. But you think you might finally have it your way, sooner than you ever hoped. 

“Well if my boyfriend would drive us back to his place, maybe I could show how sorry I am for teasing you.” 

He studies you for a minute, a full minute that has you surprised he’s not roughly kissing you again.

“Sometimes, around the office, you’d smell different and I never knew what it was. I didn’t put enough thought into it to realize the pattern, but it makes sense now. And it makes sense why you were suddenly very busy during that week when I’d bootycall you.” 

You shrug, your neck suddenly very warm. “I dunno. I figured you wouldn’t want to be around me when I’m like that. Not to mention I dress in baggy clothes and wander around my apartment with a heating pad taped to my hips.

“Really? They’re that bad?”

You nod. “Women around the world rejoiced when working from home became an option. Video calls only show from the waist up.”

“Now that’s all I’m gonna be thinking about at the next all-hands meeting,” he grins and squeezes your knees. 

“I guess I set myself up for that one, didn’t I?” You shake your head. He nods, humming his affirmation, and kisses you. 

“Let’s go to your place,” he mutters against your lips. “There might be no place on earth less equipped to handle Shark Week than a male vampire’s bachelor pad.” 

“Shark Week?” You giggle. 

“Carla’s words, not mine. The Rising Red Tide. Code Red. Aunt Flo. And my personal favorite, communists in the fun house.”

Your giggle turns to a snort as you lean forward into him, laughing. His lips press affectionately into your hairline as you settle down. 

He moves to take your feet out of his lap when you gently take his elbow. 

“So we’re good, right? This wasn’t too much?” You are a little concerned by the total and complete lack of fang he showed, but entirely grateful.

As if reading your mind, he says, “the fangs only come out when I need to get through pesky flesh to feed. Your blood came out like a broken ice cream machine at McDonalds.”

You wrinkle your nose as he laughs and you push him out of the car. 

“That’s disgusting, Max.”

You snag the keys from your briefcase and toss them to him as he rounds the car and you crawl into the passenger’s seat. 

He drops in and immediately turns on your seat warmers. The gesture is subtle and thoughtful, things you thought Max Phillips never could be. 

“Speaking of which,” he holds onto the head of the seat as he backs out of the spot. “Carla also told me that ice cream is the cure to most cramps. So, with the lovely picture I just painted in your mind, do you want to go to McDonalds?”

As you look at him, shadows flitting across his face as he drives under streetlight after streetlight, his fingers that had been inside you minutes ago loosely holding the steering wheel, your heart twinges as you come to a certain realization.

This can’t last, right?

He’s only acting like this because he feels bad, feels guilty, right?

Max Phillips isn’t boyfriend material, despite his claims. 

As proven before, feelings can change. So you wonder how long until his feelings about you change again and he grows tired of you. Max Phillips is not a housecat. 

You swallow, glancing away before he has a chance to catch your eyes.

“Yeah, Max, let’s do it.” 

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[beautifulmars]

HiPOD: Textures of Amazonis

This observation was requested to look at some unusual surface textures in Amazonis Planitia. Some of the terrain grades into ridges that could possibly be invasive dikes or lava intruding into overlying ash. Despite the features in this image, Amazonis Planitia is one of the smoothest plains on Mars, and is located between the Tharsis and Elysium volcanic provinces, to the west of Olympus Mons. (Enhanced color cutout is at full resolution and is less than 1 km across; black and white is less than 5 km.)

ID: ESP_075239_1910 date: 14 August 2022 altitude: 277 km

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

[desultory-novice]

[Unfinished Late Night Ficlet]

-530 words -Marxolor implied

He got up out of a bed that was already half empty. Soft warm lights illuminated the borders of the floor to ease his journey out of the room. They guided him toward the bathroom and then, when he did not make a move to return to bed, proceeded him down the hall. They began to pulse with subtly brighter light at the door to the kitchen. A suggestion. He took it. She knew him well.

But she had not just been guiding him toward food and drink. His partner-in-crime, as they laughingly referred to each other when the sun was up, was here as well. The ingredients for what could easily be a sandwich, should one apply even a modicum of effort, lay strewn about the floating center island next to an abandoned plate.

