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insomniac-dot-ink · 3 years

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Headlights Girl

Most humans carry the night with them. Even during daylight hours, they can shut out the sun, turn off the light, recede into themselves and into that soft secret place behind their eyes.

Did you know certain animals don’t have eyelids? Gecko’s have nothing between them and the violent sun which wishes to cook the colors of their world. They have to use their tongue. Dust and sand and rain, can you imagine? I was obsessed with lizards as a kid.

I stacked up books on snakes and lizards and skinks. I traced the way that sand snakes crested across the land, sideways and wrong. I put glue on the pads of my hand and tried to climb the walls of my room— I didn’t even get one handhold up. I went to the zoo and peered into their cages, up on my tiptoes, trying not to smudge the glass or breath too hard. I tried make out their triangle heads and slow tongue-flicks, but they shrank away from my gaze deep into their cages into the nooks and crannies. Most things do.

Most humans carry the night with them, right there behind their eyelids is an entire world of darkness and sleep. I have something else inside me, not quite, not soft, not secret. They called me “headlights girl” in the newspapers.

There have been stranger kids born in the age of spirits. I checked. Every morning of fifth grade, I scanned the papers for small articles and mentions of “oddities” growing into anomalies.

A boy with fire on his breath. A girl with leaves sprouting from her head. A kid with antennae that could taste the wind. There are stranger things than me in the age of beasts and magic. My father calls it the “Epoch of Bastards,” sons and daughters of flickering fire elementals and wind ghosts who seduced half-asleep ladies from their beds.

He doesn’t look at me much. And I know what he means. I know what he means when he calls it the Epoch of Bastards. Growing up, I played in my little puddle of carpet on the floor as he blustered in and out of rooms like gale force winds. He’d be looking for his keys or left shoe or wallet since he was going out, out, out. I think I missed him at first, in the way you miss strangers you’ve never met.

Later, still on my puddle of carpet, still on my island, I would glare at him with that sour, acid taste in the back of my throat. Acrid, smoky, I would barely blink as he passed; he’d jump when he turned too quickly and accidentally fell into my path. Later still, I would begin to wish they were both like that—blustery and calling people names.

It sometimes felt better than hearing my mom weep to herself on the couch. I wish she’d do it in her room or outside or anywhere else than that theatrical sobbing in the middle of the house, a naked heartbeat to the place. She spoke to her friends on the phone in that same watery voice, handkerchief in hand and sniffling, she spoke to them more than me.

What else am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. They could barely afford to send me to That School. I didn’t want to be there either.

We weren’t the same, not really. None of us are the same age and most everyone else stayed in dorms where they bonded with secrets and whispers and hiding from matrons under flat mattresses. It wasn’t the same.

They called me The Lighthouse and Car Face and Nightlight. Sometimes they’d give me a few bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face. I did it. They’d laugh and reassure me I was as ugly as you’d think. Or beautiful. Or perfectly average-looking or have a pig-nose or blackhole for a nose. I’d never seen anything but the blinding light of my own eyes in the mirror so I could never contradict them.

A boy with antlers handed me a twenty for a kiss in the 6th grade. I closed my eyes for that too. It was chapped and dry and he runs away with a screaming laugh afterward. There are stranger kids than me, I reminded myself. So why do I feel so much stranger than the rest of them?

I’m 16 when I heel-toe my way down the stairs toward the front door. A duffel bag slung over my shoulder stuffed with a collection of loose clothes, change, a bath towel, sewing kit, a bible written in a language I don’t speak, all the tampons in the house, and a Swiss-army knife.

I hoped to stuff as many cheddar-cheese sandwiches in my sack as possible before the midnight bus came, but he’s at the kitchen table. I don’t think either of us expected it, like running into your teacher at Target and you’re both buying the same brand of toilet cleaner. There’s a beer in front of his idle hands and he glances at the bag on my shoulder.

He sighs like I cut him off in traffic.

“Gimme a moment.”

My father leafs through a wad of cash he kept in a safe in the garage. He hands me almost three hundred bucks and we nod at each other. I’m out the door before the midnight bus arrives.

I watch the headlights of the bus approach through dense summer night and think it must be like looking at like, the glow of my eyes against its eyes. Can a bus be your father? Can your father be a man after all this time? Will your mother come looking for you?

I get on the bus and kick my feet up against the seat in front of me. Scrunched into a ball, I cross my arms over my chest, and watch the trees turn into flickering bodies of shadow with each passing mile. ------------- My feet move like tides. They toss me against nameless city streets and toward empty forested slices of land. I taste the painted deserts toward the west. I dip my toes into the largest cities with lights brighter than my own. I graze my palms on neon signs and hunch my shoulders against brick walls of back alleys.

No one touches me. They don’t come close enough when I open my eyes and they see nothing but heaven or devils or an absent lightning-God father that will smite them.

I find my way to the ocean; beaches where other stragglers gather. I don’t talk much, I don’t like to, and people stare at me whether I’m speaking or screaming and clamping down on my jaw so hard it aches. Sometimes I get yelled at: Turn that off! No phone lights in here. You’re blinding me, bitch!

I’ve never seen a movie in any theatres, but I can imagine what it’s like.

I like the ocean cities best with their pale buildings built into cliffs, narrow winding white paths, and crushed seashell parking lots. I like the tang of salt in the air and the way my hair crinkles from the ocean water as it sun-dries. I camp out on beaches and bum cigarettes and hotdogs off strangers. I’m good at taking care of myself once I get in a rhythm.

Sometimes, or often, I dream of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I dream of descending on pointed ballerina-feet to the silted black bottom. I am weighted down through the cold to where no human has ever been before. I open my eyes there, I open them all the way, lightning-bright, and in my dreams, the salt doesn’t sting. It doesn’t hurt, instead, I light up the world, the whole untouched world of whales and fish and terror and maybe I do something good then. Maybe I do something good and bring the sun to places that have forgotten it.

I meet Mags on the beach. She’s got one eye and five teeth and carries around string and scissors everywhere. She smells like seawater and roasting kelp, dank and crusted over. Her clothes are neat despite her leather-cracked skin and her arms and neck are covered with tattoos of shipwrecks. She cackles and pulls me aside the first night we meet.

“What’s your name?” Her voice is old creaking wood. I am quiet. “I could give you one.” She offers with a grin that is more empty space than anything.

I shake my head. “Nana.”

“What do you like, kid?”

I shake my head again.

Mags likes me more than I deserve. I pocket her last pair of socks when she’s not looking. She never mentions it and drags me down to the community showers to get clean with soap and shampoo. She takes me to the soup restaurant for something that isn’t burnt or freeze-dried or from a convenience store. She cackles, she spits when she talks, people glare at her as well.

I think she’s normal, not touched by the spirits, but she likes me more than most people and I don’t know why.

“You like art, kid?”

I snort. “No.”

“Why not? You broken?” Yeah. Probably.

“How am I supposed to know?” I snap.

“Lippy-wild thing. Come on, I’ll show you something worth your forked tongue.”

She heats the needle before she uses it, red hot and untouchable. She dips it into deep black inks, only black and sometimes red, she calls them the only colors that matter. She shows me how to prick the skin with color and movement. She shows me on her right foot first, all over those fine little bones that must hurt, in and out, a little bloody.

It takes her six hours to make a little shipwreck right above her big toe. It’s a schooner going under and I’m the only witness to the way she makes the waves come to life and crash against its sides. I can’t look away and I forget to blink. She didn’t seem to mind.

She washes another needle. She heats it red-hot. She dips it in ink and hands it to me.

I practice all over my thighs first, there’s enough meat there and it’s easy enough to reach: a lizard design that looks like nothing but squiggles, a wobbly stick figure on a skateboard, a tiny smudged skink with its tongue out. I practice designs in the sand. Mags takes me to the museum on Sundays. They’re free on Sundays.

Something stirs in my chest, even as the guards yell at me about how flash photography isn’t allowed in the museum. Even as I’m shooed out of exhibits for ruining the paint. Still, an ache so old it rots roars to life in my chest.

I stab in and out, gentle, a collection of stars right above my right knee. A winding sand snake next, and then finally, something good, something that gives people a reason to stare. I make it in the mirror: a ghost on my collarbone. Shadowed and intricate and simple, I put a ghost right above my collarbone and it bleeds more than the others.

I don’t want to leave the ocean city. Mags says she has to keep moving though. She gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“You're a gem, kid. You’ll knock ‘em all to the pavement.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “You’ll be back?”

She cackles. “Wouldn’t miss it. You know me.” She winks as she turns to the bus, my second father. “You think I’ll miss your great becoming, kid? I’ll be back.”

I want to make her pinky-promise like I’m a kid again and begging one of the other kids to tell me if I’m actually beautiful when I close my eyes. I can’t do that; I wave as she totters up the steps of the bus and is taken away with the tides of her own feet. ------------ I get an apprenticeship. Technically, Mags talked to them first and I just followed up when I had nothing better to do.

I didn’t think I’d like it much, but coach surfing and camping out on beaches is a tiring pastime. Penguin Davies and Bitch-Annie run a tattoo shop together. Davies walks like he’s never encountered land before, and Bitch-Annie has a throw-pillow that says “If you don’t have anything nice to say then come sit next to me.”

Davies is nothing but birds and dizzying M. C. Escher house-designs up and down his chest and arms. Bitch-Annie has topless mermaids and pinup girls across her shoulders and legs. She’s been asked to leave a number of stores before the children start staring or thinking thoughts.

Neither of them had ever met someone like me, it’s not that type of town. I rankle at most their questions, a cat meeting a steel brush. I brush off anything more personal than my favorite type of soda. Bitch-Annie calls me “Shadow” and I think it’s a joke. Davies says I must be possessed by the ghost of a dead star and now I’m nothing but a blackhole: take everything in and let nothing out.

Neither of them lets me touch a needle in those first six months. They have me practice on pig skin and stand by their shoulder as they work. I feel like a dental assistant except I’m the hanging light above shining into open mouths instead of anything with a pulse. I stand at their shoulder as they draw thick lines and thin dots and make hearts and wolves and names of dead lovers come to life.

They ask me to stop blinking and stand still. I almost walk out and find a new cliff to crash against, almost. No one had ever expected me to show up to something before. No one cared if I went to school or when I got home. And no one kept any tabs on me after I took that first bus. That’s how I liked it.

I should’ve left, it didn’t mean anything to me, not really. But Bitch-Annie stomped up to my attic-apartment one morning and threw pants at me.

“Get up, Shadow.” She was sterner than Mags, no hint of humor in her eyes. “I told you 9am so I expect 9am.”

“The fuck!?” I am eloquent in the morning.

“Pants, shirt, shoes, and bra if you don’t want the desk idiot staring at something other than your eyes all day.”

I grumble. I put on everything but the bra. No one ever expected me to be anywhere before. I tell myself I’ll just try it out, no harm in having a bit of a savings anyway. No harm in seeing what the fuss was about.

I wasn’t an artist of course. I didn’t understand what everyone else was seeing when they looked at the “old masters” paintings of water or war or lovers pulled apart. I didn’t feel anything in front of stain-glass windows in churches or mosaics on walls. Maybe there really was something wrong with my eyes. I don’t let up though. I put on pants for this, after all.

Penguin Davies hovered by my shoulder now.

“Mm.” He rumbled deep in his chest. He’d gone grey at an early age, he had tired eyes and quick hands. The desk kid said he’d been in medical school once, a surgeon. Davies muttered a lot, stared off into space too much, and laughed like it was always a surprise

“Perfectionist,” he muttered at me now as I start over on a crappy unicorn design. “The line’s barely off. You’re being a perfectionist, Nana.”

I scowled over my shoulder and let the full weight of my light hit him across the face. “Got a problem with it?” He chuckled darkly. His grin is crooked like a broken door handle. I tried to hide my work from him with my shoulder. “It’s not done yet.

“Look at you go. You know who makes the best artists, Nana?” He was always a bit of a philosopher. Maybe he used to study that before medicine.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m working on it.”

He gave my shoulder a light push. “The ones that don’t quit.”

They let me touch a needle gun before the new year. I tell myself I’ll only sign my new apartment lease as an experiment. I don’t have to actually stay. I’ll just run from the ink on paper and hope no one chases after girls with eyes that glow.

I don’t break my lease. I draw cartoon heroes in speedos on tipsy college girls who swear they’re sober and erotic vampires on the chests of men getting their first divorce. I have to give two refunds for a duck that turns out lopsided and a tattoo of someone’s dog which I swore really was that ugly to begin with.

There was one at the end of that next year though, another college girl with nothing but doors ahead of her. She asked for a stick and poke, that was what I’m best at anyway, she asked for a butterfly. Butterflies were easy, I could do the little ones in my sleep. She wanted one all across her back, she said I could make it look however I wanted. So I did. Wings like fringed shawls and straight heavy lines combined with wispy swirling ones. It’s dark, black ink with red highlights and gray shadows under each wing to give it movement and flight.

I hide my smile when she goes to my bosses and points at it while jumping up and down. The best thing she’s ever seen. She should pay us double. Where did you get this girl? I try not to blink so they can’t see the wetness under my eyes.

Sometimes I still stand by the bus stop to check who’s coming off. I don’t expect to see Mags again so soon, but sometimes I want to show her: Hey, maybe your work wasn’t all wasted. Maybe I did start to become.

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ilovebeingcalledawhore · 4 years

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NICOTINE | JAEMIN

Content: Death, Assassin Au, Gang Au, Angst, Fluff

Summary: There’s euphoria in sinning. Kissing him made her realise that some bad things really are bad, no—terrible, but it’s worth every single step closer to death.

That’s what smoking does, doesn’t it?

ONE-SHOT

[8:15 pm] July 3rd, Headquarters

I sat in the meeting room, the dark room that many hated entering. It was simple, a gray table in the middle, and a few chairs that weren’t as comfortable as most in our headquarters.

“You should really stop going out and doing missions on your own Y/n, gangs are everywhere, I don’t want to lose you” Mark told me with the look of upset and worry on his face. Mark Lee was my boss and a highly skilled assassin. He blended with the dark like the shadows followed him. I looked up to him in many ways, even caught a few feelings throughout the years but the man never seemed to notice.

“Alright” I uttered, standing up from the navy cushioned chair and walking away. I expected him to stop me and lecture me more but he didn’t.

The tiny bit of guilt I felt was slowly eating me, crawling up my veins, I didn’t like it and there was only one way to push it away. I halted in my tracks and took a deep breath. I didn’t bother turning my head to face him, instead I faced the glass door just a meter away from me.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

The empty sound, the quiet, the dark, it lasted for a while. “It’s alright” he finally replied with his rough and tired voice. That being my cue, I took a step forward and the glass door slid to the side, letting me out.

I wanted to run.

No, not run away, just run down the streets and take in the fresh air. Jogging out of the elevator and putting my leather jacket on as I did, another set of automatic glass doors opened for me.

The cold yet refreshing wind hit me with pleasure but mixed into it was a smell I loathed, one I never wanted to smell but in my line of work, thousands of these existed.

The smell of nicotine.

“What the hell?” I whispered as I protectively held onto the gun placed on my waist band. Taking a few more glides, I finally saw him, it was a young guy, around my age. He wore a black leather jacket similar to mine but at the back of it was a big logo and as I read it, I couldn’t help but stop in my tracks.

“What are you doing here?” I said, pulling my gun out and pointing it towards the back of his skull, he was still meters away from me, calmly standing there like he expected death any time. The boy turned to face me, slowly, like he didn’t mind the thought of dying right now and it made me even more curious.

He dropped the cigarette down the floor and stepped on it, the smell still lingered though but I tried my best to act like I was fine. “Just kill me, I’d rather die with a bullet than get tortured to death” he said, placing both his hands into his pockets. That was when I got to analyze him. A big cut just below his eyes, a busted lip and a bruised cheekbone. “Na Jaemin”

“Yeah you said my name right” he whispered with a tone of tiredness to it.

Na Jaemin was the head sniper for his gang, I suddenly remembered the report my teammate Jungwoo presented when he told us that a sniper missed, killed an innocent and had the target run away. That was him and his gang leader was going to kill him for it.

“I’d suggest standing on top of a building and clearing your mind, not smoking” I replied as I placed my gun down my waist band. Judging from his current state, I could still kill him by hand-to-hand combat.

“No thank you, It’s not like I’ll make it alive tonight, right pretty girl?” He raised his brow at me, there wasn’t a sign of flirting to it, it was more of frustration and I understood. He’s tired and he doesn’t want to get into anything else stupid. His leader is a monster anyway, I get why he’s scared. “You can stay in my penthouse if you want” I offered, there was danger to it and I wanted to feel that danger. “I don’t need your pity, my love” He sighed, his eyes dropping down the floor. “Come on Jaemin, it’s my turn to protect you”

I still remember my first car chase exactly 4 years ago, five cars, dozens of guns, smoke, dead and unconscious bodies, shattered windows, popping tires and how I jumped out the last second before the biggest explosion happened. He was there, pulling me into his safety and bringing me back to the headquarters when he could’ve killed me instead. I owed him something, whether it be little or big, I knew I had to pay him back.

“Just one night” I said and I didn’t want to hear more of his excuses.

I saw how his hands shook, maybe because of the cold or maybe because of worry and though with hesitation, I walked towards him and held his hand, quietly intertwining our fingers together. There was a sense of comfort found in intertwined fingers, that’s why I always did it. I pulled him into my car with a sigh, hoping that this doesn't get me in trouble.

The ride was fast, casually speeding through the darkened streets of Seoul and out of it, in front of us was my penthouse, my favorite place to run away, considering the fact that every single thing inside of it had a weapon secretly blended in.

Welcoming him into my room, I realized that I wasn't going to sleep anyway, I’ve got to send my weekly report to Mark and the team.

I watched as Jaemin carefully tucked himself in and so I flicked the lights off letting him rest. Before I could walk out the room, he spoke. “Y/n?”

He remembers my name.

“Yeah?” I asked, simply expecting him to thank me but he didn’t. “Can you stay?” He asked through an utter and worry filled my mind.

So he could kill me when I’m sleeping? yeah totally.

“You can have the bed all to yourself Jaemin” I said, brushing his request off.

“But...I’m scared” he admitted, the shake in his voice and how the words slowly turned less audible made me halt again. “I’m scared as well but it’s all about getting over the fear” I bid, continuing to walk out the room with a sigh. If my team finds out I’ve meddled with a rival, I’m good as gone and that’s exactly what Jaemin thought when he saved me.

He still did it anyway,

So I’ll save him too.

_____

[3:00 am] July 4th

Crash! It was loud and scary, the sound made me sit up and pull the Glock off my waist band. That certainly isn’t Jaemin, his room was right beside me. The sound came from somewhere farther. All the lights suddenly shut then the noisy and painful sound of a machine gun and the shattering of my glass windows made me realize that they were coming for him.

They were already here.

I ducked down and crawled into the room and as I entered I saw that he was already up so the panic in me lessened. “Come on!” I beckoned with a whisper as I crawled to my ‘closet’, pressing the button on the bottom right, a brief sound echoed through the room, not loud enough for the enemies to hear.

I pulled my closet open and inside it were my guns, my knives and my bombs. Mark required us to have this ready all the time. I shoved two guns into his hand and I shoved more on my waistband. We creeped towards the door, both of us on each side of the frame, listening to the footsteps of the one and only, Lee Jeno.

“You fail your mission and now you’re sleeping with a rival, you are traitor Jaemin, come out here and get what you deserve” There was a brief moment of silence and I watched as Jaemin sat still, his grip on the gun getting tighter.

Dug! Dug! Dug! Three bullets flew through my wooden door. It was a test to see if someone would scream inside. I bit on my lip, calming my heart and mind. “On three” I mouthed, putting three fingers up. Jaemin nodded my way, a sense of courage shown in his dark eyes. The footsteps were getting further and it was perfect.

The last finger stood and as I slowly put it down, I put myself in an attack position. “Go” he whispered and I pushed through the door and shot at whatever was in front of me. Jaemin came right beside me, shooting with both guns in his hands. We ran to the other side as we shot, hiding in the open room across mine.

We didn’t hear anything else though, no scream, no footsteps. Did we shoot him? I didn’t know. “Again?” I asked in a whisper and he nodded. Three, two, one. We ran out and shot, my gun getting lighter every time I pulled the trigger. More guns were being fired and his noisy machine gun was on the loose but we didn’t stop, we couldn’t.

There it was, a loud groan of pain, we saw his fallen body down the floor, he may be wounded but he wasn’t dead, he could still kill. “Shoot lower” I shouted and Jaemin followed. After another loud scream of pain, it was quiet. The sound of his machine gun toppling down the floor finally made me stop.

The smoke from our guns evaporated while I sighed in relief.

I stood there, my hands on my knees and catching my breath, my empty gun toppling down the floor as well, It was over. I turned my head to look at Jaemin and I saw him sitting down on the floor with tears running down his face. My heart dropped at that very moment.

I didn't know how else to stop it, I wasn’t too good at comforting but I still ran to him and immediately wrapped my arms around his shaky body, it wasn’t something I normally did, but sometimes being in someones arms and knowing they’ll be there to protect you no matter how vulnerable you are is best bandage to any wound.

The man who took Jaemin in when he had no one else was dead but if he wasn’t, then it would’ve been Jaemin on the floor right now, maybe even me. “We’ll be alright” I whispered as I rubbed his back in worry, I knew the pain of losing somebody, I knew it too well that I could paint it.

I stared at his tears until our eyes finally met.

I didn’t know how it happened or why I did it. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush, the moment, the fastening of my heartbeat, the sweat running down our bodies, the smoke leaving the tips of our guns, but I kissed him.

He tasted like sadness, anger, tears, worry, frustration, he tasted like the bad things I’ll experience if I continued biting his lip like that, he tasted like sins but in that moment, the bad tasted good.

That’s how I found out what it tasted like,

it was the lingering coldness of nicotine.

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years

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Down the Rabbit Hole part 14

As the loud, clanging gunshot rings out again, Elena gives me a sympathetic look and leans in a little closer to me. I gingerly take my hands away from my ears, but when she speaks I still can’t hear her through the earplugs. I reach up and start to take them out but she gives me a look and smacks my hand back down, and then she is tucking my hair back behind my ear and fiddling with the plugs. She presses down gently and the earplugs slip in a tiny bit further and then I truly can’t hear; I guess I just hadn’t inserted them all the way. I flash her a grin and a thumbs-up and she smiles at me a little indulgently. My eyes linger on her a little longer while she crosses her arms again, leans up against the painted brick wall of the firing range.

Ahead of us in the central stall, the robot and the tall, slim man with the joysticked control box are looking for more targets. The robot is holding the biggest rifle I’ve ever seen, one-handed no less, and though the shells it spits out with each trigger-pull have got to be the size of Coke cans – okay, maybe not that big, maybe about the size of a mediumish pill-bottle – it handles the recoil without any strain at all.

Down further the overhead rack whines and sends a dinner-plate sized target whizzing across the line again. The robot’s head tracks it for a moment before with a single swift and precise motion it flicks the barrel of the gun to the left and pulls the trigger. I wince again, less from the sound of it now, thanks to Elena’s help, and more due to the resonating shockwave of it throbbing in my chest.

The man with the joystick toggles something on it and the robot racks the bolt of the rifle, tilts it skyward to check the chamber, and then ejects the massive magazine and puts it on the table before it.

“As you can see,” the man says, looking around at us, “this new model of armature skeleton is the most advanced yet. We’ve put absolutely everything into this bad boy,” he grins, slapping the chest plate of the robot; it doesn’t react. “Gyroscopic stabilizers, redundant systems in practically every area, newest cyborgnetic processors, the works.”

“You said you were from Europe, right?” Ellis asks, and the man nods.

“That’s correct. This is going to be a bit of a joint venture. As I mentioned before, I’m Max Euler, one of the scientists from Anodyne Berlin’s robotics department. We reached out to the administration here,” he says, nodding to Makado, “when we felt that the skeleton was in the final phases of testing and could really do with an…extremely adverse environment to put it through its paces. Then, when we discovered that you were facing a certain…difficulty retrieving an artifact, well, everything seemed serendipitous.”

“You don’t sound very German,” I observe. A few heads twist around to look at me and I can see Makado hide a smile. Euler doesn’t miss a beat, though.

“I actually learned English in America,” he tells me. “That’s why I don’t have an accent when I speak it. Deep-immersion in a culture is the best way to learn, I believe. Now, do we have any other questions about myself or the armature or has its performance spoken for itself?”

