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junie-bugg · 4 years

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The Heartrender - Chapter Two: Embers

Hey everyone!

Here’s chapter two, in which a truce is struck, crude jokes are made, and we learn more of Peeta’s childhood.

You can read here on Tumblr or here on AO3 (I suggest reading on AO3 because I add a poem at the beginning of each chapter that I feel fits nicely with the story’s themes or the chapter’s plot.)

Big shoutout to my beta reader @nonbinarypeeta. You da best music💕

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content

Relationship: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark

Tags: Enemies to Lovers, witch!Katniss, witch-hunter!Peeta, AU - Shipwrecked, AU - Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Explicit Sexual Content, Furs and Fires, Angst and Fluff and Smut, sexually experienced Katniss, virgin Peeta, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Loss of Virginity, Laughter During Sex, Blood and Injury, Imprisonment, Peeta has some prejudices to work out, Peeta also has an accent, Inspired by Six of Crows

Summary:

He hated her. He hated her for what she was: an abomination, a demon sent to tear at the fabric of the natural world. He hated her for making him want to laugh. He hated her for being so brazen and sensuous and everything the women of his country were never allowed to be. But mostly he hated her because he realized he didn’t hate her. Not even a little bit.

After a shipwreck has left an abducted witch and a member of the ominous Order bent on wiping out her kind stranded on the icy shores of an uninhabited land, the two must work together to survive or face tearing each other apart in the process.

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

ALSO, I made a map! Yes, I am that level of writer nerd. (If you look closely, there’s a little Hunger Game’s reference in there. Let me know if you see it, lmaooo.)

Chapter Two: Embers

His commander had gone into the city for the night, leaving the crew on standby at the docks. Their ship, lovingly named The Bloody Rose, needed tending and Peeta, an exhausted soldier running on three hours of sleep, needed a drink. He longed for a pint of proper ale. Not the bitter swill that the ship’s cook had distilled.

A chilled autumn wind whistled through the harbor, jostling netted shrouds and furled sails. The white and blue flag of Sjorkden snapped proudly above the crow’s nest where Thomas Jaclin quietly kept watch. There was a muted hush about the night, as if the world were holding its breath in anticipation, knowing something was about to happen. At this point, with his chores done and nothing left for him to do except lose another round of cards or go off to bed, Peeta wished something would.

He was nursing a cup of moonshine and chatting with his friend, Yasser Pjengo, when they heard the sounds of a scuffle. He and Yasser crossed the deck and looked down onto the dock that the ship was moored to.

There, struggling to drag someone up the gangplank, was the commander.

“Commander on deck!” Peeta announced with all the authority he could muster, hoping his voice carried down to the lower levels to rouse the men from their games. Peeta had only recently been promoted to lieutenant, and he was going to prove he deserved it. He felt a rush of pride swell within him when the crew emerged from their sleeping quarters, blinking both the mist of alcohol and the gleam of gambling from their eyes.

Commander Snow was of medium height with a thick beard and hard blue eyes. Though the hairs at his temples were gray, the way he carried himself was young. He spoke softly but commanded the kind of respect that caused listeners to lean in and catch every word. He now dragged a young girl with him onto the ship. Her red dress was torn and low cut, revealing the hollow between her breasts. A few strands of hair had been pulled from a tar-black braid to hang limply in front of her face. She had a blooming bruise on her jaw and a cut above her eye but otherwise seemed unharmed.

“Men! Say hello to our newest addition. From what I’ve seen so far, she’s sure to be a feisty one.”

Some of the crew had laughed and hooted, including Peeta, but the girl snarled as she twisted and spat in the commander’s face. In return he sent a heavy punch to her gut, causing her to whimper and double over in pain.

“I have to warn you all. This here is no ordinary witch. She’s a Heartrender.”

Peeta sucked in a breath and felt a chill pass through the assembled crew like a breeze passes through dead grass.

“A Heartrender…”

“One of her kind cursed my uncle. Turned his feet backward.”

“I heard they could snap your neck with a flick of a finger.”

“They don’t just stop hearts. They cut them out and eat them.”

Peeta had heard of Krellian Heartrenders. The rarest of the witches, Heartrenders could use their magic to manipulate bodies: peel the flesh from bone, collapse lungs, knot intestines, burst eyes in their sockets. He could only imagine what she would unleash upon them if her hands weren’t locked into those metal hand caps.

Snow cleared his throat to quiet the men. A hush fell over the deck.

“I see you’ve all heard the stories. If you let her out of those shackles, we’re all dead. I want at least one guard on her at all times.” His eyes shifted to Peeta in the front row. “Mellark, you take the first watch. Gerholt will take over at midnight, then Dawson, then Pjengo. This will be a rotating schedule. You’ll all get a chance with her before this voyage is over.” He twisted her arm, throwing her into the semicircle that Peeta and the crew had formed around them. She collapsed onto her stomach, a wilted heap of red dress and chains. “Now get her out of my sight.”

Peeta and a few others bent down to lift her up as the commander retired to his quarters, but she swung out her arms to ward them off.

“Don’t touch me,” she spat in Krellian.

“Get up and walk or I’ll drag you, witch. Your choice,” Peeta growled. His accent was thick, but he knew by the way her nostrils flared that she’d understood him.

She stayed crouched on the ground, her metal covered hands in her lap.

Peeta’s anger erupted.

“Fine,” he snapped. He wrenched her off the floor, threw her over his shoulder, and listened to her screams the entire way down to the brig.

During their slumber, the witch had commandeered his arm.

She lay sound asleep, his bicep propped under her cheek like a pillow. He only awoke when his hand had gone numb, the blood trapped, circling and pricking within his fingers like a swarm of wasps scrabbling to get out from under his skin. He watched the subtle rise and fall of her chest, the pulse that fluttered at her temple. She looked peaceful. Almost innocent. But he knew what she was really capable of.

Her head smacked the ground with a dull thud when he took his arm back.

“Ow!”

The witch glared at him as he massaged the feeling back into his palm. She made it a point to rub the tender spot on her head dramatically so that he’d feel bad.

It didn’t work.

“Get up,” he rumbled.

The witch turned over and curled in on herself. “Five more minutes.”

He rose from the nest of furs, grabbing one and wrapping it around his waist to cover his nakedness, then moved to sweep the curtain out of the doorway. From the watery yellow sun high in the sky, he determined it was noon.

“Get up,” he growled again, injecting more anger into his tone. “We need to keep moving.”

“Why? We found shelter,” the furry lump on the ground said.

“If we want to find civilization we’re going to have to move. We need to get home as soon as possible.”

She turned on her side and rested her head in her hand. Her eyes gleamed like freshly polished silver in the light pouring past the curtain. “You’re letting me go home?”

“I meant my home,” he corrected, allowing the curtain to fall and shrouding them in dusk-like darkness once more.

There was a tense moment where both knew the time to act was upon them. Either kill the other or let them live. Both were risks. If Peeta killed the Heartrender, he’d be left to fend for himself. There’d be no magic to keep his blood warm. But if he hesitated and let her live in the hopes that he could return her to Sjorkden and have her tried for witchcraft, there was a chance she’d kill him down the line. It would be so easy to reach out and crush her windpipe, deaden those bright eyes, neutralize the threat. She may have magic but she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. Peeta had height, strength, and military training on his side. He was arrogant enough to assume the odds were in his favor.

He thought she was thinking along the same lines because she eyed his muscles warily. He was broad-shouldered and obscenely muscular, the product of a decade doing hard physical training at the academy. She couldn’t crush his heart if he lashed out and stalled her hands first. He may be heavy but he was surprisingly quick. After all, he hadn’t become a witcher for nothing.

She pursed her lips as if considering something. “I think we’d both sleep better at night if we made a truce.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Your word is as valuable as a campfire is to a fish.”