The orphaner-of-sandwiches sat in the corner like a marionette with his strings cut. Or a clockwork toy that had wound itself out mid-spin, toppling over with the last of its potential energy in an ungraceful fashion.

He ignored him and the bread and meats and poured a cup of coffee for himself. The aromatic roast dancing on a gauze ribbon of smoke to tickle his senses reminded him of, not home, but a place he'd given that name to.

He took a sip.

Bitter.

Yes. That's what those memories tasted like too.

He poured a second cup and deposited three white cubes of condensed crystals in it. They landed with a bloop, bobbing up and down until finding their balance and beginning to dissolve.

He encouraged them to pick up the pace with a small wooden stirrer.

Then he floated over to the lump on the floor and waved the cup in front of him. The other's violet irises lacked the spark of life, but that hardly meant anything to worry about. It wasn't even all that unordinary. Not on nights like these.

Indeed, upon his second waving of the warm, volcanic-ash of a roast, the irises began to track his movements. With his other hand, he picked up a long, limp arm from the floor and gently wrapped the finger like claws around the cup. They held in place and he let go, satisfied a shattered cup wouldn't follow.

Then he watched his partner intently as the mug began to rise, eventually meeting lips cracked partly open. Those lips took the first sip. Violet eyes widened and immediately the other spat the half-swallowed contents in a spray across the kitchen.

"Salt?! Magolor, I'm going to kill you!"

An accusing claw thrust his way.

"That's what you get for leaving food out in my kitchen, Marx," Magolor nonchalantly returned to nursing his coffee. Marx did too, for once he'd had a moment to consider the sickening concoction (a taste Magolor knew by experience. For Marx had been the first to prank him in such a manner) he decided he actually liked it this way.

They sat there drinking in silence for a time, the whitenoise whirr of the ship keeping the room from feeling too empty, too still. There was never any asking, "What's wrong?" or "Couldn't sleep?"

Another reason they got along so well.

[saintsstranger]

twin flames | L.S. (Avatar: The Way of Water) - Chapter One

Summary: You meet the people who were once your clan’s enemies.

Lo'ak te Suli Tsyeyk’itan x Ash People Na’vi!Female!Reader (Uses she/her/hers pronouns; No use of Y/N)

Warning: None

Chapter Masterlist

In the eyes of the flames, everything is one and the same.

Within you is the fire, the urging desire…

to cause destruction, all because of the ember's seduction.

Mahuika is a beauty. After all, it is your home, the warmth of the sands on your feet, and the scorching ashes dancing through the air never bothered you. 

The kiss of the breeze on your skin was what you love most, the warm embrace of home.

The marui surrounded by magma, spouting its embers into the air.

The tarākona that roamed and rested among the large rocks, your bonded creature forged in fire.

The children watched the flame dancers during the eclipse in glee. 

Your clan, happy as another group of warriors, celebrated victory in conquering the leap of faith in Mount Valko. The burn marks on their skin tell their own tale.

Your sisters dance among the fire, as you cheer among their grace.

Your Olo'eyktan, your mother sat among her people smiling.

And the most sacred place upon Mahuika is the large tree that sprouted among the volcanic grounds with golden luminescent leaves and white roots and trunk; it almost looked like it was burning, The Roots of Life.

Your heart longed and ached for your home. 

But now you are surrounded by blue and green. Water, the enemy of the flames.

How ironic, your enemy— no companion— no savior… had been basking in the clear blue seas. At first, you would've thought he looked like the depth of the ocean, the unknown. Yet as much as you looked at him clearly, he didn’t resemble the clans who resided in the waters; perhaps he is one of the forest dwellers you thought.

On your journey toward Awa’atlu, the place where his family had already considered their own, you revel in silence while the tulkun tries its best to carry your wounded tarākona. A place where you could rest, rest before heading back to your shattered home. 

The cinders still remain and a simple flick could easily ignite it all. You’d heal and when all is done…then what? 

You were silent while both of you rode his ilu back to Awa'atlu, you held your bleeding arm across your chest, untouching. Even if there was a fine line that made you understand one another, you cannot trust him completely; you are still wounded by the scars of the sky people. You only hold onto his waist with one hand. But when you shivered as every wave slapped your arms and legs; your teeth chattering loudly he couldn’t help but turn around, and with you bleeding profusely, you can feel your eyelids grow heavy.