To be fair, the thing’s performance was very impressive. Over the past couple of hours we watched him demonstrate its speed, its agility, its coordination…everything that would interest the men and women on the team with ex-military backgrounds, which, from what I gathered from the past couple of days, was the majority. I think only Crookshank and another man I had met only briefly before he’d disappeared again, a short, sinewy, compact individual who introduced himself with a wide, flashing grin as Klaus, just Klaus, weren’t. Well, possibly Elena, actually. Is the Coast Guard part of the military? I don’t know. I think so but I’m not certain. I should ask her if I ever manage to get her alone again.

Alone. That’s a laugh. These past couple of days in the barracks have been a decidedly different experience than what I’m used to. I’m not a particularly shy person and I’m confident enough that I’ve never had any real reservations about my body, but the absolute lack of privacy is something I’ve never really experienced before. I got used to it quickly enough, changing in front of everybody. The first time I was motivated mainly because I knew for certain that if I made a big deal of it I’d be taken even less seriously. Aww, look at the little baby, wants us to turn around while she puts a new shirt on? How cute! She thinks we’ve never seen a pair of tits before!

I guess if I want to psychoanalyze myself I could ask why I want to fit in so badly with these people, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? Being the outsider aches, and even if you can fox-and-grapes yourself into believing that it’s okay because you’re “better” than them, you’re always going to know how much bull that is, somewhere deep down.

As far as becoming part of a team goes, you can either have it built in or have it be something you build up. If I came here and I was a male ex-Marine or even something like a paramedic, or perhaps even a lineman (power line lineman, not football lineman), I’d be much more easily accepted. Not that I think the fact that I’m a woman really has much to do with it; it’s about experiences. What the hell does a reporter know about Real World Things, like how to build a fire or pitch a tent or hide food where a bear can’t get it? Or how to fire a gun, splint an injured leg?

I know how to do some of those things, to be fair. But I don’t have the credentials. Instead I have to build it up, I have to be willing to learn, I have to put in work without complaining, I have to play ball no matter what. Challenging an institution, even a little one like a team like this, is impossible until you get inside of it. You say something like, ‘uh, I think I’d prefer to have all of you not stare at my tits while I change my shirt’ and boom, all the goodwill you’ve built up is gone. You have to play ball, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

“Roan?” Makado asks again, sidling up to me while Euler prattles on about something else up in front. I take another look at him and the robot and flick my eyes over to Makado.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What’s up?”

“I want to show you the recording equipment we’ve got for you.”

We slip out of the firing range and head down the hallway, Makado’s heeled footsteps echoing off the tight corridor ceiling. She’s wearing her hair down today, with a broad headband resting high up on her forehead to keep those unruly curls in line. “Makado,” I say after a moment, “can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“How dangerous is this going to be?”

She stops, turns and looks at me. Her lopsided gaze is calculating. “Very, I’d imagine,” she says eventually.

“Mm.”

“Why, are you having second thoughts?”

“No,” I tell her, “not particularly. I just wanted to – mentally prepare myself.”

“You know,” she says after a moment, “I was pretty certain you were going to chicken out.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I assumed, you know, throw you to the wolves for a day or two in the barracks with the team, you’d get scared enough to realize this is a bad idea.”

“They’ve been decent to me, actually.”

“As they would have been to anybody,” she smiles, guiding us around a corner. “But I think you might find that my, and apparently your, definition of ‘decent’ might not match with that of a lot of other twenty-something female reporters.”

“If I quit, who’d work the camera?”

“It’s a camera,” Makado laughs. “How hard can it be?”

“Show me the camera and I’ll tell you.”

She shows me the camera and then blushes after a moment. “Christ,” she says. “Stop laughing, it’s a camera.”

“This is what you’re going to use? Where’d you get this, Walmart?”

“Look, our budget isn’t –“

“How much did this cost? A hundred bucks?”

Makado looks at me for a moment. “Eighty,” she says finally. I knead the bridge of my nose.

“I literally have a four hundred dollar camera in my bag back in the barracks that could take better video than this,” I say, “and that’s my backup SLR.”

“SLR?” Makado frowns. I wave it away.

“It’s a kind of camera. Mine’s digital, it can take stills or video. I have…I think three or four memory cards left? So probably about 60 hours of video, I’d guess. More if you’re okay with thirty frames per second instead of sixty. What’s the video going to be used for?”

“It’s classified,” Makado says. “I can’t –“

“Do you want good video or not?”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Look, I really can’t tell you. We just want you to record the operation, that’s all. You don’t need to give it an edge or a slant or an angle or anything, just record it.”

“Mm,” I grunt. “Alright, that’s fair. What’s the deal with the crystal? Why is it so important?”

“Don’t press your luck. This camera you have, how fragile is it?”

I laugh. “About as fragile as this one, relatively,” I point. “Maybe a little more. If it breaks down there I’ll want an assurance that you’ll replace it.”

“If it’s in the budget.”

“A personal assurance, for my personal camera,” I elaborate. She looks at me dubiously.

“You want me to buy you a new camera with my own money?”

“If it breaks.”

“When did this turn into a negotiation?” she asks. Her voice is exasperated but I can tell that she wants to smile. “Fine. How about this? If you break your camera but the footage is usable, I’ll get you a new one. No footage, no camera.”

“Alright.”

“And you’re taking this one as well, as a backup.”

“Fine. I’ll need to get my charger, though.”

“For the batteries? You don’t have it with you?”

“If you recall, I thought I was just going to be coming in and then leaving the same night. I didn’t plan on getting caught up in this adventure of yours. My charger’s back at my motel room in town.”

“Guess we’d better go get it, then.”

And then Makado is putting her arm around my shoulder and ushering me out of the dingy storage closet, and then out of the building entirely.

* * *

“You know,” I say as the little Volkswagen powers down the main road and out the gate, Makado giving a cheery wave to the guard in the gatehouse as she passes, “this really isn’t the sort of car I was expecting you’d drive.”

She laughs. “You and everybody else. See, this actually used to be my aunt’s car. She won the lottery, bought herself a new car, gave me this one, and I was like, ‘hey, what the hell, free car, might as well use it’ and from there it grew on me.”

“It’s so tiny.”

“If you turn that into a crack about my height, you’re walking back to the Flesh Pit.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I laugh. “Although you are kind of fulfilling the stereotype by being so touchy about it.”

“That’s it –“

“I’m joking.”

“I know,” she says, flashing me a quick grin.

The world outside is like a bright warm hug. I realized as soon as Makado lead me out of the squat, evil-looking concrete Security building that for the last three days in the barracks I had been suffering from a myopia of purpose; I’d done little more than work out in the gym, hang out with Elena, and play wallflower, listening to the team laugh and joke and riff off each other. If I were to close my eyes, here in the car, with the top down, trailing my hand in the breeze, I’d be asleep in five minutes.

“You look peaceful,” Makado observes, and I crack an eye open, fix her with what I hope is a sardonic gaze.

“Do I not normally look peaceful?”

“Well, considering I’ve known you for about four days now, and about half of those we were both wondering if I was going to have to send you to federal prison, I’d say that generally you haven’t looked very peaceful.”

“Fair point.”

We drive on in silence for a little longer. “You know,” she says, “there’s no shame in backing out.”

“If you didn’t want me to go you shouldn’t have offered,” I tell her. “It’s too late now.”

“If you want the truth, I did it more for Peter than for you.”

“That’s bullshit,” I tell her. She looks at me a little uncertainly.

“He likes you, you know,” she tells me.

I look over at Makado, really look at her. I look at the lines of the tendons in her neck, loose and ropy but ready to spring into life and brace at a moment’s notice. I look at her cheeks and her eye and her lips, at the way she grips the wheel loosely in one hand, the other hand draped over the edge of the rolled-down window. She glances over, catches me staring. “Have you told him yet?”

I let out a little burst of mirthless laughter. “I haven’t even been able to tell my dad yet.”

“Why not?”

“Why haven’t I told my dad or why haven’t I told Pete?”

“I meant Pete.”

I roll the words around on my tongue for a long, long time before I finally say them. “Because Pete might like me, but he still loves you.”

Makado lets out a breath like I’d punched her, and I look over at her incredulously. “Oh, come on,” I say. “You couldn’t tell? Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

“I don’t –“

“I don’t know what happened between the two of you, not exactly, but I know for a fact that he still has feelings for you.”

“I thought you and him…”

“Let’s just say I’m probably not going to be interested in men for a while,” I say. “Maybe for the rest of my life,” I add with a hollow laugh.

“That isn’t funny,” Makado says quickly. “And what do you – oh.”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. Hell, if I were in her position I wouldn’t know what to say about it.

It feels good to tell someone.

“Are you scared?” she asks, glancing over again.

“It doesn’t feel real yet,” I tell her. “I got the letter with the results about a week ago. They wanted me to come back in and ‘discuss my options’ but there aren’t any. Once I get sick I’ll be scared, I imagine.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “You probably don’t want sympathy, but…”

“The only thing I don’t want is someone treating me differently, that’s all. Maybe I’m dying but this is going to be a long slow goodbye. And right now I still feel fine,” I say, wondering if I really believe it.

“I was meaning to tell you,” Makado says after a moment. “I think I can get you some ballast.”

I look at her sharply; she keeps her head still, eye on the road. “You’re serious?” I ask after a moment.

“Dead serious.”

“How?”

“The suits the team wears, the locator is in the helmet. At the end of the first day, you guys will make camp right near a ballast bulb. You do the math.”

I think about that for a moment, then shrug.

“Seems easy enough. Would it even help me?”

“It might. I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. Isn’t it worth a shot?”

“Sure. But what if…I don’t know, what are the side effects?”

Makado laughs. “Well, undiluted ballast…you’ll get really fucking horny. You’ll probably want to drink it right there so you don’t have to worry about hiding a fucking bottle of it from everyone. And it’s going to taste really, really gross.”

“I meant more like physiological stuff.”

“As far as I know it’s mildly addictive but nobody ever figured out if it was actually chemically addictive or if it was a mental thing. Like, the difference between coffee and cigarettes being addictive.”

“Speaking of,” I say. “You smoke?”

“I don’t.”

“Good,” I tell her. “Nasty habit.”

“Okay, miss two-packs-a-day.”

“Ouch. Low blow.”

“Did you always smoke that much?”

She pulls back onto the main road and then turns onto the side street that leads down to the motel. By daylight Gumption looks even sadder than at night. Fewer shadows to hide the cracks.

“No,” I tell her. “I used to smoke about a pack a week or so.”

“Let me guess,” she says. “When you found out you said ‘fuck it’ and started going all in?”

“Seemed like the thing to do,” I say. “I like nicotine, just not a fan of smoking, necessarily. Too concerned about my lungs’ wellbeing.”

“Right,” she agrees. “Alright, we’re here.”

The warm, dry air has sucked all the life out of me. “Alright,” I say, not opening my eyes. “The charger is on the nightstand, you can just run up and get it…”

“Go and get your damn charger.”

I groan, pop the door, stagger out of the low-slung Beetle. “Question for you,” I say, leaning back in.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you personally taking the time to drive me around?”

Makado laughs. “Do you know how busy I am as the Head of Security?”

“Very, I’d imagine.”

“I’m not busy at all. Place runs itself unless there’s an emergency. I do about two hours of phone calls and emails per night sitting in my quarters in my pajamas, rest of the time I just hang around and pretend to do something, anything, that justifies my salary.”

I can’t help but smile at her. “Glad I could give you something to do, then.”

“Go get your charger,” she repeats, reclining the seat backwards. She unclips her seat belt and shuts her eyes. “I’ll be right here.”

* * *

I can tell someone’s been in the room the minute I walk in. I’d left the do not disturb sign on the handle, they’ve taken it off, left it on the floor right in front of the door. I stare; then there is a soft, subtle sound from inside the room and I take a step back, reach behind me for the door handle.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Erica Walken tells me, stepping out from the bathroom. She has in her hand a small revolver, held about waist-high, barrel pointed unwaveringly at me.

It isn’t much to look at, that little gun, the barrel glinting in the low, warm light cast by the lamp over on the bedside table. The inside of the barrel seems like it must be the blackest, darkest, heaviest thing I’ve ever seen, and it draws my eyes to it like it were a singularity. Forget movies, forget books, if you have a gun pointed at you there’s no way to be cool, no way to just quip out a one-liner like in a movie. I an feel my hands shaking at my sides and if I don’t get a grip on myself my legs are going to follow suit. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to at least try a one-liner. When’s the next time I’ll get the chance?

“Put the gun down,” I tell her. My voice almost trembles but I lock it down.

“No,” she says. “Did you come alone?”

“Y-yes. What the hell do you want?”

“You’ve been a hard woman to track down for the last couple of days. Sit down.”

She jerks the gun at the armchair in the corner and I move slowly to it, my back prickling with the knowledge that she’s still holding the gun on me, and sit.

She stares at me for a moment longer. “Are you working for the Company?” she asks me, and something in the way she says it, in the way she’s looking at me, makes me think that this is a capital-letter Very Important Question.

“The Containment Corporation?” I ask, trying hard to keep my voice innocent. She waves an irritated hand.

“The Containment Corp, Anodyne, whoever. You know what I mean.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then why the hell are you back?” she growls. “I know you went with Peter, even though I told you not to, and when you and he disappeared I knew they must have caught you. What the hell are you doing back here?”

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” I snarl back at her. She tosses her head, looks down her nose at me.

“Looking for answers,” she says. “I have a right to know –“

“Lady, I don’t know who you think you are but if you think I’m going to overlook the fact that you broke into my motel room –“

“Answer the question,” she tells me. She moves her thumb and draws the hammer on the revolver back and it locks into place with an ominous click.

“No,” I tell her. “I’m not working for them.”

She stares at me for a long while and I stare back at her, keep my face carefully blasé. “Alright,” she says quietly. “What happened? Why haven’t I been able to get in touch with Peter? When my boy heard the alarms he tried to get out of the Pit. He told me that the ditch had been filled in with concrete, he was trapped in there.”

“Your boy?”

She waves her hand impatiently. “The young man who went in there with you. Marcus.”

“Oh. I didn’t know they’d filled in the ditch,” I say softly.

“Well, they did. He can’t get out.”

“Where is he now?”

“Back in the Pit, of course. He wouldn’t have lasted a day out there on the surface, he’d have been caught in an instant. What happened to Peter? Why can’t I get him on the phone?”

I must be very deliberate now, and choose my words carefully.

“They caught Peter,” I tell her. “I don’t know what happened to him. I only just managed to get away.”

Her eyes narrow. “Bullshit,” she says, the word sounding out of place in her small, elegant mouth. “You’re working for them.”

I can see her knuckles whiten on the grip of the pistol. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“I can get him out,” I say quickly. “Marcus, I mean.”

“How?” she asks.

Yes, Roan, how? the little voice asks somewhere from the back of my head, and I close my eyes. “They made me a deal,” I say slowly. Maybe it’s pathetic but I feel a little better not being able to see the gun. “I’m going into the Pit. Tomorrow or the next day. I can find him, get him out of there.”

“And turn him right in to the Company?” she snorts. “Fat chance.”

“If you shoot me,” I say with sudden confidence, “you’re never going to see him again. He’s going to die down there and you won’t be able to get him back.”

Erica’s mouth is a tight line. Her eyes are like chips of obsidian. “He’s down there for a reason,” she tells me. “Tell me about this operation they’re pulling. Have they found one of the crystals?” she asks.

My mouth drops open. “You know about those?”

“So that’s a yes?”

I snap my mouth shut. She leans forward, and the muzzle of the revolver snuffles forward. I have to stop myself from cringing back into the chair. If she were to pull the trigger, at this range the bullet would -

“I’m going to blow your fucking brains out,” she says, “if you don’t tell me what you know.”

“Okay,” I say, frantic now, “okay, Jesus Christ, fine, they found a crystal! Is that what you want to know so bad? Yes, they found one. They’re going down to get it and I’m going with. Fuck!”

“Do you know the route?”

“No! Look, I don’t know what the hell you want or what you’re planning, but -”

“Focus,” she says. “They have a crystal. You’re certain? You saw footage of it?”

“Yes,” I say.

Erica blows a breath out. She looks very tired suddenly; she leans back against the counter and the gun finally wavers away from me. “Alright,” she says softly. “It looks like I –“

“Roan? You okay in there?” someone calls from outside the hotel room, and Erica and I both jump. She hurls to her feet, giving me a murderous glare.

“You bitch,” she says. “You brought her with you? I should -“

“Roan, who are you talking to?”

Erica looks as though she doesn’t know what to do. She glances back at the door and then down at me. I can see her start to say something, but before she can get the words out, there is the soft snap of a card fitting into the lock and then the handle turns. My panicked eyes turn to Erica and I can see her raising the gun, mid-snarl. “Hide the gun!” I hiss urgently, and she stares at me for a frozen moment before the door opens all the way and Makado, holding a pistol of her own, a slim black automatic, peeks around the corner. Our eyes meet but she can’t see Erica, the woman is around the corner from her.

Erica is staring at me and I flick my eyes back to her; she hasn’t put the gun away and I try to implore her to with a look, but she’s having none of it. She moves to the wall and the floor creaks. Makado’s aim shifts up and over to the corner as Erica flattens herself against the wall, revolver extended ahead of her, head-height.

I feel as though I’m going to pass out but I know I have to do something, and finally after my anguished nerves have been screaming at me to move, to flex my muscles and move, goddam it, I rise lurchingly, a sudden motion that seems in immediate retrospect to have been a very bad idea. Makado’s gun wavers for a moment but Erica swings around almost immediately and starts to get a bead on me. Makado rushes forward and bursts around the corner, knocking me to the floor in the process. I land hard and lay there for a moment, then I roll over. I see Makado on the ground, Erica on her knees, the two of them struggling over the revolver, Erica trying desperately to stuff her finger back into the trigger guard. I snap out a kick and catch her in the side and she whoops out a breath and lets the gun go for a moment. Makado jerks it away from Erica and I finally, finally see the outline of Makado’s pistol, discarded on the floor right in front of me, blending in with the dark carpet.

Before I can snatch it up Erica bolts to her feet, stepping on Makado’s forearm in the process, a yelp boiling out of Mak’s mouth as she wrenches her arm out from beneath Erica’s shoe, but Erica is already sprinting out the door, slamming it behind her. “Mak,” I say urgently, trying to hand her the gun, but Mak sees it and freezes, and then her eye flicks up to mine, wide and scared, and then I realize I’m pointing it right at her. “Shit,” I say, jerking the barrel away from her. “I didn’t mean to – I’m sorry –“

She reaches out, grabs it and takes it from my nerveless hands. “Grip first,” she says, and then clambers to her feet and rushes out the door after Erica.

By the time I manage to get to my feet and stagger out of the room after her, Roan is there leaning up against the balcony, revolver and pistol both slung away into one pocket or holster or other, watching the big black car roar out of the parking lot fast enough to leave twin streaks of black rubber in its wake.

“You okay?” I ask, breathless still, and Makado glances over, eye wide and limpid.

“Yeah. You?”

“I think so.”

She blows a breath out, inclines her head forward until her forehead rests on the cool metal bar of the balcony. I think about it for a moment before I do it, but then I reach over and gently lay my hand on her back, and I feel her stiffen and then relax. She has a terrible knot of muscle just above her shoulderblade and I work at it with my fingers, run my thumb over it in slow, firm strokes. “That’s nice,” she murmurs after a moment.

“You’re pretty tense,” I observe.

“Well, we both almost died, so…”

“How did you get in?”

“Oh, I made a copy of your keycard when we took your stuff the other night,” she says. “Might have come in handy later.”

“Good thing you did.”

“Never know when you’ll need something like that. We got lucky.”

“Peter told me that Erica’s with the cult,” I say, and Makado nods.

“Yeah,” she says. “What the hell was eating her, did she tell you? She can be a bit of a loose cannon but I’ve never seen her pull a fucking gun on anyone.”

“I don’t know,” I frown. “She - she knew about the crystal somehow, she was asking me if I’d seen it, if we were going down to get it.”

“Ah,” Makado says lightly, “that would do it.”

She does smell like peaches, I realize suddenly, standing this close to her. Her back feels very warm beneath her thin shirt, and her skin has a muscley firmness to it that my fingertips find appealing.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask her. Her eye flickers open; I can see her glowering at me from beneath the crook of her arm.

“Mind your own business,” she says.

“This is all about the crystal, isn’t it,” I say thoughtfully. “It was just bad timing, our coming in when we did. You thought we were after it.”

She looks at me bleakly. “Yeah, I did. I didn’t know what to think so I made the call. Beginning to think it was a bad one.”

“Why can’t you tell –“

“Because you don’t need to know!” she snaps. “Because some things are supposed to stay secret.”

I take my hand off of her back. She shuts her eye. “I suppose now you’re going to be mad at me,” she offers, and I blow out a sigh, look out across the parking lot. I can see heat distortion off in the distance, out across the plains beyond the town limits, and in the distance I can see the electric fence.

“I’m not mad at you,” I say so softly that she has to ask me to repeat myself. I look down at her and give her a faint smile. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not – I’m not mad at anything, I guess, not the Pit, not the Corporation, not anything. I wish Rey didn’t have to die but if this crystal is so damn important then what else could you have done? He’d have thrown himself down that elevator shaft if you’d let him. Probably wouldn’t have done any damage, but -”

“A couple of years ago,” Makado says, straightening up, hands on her hips, twisting her back left and right, coaxing a deep crack from her spine like something heavy slotting into place, “we had someone get in with a bomb. He was schizophrenic. Convinced that the Pit was going to swallow the world whole. He sprinted for the orifice and if we didn’t put him down he would have dropped that bomb down there and it would have wrecked the gantry, would have hurt the Pit like fuck, maybe even gotten another choke response out of it. As it was it cracked the fuck out of the concrete exclusion plate, we had to put in a new one.”

I can see ghosts swimming in her eye when she looks at me. “I can’t let that happen again. Even if it’s, fuck, ten times less severe than 2007, there’s eight guys down there in that control room in the monitoring station at all times who are counting on me not to let something like that happen.”

“You did the right thing, then,” I tell her, wondering if I’m lying.

“I – what?”

“You did the right thing,” I repeat. “I don’t know if I would have done anything different if I was in the same position, because you’re right, you can’t risk it. You don’t know what Rey wanted to do, you don’t know who he was or whatever he was carrying. You made the call. As long as you make a decision you’re doing something right, even if it turns out to be the wrong decision. The wrong decision is better than no decision.”

Makado nods after a moment. “Yeah,” she says. She’s looking out in the same direction I am but I can tell from the way she’s staring off across the dusty plains that whatever she sees out there lives mostly inside her head.

“Now, to be fair, I don’t know how I’d live with myself afterwards, but in the moment I’d still make the same call.”

Her eye flicks over to me and then her lips split in a slow lazy smile. “Well aren’t you just a ray of fucking sunshine.”

I grin back, nod to the car. “You’re really not going to call the cops on her?”

“What’s the damn point? She’ll be out of the county by now. Tell you what, do you know her phone number?”

I start to say I don’t, but then I think about it and lead Makado back into the motel room, fiddle with the room phone until I can find a call history. “There,” I say, pointing to one entry. “That’s her. She called me about three days ago, before I came to the Pit. Told me not to go.”

Makado nods, takes her phone out, punches the number in. It rings and rings and then goes to voicemail. “Erica,” she says, once the tinny beep sounds, “this is Makado Veret. Look, I’m not calling the cops on you. I know you probably don’t believe me but as far as I’m concerned this is no harm no foul, alright?”

Her eyes meet mine. “We know about your guy in the Pit. Roan told me you were asking questions about the crystal. I’m only going to warn you once. Whatever you’re planning, call it off.”

Makado’s eye flickers over to me, then away again. I can see her throat bob as she swallows, then she continues. “You probably can’t reach him by phone but if you do get ahold of him, tell him to head to the main gullet and up to the monitoring station. I can’t promise immunity but I’d rather get him out of there alive than dead, and I swear to you I will try to get him off property without any federal charges. Call it good faith. But if you pull the shit you just pulled again,” she says, her voice cooling so quickly I can practically hear the snap, “or if you try to interfere with my operation, you’re going to be coming back out in a bodybag. Oh, and I have your gun. Call me back.” She rattles off her number and then hangs up, blows a breath out.

“Think she’ll call you?”

“Maybe,” Makado shrugs. She reaches into her pocket, pulls the revolver out, examines it. “Free gun, though, if she doesn’t.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“That was a joke,” she explains, and when I start giggling I can’t suppress it even though as far as jokes go that was fairly lame, but I realize that it’s just all the adrenaline from the fight flooding out of me belatedly in one long relieved flow and even as Makado cuffs me playfully behind the ears and tells me it wasn’t that funny, I manage to make her smile, and I suppose that ought to be enough.

