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homeformyheart · 3 years

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traditions - nate sewell x m!detective (twc)

day 14 - valentines

author’s note: this is my gift for @sasuketomatothief as part of the @loveinwayhaven event, i hope you enjoy!

copyright: all characters, except the detective, are owned by mishka jenkins @seraphinitegames. detective seth kingson is @sasuketomatothief’s. series/pairing: the wayhaven chronicles – nate sewell x m!detective (seth kingston) rating/warnings: none; fluff word count: ~1k based on/prompt: day 14 – valentines from #28dateswithunitbravo challenge by @wayhavenmonthly for the @loveinwayhaven event summary: nate has lots of valentine’s day surprises in store for seth.

traditions

nate rubbed his hands together and blew on them to try to warm them up before shoving them back into the pockets of his coat. he bounced on the toes of his feet, feeling more excited than he had in a very long time, longer than he cared to admit. he looked up at the sun setting over the trees in the square just beyond the station, pink and orange streaks interspersed by low-hanging clouds.

seth’s shift would be over soon and after weeks of planning, nate would finally get to take his boyfriend out on a proper, romantic date. and not just any date. a proper valentine’s date. nate couldn’t remember the last time he was with someone with whom valentine’s day could mean more than just a commercialized holiday.

he remembered when valentine’s first started to become a way for members of all social classes to exchange tokens of affection in line with societal norms at the time. compared to the era he was born into, he may have gone a bit overboard with his gifts and plans but if anyone deserved to be lavished, it was seth.

“oh, hello there. can’t get enough of me, i see,” seth teased, stepping out of the station with arms full of the things nate had gotten him.

a giant teddy bear that covered seth’s face, a gift basket of assorted chocolates and snacks, a handcrafted card, wrapped gift box, and a small banner that he painted the words “be my valentine?” in bright red letters all jockeyed precariously for support across his chest.

“sorry, i went overboard, didn’t i?” nate asked sheepishly, grabbing the giant stuffed plushie and gift basket from seth so he could at least see where he was walking.

seth laughed, tossing his head to move loose hair out of his eyes and nate couldn’t help but watch how the filtered rays of the sun cast a soft glow on his hair. and he certainly didn’t mind how seth’s laugh sent a pleasant bubbly tingle floating through his veins.

“i don’t mind, nate. of course, tina and verda had a field day teasing me about it, but i don’t remember the last time i was with someone that made celebrating valentine’s actually mean something,” he said with a wink as they fell into a comfortable pace towards his apartment.

“good, i’m glad to hear it. i wanted our first valentine’s together to be memorable and i’ve always been so curious about modern valentine’s traditions,” nate said cheerfully, shifting the basket and bear to one side so he could reach for seth’s hand.

“i’m just happy that we get to spend time together. i don’t think we need a holiday to ‘celebrate,’ if you know what i mean,” seth said, giving nate’s hand a squeeze.

“thank you for indulging me then. you are very special to me and i’ve never celebrated the holiday before,” nate said as they opened the door to his apartment.

a delicious smell wafted from seth’s kitchen and he poked his head in the door before swiveling around to nate, mouth agape in surprise.

“what is all this?”

nate chuckled as he set down the gifts in the living room before joining seth in the kitchen. “i thought i’d make dinner for you,” he gave seth his trademark knee-weakening smile as he walked past him into the kitchen. “the roast should be just about done. why don’t you relax and get settled in?”

“what did i do to deserve you?” seth murmured, holding nate’s face in his hands and giving him a soft kiss.

“i’m the one who wonders that every day,” nate said, eyes shining with honesty before he moved to finish preparing the meal.

no matter what nate said, seth couldn’t help but feel incredibly lucky that someone who had lived as long as nate had would find him of all people, interesting and attractive enough to want something more. he also couldn’t remember the last time someone made him a home-cooked meal, and for someone that didn’t need to eat human food to survive, nate definitely knew his way around the kitchen.

the roast and vegetables were perfectly seasoned and tender, perfectly complementing the vintage red wine nate must’ve brought over from his personal collection at the warehouse. the conversation between them flowed effortlessly, as though they had been together for ages, without the constant threat of danger. and to be honest, seth loved it.