You were too tired. Too exhausted to even be conscious of your surroundings. 

His ilu stopped midway, while Payakan continued his way among the seas he knew. 

“Would you like to stay at the front? I can—shit— I could warm you up?” He moved away from his ilu, ready to go behind you while you looked at him with your intense glare. Even if you were bruised and shivering in the cold, you still looked at him with this cold glare making him cower. 

Lo’ak almost smacked himself in the back of the head with how he worded it out, but you slightly shifted to the front of his ilu and left him space behind you. Lo’ak gently placed himself behind you, at first giving you the distance that you needed while you held your bleeding arm across your chest.

When he commanded his ilu to go forward, slowly you leaned against him making his breath hitch. Lo’ak felt like he was stepping on eggshells with how careful he wanted to be with you;  he didn’t want to overstep his boundaries and toy between the line of what this is and what you are to each other. 

This was oceans that are not traversed and Lo’ak is simply dipping his toes in the waters, testing…waiting.

He can smell the faint smell of smoke, fresh spice…from you. You were warm, not too much that he would sweat, just the right amount of touch for physical contact. You fit right beneath him perfectly, still shivering while he held his ilu’s reins. 

Throughout the whole ride, Lo’ak never heard you talk, only after your fight earlier. Even Lo’ak was silent, he could’ve just left you there alone but he didn’t. The bitter understanding of the taste of loneliness painted on his lips. 

He knew your darkest secrets without needing to know you that long. This blind trust you have with each other makes him feel things he never had… it makes him feel wanted… depended on at long last… that he is worthy of trust and responsibility. 

This would probably do both of you good, you were both alike, weren’t you? Lo’ak thinks.

How bizarre it is to think that you bare your fears and pain to a complete stranger? There would be once-in-a-million chances for you to meet and yet here you both are.

Every line becomes muddled with uncertainty.

Lo’ak only realized that you’ve been leaning on him completely when he lowered his hands, you were sleeping. Your drowsy state, trying to open your eyes when you saw the faint light of the fire.

The urge to close your eyes was too strong, and so you did. Putting your complete faith in the na’vi that you almost considered the enemy into safety. After all, what else could you lose?

When the both of you reached the island surrounded by roots of mangrove-like trees, there are multiple campfires and lanterns open. Right in the distance, Lo’ak could see figures he knew too well, looking out into the ocean.

Looking for him.

‘The boy has returned!’

When Lo’ak tried to shift you awake, your eyes remained closed and your head lulled backward. His ilu guided him towards the white sands, people had gathered to look at the boy and the figure he was carrying. 

“Where were you?!” Jake came barging right in front of Lo’ak, anger and fear littered on his features.

Neytiri, his mother looked at him with panic in her eyes, muttering ‘my son’ in the wind. Neytiri’s hand placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, scanning her son’s body for further injuries when she realized the figure he was carrying, a bloodied na’vi with ash blue skin, the large feathers and bones that adorned your frame told her that you are the same age as her son.

Payakan had pushed your tarākona towards the shore, the crowd gasped at the large creature slumped right behind Lo’ak. It hissed in pain and the eyes of the Olo'eyktan narrowed as soon as he saw the creature trailing behind you, almost making a protective barrier with its large body. Preventing even his family from even coming close beside him, with the tarākona protecting you both.

“A tarākona.” Ronal hissed. There is only one clan that tamed this monstrous beast.

Lo’ak kneeled, gently placing you in the sand yet refusing to let you go. You were still bleeding, he cannot afford to pass any minute with you being dead to the world. You were running out of time.

The sole reflection of his pain, the only person who’d understand is lying here waiting until Eywa would take you as hers.

“I-I found her drifting across the sea…and I… help her please.” He begged the Tsahik, looking at Ronal with a pleading stare. 

Metkayina’s Tsahik was cautious as she did not trust the Sully family at first. And Lo’ak was at the last on her list of good graces, Lo’ak brought nothing but trouble and yet here he is presenting another problem to the Metkayina’s home.

A na’vi from the Manawa Wera Clan, an enemy of their own clan.

Manawa Wera had their own beliefs and cultures that are far too different from the Metkayina. If they believed in The Way of Water, your clan believed in The Seeds of Fire. 

