#i sCREECHED when vax showed up and screeched again when he died | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spoiler1001 · 3 years

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Percy wanted children once he settled down. Vex seemed to want them too. After Vax died, Vex wanted them more, Vesper was a surprise. Vax’ildan was planned, to the extent that they wanted children, but the exact date was a surprise. Vesper was 2 years old at the time. Sophia was planned. Timed and everything. When she was born with her tail wrapped around herself and two bumps where the horns would grow, he was surprised.

The chirping was a surprise. Percival had known about Tieflings’ purring. He was a bit thrown when his child chirped before she cried.

Most of Vox Machina had thrown names at Percival for this kid and he liked them all. Vex arranged the name order.

He almost felt bad for laughing when he noticed.

There was a long time between Sophia and the Twins. They wanted to take a break after Sophia to get used to raising children with magic. Ten years passed between Sophia and the twins. They were not expecting twins. They didn’t expect a lot of things.

Like the invasion onto their property when the twins were just born.

Percical was reading a book on the porch, not quite seeing the words and mostly listening to the area around him. His time as an adventurer gave him the skill of listening for all potential dangers and logging them in his mind. He knew what sounds were from his children.

He knew what sounds weren’t.

He was forced to his feet before he realised something was wrong. His son was running out of the woods, scared out of his mind. He was scrapped up and bloodied but otherwise fine.

“Go to your mother.” Percival commanded, his heart sinking. The sound of crunching leaves was absent, but there was a loud bang and a pained screech. The screech was echoing. Percival felt it in his chest more than he heard it. Trees shook from the...sound? No this was some kind of spell. Snow and leaves fell off the trees and wood creaked. Percival ran towards the sound, his footsteps were muffled by the recently fallen snow.

The trees were bent towards the perimeter of the makeshift forest that Keyleth had planted to help rejuvenate the land. The younger trees had broken completely at a 90 degree angle and the older trees were cracked.

Sophia was on the ground, half on her side, her hand clutching her face. Blood dripped from between her index and middle finger. She seemed to be looking blankly ahead of herself, not quite looking at anything. Small little sounds left Sophia as she was frozen against a dead stump.

Three men stood in the wooded area. They had cheap mockeries of the weapon that he had created. The weapons did not look like they were strong enough to fire the calibre that Percival used to fire, but they could still do damage. Percival was pissed.

Black smoke built around Percy. His anger seemed all consuming. All of his grief from losing his family seemed to be resurfacing.

Percival knew what he did on a basic level. He just couldn't remember it. His memory went from seeing his daughter injured to black smoke to holding his daughter and stumbling out of the area. Percy knew that he had broken those men when they were blinded by the smoke.

He knew that those men were still alive when he left them there. He just knew that they won’t be getting up again. Too many crushed bones and bloodied wounds.

Sophia clung to Percival’s coat, the cold seeming to be getting to her. Her tail hung limply and she just seemed to shiver.

“It’s ok, Sweetheart. It’s all ok.” Percival whispered. Sophia just hummed. The blood seemed to soak through the coat. It was near boiling against the cold. The steps seemed to get heavier and heavier for Percival.

Vex seemed to be waiting for them outside for them to return. A snowstorm was building on the horizon. The air crystallized around them. Precipitation fell from the sky. It stung against them. Vex placed her hand on Sophia’s back. Sophia turned to face her mother, blood still dripping down her face. Percival put her down, both of them now soaking wet and shivering.

“Sophia, look at me, darling.” Vex kelt down to look at her daughter, the child still clutching at her eye. The self-comforting sounds she made as an infant were audible. Vex grabbed her wrist and gently pulled the hand away.

The eye was gone. It was a gory mess and even with the best magic, there was no saving it.

“Get the doctor.” Vex looked up at Percy. “It’s going to be a long night.”

The operation was long and despite the fires, the wait seemed to make the room colder. Hours seemed to fly by and seemed to take lifetimes to pass. Night seemed to arrive with Keyleth and Pike traveling to show their support. Percival numbly relayed what had happened, at least what he remembered. Shame made itself known on his face.

“What did she see, Darling?” Vex asked. She knew what exactly Percy was scared of. He was letting his fears eat at him. Keyleth picked it up too.

Finally the surgeon went to them.

"She'll live. The bullet didn't go far. She'll wear a patch for the foreseeable future, but she'll be fine." The doctor promised. Vex made it to Sophia's bedside first.