When we get back, charger and a couple of extra half-full SD cards tucked carefully into my pocket, Elena is the only one who noticed that I’d been gone for long, but when she asks where I’ve been, rolling over on her stomach to peer at me from her messy cot, I just shrug. “Out,” I tell her, and content myself with a mysterious smile while she shakes her head and returns to her magazine, muttering something about fucking admin under her breath, but it’s with a crooked smile that I know is meant for me, and when I flop onto the cot next to her nobody gives me a second glance and I feel, for just a moment, like I am starting to belong.

Continue with Part 15

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#mystery flesh pit #Michael Crichton #thriller #novel #writing #original writing #horror #caving #monster #writeblr #alt lit

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master-sass-blast · 4 years

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Children of the Gods -Part One.

OOOOOOOOOOOOH BABY I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!!! THIS HAS BEEN MY LITTLE PET PROJECT FOR OVER A YEAR!!!!

Summary: There's a new force to be reckoned with on the horizon, a force that goes by the name of Allison Ricci. Having lost her family, she's out for blood and vengeance --specifically, Frank Castle's. And, having taken Karen Page hostage, it seems like she's liable to get it. By teaming up with Frank to save Karen, can you and your friends and family stop Allison's quest for revenge? ...Only one way to find out.

Rating: T for moderate violence, gun violence, and mention of death.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, and Frank Castle x Karen Page.

Set after Hunter and Hunted.

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @starman-canos-thorsus-jock

You eye the abandoned looking warehouse with grim determination. “You’re sure about this?”

“Dead sure,” Nathan says as he checks his gun over. “She’ll be here.”

Your Dad-in-every-way-but-biological and Wade had called in a request to have the X-Force help them with a mission earlier today: rescuing a kidnapped person, retrieving a potentially violent mutation for rehabilitation, nothing too out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t until you, Piotr, Ellie, Yukio, and Russell (the newest X-Men trainee cleared for field work) had gotten on the jet –Neena was hitching a ride with Wade—that Nathan had sent you the rest of the details: that the kidnapped person was Karen Page, the potentially violent mutant was a “victim” of Frank’s punishing sprees, and that Frank was also present to rescue his girlfriend.

Because, you know, nothing’s ever easy.

“You’ve got five seconds to get moving, Summers, or I’m gonna blow this place open,” Frank growls, clad in black and his spray painted tack vest and looking angrier than you’ve ever seen him.

“Patience,” Nathan fires back. “We can’t rush this.”

“I’m gonna rush a few bullets up your ass if you don’t hurry the fuck up.”

“If it counts for anything,” Neena says, eyeing the warehouse uneasily, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

“Easy, Kenobi,” Wade says as he holsters his pistols. “Or would you be Han Solo?”

“I’ve always seen myself as a Leia.”

Wade nods. “Who wouldn’t want to be Carrie Fisher.”

“Wilson, shut your fucking trap or I will shut it for you—”

“Hey.” You step between Frank and Wade before Frank can slug your adoptive brother. “Give my dad two minutes. He’s probably just making sure we aren’t walking into any traps or massive amounts of back up. Karen’ll be fine. Hell, she’s probably already found a way to free herself.”

“Won’t be any back up,” Nathan says as he scans the warehouse. “The target’s name is Allison Ricci, daughter of Andrew Ricci. His recent death—”

“Courtesy of Captain S-and-M here,” Wade interjects, gesturing over at Frank.

“—means that she doesn’t have access to the money that hires extra muscle, considering Mr. Ricci’s accounts were frozen upon his death for criminal investigation.”

“Then what the fuck are we waiting for?” Frank hisses.

“Is there even point in my saying ‘language?’” Piotr asks in a resigned, albeit pointed, tone.

“Probably fucking not,” Ellie says while she taps at her phone.

You bite back a laugh while Piotr merely shoots his mentee a look.

“We’re waiting,” Nathan interjects, regaining control over the conversation, “for me to locate where Allison and Karen are. The less time we waste on this, the better.”

“We’re already wasting time, Summers,” Frank snarls, stomping away from the group. “Fuck it, I’m going in by myself—”

“They’re in a storage room on the West side,” Nathan pipes up. “There’s a bay door there used for unloads. We’ll use that one.”

You quickly follow after Frank as he books it over to the West side of the warehouse, flying low over the ground to keep up with him. “Try to not rush into this. Dad didn’t say anything about Allison’s mutation, which means we don’t know what we’re up against.”

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do.” Frank tries a regular door next to the massive bay door on the West side of the warehouse, then rears back to kick it open when it winds up being locked.

“Holy fuck!” You dive between Frank and the door before he can hurt himself. “Dude! Chill the fuck out for, like, two seconds.” You focus your powers on the doorknob, and within five seconds the lock clicks and the door swings open.

Frank brushes past you brusquely, gun sights aimed on the empty hallway. He scans the space, then advances down the hall when he deems it safe.

You cast a glance over your shoulder to make sure that everyone else is following along, then head in after Frank.

Two steps past the door and you can hear Karen talking to someone else –someone with a higher pitched, noticeably feminine voice.

“That’s gotta be Allison,” you whisper to Frank, who nods back before closing in on the loading bay.

You fly after him –so as not to make added noise—and brace yourself for any number of possible threats: guns, grenades, an arsenal of pointy objects…

But what you see in the loading bay is nothing like what you expected.

Karen is there, yes, sitting on a folding chair and looking pretty good, all things considered. However, the only other person in the dusty concrete and metal room is a young girl with a severe, thin face, dark eyes with darker undereye bags, and dark brown curly hair. The girl –presumably Allison, if Nate’s intel is anything to go by—has a pistol in her hand, aimed at Karen’s head. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a few days, possibly longer.

You blink, stunned. She can’t be older than thirteen.

Frank seems to be taken aback by the sight of the girl as well. He freezes in the shadows for a moment, then lowers his gun a tick before stepping into the light. “Karen.”

The girl’s eyes widen when she sees Frank, and her face contorts with rage as he walks towards them. “You! You fucking bastard—” She presses the muzzle of her gun against Karen’s temple, which makes Karen grimace. “Don’t come one step closer, or I’ll paint the floor with her brains.”

“Easy, kid,” Frank says, much calmer than he would normally address anyone threatening to hurt Karen, which you suspect has everything to do with the fact that he’s facing down an actual kid. “No one has to get hurt.”

“People are already hurt, shithead!” the girl fires back, teeth clenched. “One more won’t make any fucking difference.”

“Hey, hey.” You quickly step between Frank and the girl, hands outstretched. “Let’s just take a deep breath, okay? You must be Allison, right?”

“Who the fuck are you? Are you with him? Stay the fuck away from me, or I’ll—”

“I’m not with him,” you interject quickly, doing your best to be soothing. “My name is Y/N, and I’m with the X-Men. I’m here to help you. Are you Allison? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“No, you haven’t,” Allison fires back, face screwed up in a defiant sneer. “And the only way you can help me is by killing him.”

“No can do, babyface.” Wade skips into the room, borderline irreverent. “The Mutant Boyscouts are pretty big on the whole ‘no killing’ thing. Also, you’re so tiny! You’re practically a fetus! Nate, you didn’t mention we were picking up a literal infant, you inconsiderate dickhole. I would’ve brought the baby clothes from the last time I got my legs ripped off!”

“Sorry, sweetheart, I’ll make sure to mention it next time,” Nathan says, eyes focused on Allison. “Put the gun down, Allison. Enough people have been hurt already.”

“The only person hurt here has been me!” Allison shrieks, erratically aiming her gun at Karen’s head, Nate, Frank, you, then back to Karen. “Stay back! I’ll fucking do it!”

Russell steps forward, looking decidedly nervous but simultaneously determined. “Look, I know you’re hurt. I know you’re scared. I’ve been where you are; I’ve wanted the same kind of vengeance. So take it from someone who knows, it doesn’t help anything. Only innocent people wind up getting hurt instead.”

“You don’t know jack shit,” Allison hisses, eyes narrowed into slits.

“Put the gun down, Allison,” Russell persists, hands shaking but shoulders squared. “The X-Men are good people. They helped me, and they can help you. It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“Oh, this isn’t about ‘have to,’” Allison spits out, voice hoarse and gravelly. “This is about going to. And ‘this’ is going to end with her brains all over this fucking floor!”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Frank shouts, drawing Allison’s attention to him. “I’m the one you’re mad at, okay. Me! Not her. You’re angry at me, and I understand that, but you don’t have to take it out on her.” He nods at Karen. “She didn’t have anything to do this.”

“Did my mom have anything to do with your murder spree? Huh? Did my brothers have anything to do with it? No, no. I wake up, and I find my mom’s and my dad’s and my brother’s brains and blood everywhere, and I find their faces and bodies obliterated by your fucking bullets, and I see your skull fucking spraypainted on the dining room wall, and… no. No! You have to understand, Castle! You have to understand what it’s like to lose everything you ever loved!”

“Isn’t his whole backstory technically about understanding just that?” Wade mutters.

“Shut up!” Allison screams. “All of you!” She cocks the gun, then presses the muzzle against Karen’s temple, holding the other side of the woman’s head to keep her from flinching away. “This conversation is done!”

Karen closes her eyes, lips pursed and brow furrowed but otherwise remarkably calm.

“Hey!” Frank shouts, holding his hand out. “Put that gun down!”

“Yeah, for fuck’s sake, you’re gonna shoot your own hand off if you do it like that!” Wade adds.

The look Frank shoots your brother is nothing short of murderous.

“What? I’m not wrong.”

Fortunately, before Allison can kill Karen or Frank can –temporarily—kill Wade, the loading bay door rolls open, heaved up by none other than your husband.

The ruckus distracts Allison, which gives Nathan the opportunity to yank the gun out of her hand and knock her away from Karen via telekinesis.

Karen practically dives away from Allison as soon as the gun’s away from her head, quickly darting away from her captor and towards Frank.

Frank quickly latches onto Karen and shoves her behind him, effectively acting as a standing shield between her and everyone else. “You okay?”

Karen nods, gaze still fixed on Allison—

Who looks like someone kicked her puppy and stole her ice cream. If the context were different, the expression of frustration on the teen’s face would be adorable.

“God, she’s like some type of… murder baby,” Wade stage whispers. “Cute, yet deadly. Like an ocelot.”

“That is enough of violence and aggression,” your husband says as Yukio and Ellie step out from behind him. “Please. Come with us quietly, and we can help you—”

“I don’t want your fucking help!” Allison snarls as she scrambles her feet, quickly backing away from everyone. “You’re helping him!” She points an accusatory finger at Frank. “He fucking murdered my family!”

Piotr grimaces before quickly regaining his composure. “I assure you, that is not case.” He takes a step towards Allison, hands held up reassuringly. “If you would just come with us—”

Allison bares her teeth in a vicious snarl –and then her eyes start glowing blue. “Stay the fuck away from me!”

“Uh, what do you do when the baby starts glowing?” Wade asks, head whipping between you and Allison.

Before you can answer –or react to Allison’s sudden light display—the thirteen year-old unleashes a blast of energy from her hands, whipping it like a softball straight at your husband’s chest.

Piotr rockets through the bay door with a guttural yell, ripping the sheet of metal off its tracks with a horrific, deafening screech. He bounces across the concrete parking lot, groaning and grunting as he goes.

“Holy shit!” Russell shrieks.

“Uh, Houston?” Wade babbles nervously, drawing his katanas while Allison’s eyes start letting off wisps of blue smoke. “I think we have an angry baby Kryptonian on our hands –shit!”

You duck as Allison shoots a bolt of energy from her eyes, taking a chunk out of the concrete wall behind all of you. “Fuck! Allison, calm down; let us—”

Allison shrieks, then whips another blast of energy at all of you before aiming a beam of energy from her eyes at Karen.

You wind up with Frank and Karen as you all try to stay away from the scorching stream of energy. Concrete chunks fall off walls and rain down from the ceiling, and you shove Frank and Karen out of the way from a truck-sized piece before sending a gust of wind at Allison –only hard enough to knock her off balance. “Allison! Stop! That’s enough.”

Allison responds by gritting her teeth –then screaming before slamming her fists against the ground.

Blue light shoots along the floor and up the walls –and then the building starts to crumble.

“Let’s go!” Frank shouts, partially hunched over Karen to protect her. “This shithole’s coming down!”

You direct Russell, Ellie, and Yukio out the broken bay door –with some help for your husband, who’d gotten up in time to hold part of the collapsing wall up—then turn back to Allison. “Allison! Come on! We need to go!”

By way of response, Allison merely sends more pulses of energy into the ground, speeding up the collapse of the warehouse by ten. “I’m taking you fuckers with me!”

“Kid, we need to go!” Nate yanks on your arm, forcing you to follow him, Wade, Neena, Frank, and Karen out through the steadily collapsing bay door. “Come on!”

Piotr ducks away from the warehouse as the rest of you dart out, then quickly hunches over you and the teens, shielding you all from any flying chunks of rock or rebar.

The warehouse shakes, groans, then collapses with a gut-clenching crunching noises, spewing dust and shards of glass into the air.

You peer over your husband’s steel shoulder when the worst of the cacophony finally settles. “Shit.”

“Did she…” Russell looks up at you, eyes wide. “Could she… is it even…”

You grimace.

The color drains from Russell’s face, and he gulps. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Try to find some grass to upchuck in!” Wade shouts as Russell darts away from everyone. “It’s less likely to splatter against your face if you don’t puke on asphalt!”

“Shut up, dipshit,” Ellie grumbles as she brushes dust and dirt off her uniform. She stands, eyes the wreckage of the warehouse, then shoots a concerned look at her mentor. “Did she… really take herself out?”

Piotr sighs heavily. “Loss can do strange things to people. She was already heavily agitated when we reached her. There likely was nothing we could do.”

You wrap an arm around Ellie’s and Yukio’s shoulders, then glance over in Frank and Karen’s direction.

Surprisingly enough, Karen seems to be the one holding Frank up right now, even though she was the one that was abducted and had a gun held to her head.

But, then, perhaps it isn’t surprising at all. Wade’s told you chapter and verse about how Frank does not like hurting innocents. If he’d thought he was facing off with an adult –someone fully brought into the Ricci crime family—and found himself staring at a teenager instead…

A teenager that appears to have just committed suicide after losing her family to a Punisher spree…

Yeah. This whole situation is fucked.

Neena grimaces, gaze still fixed on the warehouse as she hands newly returned Russell a water bottle. “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel done just yet.”

“Seems done to me,” Frank murmurs hoarsely, looking somewhat shell-shocked.

“We should probably leave,” Wade says, slowly sheathing his katanas. “Don’t wanna be caught near a collapsed building with a dead kid’s body in it.”

Everyone slowly makes to leave, heading towards respective vehicles—

Except Nathan, who is fixated on an electronic readout mounted to his techno-organic arm. He’s frowning, flipping through various future records and completely oblivious to everyone else.

“Nate-y-kins,” Wade says in a sing-songy voice. “We’re leaving. Vamoosing. Gettin’ a move on, pardner. Come on, Gramps, it’s toaster strudel time.”

You brow furrows when Nathan doesn’t respond; he always responds to Wade, and you also know for a fact that Wade just busted out two nicknames that Nate isn’t particularly fond of in front of everyone else. “Dad? You okay?”

“Yeah…” he mutters, still distracted as he keeps flipping through electronic files. “Just… checking…”

“What’s the earliest onset age of dementia for robotic geezers?” Wade stage whispers to you, which gets a few giggles out of Yukio and Russell.

“Neena’s right,” Nate pipes up, silencing Yukio’s and Russell’s laughter. “Something’s wrong. There’s no death date for Allison in her records.”

“Maybe the Matrix is taking its sweet time to update,” Wade suggests, rolling his eyes. “She dropped a building on herself, Cabes. Only person who can come back from that is me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Nathan mutters, redrawing his gun as he starts towards the warehouse. “We need to recover Allison’s body and confirm her death.”

Before he can so much as take another step, though, there’s a brief flash of light around Karen’s feet –and then Allison pops halfway out of the ground, grabs Karen’s legs, and starts yanking her under.

Karen lets out a startled shriek and flails desperately for the closest handhold. “Frank!”

Frank lets out a desperate howl of Karen’s name, diving for her and catching her. He hooks his arms under her armpits and hugs her close, holding her up so everything above her hips is still above ground.

Allison snarls. “Let go!”

Frank catches a bolt of energy to the chest and goes sailing backwards with a grunt, knocking into you and Wade and taking the two of you down to the asphalt with him.

“Oh, god,” Wade groans. “This is not how I wanted to get Frank Castle on top of me. Dude! What did you eat for breakfast? Despair and cement?”

Nathan’s the next closest, since he’s the only one that can fend off Allison’s blasts of energy with his telekinesis. He manages to grab Karen’s arm before her shoulders disappear underground. He clasps something around her wrist, says something in her ear—

And then he releases his grip, and both Karen and Allison disappear underground.

The scream that Frank lets out is heart wrenching, somewhere between a wounded animal and the sound of grief incarnate.

“Why did you let her go?” he seethes, advancing on Nathan in a storm of rage. “I’m gonna fucking rip your limbs off, Summers; I’m gonna—”

“We weren’t going to get her out of the transportation spell without ripping her limbs apart,” Nathan spits out, quickly backing away from Frank while raising a telekinetic shield. “I put a tracking device on her wrist so we can follow her wherever Allison takes her.”

Frank’s hand shakes as he points at Nathan. “If –if anything happens to her… I swear to God, if anything happens to Karen—”

“They’re at Spring Heights Memorial Park,” Nate says once the display on his techno-organic arm pings. “And Karen’s still alive.”

“What direction?” you ask, extending a hand to Frank. “I’ll fly the two of us there. The rest of you can catch up.”

“Northeast, ten miles.”

You nod, then loop your arm around Frank’s waist. The two of you get a running start, then take off into the night sky.

You just hope you make it there in time.

***

The Spring Heights Memorial Park is dark, completely abandoned, by the time you and Frank reach it –but you can hear Karen arguing with Allison as soon as you land at the cemetery’s entrance.

Frank bolts towards the sound of Karen’s voice, weaving through the rows of headstones and plaques with the ease of someone who makes running around in the dark a regular habit.

(You, a person who does not make running around in the dark a regular habit, opt to fly to avoid tripping and faceplanting onto one of the headstones.)

“I understand that you’re hurting, but that doesn’t give you the right to hurt others—”

“You’re dating the fucking Punisher! All he does is hurt people because he got hurt!”

You follow Frank around another tree, then practically run right over Karen and Allison.

(Well, Frank does. You don’t because… you’re flying… yeah.)

Karen has Allison’s gun –she must have wrestled it off of her at some point—and is aiming it at the ground, gaze locked on Allison. Allison looks like she fell and hadn’t thought to get back up yet, and looks somewhat startled by the entire situation.

“Easy, easy,” Frank says when Allison’s face screws up at the sight of him. “You stay right where I can see you.”

“Or what?” Allison challenges, sneering. “You’re gonna shoot me? You’re gonna fucking shoot a thirteen year-old girl?” She scoffs when Frank’s face twitches. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Fucking coward.”

“Here.” You pick up Karen and hover above the ground, well out of Allison’s reach. “That’s that handled.”

There’s the sound of the jet thrumming overhead, then a gentle thump as it lands at the entrance of the cemetery.

“Myshka?”

“Over here, honey,” you reply, projecting your voice so they can hear you.

“To the left!” Wade announces. “Bibbity-bobbity –ah fuck! My fucking shin! Owie! Fucking headstone, getting in my fucking way –ah shit! Branch to the eye! Oh, God, that smarts.”

“Here.” Neena’s voice echoes through the Memorial Park. “I brought a flashlight.”

“Oh, that was lucky of y… dammit! Fucking lazy writing!”

“Get a fucking move on, Wilson!” Frank shouts.

“Suck my cock!”

Allison’s lip curls derisively. “You work with that nutjob?”

“He’s sharper than he looks,” you bite out, somewhat offended on Wade’s behalf.

Nate reaches your little group first, gun already aimed and ready. He stops a few feet away from Allison, eyes locked on her. “Piotr’s outside. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t break the headstones.”

You can’t help but smile, just a little. That’s my baby.

“Enough’s enough, Allison,” he continues, slowly inching towards the young teen while Wade, Neena, and the trainees catch up. “You’re outnumbered and outgunned. Stand down.”

“Fuck you,” Allison growls before flinging her hands towards the ground.

And then the dead start crawling out of their graves.

“Jesus fucking yellow penguins!” Wade shrieks, whipping out a pistol and shooting at the rotting corpses. “Castle! You were a zombie killing cop in another life. Do something!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Frank shouts back, bludgeoning one of the skeletal bodies off him with the butt of his shotgun before shooting it in the head. “Don’t answer that! I don’t want to know.”

“Just shoot them, Shane! Nathan! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me we were dealing with a class five Necromancer?”

“I didn’t know!” Nate shouts back.

“Unlikely! You’re so sleeping on the couch tonight, buster!”

Your head whips back and forth as you try to keep up with all the action –but there’s not much you can do while you’re holding on to Karen. “I need to pass you off for the moment. Piotr!”

Fortunately, your husband’s already close by, having been drawn over by the sound of gunfire. “What is going on –bozhe moi.”

“It’s a bootleg version of the rapture. Here.” You float over the fence and hand Karen to him. “Keep her off the ground. I’m going to get the trainees out.” You quickly lift Ellie, Yukio, and Russell out of the cemetery, then turn around and quickly analyze the fray.

The sheer amount of reanimated corpses is overwhelming –and, worse still, shooting them doesn’t seem to do anything other than slow them down.

They stop working when they’re too broken apart, you realize when Frank shatters a particularly ancient looking skeleton with an onslaught of gunfire –and that gives you an idea.

You stretch your arms outward, creating a shockwave of air that sends the unsteady skeletons flying across the cemetery, bashing into headstones and breaking apart until they’re just rattling bones on the ground.

You grin, triumphant –then grimace when you realize that, while you’ve stopped the undead army, you’ve also spread countless remains across the park. “Oops. That’ll be a lawsuit.”

“Not if we don’t get caught,” Wade points out.

Off to the side, Allison collapses to the ground, panting and covered in sweat. Her eyes revert back to their normal color, and she looks like she’s two seconds away from passing out.

“You about done throwing your tantrum now?” Nate asks.

Allison glares up at him and bares her teeth in a vicious snarl. “Fuck. You.”

And then she tips her head towards the black sky, lets out a guttural scream, and unleashes a shockwave of blue energy.

You recoil, throwing your arms up to brace yourself –but it washes over you harmlessly, less of an attack and more of a smokescreen.

And, when your eyes adjust and you see part of the ground fusing back together, the way it did at the warehouse after Allison took Karen a second time, you realize that’s exactly what it was.

“She’s most likely done for tonight,” Nathan reassures Frank when the black clad vigilante starts scanning the immediate area for the next sign of danger. “She was tired at the end of it. Wouldn’t have had enough left in her for another attack.”

“She’s still out there,” Frank says.

“And that’s a problem for another day,” Nathan fires back, heading towards the Memorial Park’s entrance. “We need to get out of here before the cops show up.”

***

“Her name is Allison Ricci, daughter of Andrew Ricci—”

“Yeah, we know that, skip to the part where she can literally raise the dead!” Wade snaps.

“For the last time: I found out about that when you did!” Nathan fires back.

The lot of you –meaning Wade, Nate, Neena, Frank, Karen, your husband, and you—are gathered at yours and Piotr’s house, post being examined and released by Hank and his team. You’re all sat around the dining room table, in various states of irritation, frustration, and exhaustion.

The last one chiefly goes to Karen –who, after being kidnapped twice and having a gun held to her head, has earned a good nap and a glass of wine (the latter of which you procured for her as soon as she stepped into your home).

As for the other two…

Wade and Frank are arguably the angriest, mostly at Nathan for seemingly having withheld information about Allison and the mission.

You, Neena and Piotr are also irritated, largely for the same reasons –though Piotr is especially pissed that Nate would bring trainees on a mission this dangerous.

All in all, it adds up to your dad having a lot of digging out to do.

“In my time, she’s an agent of Bishop, one of Apocalypse’s henchmen,” Nathan continues quickly, before Wade or Frank can start arguing with him. “I only recognized her name due to her father’s obituary. She preferred staying distant from all of it, staying unseen –which is why I didn’t know about her full set of powers to begin with, and also why I thought it would be okay to bring along Russell, Negasonic, and Yukio. The information just wasn’t there.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve come up short on a mission,” Frank points out, tone lethal. “You could’ve told us –fuck, you could’ve told us she’s just a kid, Summers. That would’ve been good to know.”