She scowled slightly, a deep line forming between her furrowed brows. “This isn’t a promise that I’ll never harm you, just as I know you won’t agree to never harm me. You are a witch hunter after all. Bloodshed is your life. But let’s make a pact that until we make it out of this, we help each other.” She paused a beat and looked away as if ashamed. “After that, all bets are off.”

Peeta had nodded, but this truce didn’t mean he trusted her to stick to it. In fact, it made him even more suspicious of her. What kind of demon agreed to the drawing out her own demise? He thought her gamble unwise and surmised she had some angle to play against him. He’d have to be especially careful from here on out.

They faced away from each other and put their clothes on quietly. She still wore the red dress, the one from The Bloody Rose. It looked looser on her now, but the sleeves were elegant, poufed at the shoulders, and fitted down to the wrists. The skirt was still full, even after she had spent so much time sitting in her cell and thrashing about in the sea. She would have looked ready for a party if the dress wasn’t so dirty and torn.

She caught him watching her and winked. “Like what you see?” She twirled and the skirt flared like the petals of a blooming rose, twisting and shimmering in the low light.

Peeta grunted as he did the last button on his dusky blue jacket. His undershirt was still damp against his skin. “It doesn’t fit you where it counts.” He gestured towards her breasts.

She had snorted then, happily surprised he was loosening up.

They set out with empty hands, only having the clothes on their backs and the furs wrapped around their shoulders. The witch had taken a liking to the black one. She stroked it between her thumb and forefinger like a child would clutch to a blanket for comfort.

The briny scent of the sea permeated the air and even so high up as they were on the cliffside, Peeta felt the fine spray of the waves collect on his cheeks. The constant rushing of wind blew his hair back and whipped the fur about his shoulders.

They had been walking for hours when the witch asked, “What do you miss most about home?”

Peeta wished they could just be quiet.

“A bed to myself.”

“Right,” the witch crowed wickedly. “I can feel how much you hate sleeping next to me. I felt it pressing into my hip last night.”

Peeta’s cheeks flushed scarlet. He had never been with a woman. He was a member of the Order: chaste until he earned his talisman and won the right to choose a wife. For his service to the Order he’d be allowed the hand of a nobleman’s daughter. Pretty, young Sjorkden maidens with hair of palest gold and soft, supple bodies. Daughters of the nation raised in the ways of womanly charm and domestic knowledge, basket weaving and child-rearing, dancing and singing and carving.

He had been dreaming of what his future wife would look like, what their first carnal encounters would entail, the holy honor in producing a child. As a father, a former witcher, and the husband to a woman with status, he would be granted an official seat on the council of Rjaka. His first solid foothold on the ladder of power. It was a lower rung, but it was a start. If only he could get back to his post and fulfill his service, then he would be given his freedom and permitted to marry.

Those dreams, full of glory, sex, and fatherhood, were the source of his arousal and frustrations, not the witch’s soft skin against his body. Her deep complexion and ebony hair were not of Sjorkden. Her lips were too large, her nose too wide, her body too slender and bony. She looked as if she had spent years scrounging about for meals, with ribs and hips that protruded like sticks in a canvas bag. He liked rounded women with pillowy bosoms, not scrawny little birds.

Or so he told himself.

“Why do you say such lewd things?”

“Because I can. And because I like when you turn red. It does wonders for that pale complexion of yours, valkrӕlla.”

Valkrӕlla.

Barbarian.

“You’re disgusting.”

“You like it,” she teased and continued walking, swaying her hips beneath the cloak of fur clasped at her throat and sweeping a glossy curtain of hair over her shoulder. Even here, in the permafrost fields of the tundra, she still smelled of moss and jasmine, as if the misty forests of Krell dwelled within her pores.

Peeta scowled. He hated her. He hated her for what she was: an abomination, a demon sent to tear at the fabric of the natural world. He hated her for making him want to laugh. He hated her for being so brazen and sensuous and everything the women of his country were never allowed to be. But mostly he hated her because he realized he didn’t hate her.

Not even a little bit.

They walked in the hopes of finding a fishing village, or maybe a trading outpost, somewhere with an inn they could stay at. But as the day dragged on and the sun dipped precariously close to the sea, Peeta started losing hope. The witch stumbled behind him, making her way over embedded boulders and paling tufts of dead brush sticking out from the snowbanks. She squinted against the burning red sunset staining the landscape in bleeding color.

“Maybe we should head back,” she said, though they both knew this wasn’t an option. They were many hours from the whaling camp and turning around now meant they’d just be back at square one, with no food and no fire.

Peeta hadn’t been hungry last night, but his adrenaline had burned off, leaving his body weak and watery. He salivated at the thought of rosemary crusted mutton and boiled potatoes, buttered peas in ceramic crockery, honeyed mead, and angel cake with lemon filling. What he wouldn’t give to be back in the vast stone dining hall of the academy, laughing with Yasser through full mouths of meat and drink. After a feast, all the boys would tell stories in large circles or spar each other for prizes. Peeta had been one of the best hand-to-hand fighters among his peers and as such had accumulated a treasure trove of their makeshift awards. The wishbone of a chicken. A fork with a bent prong. A pearl someone had found in an oyster. When he had tired of winning, he would climb the stone steps to his dormitory and sleep dreamlessly on a goose down mattress. He’d wake to the rising sun and Yasser’s deep snores and know that he’d have a day of training ahead of him. Advanced lessons in combat, weapons handling and upkeep, survival skills, sailing, and instruction on foreign languages. He was a well oiled hunting machine, as he was raised to be by the masters.

But that was the past, a boyhood he would never return to. Peeta was a man now, and nobody was coming to instruct him. He was on his own.

Well, not entirely. He looked back at the witch. Her skin glowed deep bronze in the fading light and her dark hair whipped loosely about her angled face. She caught his eye and winked.

No, he thought grimly. I am not alone.

Peeta had only been seasick once. It had been his first time on a ship, sailing from his birthplace to his new home. As the other boys “oohed” and “aahed” at the gray stone towers of the academy rising up from the mists, Peeta had vomited over the banister.

The others had made fun of him for it. Groups targeted him in the corridors, tripping him or pulling on his hair. Others mocked him, knocked him down hard in training, and then pretended to retch dramatically as he struggled to his feet, fighting to hold back tears. They called him ‘Greenie’, for the color of his skin on that first voyage.

It was better than ‘runt’ but he still resented himself for it, ashamed he had shown weakness. He trained hard after that, alone if he had to. Classes would be over, dinner would be served in the great hall, but the masters would find him in the training rooms practicing his punches on a dummy, or throwing knives, or moving through his stances with a blade. The hours of solitude paid off, and once the students were old enough to compete for rank in the sparring circles, no one came close to Peeta’s brutal technique or raw ferocity.

And after he broke Geoff Tonson’s leg, no one ever called him ‘Greenie’ again.

Peeta climbed down into the bowels of the ship, feeling the slight sway of the ocean lapping against the hull as he descended. The Heartrender had been on board for two weeks now and hadn’t earned her sealegs. He shriveled his nose as he came upon her cell. The acrid scent of vomit filled the compartment.

“Time to switch?” Wilhelm asked from his seat in the corner.

Peeta nodded. He hated guarding the Heartrender. She was in her own cell, isolated from the other witches he and the crew had captured. At least when you guarded the others you could eavesdrop on their conversations. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Wilhelm Larone, a fresh-faced recruit on his first-ever witcher voyage, rose and stretched languidly. He hadn’t been able to grow a full beard, but his top lip held some promising peach fuzz. “I thought a Heartrender would be more entertaining,” he said, his dark eyes sparkling as a thought occurred to him. “Hey!” He rattled her bars. “Lift up your dress.”