For the Metkayina, the sea is a better ally.

For the Manawa Wera, fire is judgment

If the water is eternal, the fire begins with a spark and ends in ashes.

If the sea is your home, the flame is a lover who is erratic. uncontrollable, unforgivable, everything and beyond. 

If the Metkayina can learn acceptance and forgiveness, your clan on the other hand would burn everything in ash and cinder.

A fire cannot be contained or trained, they ran havoc in destruction. 

Because no amount of water can quench the fire that resides within.

“You have no idea about the child you brought here, she is from Manawa Wera.” Ronal growled.

Lo’ak feels helpless and he can feel his own anger rise upon the accusation just because of your own upbringing. He could almost see himself in you, untrusted, enemy… just finding solace and comfort only to be pushed away. You showed no signs of threat and just like his first time with the Metkayina Clan, he is being ridiculed, scorned, mocked, and shamed. 

The anger in him slowly crept up in his veins. He felt his eyes twitch.

Like a calculated venom, he spat out the following words: “If you are no help then maybe you don’t deserve the title of the Tsahik.” 

Ronal's intense stare wavered, as Lo’ak parents scolded him. He held his ground, looking at the Tsahik in front of him. 

Tonowari held his mate’s arm softly, looking at her as if talking with her with only his eyes. 

“It is a child…” Tonowari whispered, looking at Ronal softly and back towards their own children. Ronal knew the feeling of a mother, and how she didn’t want her own children to be separated from her own family; When the Sky People had posed a threat far greater than what they could fight. 

Your own mother must be out there, worried about her own child's loss in the sea. Ronal couldn’t do that even with the former enemy. 

Metkayina’s are forgiving, and if the sea had brought you here then there must be a purpose. Because if not, you should’ve drowned a long time ago.

Ronal exhaled defeatedly conceding to her husband’s request.

“Bring her to me.” Ronal demanded, and with that, the healers of the clan carried the girl away from Lo’ak’s hands. 

Leaving Lo’ak standing there with his family looking at him worriedly. Kiri carefully stepped around the tired creature, looking at it in wonder. It was majestic in her own eyes, far too different as its muted red color scales glinted in the moonlights.

“You disrespected her and our family. Do you understand that?” Jake scolded looking at him in anger. 

“Lo’ak, you do not talk to the Tsahik that way!” Neytiri scolded, only for his mother’s eye to fall right into his bloodied chest. His mother’s breath almost caught in a hitch, it reminded her of another most recent loss far too great for a mother to experience.

Neytiri’s hand wavered in front of his son’s bloodied chest, she could almost feel the cold embrace of her guilt when Lo’ak slapped her hand away.

The pain in the eyes of the mother did not go unnoticed by Jake and Lo’ak. 

Lo’ak reassured his mother: “I am fine, mother. It’s just a scratch.”

Lo’ak own erratic breathing was pulsing with anger, but when Jake place a comforting hand on his son’s head Lo’ak realized that he was back to directing his anger to what was in front of him. Just like what he had done when he met you.

“Where have you been?” Jake asked, this time he lowered his tone. Wary about how it would sound in the ears of his child.

“Ma Jake, you ask questions later. Your son is bleeding.”  Neytiri softly said, grabbing her son’s shoulder tightly, as if Lo’ak would disappear as soon as she closed her eyes. “I apologize… let us go and I’ll heal you.”

Walking side-by-side, the tarākona shifted awake, looking at Lo’ak, and followed him begrudgingly. Its forked tongue hissed in the air, while Kiri remained intrigued. It was a beautiful creature, it looks to be a bonded creature of a warrior.

Kiri noticed there was a prominent burnt scar on the tarākona’s neck. Far too calculative to be just a mere coincidence, like it was meticulously placed there. Even with its tired state, the creature followed its own owner; not even bothering as it slithered away from the watchful eyes of the na’vi who were far too curious about the said creature.

Lo’ak looked behind him, watching as the light in the pod of Tsahik glow as they healed you. In the dim light of lanterns, it gave your sleeping figure a heavenly glow. 

You looked serene, peaceful… perfect. 

