#you know how it is with meat pylons

[captain-hollis]

By the way Fritz met Arkady by running them over (they were fine) (the car got more damaged than them) (Fritz drives a Trabant because he thinks it has rustic charm) (it does not) (it has rust)

[astronicht]

whumptober day 3: “like crying out in empty rooms, no one there except the moon” | (implied) solitary confinement

tbh only meets the prompt if u squint but!! fic amnesty just post bb

Modao Zushi | WWX & JC gen, background wangxian | 1.1k

“He doesn’t understand it,” Wei Wuxian says. “That you have to sweat out the heat.”

“Please do not talk to me about Hanguang-jun,” Sect Leader Jiang says.

The cicadas sing in the wide hot dark beyond this room, where it is humid and close and lit by two little oil lamps on either side of the table. The oil lamps are clay and shaped like leaping fish the size of a child’s cupped hand. On them is a glaze called Yunmeng blue; the alchemical recipe for it was one of the things Wei Wuxian might have found in the Lotus Pier treasure rooms, had he been looking for that in particular.

Jiang Cheng has not met Wei Wuxian’s eyes this entire conversation at this little table with its yours and mine oil lamps, arranged like a banquet. Wei Wuxian is eating a meal: sliced steamed fish cakes in oil, Hongshan caitai fried with chili and garlic, plain congee rather than what was first offered, which had been rich with the white meat of Yunmeng fish. Wei Wuxian knows how to delicately reintroduce this body to food.

Jiang Cheng is not eating, because the dark night outside is nearly false dawn. Outside this little room, Sect Leader Jiang’s cooks are hanging out fresh noodles to dry in the coming sun, whispering to each other in the dark as their hands do a job they have done a thousand times.

“Will you tell him about this,” Jiang Cheng says.

“I thought we weren’t talking about Hanguang-jun,” Wei Wuxian says. Then adds, “I don’t keep secrets from him,” to see if Jiang Cheng will have him thrown out of this room. He keeps eating, very slowly. The fish cakes and the vegetables are very spicy, Yunmeng spicy. It is burning his cracked lips.

Jiang Cheng does not say anything or move, so Wei Wuxian says, “What I was saying is that there are only a few things that Lan Zhan doesn’t get. He doesn’t know how to survive the heat, you know, not really. I always liked eating spicy food in the heat, right? To sweat it out. He likes bitter melon and mung beans.”

“You are supposed to eat those in summer.”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “After three days in your dungeon I would’ve eaten mung beans till I couldn’t stand up,” he says agreeably, even though in fact he has spent three days alone in the dark and is calmly eating a single fish cake one tiny bite at a time. His hands only shake a little with the effort of not shoveling in food.

Jiang Cheng’s knuckles crack as his fists clench on the table. Wei Wuxian looks at him from under the lashes of a dead boy. “Well, I would,” he says mildly. “And it was all a misunderstanding, so I hope you have not disciplined the responsible parties. Of course your new disciples would not recognize little old me. Congratulations, of course, on the new disciples.” He means this very genuinely, though Jiang Cheng will take it as a cold joke. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how to fix that. Maybe it won’t ever be fixed. Maybe this humid little room where once decades ago the walls were painted red with purple lattice designs, the murals flaking from the plaster in an old unburnt part of Lotus Pier, will be the closest they come.

Wei Wuxian takes another careful bite of food he finds easy to digest. Below this little room off the kitchens he can hear water moving among the stilts. The kitchens are built partly over water here, to reduce the constant threat of fire. Similarly, to get into the Lotus Pier treasure rooms you must swim under buildings whose bottom is flush with the water level, holding your breath. The currents are strange among the stilts; there are underwater barriers and pylons and it is very dark even in the daytime. Every movement stirs up muck from the bottom.

Wei Wuxian had wanted to see a treasure. So he had come to Yunmeng alone, while Lan Zhan was visiting with Head Cultivator Zewu-jun, doing brotherly things, probably having meals not so unlike this one with so many horrible things unsaid. Though honestly, Wei Wuxian cannot believe this current luck: that he got into the treasure room at all, that he was only imprisoned in the dark for three days before Sect Leader Jiang returned from a night hunt to find a trespasser held in a cellars built up on the hill. It was hard to think of Jiang Cheng who once kept puppies and now keeps men in holes in the hill, a line of them that they have always called the dungeons, where perhaps people who learned some of what the Yiling Laozu taught died in the belly of the dirt of Yunmeng.

Jiang Cheng, who once spent months with Lan Wangji, trying to claw Wei Wuxian out of the soil and horror of Yiling.

It had felt very different four days ago when he dived beneath the surface of the lake again, silent and small as a black cormorant. The water closed above him, warm and for a moment almost clear before the rich silt stirred. He had held his breath and swum the old path.

Wei Wuxian looks at the little oil lamps, deep blue glazed. “Yunmeng blue,” he says, tapping one with a fingernail. The ceramic sings. The little flame wavers in its broth of oil.

Jiang Cheng’s gaze sharpens. “That’s not what you were after,” he says, and then looks like he meant to say something else, a stronger accusation. The Lans would love to know the secret of Yunmeng blue. It happens in the hills, the alchemy of it, in the potters’ kilns that stretch two li from hilltop to valley like snaking dragons with bellies of fire. There, among the azaleas, mostly unbothered by the night hunts, the people of Yunmeng cook a blue deeper than the sky.

“That’s not what I was after,” Wei Wuxian agrees. “I was looking for the rubbing of the old Han Dynasty star map and I didn’t find it anyway. Your disciples are very thorough in responding to their alarm talismans. Very diligent. I’m sure I am very lucky Sect Leader Jiang returned tonight.”

“And you took nothing,” Jiang Cheng says.

“I took nothing.”

“Well,” Jiang Cheng says, and clears his throat. Wei Wuxian’s brother, once. “It was only three days this time.”

Wei Wuxian looks at him, long and black-eyed and birdlike in a stolen body. “Yes,” he agrees. “Only three days. I’ll sweat it out in no time.”

—

idk man idk! important to state that i love jiang cheng, this is just as much about jiang cheng. anyway. i cant shut up about the development of chemical blue dye/pigment. also i couldn’t get Wei Ying to admit even to the narrative that he touched the dead husk of a silk worm stored inexplicably in the treasure rooms of lotus pier and knew it was there for their sister, whose work and life is all unrecorded in the treasure rooms of Yunmeng. etc.

[toxic-stargod-apologist]

The Church of a Loving God - Eaters of the Dead

Genre: Horror

Word Count: 5,558

Synopsis: In the grim darkness of the far future, countless billions toil and suffer to keep the wheels of the imperial war machine turning. The God Emperor demands blind obedience and the only reward is a brutal death. In the dark corners of this world, among the teeming masses of humanity, Jocasta Theta will find something more; a life worth living, and a god worth believing in.

Content Notes: Cannibalism, Police Brutality

Author's Note: A massive thank you to daddyfuckinlonglegs for all their help and advice, and for motivating me to get back into writing. Jocasta's story will continue in chapter two, 'Love in a Dark Millennium'!

AO3 Link: The Church of a Loving God

The day started with bells. Jocasta opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling of the bunk house, counting the chimes. Three, four, five, then a raspy, mechanical voice crackled out from the vox caster.

“Theta shift, wake up. Theta shift, wake up. You have one hour before your work begins. Thought for the day; only in death is duty's debt repaid.”

There was a short hiss of static as the vox switched off. Jocasta lay in her bunk for a moment and tried not to think about the crushing heat. The ventilation system for her hab-block had been broken for a month; every night she prayed to the Emperor to send one of his red priests to fix it, and every morning she woke up drenched in sweat. No point dwelling on it though.

She got up and pulled her overalls out from under the bed. Her tiny section of the room was separated from the rest by a threadbare blanket hanging from a string, and as she got dressed she could hear the rustling of nineteen other people doing the same. They were all theta shift, but none of them were part of her work gang. She'd barely spoken to any of them in the three years she'd lived here.

Still, she thought as she pulled the blanket aside, there was no reason to be unfriendly. She gave a smile and a nod to each of them as she made her way to the door. Some of them smiled back. Some of them didn't. All of them looked tired.

The door was jammed, like it had been every morning since the ventilation broke, but it swung open after a few sharp kicks. Jocasta breathed deep as she stepped out into the cavernous, and relatively cool, expanse of transit tunnel forty-one. It was a vast, diagonal shaft formed of buttressed rockcrete walls lined with dozens of metal walkways, all of them bustling with people heading to, or from, their allocated workplace. The steeply sloping floor of the tunnel was covered by rails, along which cargo pallets were constantly moving, and the ceiling was festooned with pipes, cables, and dim, flickering glow-globes which cast the hubbub below in shades of orange and amber.

Jocasta was vaguely aware that there was a universe outside the tunnel – the mountainous hive-city of Gloriana Aeterna stretching up for miles above her, a planet outside, and thousands of planets beyond – but she would never see them. This tunnel, and the chambers branched off from it, had been her whole world since the day she was born. Her little corner of the imperium.

As she made her way down the walkway she scanned the crowd for familiar faces. Most days that search was fruitless, but this was a lucky day. Through the throngs of shuffling figures she spotted an unruly shock of blonde hair, and with a little pushing and shoving she got close enough to recognise the pale, lanky man it was attached to. Exactly who she'd been hoping to see. Surreptitiously she spat on her hand and dragged it through her short red hair; she'd once seen a pict-capture of noblewomen from the upper hive, all of them beautiful and all of them with their hair slicked back.

“Good morning Seth!” She fell into step beside her work mate, who looked down at her with a weary smile that made her heart beat a little quicker. “I'm so glad I caught you, did you hear what happened on sigma shift? Katra, from the market, told me all about it. Apparently the coreward grinder threw a gear just as the shift was ending, which isn't all that strange, happens all the time, but after the technomats pushed it back in they still couldn't get the whole thing spinning. So one of them says 'there must be something stuck in there, we'll just take the casing off and find it'. So then they did, and they saw what was jamming it, and guess what it was? Go on, guess! I'll give you three tries.”

Seth's brow furrowed. He looked up at the roof of the tunnel, his lips moving silently, then looked back down at Jocasta. “Okay, first guess... Was it a sump rat?”

Her mouth fell open. “You knew? That's not fair! You can't pretend to guess if you already knew!”

“I didn't know,” Seth said with a grin, “I just figured it out. There's not many things big enough to jam the grinder but small enough to come up through the pipes. Also I hear rats down there all the time.”

“Ooh, you're such a liar! You couldn't just 'figure that out'. You know I thought I could trust you, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I'll have to find a new friend who doesn't try to cheat me.” She tried to look serious, but Seth put on such an exaggerated show of remorse that she couldn't help smiling.

“You really can't trust me any more? After everything we've been through? After everything I've done for you?”

She put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “And what exactly have you done for me?”

“Well...” He leaned down until their heads were practically touching and lowered his voice to a whisper. Jocasta could hear her heart thumping in her chest. “...how about scrounging up something to eat on our break?. One of my bunk mates managed to find some meat. Some unprocessed meat. And since he owed me a favour, I got us a slice to share.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you joking?” she whispered. “You have to tell me if you're joking, you can't just say something like that and not mean it. And what do you mean he found it, anyway? Do you know what it came from? He didn't steal it, did he? Because if he stole it-”

A deafening burst of trumpets rang out from the vox pylons above them. As one, every worker stopped in their tracks. A moment later the cargo pallets below them shuddered to a halt. Silence, heavy and oppressive, settled over the tunnel. Jocasta stole a glance at Seth; he'd already closed his eyes and crossed his hands over his heart in the shape of the holy aquila. She shuffled a little closer to him and did the same.

“Citizens of Gloriana Aeterna.” The deep, sonorous voice came from every vox, in every direction. “Hear me, and give thanks. The God Emperor protects you, his faithful servants, for as long as you dedicate your lives and deaths to him. Through the might of his armies, he protects you. Through the swift justice of his arbites, he protects you. Through the diligence of his administrators, he protects you...”

The familiar litany washed over Jocasta. She's heard it so many times she could recite it backwards. Real meat, though... That was a special kind of gift. Silently, in her heart, she gave thanks for it.

***

It took another half an hour to descend to the ration processing plant. Down here the walls of the tunnel were studded with loading bays and access ports, and the air was thick with industrial smog. The two of them made their way through the murk, moving slowly and cautiously over corroded walkways and down rickety ladders, until they reached the entrance hatch for loading bay seven. Seth started coughing. He'd been doing that a lot recently.

Inside, the noise in the low-ceiling bay was almost painfully loud. Workers from Sigma shift were rushing to and fro, shouting instruction to each other as they tried to unload the last of their shipments. Enforcers holding crackling shock mauls and suppression shields prowled between them, reflective visors covering their faces. Heavy carts trundled over the metal floor grates with their axles squealing, and over it all was the roar of the spinning grinders at the far end of the bay.

The men and women of theta shift were huddled against one wall, staying out of the way until their time came, but between them and the access hatch was an armoured security booth. Jocasta walked up to the mesh grill at the front of the booth and smiled at the grim-faced watchman behind it.

“Jocasta Theta, reporting for shift.”

The man grunted and peered down at his data-slate until he found her name, then pressed his thumb against the screen. He reached down under the desk to pull out two rectangular metal tins, each the size of Jocasta's palm, and slid them through the gap at the bottom of the grill.

“Two ration packs, corpse-starch. No eating between breaks. No hoarding. No trading. Return the tins at the end of your shift. Do you understand?”

The enforcer had said the same words to her every morning for the last three years, and she'd given the same response. “Yes sir, I understand. May the Emperor protect you.”

“And you. Move along.”

Jocasta put her rations in her pocket and went to join the rest of her shift, leaving Seth to report in behind her. She knew almost all of her co-workers by name, even if she hadn't had a chance to get to know most of them, but today there was an unfamiliar face. A man... No, a boy, probably on his first work assignment. Maybe four of five years younger than her? Not even old enough to shave. He looked every bit as scared as Jocasta had been when she started at the plant, and she decided that he needed a friend.

“Hey there kid, welcome to loading bay seven! You're new, aren't you? Please say you're new, if you've been here for a while I'll be so embarrassed. My name's Jocasta. What's yours?”