The witch slumped in the corner, her skin waxy and coated in a film of sweat. Her hair was matted and oily. She blinked slowly at the wall and ignored Wilhelm’s racket.

He sighed like a disappointed child at the zoo. “I thought the commander said she was feisty.”

“That was before she had vomit on her dress,” Peeta said dryly.

The witch responded to Peeta’s voice, turning her head slightly to watch him between lanky strands of hair. A chill ran down Peeta’s spine at the intensity of her gaze. They hadn’t spoken since the first night when he had thrown her over his shoulder and dragged her into this very cell, but she remembered him.

Peeta tore his eyes away.

Wilhelm had placed his foot on the lowest step, moving to leave when she croaked: “Water.”

“When was the last time she was fed?” Peeta asked.

Wilhelm turned, a confused look on his face. “I don’t know. Ask the commander.”

“At least get her a cup of water before you go to bed. We want to keep her alive for the trial.”

Wilhelm smiled wickedly. “I have a better idea.” He jumped off the stairs and sauntered over to the Heartrender’s cell once more. “You thirsty, witch? Here, drink up.”

Peeta watched in horror as Wilhelm unbuttoned his pants and began pissing through her cell bars. Wilhelm’s eyes, which Peeta thought were too far apart in his head, darted up to the older man’s face. “You owe me two gold pieces if I can get it in her mouth.”

The witch made a strangled sound of disgust and tried to move away, but she was already in the corner. There was nowhere to go and her dress was soon soaked a deeper red.

“That’s enough,” Peeta said, but Wilhelm’s stream only grew stronger. “I said that’s enough!” he barked and shoved Wilhelm away.

In his surprise, Wilhelm sprayed the wall. “Damn, Mellark. It's a joke. Dawson’s right. You are no fun.” He shook the last drops of piss from his cock and then stuffed himself back into his pants. He turned to the witch and winked. “Maybe next time you can drink straight from the source. If you promise not to bite of course.” He then fixed his uniform and lumbered up the stairs. Peeta watched him and his half-mustache go.

“Krą khiăh,” she whispered after the creaking of Wilhelm’s steps faded.

Thank you.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Peeta snapped. “It was unsanitary, and your kind deserves hellfire, not some quiet death on a ship.”

Peeta spent the remainder of the night sitting on the chair in the corner, breathing in the scents of piss and vomit and misery. He hid his annoyance when the witch started sobbing.

But the next time he reported for guard duty, he brought her a cup of water.

#The Heartrender #everlark #everlark fanfiction #everlark fanfic #everlark smut #thg #thg fanfic #Fantasy AU #witch!Katniss #witch-hunter!Peeta #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #the hunger games

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creepingsharia · 5 years

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“They Asked Him to Deny Christ” - Muslim Persecution of Christians, August 2019

by Raymond Ibrahim

Hate for and Violence against Christians

Cameroon: Militant Muslims reportedly connected with the Nigerian based Islamic terror group, Boko Haram, “reached new heights” of depravity, according to a report: after devastating the Christian village of Kalagari in a raid, they kidnapped and fled with eight women. Some of the women were later released—but only after having their ears cut off (image here). The report adds that Boko Haram “has terrorised Christian communities in Nigeria for the last decade and has now splintered and spread its violent ideology into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.”

Nigeria: On August 29, Chuck Holton, a CBN News reporter, aired a segment on his visit with Christian refugees who had fled Boko Haram’s incursions into their villages. Among the stories of death and devastation, the following, spoken by a young man, stood out: “On 29 September 2014 was the day that they attacked my village. Around ten I had a call that they have killed my dad. They asked him to deny Christ and when he refused they cut off his right hand. Then he refused [again], they cut to the elbow. In which he refused, before they shot him in the forehead, the neck, and chest.” “Many of the 1,500 Christians living in this camp have similar stories,” adds Holton.

Indonesia: A Muslim preacher in a Christian majority region referred to the Christian cross as “an element of the devil,” prompting outrage among Christians and some moderates. Sheikh Abdul Somad made the comment during a videotaped sermon when he was asked why Muslims “felt a chill whenever they saw a crucifix.” “Because of Satan! Was his response: “There’s an evil jinn in every crucifix that wants to convert people into Christianity.” Christians and moderates condemned his words. Even so, “I can’t imagine the reaction if it had been another preacher of a different religion insulting an Islamic symbol,” observed one moderate. “There would have been a tsunami of protests, with the perpetrator severely punished.” Sheikh Somad responded by releasing another video; his excuse was that he was unaware that non-Muslims might hear his words: “The Quran reciting session was held in a closed mosque, not at a stadium, a football field, nor aired on television,” he explained. “It was for Muslims internally. I was answering a question about statues and the position of the Prophet Isa (Jesus) relative to Muslims.”

Burkina Faso: Although most mainstream media downplay the religious element in Muslim on Christian violence in Africa, attacks on the Christians of Burkina Faso have become so flagrantly based on religion that the Washington Post published a report on August 21 titled, “Islamist militants are targeting Christians in Burkina Faso.” Its author, Danielle Paquette, explained that “A spreading Islamist insurgency has transformed Burkina Faso from a peaceful country known for farming, a celebrated film festival and religious tolerance into a hotbed of extremism.” She noted that the jihadis have been checking people’s necks for Christian symbols, killing anyone wearing a crucifix or carrying any other Christian image. In a separate report discussing several deadly attacks on Christians and their churches, Bishop Dabiré said, “If this continues without anyone intervening, the result will be the elimination of the Christian presence in this area and — perhaps in the future —in the entire country.

Egypt: Authorities reinstated Sheikh Yasser Burhami, a notoriously “radical” cleric and hate preacher, to the pulpit (minbar) despite strong opposition. Burhami had previously issued numerous fatwas—edicts based on Islamic scriptures—that demand hate and hostility for non-Muslims, most specifically the nation’s largest and most visible minority, the Christian Copts, whom Burhami has referred to as “a criminal and infidel minority,” and has invoked “Allah’s curse” on them. He once went so far as to say that, although a Muslim man is permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women (ahl al-kitab), he must make sure he still hates them in his heart—and show them this hate—because they are infidels; otherwise he risks compromising his Islam. Burhami has also stated that churches—which he refers to as “places of polytheism (shirk) and houses of infidelity (kufr)”—must never be built in Egypt. He issued a separate fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi and bus drivers from transporting Christian clergymen to their churches, an act he depicted as being “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar.” Burhami’s fatwas also include calling for the persecution of apostates, permitting Muslim husbands to abandon their wives to rape, permitting “marriage” to 12-year-old girls, and banning Mother’s Day. In a video, Dr. Naguib Ghobrial, a Coptic activist, politician, and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights Organization—which over the years has lodged 22 separate complaints against Burhami—repeatedly questioned Egypt’s leading religious authorities’ decision to reinstate the hate preaching sheikh:

Is what Burhami teaches truly what Islam teaches—is that why no one has done anything to him [in regards to the 22 complaints lodged against him]? Truly I’m shocked! Please answer Sheikh of Al Azhar; please answer Grand Mufti: are the things Burhami teaches what Islam teaches? Is this why none of you oppose him or joined us when we lodged complaints against him?… Why are you so silent? Amazing!

The Slaughter of Christians

Pakistan: “A ten year old Christian child who chose to work in a dangerous scrap factory so he could support his mother who had to fend for a family of two boys and a drug-addict husband, was raped and tortured before being killed by his Muslim employers,” according to a report (with photos). Badil, 10, worked at the men’s factory in order to support his impoverished mother, Sharifa Bibi:

I worked hard for many hours just for the sake of my two sons so that they would not have to suffer as I have suffered without education. My son Badil couldn’t bear to see the struggle of his mother and insisted on working to help the family—despite my insistence that he avoid work till he was older. Badil was such a responsible son. Daily before leaving for work he asked me what should bring in the evening from his wages. I insisted that he kept his money for himself, but he brought groceries like sugar, rice, flour, ghee daily.