"Oh, darling." Sophia was deep asleep. She had a cloth covering over her eye. The whole room smelled of sanitary cleaners, and she seemed so still.

Logic told Vex that Sophia was alive. Vex's emotions told her that Sophia was too still. There should be a chest rise. Vex had to get close to hear Sophia breathing. Percival sat by the other side of the bed. Her skin was burning against their hands.

“This cannot be allowed to happen again.” Percival frowned. “I will look to see where they got in.”

“I will go with, Help build something to fortify the wooded area.” Keyleth spoke up.

“I’ll have Trinket keep watch. I want to see where this happened.”

Keyleth and Vex were surprised that the trees had been knocked over. The snow had stopped falling and the sky was painted orange as the sun was setting. It reminded Percy of the fires of his forge.

“This is very powerful magic.” Keyleth noted, looking at the downed trees, the stumps stained black from the smoke of Percy’s fury.

“This was panic and a call for help.” Percy stopped right at the clearing. Snow covered the bodies, but it was obvious what they were.

Ketheth looked for a moment and took a deep breath summoning vines to cover the bodies and pull them into the earth, tiny tree saplings covering the whole area.

“How badly beaten are your knuckles, Percy?” Vex asked, grabbing his hands. Even through his gloves, she could feel the swelling around his joints and he made a small pained grunt. Keyleth sent a healing spell his way. The gloves were no longer clinging to his hand.

“It’s nothing. I just-” Percy shook his head. “I made an effort to try to keep my cool around my children and now-”

“Percy are you scared of our children being frightened of you?” Vex turned to face him in the eyes.

“I want them to not be afraid of me.” Percy admitted.

Keyleth looked around asking various critters that were brave enough to return to the flattened area. They led her to a heavily damaged wall, probably from the revolution more than fifteen years ago. Age had made the structure weaker, more climbable.

Keyleth easily fixed it with a tone shape spell, turning dirt around her into stone for more material to work with. As she was working, three small pieces of parchment fell out of the wall. They were notes for loved ones explaining why this happened. She frowned at the thought of this. This was premeditated. These men planned on dying over this. Keyleth brought the letter to Vex and Percy. Percy crumbled them for a moment.

“Let’s leave them where we found it, hide some guards to keep watch. Let’s see who picks that up.” Percy walked away to talk to Casaundra.

The younger De Rolo sibling made her way to the door.

“Was this Briarwood?” Cassandra asked.

“Nothing so composed. Some of the people in our city seem to group my daughter with the Briarwoods and don’t want another ‘monster’ as they put it ruling them.” Percival spat. “Forget the fact that I-”

“You are not a Briarwood. You Are a De Rolo and so is Sophia.” Cassandra countered. “If they want to attack our family, we will deal with it. Should we send-”

“I don’t want to send my daughter away, what if they go after her.” Percy ran his fingers through his hair.

“Then what?” Cassandra asked. “We have to be careful. Where are the people who attacked her?”

“Dead.”

“What?”

“I beat them to death.”

“Oh. did she-” Cassandra gasped.

“See? I don’t know. Frankly I’m scared to ask.” Percy sighed, his voice cracked.

“Do you want me to talk to her? Acknowledge and make an official statement?” Cassandra hugged herself.

“We’re waiting for some conspirators to come around, let's put them on trial.” Percy’s mind was moving many miles an hour.

“Percival. Talk to your child.” Cassandra grabbed his arm, which was shaking.

“What if she sees me as a monster?” Percival whispered.

“She won’t.” Cassandra promised. “You see yourself as the monster. She’ll see her father.” Percival followed her advice.

He went to the room where Sophia was resting. The bed was empty. Percival’s stomach dropped. He looked around to see her bent over a small pot, her tail squeezing around herself and her whole form shivering. Retching sounds came from her small form. She seemed to be gasping and damn near hyperventilation. She wasn't aware of his presence, and her back was to the door. Angry hissing noises came from her.

“Sophia?” Percy asked, his voice soft, the sound a mere ghost of his usually quiet voice.

She turned towards him, not quite facing him. The spade of her tail twitched and the tail loosened its grip around herself. He had her attention. He couldn’t see her face, but he could see that she was tense. “About what happened…”

“You melted.” Her voice was strained. “And there was yelling.”

“Is that what you saw?”

Sophia nodded.