“Uh...” The boy hesitated, looking down at the floor. “My name is Lansan. It's nice to meet you.” His voice was so quiet she could barely hear him over the noise.

“Well it's very nice to meet you too, Lansan. I guess this is the first place you've worked? Well don't worry about that, we'll show you the ropes in no time. Which section are you assigned to?”

“Um, I think they said I'd be unloading the pallets?”

Jocasta kept smiling, but her heart sank. “Oh, so you'll be working with me! That's good. Did they say who you're replacing?” She already knew the answer.

“Yes, they said the last person got reallocated to a manufactorum on the upper levels. His name was Dillan?”

“Gillan. His name was Gillan.” Jocasta struggled to keep her voice level. Gillan had been nearly forty, with a limp he couldn't hide any more. No manufactorum would have taken him.

She tried to think of something to say, but before she had a chance the bell rang to signal the shift change. The exhausted workers of sigma shift put down their tools and started filing towards the exit, and theta shift moved quickly to take their place. Jocasta walked towards the wide metal shutter on the tunnel side wall, still thinking about Gillan, wishing Lansan wasn't following quite so close behind her. She wanted time to think, but the shutters were already opening to accept the first delivery of the day. She'd just have to wait until the shift was over.

“Alright Lansan, this is the start of the chain. The cargo comes in through here, we jump onto the pallet, then we throw it over so it can be loaded onto the carts. After that it goes through the grinders and onto second stage processing, but you don't need to worry about that bit. Do you have a handkerchief? That's good, tie it around your face. It'll help with the smell. Grab yourself some gloves from the rack, try and get a pair without any holes in them. Let's see... You know how to lift, right? Knees bent, back straight?”

The boy nodded, pulling his gloves on, and she did the same. With a familiar shriek of metal on metal a wide platform rolled into view down the tunnel and pivoted into the loading bay, coming to a halt a couple of feet away from the edge of the floor. Lansan went pale as the smell hit them; the platform was piled high with corpses, collected from all the middle and lower levels of the city. Jocasta saw his expression and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“Try to think of it as cargo, rather than people. The city needs to eat. Just be careful when you jump across, you don't want to fall into the pipes.”

He nodded slowly, but she could see his hands trembling. There was nothing more she could do for him except lead by example, so she jumped across to the platform and started pulling a body off the top of the pile. Lansan joined her, gingerly picking up the corpse by the shoulders as Jocasta lifted its ankles. Under her direction they carried it to the edge of the pallet, gave it a couple of swings, then threw it across the gap to where a couple of carters were waiting to load it.

“So, Lansan, how far up do you live?” She was hoping to take his mind off the task at hand, if only so he'd stop being so squeamish.

“Um, about forty minutes walk? We're a couple of levels down from the market.”

“You're not that far above me then! Oh, and you said 'we', does that mean you're still living with your family?” The boy just nodded. “You're lucky. My parents got moved to tunnel thirty-six just after I started working here. Haven't seen them for years.”

“I'm sorry, that must be hard. Not knowing...” He paused for a moment to find his footing as they picked up a particularly heavy body. “Not even knowing if they're still alive, I mean.”

Jocasta found herself lost for words for a moment, and almost slipped on a bloated hand. She wanted to believe the kid didn't mean any harm, but surely he was old enough to know better? Either way, there was only way to respond. “Well if they're dead, I'm sure they died serving the Emperor. You can't ask for anything more than that.” She had to force the words out. You never knew who was listening.

“Oh, yes, of course. I didn't mean... I was just thinking, I don't know what I'd do if my parents got reassigned. I guess they'd move me to a smaller bunk, but I've never lived alone before. Did you ever... Urgh!”

The boy recoiled and fell backwards as the arm he was holding came away from the shoulder with a wet slurping sound. Jocasta dropped her end of the body, leaving it on the edge of the platform, and walked quickly over to him.

“Listen, Lansan,” she whispered as she helped him up. “I need you to be a little tougher, okay? The guards here don't care that you're young, or that it's your first day. If they don't think you can work, you'll get moved somewhere else. Somewhere worse, on the lower levels. Your parents wouldn't want that for you, so just...”

Too late, she saw his gaze move down to the corpse behind her. By the time she turned round it was already slipping over the side of the platform, down into the pipes, and she could only stand there as it disappeared from view. A moment later there was a crash, then a distant, wet thud. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew what was coming.

“Worker!” The shout cut through the noise of the loading bay. Jocasta opened her eyes again and fixed her gaze on the floor; she could hear the heavy footsteps of the enforcer walking towards her. A quick glance at Lansan confirmed he was keeping his head down as well. At least his parents had taught him that much.

“Wasting the city's food is a crime. Which one of you is responsible?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lansan opening his mouth, but she was quicker. “It was me, sir. I wasn't paying attention. I'm very sorry, it won't happen again, I...”

“Step off the platform.” The man sounded more bored than angry. Jocasta jumped across to the loading bay and turned to face him, making sure not to look him in the visor. “You have your rations for the day?” She nodded. “Give me one of them.” She fished the tin out of her pocket and the man snatched it out of her hand. He opened it, checked the contents, and dropped it into a pouch on his belt.

It was a lighter punishment than she'd expected. She let herself relax a little. “Thank you sir. Permission to get back to-”

Without warning the enforcer swung his shock maul into Jocasta's stomach. It wasn't a hard hit. It didn't need to be. Her world went dark, then brilliant white flashes danced across her vision. All she could hear was a snapping, crunching sound that seemed to come from every direction at once.

It only lasted for a moment, and when her vision returned she was lying on the ground at the enforcer's feet. She tried to stop herself trembling, but she couldn't. Across the bay she could see Seth staring at her. He looked scared.

The man leaned down to speak to her, his boot inches away from her face. “You're going to go down to the pipes during the first break and retrieve that corpse. You will not be late. You will not return empty-handed. Do you understand?” She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out but a dry wheeze. He seemed to take that as confirmation. “Get back to work then. No more mistakes.”

As he walked away Jocasta, still shaking, got back on her feet. The hot, raw pain was starting to spread through her stomach, and she knew from experience it was going to get worse before it got better. It would make the next few hours of work agonizing. And then the pipes... People died down there. She could die down there. All because she'd been too busy trying to help the new kid...

“Um... Jocasta?”

She turned to look at Lansan. There were tears on his cheeks. He looked ashamed.

“I can help, if you want. I can go down to the pipes with you.”

For an awful moment, she thought about saying yes. Maybe the two of them would have a better chance of getting out alive. Or maybe she could run faster than him... She put the idea out of her mind. “Thanks, but I'll be fine.” Her voice was still little more than a croak. “It was only a small one, and it's already missing an arm. I can carry it just fine by myself.”

“But, maybe, I could protect you? Kind of, watch your back?”

Jocasta gave the boy the best smile she could manage. “The Emperor protects.”

***

The area under the ration processing plant was a tangled web of tunnels, pipes, junctions and crawl spaces. Bundles of cables wove through narrow corridors, linking together rusted, humming machines that only the red priests truly understood. Everywhere there was the dripping of oil, grease and other, more organic fluids from the plant above. The lights were so faint that they were little more than stars to navigate by, if they worked at all. The only people who came down here were maintenance teams, and they never made the descent without armed guards. The rats were always watching and always hungry.

Jocasta had no guards, and no weapons except a wrench that Seth had slipped into her pocket as he'd wished her good luck. The enforcers had let her take a lantern at least. The weak, yellow light only reached a few paces away from her. Beyond that there was darkness.

She'd been slow and careful at first, trying to stay quiet, freezing every time she heard something skittering through the gloom, but the morning break was only half an hour long and she knew how much worse things would be if she was late. As she went deeper into the maze she started to move faster, gripping the wrench tightly and hoping her reactions would be quick enough if something jumped out at her.

She walked through one dank, humid corridor after another, rushing down steep ramps and squeezing through air ducts, doubling back on herself whenever she reached a dead end or locked hatch. After a while her pace slowed. Every time she passed a turning she paused, trying to picture where she was in relation to the loading by above her, before choosing a path and continuing.

Eventually she reached a junction and had to stop. There was an opening leading down to her left, but surely the wall of the transit tunnel should be there? And if it wasn't, did that mean she was farther away from it than she'd thought, or had she gone so low that she was underneath it? How long had it been since the break started? She didn't have a chrono. Maybe it had been ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Maybe she'd never find the body, or the rats would find her first. She could hear them, scuttling through the gloom. They sounded like they were getting closer.

She leant against the wall and set the lantern down on the ground. Her hands were trembling. She tried to get her breathing under control, but she couldn't.

Gillan was dead. She knew he was. People didn't just stop working when they had a family to feed, even if they were ill. Perhaps he was just too sick or too badly injured to get to the plant, but the end result was the same. The weak didn't survive for long. Yesterday she'd teased him for the silly little moustache he'd started growing; she'd said it made him look like an old man. That was the last thing she'd said to him, and now he was gone.

Her shoulders started shaking. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, then squeezed hard on the metal handle of the wrench. She didn't have time to cry. Somewhere up there Seth was waiting for her. All she had to do was find the body, and then she'd find her way back to him. They'd share good food, and gossip about their shift mates, and then she could tell him how much he meant to her and hope that he felt the same...

She heard it before she saw it; the click, click, click of claws on metal. She swore under her breath. If she hadn't been so wrapped up in her own head... No, there was no time for anger. Slowly, she bent down to pick up the lantern. Her hand trembled as she raised it. There were pale, milky eyes gleaming in the dark of the corridor behind her. Three, no, maybe four creatures, though she couldn't be sure. She'd seen dead sump rats before, and no two of them had the same number of eyes.

Keeping her eyes on the crawling shadows, Jocasta started to back away. One step, two steps, and then, from behind her, she heard a low hiss. Her heart jumped into her mouth. She froze, trying to work out how far away the rat behind her was; it sounded close. A few paces, maybe.

The wrench in her hand was slippery with sweat. She tried to adjust her grip. If she could turn quickly and get in a good swing... But there wouldn't just be one, would there? They never hunted alone. Running was the only option, and out of the corner of her eye she could see the side tunnel that had confused her a moment ago. She still had no idea where it went, but it didn't matter.

Jocasta bolted forwards, ducking through the doorway as a screech went up from the rats. She sprinted down the narrow corridor, leaping over gaps in the floor grating, racing around the sharp turns and sudden twists of the tunnel. The rats were close behind her but she couldn't look back. She couldn't hold the lantern steady, and it took all of her concentration just to stay on her feet in the flickering light.

She ran on, her heart pounding, desperately, frantically looking for some way of escaping her pursuers; their shrill chittering echoed from the pipes around her. Suddenly, through the enveloping gloom, she saw a metal hatch up ahead. She darted through it, slamming her weight against the door, the rusty hinges screeching as she forced it closed. From beyond she heard the rats scratching and clawing at the metal, throwing themselves against it in a frenzy... and then, the sound faded. Listening hard, she could make out the clanking of loose grating beneath their feet, the noise getting quieter and quieter as they abandoned the chase and moved on. Gasping for air, she slid down the door and sat against it.

She was alive.

As the adrenaline receded, she realised she was in a junction room larger than any she'd found before. She couldn't tell exactly how large; the light didn't reach the far wall. What she did see, lying on the metal floor surrounded by broken ceiling panels, was the corpse. For a moment she just stared at it, uncomprehending. She was lost. She'd run for her life. How could it be right in front of her?

Slowly she climbed back onto her feet, walked up to the body, and knelt down beside it. It had taken a beating during the fall, but aside from the missing arm it was still intact. Now all she needed to do was carry it back up to the surface. But that was impossible. The rats wouldn't have gone far. She couldn't outrun them with that much dead weight on her shoulders. She was going to die. Unless... Unless there was another way out of here.

No sooner had that thought crossed her mind than she noticed a faint, pale light from up ahead of her. It didn't look like the flame of a lantern, or the glow of the electric lights that lined the halls of the hive city. It was softer. Gentler. She stood up and started moving towards it.

As she walked forwards the air seemed to shimmer. Motes of light danced around her, swirling in a breeze that she couldn't feel. The space was larger than she'd imagined, and even as the body disappeared from view behind her she still couldn't see the far wall. As she got closer to the glow she saw it was coming from a human shape on the floor; to her surprise she realised it was another, much older corpse. She'd never seen one so decayed before.

The thing that drew her eye though, and the source of the light, was the fungus. It sprouted from every part of the body, pushing through the blackened skin in strangely shaped clusters, not just one type but a myriad of different shapes. There were varieties she'd only ever heard about, and some that were completely alien to her. Fragile looking spheres on delicate stalks, glistening jellies that had eaten deep into the remains of their host, mushrooms of every shape and size. And the colours! She'd thought that all fungi were pale grey, but these were a riot of blues, oranges, pinks and browns, all of them glowing softly in the gloom. It was beautiful.

She stepped forward, holding the lantern as close as she dared. There was a rich, warm aroma rising from the corpse, so strong that she felt light-headed. As she leaned over it she realised there was a pattern hidden in the light. Everywhere she looked, the fungi had formed itself into circles. The motif was repeated across the entire body. Circles overlapping each other, circles within circles, and in the centre of the chest three thick, conjoined circles of bright green mould. They'd grown so that each circle was linked to the other two to form a triangle.

There was something more, though. Something in the centre of the pattern that she couldn't quite make out. She leaned over the body, holding the lantern closer, straining to see what was hidden there... And then her foot slipped. Before she could think her hand jerked forwards to break her fall, and with a wet, sickening squelch it hit the mould and sank into it, the desiccated body's chest cracking and collapsing under her weight.

The smell of rot and death washed over her. She scrambled to her feet and reeled back in disgust, desperately shaking the spongy, stinking slop from her hand. It clung to her skin like glue; she couldn't bare to look at it. She dropped the lantern and pulled out her handkerchief, scrubbing at her arm frantically until it was free of the muck, and then stood there, panting, over the body.

Reluctantly, Jocasta looked at her hand. It was still streaked with grime and dotted with luminescent spores, but she'd done the best she could. The handkerchief was sodden; she threw it aside, then closed her eyes.