“You weren’t in the headspace to listen to anything I had to say, Castle,” Nathan fires back through gritted teeth. “You threatened to snap my neck if I didn’t step to at your fucking pace. I’m not going to waste the time talking if you’re so single minded—”

“The two of you can settle your issues later,” you interject. “Right now, we still need to know what we’re dealing with when it comes to Allison.”

Nathan sighs heavily, scrubs his face with one hand. “I was hoping we’d be able to pull with her what we did with Russell. Get her the help and support she needed, change the course of the future. But, since her official kill count hasn’t changed by much, I seriously doubt we didn’t pull that off tonight.”

“‘Hasn’t changed by much?’” Neena repeats, arms crossed over her chest and brows spiking towards her hairline. “What the hell does that mean?”

Nate’s mouth twists into a deep grimace. “Technically… Karen was supposed to die tonight.”

Frank’s face goes pale, and Karen takes another long sip of wine while she holds Frank’s hand.

“About a year later, she would’ve taken out Frank, too. Obviously we managed to save Karen tonight, and considering that Allison’s down two listed kills and there’s no… imminently listed death dates for Karen and Frank –no, I’m not telling you,” Nathan quickly says, shooting a stern look at Frank. “Last thing you need to know is either of your death dates. Anyway, since she’s down two kills and the dates aren’t anywhere in the near future, I’m willing to wager we’ve managed to take you two off her list. The rest of it though…”

“How many does she have left?” Piotr asks, hesitant.

“A little over fifteen thousand,” Nathan sighs heavily.

Shock ripples through the room, evident on everyone’s faces.

“Holy shit,” Frank breathes, face going slack with surprise and horror.

“How is that even possible?” Karen asks, brow furrowed.

Wade shrugs. “Give me enough explosives and I could probably do it.”

“Shut it, Wilson.”

“She asked!”

“You saw her in action tonight,” Nathan interjects, sitting back in his seat. “She’s only going to get stronger as she goes. And once she’s in Bishop’s keep, she’s going to have even more means and opportunities to kill. Not to mention that the number on file is comprised only of officially listed kills. In reality, it’s undoubtedly higher.”

“So, essentially, we’re trying to flip a teenager with comparative lethal abilities of a bomb, whose parents were just killed by him,” Neena says, pointing at Frank.

“We did it with Russell—”

“Russell was an orphan, looking for a family and someone to care about him, and had a strong connection to Wade,” Neena states, staring Nathan down from across the table. “Allison lost her whole family execution style, is trying to cope and grieve on her own, and is clearly more than a little unhinged if tonight’s anything to go by. These are two entirely different ball games.”

“We cannot let child become mass murderer,” Piotr speaks up, conviction strong in his voice and on his face. “She deserves better future.”

Silence hangs in the room as everyone arrives at the same conclusion at their own pace.

Neena sighs heavily. “This barely worked with Russell. And you—” she points at Wade “—had to get shot twice for it to work. He’s—” she jerks her thumb at Nate “—out of time jumping charges, and I seriously doubt that shooting him—” she nods at Frank “—is gonna have the same effect with Allison.”

“We’ll find something,” Karen says, properly joining the conversation for the first time that night.

Neena raises an eyebrow at her. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because we have to,” Karen says quietly. “It’s fifteen thousand plus people that need us to.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Neena sighs heavily. “Alright. Count me in. We’re gonna need all the luck we can get with this.”

“We’ll help as we can, too,” you say, pointing between yourself and Piotr. “But I’m not sure how much the X-Men will be able to assist since the Punisher’s tangled up in this.”

“I will contact my mother,” Piotr adds. “She may be able to help with this.”

Nathan nods, then looks over at Wade. “What about you?”

“I’m with you in all of this, Cabes. Always.” Wade leans over, gently kisses his partner’s cheek, then stands with a groan. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Wade-mobile needs to make a pit stop.”

“You could’ve just said ‘excuse me,’” Neena calls out as Wade heads towards the bathroom.

“Hey! It could’ve been worse! I could’ve said that I’m gonna take the mother of all piss breaks –which, as it so happens, I am!”

You all groan, a mix of annoyance and disgust.

“I’m also gonna take a shit!”

“I think we get the picture, handsome,” Nathan says with a roll of his eyes. “Just –please use the restroom and stop telling us about it.” He waits to make sure that Wade isn’t going to keep talking –or, worse still, narrate his “pit stop” experience—then sighs and looks at everyone else again. “Thank you. Everyone. Allison is a key component in Apocalypse’s upper ranks in the future. If we can flip her to our side, we’ll put a major dent in his abilities to take over the universe.”

“Fucking Christ,” Frank grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just –this kid. Is she gonna keep coming after Karen and me?”

“Possibly. I’ll keep my ear to the ground, and if I hear anything, I’ll let you know,” Nathan promises.

“You’ll let me know everything,” Frank amends, jabbing an accusatory finger in your dad’s direction. “No more of this vague bullshit –or it’s going to be my gun up your ass.”

“Ooh, kinky!” Wade shouts from the bathroom. “Can I get in on that?”

Nathan shakes his head at the same time Frank grimaces, and then he nods at Frank. “Everything I know. You have my word.”

“Your word doesn’t really mean shit right now, Summers,” Frank growls, shoving his chair back as he stands. “Come on,” he says to Karen, voice considerably softer and more caring. “Let’s get you home.”

“You’re coming home, too,” Karen insists.

“Yeah,” Frank agrees, putting his hand on the small of Karen’s back as he escorts her out of the dining room. “I’m going home, too.”

“I will get door,” Piotr murmurs, quickly following after them to escort them out the front door.

Neena stretches, rolls her neck, then sighs. “I’m beat. Think Xavier will mind if I crash in one of the empty rooms?”

You shake your head. “He won’t care. You’re welcome here for breakfast in the morning.”

She grins. “Sounds good.” She hugs you gently, presses a sisterly kiss against the top of your head, then heads out the front door.

You watch her go, then circle around the table and sit down next to your dad. “You can’t keep holding back essential information.”

“I’m not trying to,” Nathan says tiredly, rubbing his temples. “There just genuinely wasn’t much to go on tonight. Plus, telling people information about the future is dangerous. It can alter the course of things irreparably, change the outcome of millions of lives on a catastrophic level. I’m just… I’m trying to figure out the balance of it all. What I can and can’t share.”

“You’ll get it figured out,” you reassure him. “I know you will.”

A ghost of a smile tugs at Nathan’s lips, and he slings an arm around your shoulders. “Thanks, kid.”

***

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You blink at the darkness, then roll onto your side and wriggle across your and your husband’s massive bed until you’re nestled up against his side. “Are you alright?”

“Da.” Piotr wraps one of his massive, muscular arms around you, hugs you against his side, and kisses the top of your head. “Tonight was just… intense. I wish young ones did not have to go through.”

“We’ll know better for next time,” you reassure him. “And Dad legitimately didn’t know all of what was up with Allison. He didn’t mean to get the teens involved.”

Piotr huffs. “Ya znayu.”

“But?”

“I just… Cable is reckless.”

You purse your lips; you know he’s annoyed since he’s using Nathan’s code name. “He doesn’t mean to be.”

“Perhaps, but he forgets we are not all soldiers. That we do not all operate as he does. He is good person –good for you and Wade—and good trainer, but not always good leader. Not for… not for everyone.”

“Not for everyone,” you agree. “But he’s amazing for Wade, you have to admit.”

“I would not deny,” Piotr says, fingers playing absently with your hair. “Cable balances Wade, and verse vice-a. But he is too reckless for X-Men.”

“Which is why he’s not an X-Man—”

“Not my meaning. He may be too reckless to work with,” Piotr clarifies. “We have to meet certain standards to keep licensing to run school, work with children, act as enforcers against mutant criminals. If Cable jeopardizes that…”

“One step at a time,” you remind your husband when his voice trails off. “Nathan takes what we do here seriously. If he sees himself jeopardizing that, he’ll be the first to bring it up, and he’ll be the one to step away so we can keep doing what we do. You know that.”

Piotr sighs. “That much is true.” He tucks you closer to him, then kisses your forehead. “You should rest, myshka. Sleep is very important.”

“I was,” you tease him, smile evident in your voice. “But I had to soothe my husband’s woes first.”

Piotr chuckles, then presses a kiss against the top of your head. “Spokoynoy nochi i sladkikh snov, lyubov' moya.”

“Love you too, sweetheart. Rest well.”

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #nathan summers x wade wilson #frank castle x karen page #tw: gun violence #tw: death mention #ooooh baby i have been WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!#x men fanfiction #deadpool fanfiction

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bts-fantasy · 5 years

Text

Liar

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre:Angst

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

„Y/N! Are you ready?“, you heard your best friend’s muffled yell coming from your kitchen. Seems like he‘d found the cookie jar you had carefully pushed far into the back of your cupboard. Looking at your reflection one last time you puckered your lips satisfied with how your look had turned out. Your white laced blouse fit you like a second skin accentuating your figure beautifully just like your black skinny jeans. Grabbing your sneakers, because there was no way you were going to spend the night with your feet squeezed into uncomfortable high heels, you headed to the kitchen where Jungkook was standing with one arm slung around your cookie jar and mouth open about to take another bite but he halted his movement midway to take a closer look at you.

His eyes wandered up and down your body a smirk slowly spreading across his features as he set the jar down on the counter to let out an impressed whistle.

„I didn‘t know all it takes for you to dress sexy is the fact that he might be there.“

He dodged the punch and stuck his tongue out at you for missing your target.

„I don‘t dress to impress anyone but myself“, you stated and took your car keys on your way out of your apartment. You could hear the low mumble from Jungkook behind you who wasn‘t ready to believe your comment. So be it, you told yourself feeling ready to take on the night. You will try to enjoy it without caring about anything else and Jungkook was more than satisfied with that attitude.

A few minutes later you were walking through the crowded street with filled bars and clubs on the lookout for a good dancefloor to let loose. Jungkook‘s intimidating figure was right next to yours his cold stare making everyone step aside so you could walk without bumping into drunk people all the time. You always felt safe next to your best friend and it boosted his ego to protect you from these strangers so you let it slide.

Finally, you found a dance club with some good music blasting through their speakers onto the street and you quickly pulled Jungkook towards the entrance where a little crowd of youngsters had already gathered to get in, rummaging in their purses to proudly show their IDs. You were already feeling the music as you impatiently waited for the line to move on so you could finally enter the club.

Once you passed the guards you and Jungkook got swallowed by sweaty bodies and music louder than your shouts while you danced your way to the middle of the dancefloor. There was no time to talk anymore then you had completely dived into the music the beat taking over your body like it had entered your system. Jungkook was not so bad either as he rolled his body like professional making heads turn your way as everyone moved aside to watch you both with admiring looks. The loud cheers clouded your mind as he grabbed your waist and pulled you closer to his chest to move in sync with your body. His hands ran down your sides turning you around and that was when your breath hitched.

On the other side of the room, a pair of eyes was watching you with a hungry look.

Taehyung.

His cold stare sent shivers down your spine and neither you or him had the intention of looking away. Moving your body to the beat you felt Jungkook‘s fingers wind around your waist from behind lingering on the seam of your blouse ready to slip underneath to touch your burning skin. Rolling your eyes towards Taehyung you turned around to place your hands on your best friend‘s broad chest. Jungkook‘s eyes widened for a second confused by your sudden action but soon relaxed under your soft touch as you slid down his body slowly.

You literally felt Taehyung‘s eyes bore into your back but you didn‘t care if he was watching you right now. Remembering your vow for tonight you ignored his presence and continued to have a great time with Jungkook. At least you tried to do so.

Then Taehyung didn‘t seem like the type to just sit and watch. He was definitely giving you a hard time to keep your promise. The way he suddenly grabbed a random girl on the dancefloor and started dancing with her body pressed against his was too much for you to handle. You tried to focus on Jungkook but you couldn‘t help the way your eyes almost naturally followed Taehyung‘s movements on the floor. Like he knew exactly what he was doing to your heart he had a devilish smirk painted on his face throughout the whole performance. His stares landed on you every now and then making sure he had awoken your inner flame again.

You groaned internally cursing him for the way he made you feel things no one else could. But every time he caught you staring at him you just shook your head quickly avoiding his eyes. You were not going to let yourself fall for that trick one more time.

„Are you sure you can resist him?“ Jungkook‘s voice startled you as you turned to face him again. He was eyeing your face closely trying to read the signs and he was not so convinced when you nodded vigorously.

„I won‘t lose control. I don‘t want him.“

Jungkook nodded but the skeptical expression was still evident on his face. He looked over to Taehyung holding onto a girl as if she was a puppet he could play with as his eyes remained fixed on you. He sighed to himself shaking his head but he didn‘t want to get involved in whatever that was going on between the both of you.

Looking away he suddenly caught someone staring at him from across the dancefloor. Her long black hair swayed behind her while her big eyes were burning into his with a seductive stare.

Jungkook leaned down to his best friend, whom he was still holding in his arms, asking for her permission to go after the dark-haired beauty.

„Are you sure you‘ll be fine on your own, Y/N?“ The concern was both evident in his voice and his eyes but you nodded pushing him towards the pretty girl with a smile. You didn‘t want to hold him back from having fun just because you were occupied with your own feelings.

The music kept on blasting and you kept on moving your body to it on your own. Suddenly you yelped as an arm wound around your waist from behind pressing you tightly against their chest.

„Dance with me.“

Taehyung‘s low whisper spread goosebumps all over your skin and your breath faltered as you thought about his words with your mind completely clouded.

But all the past events hit you like a punch in the gut and you immediately tore yourself away from his tight grip looking at him with a crazy expression.

„What the heck are you thinking Taehyung?!“

You yelled over the music hoping it was clear enough for him to understand that you had no intentions on doing anything with him.

You could see a pained expression flit across Taehyung‘s face which he quickly covered up with a smirk moving closer to you.

„What? Are you so afraid you might still feel something for me?“

His hands cupped your face gently making your body tremble under his soft touch.

Oh no. Here we go again.

You completely blended out your surroundings as his dark iris pierced into yours holding you still in your place.

Why were you supposed to run away from him again?

You couldn‘t remember anymore as the only thing that made sense to you at that moment was Taehyung and the way he slowly sucked in his lips biting it as your knees threatened to give in.

Would it be so bad if he kissed you right now?

You failed to answer his question with the proud and determined look you were intending to. Instead, you stammered a „no“ with lips shaking like leaves. Even a 5-year-old could‘ve been more convincing than you at that moment. You sighed trying one last time to finally escape the tensed atmosphere but Taehyung was already one step ahead, like always.

He slowly bent down leaning towards you as he leveled his eyes to your height so he could see and read everything clearly off your face. He knew exactly you were lying to him and to yourself and he was waiting for the moment where you‘d break.

His face now only inches away from yours made it hard for you to breathe properly as you were also waiting for him to do something. You wanted him to give in and just kiss you but at the same time, you were too scared that it might actually happen.

Seconds passed which felt like hours to you as you both stood in the middle of the dancefloor waiting for the other to give in. No one else could feel the tension around the both of you. It was just surrounding him and you engulfing you both in an invisible bubble.

Your eyes slowly moved towards his lips pausing there for a solid minute your lashes fluttering as he leaned in little by little. Closing your eyes you couldn’t wait to finally feel his lips crash onto yours, your heart hammering against your ribcage deafeningly.

You didn‘t care about anything else. Your weakness almost made you approach him to close the remaining distance between the two of you but the tiny amount of self-control you had made you refrain from the action last minute.

Taehyung stopped and stared at you closing your eyes expectantly a dirty smirk appearing on his face as he suddenly pulled back without even touching you.

„You‘re not a good liar, Y/N.“

Your eyes fluttered open as you stared at him with a shocked expression. You‘d been caught red-handed and your cheeks flamed up at the embarrassing thought.

Taehyung chuckled lowly gently pushing a strand of hair behind your ear leaving a tingling feeling on your skin. You huffed closing your eyes again still too embarrassed to even move as you wished for everything to be over already. You asked yourself when you‘d finally be immune against the bittersweet taste of Taehyung that you couldn‘t seem to get enough of. Every time you told yourself to resist him you ended up melting into a puddle after just one look. You were a sucker for that stare.

Taehyung‘s eyes wandered over your features halting at your lips for a moment too long the regret of missing his opportunity already bugging him. He loved the control he had over you but little did you know how much control you had over him.

That‘s something he‘d never admit out loud.

You felt how he slowly retreated his hand from behind your ear and you were finally able to open your eyes again. His eyes were still focused on you as if you were the only person in the room. You raised your brows expecting another witty comment to slip out of his mouth but to your surprise nothing came.

„What the hell do you want Taehyung?“

A voice behind you startled both you and Taehyung as Jungkook moved in front of you like a protective shield. You were fast enough to pull him back before his fists came in contact with Taehyung‘s jaw. Jungkook was clearly too drunk to think straight and that was the sign for you to leave the party.

But before you made your way towards the exit you felt Taehyung‘s breath in your neck his right hand holding onto your arm firmly.

„I hope to see you soon, Y/N.“

You didn‘t want to answer but the erection of your neck hair was satisfying enough for Taehyung to let go of you. With one arm slung around Jungkook‘s waist you headed towards the exit. Taehyung‘s words still ringing in your head.

A/N: So compared to my other stories this one‘s a bit more „steamy“ lol. I tried to write something new but it feels weird to actually write something more on the smut side since... you know... uh... it‘s just 🥴 But I love trying new things so tell me what you think of this one☺️ Should I write another part? No? Okay...🤪👌🏽

Masterlist

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lurafita · 5 years

Text

Rich!Tony/Artist!Peter, part 2

Go here for Part 1

Okay. Gotta be honest, this part isn’t that much more interesting than the first part was. But I did some actual research for this one and most of the artworks described in the text were inspired (or unashamedly stolen) from this site: https://theartofeducation.edu/2017/10/26/11-fascinating-artists-inspired-science/

So, let’s get this done!

The Art of Science and the Science of Art

While self-satisfaction might not be very virtuous, Pepper couldn't help the proud smirk that spread over her face, as she watched Tony all but fawn over the different artworks.

“Are you seeing this, Pep? This is a glass model of a magnified virus cell. They installed tiny light sources in specific places and angles to show how and where the cell interacts with the human body. And then there is a whole other set of lights and mirrors that indicates which parts are targeted and gradually destroyed by an antiviral drug. Actually, the way the mirrors are positioned here... yep. If you go around the pedestal and look at it from the different angles, it's like a little movie. First you see the lights indicating the parasitic effect of the virus on the body, then the way the drugs counteract the effects, and once you reach full circle; Ah, see here? Now the lights and the mirrors and the shadows create the effect that the virus evaporated. Damn, that's clever.”

Tony walked around the pedestal once more, trying to make out the positions and calculate the angles of all the lights and mirrors used.

Pepper's previous gleeful smirk softened, as she watched her boss move on to the next exhibit, a gorgeous piece created with metals and specially coated glass. The reflected images and light created 'Sun Drawings', that moved and changed in response to sunlight and the passage of time.

Having been Tony Stark's personal assistant for almost 8 years now, Pepper had learned much about the inner machinations of the man. And at his very center, Tony Stark was an engineer. A mechanic. He could talk theoretical physics with the best of them, but he preferred practical results. Tony's work had a purpose, a direct impact.

Which was one of the reasons why he wasn't normally swayed by art.

“Okay, this here? Classic movie effects. Chemical reactions used to visualize the images of a nuclear explosion, but it all happens under a microscope.”

While the billionaire could certainly appreciate beautiful art, something that was nothing more than 'nice to look at' held no value to him. It was the same reason why he had tons of one night stands, and hardly any actual relationships in his life. He was at first attracted to a person's physical beauty, which usually led to sex. But when the sexual need had been sated, mere physical attraction wasn't enough to keep him interested in the person he had bedded the night before.

“Now this, this is art. Applied physics at its finest. Do you see how the magnets interact with and against each others polarity? This is a perfect demonstration of the symbolism behind the theory of gravitational forces.”

It was why Pepper had jumped on the chance to get her hands on the tickets to Peter Parker's first ever art exhibition. He had been steadily making a name for himself over the last two years, and the redhead had seen some of his early works while she was on vacation in Europe. The young man had been set up in a corner of a street market in Marseilles, and with the help of various visual and practical effects, had explained the complex mechanics behind aerodynamic principles, to his wide eyed and utterly fascinated audience.

“A model of Nikola Tesla's early design for a solar collector made by modern computer code. See this section here? That's programming code for data extraction. In this context, it translates to Tesla's attempt to convert the energy of solar rays into electrical power. It serves as a parallel between combining old and new resources. See? This is the kind of art one can actually talk about. Not a painting of a stupid fruit bowl.”

Whereas Tony used his genius and understanding of different areas of science to create and improve, Parker used his to teach and inspire. Parker's art was something that Tony could not only relate to, but also admire, because it had purpose beyond it's beauty.

The hour that Tony had initially given himself to suffer through the showcase had long since passed, as the billionaire found himself unable to curb any of his enthusiasm, as he grew ever more fascinated with every new piece of art. Other people milling about the rooms 'oohed' and 'aahed' as they inspected the different works of the artist, sipping on their glasses of complementary champagne. But Tony doubted they could truly grasp the idea; the genius behind it all.

He was going to buy it all. The whole exhibit. Everything. He wanted those pieces in his company, in his home, in his workshop. He wanted to have the computer coded Tesla piece in his office, as a symbol of Stark Industries work on renewable energy. He wanted to gift the glass model of the virus cell to Bruce, to celebrate the biochemist's latest break through in the field.

He wanted both the magnetic force field work and the microscopic chemical reactions in his workshop, as a source of constant inspiration. His fingers itched with the want to create, the need to pour his skills into his work.

He wanted... He wanted to meet the artist.

When they had made their way almost full circle around the exhibit, they stopped at what appeared to be the last of the show cases. This one was different from the rest. For one, it was made out of Play Dough, though that was a fact Tony only realized by reading the description. How the hell this Parker guy had managed to form a completely genuine looking circuit board out of such an inferior material as children's clay, he could only guess.

He wanted to talk to the artist.

Another thing that struck Tony was that this circuit board looked somehow familiar.

He leaned in closer.

“This one section here looks like a rather awkward welding job. The connections between the wires seem a bit clumped. I would put it down to the use of Play Dough, but the other details on the board are so clean... You know, this looks almost like-”

“-the circuit board you built when you were five years old.”

Both surprised by the new voice, Pepper and Tony quickly turned around. Just a step behind them stood a young man, dressed in a casual but nice enough suit, with deep brown eyes, fluffy looking chestnut hair and a shy smile. Pepper recognized the man she had seen in France right away, and held out her hand to him.

“Mr. Parker. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Virginia Potts. But please, feel free to call me Pepper. Everyone does.”

The artist took her hand with a pleasant smile.

“In this case, I insist on Peter. And the pleasure is mine, Pepper.”

Tony could hardly wait for the handshake to end, to insert himself into the introduction.

“So you are the surprisingly gorgeous face behind all these beauties. I'm-”

“Tony Stark. I know. I'm a big fan of your work, Mr. Stark.” Parker smiled brightly (and blushing heavily) at him and eagerly reached for his hand. Then he shyly nodded to the pedestal display. “Your earliest work included.”

He wanted...

“Just Tony will do. One question, though. Why Play Dough? I may not have been very skilled with the welding equipment back then, but I do remember using the actual parts needed.”

Peter turned to his work, a helpless sort of smile on his lips, as he explained.

“When I was in my last year of highschool, and it was time to make a decision regarding college, I felt helplessly defeated. Was I supposed to attend one that focused on all the things that fascinated me about science, or one that focused on all the things I loved about art? I didn't know if I would ever be able to meet the expectations others had placed upon me, and the ones I had placed upon myself. I became wary and anxious about every choice I made. Constantly questioning myself if it was worth it to try to combine the things I loved, or if I wouldn't be able to hold on to both at the same time. Science versus art. Wanting to pursue such opposite things seemed ridiculous. But then my teacher gave us the task of writing a paper about a person that had greatly influenced our society and progress. I chose to write about you. And during my research, I found an old newspaper article, front page, about the young Stark prodigy, who was already showing the whole world how smart he was. The ordinary 5 year old makes crayon drawings and forms simple shapes out of Plasticine. A few can already read some of their children's books, but many are still more focused on the pictures in them. But the 5 year old you broke out of the limitations perceived for kids, and defied expectations. And I thought to myself ‘Hey, if Tony Stark can build a circuit board at such a young age, then maybe I can find a way that doesn’t mean I have to give up on one of the things I love.’ So, I guess I used the clay to symbolize what was expected, and your final design to show how you rose above.”