“Why did you vanish?” Sophia looked at him head on, a bit of bile still on the corner of her mouth. Her eye was wide and wet. The other was covered in cloth.

“It’s just something that I can do. You know that black smoke that was there?”

Sophia just nodded.

“That was me. Magic. Like your Aunt Keyleth.” Percy knelt down and looked at her. Sophia stood up shakily. She used a sleeve of her nightgown to wipe at her mouth.

“You didn’t leave?” Sophia asked.

“No. I was there. I got you out.” Percy sighed.

He felt the full force of Sophia as she made her way as fast as she could and hugged him. He hugged her close.

“Don’t just disappear again.” Sophia demanded.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Percy promised. “Now let's get you to bed.”

Percival picked her up and placed her in the bed, placing blankets on top of her. The high temperature had gone down, but rest definitely helped. Percy pulled up a chair and sat next to her.

Soft childish snores filled the room. She was back to sleep, but with heavy chest movements this time. She was doing better.

“How did it go.” Cassandra asked, sticking her head through the door.

“She thought I had vanished on her.” Percy’s jaw clenched.

“Oh. poor thing. She probably needs more rest.” Cassandra smiled sadly.

“She’s stronger than me.” Percival sighed.

“She’s stronger than a lot of us. We found someone picking up the notes. Two women.”

“Sisters or…”

“Wives”

“Put them on trial.” Percival declared.

“And their children?”

“Put them through school. Don’t let their parents’ mistakes be their own.” Percival nodded.

The next days were tough. The fever came and went. Sophia was tired and could barely keep broth down. The trial was had and went. There were veers at the women and some tomatoes were thrown at Sophia. Percival frowned at this.

Sophia didn't talk much after what happened. She was quiet, constantly thinking and taking in her surroundings.

“Sophia, have you considered what you want to do with your eye?” Vex asked. Percival was at a distance but was listening in on this conversation.

“I want something that’s obviously not an eye that looks super cool.” Sophia nodded.

“Aren’t you worried about-”

“Not really.”

“You really are something else, darling.” Vex smiled and played with her hair.

“I think it would be cool.” Sophia shrugged.

The next day Percival, sweaty and exhausted, gave Sophia a white eye with bubbles where the pupil will be.

#tw blood #tw corpses #tw eye damage #percival de rolo #critical role #percival fredrickstein von musel klossowski de rolo iii #vex'ahlia #keyleth

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enkelimagnus · 3 years

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A Castle in the Forest

Percy x Vex’ahlia, Chapter 11, 2942 words,

A Modern AU, in which Vex is a park ranger taking over the Alabaster Sierras post, and finds much more than she bargained for.

Read on AO3

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Vex had succeeded in evading Vax’s questions about the bow.

She hadn’t really given him the option to speak at all. After resting for the night, her exhaustion had melted away and left all the space for anger. She’d driven out on her truck, not on the motorcycle, but that was only because the bike wouldn’t go on the snow very well. She’d just wanted to get to one of the temples fast.

They let her walk right into a fucking trap. They hid this from her and she could have died. There is going to be a scar on her shoulder, even with the healing she’s received. She wants to scream at all of them.

What if she’s not the first one to get hit by whatever the fuck the fiend is capable of doing? What if there are bodies literring that castle, bodies of innocent people who walked in on a fiend and died because no one fucking warned them?

Her rage carries her through the whole drive, until she stops in a furious screech of tires not far from the temple and basically runs to it. It carries her as she slams her whole body into the door and it bursts open. She doesn’t care about the bruises she’ll have after this.

She’s lucky, she guesses. They’re all there. Pike, and Grog, both priests and Cassandra. Somehow, the latter’s presence is no surprise. They were acting a little weird about everything, after all.

“What the fuck is up with the thing in the castle and why did none of you bother telling me about it?” Vex roars.

She can feel her hands shaking as she balls them into fists, trying to canalize her anger at least somewhat. She’s a professional, she can’t go and yell the heads off of clergy. Or maybe she can. Maybe she needs to, right now, because they let her walk into an incredibly dangerous situation.

Grog is still holding up his axe. He doesn't look specifically aggressive but she knows he’s ready to defend his friends against her if necessary. She appreciates that, even in this situation.

“You saw him?” Cassandra asks, standing up. “Does he… look alright?”

Vex blinks.

She wasn’t expecting this. Cassandra seems concerned, but more about the thing than about the fact Vex was in close contact with it and could have died.