“God Emperor, please... Please don't let me get sick. Please show me a way back up. Please let me live, just a little longer.”

She whispered the words into the dark. There was no reply.

It wasn't until she opened her eyes and bent to pick up the lantern that she heard it. The familiar click, click, click, and then a low hiss. The rats had found their way in.

Her whole body went stiff. This was it, she realised. She didn't know where she was. There might not be another way out of this room, and even if there was she wouldn't find it before they caught up to her. All she could do was die fighting; a stupid, pointless death.

She turned and saw the rats at the edge of the lantern's light. Lumpy, misshapen creatures with bony spines and tumorous growths sprouting from their backs. She counted seven of them, each of them as big as a hound and staring at her with murderous hunger. Slowly she reached into her pocket and pulled out the wrench, then stepped forwards to meet them...

And the rats backed away.

She paused. Was this some kind of trap? Were they waiting for her to leave the light? She took another step forwards. One of the rats hissed at her, then turned and scurried into the dark. The others edged backwards.

Jocasta took a deep breath and walked forwards until the lantern's pool of light was behind her. With every step the rats retreated, some of them squeaking and scuttling to the corners of the room. It was as if they were scared. She just stared after them, dumbfounded. But then, she'd asked the Emperor for help, hadn't she? And this... this was a miracle.

For a long moment she stood there, in the dark, trying to think of any other explanation. The rats could have killed her easily. She'd heard of them attacking armed groups when they were hungry enough, and these ones had looked very hungry. Just a few minutes ago they'd been chasing her down. And now suddenly they were scared of her.

No, that wasn't right, was it? They were scared of that old corpse, or the fungus. If they weren't then the whole thing would have been eaten long ago. The rats would eat anything, animal or vegetable, no matter how rotten it was. And if it wasn't the rot, or the fungus, then what else could have stopped them if not the Emperor's protection? And now that protection was on her.

There was one way to be sure. She went back and retrieved the lantern, humming a hymn under her breath, and then picked up the sodden handkerchief. She walked across the room until she saw the last few rats prowling at the edge of the light and threw the rag at them as hard as she could. Before it had even landed the creatures scattered, shrieking in panic.

Jocasta couldn't help but laugh. This was amazing! She'd seen a real miracle, right there in front of her! The body must be some kind of holy relic, hidden down here for who knows how long, and she was the one who'd found it. She wondered if Seth would believe her. In the stories, miracles only happened to holy warriors and saints... Maybe she wouldn't tell him right away. It would be her secret, at least for now.

Sighing, she realised she had more immediate concerns. It would take time to find her way back up to the plant. At least now she wouldn't have to worry about the rats though. She went back to where the ceiling was broken, hoisted the body onto her shoulders, then set off to retrace her steps. As she left, the light in the junction room faded. The sound of her footsteps died away. All that was left was silence, and the soft glow of the fungus, and the clouds of spores that danced through the air without any wind to move them.

[shortythescreen]

I am officially subscribed to Darkspark now. May I request how their first date was like? Like who asked first, what did they do, did they go any further? Sorry, I suck at promts 😞

honestly, i haven’t really done a lot of shippy stuff bc i’m not a huge shipper BUT! i love YOU so much that i can definitely talk about darksparks!!! 

Darksparks First Date Headcanons: 

- Wraith gay-panicked about asking Wattson out for literal days before she even attempted it the first time. And I say attempt because the second she opened her mouth, someone else started talking, and she lost the courage. 

- After a few more disaster attempts to just ask Natalie out, including but not limited to a hand written note picked up by Octane, using Artur in a way Bloodhound did not approve of, and lastly trying to get Pathfinder to ask for her, Natalie approaches Wraith. Giggling, she asks her if she would like to go on a ‘cute little date with her’. 

- They actually decide on where to go together! Wraith is up for anything but she would like to go somewhere with good food, and Wattson likes to go look at things. In the end, they decide on going to a planetarium first and a little cafe afterwards. 

- Natalie calls ahead and makes sure the cafe they’re going to has vegetarian options, knowing that Wraith doesn’t eat meat. 

- The planetarium is super exciting and mostly consists of Wraith listening to Natalie explain things about the different planets in their solar system. 

- Occasionally, Wraith will chime in with her opinion on a constellation, or the story behind one. She thinks that Orion’s Belt seems kind of silly, and maybe they could connect it to others to make it Wattson’s Pylon. 

- Wraith is very skittish when it comes to touch. She wants to touch Natalie, though, wants her to understand just how much she likes her. So while Natalie is chattering about gas giants, Wraith reaches out and places her hand on Natalie’s lower back. 

- Natalie doesn’t point out, doesn’t want to scare Wraith off, but she’s very pleased about it and starts doing this pleased little hum as they make their way around the planetarium. 

- Afterwards, they go to that little vegetarian cafe, and Wraith gets Natalie to try a vegan brownie. Natalie is apprehensive -- she loves milk! But she’s pleasantly surprised when she takes a bite. 

- “It is made of almond milk, oui?” “Yeah.” “You could say it’s almost milk. Get it! Almost! Almond!”

- Natalie then buys herself and Wraith several vegan brownies and, after a little back and forth, lets Wraith pay for their drinks. Natalie gets a strawberry-banana smoothie and Wraith gets a frappucino with almond milk and chocolate sauce. 

- They chat about everything -- the planetarium, of course, but the games as well, the things that keep them up at night, the things they want to do. 

- “I would love to go off planet one day. I’ve never been anywhere but World’s Edge and King’s Canyon!” “I’ll take you.” 

- They walk home instead of calling for a cab and at the very end, Wattson asks Wraith if she can kiss her. Wraith isn’t quite comfortable with a kiss on the lips, but she offers her her cheek, and Natalie squeals, taking the peck eagerly. 

[ravenvsfox]

“be unbroken or be brave again” for the hozier lyric thing? your writing is amazing!!

(Thank you baby!! quick tw off the top for slightly graphic violence)

Riko dies, but first he takes Neil’s hand.

He remembers the high, cartoonish whistle of the racquet, and the footsteps, everywhere, too many to possibly belong to his team.

The mile-long swing.

Andrew caught him around the waist a little too late, pulling him back so that the racquet clipped his nose and shattered his defensive hand. 

He remembers hyperventilating, screaming, blood gushing from his face, soupy and vile. It was smeared over Andrew’s hands, splattered back on Riko’s seething, chomping face. The violent red of his splintered fingers, the bone of his pinky smacked sideways through his skin.

I need my hand I need my hand I need my hand, he’d cried. He had never been so loud about his pain before. 

Kevin had tackled Riko to the ground when he saw what had been done. As soon as the adrenaline ran out, he reared back and threw up, and Matt had taken over.

Andrew had held Neil’s face closed with his own hands, stroking his thumb over the busted bridge of his nose. Neil remembers the crinkle of feeling showing on Andrew’s face, bits of curdled cream on the still coffee surface.

Still, the foxes had won.

Neil had been so close to joy that the anticipatory taste of it still gets on his tongue, sometimes. It’s like he took a sip and inhaled by accident. He’s been hacking and coughing, but something’s still wrong, deep in his lungs.

In his dreams, Andrew gets there in time, and the fury in his eyes turns Riko to stone. He shatters to the ground and explodes into dust, and Neil gasps whole buckets full of air.

When he wakes up, Andrew is holding his hand.

He’s taken to clenching his fists in his sleep, undoing his progress with the physical therapist. Kevin berated him for it when he found out, adjusted the racquet in Neil’s left-handed grip, and sets the pylons back up.

He knows he’s been doing it again, because there are fingernail marks stamped into his flesh. Andrew is massaging the tension out of the meat of his palm now, getting his fingers in between Neil’s where the burns and surgeries and cuts have made his hand look not quite like a hand. More like the approximation that a butcher might put together out of whatever they had lying around.

“You’re going to have to start sleeping in your brace,” Andrew tells him.

“Abby told me not to.”

“Abby doesn’t know how self-destructive you get when no one’s watching.”

Neil quirks an eyebrow. “Sure she does.”

Andrew raises his own eyebrow in response. He’s bare-chested, sitting up with the covers dragged over his lap. He just got a haircut, and Neil’s getting used to this stranger in his bed, minus the mop top and plus this expressive thing he’s doing where he makes fun of Neil’s expressions by doing them back at him.

His hand stops working over Neil’s, and he lets them rest together instead. He tosses his head back into the pillows and thinks, there is some good sensation in this hand, after all.

“You tried playing with your right again, today,” Andrew guesses. 

Neil shrugs. “Left got tired.”

“If you get tired you stop. That’s the deal.”

“One hand gives out and I use the other, like always,” Neil says. “If both give out, then I use my teeth.”

Andrew squeezes his fingers in warning. “If you can’t use your hands” he says, “then you use mine. Pass to me.”

He remembers his first night at the hospital, when Andrew made the same offer. Neil’s bones were propped up with metal, and his nose was permanently off-set, and he still had the burns and cuts from his run in with Lola. He thought he might die, by accident, if the machines were turned off or the foxes left for too long. He might forget to be alive.

But then there had been Andrew. 

And his old burns had pulled worse than his tendons, sometimes, and he thought, actually, I’m done being hurt. The Foxes filtered through his door so that it never really closed, and he thought about the way that he actually had ten more sets of hands to his name since he met them.

“Does that mean you’ll actually try,” Neil says, finally catching those keen eyes through the dark. “To win, I mean.”

Andrew shrugs. “If it stops you from breaking your own limbs,” he says, fingertips gliding up Neil’s healed arms.

Neil smiles at his expression, and pulls him by the hand until they’re stretched out side by side. He wants to believe that it’s the strength of his grip, but he knows Andrew now, and he knows that he’s only immovable until Neil moves first.

And he knows he won’t stop moving, and Andrew won’t stop following, and he won’t stop waking up to his throbbing hand already caught in a healing grip. 

And he’ll switch to his right hand in the middle of a match someday, and the cheers will boil the court clean, and it will be sacred again, because no part of him stays broken for long.

[blood-gulch-reds]

My favorite grimmons interaction:

Grif: I just think its weird how we're not bowing down to our robot overlords yet

Simmons: I'm a cyborg, wanna bow Down to me?

Grif: pass.

Simmons, in a flat robo voice: fuck you meat sack. Your logic is flawed.

Grif: you are the biggest fucking nerd. You know that right? I mean- I mean really you know that right?

Simmons, robo voice: you must construct additional pylons. Reeeeee booooooo rrrrrr

[sabraeal]

He Who Studies Evil [Part 2/4]

Part 1

A prequel to Wanting Is More Pleasurable Than Having (And Other Things Vulcans Don’t Know a Damned Thing About), written for @bubblesthemonsterartist 

There are pleasantries to observe when the runabout docks. Haruka hardly expects them from a group of war-mongering mine managers, but when he steps through the airlock, ensigns flanking him to either side, he’s pleasantly surprised to find a greeting party.

“Welcome,” their leader says, the tallest among them, though none of the Cardassians are what he would consider small. Perhaps not as broad and muscled as he would expect, but then again, alien biology holds a cornucopia of oddities. One only underestimated a Vulcan once before believing in their superior muscle density. “You are invited to meet with Gul Dukat presently.”

Gul Dukat, the prefect of Bajor. A man much maligned by the planet’s population, as far as he can tell, though he doubts the Bajorans would welcome even the most benevolent overlord if he were Cardassian.

He is also the man brokering this peace. The representative Cardassia wished to pit him against.

Already they are trying to throw him off his guard, but no one makes captain without a degree in quick-thinking. “Thank you for the warm welcome. We are honored by the prefect’s invitation and will join him after we--”

“There’s no need,” the ranking Cardassian tells him. “Your effects will be brought to your quarters, and you will go to Gul Dukat. Follow me. You do not wish to keep him waiting.”

Haruka hesitates. The Federation wants this treaty, yes, but allowing himself to be summoned as a supplicant to this Gul Dukat would set himself at a disadvantage, would make this so-called prefect believe that he held all the power in this exchange. A dangerous place to be, when the only thing separating him from an unfortunate mining-related accident was two junior crewman.

“He means that,” Ensign Shidnote mutters, jostling his shoulder in a way that could be easily be an accident, two men in too-close quarters -- except for the way the boy is so careful not to look at him, to pitch his voice low. “Punctuality is a religion to these people.”

He stares, and not for the first time, wonders exactly how that ensign got that scar across his nose.

“Sir,” he adds belatedly, an afterthought.

“I thought the Union didn’t allow religion,” Haruka manages, still rooted to the spot.

“Well.” Shidnote shrugs, sauntering off the docking platform. “Had to replace it with something, I guess.”

It is said Cardassia used to be covered in old Hebetian vaults, a marvel of sweeping architecture, the cradle of humanoid life. But those ruins are all but gone now, instead replaced with the style enthusiastically purveyed by the Union -- tall, imposing buildings; architecture meant to intimidate rather than inspire. Unless, of course, one wished to inspire fear, in which case, the Cardassians had gotten that down to an art.

Terok Nor was a microcosm of that fear, of that oppressive sensation of being watched. Their escort led them across what he brusquely introduced as the promenade, an open area where it seemed brisk trade was conducted, and both the Bajoran workers and their Cardassian overlords could relax for a spell, though never in the same place. Even here, Haruka could not shake the feeling of a hundred eyes on his back, not until he followed the soaring spikes of the pylons upward, up to where the higher level loomed, every banister lined with armor-clad Cardassians.

“It’s a trick,” Shidnote tells him, voice pitched low, so no one but him and Sui can hear. “Meant to make you feel observed. They think it cuts down on the peons getting uppity.”

“And do they?” Haruka asks, trying not to show how much this display unnerves him. “Get uppity, I mean?”

“No.” His mouth curves, bemused. “At least not where the Cardassians can see.”

They meet in a board room, a level field compared to the experience on the promenade, but Gul Dukat is an intimidating presence nonetheless. All Cardassians were broad in the shoulders -- or at least wore armor to make it so -- but the spiny ridges down his neck make him seem even more forbidding than the rest, and the bone at his brow protrudes so starkly that his eyes seem deep-set, more skull than man.