“i have one more surprise for you,” nate said softly. “if you’ll indulge me one more time, please.”

seth looked at him with one eyebrow raised but nodded, following nate out the window in his bedroom and up to the roof. they were definitely not supposed to be up here, and he wondered when and what nate had set up.

a corner of the rooftop had been sectioned off by at least fifty candles around a thick blanket. the flickering flames from the lit candles swayed with the soft winter breeze, illuminating the bottle of champagne and fruit platter that had been set out.

“wow,” seth breathed, stunned. “when did you do all this?”

he turned to nate to find him rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “i may have asked felix for help setting this up while we had dinner. i know it’s a little cold out, but i thought we could enjoy a little stargazing together.”

“it’s perfect, thank you,” he said softly as they made themselves comfortable on the blanket.

seth poured them both a glass of champagne before raising his in a toast.

“to many more nights like this, whether it’s valentine’s day or not,” seth said, smiling.

nate gently clinked his glass against seth’s. “to celebrating many more traditions and creating new ones of our own.”

he set his glass down and leaned into seth’s shoulder, curling his body against him and letting the warmth permeate his body as they looked up at the stars in the sky.

* * * * * permatag: @kelseaaa; @kat-tia801; @anotherbeingsworld; @crackerdumortain; @pearlsandsteel; @gloynporslen; @sosolenoo; @alyssalauren; @wayhavenots; @gingerbreton; @takemyopenheart; @writer-ish; @fhauvilles; nate x detective: @missameliep;

#28DWUB #nate sewell x detective #nate sewell #twc fic #twc fanfic #nate x detective #my writing #my prompt fill #twc prompt fills #twc #the wayhaven chronicles #28dateswithunitbravo #loveinwayhaven #sasuketomatothief #twc fanfiction #day 14 #valentines #not choices

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enkelimagnus · 3 years

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A Castle in the Forest

Percy x Vex’ahlia, Chapter 4, 3337 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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The Lady’s Chamber is an amphitheatre, standing facing the crossroads of the second biggest crossing of Whitestone. Vex has driven by it a couple of times now, and she’s always seen a couple of worshippers there. Now that she knows the state of the Zenith’s congregation, it seems like this one is much more popular.

The theater part is domed in cream-colored stone. It’s in much better shape than the Zenith, despite the desolate patches of grass peeking out of the stones of the courtyard surrounding it. It’s winter however, so desolate grass is no real surprise.

Whitestone feels a little less like somewhere she could run away and hide in now that she’s felt the heaviness lingering in the city’s past. Vex is a little shaken by Father Reynal, his attitude and the state of his temple.

It’s mid afternoon and the sun has descended greatly on the horizon. Shadows grow as she steps closer to the door to the inner part of the Lady’s Chamber. The theater itself is empty, but she’s hoping the sanctum will at least have a priest. And with luck, this priest will be able to help her root the fiend out.

The door is made of metal and she knocks on it with the scale-shaped knocker. Someone must have been right behind it, because she doesn’t have to wait very long before it opens.

Vex tries not to let her disappointment show on her face. The person behind the door has thick white mustaches and receding white hair and looks weathered by time. He probably won’t be up for a hike and a battle with a fiend.

Fuck, what is it with this town and elderly clerics?

“Can I help you, ser?” The older priest says with a polite but not incredibly cheerful smile.

“Good day, Elder,” Vex replies in kind, before starting to explain again who she is and why she’s there. The facts haven't changed since she’s talked to Father Reynal.

She’s faced with a similar look from this priest than Father Reynal’s. A muted concern, and light dismissal. She’s already tired of this town’s clergy and she doesn’t even know this one’s name.

“Come in, for a moment,” the priest says before letting Vex into the sanctum of the temple.

It’s a simple main room with a rectangular wooden table. The legs are sturdy, skillfully carved. Contrary to the Zenith, this priest doesn’t seem to be alone. Sitting around the table, looking up at Vex as she enters, are two individuals.

With her bow strapped to her back and her muddy boots, Vex initially felt like a sore thumb in these holy places. But when her eyes fall on one of the people in this room, she suddenly feels much better about herself.

Across the table from the entrance is a goliath. Vex has never talked to one, or been so close really. She knew there were a few working for the TWC, but none that she actually met. She’s seen a couple in passing.

They must be at least seven feet tall, skin grey and heavily tattooed all over their back and bald head. A giant axe, fit for their hand, rests against the table by their left side. By their right is sitting the other figure. Next to the goliath, this gnome looks even smaller.