Badil had to walk long distances and work for many hours a day to earn the equivalent of one dollar a day. Soon his employer began to cheat him on his wages. His mother insisted that he quit, but the boy persevered; at one point he took his younger brother, 9, with him to help. When the employers refused to pay his brother anything for his contribution, Badil finally decided to quit—which angered his Muslim employer. His younger brother recalls:

As Mr Akram heard this he ran to hit Badil but Badil ran from the shop and Akram gave chase. However, A friend of Akram was standing nearby on his motorcycle and told Akram to sit behind him, then both men chased Badil till they caught up with him. Akram then got off the motorcycle and dragged Badil back to the store. They took Badil inside the store which is full of scrap. For half an hour I was completely unaware of what was happening with Badil inside. Eventually both men came outside and pretended as if nothing had happened inside. I thought my brother had also left the store from another exit so I went to look for him. I searched vigorously for 15 minutes and then saw my mother [approaching to walk the boys home], so I rushed to her to tell her what had happened.

Sharifa and her younger son searched frantically for Badil and finally found him collapsed on the ground near their home. They rushed to him, thinking he was exhausted from the day’s work and subsequent thrashing, but quickly realized that he was barely breathing: “At this point the whole situation was too much to bear for Sharifa who began to scream and wail hysterically,” the report notes. Badil was taken to a hospital where, seven hours later, the boy was pronounced dead. His brother “has been traumatised following his brother’s death and hasn’t left his house since and often screams in terror thinking the men responsible will take him too.”

Cameroon: A Bible translator “was butchered to death on Sunday morning [August 25] during an overnight attack while his wife’s arm was cut off,” according to a report: “Bible translator Angus Abraham Fung was among seven people said to have been killed during an attack carried out by suspected Fulani herdsmen sometime during the early hours of Sunday morning in the town of Wum, according to Efi Tembon, who leads a ministry called Oasis Network for Community Transformation.” Fulani herdsmen are Muslim and the chief persecutors of Christian farmers in Nigeria. “They went into houses and pulled out the people,” Tembon explained: “They attacked in the night and nobody was expecting. They just went into the home, pulled them out and slaughtered them.” Fung’s wife, Eveline Fung, who had her arm hacked off was last reported as receiving a blood transfusion at a local hospital.

Attacks against Apostates and Evangelists

Iran: Authorities sentenced a 65-year-old woman, a Muslim convert to Christianity, to one year in prison, on the charge that she was “acting against national security” and engaging in “propaganda against the system.” According to the report, “The hearing was owing to her arrest shortly before Christmas when three agents from Iranian intelligence raided her home and took Mahrokh to intelligence offices where she endured ten days of intensive interrogation before she was released after submitting bail of 30 million Toman (US$2,500).” Friends of the woman said that “the judge was very rude and tried to humiliate Mahrokh after she disagreed with him.”

Separately, a Kurdish bookseller in Bokan, Western Azarbaijan province, was arrested for selling Bibles. According to the August 27 report, “Mostafa Rahimi was arrested on 11 June on charge of selling bible[s] in his bookstore, and he was released later on bail until the court issued his sentence. Hengaw Organization for Human Rights has learned that Rahimi is sentenced to 3 months and 1 day imprisonment. Later in mid-August he was arrested again, and he is currently at the central prison of Bokan.” Another report elaborates: “Iran’s government is officially Islamic, and authorities actively restrict access to Bibles and other Christian literature. Sharing one’s faith is categorized as a criminal offense, usually of the national security nature. The authorities often pressure Christians so extensively, routinely violating their human rights, that they are given no choice but to escape their country.”

Somaliland: An August 16 report shares the experiences a married Muslim woman, 32, underwent after her husband discovered a Bible in her possession.

“I told my husband that I found the Bible in Nairobi and wanted to read it,” the woman responded. “He just pronounced the word talaq [Arabic for divorce] to me. I knew that our marriage had just been rendered null and void because I joined Christianity, so without wasting time I left the homestead…. There and then he took our two daughters [ages 4 and 7] away from me and divorced me. He gave me a stern warning that I should not come close to the children, and that if I do, he will take the Bible to the Islamic court and I will be killed by stoning for becoming an apostate.”

Her former husband proceeded to expose the clandestine Christian to her Muslim family. “My brothers beat me mercilessly with sticks as well as denying me food,” she said. “I feared to report the case to the police or the local administration, because they will charge me with a criminal offense of apostasy in accordance with the sharia.” She has since relocated to an undisclosed location: “God has spared my life, and my fellow underground Christians in other regions of Somalia have received me and shared the little they have, but I am very traumatized.” According to the report,

Somalia’s constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims. Somalia is ranked 3rd on Christian support group Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

Pakistan: After opening a summer education program for the youth, a Christian family was “terrorized” and forced to shut down on the accusation that they were clandestinely trying to convert Muslim children to Christianity. According to a family member: “We started a project for interfaith harmony and education teaching marginalized children from different faiths about a year ago. In June, we started a summer camp that provided a free program for children that have dropped out of school. The design of this program was to provide guidance for these children to become civilized and tolerant.” Two weeks into the summer program, a group of men, two of whom were armed, stormed into the academy, did violence to the property and harassed the children, and beat one of the instructors: “They threatened us with consequences if the academy was not shut down. They alleged that we were promoting Christianity and were doing Christian evangelism. For safety and security, we had no other choice but to obey the extremists and shutdown the academy…. I don’t want to lose my son or any family member. This terrorizing incident has already put us into trauma.”

In a separate incident in Pakistan, around 4 a.m. of August 2, seven Muslim men stormed into a parish house, where they tied up and savagely beat two young priests, Fr. Anthony Abraz and Fr. Shahid Boota, all while they “humiliated and abused them for preaching the Gospel in a Muslim-majority neighborhood.” The invaders also vandalized the building—including by breaking windows, bookshelves, and cupboards—and desecrated Christian objects, including Bibles, Christian literature, and icons. Afterwards, “We were told we will have to face consequences if this house is not vacated,” Fr. Abraz reported. “They said, ‘We don’t want a Christian center near the mosque.’”

Finally, increasing numbers of Christian girls continue to be targeted for kidnapping, rape, and/or forced conversion in Pakistan. According to one report,

In August, Yasmeen Ashraf, age 15, and Muqadas Tufail, age 14, were kidnapped and raped by three men in Kasur. The pair of Christian girls were taken when they were on their way to work as domestic workers. Also in August, another young Christian girl, named Kanwal, was kidnapped, raped, and forcefully converted to Islam by a group of Muslim men and a cleric in Lala Musa, located in the Gujart District. After reuniting her family, Kanwal shared that she had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and threatened with the deaths of her brothers if she refused to convert to Islam.

In the previous month of July, at least three similar cases occurred. “Oppression exists in different layers for Christian girls in Pakistan. They are suffering on the bases of gender, religion, and class. It has been documented that young Christian girls face higher levels of sexual harassment and are persecuted for their Christian faith,” Nabila Feroz Bhatti, a human rights defender in Lahore, said in response to the aforementioned incidents. Similarly, the Pontifical charity, Aid to the Church in Need, announced in August that it “is sounding the alarm on the plight of young Christian women, and even teenagers, in Pakistan who are forced to convert to Islam.” “Every year at least a thousand girls are kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert to Islam, even forced to marry their tormentors,” elaborated Tabassum Yousaf, a local Catholic lawyer.