What’s more, every move the man makes says he’s aware of it, that he enjoys the discomfort his presence brings to his guests. Even the other Cardassians are deferential, flinching when his gaze flits over him. This is how the prefect keeps control of this station, even with tension bursting at its seams; he relies on this overbearing mien to get his work done, to keep both the Bajorans and his people in line.

And thus when he smiles, teeth bared in the human way, Haruka knows he has found a formidable opponent.

“Ambassador!” The man sweeps his hand out over the table, laden heavily with food. Haruka has eaten any number of foreign cuisines, but these dishes -- they must all be from this sector from how little he recognizes them. “I hope we have made you feel welcome to Terok Nor! A home away from home, I think you say on Earth.”

“Just so.” The words come out stiffer than they ought; for all that the Cardassians needed this treaty, Haruka could not help but think, as he surveyed the steaming stews and flaky pies and whole roasts of meat he could not account for, that it would be all too easy for a human to eat poison and never even know it.

“Here, let us start with a toast.” The prefect pours a pale blue liquor into fluted glasses, smile still firmly in place. “To our most important duty. May we each serve the State as we ought.”

His own smile pulls tight, but Haruka drinks the wine down. It’s both smoother and sweeter than he expects.

“That’s not kanar,” Shidnote remarks, blinking at the glass. Haruka stares at him, eyes wide.

It’s unfortunate his attention was not the only one the ensign had caught.

“Correct. A fine vintage though, is it not?” Gul Dukat asks, turning the question back to him. Still, Haruka can feel that he captures only half the prefect’s interest, the other firmly on Shidnote. “Springwine, from Bajor. Made from kava juice. I must admit, I have quite a penchant for it.”

“Really.” He keeps his tone even, hand steady. From what they’d heard from Bajor, Gul Dukat is responsible for countless atrocities, but here he is, admitting a weakness for their wine. “I had not expected to hear a Cardassian praise Bajor.”

The man’s smile grows even wider, and Haruka trusts him even less. “The Union would not waste resources bringing Bajor into the modern age if there were nothing of value.”

Shidnote’s mouth pulls tight, but he stays silent. To his other side, Sui looks like he might faint from the very insinuation one might violate the Prime Directive.

“I had been of the impression that its value was to be found in the uridium ore mined from the planet’s surface,” Haruka ventures, keeping his tone conversational, light. He has no intention of provoking the prefect, but he wouldn’t suffer the whitewashing of the occupation right in front of him. “Not it’s culture.”

Dukat’s smile takes on more teeth, not in threat, but in delight. “Can it not be both?”

He makes to serve himself, and the ensigns follow their host’s invitation. Sui delicately arranges his plate with things that look vaguely familiar, while Shidnote digs in with aplomb, serving himself heaping portions of everything at the table. Ah, to be a young man again.

Haruka is more reserved in his appreciation of the spread, taking from the same plates Shidnote does at half the volume. Dukat watches them with unfeigned pleasure as they each take their first bites into Cardassian cuisine. Or at least, his and Sui’s; Shidnote has barely stopped to say more than, “It’s been forever since I’ve had Tuli!” before tipping a half dozen tiny fish onto his plate.

“Careful,” Dukat warns, as Shidnote reaches to take a spoonful of what looked to be souffle. “The station’s replicators make the hasperat especially spicy.”

The ensign’s face falls flat, blank. “You have Bajoran food too?”

“Of course,” he drawls, “I consider myself a connoisseur of the planet’s delicacies. Little...diamonds in the rough, as you humans say. There’s much to admire, if one dedicates themselves to discovery.”

Listening to this man speak sets Haruka’s teeth on edge as much as a dentist’s drill. “I wasn’t aware the Union allowed the admiration of those outside of it.”

Gul Dukat pauses, hands frozen in the act of cutting his pie. Kain would kill him for making such a bald remark, for veering far too close to the sun, but --

But one does not get things done with men like Gul Dukat by playing their game. He’s ceded too much ground, allowing himself to be summoned straight from the docking bay. It’s time to let the prefect know that the Federation will not just lie down in this negotiation.

Dukat blinks, lets out a laugh. “I had not thought a man from the Federation would be so versed in the statutes if the State.”

“I took up some light reading before coming here,” Haruka explains. “A friend recommended one of your classics. The Never Ending Sacrifice.”

“Ah, yes! An excellent example of Cardassia’s literature!” Again, his enthusiasm is unfeigned. “The repetitive epic is our highest form of art.”

The Hebetians must weep for what was lost, if that passed for high art. “It is quite...illuminating. I was surprised to see how highly the family as a unit is regarded among your people. I had always thought your duty was foremost to the State.”

It is an impertinent observation, and if he was at a Romulan table it would have ended in death for one of the men here, but Gul Dukat only continues to smile, unfazed.

“Ah, it is an older piece of work, though its themes have translated well into a more modern age. And besides, is not a strong family that is best for the State?” Dukat proposes, warming to the topic. Of course Haruto would be right in this -- the Cardassians did view a meal as a venue for philosophical debate. “Our children are our future, and our elders mark the path.”

Haruka nods, and his heart pounds in his chest as he decides his answer. “That had been my thought as well. However...”

Gul Dukat leans forward, intrigued. “However...?”

“I heard a rumor,” he confides, “and I’m afraid it made me doubt what I thought I understood.”

The prefect stiffens, smile wrapped tight around his face. “A rumor?”

“Oh, yes.” Sui is still beside him, eyes wide and mouth opened, but Shidnote is blank-faced, watching the exchange with little more than cursory interest. “I heard that you were keeping a prisoner aboard this station.”

“A prisoner? Here?” Gul Dukat laughs as if the very thought were preposterous. “I must admit, my constable is very good at apprehending men and putting them in the brig, but those are dissidents and drunks. Minor crimes, no more than a night in a cell.”

“I didn’t mean a member of this station,” Haruka presses, keeping his tone guileless, almost helpful. “Rumor put it as a Federation prisoner.”

“You cannot believe that,” the prefect says, hardly blinking. “I’m sure there are ships that have taken their adversaries, but Terok Nor is a refinery, not a place for the Union to keep political prisoners.”

Haruka lifts an eyebrow. “Even though it is so close to Bajor?”

“You did say Federation prisoners,” Dukat manages though his clenched teeth, “did you not? As far as i know, there are no...Federation actors on the surface of Bajor. Though I believe we are allowed our...prisoners of war, as you say.”

Haruka lets the lie settle between them. Perhaps there was no official Federation presence on the planet, but hardly a news cycle went by without more reports of losses from those who went to aid the rebels.

“Our articles do allow such things, yes,” he allows, “but I was told this wasn’t an acting member but instead...a child.”

“A child.” Haruka has known sheer cliff faces less forbidding than the tone Gul Dukat takes now. “Preposterous. The Union would never do such a thing.”

“Of course not,” he agrees. “I am only relaying the rumor that has been circulating among the high-ups of the Federation. As a courtesy.”

“Yes. Thank you,” the prefect grits out. “It is most...gratifying to find out what sort of...pernicious propaganda has been spread about my people. You do not believe it, I hope?”

“How could I, if you deny it?” He offers Dukat a thin smile, one that says quite clearly that he has noticed how the Gul has done no such thing.

“Good.” The man must be agitated, to not see through him, even now. “After all, you know how much we revere children.”

“Oh yes,” Haruka agrees. “Cardassian children, at least.”

Haruka had thought he’d known bad mattresses -- after all, it wasn’t as if Federation-issue sleeping bags did much in the way of muting rocks at one’s back -- but it takes only a moment laying on his bed to realize that Cardassians had only mastered the art of torture because they first slept on bed like these.

“Computer.” The room buzzes with silence, and he remembers -- this isn’t the Wistal. There is no computer keyed to talk to him here.

He huffs, swinging his legs off the bed. There’s no other way to do this than the old-fashioned way, then.

His PADD comes easily to hand, and it’s easier still to call up Ensign Shidnote’s service record, far longer than a man his rank should have. He scrolls through all the beginning matter -- born to a freighter family, recruited on mission, other details that seem more and more bog standard now that there’s humans spread all over the alpha quadrant and beyond -- but his eyes catch on the first posting: USS Fortissia under Captain Lido, stationed under Admiral Bergatt and the USS Wilant. Admiral Bergatt, who has been fighting the good fight against the Cardassians for the past half decade.

The would explain a thing or two, save that he should have had no need to contact Bajor --

Something niggles just at the back of his mind. Lido, Lido. He had heard that name before, years ago, and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

It takes only a quick search, and there it is: Captain Amos Lido, with a dozen postings over his illustrious career, the last being the Fortissia at the Cardassian border. Well on his way to Admiral, it seemed, until the mutiny against Starfleet, and his flight into Bajoran space. He’d nearly made it a year working with the resistance, but he’d fallen in with the Kohn-Ma and gotten himself back on the Federation’s radar.

He, like many of his Kohn-Ma compatriots, chose death over capture. His crew had been given the option to return to the fold, so long as they had not worked with the separatist splinter cell. Zakura Shidnote had been one of them.

Haruka dropped to his bed with a groan. Here he was, meant to make peace with the Cardassian prefect, and he’d gone and brought a resistance fighter on board. Potentially even a terrorist.

He reaches for his PADD again, and calls up Shidnote’s file. He flicks past the neatly scrubbed service record, only stopping when he get to the end, when he gets to his assignment to the Wistal, and right there, clear as day, the name on his recommendation --

The tablet drops from his hands, and Haruka scrubs a hand over his face. He should have know, he should have known.

Special recommendation from the Federation, signed by Haruto Wisteria.

[obiternihili]

Something about property rights

I felt like I needed to rant yesterday and decided to adapt the discord messages into a tumblr post.

I spent most of a class this morning thinking about the Anglo interpretations and notions of property rights, trying to actually contrast it with workable alternative notions of property rights and feeling kind of hopeless about it and finding it hard to actually come up with anything that isn't literally communism.

And in retrospect it made the whole “philosophically questioning the whole notion of property rights” feel more, idk, respectable than it had before, when it just sounded like the USSR and China opposed its inclusion in the UDHR for technical reasons or pure self interest in covering their own atrocities.

The whole thing started with thinking about the Zapatist slogan “la tierra es de quién la trabaja”. “The land belongs to those who work it.” To me, the Zapatistas were pretty cool guys, who sided with the little guy and the indigenous peoples of México. But I thought immediately about how a colonial American might react to it, and I couldn’t escape the idea that they’d hear the slogan and go, “ah, yes, we should kill the savages and steward the land correctly”.

As much as the magna carta is held up as this great precursor to democratic rights in this country, its origins are far more dismal and petty. It wasn’t really a democratic impulse, it was more like a bunch of petty-kings coordinated to overwhelm a high king. But it doubtlessly had a strong effect on feudalism and came to be a part of English identity before that even really made sense from a modern perspective. In short it came off almost as a promise that “every man is a king of his own home” and that helped to make property itself sacrosanct.

So when capitalism changed the people’s relationship with the land, the serfs were “liberated” as the commons were siezed by their de jure owners. The collapse of the commons fundamentally changed people’s relationships with property, exacerbating the whole “every man is a king of his own house” issue, and making property the be-all-end-all of basic needs like shelter. To the degree that the Magna Carta made property sacrosanct, in a literal “this is a divinely appointed right” sort of sense, the collapse of the commons codified exactly what that meant, making that sacrosanctity intrinsic to thriving.

So because of tying these issues together so deeply, it made sense to steal the lands of people “not working it” according to how you might work it. So that it made sense to go to war because the yankees were stealing your chattel, and horror of horrors not even repurposing them! So that telling South Africa “hey, no, black people are people too” was unholy, violating their sacred authority to clean their own house. So it makes sense that Australia continues to break promises to its Aboriginal communities, if, say, their homes have a potentially profitable mine to work. So it makes sense that Canada breaks promises to its indigenous population, if there’s an oil pipeline they can lay. So that it made sense, paradoxically, for the US to strong arm México into changing articles of its constitution about indigenous land rights in order to pass NAFTA and be able to threaten to go United Fruit Company on the people for not being profitable to the corporations. And the EZLN, which formed directly because of the anxieties of these moves as the Maya genocide was still very fresh on everyone’s minds, are neo-Zapatistas; the land belongs to the one who works it! The Maya who always has, or the companies that want to (exploit it)? 

I remember once as a teen confronting the attitudes this bears on a small chan.

Before the BLM stuff, actually regarding OWS and those "rich punks arguing for socialism with their iphones" and shit;  I'd made an off hand comment about things not being worth more than lives at some point and someone replied "I'd totally kill someone if they stole my phone".

I made a comment in utter exasperation (this was on a board that was like /pol/ before that was really what it is now and there was no reason to believe they weren't serious), saying something like "Is, what, a month's pay really worth a human life to you?" ($800 really was more money than my mom was making at the time, let alone taking out rent and shit first, and I gave them benefit of the doubt that they weren't rich first world fucks who could afford to take a hit. At that point I’d learned that most people in India, even dirt poor people who couldn’t afford water, generally had smart phones in order to help with work and things; conscientious of this, the fact that I know and knew dirt poor almost homeless people in the US who needed phones for work, I was trying to allow for “if I lose this phone, I lose my job, my home, my health, and my life” which is a reality a lot of people live with, and at least somewhere to come at this issue with).

(But) the commentators, both the user I was arguing against and several people using trips, proceeded to mock me for apparently living in a 3rd world country for thinking a phone cost more than one paycheck.

To these people a phone wasn’t even worth a week’s pay, let alone two. And yet, to them, another person’s life, no matter how desperate they were, no matter how hungry or sick or anything they were, they were worth less than that.

This exchange was about the time I started nurturing (or giving in, depending on your perspective) the idea that "maybe some people aren't just, mistaken, or seeing something I don't, or have some complex network of beliefs making them bite a bullet, but like, actually goddamn legitimately evil in terms of their fundamental values". I gather absolutely that there’s a lot going on with this; that you could understand the guy to mean “I think thieves should be killed” as opposed to ““humans”“ or whatever. But, like, still.