Their skin is a strange purple, almost brown, their hair black with a dark purple streak. It’s a charming thing really. The difference between these two is almost comical. Vex is immediately interested.

“This young ranger seems to have picked up a fiend in the forest,” the priest says.

The goliath looks up in interest. “Do you want us to go smash it for you?”

Vex chuckles lightly. “Actually yes,” she points out. “Do you have divine gifts?”

The gnome next to the goliath laughs out lightly, looking over at their companion. “Oh, that’s funny!” Their voice is high and unbelievably sweet. Vex finds herself softening a little towards them, for no reason outside of that laugh and that voice.

“I don’t,” the goliath shrugs. “I mostly can smash things. But she’s got all the divine shit you want,” they gesture towards the gnome.

“My name is Pike Trickfoot,” the gnome introduces themselves, nodding. “I’m a cleric of the Everlight, Sarenrae. And this is Grog Strongjaw.”

Oh that is definitely what Vex needs. The Everlight is a goddess of redemption and healing and that’s absolutely the energy needed to combat a fiend and save an enthralled half-elf. It’s hard enough to charm those of elven blood, so the fiend is either powerful or very lucky. Or both. Let’s not hope for that, though.

“Vex’ahlia, ranger of the Tal’Dorei Wilderness Conservation program, stationed in the Alabaster Sierra's outpost,” she introduces herself machinally. “So you’d be willing to help?”

She’s maybe a little too business-minded, but she’s just… tired, and worried about this druid out there all alone and probably in dangerous situations.

“I would need a couple of days of preparation and some more information, but I can probably do something, yes,” the gnome, Pike, replies.

“I sensed them on the western edge of the stone platform Castle Whitestone stands on,” Vex starts explaining. “It’s reachable through a path, but it does require quite the bit of walking.”

The priest, who has been silent for a few moments, shifts, clearing their throat.

“We’re up for walking,” Pike smiles. Grog nods. They seem to be working as a pair. “In two days at dawn? If that works for you.”

It sounds almost too good to be true. She still doesn’t know the name of the priest whose temple she’s come into, but their guests are planning to help her with the fiend. After Father Reynal’s pushback, she was really not expecting much from the Lady’s Chamber.

“That works,” Vex nods. “We will meet at the mouth of the path? If you have a phone number, I could give you the map to it?”

They exchange numbers, the gnome writing out ‘Pike Trickfoot’ with a sparkle emoji as her contact. Vex just puts herself in as Ranger Vex’ahlia. Simple and to the point, she doesn’t know this sunshine of a person. She’s not going to have little personal things in there.

The priest next to them clears their throat again. Vex sends them a look. They seem to be nervous about something. They’ve now cleared their throat many times. They’re either sick or they are uncomfortable. Or, third option, they’re trying to make the gnome and the goliath notice something. Vex’ eyes narrow.

Pike smiles, looking at Vex with a warm glint to her eyes. “I do hope this will be easy work and that we will not risk too much. But we never know, with these things. Keeper Yennen has seen enough of these in his days, haven’t you?” She asks the priest who sighs.

“We’re divine servants,” he says heavily. “All our paths are eventually called to cross with a fiend’s. It comes with the faith, unfortunately.”

Vex keeps watching him. There’s something uneasy about this situation. Pike seems to be referring to something the priest does not want to discuss. Yet another untold horror. This town holds one at every corner. Everywhere Vex looks, she can see one.

“You should leave now,” Keeper Yennen nods.

This feels like déjà vu. Because it is. Once again, Vex is shoved away from a conversation, from knowledge. Once again, she politely takes the cue and leaves. She’s starting to get a little tired of it.

She hopes that, in a couple of days, she can ask Pike a couple of questions about this place.

On her way out of the courtyard surrounding the Lady’s Chamber, someone bumps hard into Vex’s shoulder. She’s seen them coming, with their long blue coat and their brown boots, but she really thought there was space for them to cross without bumping. She curses at the sudden ache that radiates into her arm and chest and whips around.

“I’m sorry!” The person she’s just bumped into says, their right hand raising to rub over their left shoulder, while Vex is rubbing her right one. They seem younger than Vex, about eighteen years old. It’s hard to tell really, with this world they all live in, this world where everyone ages differently at different rates. They seem human, but they could very much be eight hundred years old.