“He’s a smoking fiend in the shape of a humanoid and I don’t know what kind of shit he packs but it made a hole in my shoulder. A big one!” Vex snaps back. “That doesn’t sound alright to me.”

Cassandra’s face hardens in as neutral of a face as Vex has ever seen. Pike reaches for them, gently putting a hand on their arm, beckoning them to sit back down.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Pike says quietly. “Do you need more healing?”

Vex shakes her head. “No. I have a couple of Healing Spells, and my brother gave me a potion. I’m fine.”

She’s mad that they’re showing concern, when they should have told her this was a threat. Pike and Grog make it all worse. They knew, when they took down the Barbed Devil, that it wasn’t the fiend Vex had sensed. And yet, they let her be fooled, let her believe that she’d done her job correctly.

“Lady Vex’ahlia, I think you should sit down,” Father Reynal says then, with his serene priest façade that Vex wants to smash through right now.

Grog gets up to bring another chair and they all stare at her until she moves and sits down at the table. They all settle back down.

There’s a large file on the table, closed and title-less. Vex raises an eyebrow. Father Reynal takes it and pulls it off of the table, away from her prying eyes and wandering hands. Smart of him. Suspicious too. Vex is on high alert and everything right now is a threat.

“I’m not a lady,” she mutters.

“I know,” Father Reynal nods. “But I’m being polite.”

Vex rolls her eyes. “Cut to the chase. What the fuck is going on here? What is that thing and why didn’t you tell me?”

They all settle back in their seats, all tense, all very unwilling to talk. Vex isn’t budging until she’s given answers though. She’ll camp here and harass them until they crack. She doesn’t give a fuck how long it takes.

“We didn’t tell you,” Keeper Yennen starts. “Because there was no reason for you to know. The fiend cannot walk out of the castle, the trail had been condemned by our work, and the secret tunnel was… well, secret.”

Vex sighs slightly. “Until Keyleth told me about it.”

“Our dear Keyleth is not skilled in the art of deception,” Father Reynal adds then. “We should have expected this would happen. But we couldn’t take you into account when all of this started. Your predecessor, Ranger Regae was not… exactly zealous. He was either oblivious to what was happening or didn’t care enough to stop it. All the contrary to you, my lady.”

“Not a lady,” Vex repeats. “Please stop calling me one.”

They nod as well. “Apologies,” they mutter. “Now. As for your other questions…”

Cassandra bristles. “His name is Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III,” they rattle off without even blinking. “Depending on which succession law you follow, he’s either Lord of Whitestone, or just my brother, in which case I am Lady of Whitestone.”

Vex takes a second to take in all of what she’s just been told. The De Rolos are not all dead. At least two remain. She’s staring at one of them, and the other is the thing in the castle. And they’re all covering it up.

“What happened? Because that’s not a person in there anymore,” Vex points out. Cassandra flinches at that.

Well… The eyes flashing to blue and the humanoid voice could belong to a person. The part that had yelled her to run… that could be a person.

“We don’t know exactly,” Cassandra continues, despite her flinching and obvious uncomfort. “We know that he’s been possessed by a fiend. Which I’m guessing you sensed and came in contact with.”

“Do you know how he came in contact with the fiend? What kind of fiend it is?” Vex crosses her arms.

“He.. came back to Whitestone with the fiend already with him. I haven’t been able to get more details from him.”

Every time Cassandra or anyone else says something, it just adds more questions to Vex’s plate. Where was he before coming back? Why had he left in the first place?

“As for the kind,” Father Reynal interjects. “I haven’t gotten to see it up close since he became possessed by it the way he is now, but from Keyleth’s description, it seems like a demonic creature. Perhaps a shadow demon of some kind.”

Shadow demons are more difficult to take down than barbed devils, but they’re not… impossible. Between Keyleth, Pike, Grog and the others, they should have been able to take it down a long time ago… Though it isn’t just a fiend. It’s also Cassandra’s brother. That changes things, she guesses, for all of them. There’s a person trapped in there, the one that made it so Vex could get away.

That’s the thing with possession. There’s always someone else than the creature involved in it.

Vex sighs heavily, putting her hands over her face. “You haven’t told any sort of authority, I’m guessing?” She asks.

“They’ll just… kill him to take out the creature,” Pike points out. “None of us want that to happen. We want him safe. As safe as possible.”