Traumatizing is an overly dramatic word for what that conversation all those years did to me, but maybe it was. And it’s not like a phone’s *nothing*. But the way the users undercut me, and revealed not only how worthless the phone was to them, but how little human lives were worth to them in relation to the phone just kind of knocked the wind out of me

This made the rounds recently. This is the legacy of that property is sacrosanct bullshit.

And, like, fuck, this is the whole cultural underpinning of what’s been going on with the gun shit here. It’s why guns are so important to us. Why we feel it’s absolutely justified to shoot a kid in the back for lifting a $2 bottle of beer from a convenience store and leaving him to bleed to death without so much as calling the police. The entire fucked up thing we got going on w/r/t race here in the land of the free? It’s because of our relationship to property rights.

At the same time, you get climate change from people who feel it’s their right to do whatever to their property. Oil’s money. Dairy farms, meat, cash crops like almonds. You don’t like your water dirtied? But I’m only fracking over ma plotte!

What’s going on in Brazil? Some natives won the right to their lands against farmers who wanted to clear the forest, and mysteriously within a few weeks everything’s lit on fire. 𝅘𝅥 Dark torrents shake the airs, as black clouds blind [São Paulo] ♫

You even get the nimby zoning shit out of this. How dare you let colored people into my neighborhood! That’s stealing from my property values! A tall building? That’s stealing my sunlight!

In a more mixed sort of way, you got homeless shelters, oil wells, chemical plants, industrial parks, military bases, fracking, wind turbines, desalination plants, landfill sites, incinerators, power plants, quarries, prisons, pubs, adult entertainment clubs, concert venues, firearms dealers, mobile phone masts, electricity pylons, abortion clinics, children's homes, nursing homes, youth hostels, sports stadiums, shopping malls, retail parks, railways, roads, airports, seaports, nuclear waste repositories, storage for weapons of mass destruction, cannabis dispensaries, recreational cannabis shops and the accommodation of persons applying for asylum, refugees, and displaced persons - a list i just lifted from wikipedia’s articles on nimbies. Looking at that, there’s some clearly sympathetic issues too. I mean do you really want a train cutting through your farm, no matter how well you’re recompensated, no matter how much it will objectively improve the lives of the people in the cities, no matter much better it is for the environment to commute together?

But, like, what exactly are the alternatives?

We could look at other cultures. What did Belgian property notions look like? Leopold of the Congo? What do French notions look like? Forcing Algieria to pay back the “investment” France made by colonizing them? Well, the English and the French go back a long, long ways, maybe we could look at Germany?

The first genocide of the 20th century is often recognized to be that of the Herero, in Namibia’s, Germany’s biggest steal  in the struggle to carve up Africa like the Black Dahlia.

I already mentioned Brasil.

What about China? Surely they aren’t western!

By some notions they were the first feudal nation in the world, and yet only left the system really in the 20th century. That’s a lot of cultural baggage that underlays the reality the Chinese live under today.

The early republican period saw the rise of warlords and other petty bastards effectively continuing the feudal reality in much the way sharecropping and jim crow continued chattel slavery in the US. The successor states aren’t pretty either; Taiwan, continuing republican ideals, cleared out much of its indigenous population for the Han in ways analogous to what European powers did to the natives of their countries; the PRC, which was born to challenge the ideals of the old republic for its own, took back “what was theirs” with Tibet.

The PRC, explicitly rejecting property rights as the west understands it, doesn’t even have a legal analog to eminent domain, and in effect can seize property on a whim without compensation, forcibly engaging in actions like people moving, which I feel it should be known when done to a community often results in genocide.

Something else illustrative of the conflicts of interest in the problem lies with the 3 Gorges Dam project. Ostensibly to control flooding to villages downstream, over a million residents of the Chongqing area were forcibly relocated, with rumors of people who resisted the project being explicitly drowned and because everything’s just hopelessly corrupt the money actually provided for recompensation never made it to the hands of farmers now stuck in a big city without the education for work.

Similar stories to Taiwan’s play out in other capitalist countries; similar stories to the PRC’s play out in countries that reject those notions.

Generally you just reinvent the same concepts drawing from the lord and serf mentalities of old. There’s shit like this going down in the Muslim world, in East Africa, South America, South Asia, whereever. It’s not just an Anglo thing, even though I’ve let myself believe it were, because of how I was taught about history, from my culture’s perspective.

Then you have to ask yourself, when there’s no net, when you have to provide for yourself first, do the commons necessarily make sense?

Is it even viable, economically or politically, to abolish private property and return to the commons like people have advanced? Would, to enjoy the benefits of something evidentally only stable under feudalism, we have to return to some kind of practice of feudalism? Is that even worth considering?

There are more people alive today than ever before. And that didn’t happen just by accident. We really, actually, seriously have made incredible improvements to agricultural yield and safety, ensuring that the only places on the planet that starve are those that are being starved, by monsters like the Saudis. But the scale we need, the scale we want, the scale we have - is much more than just what one farmer can provide for himself. And the fact that we do have other farmers do the mass farming with their bulk fertilizers, machinery, pesticides, and such, means that most of us don’t have to spend time every week tending to our gardens making sure we have enough staple foods to survive, so we can pursue our own hopes and hobbies and dreams and undertakings and services and so on.

All of it sort of leads to the question, Who deserves the land?

The worker whose blood sweat and tears are wrought into the soil? That could lead to the issue of killing my Yokuts friends' gatherer ancestors for stewarding their lands, husbanding their ecosystem and managing burns and wild populations, instead of raping the lands, burning everything to ash to farm foreign crops that aren’t even adapted to the water issues here. And it doesn't proclude the workers from choking us with smoke, if they feel they need to. The guy on the oil rig isn’t doing it because he endorses what the oil companies do or because he thinks it’s necessarily a good thing, he does it because it makes him bread. Why would worker’s self management solve that? Shareholders and workers alike would only care about taking home what they can.

The "owners” in the English sense? Taking subsidy after subsidy, fighting actively to drain our rivers, collapse the formerly self-renewing resources entirely, bringing us droughts, feeding even the lactose intolerant among us the lie that we need fatty heart clogging cheeses to be healthy? Illegally hiring, exploiting, and deporting the vulnerable? Big farms are just any other business, their owners are the same venture capitalist vultures preying on anything else in that world. South of me used to one of the biggest lakes in North America, virtually the entire south valley was lake Tulare. It’s a bunch of cities now.

So, the people who need it?

Maybe but who decides that? War for territory is a fundamental struggle built deep into us; war is even practiced by chimps. Military ration planning like we saw in the USSR and PRC cause Holodomors. United Fruit and their entire coalition caused the Silent Genocide. Abolishing private property entirely would, what, return us to the times when the lands were unclaimed? That would just lead to petty struggle after petty struggle, like a chimp disemboweling another.

And now, having written this a second time, I’ll end with what I wrote earlier

[lithiviaoblivia]

ruin value

i prospect the rivers elbe, biederitz for your remains, rebuild you from bone ash and the molecules of yours that are mine. come in doktor, i am down here reverse-engineering history you are in the bottles i break you’re chattering in space, you’re in the wires, a broadcast, rushing like wind through a transmitter, you sweep the floor, a lyric suite, i notate the nocturne in your windpipe, the waltz in your throat, the flies around your vinegar mouth. ah, Death, even furled and burnt to a blackboned crusted corpse, you are— even ground into grime and knocked into the water, you are– oh, Death–what a joke what a terrible everlasting joke what does it feel like? is it all that you hoped?

the bunker contracts and holds its last breath then you hear the shot, before the shot, before the shot that gets you gets you, it’s like the onset of autumn but for real this time. your interminable leader, shucked. the air puckers around the lack of him.  now he is behind you, now within you, drooping infinitely over his final days, locked inside a network of fluorescent coffin vaults while his left hand trembles in time with the city, you ask is it quiet there? you ask the rotten dial tone behind his absolute door

is it really all over/is it really all yours then the ringing begins, the only sound left – like forever thawing – the clock unfolding – claustrophobic thick stuck reel sound, uremitting weighing down your ears sound, relentlessly dense like pounding nails under water while you clutch at allied cable for a bargain for a breath—– --  -    -      -

i see you back then, wrangling the births and deaths of them, brandishing the ripe white myth of them, reducing a nation to its wet marrow; i’ve got you pegged, teutonic plague, consecrating party graves, leather-solid in the struggle days with your scaffolding hanging out all cavalierly as you launch your detractors down the long stone stairs christ, all that red ——kids sure did struggle, says m in the garden, condemned. there’s a rush of relief once you’ve done the wife in. while she drains into the rubble, you strain to recall the smoked magnolia meat perfume of a slav girl’s neck but everything tastes of rubber now don’t it, maestro; ludmilla vanilla, with her thirty-eight elegy echoing endlessly inside the collective. the loss of her which sparked your most brutal lament now forever playing on a loop, cataclysmic cymbals refracting your glass-shattering shriek on repeat: your smashing serenade cracks the night open and everything glimmers, november nine shimmers, naked violin sounds in the street but more like crystal-on-crystal d’you know what i’m gettin at imagine how your stars will clench when decades out she denies you to the press, can you hear me or must i scream deeper do you have the time bolshevik boots applauding themselves in the distance. eros retching over a bridge. there is still a chance you can catch the chief up in oblivion despite his unjust head start; if god’s got integrity you’ll rediscover the man all robust and eternal, cuffing around between flaming butter-white pylons like he used to, unrolling his boundless rivery oratory—- for you, in raking waves, dutifully surrender to the supermassive black tug that holds it all together: now the books are really cooked, the books are on plates as you undertake a daring escape up and down mean mount mobius and lo, if your demise ain’t just been riding your ribs this whole entire time in the shape of your own point-two-five walther eight, vicious little puckering pocket traitor with its muzzle nuzzled tight against this last pale bright vision deep breath doktor deep breath deep 

[fuckedaroundandfoundout]

Jan 21, 2022

First things first, we saw how everyone's mornings went, the usual you know, we did our things, met up at the paper, Jebhedaya got a whole 8 minutes of sleep it was great. We were all getting ready to go down and investigate the society of pale burrowers (the correct name for mole people) beneath Jebh. We decided who of our lovely NPCs was going to come with us, this time only being Tilly and Callahan. Tilly is a robot who runs on ghost rock, and Callahan is my wife you know her you love her. Anyways, we had MOUNTAINS of supplies thanks to Pylon, who was the person who organized this venture, and a few beasts of burden in the form of giant armoured worms to carry all our shit. There was discussion about who Pylon had hired and we found out he hired the Lane family. Basically, you want to explore things, you get the Lanes, they are the most badass of Jebh's average citizens, and totally unanomalous which Jericho loved. Two giants of husbands and their daughter, who mentioned when we got there that this job would be enough for them to retire on (foreshadowing that completely went over my head). This was their daughter's first mission with them too. So we got everything arranged and found out Tilly may have some trouble because the caverns and tunnels were generally really wet and she can't be fully submerged, so Jebhadaya got her like an old diving suit from a previous mission of ours just in case. We went down, had to make some checks both physical and mental, and everyone passed alright. Then we got to our first road block.

A giant red wall of ancient texts no one could read blocking the path. It wasn't there just a few days ago when the Lanes scouted it, so strong that Nana couldn't break through it and ominous enough that we really didn't want to. So we looked at the map and found another, slightly more dangerous way to go, being quicker so even having to back track a bit, we'd still make good time to get to the first pale burrower settlement for our interview and investigation.

That night, Jebhedaya tried to mitigate the first of possible issues I forgot to mention by building a door and going to the magical bar he works at. He went through a portal alright... but not to the bar. After an hour, we'd all set up camp and gotten supper going by this point, they found it odd that he hadn't come back yet, so they were like "Hey Antigone, go astral project and try to find him" and I was like "alright. lemme see. I need something close to a mirror box I think to be able to do that because I need to contemplate infinity. Oh yeah! Wife, isn't your mouth kind of infinite? Can I stare into it?" "Romantic, sure." And hooo boy was that a mistake with consequences I don't yet know, but it worked. So I found Jebhedaya and he was talking to this green haired woman and she was trying to catch "birds", which we later found out were souls, specifically because she caught mind as I was looking for Jebh, who couldn't see me so the woman has to translate what I was saying.

We tried to explain to her that we were from Jebh and she didn't know what that was but to be fair we have no real reference to tell to where it is, just that's it's dark and surrounded by water. We managed to have her let me go and Jebh and I went back to the cavern, which had a mini earthquake because the mole people smelled the meat we were cooking and wanted a bite, and the Lane family were just gone. Camp and all, seeming to have fallen off the cliff of the cavern as it collapsed.

And that's where we left off last.

[explodingice]

I worked for Papa Johns for two years and in that time

-most of our issues arose from how long it takes to make a pizza. Its not long if youre crew is good,but its certainly longer than a burger. One man took a framed photo off the wall and hurled it at us frisby style. It soared into the wall above our make table,shattering glass into all the meat and veggies for the pizzas. Had to dump it all and restock in the middle of a lunch rush

-a black man in an official looking trench coat and carrying a briefcase walked into the back of our store during my lunch break. Clearly no customers were allowed in the back so my manager,the employee he was chatting with,and I were understanably confused. He starts in with a story about a murder that happened nearby and hes an investigator and he needs to review our security cameras. My manager hesitates,and this dude laughs and says hes kidding. He turns to me,who hasnt said a word since the guy arrived,puts his hand out to shake mine,and says "hey are you one of them nazi guys? Like from the KKK?" Im stunned because what? He turns to my manager and assumes hes hispanic and riffs off some spanish at him. Turns to third employee and just tries to guess where hes from. Doesnt understand what or where Guam is at first. After insulting all three of us he informs us that hes actually selling chocolate. My manager preceeds to tell him he needs to leave because hes going to call the cops for so many reasons

-I had a lady come in on the Super Bowl. Easily our busiest day of the year. We have a full lobby that only seats five and its not for eating. There are probably a dozen people waiting for pizzas by this point. After spending a FULL 10 minutes heeing-and-hawing over what toppings she wants and what kind of pizza,tells me she doesnt want it because its a 40 minute wait for carryout. Normal people know this. Everyone in the lobby was a call ahead. As shes trying to order,my phones are ringing 100% nonstop. As my guy finishes an order he sets the reciever down and picks it back up again. This means some people ordered before her but hadnt yet arrived. Twenty minutes into her wait,people come in and get there stuff and leave. She throws a fuss and starts telling me she doesnt want the order. Im fed up. Its been a long day so I (admittedly) gave her change back a little angrily and told her id cancel the order. I mention thus several times to ensure thats what she wants and she does. As soon as I hand her the money back,she starts calling for my manager because she still wants that order and shes upset that I canceled her order that she still wants. Fortunately the store is all and open so my manager has heard the entire exchange and calls her out.