They’re familiar in the same way Father Reynal was. Which makes sense, because Vex saw them at the same place, at the same time, she realizes immediately.

They’re about the same size and stature as Vex is. Their hair is dark brown, almost black, but streaking with white around the temples. They had been standing in front of the Zenith, speaking with Father Reynal, when Vex drove by after her very first supply run.

“It’s all fine,” Vex shrugs.

“Have a good day!” They call out as they rush towards the Lady’s Chamber.

Vex raises an eyebrow at the retreating figure. Two temples at once? Or maybe a new convert of Erathis. Father Reynal did say the worship of Pelor has dwindled in this town.

Everyone she has met in this town, except for the gnome and the goliath, has a strange nervous energy about them. They all seem to struggle with hiding secrets, as if the skeletons are too big to fit in the closets they try to force them in. The truth, or at least the story, of what has happened in Whitestone in the past few years is eager to jump out and reveal itself.

Vex wants to know. After today, there’s no doubt about it. She wants to know about this fiend and about Castle Whitestone. About what happened to the De Rolos and why they’re gone. About the empty temples and the half dead tree in the center of town.

She guesses it’s a little rich of her to want to know and stop people from lying to her, when she’s herself running from the past and refuses to tell anyone her own last name. When she’s trying to hide her own past from herself.

She drives back home quietly, without the radio on. She lets her own thoughts be loud for once, no matter how uncomfortable it is to hear her own self-reflection, to discuss her past and future with this horrible nagging thing that is her own mind.

The sun is setting over the trees, she has a cub to take care of, and she wants to rest. She wants to light a fire, make some coffee and settle by the warmth with the cub napping on her feet.

The loneliness is getting more than bearable, it’s getting enjoyable. She loves the quiet of her cabin in the evenings, when she hears that lone wolf cry out. She’s never heard any other wolf respond to it. Poor creature. She can relate to what it must be feeling.

She does all as planned, gathers her things and makes her fire and settles with a blanket. She brushes out her hair. It’s growing more than it used to. It had fallen a lot when she was in Shademurk Bog, especially in the last couple of months, when it had gotten unbearable. It’s growing again now. She’s growing again.

Right as she’s about to fall asleep, the wolf cries. And to her great surprise, a second cry answers it. She goes to sleep with a smile on her face, and the cub snuggled against her chest. She stopped making him sleep in the crate some time ago.

Vex awakes to a chill and misty forest morning. She sees the fog wrap around the trees. The ones around the cabin are a little thinner, a little younger. The forest itself gets thinner around civilisation, as if to protect its oldest, most precious mysteries with barriers upon barriers of younger fodder.

She’s halfway through her breakfast when the talkie-walkie hisses with an incoming call. The thing that’s not supposed to work, because the other half of the pair of walkies was lost with the previous ranger.

“Hello? Hello, is there anyone here?”

The voice seems a little anxious, a little hurried. Something’s wrong. Vex bolts from her chair and rushes to the dust-covered walkie.

“Ranger Vex’ahlia, speaking. Can you tell me what’s happening?” She asks, forcing her voice to stay calm and soothing.

“Yeah, huh, hi, huh,” the voice continues. “We found this and a body? In the middle of a clearing?”

A body? Vex’s heart freezes in her chest and she forces herself to swallow. She’s trained for this. She needs to call in the local authorities, which she knows to be the Pale Guard. She grabs her phone from her pocket without thinking, ready to dial as she walks.

“Can you tell me where you are?” She responds. “There should be a trail marker within a hundred yards of you, if you haven’t strayed too far from the path. I’ll be there asap.”

The walkie goes quiet then, and she waits with bated breath for the person to contact her back with a position. It takes a few horrible frozen minutes for the receiver to crackle again, and she’s given the coordinates.

“I’ll be there asap,” she repeats. ”I will be contacting the authorities too, so do not be surprised if members of the Pale Guard arrive as well.”

“Okay, thank you,” the voice replies.

Vex volts back, dialing the Pale Guard emergency number that gets her directly to someone without going through any helplines. She slides the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she straps her quiver to her thigh and grabs her bow. She puts her coat on and walks into the foggy morning.

It takes her about forty-five minutes to get to the trail marker she was given. She follows instructions and finds the camp of the person that contacted her quickly. A fire is lit in the center of an encampment of three small orange tents. She notices a crossbow resting against one of the tents’ sides.