“Or they’ll fuck up the barrier we put up and he’ll be free to roam and probably kill more,” Keeper Yennen adds. “That’s another one of our concerns, and one of the reasons we didn’t tell you. We’re aware rangers have some spellcasting abilities and we did not want to risk you messing with the barrier.”

Vex huffs. “Well, I can’t promise I didn’t do anything but I don’t think my encounter with it fucked up your spell.”

They all fall quiet then. As she looks around the table at these people, these people of faith, of knowledge, of ability, it suddenly dawns on her the mess she’s gotten into. There’s a nobleman possessed by a fiend, with a weapon from the nine hells that shoots holes into people. They’ve been dealing with it for who knows how long, and they’re not getting anywhere. They seem at a standstill.

It’s all terrible. She should run away now. Grab Vax, pack her bags, and never come back to Whitestone again.

She’s not going to succeed at her job here, not when the fiend in the castle is much stronger than she is, not when there are people who won’t let her deal with it quickly and efficiently because it would mean murdering someone. Not that she would murder someone to do her job, but… it’s just another thing to think about.

She should give up and leave.

But where can she go? She can’t go back to Syngorn. Syldor’s made it incredibly clear in the letter she read yesterday. It was only yesterday but it feels like weeks. The emotional distress and the encounter with the fiend, or Percival de Rolo… It all seems so far away.

So she has to stay, and she has to deal with this somewhat. Because there’s no way she can go back to her life when she knows about the thing in the castle. No way. She’s too… stubborn.

“I have many questions,” Vex starts after a moment. “And I want you to answer them to the best of your abilities. If you want me to help in this matter, you’re going to have to be straightforward with me. Honest. If I catch you in a lie, you’re fucked.”

She doesn’t really think she’ll tell any authority about this, but she is going to use every bit of power she has to get her way and get the answers she’s desperate to have.

“Fine,” Cassandra nods. “I think that works with us.”

Vex doesn’t reply that they don’t have a choice anyway. She’s not that big of a dick.

“My very first question,” she moves forward. “How did you know my last name?” She stares at Father Reynal, with his chestnut eyes.

He sighs heavily and takes out the folder that had been on the table when she came in. He slides it over the table towards her and she takes it, and opens it.

Everything. They have everything. They have her grades and report cards from the schools she attended in Syngorn, from the noble general educations to the specialized ones, to the ones from her training with the TWC. Things on Vax as well. And then the Shademurk. Reports on the fire, a copy of the report she wrote for the TWC about what happened. Pictures of her and Saundor at the official parties he dragged her to, both because she was the ranger attached to the Shademurk, but also because she was his trophy, and he wanted to show her off.

She remembers the specific day this photo was taken on. She remembers the pretty green silk dress with the completely open back, almost the exact color of his skin. He’d insisted she made her hair in a way that uncovered her ears. He’d made a braid of vines that wrapped around her neck in a necklace. He’d called her perfect. She’d been the only non-fey in attendance, and all eyes had been on her, and on him, because he’d brought her.

She’s smiling in the photo in front of her. It was taken when she was already tipsy on sweet and heady fey wines. That was why she was smiling so much. The evening hadn’t been pleasant. Some sort of anniversary of something where she’d obviously been there for people to stare at, for Saundor to have. He had not let her move out of his side all evening, arm wrapped around her waist, hard as stone, unmovable. Possessive. She’d already known better than to try and break his hold on her, it had been months after she’d realized he was much, much stronger than her. When he decided to hold her, there was no getting out.

She slams the folder shut when it gets to more details about the fire.

Her hands are shaking when she looks up at the priest in front of her.

“Why?” She asks. Her voice is weak. It’s shaking, it’s ugly.

“We had to know who you were, who had replaced Regae. If you’d be a threat for us and Percival,” Father Reynal explains. “I’m sorry.”

He’s not. It’s obvious he’s not. Vex gets it, but it doesn’t qualm her anger and betrayal. She grabs the file in her hands. “I’m keeping this.”

None of them deny her that. Good. She would have exploded if they did.

Her mind is swimming. The pictures of those nights in the Feywild, the reports on the fire and her escape, the fiend, the trapped noble, her father’s hatred of her, these people… all of it was too much. She needs a fucking break. But they won’t let her have one.

“I need to go for a moment,” she says. This time her voice is steadier, and she’s so incredibly glad.

“You have some decisions to make,” Keeper Yennen nods.