Fast food stories are wild sometimes. People talk a lot of shit about minimum wage fast food employees but we have to put up with so much of your crazy shit and were expected to do it courteously with a smile and NONE OF YOU DESERVE IT. YOUR ORDERS ARE COMPLICATED AND YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO CONVEY IT PROPERLY TO US WITHOUT MAKING US HATE YOU. DONT TELL US WHATS ON THE MENU. WE WORK HERE NOT YOU. IF I TELL YOU THE PRICE OF IT,DONT COME BACK WITH THAT "BUT IT WAS X LAST TIME I CAME." NO IT FUCKING WASNT I TOOK YOUR ORDER LAST TIME YOU CAME IN TOO YOU STUPID FUCKING PYLON

Old but gold.

Another comic redraw! Hope you guys like it!

Follow me on Webtoons

[gaudiloquentanemone]

> Anniel: wash away

> The river here is deep, and fast, and it stings -- a bit brackish, probably, since you remember that salt water is caustic to your new form.

> You don’t remember much else. You don’t know how you died, or how you got here, or why Orphaner Dualscar is suddenly an unquestioned part of your social circle. He seems nice, though. Mostly you just have a single, vivid memory of licking jade blood off of Silaas’ clothes, so ravenously that the fabric tore, and the knowledge that that same hunger is what’s been drawing you towards the town, the smell of blood and flesh and hot meat still moving --

> So. The river. It was not, perhaps, the best idea, but you were losing control of your body already, even hundreds of feet out from the little town, and about all you could manage in that moment was to throw yourself in. It probably won’t kill you. You suspect it would be very difficult to kill you now.

> Even so your body tries to get out without consulting you, reaches tendrils out to the bridges you smash against, tries to wriggle to shore. But the salt in the water keeps you weak, and you force yourself to release the pylons, uncurl and relax ... The river’s rough and painful but oddly relaxing. Hitting rocks and stuff doesn’t hurt as much as you’d expect, probably due to a lack of actual flesh, and you don’t seem to need to breathe.

> After a time, you realize that you haven’t hit any bridges in a while. That’s probably the best indicator you’re going to get that the current has carried you past any semblance of civilization. You do have to get out of the water eventually, don’t you? Or ...

> You stop trying to keep yourself in the water, and eventually you wash up on shore, though you couldn’t say how much of that was due to the efforts of your inventive, apparently no longer quite obedient body. If you smelled other trolls again -- live trolls, that is -- you’d have to push yourself back into the river, but you don’t, so you just rest there on the gravel shore.

> You’re wet and aching and lost and, worst of all, still hungry. Now what are you supposed to do?

[slimyscrivener]

The Test of Mettle pt3

A short story based on a dream, various adventurers seek their heart’s desire in an eldritch Test of Mettle. The party’s wishes are granted and things begin to rapidly spiral.

Beginning    ~~~    Previous   ~~~~   Next

After a morning’s simple breakfast and smoky campfire tea the party reconvened on the matter of The Test. The Sorceress once more explained the particulars, that The Test of Mettle would materialize at a tremendous height in the air as a great mass of phantasmal land. Earth, rocks, trees and other vegetation would all appear upon the illusory island in the clouds. One by one, people could set foot upon the island and request their heart’s desire. This would be delivered to them by the power of the test, and all they had to to do to keep it was be the last person standing on the island. Overall, it was a surprisingly simple procedure.

“About how many should we expect up there..?” The Thief asked, thumbing through the cracked parchments lining their scroll case.

“It changes every time The Test appears…” Hedged the Sorceress, running a taloned hand through her shock white hair.

“But it’s always around hundred or so, when it decide it’s had enough anymore people that set foot on it will just fall straight through.”

The Warrior grinned and added, “so we best get in early then, eh?”

Their preparations were quick and it was not long before the party, diminished by one sorceress, were floating up to the island on a glimmering disc. Below, the Sorceress directed the spell which would only just barely get them to the island provided the party was prepared for a little scrabbling and amateur acrobatics. They each exited the disc to climb onto the island, relieved to see that none of their number went hurdling through to the earth below. As the Cleric’s foot touched to the surface of the great phantasmal land mass the cage of The Test snapped shut, and began.

***

A sound like a bell shook all thoughts from her mind and replaced them with one, a question.

“What does your heart desire..?”

A breath in, and then out. She let the words of her wish form, a tentative whisper inside her mind that began grow in intensity.

Feeling the fire welling up inside her even as the answer appeared there in her mind, it expanded so quickly she thought light would pour from her eyes. At every edge, every angle of her body, radiant warmth was spreading. There was a vibration, an energy seeping out of her, a dam aching to burst. Certainty blossomed, the voice of God within, and she knew all the paths that laid before her-

***

They blinked, flexed their muscles, and looked down at their hands.

Their fingertips curled, wrists twisting about under their scrutiny. With a languid drop off their hands, they hooked their thumbs into their belt.

“Ah”, the Thief said with mild satisfaction, “good to know….”

A glance to the side, and their eyes widened in sudden apprehension as-

***

He touched his forehead, hand pushing through his bangs, his voice shaking.

“It’s gone. Th-the scar is… gone. It’s like-”

The Warrior turned to the Cleric, tears beginning to form at the corners of his eyes.

“It’s like it never happened, I remember it like it was just a story someone told me, something that happened to someone else.”

Tears falling in earnest, rolling over the topography of his face, he quavered as he spoke.

“I-it never happened! I know it, it never happened. Like I’ve never been so certain of anything in my life.”

The Cleric gave him a kind but distant look, something was changing behind her eyes. She was listening, but only on the surface. When she took his trembling hands she patted them absently, staring through his sobbing face.

“Is it as you wanted..?” She said, her voice reverently soft.

He laughed, a nearly hysterical sound.

“Yes..! Ha, haha, of course it is! We’ll- We have to…”

She murmured something to him, and he pressed to her.

“Wha- what did you say?”

Leaning in closer, gently pulling his hands close to her body, she whispered.

“Die happily, my love.”

He gasped, wordless choking noise, barely a twitch from the bulk of the great Warrior. He was staring at the Cleric, gurgling as a trickle of blood pooled in the shelf of his chin. And slowly, he slumped onto her. As he did, she kissed him, embracing the rapidly cooling bulk of her lover.

She leaned back with bloodied lips, taking the weight of man and armour while withdrawing the thin shard of corruscating fire she’d buried in his chest.  Letting it drop, fading into motes of dust and light, she reached the arm around his thick torso. That hand cupped the back of his head, fondly petting the shorn skin there. Prayer hummed from her mouth and she lowered him to the glowing earth below them.

“My God walks with me now beloved, he will carry you to your eternal home. No one can take your happiness from you now… never again will you be hurt thusly. Be safe… beloved…”

The body slipped through the shimmering field and fell to the earth below. But instead of a dead weight of iron plummeting through empty air, the body flared into incandescence, burning flesh and steel away to ash.

Flexing her fingers, waves of thaumic energy dripping from the tips of her nails, the Cleric then turned to look at her empty surroundings.

“Now… where has the criminal gotten to…”

***

Working with quick, precise circles, the Thief was tying a grey silk bag shut with silver cord. The bag, which the Thief had a moment earlier blown into until it was the size of a human fist, was tied off just as a loin clothed fellow burst through the tree line. The sweaty man was wielding a sword that could only graciously be called ostentatious, waggling the blade in meaty paws. It was as tall as he was and dripped with enchantments the way a roast drips with grease.

The Thief squinted at the vaguely sword shaped pylon and remarked internally that happiness takes all sorts of forms, and who were they to judge a heart’s desire.

They were reminded of its wielder when the pink man thing bellowed a challenge as he charged. With flicking movements of the wrist the Thief started to spin the bag with one hand.

A hand on their hip they tossed the bag at the oncoming barbarian and watched as it PAFFed against the unarmored man’s chest. Or perhaps squelched was a better word.

The knot undid itself and air howled from the bag’s interior rocketing the barbarian into the air. Their massive magical meat cleaver thudded to the ground as their leather booted feet came clear of the phantasmal earth.

When the barbarian became a speck on the horizon the Thief’s gaze shifted to the sword. After a minute more it faded away into the same ether that composed The Test. They shook their head, they likely wouldn’t all be that easy.

An explosion rocked the illusory earth below and they shot a look over their shoulder. The gout of flame was visible even this far, a plume of fire that engulfed a stand of ethereal pine.

***

Elsewhere, but not as far as the phrase might imply, a patchwork creature was rummaging through wrapped parcels.  A few minutes earlier it, and the bag it occupied, had been dropped to the ground and not picked up again since. It was about then that the tone had sounded in its head. Dutifully, it ignored the sound and dug about until it found the apples. The big meat man always had apples.

***

Another wave of fire crested the glassy banks of the hill, conjured by the hand of a woman in cleric’s robes. She stood tall, scale mail gleaming in the light of her surging magic. The subject of her explosive wrath, another spell caster, had been engulfed in the last great cataclysmic wave. Deceivers, charlatans, she shook her head as the words formed in her mind. One could not suffer them to live. These had always been her precepts, the will of the great lord of flame and judgement. But all things were cleansed in fire, and even these filthsome souls would find solace in her purifying wrath.

Something moved, shimmering, an invisibility that would have hidden the figure from normal eyes. Hers, however, were now lamp lit with the power of her god. The flimsy organs had boiled away, even now she could feel the blackened ooze of them on her cheeks. In their place was certainly, knowledge that was profound and perfect. She saw the ostensibly invisible figure and knew its crimes. It’s many many crimes, both of the land’s laws and moral bankruptcy. And as she swept a hand toward it, calling the fire within her again, she knew that only the disgusting shape of the Thief could have filled that description.

Flames roared again, a column that flowed liked a tidal wave over the Thief and engulfed them. Her hand was still raised when a shock of pain erupted from her back in a pang of icy cold.

The Thief staggered back, half expecting the knife simply to shatter on the Cleric’s armour, but it had sunk quite firmly into her back. It’s last charge delivered, the dagger’s blade was already disintegrating as she swung around to face them. A hand raised, sleeves billowing dramatically from under her armor, the Cleric bellowed a word of power.

The movement ended, hand held high, triumphant.

Silent.

She scowled, light drooling from the corners of her eyes, and then turned her ire on the Thief again.

“What did you do, criminal?”

The Thief had allowed themself a moment of terror, like one does when facing the avatar of a righteous god, but it seemed the wrath was not yet forthcoming. Peeking through arms crossed defensively over their face, the Thief finally started breathing again.

“It’s ah, the old Mage Killer trick.”

Eyes narrowing at them the Cleric growled, “you said all of its charges had been used up. Hence, not using it on the Octolich.”

“I lied”, they said. “So, that’s it for your magic. I’ve got plenty of time now until it wears off, just, just give up okay? You can just-”

The thought was cut off as the Cleric, having retrieved and unwrapped a parcel from over their shoulder, swung the fallen Warrior’s broadsword at the Thief. Dirt and gravel kicked into the air as it drew furrows through the earth. The Thief collapsed backwards and rolled away, springing up onto their feet and getting back into the time honored tradition of the strategic retreat.

“Liar! Coward!” Bellowed the Cleric, which the Thief felt were probably accurate descriptions.

***

Having consumed all of the apples, bacon, candles and part of a bar of soap the little creature finally rolled over onto its back in the darkened space. It was not so much bored, as it hardly ever got bored exactly, but the tone sounding in its mind was becoming annoying. If it’s little head had been filled with something other than clay and old bones it would probably have been driven to distraction by the sound. However, thankfully for it’s mistress’ purposes it was a bit too thick for that.

However, it was definitely antsy to get things moving along.

It considered the bar of soap again.

***

The Thief slammed against the trunk of a phantasmal oak, digging the iron tips of her climbing gloves into it to pull themself out of the way of another sweep of the Cleric’s broadsword. They shimmied around the bulk of the tree, feeling the hair of their neck raked by the sword’s point. There was a thunderous THUNK and a great heaving grunt from the Cleric. Guessing, hoping, the Thief dug through their rapidly diminishing trove of tricks and charms in their belt pouches. They dug a scroll clear of their belt in one hand, the other busy catching their weight as they crawled from the Cleric.

“Do you only know how to run criminal? Everyday I had to endure your presence..!”

Here she savagely pulled at the broadsword again, but it had become almost impossibly buried in the oak. Despite this, and in spite of the local physics, it budged with her second wild heave.

“I had to make my bed with law breaking criminals, salacious sorceresses..!”

“Very good alliteration.” Murmured the Thief, eyes scanning the scroll with what little time they had.

When the sword came free and whirred through the air in a tremendous arc, the Thief was prepared. They’d kept themself low and twisted their body to throw themself clear. Unfortunately they had not anticipated the Cleric to release the sword mid swing and put the centrifugal force of her weight as she spun into a iron shod kick to the Thief’s solar plexus. The criminal was lifted into the air with the force of it, hurled several yards and through the underbrush.

They thudded, smashed through vines and boxwood bushes, and rolled into the familiar clearing where they had initially landed on The Test. Wheezing, attempting to overcome the distant though of pain despite magical infusions, they rolled on to their back. Arms trembling, they lifted the scroll up, feeling as though it would be impossible to hear the spell over their organs screaming. One hand took itself from the parchment and pointed at the approaching Cleric, forming arcane gestures as they spoke.

The Cleric could not hear the spell over her crashing through the same underbrush the Thief had disturbed, and even if they could there was little it would have done to dissuade her. She stooped, caught the handle of the recently thrown broadsword and held it pommel to palm. Bringing it up in an overhand swing, her other hand coming up to snatch the cross grip and force the weapon down, the Cleric leapt on the Thief.