“Hello? I’m the ranger you had on the walkie,” she calls out.

Three figures come out of the tent with the crossbow. They’re tall, two humans and a dwarf. One of the humans, tall with blonde hair, has a smaller version of a quiver strapped to their thigh.

The dwarf’s right hand is gloved, and in the glove, they hold the walkie. It’s dirty, with dark stains that Vex already knows is blood.

“Thank you for coming,” one of the humans says.

“I’m doing my job,” she replies. “Now show me the body.”

They take her a little bit further from the camp. The body is half-sat against a tree. The right side of it is burnt to a crisp and the left is wracked by large claw marks. The blood that burst from those wounds has long dried on the intact clothing.

There’s no way Vex can recognize them by looking at their face, half is charred and the other is almost fully melted from the heat, frozen now into a horrifying grimace. No wonder those who found the body sounded so tense on the walkie.

Her eyes fall on the insignia on the mostly intact part of the clothing. She swallows. It’s a triangular shape, of a burnt orange color, with the silhouette of Tal’Dorei in dark green over it. The letters TWC are written in white over the continent. Vex wears the insignia’s twin on her coat.

It’s Regae. It has to be. She doesn’t know of any other people from the TWC in the area, and the body isn’t old enough to be a previous ranger. Regae had been there for fifty years when he disappeared.

She takes a deep breath. “Alright,” she nods. “Thank you for calling me in. The Pale Guard will be here shortly to identify what has happened there.”

The human with the small quiver now has their crossbow in hand, ready to go. Machinally, Vex searches for the crossbow bolts and what they look like. She did make a promise, however unspoken, to the cub, after all.

Her sight falls on the ends of the crossbow bolts, the fletching. The pattern is immediately familiar. It’s the same one as the one she had to pull out of her sleeping cub. Her eyes narrow at the human.

“May I have your name, please?” She asks, trying to keep the anger from her voice. It seems to work, as the human doesn’t look as suspicious as he would have otherwise. She takes an arrow out of her quiver.

“Donavan Clarence,” the human nods.

“I see you enjoy hunting, Donovan,” Vex gestures towards the crossbow. “What kind of game are you after? Are you more of a pheasant type, or do you go after bigger prey? Let’s say, bears for example.”

Her voice is cold as ice now, her hand on her bow, ready to notch the arrow, draw back, and shoot.

The human stares at her intensely. “Why are you asking?” They growl.

“Maybe because it’s my fucking job to keep the innocent creatures of this forest safe from criminals like you,” she shrugs, and draws her bow.

She’s incredibly close to them, and if she shoots, it will hurt. They both know it. She hopes the Pale Guard isn’t far. By killing the mother of the cub, Donovan Clarence has committed a crime. National Parks protect the creatures they watch.

The human looks at her, full of contempt. “You have no idea what you’re doing, half-elf,” they hiss. Their hand drifts to the bolts and Vex’ hand loosens.

The arrow shoots through the hair and goes straight through the palm of the human. They scream in surprised pain. Blood gushes out of the wound and starts streaming down their hand and arm, soaking their sleeve.

Around them, the two others get their swords out, ready to defend their friend. Vex swallows. Okay, maybe she jumped into this one a little too early. With lightning-fast motions, she notches another arrow into the bow.

“You have no right to hurt the creatures of this park,” Vex continues. “The only person allowed to deal with threats in here is me.”

“It was a last minute situation, ser!” The other human tries, but their voice falters with hesitation and Vex knows they’re lying.

The cold eyes of Donovan Clarence and their total lack of remorse is enough to see clearly through this conversation. They had fun killing an innocent bear and trying to kill its cub as well. It was pure cruelty.

“The Pale Guard is on its way,” Vex reminds, taking a step back to encompass all of them in her line of sight. “You have no choice but to surrender. The one who killed the bear, if they’re not the same as Ser Clarence, will probably be arrested for poaching.”

She can see them start to shift uncomfortably. They’re calm for now, but this is not going to continue to be calm if it goes on much longer. Her bow is drawn again.

They stay like this, waiting for one of them to make a move, for what feels like an hour. It’s probably close to a couple of seconds before there’s noise coming from the path and a loud shout of “Pale Guard, put your weapons down!”.