Meanwhile, those who try to protect Christian girls are punished. On August 16, Maskeen Khan and two other Muslim men attacked the home of Bahadur Masih, a Christian. While holding a knife, Khan and his partners tried to rape Masih’s daughter, Rachel, but were prevented by the rudely awoken family that immediately and desperately responded. “Since the Christian family was defending themselves, Khan also got some injuries,” Ahsan Masih Sindhu, a local Christian political leader, reported. “The family handed Khan over to police and he got medical treatment. However, he later died in police custody.” Police arrested and charged four members of the family with murder, even though they were in their own home protecting their daughter from violent intruders. Other members of the family have gone into hiding due to threats from the dead would-be rapist’s relatives. “We are sad about the death of Khan, however, the Christian family did have the right to defend,” Sindhu explained. “The police must conduct a fair investigation into this incident.” Instead, police are denying the family the “right to defend” itself.

Attacks on Churches

Algeria: On August 6, police barged into a church during worship service, evacuated reluctant worshippers, and sealed the church building off. “I am deeply saddened by so much injustice – it breaks my heart,” Messaoud Takilt, the pastor said. “This is not surprising since other Christian places of worship have been closed and sealed as was the case today. But anyway, we will continue to celebrate our services outside while the Lord gives us grace for a final solution.” When police denied, with a veiled threat, his request to at least let the worship service conclude, “The assembly finally yielded and agreed to leave the premises, but with much pain. Some went out with eyes full of tears. ” Police proceeded to empty the premises of all furniture and sealed off every door before the distressed pastor (picture here). Responding to this latest church closure the World Evangelical Alliance issued a statement on August 12 calling on Algeria to cease closing and instead reopen churches. A portion follows:

We deeply regret that two additional churches were forcibly closed by administrative decisions, in May and in August 2019 in the city of Boudjima, northeast of Tizi-Ouzou in Kabylie Region. This brings the number of forcibly closed churches to 6, including one house church…. Many more churches are threatened with closure, amid denial of formal registration and recognition by authorities.

Indonesia: Muslim protestors compelled local authorities to revoke a permit for and cease construction of a Baptist church in Central Java. On August 1, residents went to the partially constructed church and padlocked its fence. A meeting was later held between the church, local residents, authorities, and others. Although the pastor displayed the governmentally issued permit to build a church, Muslim residents insisted that it was wrongly given, leading to a standstill in negotiations. In the previous month, July, two other churches were shut down in Indonesia following local protests.

Turkey: St. Theodoros Trion, an abandoned, historic church—the original Greek congregation of which was purged by the Ottoman Empire—was vandalized, including with genocidal slogans. According to the report,

The vandals sprayed hate speech across the church’s walls. The vandalism was largely a reference to the secularism that Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder, had forced into the governmental structure…. Just a few years ago, the same church was targeted by Islamist vandals who wrote slogans such as “the priest is gone, he went to the mosque” — a reference to the country’s genocide and the forced conversions which occurred during this time. There are no Christians attending this church. All of the congregants were victims of the genocide. They faced death, deportation, and forced conversions. Those few who survived have since fled the country. The church currently stands as a historic monument to the Christianity that once was commonplace in the region.

Egypt: A Christian toddler was the latest, if inadvertent, victim of Egypt’s draconian restrictions on churches. According to an August 21 report, Youssed Ebid, a 4-year-old Christian boy (photo), was struck by a tractor while waiting outdoors for a bus to take him to church in another village. His own village is currently denied one, forcing its Christian residents to travel long distances to attend church. Many Christians in Egypt are in the same situation, and accidents during their long treks are not uncommon.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

#Sharia #Islam #Muslim #News #Politics #Persecution #Religion #Jihad

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hiiakamercy · 6 years

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(yasser chill)

#SoundCloud #music #yasser chill

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whythenwhatnow · 5 years

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Still murag busy sa office. Hahaha I don’t asa gyud ko nila palingkuron. Di ko ganahan dapit kay Yasser. Makagubag adlaw to.

Anyway, it’s good to be back dula og frisbee. Wala nasakit na ako tiil kay di man pod ko palabi og dagan. Chill lang na dagan, gamay lang girls thou so mejo nakadaghan na og catch but daghan pod ko bad throw hahahah ma rattle ko magpasa. Nag crashed pa gyud ming Ronnie hahaha gidala pod ni micmic si Nes so naa man pod naka sub maskin kadyot. Maybe duwa pod sa friday?

24/April/2019

11:02pm

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opedguy · 4 years

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Seth Rogen Roils Israeli Government

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Aug. 7, 2020.--Showing there are many opinions in Israel and abroad about its West Bank policy, American Jewish comedians 38-year-old Seth Rogen and 56-year-old Marc Maron got into it over the West Bank. Rogen ruffled the government’s feathers saying its polices “doesn’t make sense,” expressing opposition to 70-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of settlement building in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, a territory with biblical significance to many Jews. Palestinians, led by 84-year-old Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, want the entire West Bank for a future Palestinian state that runs from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Rogen, like many progressive American Jews, don’t know the history, or for that part care much about it. They sympathize with Palestinians aspirations for their own independent state.

Rogen or Maron may not know that Israel seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan as spoils of the 1967 Six Day War, where some six Arab countries tried to wipe Israel off the map, take back all the land, from the British Mandate of Palestine ceded to Jews in 1948, fighting a bloody war of Independence before declaring a state May 14, 1948. Whatever historians say about the Six Day War, Israel did not return the spoils, including Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights. Israel made a peace deal with Egypt in 1979, returning the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for a treaty. Israel gave back the Gaza Strip Sept. 22, 2005, but retained the West Bank and Golan Heights. Since the Six Day War, Israel had fought several wars and terrorist uprisings, prompting Netanyahu to place high priority on Israel’s national security.

When Rogen says Israel’s West Bank policy “doesn’t make sense,” it’s because he not political or defense savvy about Israel’s national security needs. “What Seth Rogen said is par for the course among our generation and the Israeli government has to wake up and see that their actions have consequences,” said Yonah Lieberan, spokesman for If Not Now, an American Jewish Organization, like J-Street, opposed to Israeli West Bank “occupation.” But what Palestinian and progressive groups don’t get is that Israel’s national security no longer permits Israel to give away it’s buffer zones like the West Bank and Golan Heights. Back in 1967, the United Nations and Palestinian groups demanded, after fighting a war of annihilation against Israel, they return to the pre-1967 borders. Egypt, with former President Jimmy Carter, found a way to an Israeli-Egypt peace treaty in 1979.

When Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] founder Yasser Arafat ruled Palestinians, he had several chances to make peace with Israel, all of which failed because he couldn’t stop militants from waging war against Israel. Since 2007, Palestine has been divided between Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip and Abbas controlling the West Bank. Rogen and other American liberals don’t understand that half the Palestinian population in Gaza are 100% committed to Israel’s destruction. They consider themselves at war with Israel, routinely telling their population they will one day conquer the Jewish State. “You don’t keep all your Jews in one basket. I don’t understand why they did that. I makes no sense whatsoever,” Rogen said, making a joke but essentially questioning why the state of Israel. Rogen apparently doesn’t remember the Nazi Germany Holocaust, exterminating 6 million Jews.

Rogen’s comments were innocuous enough but raised a flurry of criticism and other social media platforms. “You don’t keep something you’re trying to preserve all in one place especially when that place had proven to be pretty volatile. I’m trying to keep all these things safe. I ‘m going to put them in my blender and hope that that’s the best place to, that’ll do it,” Rogen said. Rogen knows that Israel has less than one-half the world’s Jewish population, not realizing Jew’s biblical attachment to the land of their ancestors. Rogen took immediate flack from Issac Herzog, head of the nonprofit Jewish Agency. “I told him that many Israelis and Jews around the world were personally hurt by his statement, which implies the denial of Israel’s right to exist,” Herzog. Herzog and other political types, need to take a chill pill, Rogen meant no offense, certainly not that Israel shouldn’t exist.