That shy little smile again. He wanted...

“In fact, you have done nothing but risen, Mr.- Tony. You have been a great inspiration for me, over the years. Quite possibly even a bit of a muse, if you will.”

Tony was a bit stumped, honestly. He had never been lost for words before. Thankfully he caught himself quickly.

He wanted...

“So, philanthropist, billionaire, genius, muse.” (Had he just replaced his usual playboy title with ‘muse’?) “I like that.” (He did.)

Peter.

“As your muse, I get dibs, right?”

A confused little head tilt.

Cute.

“Dibs?”

On you.

“On the art pieces.” Tony elaborated with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “They are up for sale, right?

“Oh, yes. It’s uhm... we will hold an auction in a bit, after I have officially introduced myself to everyone here and said a few words.” Peter looked distinctly uncomfortable with that bit.

Tony was just opening his mouth to say something else, when suddenly Pepper inserted herself back into the conversation. (He had admittedly forgotten that she was there.)

“Peter, I think the woman over there is trying to get your attention.”

They turned to see a middle aged woman in an elegant dress, subtly gesturing to him. Peter grinned a bit ruefully as he turned back to his two companions.

“That’s my aunt, and also kind of my manager. I guess it’s time for my big entrance.”

He offered his hand once more first to Pepper, then to Tony.

“Pepper, Tony, again, it was a pleasure meeting you. Since it’s an auction, I can’t exactly grant you dibs, as much as I would like to.” He grinned at Tony. “But about 75% of all our revenues tonight will be donated to The Future Hope Foundation, which is a research center focused on developing cures for different diseases, speacially in children. I will be talking a bit more about that one in my speech, provided my severely repressed stage fright doesn’t hit me in a few minutes. So just know that whatever you decide bidding on, it will be worth it.”

Tony wanted to keep holding on to that hand. A hand that was just as calloused as his own, but still somehow softer and more delicate.

“I’m sure it will be.”

You will be worth it.

Just as Peter turned to leave, he cast one last look at the Play Dough model.

“Take a look at the note beside the general description before things start going, would you?”

Then he and his aunt vanished out of the room, to prepare for Peter’s introduction.

Curious now, Tony and Pepper turned back around to the pedestal and found what Peter had been talking about.

‘Of all my works, this one is my favourite, not only because of what it represents to me, personally, but also because of the person who inspired it. Unlike many of the other pieces, that are named after that which they represent, for this one, no other title than

Indomitable

could have ever come to mind. This is the only piece in the show case that will not be part of the auction. As this one already belongs to Anthony Edward Stark.’

“Pep.”

“Yes, Tony.”

“If I win every single auction bid, which I will, I would be entitled to a date with the artist, right?”

“You are probably still going to have to ask him the old fashioned way.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for coming tonight. Without further ado, it’s my sincere pleasure to introduce you to the man whose art work has brought you all here.”

Tony smiled. “I can do that.”

“I proudly present to you, Peter Parker!”

_________________________________________________________

The End.

Thanks to everyone for reading and liking the story! I hope you all enjoyed it, even though the story ends before Tony and Peter’s relationship really begins.

Thanks to the original prompt giver as well, due to the research I did for this story, I was able to see quite a few amazing art works.

Tagging: @unicornpower5301 -->why isn’t this stupid tag working?

#starker #fanfic #au #rich!Tony #artist!Peter #prompt #ask #no powers au #peter parker #tony stark #op lurafita

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scarlettsabetlondongirl · 6 years

Photo

The Town and The City Festival Lowell, MA October 19 & 20, 2018 – Day 1 – The Poets by Kathy Murray for Live Music News and Review

An interview with Scarlett Sabet

I had first heard about the innaugural run of The Town and The City Festival on Instagram from the acclaimed poetess, Scarlett Sabet. The festival had been created surrounding the life and works of Jack Kerouac, a Lowell resident for most of his life. Scarlett herself was an avid fan of Kerouac, and she was traveling from England to perform a reading for the festival. I was absolutely thrilled. I had been waiting for her to come back to the States, more specifically to the Northeast, so that I could go see her read. I had been a fan of her poetry for quite some time, but had only seen snippets of her incredibly moving readings online and I could not wait to experience it firsthand.

I reached out to her soon after getting my press credentials for the show, to find out if she would like to sit down for an interview. I was pleasantly surprised when she agreed, and doubly so when she asked if I would like to also include the poet Janaka Stucky, who was on the bill with her that night. I, of course, was more than happy to agree!

We had discussed meeting at the venue just after they did their soundcheck at about 6:00pm, to allow enough time before the readings began. When I arrived, I entered the Parish Hall, and waited while one of the staff went to get Scarlett and Janaka. When they came out, Scarlett greeted me like an old friend, giving me a big hug, and I presented her with a small token of appreciation for agreeing to do our interview, a painting I had done for her. Janaka suggested we go into the room that had been set up as the ‘Green Room’ for the event, so we made our way in there.

Kathy: With ‘Zoreh’, I noticed that with ‘Elegy’, well first, it’s like the longest piece in the book, and I was wondering, what was your inspiration for it?

Scarlett: So with ‘Elegy’, whenever I read it, I always say this is a poem I didn’t want to write; but I knew I’d have to. It was, I mean, it was personal grief across death, and also kind of old grief, reliving childhood stuff. I’m sure there are more layers to come, but when you’re an adult, you kind of think okay, I’ve already dealt with anything that upset me as a kid. But it’s events that happen that kind of brought it up again, and I was like, I’m going to give myself one poem for this and that’s it. I was abroad this January, and it was like the pressure, with just the physical moving, and I just sat down and just wrote it all. Pretty much that’s just how it came out. And it is a long one, and it’s interesting performing it.

Kathy: Very raw. Very emotional. I know I definitely connected with it having lost numerous people in my life, not just as an adult, but at a very young age, and experiencing grief at very different emotional levels. You can definitely feel the emotion of the piece and connect with it through that.

Scarlett: That’s good. That’s good, because I think something like that personal grief, you don’t want it to be – and this is the other thing of being an adult, being like well everyone goes through this. I think there’s a line in the poem like, ‘but what about this is special, that which has happened to you?’ because part of it’s like pull yourself together, you know, getting sick of yourself. And it just becomes the wait, and that thing of ‘it’s going to take time’ and then the question ‘well how long does time take?’. People are like, ‘time takes time, give time time’. Like, no one wants to hear that, I want to be better now. And looking back, I learned so much and I’m a stronger person getting on the other side of it. But it was uncomfortable, but I also think that it’s uncomfortable, awkward things, restriction or difficulties, you know, good things come out of it sometimes.

Kathy: There’s an element of rediscovery of yourself. I know in some ways it was for me. One of the parts I was curious of; you spoke of the ‘wet isle of Lavender in bloom’. What isle were you talking about?

Scarlett: It’s a place called the Isle of Bute in Scotland. So my mom is French-Scottish, and it was where her burial was taking place. And I’ve got generations of family buried there. And it was just going over on the ferry, and I know I say in the poem that it was ‘small and unrelenting’ cause it was just like, ‘Why am I in London? I should just move here,’ you know what I mean? And I was just reassessing stuff, and it just made a mockery of city life; it was all the stuff of it, like it was this tiny small place, but it was making a pilgrimage back to it. I hadn’t been there with someone, I hadn’t been there since I was seventeen, so a hell of a lot had happened. So it had been, like, ten years, and it was very interesting, just the gap of what had changed personally and professionally. What is also interesting, the Marquess of Bute, the nobleman that lived there – and his descendants still live there – in the Victorian times, commissioned William Burges to build The Tower House (in Kensington), where he was Burges’ patron. So that was kind of an interesting thing. And Mount Stuart is also very similar to the Tower Houses design.

Kathy: So I know that we talked online about this, but there’s a common astrological theme that moves throughout ‘Zoreh’, and I know that you’re very into astrology, as am I, being Pagan. I wondered how you got into it initially and how you choose to incorporate it into your work.

Scarlett: That’s a good question. It was actually when Jimmy and I got together. We’d been together a couple of months, and he was like, ‘Let’s get your chart done.’ I knew my Sun sign but I didn’t know anything beyond that. So we got it done. And he opened it and was like hmmm, and I was like what does that mean? And I was like wait he’s got the blueprint to me and I don’t want to see this; let’s put it away. So I got really superstitious, and I put it away for a year. And then I read it, and it was actually really good, it was really accurate. And just kind of delving into it, and studying it; I think good astrology is very mathematical, it’s, you know, physics and math and it’s an ancient science. I think it is just, with bad astrology, I always say especially referencing ‘Lilith in the Midheaven’ from ‘Zoreh’, I always say that bad astrology gives good astrology a bad name. And when you mention it [astrology], people are like, oh you believe in that; it’s like yeah, I do believe in the coordinates, and the position of where I was born.

I think Ted Hughes was very into astrology and he was very connected to nature, the kind of bloodiness of nature, and he wrote a letter of his daughter’s birth chart when she was born (Frieda Hughes). Every President up until JFK had an astrologer and, it’s just, it’s not something new, it’s something old that’s kind of been lost touch with. I don’t know, looking back, it’s certain astrological points denote my life. Going back to ‘Elegy’, Neptune and Sagittarius, those 2 years from 2015 to 2017, were pretty intense for me. I’m Sagittarius rising, and obviously now I’ve got a Saturn return, which is really interesting. So there’s a new poem I’ll be reading tonight as well where I mention Kerouacs astrology. It’s something that is there, that I use in the imagery, and people can delve more into it if they want to. And people, like yourself, that already get the references. But, like with ‘Lilith in the Midheaven’, I like the structure of the Synastry [chart], and just discovering it and being like like ‘oh so that’s why its like that’.

Kathy: So it’s funny that you had mentioned ‘Lillith’, because that was actually going to be my next question for you. People interpret all art differently, and the way that I was experiencing it, was that love kind of renews your life every day. And how you can find somebody that is your signs mate and the connections that you share across those intricate ties. Like, within myself, finding someone who can feed my creative fire, and reciprocate it, which I feel is very important to a strong relationship. Now, I was going to ask your thoughts on that, but you already answered that in my last question to you. Who would you consider, other than Kerouac, your poetic infulences to be?

Scarlett: Influences? That’s really interesting. I think I always say Ted Hughes and a lot of people are like, ‘but Sylvia Plath, don’t you like her?’. And I do, but there’s something about Ted Hughes. He’s so fairly, or unfairly, targeted after the very tragic circumstances of both of his wives [Sylvia Plath and Assia Wevill] suicides, and I kind of admire the way he carried on regardless. And also, just the kind of bloodiness, just…the intensity of his work, the bloodiness of nature, his whole energy and focus, and just how prolific he was. I think he’s an influence, not necessarily in style but in just [that raw emotion] yeah and I think it’s continuing on in the face of adversity. I also think it’s really interesting that he’d written all these love poems for Sylvia Plath that he didn’t publish until nine months before he died, and if he’d done that earlier, the public perception of him might have been a bit more sympathetic, and he kind of kept it to himself. And when his daughter – he won an award for it after his death, collected it on his behalf, she quoted him, I’m just paraphrasing, she said, ‘it’s a shame we have to give away our secrets’, which was just really interesting, him referring to the fact, that he released this massive volume of love poems for Sylvia Plath, which kind of proved that he did care.

But intense influence, obviously my partner [Jimmy Page] is very influential, just in terms of how hard working he is and still is. And really, if I have an editor, it’s him. Like, and it’s funny, with ‘Lilith and the Midheaven’, the night before I sent it to the publisher, I was like, “Oh, I’m not sure, I don’t know, I was going to cut some stuff out”, and he was like, “Why are you doing that? That’s good, keep that in.” And he actually read [aloud] ‘Lillith in the Midheaven’. I was really questioning it. And he read it and in his voice I think, just the separation, it not being in my voice, I was like, ‘Oh okay, you know, I’m good with it.’ And he was like, “Yeah, you see, let’s keep that in, yeah?” So I did. And obviously talent is good and essential, but it’s just also working really hard and letting go of stuff. So I think he’s a great example for me, on a day to day basis.

Kathy: I want to ask both of you this next question – do you have any reading’s coming up?

Scarlett: Yeah, so I’ve got in November in London I’m doing actually a kind of reading at the Troubador, and I’m doing it with Reel Art Press, because they put out a beat book earlier this year, so we’re kind of going to be exhibiting some beat paraphernalia, some of Ginsberg’s letters, and photos from the beat book. I’m going to be performing with this amazing poet called, Oakley, and I saw him perform, well we performed together at the Byline Festival [August 2018]. That’s real exciting.

Kathy: Will either of you be performing any of Jack Kerouacs works tonight?

Scarlett: I’m performing tonight a poem I wrote kind of as soon as it was confirmed I was doing this event; so what is interesting is, Janaka and I, this is only the second time we’ve met. But we’ve got a friendship spanning years now, and its through correspondence because obviously we live in different countries. But the common thread that brought us together is the Beats. So we met at the 50th anniversary of the Holy Communion, and the Holy Communion was a four hour poetry reading in London at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965 that Jimmy went to. So we went to the 50th anniversary of that, and Janaka was this stand out poet and I was just like, ‘fuck, who is this guy??’ We connected through social media, and then when I was bringing out Zoreh and set to perform at City Lights, they were like okay we’ll find a poet for you to read with. I said, no, I know who I want to read with. And I said to him, okay we’ve never met, and I don’t know you, but if you’re able to fly to San Francisco in March? and Janaka was like yeah, I can do it. So we met for the first time, a half an hour before. And it was at that reading that we met Chris Porter and he came up to us at the end and was like, hey I’m doing this thing in Lowell, and my eyes like lit up, because when I read at Wellesley College, I visited and paid my respects in Lowell at Kerouacs grave, so coming here feels like everything aligned. When this was confirmed I wrote a poem for Jack Kerouac, just kind of it had so much beauty and purity to it as well but obviously kind of the tragedy, of his demise kind of drinking himself to death, and just being ridiculed as well being because he was new, he was popular. People said he was not a real writer. Kapote said he’s not writing, he’s just typing. So anyway, I’m performing a poem that’s still a work in progress, but it just felt right to share and infuse it with the energy of this evening. So I’m looking forward to doing that.

Kathy: They [Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones] just put out a new book, ‘Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin’, it features never before seen photos and correspondences. Can you respond to that? What is your take on it, like what do you think of it?

Scarlett: Can you believe that there are still never been seen images? I think the book is really important because it’s from the people that were actually there and lived it. And obviously it’s Jimmy’s band, and he created it and his notes you know he’s got a great memory. He was there and he was creating it and everything he did was intentional. And I think people always assume he’s so mysterious but even like on his website, that changes ever day, if you just look he’s giving you the answers. But I feel like so often there are books or interviews people do with him and they’ll ask him questions about an alleged story that may or may not have happened that keeps getting repeated and they want an updated quote on something that may not even be true. And I think it’s really, if you want to know anything about him, just read his own words and the music and that’s where kind of the motivation and the fact that he’s still working like 12 hour days, like insane work ethic, 50 years later, is why he is where he is and who he is. So I never have an excuse, no matter, you know my day job or whatever else I’ve been doing, I can never like slack because he’s there like, I can’t complain about being tired. And he has children and is a great dad so it’s like God I can’t complain about it. So I say get it because he really respects and loves people like you, and his fans, who love his music and get it and I think a lot of what he does it out of respect for that.

Scarlett came up next, performing pieces from Zoreh, The Lock and The Key and Rocking Underground, as well as her work-in-progress poem to Jack Kerouac. I can honestly say that reading her poetry is amazing, but hearing her read her poetry is an experience unto itself. The power and emotion that she conveys when she speaks her written word is cathartic.

#scarlett sabet #jimmy page #jimmy page girlfriend #led zeppelin #poet #poetry #the town and the city #the town and the city festival #zoreh #The lock and the key #Rocking Underground

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animperfecthuman-being-blog · 5 years

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You used to ask why I love you. Here are all those reasons.

I love you more than I love myself. I don’t have a reason to get out of bed anymore. You are my absolute everything. In all honestly we could live in a box in the worst city in the US and I’d still do my best to make you feel perfect. You’re my gravity. I love everything about you. I miss our snuggles. I miss your touch. I miss feeling your pulse in your fistula when I’m laying down on the couch with you. I miss how your heart races when you’re on adventures with me. I miss going to new places with you. I miss our Scotland trip. I miss our Nashville trip. I miss our trip to New Hampshire. I miss our planned trips for the coming years. I miss your voice. Oh my god I miss your voice so much. I miss your smile. I miss when I come home and you immediately show me affection. I miss collecting stickers with you on our fridge. I miss our intimacy. I miss our sex. I constantly think about starting a family with you. I’m constantly thinking about how I’m checking my phone every five minutes to see if you text me. I constantly think about marrying you. I’m constantly thinking about how I would give anything to make you happy. I want to paint our cabinets. I want to finish up every project in the house with you start to finish. I want to be the one for you. I miss how you would educate me on something that I was unaware of. I miss coming home to you watching black and white movies. I miss you talking about how passionate you are about movies. I miss you talking about your days at work and what crazy thing has happened there. I miss you talking about your school work and how excited you are to better yourself and your career. I miss sitting outside having a fire and listening to David Bowie’s “Star Man” on repeat. I miss going to Jenny Lewis concerts with you. I would go see The Decemberists a million times if i could just be with you again. I miss going to sweet peas during your lunches with you. I miss the perfume you wear. I miss your tiny ears. I miss your glasses because you’re literally the only person who can pull them off. I miss going to your family outings with you and talking to everyone in your family. I miss walking Draper and Daphne at the state park in CT. I miss going grocery shopping with you. I miss helping you go to the doctors / hospital when you need help. I miss telling you that no matter what I am your next kidney donor since we are both the same blood type. I miss carving pumpkins with you. I miss getting cider and donuts with you at Woodstock Orchards. I miss going to the Woodstock Fair with you. I miss going to Sweet Evalina’s and 85 / Main. I miss going to the stomping ground with you. I miss hearing you learn guitar for hours. I miss how determined you are to learn and try new things. I miss hearing your stories about when you were a kid. I’m constantly thinking about how beautiful you are inside and out. I miss talking to you about my job and teaching you new things about cannabis. I miss decorating the house with fall / winter things. I miss decorating the tree with you. I miss getting to know your family and how comfortable I am talking to them. I miss you telling me how perfect my gingerbread house was but this year you said you’d beat me. I miss going out two weeks before Christmas to help with ideas with presents for the family. I miss your cute butt. I miss going to the haunted church one of our first dates climbing through snow and ice. I’m constantly thinking about the kids names we wanted. I’m constantly thinking about the two ways I’d propose to you. I’m constantly thinking about how in love I am with you. I’m constantly thinking about our future and how perfect it would be. I’m constantly thinking about how I’m only a month away from being Debt Free and how our finances would be in great shape. I’m constantly thinking about how crazy I am about you. I’m constantly thinking about how you wanted to name our Daughter Molly and I secretly loved that name but didn’t want to admit it because I get stubborn. I’m constantly thinking about how you made me feel weightless when I was with you. I’m constantly thinking about how you hold my hand like a child and how I always think it’s adorable. I’m constantly thinking about how important you make me feel. I constantly think about how your name is always first in my vocabulary when I talk to my co workers and friends. I miss our Polaroid photos. I miss coming home from band practice and telling you how excited I am. I miss you kicking my ass in Mario Kart. I miss how you’d always beat a game before me because you’re so competitive. I miss your master ski-ball skills. I miss you telling me about how you’re practicing roller skating with the Moxy Skates I got you. I miss plowing the drive way at midnight the night before so you could get out of the driveway early. I miss going to the movies with you. I miss telling you that everything will be okay when you’re sad. I miss bringing wood in for the wood stove to keep us warm. I miss the walking the royal mile with you in Scotland. I miss hiking the fairy pools and the fairy glen. I miss watching Wayne’s World every single night to fall asleep with you. I miss driving late at night to get ice cream because we both have a sweet tooth for it. I miss your cooking and how passionate you are about it. I miss you cooking on the grill. I miss our target runs and our price chopper runs. I miss going to Lowe’s with you a million times. I’m constantly thinking about how many fucking photos I want to post of you on my social media of us. I’m constantly thinking about making us “Facebook official” because I know how much that meant to you. I wish you knew how much you mean to me. I miss sleeping in a wagon in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. I miss our Mazda Miata birthday drives from Arizona to Vegas. I miss going to zombie burlesque with you. I miss our Vegas adventures. I wish you knew how Head over heels in love with you I am. I can’t count the seconds anymore. It’s only been a few days but I miss you like hell. I don’t want anyone else. A few days ago you cried on the couch telling me how in love with me you were and that you didn’t want anything to happen to us and that you couldn’t stress it enough. I miss writing on the chalkboard wall for two months that you didn’t know about because it was so wild in there. I finally know what it feels like to have real loss. I love you Dayna. More than anything in this world. I can’t imagine a world without you. I love you because of all of these things that you make me feel every single day of my life. I love you because you are so fucking smart. I love you because you’re the most compassionate person I have ever met in my entire life. I love you because you are unique, and that you aren’t ever scared to be different because you know I like different. I love you because of how passionate you are about your school work and career. I love you because you have the most beautiful, big eyes. The reason why I wait a few seconds to respond to you when we are having a conversation isn’t only because I’m thinking about what I have to say, but because every time I look into your eyes I truly fall more and more in love with you. I love you because of how when you kiss me it’s never just a kiss, it’s usually multiple. I love you because you treat me with respect. I love you because you have a great, quirky sense of humor. I love you because you’d help anyone in need. I love you because you make me feel like I’m the only person in a crowded room. I love you because you’re motivated. I love you because you stole my heart. I love you because you try your hardest in no matter what situation you’re in. I love you because you’re there for me no matter what. I love you because you’re understanding. I love you because anytime I have an idea you roll with it and vise versa. I love you because we share the same love for holidays. I love you because you make me feel happy. I love you because I get to see your smile when I wake up and your smile before bed. I love you because you make me laugh and smile even in the darkest of days. I love you because you laugh at my stupid jokes. I love you because we can be ourselves around each other and you laugh at your own stupid jokes which makes me laugh. I love you because we make fun of cooking shows and say the dumbest things to each other about the contestants. I love you because you’re kind hearted and fun loving. I love you because you made me a better person. I love you because your smile makes my heart sink into my chest anytime we talk. I love you, I always have.

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vincentbnaughton · 5 years

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The Easiest House Plants & The Best Faux Plants I’ve Found

This post is going to be full of photos, because I think they do most of the work in making a case for a house full of greenery. But like, easy greenery. That isn’t stressful and that doesn’t remind you of that emoji of dollar signs with wings. Because when things die repeatedly, it can GET YOU DOWN. Ask me how I know. The point is that I TRULY AND DEEPLY BELIEVE that nearly every single room in a home can benefit from greenery – it adds a splash of life and a gorgeous and vibrant texture.

So if you’ve got some low light spots that just don’t allow anything real to live, and you’re hunting for a good convincing fake that will never die, well, I’ve gotcha covered. And if you’re looking for real plants you literally would have to try hard to kill… trust me, I’m well versed at killing plants, so I’m only going to list the truly hardy stuff.

chair / lamp / blinds / cork board project

Exhibit A is this herb that will never die on my desk. That’s right, it’s fake. And I bought it at Michaels with a 50% off coupon (total spent: $7.50). I loved the soft texture and the tiny little feathery branches it has – and here’s one of my tips. I saw it in person. So I could poke it and prod it and judge if the color was too blue-green or too yellow or whatever. And it convinced me. It’s just as delicate as a real asparagus fern or an herb from the garden. But it’s from Michael’s and I paid for it once and it’ll last forevermore.

Also, never buy a real asparagus fern. They die spectacular guilt-inducing deaths. At least for me. On the other hand, I have some other real plants that are SURVIVORS. Put them in matching outfits and call them Destiny’s Child. They are all over five years old. Some might even be a full decade old! And here’s the curveball: I completely neglect them. They’re called Pathos and they just need a little water and seem completely unpicky about sunlight amount, which tends to be key for me.

lamps / word art project / sideboard: secondhand find

You can even clip off the long droopy legs (?!?!?!) – clearly I am not one of those green thumbs who knows all the plant terms – and then you can put them in water TO MAKE MORE FREE PLANTS (more on that here). So they’re high on the hardy and hard-to-kill list for me if you want some real greenery. And real house plants have all sorts of benefits like cleaning the air, and making humans feel happier (that’s legit backed by science, which is pretty amazing for something that you can buy for under $5).