Māori Words Used: Manawa Wera - Manawa (heart), wera (hot) means “being fervent of heart and passionate”. In the case of the story, it is the Clan of the Ash People, the Fire-Dwelling Clan. Taglist: @okaylorrainee, @destinylb

A/N: I SPENT A GOOD TIME RESEARCHING GOOD NAMES THAT FIT FOR ASH PEOPLE CAUSE JAMES CAMERON WOULDNT PROVIDE ME WITH ONE.

Also, I would like to give credit to the recording artist, Ria Hall, I was listening to her album named “Manawa Wera”. Also "Set Fire to Rain" by Adele is one of my looped songs for writing this. Also if you go back to the prologue you would notice something, there is now a header! This is a reminder that the plot belongs to me, except for the characters of the Avatar Franchise. This is only for fictional purposes.

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to the Mistaken One's Chapter 164

TL;DR - Cale gets elixir from Fist King. Raon cries at the sad origins of the elixir. White crown and Maxi's crown compete over the elixir.

Soos?

LSH = ❌

CJS = ❌

Fist King's Misunderstanding of Cale Intensifies

The misunderstandings of Cale and Fist King with each other was funny to me. While waiting for Cale, Fist King felt the intense clash between Cale and the black water. He and his group were shocked and dumbfounded.

It doesn't help that Chief Eunuch Wi tells him that Cale was consuming the remains of a dragon... Fist King was like, "Seriously, where is the end of Young Master Kim?" 🤣🤣🤣 Fortunately, Fist King didn't promote Cale to some rank higher than Nature Realm... 😂

Cale had his misunderstandings of Fist King's group too. He saw Fist King who was covered in soot (because he had to get the elixir from a volcano), and Fist King's great granddaughter plus 3 members of the Embroidered Uniform Guards who were in a daze (because Cale's clash against the black water shocked them).

And Cale thought, "They must have had a hard time getting that elixir given their appearance." No, Cale. Only Fist King had a hard time... the rest are dumbfounded by what you just did earlier. 🤣

Tale of the Imoogi and the Blacksmith

Fist King: Once upon a time, when humans, divine beasts, and animals lived together at a period called the ancient times, there lived an imoogi. Unlike most imoogi who lived in ponds or caves, that imoogi lived in an unusual place. It lived in the house of a blacksmith. Raon: Human! I think this story will be interesting! I'm excited! Cale: (Why are you telling a fairy tale? Can't you just give me the elixir now?) Fist King: It began when the daughter of a blacksmith found a dying young imoogi and took care of it, mistaking it for a baby snake. Raon: What a good blacksmith! Fist King: But they soon found out that it was no ordinary snake. Because this imoogi ate fire. Raon: A fire-eating dragon! Amazing! Fist King: The daughter sent it to the mountain where it originally found the imoogi. But that mountain was a volcano. It was dormant, so no one knew it was a volcano. They say the imoogi grew up eating lava there. Raon: A lava-eating dragon! Cool! Fist King: Years passed and the volcano erupted. Lava flowed out of control and the sky turned gray. And the lava headed for the village. Raon: ...No way! Fist King: At that time, the imoogi appeared. Fifty years had already passed, and the daughter, who was around ten back then, was now a blacksmith following in her father's footsteps and was training to be a successor. And it is said that the imoogi had now grown big and had a very long body. Raon: ... Fist King: The imoogi's body blocked the overflowing lava. It constantly ate the lava or received it with its body, so in the end, the village was not covered with lava. Also, the volcanic ash did not cover the village. Cale: ... Fist King: Because that imoogi even burned the volcanic ash. And died, becoming a legend. That imoogi was not a dragon, but it was said that it was like the embodiment of "fire." Cale: *gulps* Raon: Sniff. Cale: (Don't tell me-) Raon: Sniff, sniff. Cale: (Raon, are you crying?) Raon: Huhu, sniff! Huhu, it was great, huhu! That imoogi!

Two Crowns and Cale Competing for the Elixir

After that sad tale about the imoogi that Raon found to be very touching, it was time to consume the elixir. What was it then? It was a black-colored reverse scale of the imoogi. But when Cale touched it, the surface cracked, revealing a brilliant red color underneath.

And to Cale's surprise, the white crown and Maxi's crown reacted to the reverse scale, wanting it too. DA explained that the imoogi was actually destined to be a dragon, but the imoogi rejected its fate and sacrificed itself to protect its beloved humans. So the white crown considered it to be like a dragon, and coveted the reverse scale.