Rogen was forced by his mother, Sandy Belogus, who met her husband Mark Rogen on an Israeli Kibbutz, told Seth to clarify his position. “I don’t want Jews to think that I don’t think Israel should exist. And I understand how they could have been led to think that,” Rogen said. Jews in Israel and in the diaspora around the world, have strong opinions about the best approach for peace. Many progressives in Israel and abroad don’t like the security-minded policies of Netanyahu and his government coalition that think of security first, before philosophical debates. Shmuel Rosner, as senior policy fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, said Israel should not change its “security and foreign polices” based on outside influence. Even Netanyahu paused his campaign promise to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank, knowing the outrage expressed around the world to that plan.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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underchime · 4 years

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Okay, this is the introduction to the comic that is coming about the school first it also shows a door with a cat yes a cat in it, each door has their own cat personality in each window of the door which is like a new technology >w< next yaaser's pet spider, yes this spider is different with anything it bites it'll turn people or objects into stone as for yaaser himself, he is a science teacher basically but his cards and his slim phone magically appears stuff that yaaser needed for help or for technical reasons [ ;) ] but for a cool and awesome science teacher he unfortunately lost one of his legs and replaced it to an awesome robot leg like so awesome ☆w☆ , next dean ... he's a human/ white husky but he's a chill principle actually, when it comes to you going to the principal's office, let's just say he has to put on his angry face 24 hours that your there but after that he's a pretty chill dude, The new oc heh... Dam he special.. um.. Anyway his name is *drum roll* TINY yup tiny, why you may ask well he is part human and yorkie, yes yorkie, you'll learn later about him but he always flirts at dean every time but hint here, Dean is married and well is straight, so yeah... that's interesting ;) ;) tiny is single tho [He's probably gay or straight, but who knows, but it'll make some stuff extra spicy~ ;) when he's around with dean or anyone really] but sometimes the most flattering/Flirting people got to be tiny and sometimes professor Yasser cause you know~ ;) Anyway hope you enjoyed the mini chibi comic cause their the almost introduction for the comic but hope you guys enjoy, and be safe, plus if you struggling in something I'm always here to support and help you so you can always feel free to send me a message on tumblr, Anyway as I said be safe and have fun :)

XD this is funny tho XD

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textales · 7 years

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“Chewed You Up and Spit You Out.”

The hood of my new Chevy truck was crinkling before my eyes and the crashing noise was deafening, louder than the stereo blaring at nearly full volume.

I had just plowed into a Renault Alliance waiting at the red light.

Oh god, there were four people in that car and now it’s pushed into the intersection and nobody is moving.

I turned off the stereo and jumped out of the truck, mortified at what I had done and scared to death that I’d killed these kids in the car that I managed not to see before it was too late. Exhaustion and freezing rain, enhanced by more than a few rum & Cokes and Miller Lites, had taken their toll this dark and stormy night.

I stood there stunned and shivering in the middle of the intersection, wearing skin-tight black Levi’s, a starched white shirt with a bolo tie, and a brand new pair of $600 Lucchese cowboy boots. Some nice fashion-forward 20-something blonde women, dripping in jewelry and driving a new black Saab 900 Turbo, took pity on me and offered-up a fur coat for me to wear while we waited for the cops to show-up at the scene.

Next thing I know I was being hauled away in handcuffs as the EMTs loaded the kids from the Renault into the ambulance. Holy fuck, what had I done?

Oh Sabrina!

I found Tom and Sabrina when I was hired to produce a television commercial for a local drug rehab hospital. Their production company was the only one listed in the phone book, and I figured I’d best meet these people since we were in the same small town and all.

I didn’t have high hopes – I totally discounted them for being in “the burbs” and I wanted a “real” company in Dallas. But the commercial would be a low-budget number to run on cable in Denison, so even if they had shit equipment and limited means this just might work. It’s interesting how my standards were so high given that the biggest production I’d done to that point was a cheap-ass TV spot produced by a local station in a teeny town in Montana. But I was making my mark, dammit, and I wanted the best.

I’m schrunching my nose as I stand on the stoop of this duplex in East Plano. Shouldn’t I be in a lavish lobby of some high-rise in downtown Dallas?

My city snobbery started to melt when a lovely blonde woman came to the door, sporting a great smile and a smooth southern accent. Even if these people are clueless at least they’ll be nice.

About that moment two pre-teen kids came bouncing in through the aluminum patio doors, followed by a pack of red speckled hunting dogs. This was definitely not what I’d imagined I’d encounter when scouting for a production company to shoot a TV commercial, but what the hell…I went with the flow. My snob-ass opinion continued to dissolve when I noticed some pictures hanging in the wall of this “office” which was technically a dining room.

Holy crap, there were pictures of this Tom guy and all kinds of people I recognized from network TV.

There he was a few years back with Dan Rather of CBS. In another pic, he’s with Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and in another …who’s that guy who wears the funny scarf? Oh, it’s Yasser Arafat of Palestine. I didn’t know who these people were at the time, other than they were big-deal world leaders I’d seen all over TV. Nobody in my world was or ever had been that close to anyone of international importance.

Oh sure, I had been to a city council meeting with a microphone and cassette when I worked at KMON in Great Falls. And I once worked with a guy who’d interviewed the Governor of Montana and was pictured with Ronald Reagan when he came through town, but this Plano guy has his arms around world leaders from strange far-away lands where the food was weird and they talked through interpreters. Maybe I should chill-out and see these people for their accomplishments versus relying on my prejudiced opinion based solely on a suburban address.

Another pic caught my eye as I stood there trying not to notice the avocado green appliances in a kitchen that never got used, with the exception of the refrigerator which stored batteries. Tom was in front of a private jet, with a bunch of people from ABC. There was Barbara Walters, Sam Donaldson and Ted Koppel. Holy shit, these people in the ‘burbs are bigger deals that I gave them credit for. Shame on me for my big city snobbery.

Finally, Tom entered the room and gave me a rather sturdy handshake and introduced himself. Wow, he was not some highfalutin “director” type full of hype…this guy was calm and cool. It made sense when I later learned he was from North Dakota. That part of the planet doesn’t put up with pretention.

These people just kept getting more intriguing – Sabrina introduced the kids and the dogs. The young boy was from her previous marriage, and if I understood it right, the adopted girl was a refugee removed from Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis in 1981. I envision the last helicopter leaving and a little girl reaching upward for freedom, but not sure if that is how it really went down.

What I was sure of was this: I could totally deal with these people. They were completely fascinating, and something about their honest and genuine goodness clicked with my wholesome Montana sensibilities. We became friends, and in no time I’d find myself helping run their business when Tom was away at war.

Enjoy the Silence

As I sat there alone in my cell in the Dallas County jail, I reflected on the last few completely crazy days. With the exception of the six or so seconds just before the crash, I’d been awake for at least 24 hours and most of that time working my ass off.

In addition to running a self-service car wash and installing mini-blinds for my friend Bill, I did odd jobs for Tom and Sabrina. I was always driving, and nothing was ever close or convenient.

Whether I was picking up mini-blinds at Love Field, dropping off a monitor at WFAA-TV, or stopping to fill-up soap at the car wash in Richardson, it seemed I was always on the road.

I drove a 1991 Chevy S-10 Pickup. I got this rig a whole month before the usual release of the new model year and I was proud of myself for grinding the sales guy down to just $60 over $10,000. It was my first new vehicle, and perfect for when I’d need to haul around those big Anvil cases with metal corners, the same kind used by musicians. I was never in better shape, those things were heavy.

Theirs was quite a unique enterprise. She ran a teleprompter company, a service to video- and event-producers where scripts are presented like video cue cards. The on-camera talent looks right into the lens just like they do on the television news at 6 o’clock every night. The “Presidential” set-up was used for major speeches, the presenter standing at a podium looking into a glass reflecting the text from a monitor facing upward from the floor below.