Jumping back over to the dark side (aka: fake plants), I fancy myself a faux plant diva, in that I DO NOT PLAY AROUND. If something looks fake, I keep it moving. I have sent back faux plants I’ve bought online for not being good enough. And if someone messages me and says “hey how is the Ikea faux fiddle leaf fig?” I will very honestly say “I’ve seen it in person, and I don’t love it – from far away it looks ok, but I’ve seen other fake figs up close that look more full and real for around the same price or even less.”

bench / baskets / wall color: Spare White / trim color: Extra White

For example, I have loved these $39 faux fiddle leaf figs from Target (seen above and below), although I’m adamant that they need to be feathered out a bit. Just gently pull their branches apart so they’re less smushed vertically. Real fiddle leaf figs have leaves that are almost parallel to the ground, so doing that helps with the realism. And adding a bigger planter or basket for them to sit in makes them look a lot more convincing and proportionate.

see all room sources (and paint colors) here

We have these faux figs at the beach house and the duplex, which are vacant for many weeks at a time (so real plants aren’t really an option except maybe for some succulents that I might add) and I also have one in our living room above. I kept trying to get real figs to live in that corner of our living room and it’s just too dark. I probably killed three before I faced the music that it was “faux or nothing” in that spot.

It’s also really nice to have one up in the bedroom between the windows since the sun shines further into the room, but doesn’t really hit that spot on the floor much, so real plants kept getting stick-like after a while there. They were trying to grow towards the light so they’d end up looking really long and floppy as they basically dove in slow motion towards the window.

see all room sources (and paint colors) here

But let’s bounce back to real – and SUPER EASY – greenery for a second. These branches have been in two bouquets I have received in the last few years – and they are like mutant plants from Planet Neverdie. From a decent amount of googling I believe that they’re called Ruscus (specifically Isreili Ruscus I think) and THEY LAST FOR MONTHS! If I’m wrong, someone who is a plant expert DM me the name because we all need to know what these are.

Saying they last for months sounds like I’m exaggerating and you might think, ok maybe one month… but I have had them last for OVER THREE MONTHS! I do not do a thing except put them in water and watch all the other flowers and cuttings around them die as they live on for literally a full season or more. I probably change the water once a month if I remember.

see all room sources (and paint colors) here

These are the same thing in the photo below. Just really great greenery that’s real long-lasting, but REALLY LOW MAINTENANCE.

see all room sources (and paint colors) here

Oh and see that big faux fiddle leaf fig in the background of the photo above? That’s from Target a while back when they made these tall ones as part of the Opalhouse collection. I hope they bring them back because they’re GOOD. Like my-mom-has-watered-them good. If you’re looking for a big fiddle leaf fig like that one, I’ve seen this one in person too, and it’s great.

basket: no longer sold / wheely plant stand / chair / media cabinet: secondhand find

Sidenote: I get asked all the time if you put something into a larger pot, how should you deal with the extra space between the small original pot and the larger planter or basket you use. I have three ways I deal with it:

1) I leave it – real potted plants might be placed in a larger basket and there’s no shame in that game, it looks fine

2) I add dried moss from a garden center – you can get a whole bag of it for cheap and just shove it in there (see my picture below)

3) You could also add something smooth and pretty like white or black river rocks in there – I’ve seen this look great

You might be wondering, but where can she keep a real fiddle leaf fig alive? And the answer, after living in our house nearly six years, is: One. Freasking. Corner.

Yup, just one spot, in the corner of the office, gets enough light to keep a real one happy. So you can see it here in the background of this picture. I find the fiddle leaf fig to be a SUPER EASY PLANT to keep alive. BUT YOU NEED ENOUGH LIGHT. So like, 99% of my house = not enough light. So it would die in literally every other corner. I have killed MANY.

chair / lamp / blinds / cork board project?

This corner though, equals enough light, so this thing is older than my four year old. All I do is completely ignore it, except for dumping one big glass of water into its soil every 9-10 days or so. When the leaves look droopy I dump the water on it and it perks right up. That’s it. But again: super sunny is the key to the equation. Otherwise, don’t mess with real fiddle leaf figs.

I also REALLY love real eucalyptus, and I grab it when I’m across town at Trader Joe’s (they have THE BEST GREENERY and it’s SO CHEAP!). It smells great and it lasts a nice long time – you can even dry it and have it forever, although I find that it can start to fall apart and it gets sort of a dusty-gray tone after a while. So fresh is my jam over dried (I also just discovered there are Etsy shops that will send it to you fresh). And in some spots where I want the look, but zero maintenance (aka: the beach house & the duplex) I’m a big fan of these $5 Ikea fakers. Yup, that’s a fake stem from Ikea in that “vase” below:

I put the word vase in quotes, because the container from the photo above and below is actually a marble utensil holder, and I love it so much for faux stems since it’s not great at holding actual water, but it looks amazing with a good fake stem or branch. I’ve bought like three of them to use as vases around the beach house and our own house – and I may or may not have picked up two more for the duplex. Hey, when it’s love, it’s love.

chandeliers / pendant lights / hood / butcher block counters

And yes, that stem in the photo above is another Ikea faker. The one key to those is not to bunch too many together. They actually look a lot more convincing and like real eucalyptus if they’re splayed out and not too crowded together if that makes sense.

Bouncing back to the real plant realm, aloe (along with other succulents) can be extra easy. It literally needs nothing more than a tiny splash of water once every two weeks or so. I love the little pink pot this guy is in (from Ikea a while back – but here’s a similar one) because between the greenery and the cute pot, it definitely cheers things up. Plus aloe is known to be one of the better air purifying plants. Score.

blinds / glass canisters / cabinet hardware

Meanwhile in our completely window-less and natural-light-less laundry room, we have a faux succulent. They’re usually some of the best fake options since they can look extremely real for some reason (maybe it’s the thick rubber-y leaves that real succulents have?). I’ve had this faux one for probably a decade (found it at HomeGoods forever ago) but these two look similar and have good ratings.

backsplash tiling project / shelf above laundry project

This one below is another HomeGoods find from eight or so years ago. Yup, it’s as old as my oldest child and still going strong. One tip I have for you is to hit a garden center and buy a pot you love (maybe an understated concrete one, or even a bright colorful one that makes you smile) and then hit a store like Michael’s and grab a few succulent stems that you can “plant” in the pot. You can even use real dirt. Literally nobody will be able to tell the difference – especially if you pick the succulents out in person and grab only the most real looking options.

gray dresser / stenciled mirror / capiz chandlier

That’s actually what I did here, with another pink pot from Ikea – I took these little faux succulents from Michaels a few years back and just shoved them in there. It’s very convincing, and I love that they’re next to my ceramic succulent candle (from Anthro ages ago). Do I love plants or do I love plants?

Also, I get the “how do you dust them” question a lot, so my favorite method is actually just a feather duster. I do it before I vacuum like twice a year when I remember, and it just tosses some dust on the floor and I vacuum it up. I figure every single item you put on any surface of your home needs dusting, so it’s not really a big deal to run a feather duster over a real plant, or a fake one.

I haven’t really talked much about faux flowers and it’s because I think they’re harder to find when it comes to being truly eye-trickingly-realistic. Sometimes they’re gelled into that fake water but something about a few of the ones I’ve seen isn’t really quite convincing. Which is why I lean towards completely opaque pots for the ones I end up getting. It just feels more like these could be real cut flowers and leaves in this vase to my eye. I got these at Target maybe six months ago, and I love the bright color they add. Wish they still sold them for my fellow pink lovers out there.

This is the laundry room at the beach house, and as I’ve mentioned, since we’re not there for weeks on end, we don’t have any real plants there, but that orchid on the top shelf is an Ikea find (so cheap! And I dropped it into a larger white Ikea pot just to balance it out a little).

find all sources and paint colors for this room here

There’s also a faux Ikea plant on that first laundry shelf – it’s this one – and I have another one at home in the guest room (seen below). They’re convincing – especially in larger pots – and the price is pretty great.

find all sources & paint colors for this room here

Actually, the one above is this one with the whiter little buds on the edges, and I loved plopping it into a pretty textured pot from HomeGoods. Half the fun of plants = pretty pots.

To go back to the faux flowers thing, and how it’s hard to find something colorful that looks real (even the Ikea orchid from our beach house laundry room = white), I do LOVE these happy yellow ginkgo leaves. They’re from Crate & Barrel a while ago, but they brought them back once, so I’m hoping they come back again soon.

find all sources & paint colors for this room here

They’re just a nice way to add color and texture – they feel very spring/summer to me.

Here they are upstairs in the bonus room too. They’re versatile because a burst of happy color looks nice pretty much anywhere.

find all sources & paint colors for this room here

One other sort of abstract way to bring greenery into your house is with the use of some really cool art or even a wallpaper. This leafy mural we hung at the duplex definitely makes the room feel green and alive (you can see how we hung it here).

mural / white ceiling fan / stain color: Special Walnut

Simple art can also add that outside/green element to a room that might have less than stellar views – and you never have to water it. These large framed prints are from West Elm a while back, but I’ve seen similar stuff on Etsy (you know I love these and they also have them with a white background).

Oh yeah and that potted fern above? Fake from Target around a year ago. This one is the current version they make, and it’s well rated too.

Let’s bounce back into the real greenery realm again, because I feel like I need to tip my hat to the old “free cuttings” category. Many months of the year, there’s free greenery at your disposal if you just walk outside with a clipper. These cuttings are from the bushes right in front of our house, and I steal from them pretty much every season except for winter when they go dormant.

And whenever I stage houses, you know I love going outside and bringing some 100% free clippings into each room to make it feel alive and just plain welcoming (you can read alllll about house staging and my other tips here – I loved writing that post).

Here’s a shot of some other “real greenery” we have embraced on a seasonal basis. We love grabbing fresh holiday garlands from Trader Joe’s (they’re super cheap and last around a month – at least that was our experience this past holiday season). We just tapped two small nails into the corner of the molding to hold this one up over the sink. And you know while I was at TJ’s I had to grab some fresh eucalyptus too.

find all sources and paint colors for this room here

We also string up a fresh garland around the front door (actually it takes two to span that area, so I wire them together with green floral wire, and once again we just hung them over two small nails on the corner of the trim). But what’s worth mentioning is that in this photo, the wreath is also real – I make one out of fresh magnolia leaves every winter at a Wine & Wreath event that I go to with my favorite ladies – but the five foot bushes on either side of the door are faux.

lantern / string lights / door mat / house color & door color info here

I feel like that’s worth noting, because they’re so convincing they can literally be right in front of a real garland and next to a huge magnolia wreath and they hold their own. We actually bought these three foot versions of those front porch bushes first – and loved them. After over a year of use there was no fading or damage to them through rain and snow. So when we painted the house white and wanted something taller next to the door after removing the portico, we upgraded to the 5′ versions and sent the three foot ones to the beach house.

find all source and paint color info for this picture here

The pots above are from Home Depot (just in store – can’t find them online) and the copper porch pots from the photo before the one above are a DIY project – more on them here.

I’ll leave you with one last real outdoor plant that has been deliciously low maintenance for us – at least here in our climate. Those big $12 ferns that Home Depot and Kroger sell in the parking lot…. we buy a few each year in the spring. And they last all the way until the very end of the year when it gets below freezing. There is literally nothing easier than plopping our annual fern friend into a few of the large pots we have out back – I don’t even have to touch dirt. And they just do their thing for nearly a year.

So there you have it, an exhaustive rundown of easy green stuff that hopefully won’t stress you out like… say… all of the other green stuff I have tried and then failed at and then decided not to list here because IT’S JUST TOO EMOTIONAL FOR ME, OK?!

Also, it occurred to me that as much as John has special eyes for light bulbs, maybe I have special plant eyes. Because nobody ogles the green stuff like I do.

Love ya, plants. Mean it.

P.S. There were SO MANY pictures of our house, the beach house, and the duplex in this post, so if you have paint color or source questions, here’s where to find info about our house, here’s info about the beach house, and we’re just starting to get duplex info together here.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post The Easiest House Plants & The Best Faux Plants I’ve Found appeared first on Young House Love.

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thethefitnessmojo-blog · 5 years

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Most Crucial Fitness And Weight Loss Tips 2019

The beauty in our bodies is like an art piece. The most crucial Fitness Tips is, do not congratulate someone on losing weight, unless you know it was done in a healthy manner. “Have you lost weight? You look amazing” was last year’s tagline for me. Countless warm bodies swarmed to my cold one. Smiles began to show teeth as my body was examined.

Women a tiny bit bigger than me would steal glances at my small frame. I saw jealousy and heard self-hatred in their speech. “I wish I was as skinny as you”. It felt as if I reached down their throat, plucked their heart, and forced them to eat it in front of me. It became my duty to illuminate The Truth. I watched their smiles fade and their eyes watered. I could see their thoughts escaped through their facial features. Their thoughts of self-hatred translated to their faces, as their beauty of happiness died out. No longer were these girls smiling and beautiful. They looked as I felt. They got lost in the trance of being “skinny”, whatever that means. They saw my body as a reminder of how they were meant to look. My body was aligned with the photoshopped women and models they see daily on their Instagram feeds. I swallowed my pride and turned to every girl and told The Truth. I sat each girl down and told them my current body form is a result of starvation. I explained how I fell out of love with food for a while. Everything tasted grey and I could barely swallow a bite. I told the women how I would do intensive meal prep. I told myself, if I spend at least an hour cooking a meal then I have to eat it.

This forced me to jump into culinary adventures. I would make pasta from scratch, and then cook traditional French dish, coq au vin, the next day. It worked. I am in love with food again. I explained that after a lot of hard work I am finally healthy again. As a result of my breakup with food, I lost all of my extra fat. My eating problem rewarded me with a flat stomach. I feel it is my duty to let people know that is why I have a traditionally attractive body. What I went through was not worth this result. I told them they do not want my body. They do not want the trauma that goes with it. This is not how I want to look because it doesn’t make me feel good. Last year my job was to disillusione girls. I had a duty to not be part of the system. I refuse to be part of the system that feeds into the idea that skinny is healthy. I did not want anyone to think I was “body goals”, I was not something to strive for. It did not matter how many strangers were standing next to that girl. If a girl was complimenting my body while dis complimenting herself, I had to tell the truth. I had to tell her, no, love your body. I did not and that’s how I ended up in that bad place. The funniest part is that I always liked the way my body looked. That is what I try to teach people when I tell them The Truth. The Truth is, as long as your healthy, love your body because it is a byproduct of your lifestyle. I never fed into the idea that skinny is pretty. Advertisements targeted at my age group never affected me as an adult. I could had been influenced as an adolescent but I remember a special issue of Seventeen magazine. There was a professional surfer discussing body image. She said she sometimes thinks negatively of her big thighs, but then she remembers they give her strength for surfing. I then saw my body as a product of what sports I do and how I eat. I, a woman who was also self-conscious of her big thighs, got a lot of comfort from that surfer’s body ideology. I remember a few years later, on my lacrosse team in high school, I was one of the only girls who didn’t have a flat stomach. I was also one of the few who felt comfortable to run around in just a sports bra. Interestingly, the essay prompt was to write on “fitness and weight loss tips”. I suggest the prompt be change to “fitness and weight management/loss tips” or even self-acceptance tips. I don’t think it is possible to take care of yourself when you don’t love yourself. Love is the motivation. “A big reason why my recovery was possible was that I have always accepted myself”. A colossal reason why recovery isn’t always easier for others is that they haven’t accepted themselves. There are far too many young girls suffering from eating disorders. My wish for every young girl is to look in the mirror until they find their beauty. The beauty in our bodies is like an art piece. We go to a museum and may not find a painting awe-inspiring but then we look. When we look long enough we begin to find beauty in the details. This can be the faint lighting marks on our thighs, to the odd dimples in our backside, or even the way our tummies are soft to the touch with peach fuzz. I want every person to do that with their bodies. I want them to find their beauty. Once you have created that love for yourself, then you can show yourself love. A great way to show your body love is to take care of it. You’re not going to take care of it if you don’t love it. In my opinion, the best way to show your body love is to cook for it. Cooking has become synonymous with love in my life. If everyone cooked all of their meals, people would be healthy. You know exactly how much fat your putting into a meal. There is no naivety as to what is in your meal. When we go out to eat it is easier to pretend that the Panda Express meal isn’t that bad for you. My dream is to set up a cooking workshop for young girls to inspire them to love their bodies. In cooking, you get to control everything. I try my best to cook everything from scratch. None of my ingredients are premade. Yes, cooking from scratch is exhausting, but, it forces one to create a lot of effort to feed themselves. To me, this is a form of self-care. The next time you see someone has lost weight, ask them about it first. Ask if they lost in a healthy way, watch their face as they answer. “The best fitness tips is don’t applaud someone for an eating disorder”. Related Post: 13 Tips To Lose Weight Fast in Your Face and Neck – 2018 Best Aerial Yoga Swing 2018 Best Inversion Table 2018 Best Adjustable Dumbbells 2018 Read the full article

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littlesnowarrow · 7 years

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Security fail, pt1

So... I did a thing. Yesterday (for me, as I’m writing this) was @saibrarutherford‘s birthday, and because she’s the sweetest lady around, I wanted to give her something for her special day.

It was supposed to be a one-shot, but it has turned out too long (and I still haven’t finished it after working on it for a full month), so I’ll be dividing it in three parts. Because yeah.

Security fail part 1

Next Part

Summary: Saibra Trevelyan returns home from an exhausting mission in Orlais, as usual, when she finds out that some things have been happening in her dear stronghold. But, who is responsible for them?

Words: 2.6k

Warnings: None.

AO3 Link

Grammar and vocabulary corrections are always welcome.

Saibra was worn out. Like every time she returned from Orlais; those people truly only knew how to complain about each other and plot in that Game everyone seemed to enjoy playing save her. And she had just been a couple of days out. But she couldn’t go to her quarters yet. The required meeting at the War Room with her advisors was about to begin, and she really wished it would end soon so she could slip under her blankets and sleep at least for a whole day.

And… there was something she wanted to check by herself. Cullen, Josephine and her were waiting for the rest to arrive, using the time to check how many rifts were left in the map. Or at least she tried, because the Antivan was was so distressed it was impossible not to wonder what had gotten into her. She had been shifting from one foot to the other, fidgeting even, and she would have paced if she had been accompanied by people less observant. Suddenly, something seemed to change her mind, as she approached Saibra and leaned very close to her ear, very careful her words wouldn’t reach the Commander.

“Inquisitor…” She gaped a couple of times, but she couldn’t find the words with which she so naturally got on. Saibra would have worried hadn’t been for the intense red colour that darkened even more her skin. “You should know that your Spymaster is an incorrigible prankster.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leliana said behind them. Both women turned to her startled since they hadn’t heard her enter. Josie’s blush became more intense when she saw the Nightingale’s angelic smile.

“No?” the Ambassador was starting to lose her temper. “My… my things! In the courtyard!”

Saibra stifled a snort. So it was true. Everyone in Skyhold had seen the new flag in the courtyard had been replaced by someone’s frilly undergarments, who no doubt belonged to Lady Montilyet. They had only hung there, graciously waving with the cool mountain breeze, until lunchtime, when the Ambassador had taken a break from her usual pile of paperwork in her office. The deed itself and her loud shriek had been the object of the rumors that were heard through the valley in the last few days, something her Commander had told her as soon as Saibra had gotten down from Solace.

“The ruffles were very festive.” Her grin widened, and her lips showed the tip of her fangs, like a predator that was having fun with her prey.

“Leliana!” she protested.

“What’s the matter?” asked Cassandra in her thick Nevarran accent.

“Our Lady Ambassador was victim of a serious attack against her intimacy at the beginning of the week, soon after your departure to Orlais,” Cullen answered. “And Leliana seems to be the one at fault.”

“Certainly I’m not.” Leliana huffed and crossed her arms before her chest. “If you must blame someone, it should be Sera. I’ve told her many times not to involve my agents in her businesses.”

And then, the Nightingale frowned. Everyone in the room exchanged a concerned look between them; it wasn’t usual for the redhead to reveal her train of thought that openly. Her unyielding mask began to crack bit by bit as she seemed to realise something the others didn’t.

“Sera could have arranged the banner incident, but she left with you, so it’s impossible she’s been able to organise the rest.” Her voice had become a low and dangerous growl that made their hair stand on end.

“Which ‘rest’?” Cassandra was the only one with enough courage to try to interact with her. Josie gasped at Saibra’s side, and her face turned pale when only five minutes ago had been of the same colour of the brightest pepper in the kitchen. Leliana answered with a nod.

“I’m afraid we have a joker in the hold, Inquisitor,” she announced.

“Meaning?”

“There have been some incidents since your leaving, now that Leliana mentions it.” This time it was Cullen speaking. “We all thought it had been Sera’s doing but-”

Little by little, the three advisors tried to summarise what had been going on during these days, taking Josie’s undergarments as the starting point. A lot had happened: from changing the tea sugar for salt lumps or emptying wine bottles -the cheap ones though- for coloured water to having placed food leftovers inside of each mattress that existed in the entire fortress. Or dusting stinging powder inside socks, disassembling chairs and benches so they would break by just sitting on them… Even putting bells on Baron Plucky.

That had personally infuriated the Spymaster, who had sworn she would take care of the rogue elf’s punishment. Not even Bull, whom they had hidden the patch and painted an eye on his scar, had any idea of who the culprit could be, nor the reasons that were driving them to commit those… pranks.

And it was true. Sera liked to play, but she had never dared with such scale. As they kept telling the facts, a feeling of restlessness began to fill Saibra from head to toe. Whoever was doing all that clearly didn’t have to intention to harm them, but it could be an strategy to distract them while some tragedy happened somewhere? Corypheus couldn’t be that smart, could he?

“They seem to have been merciless with everyone, without a clear target,” finished Josephine.

“But whoever they are, they must have spent a lot of time among us to get to know our weaknesses,” Cullen pointed out.

Not everyone. Although the whole of Skyhold had been flown off the handle, Saibra and her family had gotten out of it. It could be said that Vastra had had her share; a couple of nights ago, her sister found her children eating a box full of chocolates right before bedtime. The dawn had come and the little girls still hadn’t gone to bed, no matter how many tricks Vastra used with them. When she accepted it was impossible to calm them down, she ordered Jim to take care of them while she went to take a long and well-deserved nap. And nothing had happened to Cullen as well, at least not yet.

“I will personally see this matter dealt with if you allow me, Inquisitor.” Leliana offered.

Saibra was too tired, especially after that long series of unfortunate events, so she simply nodded in agreement and concluded the council.

***

Saibra dragged her feet through the hallways of her fortress, nodding or slightly bowing her head to answer the greetings of the people she run into. She needed a warm mug of tea and a calming bath with some special salts Josie had received. The pouch gave off a pleasant smell of camomile, lavender and orange, and with only a small sniff she was feeling a bit more revitalised.

The walk from the War Room to her bedroom had never felt so long, and on her way she couldn’t help but think about the recent events. The prankster had been clever to put Sera on the spot from the beginning, and lucky that everyone thought she was guilty when she probably didn’t even hang Josie’s famous underthings in the courtyard. And yet the prankster had raised the spirits of her people; she heard them tell stories of what had happened to one’s partner or the kitchen help. Her favourite so far was the explosion in Dagna’s lab that had covered the cave with a permanent glitter impossible to wash away.

But Saibra didn’t felt observed nor threatened; maybe those days in Orlais had immunised her against dirty tricks and back-stabbing for some time. Surely the joker was already gone and far from there, though never outside Leliana’s reach. She decided to pray for their souls and hope Leliana’s punishment were to be somewhat merciful.

She left the room half closed for when Cullen returned from his office, and climbed each step as she couldn’t climbed the next one. When she finally reached the top, she was disappointed to see the bathtub wasn’t ready. The hearth wasn’t even lit to heat the water. Odd. Despite her arrivals always caused a big fuss, the staff made sure her relaxing ritual was prepared for when she dropped the Inquisitor’s armour on her bed. Maybe there had been a mishap. Maybe the prankster had striked in the servants quarters today…! But if that would have occurred, they would have been informed during the council. So, she shrugged and began undressing to a more comfortable outfit.

After a brief moment, someone knocked downstairs. Neither Cullen, Vastra or her nieces ever asked for permission to come in, so it was probably Dorian. She allowed him to come up the stairs while she casted a tiny fireball to lit the hearth. Saibra giggled under her breath; she knew how much her Commander hated it when she used her magic unnecessarily, but Maker she needed that bath.