As for why Maxi's crown reacted to it, it wasn't stated. Anyway, DA presented a solution to Cale: He should wear the crown. And then we get a cliffhanger... 😒

Ending Remarks

Who will win in the fight for the reverse scale? Cale, the white crown, or Maxi's crown? And DA didn't state which crown Cale should wear too. Given that the reverse scale was actually red, will the crown taking it turn either the white crown or Maxi's crown into red, as hinted by the novel cover? Guess we'll get the answer by Wednesday. Cliffhanger is bad... 😑

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Wine-Tasting

for your wine-tasting scenes

Enhance your wine-tasting experience and better identify different wines with these tips:

Cleanse your palate between sips. When tasting for flavors of the wine, you must cleanse your palate by using a spittoon and drinking water. “I regularly cleanse my palate with water. I like to use high-pH water, eight or above . . . . I find that alkaline solution of water cleanses my palate much better and reduces the acid in many wines,” James Suckling, a wine critic, says. “I also might have some bread, or olives are great with red wine. You want things that refresh your palate.” Cleansing your palate helps your taste buds enjoy more subtle flavors.

Do a blind tasting. “When I was starting as a taster in the ’80s, when I studied to be a master of wine, I was always blind tasting,” James says. Tasting blind means not knowing the kind of wine you are tasting—be it a zinfandel, rosé, pinot grigio, or syrah—so that will not influence your tasting. Moreover, tasting blind means not looking at the label; sometimes, a label plays up the fruit flavors or connotes an older wine, which can impact your interpretation of the varietal while tasting.

Get the wines to the right temperature to rate. Temperature is critical for wine tasting. “I think it’s important for whites to be between fourteen and sixteen degrees centigrade—not too cold but cold enough to be fresh. If it’s too cold, I’m not going to be able to discern the aromas, taste, and texture,” James says. “The reds I also like a little bit cooler than normal. A lot of people serve their reds at twenty-two or room temperature. I like them around nineteen or twenty.” Using wine glasses with a stem is essential, so you can adequately hold the glass without warming the wine.

Pay attention to scent. Articulating scent is an essential tasting skill. In trying one wine during a blind tasting, James notes “some warmth. Aromas of lemon curd, maybe some fresh basil. And I get a sensation of ash. Like, ash from volcanoes; there’s a number of white wines made in Italy that are coming from volcanic soils such as Etna in Sicily, Campania near Naples, and Soave near Verona.” Quality wines give you primary and secondary aromas, sometimes even tertiary ones. Breathe in your wine with your lips slightly parted to anticipate a wine’s flavor and notes. Take a small sip of wine and see if you sense wooden notes from oak barrels, high acid from citrus fruits, or sweetness from red fruits or tropical fruits.

Swirl your glass of wine. Getting your wine to move around enlivens its scent. “When you’re tasting, it’s really important to swirl the wine to get some air in there to bring out the wine aromas,” James says. “Also, it’s important not to have too much wine in the glass. I like to have about thirty or fifty milliliters in the glass. Then you can really give it a good swirl.” After swirling, note the viscosity and the tannins, the sediment along the bottom or sides of the glass. Use a new wine glass for each new bottle of wine in a blind tasting.

Taste in a clear space. Sometimes, you might taste wine in the cool climate of winemakers’ cellars or a busy room full of people as part of a wine club. To concentrate on the wine’s color and qualities, try to taste the wine in a well-lit, not-too-noisy tasting room. Light is essential when applying the [wine point] scale to red, orange, or white wines. “It’s important that the environment’s clean [and] well-lit,” James says. “I can concentrate on the wines. Sometimes that’s not possible if I’m in a cellar, traveling at dinner, or in a restaurant. But ideally, when I’m tasting, especially blind, it’s important to have a place where I can concentrate.”

Use the wine point system. Following the 100-point wine system can help you determine a good wine. The 100-point system is a rating scale for wine quality. Wine scores go up to 100 points, with 100 points going to the best wines. Whether you’re trying a dessert wine or a dry wine, this scoring system helps you better break down and comprehend the quality of a wine. “I think it’s an easy way to communicate about wine,” James says. “It's an easy way for you to understand quality.”

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