Vex exhales. Thank the Gods for this. She knows she wouldn’t have been able to take down three people. They may not look strong enough to match her one-on-one, but this would have been three-on-one. She wouldn’t have come out of there looking good, if at all.

She gets to explain her point and the Pale Guard believes her. She’ll have to answer more questions in town, but they know what her job is, and she introduced herself when she first arrived. It also seems like Donovan Clarence has been suspected to be a criminal hunter for a long time. They’re just finally able to get some proof of it.

As Clarence and their buddies are taken away, Vex’ attention is violently brought back to the very dead body of the previous ranger. One of the members of the Pale Guard there is now crouched by the body, running spells over it to try and determine cause and date of death.

They get back up and walk back to where Vex is standing, arms crossed, looking quite worried.

“We’ve found traces of fiendish magic on the burnt side of this body,” they explain. “You have a fiend on your hands, ser.”

Vex sighs. “Thank you,” she nods. “I sensed a fiendish presence around Castle Whitestone yesterday.”

The guard looks around. “We’re quite far from the Castle Whitestone, in a completely different direction.”

That’s true, but she’s pretty sure the range of her trance would be enough to find a fiend around this area. “How long have they been dead?”

There’s more looking around and more thoughtful pondering airs on the guard’s face. They’re writing things absent-mindedly on a red-covered notepad.

“With the weather here and all… I would say about four months.”

Four months? That means there’s been a fiend around the forest for at least that long. Vex prays to anyone that can hear that Regae hadn’t been investigating other deaths from the same creature when they found it.

“Would the Pale Guard be able to lend me a couple of people to help defeat the fiend?” Vex asks after a moment.

The guard stares at her. “The Pale Guard isn’t trained to hunt creatures in the Parchwood Timberlands, ser.”

“It’s ma’am,” Vex specifies more out of habit than anything else. “Then who is trained to do that?”

They tense slightly, closing up their little notepad and shoving their hands in their pockets. “That would be the Grey Hunt, ma’am, but they haven’t really been around since…”

Has she stumbled upon another one of those untold stories, again? How many fucking mysteries are there in this godsforsaken town?

“Since what? I’m new here, I don’t know anything about the local history,” she snaps.

“Since the De Rolo massacre.”

Almost immediately after that, their superior calls for the guard she’s been talking to and they’re delighted to escape. Vex curses at the retreating back of the humanoid and stomps one foot in the soft floor of the forest.

The De Rolo massacre. What the fuck happened in this city? Why won’t anyone tell her about it? She can feel her own frustration growing in her chest. She wishes she was a black dragon, so she could spit out that angry acid.

After that, none of the guards seem to want to talk much to her. They pack up the body of Regae to bring it to their lab and verify the readings of the initial spells, and only nod at her goodbye.

She’s left alone in the clearing, with fire burnt out and the tents still fixed into the ground.

#perc'ahlia #fic #mine #vox machina #critical role #percy de rolo #vex'ahlia

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sciencespies · 5 years

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Watch 30 Years Of Earthquakes Rock California In This Remarkable Animation

https://sciencespies.com/news/watch-30-years-of-earthquakes-rock-california-in-this-remarkable-animation/

Watch 30 Years Of Earthquakes Rock California In This Remarkable Animation

It can be difficult to imagine volcanic or seismic activity over considerable lengths of time. Although geoscientists are trained to think in those terms, it doesn’t always mean such a notion comes naturally. Sometimes, it helps to put things together into an animation, and a recent one by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (TWC) is a beautiful example of how impactful they can be.

Thirty years of quakes in the southwestern United States.

Pacific TWC

Although it could be on the decline a little, it could be argued that there’s a renewed media/public interest in earthquakes right now, and I’d reckon that’s largely because of the Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence, which is still ongoing. Whenever a major quake rocks California, everyone’s on the lookout for more quake stories elsewhere around the world, devastating though they may or may not be – it’s all about trending topics, really.

This sequence first came to public light when a magnitude 6.4 quake struck Southern California on Independence Day. Then, the following day, a magnitude 7.1 quake struck the same area, making the previous day’s quake a foreshock, and the July 5 temblor the mainshock. Ever since, there have been, per the Los Angeles Times, more than 80,000 aftershocks and counting – perfectly normal for earthquakes of those sizes. As is expected, a handful of those aftershocks have come in at or above magnitude 5.0, enough to cause damage; hundreds more have registered as magnitude 3.0 or above events, which are sufficient to be felt at the surface.