A head poked out from the stair’s railing, at first cautiously and then more freely. It was an elf, Dalish judging by the tattoo that covered her face, and her dark brown hair tied in a high ponytail that showed a pair of moving ears. Her eyes were of a deep bright green, wrinkled at the corners because of the mirthful smile she was offering to her.

“I’m terribly sorry, your Worship. I was required somewhere else, so I couldn’t prepare the bathtub on time.”

“It’s okay. If you’re still busy I can do it myself.”

“Please no! I’d never let the Inquisitor carry these heavy buckets by herself.” The elf hurried and gently pushed her away from the heated water. Saibra examined her from top to bottom, curious if she was talking seriously; she was so short and thin she would break if she lifted the buckets. But contrary to her expectations, the elf did her job without a single sign of pain or trouble.

When the bath was ready, Saibra shrugged off her silken robe and tested the temperature with the tip of her toes before finally dropping in. The water was exquisite, warm with a subtle colder current that gave her goosebumps all over her legs. She could still hear the elf moving around and doing this and that, never fully pausing for longer than a couple of seconds. She unpacked her travel bag, shook her cloak to dust the dirt of the road and filled a brazier to warm her bed. Somehow everything reminded her of when she was a child, and her mama would prepare them to go to bed after a long day playing in the Trevelyan manor courtyard.

She was almost dozing off when the elf stopped behind her and poured Josie’s bath salts. The crystals tickled her skin before adapting to the water’s temperature, causing them to dissolve into that marvelous smell of citrus. A pair of hands unexpectedly run along her shoulders in a slow massage. Her fingers were cold, and knew exactly how much pressure she had to put to undo the contractures in her shoulders. Saibra began humming out of pleasure, without minding if that stranger could see her in an almost vulnerable state.

“Is it comforting, your Worship? I might not have healing magic, but they say my hands can do wonders.” she whispered. Saibra sighed in response. “Is it alright if I move to the head?”

“Please…” she finished with a soft groan as soon as the elf began rubbing along her scalp with a chuckle. There was a moment in which she touched certain point, and the mage unintentionally poured some of her own magic into the water.

“Wow! So it’s true you’re a mage, huh?” She didn’t know? Saibra would have sworn that her class was the order of the day. “Must’ve felt strange living outside the Circle for this long.”

“It certainly has sometimes. But even though the Ostwick circle was a pacific one, the freedom is still enjoyable.” She felt the elf nod in agreement. “And you? When did you leave your clan?”

Somehow, the cheerfulness she so easily gave off darkened just an instant before she recovered. Her fingers resumed massaging her head as if that question hadn’t reopened an old wound in her heart. Be as it may, her voice didn’t show any of that uneasiness.

“A very long time ago. I ignore where they might be now, with the hallas taking them around Thedas. I wonder if they’ve planted a tree in my memory or something of the sorts.”

She knew, after the time she had spent in the Graves, that the Dalish honoured their dead planting a tree as a natural gravestone. It saddened her when she realised that the elf had accepted that her people had given her up for dead, either because she left back then or because she had joined the humans at present day. Although if Saibra asked her, she would probably be intruding too much, and she didn’t want to seem a nosy boss that only seeked to satisfy her curiosity.

It ended too soon, unfortunately. The elf indicated her with a couple of light taps that she should come out of the water before she would catch a cold, so Saibra got up and let herself be embraced by the soft towel she wrapped her with. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I should be thanking you for taking me in! Life hasn’t been easy since the Blight-” she stopped abruptly, as she had made a terrible mistake by mentioning that.

“The Blight? Are you from Ferelden?” she leaned forward when the servant used a second towel for her head.

“I lived there, yes. But anyway,” she changed the subject, “A lone, wandering Dalish is always suspicious, it doesn’t matter what difficulty we’re going through.”

She seemed so lonely and tired of that prejudice that her words sounded older than what she really was. Saibra couldn’t help but pity her, as much as it wasn’t very polite to do. There was a small silence between them, staring at each other and drinking from their eyes stories they weren’t told. Saibra felt the unstoppable urge to hug her, to help her sooth away those unspoken problems.

One of her ears lifted at the sudden sound of a closing door. The spell that had bonded them broke as the elf helped her step down from the bathtub, her endless energy bursting again, and bowed as a farewell after handing her her nightgown. Saibra still wanted to embrace her, but before she could consider if that went beyond her limits as leader of the Inquisition, the elf was already gone.

But Saibra didn’t hear the snort the cheerful elf barely managed to suppress while she headed to the stairs, or the casual “Hey Cullen” she spoke to the Commander.

When Saibra emerged from behind the screen, Cullen was still looking at the stairwell with a very confused look twirled in his scarred lip. “Is something wrong, beloved?” she said while hugging him from behind. Cullen shook his head as if he wanted to get a horrible idea out of his mind and twisted in her arms ready to land a soft kiss on her forehead. But instead, he observed her bewildered, eyes open with concern and distant laugh. Now it was her turn to be confused. “What?”

“Sweetling, you should check yourself in the mirror.”

She stepped back almost frightened, and without ever letting go of his hand, Saibra approached the full-length mirror hanging next to her dresser. She checked out her body expecting to find anything unusual, but there was nothing that could justify the warning of her lover…

A strand of hair swung before her eyes. She would have sworn that lock couldn’t belong to her, that it was the tip of the towel that was still drying her scalp. And at the same time it had the same texture as one of her curls, only that the colour… The colour…

“AAAAAAH!”

#saibrarutherford #happy birthday mo caraid!#<3 #aah I want to hug you #saibra trevelyan #cullen rutherford #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age fanfic

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cynthiadshaw · 4 years

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What’s the Most Important Lesson You’ve Learned Along Your Journey?

Every twist in our story, challenge we face, and obstacle we overcome is an important part of our story. These difficulties make us stronger and wiser and prepare us for what’s ahead. As we grow and succeed we may imagine that soon the challenges will fade away, but in our conversations with business owners, artists, creatives, academics, and others we have learned that the most common experience is that challenges never go away – instead they get more complex as we grow and succeed. Our ability to to thrive therefore depends heavily on our ability to learn from our experiences and so we are asking some of the city’s best and brightest: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?

Danny Hernandez | Contractor & Painter/Remodeler

Something I’ve learned from working in the painting business is my love for transformation. I love arriving at a location and getting inspired to transform something that may seem ordinary into something extraordinary by simply changing the color. I have also learned the importance of communication with your clients and team members. In a small business everyone plays a big role in getting things done, so it is important to to have great communication both w our employers and our employees.

@Dna.painting

Cristina Toledo | Paloma Accessories Co

@monicasalazarphotography

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey so far is to trust myself and to be confident in the decisions I make. I tend to be indecisive at times. With that said, this journey has taught me to be confident in the decisions I make, from branding to choosing the right pair of earrings for my followers. I’ve always believed that in order for me to start a small fashion/accessory business I had to have the “”fashion background”” or merchandising degree. That’s definitely not the case in my experience! Take a good look at trailblazer/elite celeb stylist Rachel Zoe, she majored in sociology and psychology. Hillary Kerr, majored in journalism at NYU and she is now the co-founder of Who What Wear and launched Clique Media Group in 2006. Accessories are my passion! It’s almost like a sixth sense. It truly drives me and gets me excited!

@palomaaccessoriesco

Kenndrea James | Licensed Hairstylist & Extension Specialist

The most important thing I’ve learned in my journey is to just do what makes you happy. In a profession like mine there’s so much that you can do. I love extensions, I love HEALTHY HAIR, & I love Big Hair so that’s what I do. I’m looking forward to growing and taking over the Dfw One Strand at a Time.

@iamdreathestylist @DtHextensions @DreastotalHair @DreasTotalHair

Michael and Nette Bolden | Owners of Gigi’s Cupcakes | Mansfield

Be patient. Everything is coming together. Whatever you are waiting for is on its way to you.

gigiscupcakesusa.olo.express/menu/gigis-cupcakes-mansfield gigiscupcakesusa.com

Ernesto Baez | Owner of Baez Maintenance Services Office Cleaning & Janitorial Services

@Soapsterz_shop

In my short but fast uprising journey, I have encountered many lessons. The one that stuck out the most is that you must not settle for what you think is enough and no matter how much you dream of something with no actions it will not become a reality. You have to work like there is no tomorrow, sacrifice time to build your vision but you must do everything with an open heart loving to serve others in a business it is important being humble and remembering that love is the answer to many things. Success truly comes when you absolutely love what you do.

baezmaintenance.com @baez_maintenance_services

Jim | Pitmaster and Mandi | Boss Lady

What I have learned is bbq is not a genre of food but an extended family.

LilliansBarbecue.com @lilliansbbq @lilliansbbq

Amanda Calhoun | PR Professional & Digital Content Creator

The most important lesson I’ve learned so far is to celebrate tiny victories! I put this practice into place in my career, family, friendships and relationships. I truly believe that by acknowledging those things that seem small, we empower ourselves and those around us to dream big. Too often, we wait until the BIG things (anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, etc.) to take the trip or do the thing, but why is it that we put such a focus on milestones, when the moments that matter are happening every single day. So, in my life, we celebrate WINS, big or small, and while they all might not warrant a grand gesture, it’s always the thought that counts.

@missamandadeann

Micah Unger | Owner, Casa Boho

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey so far is that no matter how big and successful your business becomes, at the end of the day, family comes first! I had a baby last year, at a time when Casa Boho had just gone through it’s biggest growth yet, and sales were at an all time high. Although it was hard at first, I made the choice to take a bit of a break so I could focus solely on my new little one and enjoy that new stage in life. I missed out on some big opportunities and my business took a bit of a hit as a result, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing!

shopcasaboho.com @shopcasaboho

Tony Dao | Dallas Nightlife and Hospitality Entrepreneur

“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering” – Bruce Lee

So be grateful and be prepared for all the wonderful opportunities in life.

Develop your Craft and your Brand as a weapon. Strike and Risk Strategically and be prepared for failures which will come in all aspects of life. To maintain your moral compass as a human being and no matter what happens… both your personal and professional life will be worth remembering.

thetdcagency.com collectivemark.com

Norman and Lakeisha Willis | Husband and wife of 13 years & Co-Owners of Willis BBQ Company

The most important lesson we have learned in our journey thus far is to consider all options and explore every avenue prior to making every decision. Do not be afraid to change the plan! When we initially started our catering business, it was called Norman’s Holiday Smoke & Catering. Our initial plan was to limit our catering services to the holidays only. We thought it was all we could handle given that we had recently had our second child. Within 3 months, we outgrew that vision. We had not considered all of opportunity that awaited us. So, we decided to start again. We had to re-brand every portion of our business.

During the re-branding process, we decided to go as for as our abilities could take us; no more limiting ourselves. We acknowledged that improvements were necessary. Our branding needed to mirror the delicious Smoked Meats, Homestyle Sides and Cupcakes we were serving our customer. We expanded our target market to include corporations, wedding venues and individuals that needed special event catering. We also decided to use our abilities and time to feed the less fortunate. And so it began, we decided to build a 22 foot food trailer; a food trailer that any company or person would love to have at their event. We changed our name to Willis BBQ Company, re-designed the logo, designed a website, created elegant menus and changed our packaging. We were all in!

Thankfully, we realized we could do more and be more. Re-evaluating our business plan early allowed us to course correct with minimum losses.

willisbbqcompany.com @willisbbqcompany @willisbbqcompany Phone: 972-805-3432 [email protected]

Desiree Davis | Mental Health Advocate and founder of United Black Women

The most important lesson I’ve learned on my journey is “if there’s a will, there’s a way”. It’s an expression my father used to say to me growing up. At times I find myself struggling with doubt and uncertainty. “”How can I accomplish that?”” “”Is this even possible?”” “”But no one has done it before.”” Those thoughts are nothing more than my fear of the unknown attempting to paralyze me back to my comfort zone. When those thoughts come to me I just remind myself “if there’s a will, there’s a way”. That phrase pushed me through college when I couldn’t afford my last semester. It pushed me through depression when I had no one to turn to. And most importantly that phrase is leading me to my purpose of helping others find their ’will’ and ‘way’ today.

@desiree.r.davis @unitedblackwomen

Alexa Lopes | Food Photographer

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey is to give all of yourself to your craft, but to always leave space to learn, improve and grow.

@fortworthfoodtographer @fortworthfoodtographer

Taylor Morrison | licensed registered dietitian and certified sports dietitian

What I have learned on my journey so far is that it’s easy to start looking at what others are doing or get distracted by shiny opportunities that don’t actually lead you in your desired direction. It’s important to stay true to yourself and to stay focused on what you are doing and what your purpose is. I continue to ask myself, “What is it that I’m passionate about? What gifts has God given me?”, This keeps me focused and ignites that feeling of purpose that keeps me moving forward towards my goals.

taylored-nutrition.org @taylormorrisonRD

Brittney Fernandes | Hair stylist | Bridal Stylist | Makeup Artist

The most important lesson I’ve learned in the beauty industry is that with every client, each time they’re in your chair is a gift and fresh opportunity to bless them and showcase your best self and talent.

http://www.beautebybrit.com/ @beautebybrit

Relax Bodyworks | bodywork geared towards relaxation

Tiffany Harper

Probably the most important thing is realizing that every time I put my hands on a new client, I use my intuition to learn something new. I’ve learned to trust that more than anything else because it never steers me wrong.

relaxbodyworks.com @relaxbodyworks

Johnnie Hoang | Food lover & Owner of Hoang’s Noodle House

The most important lesson I have learned in my journey is that teamwork and patience is crucial in any business. At Hoang’s Noodle House, teamwork helps with the flow and quality of the dishes. Patience plays a very important role as well, as some of our food items we serve require time to prepare. We definitely focus on providing fresh and quality food. My biggest reward is seeing and hearing people enjoy the food that I have invested time in preparing. My secret ingredient to all my dishes is passion. I have always enjoyed cooking for others. I believe that food brings people together and therefore you end up with a unique experience. Good food and good company.

@Hnoodlehouse Hoangsnoodlehouse.com

@HNHFoodTruck

Shawna Fitzpatrick | Illustrator & Urban Photographer

Ignore the naysayers, regardless of who they are. You already know the answer in your heart. When you allow the noise in, you just invited in a world of chaos and confusion.

shawnafitzpatrick.com @the.real_shawna.fitzpatrick @therealshawnafitzpatrick

Matt (mattman) Pearce | photographer

I would have to say that being a professional photographer you need to be creative and share. Be creative and look for something that is different that maybe no one else sees. Share your ideas, techniques and knowledge with other photographers. I truly believe that there are two types of photographers, one who creates the image like wedding or portrait photographers. The other type is the one who captures the image like shooting sports, news, concerts or events. I like to capture the image! There’s nothing more exciting then capturing that moment in time whether it’s a singer at a concert or a Dallas Cowboys touchdown or a Dallas Stars goal or even a stock car going by you at 190mph just three feet away! It’s the passion of capturing that moment in time! LOL, I have people ask me all the time, “”do you shoot weddings?”” LOL, I tell them no, I leave those to the professionals, I just push a button for a living…

@mattman1310 @mattman1310 @mattman1310 [email protected]

Rosy Gamez | Photographer and Crafter

Rosy Gamez

There are always a million reasons not to do something,” was a quote I heard Jan Levinson (The Office) say 5 times now in the last 6 years. As a hardcore fan of the show, her small quote resonated with me every single time I heard it, and throughout the 5-year journey of what was my freelance side business never once did I notice that I was living out those million reasons.

After the birth of my second son, I realized how much a 9-5 job took me away from my boys. I knew the best way to predict the future was to create it. I balled up those million reasons “why,” tossed them away, and introduced my crafts and designs to the world. I am an entrepreneur building my business, using my creativity and expertise for my family. The rewards are ten fold. I set my hours, earned back time with my boys and loving husband. I no longer have someone place a limit on my income because now it is limitless.

I guess you can say, the lesson learned was that you have to want it, believe it, and do it, and grasp the handful of reasons why you SHOULD and take that plunge, why, because trust me, you will be forever grateful that you did. Think about it, what’s the worst that can happen? Say you fail, well, get up and try again…and again…and again. Either way, at least you can say you tried, and that is infinitely more than others can say.

@serenestudiophotographyanddesign @serenestudiophotoanddesign

Beth Holland | Fine Art Photographer

I have learned to experience the exhilaration of seeing another side of our beloved National Parks, free of crowds, tour buses and the cacophony of civilization at night. Seeing the wonders of the familiar in a different light with the stars, moon, and milky way above is just awe-inspiring and keeps me going at 2:00 am to get that shot!

BethHollandPhotography.com @BethHollandPhotography

Rod Castor

Most important lesson would be to keep being consistently on working on your skills.

@t.r.l_photography

Ericka Estrella | Photographer/Traveler

I would have to say, that the most valuable lesson has been to take one day at the time, to look beyond the fingers like our friend <Patch Adams> will learn in the movie from 1998, and really See what is before us the opportunity to be in this world yet another day, must be truly treasured, for there is no guaranteed there will be a tomorrow.

Therefore, witness the beauty and love around each and everyday, even in the simplest things like the half and half coffee blending dance, or the sunrise backlighting a window plant.

Photographing peoples most important moments has been and continues to be an amazing gift.

@ErickaEstrellaPhotography @ErickaEstrellaPhotography

Bob Brooks | Photographer

Starting your business without a mission statement is like taking a long road trip without a map. You can get lost easily within a short amount of time. Having something to reference later will help you keep grounded to your original goal. Knowing your target demographic is also one of the most important things. And finally for the person just starting out, don’t fall into the trap that shooting every day will help you capture better images. It’s better to choose one day out of the month, bring only one battery with you or just 2 roles of film, shoot till it’s gone and then don’t edit or processes them for 6-8 weeks and then look at then for the first time. Trust me, shooting 30k-50k in six months only gets you burned out, and from there, you loose your passion for photography all together. The old saying “Do what you love, and you will never work a day in your life” this couldn’t be further from the truth, getting the paying jobs and prospecting for work is the real work, this represents about 80% of the work of the photographer, not the other way around.

@rlbrooks_photography Facebook: Bob Brooks @rlbrooksphotography

Eric Ziegler | Landscape and nature photographer

I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that you’re never too old to learn.

I started the hobby of photography as a teenager, and although I’ve been working at it for almost 30 years, I still feel that my work is not where I want it to be. I am always looking for new techniques and ideas to help me become more creative, and it is fun sometimes to compare my work from several years ago to see the growth I’ve achieved.

ericzieglerphoto.com @ezieglerphoto

Madiha Javed | Founder of Panache Art Studio | Photographer | Graphic Designer | RJ – Women Empowerer & Humanitarian

Panache Art Studio by Madiha Javed

Know your true self first. Believe and be grateful always no matter what life throws at you. Stick to what feels right , even if you have to walk alone. Make your passion your purpose and you will find peace and hapiness within you. Live without expectations and love for the sake of loving. Do good to others selflessly and it will come back to you in mysterious ways. And never feel the need to ever define your worth to anyone. And never ever be afraid of failures.

@panache.art.studio @p/B3GdcTylUJI @bymadihajaved @groups/548690268834704

Kaisha Slaughter | Interior Design & Digital Marketing

The most important lesson I have learned in this journey so far is to always be authentic to yourself! Believe in yourself and trust the process. In difficult times stay positive and you will be amazed at the things you are truly capable of. You will always have someone doubting you, and it makes it that much more sweet when you succeed!

@keepingupwithkaisha

Lone Star Darkroom | traditional film photo lab

Kristin Wright

Working in a traditional Darkroom can be a lot of pressure when it comes to working on customer film. There is nothing you can do to fix some of the errors that you will naturally encounter. I’ve learned a lot about having a good work ethic and slowing down. I handle every single roll of film like it’s my own and take care to ensure I’ve done the best I can do and to always be honest with customers. We’re a small business and have the luxury of communicating directly with many of our customers while working on their photos and I want everyone to feel that their order has been handled carefully and fairly, and to understand the amount of careful tedious work that goes into hand processing each roll of film.

@LoneStarDarkroom

Jennifer Ramirez | Brow and Beauty Expert

The most important thing I have learned is to never stop learning. Continuing education and allowing yourself to absorb new ideas and techniques will always improve your work and business. From learning how to manage your time to learning a new service or product to offer just having that knowledge can only lead you to success. We are taught from a young age that knowledge is power and I have always seen that to be true.

styleseat.com/jenniferramirez6?utm_campaign=vanity @Perfectbrowsbyjenn @the_brow_and_beauty_room

Jessica Kelly | Ceo of House of Kelly

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey so far is that I have to be patient, I can’t expect for everything to happen overnight. You can be grinding for 4 long years with no results and on that 5th year you become the biggest thing on the planet!! So yes patience has been my biggest lesson.

houseofkelly.co @_jessica_kelly

Amorette Vargas | Esthetician and Wax Specialist

The biggest lesson I have learned along the way is to always give clients the same, if not better service each time you work on then. It’s nearly impossible to lose a client when you give them the best of your talent & abilities each and every time they see you. My clients have stayed with me throughout the years and have become like family to me. I don’t push products and services they don’t need, but instead suggest what I feel would help them reach their esthetic goals. That’s what trust is all about!

My favorite quote is: “To be successful you must be unique, you must be so different that if people want what you have, they must come to you to get it.”

— Walt Disney

vagaro.com/amoretteshautewax [email protected] @amoretteshautewax

Lisa Slimak | Photographer with Le-Marie Photography

The most important lesson I’ve learned during my photography journey is to capture as many memories as possible, big or small. Sometimes memories fade but a photo can bring back those moments and even the exact feelings you felt in that moment.

I started my photography journey when I realized my son was almost a senior in high school and that after almost 14 years of watching him play soccer once he graduated we would no longer experience these moments. So I started taking my love for photography more serious. I took some classes, invested in some gear & began shooting all my sons games, not just him but all of his teammates. I hope my son, his teammates and their parents can look back at those photos for many years and remember the joy the game brought them, the lessons they learned & the bonds they made.

A few years after I started doing photography I lost my brother and at that moment I realized one of the first things people do in good times and in bad times is go through photos, at times that is all you have left of a person or a memory. It became a passion of mine to capture images of individuals and families that i can deliver to them and they will always have. It truly is the gift that keeps giving!

@lemarie_photography @lemariephotos

Emily Campbell | Photographer

The most important lesson is probably the one I’m struggling through right now – Trust. Learning to trust myself; trust my instincts, my abilities and my judgement; teaching myself to pause and pickup my camera when something catches my eye. It means investing the time in myself and my craft and believing that the time I spend apart (from my husband and my daughter) will ultimately be redeemed in the process. Trusting God and His timing means learning patience and focusing on what’s in front of me. There are currently 38 posts on my Instagram page. There are 5,529 photos uploaded to my Mac begging to be edited. Moral of the story: Find joy in where you’re at right now. You matter. Your art matters. Be intentional and do what feels right.

@lovelythymephotography

Katie Zoboroski | Health & Wellness Coach

@katieleethejourney

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey thus far is that any day is a good day to say, no more! No more to the things that are holding you back. Throughout my journey, I have experienced an absolutely crazy amount of things I would’ve much rather not have been through. But I lived it and it’s my journey, which has now become my story. At any point, you can change your story to create the life you want! My mission is to empower women to know they are not alone in their journey, that deep within them they have the power to overcome. And that they have the inner strength to say no more and reshape their future by reshaping themselves both mentally and physically. I hope that my journey is a testimony of persistence, strength, and determination, to overcome what happened to you without letting it become you!

@katieleethejourney

Rula Sharkawi | owner of Rula Cosmetics

What I’ve learned is to never give up and never stop learning. You’re never too good because someone else will always be better but Consistency is key. When you never give up on what you believe in and never stop learning about the things your passionate about then your skill will continue to get better and people will always notice.

rulacosmetics.com @rulacosmetics

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alisonwriter · 4 years

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New Hampshire’s White Mountains are criss-crossed by hundreds of scenic hiking trails that offer beautiful vistas. So why did I spend hours one weekend crawling like Spiderman up slopes covered in boulders, mostly looking down at tiny circles of green lichen on their rough granite surfaces?

The list made me do it, I guess. There are only 48 mountains in New Hampshire over 4,000 feet, and many people use the list to summit each in turn. While I’m trying not to “keep score” and rush through the list to bag peaks, my rationale has been that the list offers focus, motivation, and purpose. Maybe I’ll get it done in this lifetime and have something to tell my grandchildren rather than whiling away my precious weekends on lesser summits.