She didn’t stop, even with magical trickery involved, physics still had a hand to play. And perhaps it was still a bit peeved about the earlier incident with the tree. Even as the spell took hold and the Cleric’s skin petrified, she continued to travel through the air. Time appeared slow to the Thief’s eyes, as the Cleric went from a couple hundred pounds of armor and malice to nearly a ton of dense stone on a disastrous trajectory with their very fragile body. They twisted, grabbed a hold of a jutting stone in the clearing and pulled themself with one savage movement.

It wasn’t a scream, the Thief’s larynx was too terrified to unclench enough for that, instead it was a bit more like a horrified squeel. This died away as they continued to live, rather than be utterly crushed under the Cleric turned statue’s weight.

They risked a look, and yes, their right foot had been caught under the bulk of the statue. They would have been more concerned about the pain but of the many potions coursing their their system one of them had boosted their constitution to the point where their threshold for pain had nearly made them numb. Quite aware that pain should be happening, but without the pesky business of actually being in pain, the Thief was only mildly annoyed with this development. With a shove of their boot, the Thief pushed the statue off and on to the shimmering ground.

After a moment, as though the Test were making a decision, the Cleric statue fell through the earth and plummeted to the ground below.

The Thief let out a sigh of relief, staring up at the sky, and was perfectly in range to see the dragon arrive.

[wellnessroutines]

Iron deficiency symptoms and remedies you need to know

This is a sponsored blog post in behalf of me for the Advice for Accountable Nourishment (CRN). All opinions are my own.

In June 2016, I ran the 10K Run for Heart in memory of my dad, and also though I'm a long-distance jogger and also understood the race had not been mosting likely to be a go for me, I still felt extremely anxious. The race had so much definition to me, and also I was seriously worried I was mosting likely to stop working and allow my father down.

(Silly, I know…)

So although that I was knee-deep in the mayhem of packing, removaling, and restorations on 2 houses, I located the time to run over 90K in the 4 weeks preceeding the race.

90K!

Now, I'm not mosting likely to lie to you. That was one difficult month for me, and also there were times I seriously considered backing out of the race, but each time I felt the impulse to quit, I reminded myself why I was doing it and also found the strength to bring on.

I felt ready and pumped when I went to grab my race bib a number of days before the race, however the early morning prior to I was because of lace up my joggers and make my father proud, I woke up with a dreadful head cold and the weatherman decided to change the projection from 'attractive and sunny' to 'rain and thunderstorms' for the rest of the weekend.

I was crushed.

My partner (honor his heart) kindly suggested I miss the race, or even though I understood my papa would certainly have told me to do the precise very same point, providing up just had not been an option for me.

That's not who I am.

So while I was carb-loading the evening before race day, I started looking into the very best suggestions for running in the rain, and also after checking out a load of remarkable stories, it quickly emerged that the only suggestions I required was this:

Change your attitude.

While a great deal of the extra experienced joggers confessed rainy races could be difficult and unpleasant, nearly all of them claimed they finished up not only running FASTER in the face of stormy weather condition, but that they likewise really felt a bigger feeling of success when they crossed the finish line.

I reviewed countless tales such as this, when I got up to rainfall as well as a congested nose the adhering to early morning, I maintained advising myself to concentrate on how I would certainly really feel when the race was over.

The race started the like other - great deals of loud songs and also supporting as well as howling and also mad dashes to the port-a- potties (so gross!) - yet as I came close to the midway turnaround pen, one of the occasion organizers grabbed the turn-around indicator as well as started removaling pylons while screaming, '10K IS DOWN THERE! 10K IS DOWN THERE!"

So I ran, and ran, as well as ran some extra, and when I got to the last turnaround point, I noticed there were only a handful of runners behind me, and judging from how my body really felt, I recognized I had actually run a lot further than I was supposed to.

And I was right.

The original turnaround markers were wrong, and also while the event team were arranging out their mistake, they erroneously guided 72 people to run 14K instead of 10K.

14K!!!

I 'd never ever run that much in my life, when I recognized I was just midway via the race, I was terrified I had not been mosting likely to make it throughout the coating line. Before I might go into freak-out setting, I advised myself why I was there, ordered a mug of water, turned the music on my iPod up, as well as finished up not just beating my finest 10K outside run time, however likewise placing 12th among the 72 runners that ran the 14K with me.

Words could not express the sensation of satisfaction that cleaned over me as I looked up into the sky to claim bye-bye to my papa after going across the finish line that day, as well as while I really felt like I was running on adrenaline for the remainder of the day, I felt terrible in the days and weeks after the race.

I was tired and also irritable all the time, I couldn't concentrate, and also the simple idea of going for a leisurely jog around our neighborhood made me desire to cry.

At initially, I just believed I would certainly exaggerated it, but as time wore on as well as I continued to really feel lousy, I decided to state something to my doctor, as well as after getting blood examinations, he called to tell me I was seriously anemic, and when he described some of the most usual signs and symptoms of iron shortage, it all made perfect sense:

Fatigue and weakness

Dizziness

Pale skin

Fast or irregular heartbeat

Headaches

Shortness of breath

Cold hands and feet

Brittle nails

Cravings to consume odd points, like dust, ice, or clay

I keep in mind joking that all I required was to eat a few burgers and I 'd be great, however my physician ( very) seriously advised me that there is no such point as a 'best' diet when it comes to an iron deficiency (or any type of dietary deficiency, for that issue), and strongly urged me to spend in an excellent iron supplement to aid bring my degrees back to where they must be.

As the CRN explains, dietary supplements assist load nutrition voids as well as advertise total wellness as well as wellness for the numerous Americans who could not obtain sufficient vital nutrients from diet alone.

My first response was one of alleviation. I figured I would certainly simply take the supplements and also all would excel once more, but after talking to the gal at our neighborhood organic food shop, I understood that iron levels as reduced as mine were are very hard to treat. While dietary supplements can play an important function in excellent wellness, they are meant as supplements to, not substitutes for, various other healthy and balanced practices, as well as given that my medical professional had actually cautioned me it can take an excellent SIX MONTHS for me to really feel like myself again, I understood I needed to take this seriously.

So I started doing some study, and also I discovered out some unusual truths concerning iron deficiency that I was originally not aware of:

Vitamin C helps your body absorb iron, so you must decide for an iron supplement that includes Vitamin C, or eat it with an all-natural resource of Vitamin C (i.e. orange juice)

Eggs, dairy, spinach, whole-grain breads and also grains, and coffee and also tea can inhibit iron absorption, and also shouldn't be eaten 1-2 hrs after taking an iron supplement

Antacids and calcium supplements can also conflict with iron absorption and also should not be taken within 1-2 hours of taking iron supplements

Intense endurance training can trigger anemia

This last point really struck a cord with me. Also though I was feeling worn down all the time, I was still pressing myself to work out at the exact same rate I had actually grown familiar with, once I realized I was doing my body much more damage than great, I began to make some significant adjustments to my lifestyle.

I'm still not really feeling 100% back to my old self, and also I expect it'll be another 6 months before my energy degrees return, however in case my experiences can aid somebody experiencing something comparable, I intended to share 5 vital points that have helped me:

I start my day with a dish of steel cut oats. One serving of steel cut oats supplies as much as 10 percent of the everyday recommended quantity of iron we need to consume daily, but it's essential not to include anything that will disrupt our capacity to soak up the iron, so I sweeten it with a bit of cinnamon and raw honey, and also prevent any and also all dairy for at the very least 2 hours.

I consume red meat at the very least 3 times each week, and ensure I include various other sources of iron-rich fowl right into my meals any place feasible. Red meat, seafood, and fowl are outstanding resources of healthy protein, as well as I feel my finest when I obtain a good balance of the 3 in my once a week diet.

I eat dark eco-friendly, leafed veggies 2 times per day. I've exchanged my precious iceberg lettuce for a mix of spinach and swiss chard, and while I can not consume kale in it's raw form, I do blend it into green smoothie mixes from time to time for an added kick of iron.

I treat on dried out fruits and nuts. This assists me feel complete in between meals, and also offers me a iron boost to boot.

I workout smarter as well as not harder at the gym. I've traded my long, extreme running sessions for much shorter (and also a lot more effective) workouts that don't leave my body sensation as though it's going to collapse.

There are great deals of options when it comes to nutritional supplements, and if you or someone you enjoy struggles with an iron deficiency, I urge you to talk with a physician or various other healthcare expert concerning what dietary supplements are appropriate for you.

To find out more about the Advise for Accountable Nourishment, you can locate them on Facebook, Twitter, and also using their website.

[junker-town]

Younghoe Koo, it wasn’t your fault. You're still our favorite NFL kicker this week.

Welcome to Gramatica Errors, your guide to everything feet in the NFL.

Kickers are the IT professionals of football. They tend to work outside of a traditional team structure, do a job everyone understands in theory but not at all in actual execution, and when they fuck up, everyone gets very angry indeed.

I love them. I love everything about them. I love their lone wolf status. I love that they’re essentially uncoached, leaving it up to them to figure out how the hell they’re supposed to kick a misshapen lump of pig upwards of 60 yards.

Perhaps my love stems from the fact that I grew up a soccer player, an undersized one at that (what up late puberty!), and the only way I could have any type of participatory fantasy regarding the NFL was to imagine myself a kicker. Other kids my age dreamed of being Joe Montana, tossing that perfect spiral to the end zone. Others saw themselves as Lawrence Taylor, bursting into the backfield and laying down a bone-crunching hit.

Me? I saw myself in the visage of Bill Gramatica.

Getty

Yeah.

Anyway, SB Nation has given me a weekly kicker column to discuss any and all things feet. At first I was going to call it Laces Out Marino, then Little Kicky. I also considered Outkick the Coverage. All those sucked, though, so I am going to pay homage to my hero and call this Gramatica Errors.*

*(Thanks to my pal Zack, who came up with the name, and who said he would give me a wedgie if I didn’t give him credit.)

SCUTTLEBUTT AMONGST THE FOOT GANG

Did you know that there is a corner of the internet that follows kickers and punters very closely? I call them the Foot Gang, though I haven’t told them about that yet and I’m pretty sure they won’t like it.

Chuck Zodda is part of this crew. He writes for the very good website Inside the Pylon, attended the same college I briefly went to, and tweets really interesting kicker stuff that I sort of understand like this:

Forbath's momentum takes him right through his body lean. And that's exactly where the kick goes

— Chuck Zodda (@ITP_ChuckZ) September 12, 2017

I DM’ed Chuck on Tuesday to find out what the scuttlebutt with the Foot Gang is. He seemed confused by my question. So I asked him what he and the other Toe Boys were talking about. That outright offended him. I apologized, then asked what he saw this weekend.

He replied: “Lot of [Raiders kicker] Giorgio Tavecchio talk. Kid is good but I worry about some hip stiffness and him falling off to his left too much — could end up missing right if his mechanics get out of whack.”

Look at that. Boom. Bust that out at your next cocktail party. Everything you need to know about Giorgio Tavecchio, who was born in Milan, Italy and also has the name of someone my wife would leave me for. Curse you, you handsome, Italian, kicking bastard. CURSE YOU.

Getty Images

IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT, YOUNGHOE

Chargers kicker, internet sensation, and my best friend he just doesn’t know it yet Younghoe Koo missed a potential game-tying field goal at the end of Los Angeles’ game against the Broncos when his kick was blocked. Some people argued that Koo was partially to blame, as his kick’s trajectory was low and allowed the Broncos’ Shelby Harris to get his arm on the ball, and those people are idiot monsters who deserve to spend eternity choking on a piece of meat.

Zodda, for his part, didn’t blame Koo, saying “the protection was crap — three yards of penetration and the ball's trajectory was fine.”

ESPN’s Mina Kimes, who is somehow less objective about Koo than I am, had a more impassioned defense.

I'm going full Gisele. MY SON YOUNGHOE CANNOT KICK THE BALL AND BLOCK AT THE SAME TIME.

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) September 12, 2017

PATS TO THE LEFT TO THE LEFT

Every time around this year, you get the story that the Patriots only employ lefty punters, as they do this year with Ryan Allen. They do this, the announcers love telling us, because Bill Belichick knows returners have a difficult time picking up the spin on the ball and also because Bill Belichick doesn’t see people as human beings, just collections of body parts that he can use to win another trophy and thus, for another year at least, keep quiet the ghosts that haunt him.

Also, I know this started out as a kicking column, but we’re gonna have to throw punting in as well because if it’s just kicking this is going to devolve by like Week 3 into Giorgio Tavecchio erotic fan fiction. That still might happen, actually.

JOHNNY BE GOOD

We had a punt-nerd-out go viral this weekend! This doesn’t happen often, but oh boy, when it does. Former NFL punter Pat McAfee broke down this video of Rams’ Johnny Hekker, and for us in the Laces Brigade this was just like mainlining that good stuff.

Hekker is incredible.. he just attempted a punt that folks only do in practice #RespectTheArt http://pic.twitter.com/PYjrn3y8P9

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 10, 2017

The breakdown is wonderful and the punt is flabbergasting — Hekker manages to kick what is, again, a misshapen lump of pig, a pure 50 yards, sideways and with side spin, and lands it perfectly inside an area the size of a VW Golf.

After the game Hekker received a two-year extension on his already existing four-year deal with the Rams, with $10 million guaranteed. Zodda argued in our little DM session that this was actually a bargain for how good he is and how much value he brings to the team. I speak for all of us in the Punt Posse when I say: Get that cheddar, Hekker.

JANIKOWSKI!

Sebastian Janikowski is still kicking in the NFL. You needed to know this. Though in Week 1 he had a sore back, so the Raiders decided to put him on injured reserve before their game ... clearing the way for Giorgio Tavecchio, that smooth, Milanese son of a bitch. I have my eye on you, Giorgio Tavecchio. And not only for the hip stiffness and mechanical issues which might result in some of your kicks tailing off to the right.

[graveyardbirds]

Forsakers

(Construction workers demolishing skyscrapers in a future Kuala Lumpur ruined by climate change are pitted against a deadly enemy and each other.)