Vex stands up. She’s not as shaky as she expected she would be. “I’ll be telling my brother all of this. You’ve involved him.” She points at the file. “Non negotiable.”

Cassandra looks a little uncomfortable at that but says nothing. Good. She’s getting Vex to help in saving her brother, Vex is involving hers.

This is too much to deal with alone, anyway. She needs Vax by her side with this. Despite everything, she needs his presence, she needs him. They’re both unsteady and neither of them are the rocks the other needs, really. But they’ve got each other and that’s at least something. It would be horrible if they couldn’t have each other.

She walks out of the temple with barely a word. She can’t do the goodbyes and everything else right now. She can’t pretend her mind isn’t full of questions and fears and anger. She needs to take time with all of this.

It’s hard. A part of her feels for Cassandra, and even the rest of them. She can understand why they did what they did, why they hid it from her, from the world. But she’s still so deeply angry about all of it.

And the file just made it so fucking worse. It’s all there, all the things she wishes to forget, all the things she prayed there were no traces of. She hoped the fire of Shademurk destroyed all evidence of her presence there, of the months spent in Saundor’s thrall.

Just like the memories and the scars she bears, just like the bow under her bed, it’s not going to go away this quickly. She should have expected pictures to be taken of the parties, she should have expected the reports to exist somewhere in the system.

What kind of research power did they even have, to acquire such information from her schools in Syngorn and the TWC?

Fuck. She gets into her truck and punches the leather outside of the wheel, cursing out loud. She puts the file down on the passenger seat and exhales. She needs to calm down. Her hands are shaking and she needs to be calmer to drive home, or she’ll drive herself into a fucking tree.

She would have thought being researched would be the worst part. But the worst part is the memories of Saundor the research brings. She’s fought so hard to put this behind her, she’s spent months bothered by horrible nightmares, every time she fell asleep. She’s better now, but this is a lot to deal with.

She really thought she was going to be safe from him now that she was hundreds of miles from the nearest portal to the Feywild. But the memories will not leave her and the scars are still obviously on her skin.

She can’t be safe. Not when she has her memories intact and his bow under her bed. It hasn’t been long enough. Maybe she’ll be done with him in a few years, or a few decades. Hopefully it will fade away faster than what her father did.

Falling from Syldor to Saundor was to be expected, now that she thinks about it. She was desperate for approval from some sort of authority figure and Saundor was that. And he had her wrapped around his little finger within days of meeting him.

Gods, she loved him. At least somewhere in the middle. Not at first, no. It had been all for comfort and pleasure. And then… at the end, it had been fear and hopelessness. But she had loved him in the middle. She’d worshipped him.

The great powerful Lord Saundor the Forsaken.

Her forehead hits the leather covering the wheel and she sighs heavily. She’s so tired. Her fingers find the key and turn it, sending the engine roaring on. The radio turns on with it as contact is made. It’s still on that pop channel since they went for a groceries run whe Vax arrived.

It feels like it happened weeks ago. The onboard calendar says it’s the 28th of Cuersaar. Vax has been in Whitestone for three days.

#mine #fic #critical role #vox machina #perc'ahlia #vex'ahlia

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sickboynotes · 3 years

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There’s a spider that’s been sitting in the corner of the bathroom for months and months and months. I thought it was dead maybe but i saw it flex it’s leg yesterday

There was a blizzard and I went and put on my boots and flightsuit and jacket and gloves and went and sat in the snow. Wind roaring, the kind of wind and snow where you try to take a breath and all the air gets sucked out of your lungs

Everything is in that phase where it’s all yellow and dead and white and black. All the dead grasses and the asphalt and the snow

Saw a dead caterpillar on the trail. Fuzzy, black and brown. It was first thaw so really we were just wading through mud, plum had the time of her life though.

Saw a herd of deer at fort snelling at dusk, later we saw, too late- my exceptionally unobservant (and not wearing glasses at the time) but there was a big buck in the center of the trail that I didn’t register until we were maybe ten feet away from it and plum let out a tiny bark, it moved fast but it was that sort of situation where things happen very slowly, I just felt like I was looking into it’s face for a very long time before it left.

Baby bald eagle

We come back along the trail, the parent is gliding on the wind circling the water

There was a noise coming above us, I thought it was a bird but Erick thought it was a frog

Had a nightmare about the deer that we thought had chronic wasting disease but really it had been attacked by something, it was genuinely an awful sight, that wandered into our friends yard while we were sitting there

The spider in the bathroom really moved today! It bolted across the wall and tried to catch lunch in some gnat that lacked the sense to not fly by. The spider missed, anyhow.