The client list was a “Who’s Who” of business: Andersen Consulting, 7-Eleven, GTE, Xerox, American Airlines, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, Frito Lay, Radio Shack and Texas Instruments were just a few of the companies I worked with in my tenure there.

Tom had a freelance gig as a cameraman on assignment for ABC News. Operation Desert Shield was heating up, and Tom was in the thick of it, delivering footage we would see on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and Nightline with Ted Koppel. He became a regular at the daily Schwarzkopf press conferences from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.

While Tom was in the Middle East, Sabrina was holding down the home front and taking some college classes. There was never a dull moment, and no amount of book learnin’ could have prepped me for the variety of stuff I did for them. In addition to helping run the teleprompter company, I managed the office and did some light bookkeeping.

As freelance gigs go, Tom’s was like a retirement score. If he played his cards right, he could bank some cash and even pay-off that new Sony camera kit that cost over $50K. The money flowed through that enterprise…giant five-figure checks would come in from New York in one minute, the next I’d make a payment to Sony and poof it was gone.

I recall a very stressful time when I was sent to buy a fax machine and given a signed blank check. That night my truck was broken into in the parking lot of the Village Station, and someone stole the case of cassettes and the notebook with the blank check. It was a chilly couple of days - Tom didn’t talk to me until we were assured by a bank teller that a Stop Payment would prevent someone from clearing out all of the money he’d made busting ass while sacrificing time away from the family on the other side of the planet.

I got good at typing. I’d key-in hand-scribbled scripts into the Commodore 64 (complete with a floppy disk – the kind that actually flopped.) This was years before lightweight laptops – everything was big, heavy and expensive.

I learned a lot from the odd jobs I did for them. Like researching a camera lens to replace the one squished when some careless BBC producer in a wayward Range Rover took it out in the parking lot at the Amman Hyatt. Who knew a camera lens could cost $14K?

I also learned how to convince the sky caps to look the other way when I’d sneak thirteen Anvil cases onto an airplane. “Oh Larry, just keep peeling-off $20 bills until they wave you on,” Sabrina assured me. Surprisingly, this worked every time, with the exception of a trip from Nashville to Houston when I got stung with over $1,100 in excess baggage. Thank god American Airlines took a check.

I recall helping order a special box for a portable bar for Tom and the crew in Riyadh to make margaritas. Oh sure, booze is outlawed in Saudi Arabia, but Tom had a work-around. Next thing I’m writing a check for a beautiful yellow metal custom-built case with foam cut-outs to contain a battery-powered blender, a bottle of tequila, glasses and even the charger. This was genius, and I giggled at the thought of this passing through customs undetected at King Khalid International.

If I had any one regret in all of that experience, it is not pushing harder when Tom hinted at the possibility of using me as a sound guy to fill-in for a couple weeks while the regular guy went back to London for a break. I let the lack of a passport (and the fact I had responsibilities to Sabrina and the car wash) get in the way of what was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to travel internationally and work for a major TV network. Dammit.

Ready or Not

It was just before Christmas, 1990. Saddam Hussein of Iraq was wreaking havoc in Kuwait. Saturn was a brand new “different kind of car company” and music still played on AM radio. Garth Brooks, Randy Travis and Sawyer Brown were all over 820 WBAP.

After yet another daily trip to the car wash to load soap (and this time to fix a broken pump) I was called in to help prep for Tom’s return from the Middle East. He’d been away for months, and Sabrina really needed my help.

In addition to dubbing some video tape and inputting some scripts for an upcoming show, I spent the afternoon buying holiday gifts for people from ABC News. These weren’t coming from me - I was ordering on Tom’s behalf. There was honey baked ham, hunting gear and all kinds of other specialty stuff going to Sam Donaldson, Morton Dean, Anne Compton…and countless producers, handlers and schedulers…shipping to addresses from the burbs of New York and London to hotels in countries I barely remembered from high school geography.

It would have been easy to order generic gift cards and call it done, but that wasn’t Tom. I was impressed by how much thought he put into this, even though it was kind of a pain-in-the-ass for me.

While waiting on hold for what seemed like hours (it was high season and ordering on the phone was the only way things like this got done at the time), I sat there looking at more of those photos that hung on the paneled walls of that 70s era duplex which had become a second home to me. Since my homeland was over 1,000 miles away, I might have been getting a little sappy over the fact I hadn’t seen my Mom in years. For Christ’s sake, it was Christmas, after all.

Somewhere between a music-on-hold marathon and “Thank you for calling Cabela’s, how may I help you?” I learned Tom was deaf in one ear because a bomb blew up next to him years ago in Beirut.

To put things into perspective, this guy worked the front lines, lying in the dirt, literally dodging bullets while shooting pictures of a war we watched on television from the comfort of our living rooms half way across the globe. And here I am whining because it’s taking too long to buy a fishing pole and duck call for some reporter with whom he shared a common bond of doing time in a war zone away from the wife and kids for weeks on end. Cry me a river.

Love Will Lead You Back

There’d been a rash of gay bashings in Dallas that year, and a group was organized to bring law enforcement and the gay community together to fight against a common foe. They were having a fancy fundraiser at some upscale bar/restaurant on Greenville Avenue. I would be taking my co-worker friend Robert as my plus one.

After all the hard work dealing with the car wash and prepping for Tom’s arrival, this would be a nice opportunity to take a break and enjoy some holiday festivities. I’d spent way too much time in the burbs and this was an excuse to get all gussied-up and go downtown. After all, I had brand new pair of Lucchese cowboy boots, a cute little bolo tie, and a velvety black blazer. Plus I was single and ready to mingle, so why not throw myself out there?

This would be a chance to meet some good A-grade gay guys with money…a collective of cops could mean safety and security, and who knows, one or two of these police dudes just might be gay. How cool would it be to call Mom on Christmas to tell her I had a cop for a boyfriend? In my family, cops rank right up there with firemen and architects on the scale of respectability. Having a cop in tow might make-up for the fact that the person I was bringing back to Montana would be a guy and not a girl.

This was a festive, colorful affair, with entertainment from some guys in drag doing a better job of singing Cher than Cher herself. I remember thinking this was a pretty fancy deal, even by Dallas standards, and I somehow managed to find a crisp C-note to put into the kitty as the drag queens cruised the crowd looking for donations.

I remember seeing a Mexi-dude father who looked just like any of the construction guys I’d seen building houses around town. Here he is with this wife having a good time as their 22-year-old kid is dressed like a woman and singing Taylor Dayne. I wonder if any of his construction friends know he’s here. Isn’t he embarrassed? Does he talk about this with his other carpet-layer and tile-installer buddies while lunching on Fritos and Dr. Pepper at the job site?

I’m pretty sure, given the same situation, my dad would be too shy to show at such an affair. Then again, he did have a good time the last time he came to Dallas. But, since I wouldn’t be donning a dress and singing “Tell It To My Heart” anytime soon, this really wasn’t a legitimate concern.

After a couple hours and a few drinks I remember saying goodbye to one of the cops. I wasn’t hammered, just tired. Okay, maybe a little buzzed. The officer told me to have a good night and be careful out there since it had been the coldest winter in recent memory, and there would be freezing rain.

I dropped-off my co-worker Robert. His boyfriend invited me in for one more beer…and since I didn’t want to be rude, I conceded to “just one more for the road”. Clearly, that was not a good idea.

Little did I know that in only a few minutes I’d be spending time in the Big House in the Big D, downtown next to Parkland Hospital.

Ice Ice Baby!

I was less than six blocks from my apartment on Central Expressway and Royal Lane. I’d made it over eight miles but fell asleep at the wheel. The streets were icy and I’m not sure I would have been able to stop even if I’d been conscious enough to hit the brakes.