In June I found time to drive to Gorham, New Hampshire and take another crack at one that eluded me in the past: Mount Madison, at 5,367 feet. It had been about 18 months since my daughter Grace and I tried it but were pushed back by a combination of poor weather at the summit and hypothermia. The weekend I was there I had a decent forecast so of course I had to overreach and add Mt. Adams (5700 ft) to the day because why not? I was gonna be sore, why not go all the way??

I knew the Valley Way trail was a moderate hike in the trees, alongside a lovely brook with waterfalls. Just below the AMC’s Madison hut the trail emerges from a forest of stunted evergreens to an even, treeless alpine valley, or col,offering hikers the option to proceed to Adams, to the west, or Madison, to the east.

Our previous attempt to summit was fresh in my mind: Grace and I were well-equipped with hats, gloves, insulating and windproof layers, and snacks, but struggled when we reached the hut that occupies the col. The seasonal “crue” was breaking down the hut and closing it for the season that day, so they’d let the wood stove go cold. Wind from the west was pelting us with tiny bullets of sleet.

Although we were hot from the 2 hour climb up Valley Way, we knew to don more layers at the hut before we exposed ourselves to the wind at the summit but chills overtook us as we rested and changed. The hut crue provided hot water for tea which we hoped would chase the goosebumps away but they only increased. Grace had ample experience working on AMC trail crews and backpacking sections of the AT in the Whites to recognize hypothermia so she advised against taking even the short climb to the Madison summit. Staying in the cold hut was no better than venturing back out into the wind. We snapped a few photos and descended, disappointed but happy with our day out.

In June it would be a different story. I hiked alone, and the weather was significantly better, but there were still concerns: looking northwest, I could see clouds dropping rain on other green peaks, and they were moving toward the Presidentials. The wind was also picking up and expected to reach 70 mph gusts by afternoon.

This time when I approached Madison hut I had a plan to change from shorts to full-length tights, add a windproof layer, and keep going. I’d hit Adams first, because the higher and more difficult summit might be impossible when the winds increased.

There was one more piece of business to attend to at the hut, too. Socks. I’d packed in haste and forgotten my thick hiking socks, even after making a special stop at Mike’s house to find my blister-stopping sock liners. I knew I’d had my hands on hiking socks more than once in the previous two days but haste and distraction combined made me leave them behind. I guessed (correctly) that the hut would have socks for sale and forked over $18 for a pair when I arrived. It was a good investment. I knew I couldn’t gamble on sock liners being my only foot covering or I’d end up making my final descent barefoot and limping.

Leaving the hut I passed picturesque Star Lake and approached Adams via the Star Lake trail, which is less of a trail than a summit approach covered in refrigerator-sized boulders. There was a couple ahead of me and I could hear them chatting. They’d crossed the first section of the boulder field and were obscured in a small section of evergreens, which only served as a temporary break before the trail crossed an even larger boulder field. They were a perfect target that I’d eventually overtake, making me feeling pretty good about my infrequent climbing adventures.

My job on the boulder field was to find trustworthy hand- and foot-holds, allowing me to scramble like Spiderman to the next rock. Every now and then I looked around for some indication of the trail’s direction, whether a painted marker or cairn of rocks. It didn’t seem to matter a lot, but the trail slanted to the south, gradually snaking its way up to the top of Adams, around larger erratics, occasionally revealing a cluster of bright pink mountain flowers.

Once when I was creeping along, feeling pretty good about my progress and personal safety, a woman approached over my left shoulder and quickly passed me on her way up. Our eyes locked for a moment and I said something like, “wow, you’re flying!” while mentally noting that she was my age or older. I don’t remember her response. She had a smaller pack on and was moving at twice my pace. My mind reeled for a while in her wake. I wish I could have interviewed her, to find out how often she climbed, to delve into her fitness regime, to find out her age so, of course, so I could compare myself. It took a while to quell the competitive voices in my head and accept that I was doing fine, pacing myself, and might, some day, be as fit as she was, if I prioritized it and worked at it. Nah, I decided, I’m okay with climbing when I can, but would try a smaller pack load next time and see if that helped.

The wind gusts were building impressively by the time I reached the top of the ridge to the summit of Adams. There were maybe two or three other people there, and none were the woman who passed me. She was probably topping out on Washington by now, I thought. There was a sour-looking Canadian couple mumbling to one another near the marker. I squeezed in and snapped a photo or two, smiling over my accomplishment, while they looked pained and unhappy.

I put the wind at my back and faced northeast, over tiny Madison hut, toward Mount Madison, while I choked down a granola bar for energy. The rain clouds were still sweeping perilously close and the wind was so strong I could barely hold my phone for casual-looking selfies. Soon I was headed down a another boulder slope that was exposed to the wind, moving much more quickly, toward the hut. While I was well grounded by the weight of my pack and boots the wind pushed my torso to-and-fro, making me frequently grab for handholds on the rocks. It was challenging to stay upright.

Instead of using this westerly wind to my advantage when approaching Madison’s summit I made a mistake that has become common for me. I chose a less-traveled and indirect route that was just stupid. The Appalachian Trail leads from the Madison hut directly to the summit of Madison in a steep but not impossible half-mile. For some idiotic reason that challenges Darwin’s theory I took a sidelong approach, skirting Madison’s summit on the north side, then turning south and climbing rocks to hit the peak. It was nothing but a brainless decision and absolutely indicates I’m an injury risk when solo climbing.

Although the roundabout trail was easier for the first, brief 15 minutes, it opened from a short stroll through a meadow to an extensive boulder

field that skirted the north face of Madison. Clearly only an idiot would choose this route if offered the more direct option. I proved that I am that idiot. Rather than turn back and accept the better, more direct climb to the top I stubbornly clung to the boulders, extending my Spiderman-like crawl for another hour or more. While doing so I realized that if I were to get hurt here I’d die within a mile of the busy hut because nobody else would be dumb enough to take this route during this calendar year. So I was cautious, but not cautious enough to turn around and take the more rational AT to the top of Madison. This is the same stupid attitude that kept me married for a decade longer than I should have been, but I obviously haven’t learned a thing in 50-plus years.

My second summit of the day was a happy moment. I crouched in the lee of a big boulder to enjoy it after grabbing a pic of myself at the marker. I think I texted my daughter that I was done climbing and would be headed down soon. Looking south I could see a long trail snaking toward Washington and thought how nice it would be to take that, hopefully a boulder-free route, to bag more peaks some day. It was an irrational thought for someone who still had upwards of 2.5 hours to hike out that day. I exited Madison via the direct AT that took me to the back door of the hut in a brief half hour, kicking myself the whole way for having scrambled unnecessarily over boulders for half the afternoon. Descending into the deep embrace of the trail home was a relief as I no longer had to fear the approach of higher winds and rain showers.

By the time I hit nearly flat ground close to the bottom of Valley Way my hips, knees, and ankles were squeaking in painful protest. The long tendons attaching my quads to my femurs were on fire. I was using hiking poles defensively, to keep myself at just the right angle of declination to keep moving without falling forward onto my face. Mosquitoes swarmed on me if I slowed even a tiny amount, so I plodded relentlessly toward my car, pushing the pain out of my thoughts.

Just before I reached the car on the shoulder of Route 2, I checked my watch: 9 hours, 12 miles. My GPS track showed a bowtie-like route up Valley Way, taking a circular route over Adams, then looping the Madison summit similarly and exiting via Valley Way. When I got to the car I untied my boots and tore off my $18 socks. No blisters! That was great but the pain in my legs would only increase over the next several days.

The other people staying at Rattle River Lodge were not curious about my hike and I didn’t particularly want to chat about it. Twelve miles and two summits were significant to me but most of them were Appalachian Trail through-hikers finishing 1,700-mile treks. One pleasant, older (70 yrs approx) woman hobbled around on a sore knee. I felt badly for her and her husband and daughter, because their hike was ruined by a jammed knee. Then she told me that they were in the last 300 miles of a section hike of the trail .. and that she’d ridden a tandem bike with her husband some 10,000 miles around the perimeter of the country the year before .. while suffering from shingles. I should have offered to wash her feet. My little day hike was big for me but miniscule in the scheme of things.

The blue “bowtie” route is an image from my Gaia GPS (highly recommended!).

Long-awaited summits: Madison & Adams New Hampshire’s White Mountains are criss-crossed by hundreds of scenic hiking trails that offer beautiful vistas. So why did I spend hours one weekend crawling like Spiderman up slopes covered in boulders, mostly looking down at tiny circles of green lichen on their rough granite surfaces?

#GAIAGPS

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queenbeez-blog · 4 years

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Five Advice That You Must Listen Before Embarking On Paint Night Baltimore Groupon | paint night baltimore groupon

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That these aforementioned women I authority in aerial attention should advance I appear a Acrylic Nite is a disappointment because, okay, I’m affectionate of an art snob. I went to Pratt Institute in New York, authority an art abecedary credential, appointment art museums regularly, am a adviser at a bounded gallery, and can draw and acrylic my ass off. I would never acquaint any of them that the anticipation of spending two hours to aftermath a painting that looks like any of the Acrylic Nite kitsch is depressing. When one acquaintance asked me to go I beneath and told her anytime so gently, “You apperceive if you are absorbed in art there are several classes for beginners locally and they don’t amount much.” With bathetic eyes, she said, “As a adolescent I consistently acquainted bad for not accepting one atom of creativity, and at Acrylic Nite they accomplish me feel absolutely acceptable and I can booty home what I created and adhere it up!” Addition acquaintance beatific me a Facebook articulation to a account she acquaint proving that she had committed an absolute bank in her kitchen as a Acrylic Nite “gallery.” She was a convert. I counted 12 Acrylic Nite masterpieces in her comestible building space. “I aloof adulation it, “ she said, “and we booze lots of wine and it’s fun, you should try it!” Won’t be bent asleep aggravating it I thought. But again arcade I assignment for began accepting banking problems — as in bodies weren’t affairs that abundant aboriginal art and the arcade bare money. I anticipation what if we had our own adaptation of a Acrylic Nite area bodies abstruse a little address and created paintings that were somewhat altered from one another? Plus I capital to see that crazy art authoritative apparatus activity in action. How in the hell accept they pulled off affairs over three actor tickets with echo barter to boot?

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All of the Acrylic Nite masterpieces are like greeting cards you ability see in Kmart or Target — they accept cheerful, somewhat beaming colors and about consistently use atramentous for affecting effect — like a painting with Lake Tahoe aristocratic dejected baptize with atramentous baggy pines in the foreground. Or a friendly, behemothic turtle with an astronomic four blade red annual on its back. Or a jet-black contour of a atramentous cat sitting in advanced of a behemothic pinkish abounding moon. Addition had a yellowy and amber abatement scene, alleged “Fall Swing Time” with a big timberline that had a atramentous annoy blind from it, which I afield anticipation was a asphyxiate for a moment. Or the one alleged “Cougar Shoes” which featured alone one bristles inch, aerial heel with bobcat spots and a blurry, dejected sky background.

I absitively to allocution a lath affiliate from the art arcade into activity with me. She would be my acerb cohort. She endemic her own art arcade once, advised art at UCLA and was now an autogenous designer. She confided that yes, she had not alone heard of Acrylic Nite, but had several accompany who asked her to animadversion on their Acrylic Nite creations. “I aloof about-face my eyes away,” she said. Did I acknowledgment that Acrylic Nites are consistently captivated in confined or restaurants that serve booze and food? Our Acrylic Nite was captivated in the amphitheater of a bounded country club with a abounding bar and appealing abundant a abounding bar menu. It seems that every Acrylic Nite has some advertisement offer — either from Groupon, a repeating Acrylic Nite abatement or in my case, an action from the club. With our advertisement we paid $25 each. You are instructed to get there 15 account afore the fun begins, but we got there bristles account afore and the abode was packed. Two seats remained, not abutting to anniversary other, but an all-around accumulation of six women rearranged themselves so we could sit together. I asked our bench ally if this was their aboriginal time. No, they all had been to at atomic one to three added Acrylic Nites.

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Our abecedary “artist,” Juniper, was a twentyish, tatted, affable adolescent woman of attenuate body who brought her admirer with her as an assistant. The admirer sat agilely with a forlorn, announcement on his face, like he had endured this many, abounding times before. We sat bottomward at our stations which had a blooming Acrylic Nite apron, a styrofoam bowl with acceptable puddles of white, black, red, yellow, and dejected acrylic acrylic on them, two rather baby brushes, a actual acclimated tiny allotment of shammy anhydrate that couldn’t accept wiped a newborn’s butt, and a artificial cup abounding of water. On the table was a bare canvas sitting expectantly on a tiny atramentous easel.

Juniper accustomed us, reminded us we bare aught art abilities and that the capital abstraction was to accept fun. A actual active aide from the club took wine, beer, gin, ahi appetizer, hot dog and hamburger orders. Juniper aboriginal did an overview of our painting, which was alleged “Slow Burn Sunset.” This depicted a beaming pink, ablaze amethyst sunset, annihilation you would absolutely see in nature. Also included was a buttery abounding moon, accompanied by angular atramentous actual alpine ache trees. A few birds, depicted as atramentous vee’s flew by. She did a audience of the aboriginal footfall which was to dab blots of pinkish acrylic in a circle. Juniper put on some pop music, the aide jumped from bedfellow to bedfellow and afore continued anybody was painting, drinking, laughing, talking and eating.

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Except I wasn’t. I couldn’t accompany myself to acrylic the sunset, which bluntly resembled a backwoods fire. The alone blush bond we were instructed to do was the being you abstruse in aboriginal grade: red and dejected accomplish purple, chicken and dejected accomplish green. I absitively to do a delicate abstruse that had some annular shapes like a moon, but no accustomed adversity implications. Juniper absolved about allowance people. She paused at my chair. “Oh you’re interpreting. I like that!” After about an hour of added wine and instruction, the allowance was abuzz with joy. Yes, joy. Bodies absolutely admired the experience, were admiring of anniversary added and upbeat. I absolved around. Enough aberration in the paintings accomplish me anticipate that the Acrylic Nite acquaintance may absolutely activate aesthetic flair, advance accord and absolution some pent up accent from hours aloft hours of non-art accompanying assignment during the day.

Juniper reminded us, “The added wine you drink, the bigger your painting will look.” Indeed. She added one added affair at the end of the night, “Don’t balloon we accept several Plant Nites appointed for abutting month. Anyone can actualize amazing active art from succulents and miniature plants!” I’ve never been acceptable at any affectionate of gardening. My deride is aged brown. Wonder if there’s a Groupon.

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create-ninety · 5 years

Text

Tuesday 1st January, 2019

I’ll admit I was nervous about travelling to Morocco. I didn’t know what to expect. There’s only so much you can read about before you simply need to experience it to make up your own mind. But our trip to Fes has been one of my favourite cities that I have visited – ever.

On the way to the riad from the airport, I tried to gauge what the general vibe was. But it was dark and we couldn’t see a lot. Glimpsing various buildings, I was reminded of bits of Spain. My anxieties had been quelled slightly; I liked the driver and didn’t feel unsafe. And soon I was even grinning for a moment - I noticed a guy sitting in the back of a swerving white van ahead of us, the back door wide open and flailing about with each twist and turn of the driver’s whim. I thought maybe the door was broken but Lucie pointed it out – the guy was smoking a cigarette, and looked completely nonplussed.

But then I felt my heat sink not long after. While pulled up at some lights, a small child darted around the side of our van. The driver waved his finger at the kid who was probably no older than nine. Rejected, he made his way to the vehicle on the other side of us and I saw what he was holding: a brush and bottle of water. A sight not uncommon in parts of New Zealand – but I’d certainly never seen a child working for probably nothing more than a Durham at a time.

When we got to the riad, my anxieties weren’t quite quelled. There were groups of teenage boys gathered around, leaning against walls and listening to music. The buildings were high and chipped, and if there were windows, they were protected by bars. Almost immediately a homeless looking man rushed forward with a trolley in the hopes of wheeling our luggage, but he was also dismissed by our driver. Tall, hands buried in his jacket pockets, he lead us through narrow, winding alleyways for at least five minutes. If he had merely dropped us off, we would haven’t have had a clue. If I was nervous then I’m sure Lucie would have been too. But soon we stopped outside a big wooden door with an iron knocker and a thin slit at eye level. The driver knocked. And when a woman answered and let us inside, it almost took our breath away – a dazzling hallway and then open space came into view, with a ceiling so high you had to crane your neck to see the ornate detailing at the top. Doors with painted gold, green and red stars and shapes stood tall, framed by windows looking in on our bedroom. Our host Elodie showed us the room and gave us the key. She spoke in a hush voice and in the morning I knew why: the layout of the Riad places the rooms around and above the communal area.

We curled up in bed, grateful to finally be able to rest, in awe. The room had been decorated with such impeccable detail that it almost seemed rude to disturb the bed. Paintings of African women were hung beside the elaborate door; ivory elephants lined up in size order on a shelf; a Moroccan guitar; white and green tiled floors; painted shutters. A traditional bathroom. I couldn’t believe that such a grand and beautiful house was there, hidden amongst those intimidating alleys we had walked through. We fell asleep in pure darkness and I was completely at ease.

Elodie greeted us for breakfast in the morning. The tables had been laid out with the same effort and care as our bedroom, and we were pleased to spot an elegant long-haired cat. Elodie said her name was Amira, which is Arabic for princess, a name Lucie particularly liked. We hurriedly ate a breakfast of bread, freshly squeezed orange juice, and coffee, and then got a very quick explanation of the Medina from Elodie. We had a deadline to be at the Post Office to meet our Medina tour guide – our first activity of our trip. Thankfully Elodie kindly agreed to take us to our meeting point so that we weren’t swallowed by the Medina before we even started.

Our guide was friendly, tall, Moroccan, and was wearing a traditional robe with a peaked hood – I came to realise that peaked hoods, which I’d only seen in Harry Potter, were a common occurrence in the Medina. And he excitedly led us to the Blue Door and into the thick of it all, and I found myself falling in love with the strange city.

Thin alleyways but bursting with colour, delicious smells, the sounds of accents and language I couldn’t identify. The cobbled ground underneath was uneven and well worn; this was a city with the most interesting history, and its inhabitants seemed all at once otherworldly and familiar.

We visited one of the three tanneries of Fes, and I was chosen by one of the salesmen as an easy target. And he had selected well. I was a bumbling mess as, after I announced quietly to Lucie that I liked one of the bags on display, the man darted forward and started (in his opinion, likely) humerously trying to sell me the bag. I was awkward and uncomfortable as the rest of the group were watching me fail – I can only describe it as being more of a ‘guess the price’ game, because I kept saying low numbers even though I knew there was no way we’d be buying it. But every time I said no he persisted. By the time we left the tannery I was red-faced and thinking there’s no way I’d be stepping foot back in there, even though the view from the top of the factory was truly a stunning sight to behold.

We carried on, and I adored the rest of the sights. The ceramics, the leather goods, and the rugs… all on display in the most vibrant waves of colour. People were in most cases far more polite than they were pushy, a pleasant surprise which kept me calm. And when we stopped off towards the end of the tour at a tiny roofed stall, just off the copper square, our tour group got to taste – in my opinion – some of the most delicious tea and coffee that I had ever tasted. It was served by a man who had almost no knowledge of English, and who stood behind a tiny counter covered in fresh herbs, and who twiddled the knobs and taps of a gigantic copper vat. We sat and drank and I grinned. How beautiful, to be surrounded by people so interesting, different to me, and who were just going about the business of their every day life, not knowing that I was in awe of someone merely making coffee. The man had a permanent smile on his face and the guide mentioned in passing he’d been there since the sixties. I turned to Lucie: “I’m going to find this place tomorrow. We’re going to come back.”

“I’d be very impressed if you manage to find this again!”

By the time the tour was over, we were hungry and tired, and ate a tagine meal at the ‘Cinema Café’ not far from our Riad. And then we picked up a blue pouffe and some beautiful hand painted plates from a shop. I have some lovely pictures of Lucie crouched down on the floor as we were choosing which ones we liked the best. Along with a little copper pot we’d bought on the tour, we excitedly dropped our goods off and headed back out into the Medina by ourselves. On that excursion we found another pouffe we liked – this time a mustard one – and I made a fool of myself for a second time that day, accidentally low-balling the shop keeper because I was convinced we had paid less for the exact same thing up the street. Only after he denied our offer and we’d left did we realise that his pouffe was bigger than the one we’d bought earlier; we turned around and went back, paying his lowest price.

New Year’s dinner was divine. Elodie and her mother, and perhaps others, had prepared a three-course meal for us. We were so full at the end we could barely fit the dessert in too. All the guests staying were French speakers, and I found myself desperately trying to understand the conversations as we joined them in the lead-up to midnight. I picked up a kids book on a shelf and did some reading, surprised with how much I was able to remember, but a little frustrated that my listening and understanding skills weren’t as sharp.

Midnight ticked over and suddenly it was 2019, and with a clink of champagne glasses and a chorus of ‘happy new year!’, we stood around drinking for a while longer before bidding each other goodnight. Lucie and I collapsed into bed totally full, a tad drunk, and trying to stifle a fit of giggles: we’d been laughing most the day, and at times during dinner, had struggled to contain ourselves.

The next day I looked at the map. And then I boldly declared to Lucie that I would find that coffee shop – that I was determined. And I did! Somehow I was able to identify stalls we had passed, instinctively knowing what we had seen and what was unfamiliar. At one point I paused and listened: sure enough, I could hear the clanking of mallets on copper, and knew that if I could find that square, then I would know how to get to the coffee. Connecting those dots in my mind was of the greatest satisfaction, and as we entered the little stall, the man behind the counter exclaimed excitedly something in Arabic. Lucie was beyond surprised, and the coffee tasted extra sweet.

From there I was confident I could navigate us around places we’d seen on the tour. After then it didn’t really matter where we went, so long as we could get back to the copper square. And after a couple of turns, me making metal notes, we found a narrow street that was home to knives and other metal work. At one of the stalls a man with blue eyes and an array of hand made knives set out in front of him caught my attention; picking up one of the small objects, he told me proudly he’d made it himself, and that the handle was from ram’s horn. We had a conversation in French and when he told me that the knife I liked was twenty Durhams, or the equivalent of £2, my jaw dropped and I handed over the money without even trying to negotiate. Bursting with glee, imagining making my books with the knife, I lead us back to the copper square. There we picked up four small copper pots and four small glasses to go inside; it was as close to the way the man in the coffee stall served it to us, and we wanted to recreate it. There we watched as another man polished the pots so that they shined bright in the sun – it was the most magical day, seeing people creating things with their hands, with such care and pride, with such ease and creativity. I looked at all the items and saw them, in a sense, as art: sculpted, cut, melted, bent, forged, painted… all by the hands of people with a story to tell.

We started hunting for lunch, and discovered a terraced restaurant overlooking the Medina. We ate another tagine, with vegetables on the side, and a cat circled the table. The sky was blue except for a few scatterings of clouds. Lucie revelled being in the warmth of the sun, and when the call to prayer rang out over the city, I hit record on my phone to capture it. I felt so happy. I was with the woman I loved. We were getting lost somewhere beautiful. It was the first day of the new year; a new chapter, a new beginning.

Leaving the restaurant, I thought I knew where to go. But I realised quickly that we must have gone too far, or not taken a turn; the stalls were unfamiliar. We turned around to head back the other way and Lucie spotted a bright orange rug with embroidered detail. And to my surprise (she hadn’t liked many of the rugs we’d seen), she engaged in a price battle with the shop keeper. He dropped his price, but we agreed it was still too much, and we didn’t have the cash anyway. I was anxious because I must’ve made a wrong turn but couldn’t work out where we had made the mistake… and even after we left the rug shop, I still couldn’t catch my bearings. But when the shop keeper came running after us shouting, “okay, okay, I can do 1900, but that’s as low as I can go!”, we excitedly went back with him. That worked out to be £180. We got it. And the men in the shop wrapped it up for us, and scrawled the name of the place it had come from: somewhere in the Atlas mountains, made by one of the Berber tribes.

Thankfully, the men also told us how to get back to the Blue Door. From there I could navigate easily. And we were close – I worked out that we had indeed missed a turn off down a non-descript alley I hadn’t thought to remember, as I had actually thought we’d be taking a taxi back. But we made it back, thrilled, and dropped all the stuff off. We had a sleep and then went out and found some dinner: skewered meat, rice, and chips. Normally I’d not like being caught up at a table by the river of passers-by. But I didn’t mind it in this context. Even though I’m sure I stood out with my red hair, and did attract a few curious stares, I felt anonymous enough. People went on about their days, and so did we, and I loved it.

#createninety #journal #january2019

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