First hailstorm of the year! I really don’t look forward to leaving, I love the sort of biblical weather that’s common here. Being a little kid and getting yelled at to come inside because tornados are dangerous and so is hail.

Saw murmurations of Starlings up near Fargo! I’ve only seen them a handful of times but this time I saw like six different groups and managed to get decent video, I showed it to my grandpa and he was unimpressed which I thought was a little funny, he’s the crybaby and the bird expert of the family.

Went and picked up some paper and saw an individual turkey standing on the traffic barrier post in the middle of downtown St. Paul, very funny just watching it sit there.

Plum (my dog) ate a piece of already chewed gum today!!! Which I really would have preferred she didn’t as it’s poisonous to her, but we called pet poison control and she’ll be fine thank god, but I can’t help but be like would you just go into the forest and start eating neon blue things? Like that’s Always gonna be poisonous to you. So why do

that?????

Went on a very long walk, the jury is most likely going to finish deliberating tomorrow. I realized I could not think at all and could clear my head so I walked out the door and speedwalked in a giant circle for two hours in the rain which is exactly what I needed I think. I found an instant photo on the ground of two people with backpacking gear on kissing.

Swarms of birds just soaring on the wind over the valley (that functions as the border between MN and WI. I felt my heart leap in jealousy over and over again each time I saw a bird complete a circle.

We went camping and saw a few herds of bison. There was a flock of geese fighting and screeching at least until 1AM, and they were still going at it when I woke up at 6. While sort of laughing at myself because I already knew the answer I texted my grandfather asking if geese were nocturnal

Was staring at the ceiling trying to think and there was a little wispy spider. I pointed him out and Erick said he’d been in that corner for months

Lots of little chunky spiders on the trail in the prairie, I haven’t ever spent significant time in western Minnesota so every time I’m there it’s really striking how western Minnesota feels like... well. The West. All hilly and yellow and endless.

Was coming down a somewhat busy road and there were a flock of turkeys crossing (or refusing, rather) to cross the road. Not really that uncommon but I haven’t seen a whole flock outside of Northeast.

The Cooperman’s said no to going out to the badlands (“you want us to go to MEDORA?!”) which. It’s a loss because that means we can’t use Sam’s rav4 but it’s fine I have other friends that want to go hang out on a cliff side or whatever the technical geological term is!!

We fell asleep and woke up to two river otters swimming back and forth ten feet in front of our tent which was... mostly just really surreal.

Also woke up at like five to a blue jay singing it’s song. And woodpeckers

Saw my grandparents for the first time in... four or five months now that we’re all fully vaxxed and I don’t remember what brought it up but we were talking about how many bison there used to be, and I brought up how passenger pigeons used to turn the sky dark and my grandfather said “Martha died in 1914 in Cincinnati”, apparently referring to the last living passenger pigeon. And then he made a joke about how he can’t remember anything important but he can remember that. I thought it was really sweet since he used to keep pigeons until my grandma developed pigeon fanciers lung.

It’s the time of year when you can see ducklings all in a line in the pond/drainage ditches off the freeway

Milo says I can take the train up to Vermont and sit in the mountains with him if I ever want to get away from the city. But ultimately, I don’t have business in Vermont, I have business in New York.

I looked up and suddenly everything was green, the trees aren’t just budding anymore. The trial really ate March and April out of everyone’s conscious here I think

Went over to my grandparents and they have every bird ever in their yard, and two albino squirrels and bees that Do Not Like my grandfather.

This is mostly like wishful thinking in regard to “nature” or really it might be a sort of anti nature but I want to go to White Sands so badly. I’ve wanted to go to the Trinity test site for a handful of years but this year is the first time it’s feasible- except they only open it to the public two days a year and none I don’t think this year because of covid. So I want to go camp in the missile range, since that’s as close as we can get to the trinity site. It’s a compulsion- a circle that I desperately want closed, but we have to go as soon as possible once school is done if I don’t want to die of dehydration in the desert.

The river is thawed and judging by the calendar it’s been thawed for a good long while. We went to a park by the river and I realized I’ve only ever lived in cities with a major river cutting through downtown. I don’t want to leave the Mississippi. Anyway, the giant sheriffs boat sitting there ruined any sort of quiet introspective moment I could have had.

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