Publication history: “Forsakers: in HEAT: A Southeast Asian Anthology by Fixi Novo (2016) 
 Forsakers

Under Kuala Lumpur’s zinc alloy sky, Serik had a captive audience in birds and men. Three falcons perched on a rusty overhead I-beam watched him in the afternoon heat – while the foreman and other demolition workers laid watch on him watching the falcons.

“Better than World Cup!” Omar proclaimed as he took bets from the group gathered on the opposite rooftop. He collected the cigarettes and meal vouchers and stuffed them into his hip-pouch. The grand prize was a carton of Marlboro Lights.

Omar still operated out of a habit left over from working the golf and race courses in Doha and Dubai. He had been a caddy and a camel rider, until androids and drones replaced him. Sensing the men’s scrutiny, the falcons squawked and flapped their wings every few seconds. Most were female birds, captured and trained for their bigger talons. If they attack the men, they go for the eyes.

Appraising the situation, Serik raised his gloved fist and yelled, “Hoy!” The falcons scattered and dispersed through the wide spaces in the scaffolding. But it was not the sound of Serik’s voice that startled them. The foreman took off his visors and pointed to a larger bird circling in the warm updrafts rising from the concrete.

Kantubit, a two-year- old female golden eagle trained by Serik, swooped down and intercepted a falcon in mid-flight before returning to Serik. She deposited the now lifeless falcon at his feet and landed on his outstretched forearm. Serik looped the leash over her neck. He had cleared the falcons for the day. Now scared away, there was no need to send Kantubit after the others.
Omar sighed as he noted the outcome in his crumpled exercise book: none of the men had bet on the killing of one falcon. The team was now free to enter the gutted office tower block and continue stripping it.

“Ignore the bodies,” the foreman always instructed them, but it was unnecessary. In order to do their jobs, the workers had gone numb inside. Some of the newer team members vomited over the ledge at the sight of the victims: other demolition workers.

“Damned hawks,” the foreman spat.

“Not hawks,” Serik corrected the foreman. “The small bird is falcon. Shumkar-”

“All I need to know is how many of them and where they are,” he cut Serik off, before barking orders to the crew via megaphone.

“Show’s over. Cepatlah! You guys think you’re on Discovery Channel?”

The Indonesian crew had nicknamed the foreman ‘Tuan Badak’. As Serik watched him walk off the demolition site, he thought, More like a bulldozer than an old rhinoceros.

#

After evening prayers, Omar recalled camel racing in Dubai, while Kuala Lumpur lay in darkness below and the workers sat on the roof of the office tower.

“Whoosh!” Omar supplied his own sound effects, as he acted out a camel race, pumping his arms to mimic the remotely controlled plastic whips attached to robot jockeys’ motors. Serik scanned the dark sky for Kantubit. 
Back home, Serik’s golden eagle hunted with him for three years before he released her. After a successful hunt, he brought the wolf or fox to his grandmother, where she prepared the pelt. He took the anklets and jesses off the eagle’s feet and poured a bowl of milk in front of her as a sign of gratitude.

“You’re special. Saving our lives everyday. Respect, my brother!” Omar slapped Serik’s shoulder. Serik felt that anyone who owed Omar money and a packet of cigarettes was his ‘brother’.

“I am just berkutchi, a hunter.” Serik turned his eyes up to the stars. Orion winked at the city through the wispy haze. He suddenly craved shubat, although he had disliked the sour fermented camel’s milk as a child. Meat roasting in a nearby oil drum stirred up longings for manti dumplings filled with ground lamb.

Omar emptied a packet of oral re-hydration salts into his water flask and said, “We need a little ‘special’ sometimes or we all go crazy at work. Just like Erxat.”

Serik frowned at the memory and held out his hand for a cigarette. Omar slipped Serik two, but he always tucked the extra stick back into Omar’s pouch. It was their little routine. 
#

When Serik was a boy, his elder brother fell off his horse and gored his head. The wound swelled up like a goat’s infected bladder by the time the red-cheeked shayki, a wandering shaman, entered their yurta. As the shayki performed tsat-tsah incantations, his mother clutched her hands over her chest, knelt and lowered her forehead to the parched grass and prayed to Tengri, the sky god. Three nights passed until he opened his eyes.

Serik never asked his mother what she prayed for in exchange for his brother’s life. She died when the Shining Dust blew from the ashes of Lake Balkhash, and rotted her lungs and what remained of the family’s herds. His brother survived for two more summers working in Nepal. He took a bus and crossed the border into Mongolia. On Zaisan Hill overlooking Ulaanbaatar, a tent city gang stabbed him for his stash of yarchagumba, the rare and highly prized cordyceps fungus.

His mother had made a trade with the spirits, exchanging Serik’s fortune for an extra two years of his brother’s life. Broken early, the rest of his brother’s time on Earth was like a limb not set right, and finally amputated on Zaisan Hill. Serik remembered him being more useless than a hunting dog – too lazy to holler foxes and wild cats from their hiding places, while Serik beat and threw stones to drive out prey.

Serik seized the opportunity to work in Malaysia. New fracking and mining money had built most of the newer cities in Kazakhstan, but those agencies in Astana only hired young men. Yet destruction was as important as construction; the agency told Serik that older men were more suited for demolition work.

When Serik and Erxat, a 33-year-old from Almaty, arrived at the rundown Kuala Lumpur International Airport terminal a guide shunted them into a waiting van. Through the grilled windows, Serik watched the highways transmute into abandoned office towers and sprawling malls. Sentimental nostalgia on behalf of the real estate moguls delayed the tearing down of some buildings in Kuala Lumpur.

Before he left, Serik promised his fiancée, Guli, that he would be home in time to celebrate Nowruz. That was six months ago. His passport was still with the agent in Kuala Lumpur, who promised the workers new digital ones from their respective embassies when they paid off travel expenses and other debts. That was also six months ago.

Erxat had fared worse than Serik. A clerical error caused the agency to mistakenly list him as deceased. When he finally went home a year later, his wife had screamed at him, outside what was to have been their yurta, “Why didn’t you stay dead? I don’t have to give back our compensation payment!”

Erxat returned to Kuala Lumpur, but his work slipped. The explosives team found him high on heroin under a bridge near Masjid Jamek. In hospital, Serik observed that Erxat had more stab marks than his brother. He asked Erxat if he had resolved matters with his wife; he shrugged and tried to give Serik his dented wedding ring. Within a week, Omar and two Bangladeshis found Erxat at the base of an electrical pylon, not picked clean like other animals. As if the shumkar were contemptuous of easy prey.

“Erxat is free,” Serik said to Omar on the office roof by way of consolation, but it was not quite true. Erxat had obtained release. It was not the same as freedom, but better than nothing.

#

The heat was never good for work. All morning, men labored up and down the fire escape, hacking away at remaining doors and plaster walls with fire axes. Other men wielded oxyacetylene torches to cut through steel braces on each story, as a precursor to using other wrecking equipment.

On the lookout for more falcons, Serik remained on the roof. Kantubit spread her black primary feathers and dug her talons into the thick glove on his forearm.

“Patience,” he chided her. The falcons didn’t attack in the late afternoon, preferring to strike at dusk.

Silence enveloped the remaining steel and glass high-rises around the office tower. Shamans always said everything was alive. Serik wondered if buildings had their own spirits. If people died during demolition, were their ghosts added to the myriad?

Serik’s childhood memories resurfaced sometimes, as hunts and treks across the Kazakh Steppe at sunrise.

“Humans keep trying to fly higher than their Creator,” Grandfather used to observe every time he saw distant orange flares of space shuttles being launched from sites on the horizon.

“It’s progress,” Serik’s father would shrug.
“Not when they start changing the weather. These recent late winters are bad for our herds.” For Serik, to recall what it was like in the past was pointless. He had only looked to the future, but progress was not development. Humans also tried out-creating their Creator. These shumkar were not falcons but demons created in the name of ‘progress’.

Around the world, cities with large pigeon populations began using falcons for pest control. Kuala Lumpur had been no different, until rich urbanites and the upper-middle class started taking up falconry for sport. Smuggling into Malaysia began when the demand for wild birds increased; they were deemed better hunters than those raised in captivity. Serik had heard of the black market in Kazakhstan, but could never believe it: smuggling eggs in ice boxes or tranquilized birds of prey over the border to Xinjiang, China.

Stress destroyed their immune systems, made the birds vulnerable to opportunistic pathogens. For the smuggled raptors, one was a certain fungus called aspergillus fumigatus, attacking the bird’s defenses and spreading throughout the respiratory system. One strain of the fungus mutated, not only infecting the shumkars’ lungs but also their brains and behavior, making them more aggressive.

During a day off, he and Nilam, a Bangladeshi engineering graduate from Dhaka, were exploring an abandoned bungalow in the Bangsar suburb, in the hope of salvaging remnants of the previous occupants’ lives. Serik found stacks of brochures extolling
vacation getaways and eco-refuges off the coast of Terengganu. He kept one brochure because it had photos of Malaysian white-bellied sea eagles nesting in one of these places.

“Listen,” said Nilam, and both men heard flapping and piteous cries coming from the basement. They found a golden eagle chained to a perch in the darkened room. Her feet had been bound with plastic cable ties that cut into her feet, and the toes were swollen with infection. When Serik felt her flight muscles, they were soft. There was no telling how long she had been in her prison.

Serik wrapped the eagle in a tarpaulin cloth and took her back to the accommodation. Tuan Badak exploded with rage when Serik took the eagle into his office the next day but it did not matter. Serik told him of his skills as a berkutchi back in Kazakhstan and of a new plan for clearing condemned buildings of shumkar. Tuan Badak listened. The constant loss of workers looked bad on his track record.

Kantubit took off from Serik’s arm, soaring up into the twilight. Given her condition, Serik would have to release her soon. For her age she should not be ill, but something didn’t sound right in her lungs. Serik feared her ordeal had permanently weakened her, despite his painstaking care and nursing.

#

A large, matte black dragonfly hovered at the sixth and seventh levels, darting low before ascending high. Serik and Omar heard Tuan Badak laugh for the first time since they met him.

“Tuan Badak has a new toy,” remarked Nilam over the walkie-talkie.

“Copy,” replied Serik with disdain. An eagle could outmaneuver any drone because its brain made continuous adjustments in flight and speed.

“Serik! See me in my office after work!” Tuan Badak’s voice nearly broke the walkie-talkie loudspeaker. “Copy,” sighed Serik.

#

In the laboring air-conditioning of Tuan Badak’s office, Serik decided that if he was a shumkar, he would attack the foreman the same way as the other falcons: anchor talons to the shoulders and peck out his oily eyes, while simultaneously shitting in the mouth to add insult to injury.

“Your eagle – get rid of it,” said Tuan Badak, leaning back in his worn, neoprene-cushioned chair.

“But you said…?”

“That was then, this is now. More drones will be coming tomorrow.”

Serik kept quiet, trying to think of a reply to this new information. Tuan Badak mistook it for obstinacy.

“Get rid of your eagle now. Or find another job.”
The screen door slammed shut as Serik strode out.

After lunch break, Omar glimpsed Serik as he disappeared into the office tower lobby, running past workers stepping off a bus.

“I know what Boss Badak said to you!” 
“You can’t help me!” Serik replied, waiting for the lift to take him to the rooftop.

“There’s always a way.” said Omar.

“You’re right,” Serik nodded as both of them got into the lift, “I must let her go now.”

A message alert pinged in Omar’s pocket. He took out his phone and read the SMS from Nilam.

“Brother, don’t go up to the roof. Please.” Omar’s voice wavered.

Serik heard gunshots as the lift opened. As if Tengri was splitting the sky in half.

#

Serik scrambled on to the roof, searching for Kantubit. He saw eagle feathers – brown, white and black – scattered on the cement floor. Nilam was taking cover behind an exhaust vent.

“Tuan Badak now gone amok!” Nilam muttered as he shielded his face from the sun and possible incoming bullets. When Nilam saw the rage in Serik’s eyes he realized that fury was not necessarily explosive; it can be endothermic and drain the heat from the surroundings.

The foreman was on the roof, reloading a pump-action shotgun. 
“Hoy!” cried Serik, clenching his fists.

The foreman spun around and did not lower the gun.
“I told you to get rid of the eagle! I always hate it when my men don’t listen!”

Serik approached him, hoping that a worker’s serious injury or even death on the job would get Tuan Badak arrested. No such effect: a bullet missed Serik and ricocheted off the exhaust vent.

Kantubit’s body lay on the ledge. Her leash was still around her neck and the white secondary feathers of her wings were soaked with blood. Serik scooped her up and cradled her under his arm.

“Get off my site!” roared Tuan Badak in disgust.

Serik took hold of Kantubit’s leash and swung her body at the foreman. In death, she was still majestic as her wings spread out to full breadth. Tuan Badak’s face turned pale as he backed away from Serik. He tugged again and aimed the eagle like a sling. The foreman screamed as Kantubit’s legs jerked forward and her talons scratched his face.

Omar and Nilam did not see Tuan Badak fall off the roof, but they heard his long scream, distorted and getting fainter as he neared the ground below. Both men heard a final muffled thump and a metallic clanking as the body landed on a pile of steel pipes
and cables.

All work on the site ceased. Serik stood on the ledge and Nilam yanked him back.

“Don’t let them see you!”

Omar tried to release Serik’s white-knuckled grip on Kantubit’s leash, but the fingers refused to budge.

“Leave now,” advised Omar.

Nilam shoved Serik towards the fire escape door on the roof. Omar reached into his hip-pouch and took out a packet of cigarettes, oral rehydration salts, and a wad of notes. He handed the items to Serik and said, “This is my ‘special’ for you, brother. Now go!” 
# Running down the stairs, Serik wrapped Kantubit in his jacket. Descending floor after floor, he suddenly remembered the brochure with photos of the place of the white-bellied sea eagles.

According to the information on its pages, Terengganu was only a short bus journey out of Kuala Lumpur. With any luck, he would get to bury Kantubit at sea and find some sanctuary before trying to return home.

Sanctuary was not freedom, but for Kantubit, Serik was willing to find a sense of belonging.