There have been plenty of people online wondering if these earthquakes are “normal”, or if they’re the precursor to something terrifying, or if they are linked to any other quakes elsewhere in the region or even further afield. The fact is that although the high magnitude of these quakes meant that they are, in terms of energy released, relatively rare, earthquakes happen in California all the time. Forget the famous San Andrews fault – thanks to the inexorable, side-by-side grinding action of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, there are a myriad of faults in the region, some of which slip and create quakes pretty much all the time.

A recent, groundbreaking study used some rather clever algorithms to go back through the modern seismic record of Southern California to pick out earthquakes that seismometers (and those monitoring them) may have missed; temblors that slipped through, disguised as background noise like traffic or even strong wind battering the surface. Scientists eventually found more than 1.81 million previously undetected quakes that took place from 2008 to 2017, with some coming in as weak as magnitude 0.3 events.

Such tiny earthquakes have previously not made the news due to their stealthy capabilities, but even those failing to reach a magnitude 3.0 aren’t likely to generate headlines either – below this magnitude, they’re likely too weak to be felt by people, and extremely unlikely to be strong enough to cause any sort of infrastructural damage. Despite that, they happen, and are happening, all the time there – California is just one very seismically active part of the US.

That’s why this animation is utterly fantastic: it shows plenty (but far from all) the quakes that have rocked the region in the past 30 years, including the depth of the fault that slipped. It also includes several powerful shakes that are certainly in the same league as the stars of the Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence; these include the magnitude 7.2 quake at Cape Mendocino back in April 1992, which caused a tiny tsunami – hence, why the Pacific TWC made this animation in the first place.

Those recent temblors aren’t connected to anything happening elsewhere in the world, geologically speaking. As this animation shows, this is just this part of the world doing its thing and letting off some stress by triggering plenty of (mostly imperceptible) earthquakes.

Look at these earthquakes, y’all! And not one of them caused the Cascadia subduction zone to fail or triggered a Yellowstone eruption. Thanks, @NWS_PTWC! https://t.co/rMtbokhp6Y

— Jackie Caplan-Auerbach (@geophysichick) July 22, 2019

At this point, however, I feel it’s pertinent to bring up the ‘big one’ – which is always on people’s minds every time a major quake or two takes place in California.

First, there is no technical definition of what the big one is, and it means different-ish things and involves entirely different tectonic settings and faults to, say, people up in the Cascadia Subduction Zone in North California and northwards, compared to those in Central and Southern California.

In terms of California, to which the term is more closely and colloquially associated, the ‘big one’ generally refers to a cataclysmic rupture somewhere along the San Andreas fault, which is a little over 1,280 kilometres (800 miles) long, and has plenty of smaller faults shooting off from it. This, sadly, is inevitable, but it’s impossible for anyone to say when and where exactly this will take place, and how powerful it will be.

Physical and mathematical laws do allow seismologists to forecast the ‘big one’, though, using wide-ranging probabilities. All the available data means that, per the USGS, there is a 31% chance a magnitude 7.5 event will take place in the Los Angeles region within the next 30 years, with that rising to a 46% chance for a magnitude 7. For a magnitude 6.7 quake, it’s 60 percent.

For the San Francisco Bay area, within the same three decades, there is a 20% chance of a magnitude 7.5 temblor occurring, which jumps to 51% chance if it’s a magnitude 7 quake and to 72 percent if it’s a magnitude 6.7 temblor.

The big one will be any powerful enough quake to sufficiently damage one of these cities and cause a fair few deaths. As you can tell, the Ridgecrest mainshock, in terms of magnitude, is definitely up there with these powerful future quakes. Magnitude isn’t everything, though: high or not, much of the damage potential comes down to location, location, location, and fortunately, those powerful July quakes were far from Los Angeles or San Francisco.

The big one is sadly inevitable, wherever in California it happens – an inevitable consequence of the tectonic forces at play in the region. As this new animation hopefully conveys, though, California is trembling pretty much constantly, with many of these quakes operating independently of one another. So, with that in mind, if anyone other than a bona fide geoscientist attempts to link any of these to the eventual big one, I promise you that they are talking out of their posterior.

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