They hauled me downtown to the cop shop where they took my fingerprints and I blew into a tube. Just minutes ago I was rubbing elbows with a bunch of cops and some nicely dressed people raising money to fight crime…I was enjoying the warmth of a fancy festive fundraiser, and now I’m a common criminal in a cold concrete cell. This is F’d up. Jesus, please don’t let those kids in that car die. I didn’t mean to do this.

After a couple hours, someone came with keys and ushered me out of there. I remember being all by myself in my cell, but there were at least a dozen or so people crammed behind the bars of the other cell next door. They were rowdy and it was really noisy.

I remember thinking this was just like a TV show I’d heard about called “Scared Straight.” Ironically, this wouldn’t completely do the trick, but I did about shit my pants when one of the dudes who looked like a pimp whistled and said: “You sure do got a pretty ass for a white boy.”

Thank god I was getting out of there.

It was maybe 4:30 in the morning as this clerk at the Dallas County Courthouse was processing the final pieces of my paperwork. She was a big-booty black girl, no taller than 4’9” with a pair of big cans to match the lower half. If it were honest, her nametag might well have said “Sassy” instead of Officer number whatever.

I knew she meant it:

“It’s good I gave you your own cell. Those boys would have chewed you up and spit you out.”

Blame It On the Rain

A Dallas PD officer gave me a ride back to my apartment and I finally got to sleep at around 8am, after calling my friend Carla in Montana to tell her what had happened.

This Christmas season sucked so far. So why not pile it on? As bad luck would have it, just days after the first wreck, the rental car provided by my insurance company got clobbered in a hit-and-run in the parking lot.

Even though I had blown under the limit and ducked a DUI, I was ticketed for reckless driving and failure to stop to avoid a collision. Allstate cancelled me, and insurance with the new carrier willing to take a 25-year old high risk with two pricey wrecks and a moving violation went from $79 a month to $229. Add that to a payment of $211 and the monthly total to drive my truck was more than rent for my one bedroom apartment. Ouch.

Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)

There was a sigh of relief when the insurance guy told me there were big hospital bills and physical therapy to pay for, but thankfully nobody or anything died – with the exception of that Renault Alliance I’d killed.

But the bright spot that Holiday Season involved more television. Nothing to do with video shoots or cameras or teleprompters, but the actual device used to watch the stuff.

On New Year’s day there was a message waiting on my Phone Mate, with a welcome surprise.

“Hi this is Chris from the Village Station with a message for Larry. You won the new twenty-inch RCA stereo color TV in the Christmas drawing. You can pick it up here any time after noon. Congratulations.” – beep.

#blameitontherain

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seniorbrief · 6 years

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8 Eerie Photos of Abandoned Airports Around the World

Culture

Marissa LaliberteAug 11

These places will give you the chills.

Nicosia International Airport in Cyprus

Katia Christodoulou EPA REX Shutterstock

The Nicosia International Airport used to be Cyprus’ central airport. After Turkish forces invaded the country to fight off a Greek coup in 1974 though, the hub closed. Now the abandoned airport sits in the United Nation-controlled buffer zone between the north and south of the country.

Ellinikon International Airport in Greece

Katia Christodoulou EPA REX Shutterstock

Ellinikon was the Greek capital’s only airport for more than 60 years. But in 2001 it closed to make way for Athens International Airport before Greece hosted the 2004 Olympics. It was since used as an Olympic games venue and refugee camp, and developers are hoping to turn it into a resort.

Yasser Arafat International Airport in Gaza Strip

APAImages REX Shutterstock

Formerly known as Gaza International Airport, the hub in the Gaza Strip was built using millions of dollars in foreign grants helped built the Moroccan architect-designed space. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton cut the ribbon when it opened its doors in 1998, but Israel bombed the airport in 2001, and it never recovered. Don’t miss these 6969054a Paul White AP REX Shutterstock

The Ciudad Real airport, located south of Madrid, and opened in 2008 but closed its doors when it went bankrupt just four years later. The airport cost €1 billion (about $1.2 billion) to build, but investors almost bought it for about $12,000 in 2015, until another group counter-offered about $33 million just before deadline.

Original Source -> 8 Eerie Photos of Abandoned Airports Around the World

source https://www.seniorbrief.com/8-eerie-photos-of-abandoned-airports-around-the-world/

#seniorbrief #seniors

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junie-bugg · 4 years

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The Heartrender - Chapter Three: Flickers

Hello all!

Here’s chapter three of my Everlark fic ‘The Heartrender’, in which I inadvertently utilized the “only one bed trope” 😏💕

You can read here on Tumblr or here on AO3 (I suggest reading on AO3 because I add a poem at the beginning of each chapter that I feel fits nicely with the story.)

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content

Relationship: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark

Summary:

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

Chapter Three: Flickers

Night had fallen, and with it, the temperature. Peeta allowed the witch to hold his arm so she could keep his blood warm. When she retracted her hand every once in a while to readjust the pelt around her shoulders, his jaw clenched.

He shouldn’t miss her touch.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” she asked.

“Near the northern border of the Permafrost. Though I don’t know how far from the capital we were before the ship sank.”

“We’re walking to Fjordhingă then?”

“Yes,” he replied. Fjordhingă was the trading capital of the north. It was to be the last stopping point of The Bloody Rose’s voyage before they headed west to Sjorkden. If he and the witch could make it there by foot, perhaps Peeta could talk their way onto a ship. But how would he get the witch on board? What if she ran away? The thought had been nagging him like a fly on his brow.

Even with the witch there to keep his blood pumping, he felt his limbs freezing up as the temperature continued dropping. He desperately scanned the darkening horizon, hoping to find an outcropping of rocks they could huddle under, or maybe another whaling camp. Instead, he spotted a gabled roof.

“Oh, thank god,” he breathed and started tugging the witch along.

“Lieutenant…” she said apprehensively.

It wasn’t just some stray shack. It was a fishing village, with squat houses and a trading outpost, all perched on the cliffside and overlooking the ocean. One circular dirt road cleared of rock and vegetation lay at its center and clusters of small stone buildings had been constructed around it. The houses had wavy glass panes in the windows and soot-blackened chimneys, though no light shone onto the street and no smoke rose into the sky.

An abandoned village then.

Even better.

Peeta hastened his pace.

“Lieutenant, stop!” the witch yelled, tugging him back behind the village’s low border wall. “Look at the flagpole!”

Peeta’s heart sank when he saw an ominous black flag waving high above the rooftops.

Black was for plague. No wonder the place seemed abandoned.

Everyone had died.

He thought they were going to move on, but the witch set her shoulders back. Her face took on a quiet focus.

“We need to be careful. We can’t just barge in. There may be corpses.” She dropped his arm and moved around him. He watched her walk to the door of the closest house and lay a palm to its wind-weathered surface before he could stop her.

He sucked in a breath.

She was too close.

“Don’t!” he barked and pulled her away.

She whipped her head around, a scowl pulling her brows together. “You’d rather we die of plague then allow me to use my god-given powers?”

“Don’t drag god into this.”

“Oh don’t worry. I doubt we have the same one,” she retorted. “Now get out of my way.”

He didn’t want her touching that door, but he knew what she was doing. He’d read about the practice of purification in class, but he hadn’t imagined it would smell so good.

Pure white light emanated from within the building, flooding out in bright streams from the windows, the minuscule cracks in the stone walls, the deep hollow of the chimney. Long shadows crept along the ground, shifting in oblong patterns as the light in the house moved. The witch’s hair and clothing snapped in some enchanted breeze, pulling ebony locks and fur upwards in a cascading arc until the light faded and gravity pulled her hair back down in a glossy curtain.

The air tingled with the sharp scent of mint.

“I thought you could only manipulate bodies,” Peeta got out.

“I can do a great many things you wouldn’t understand, lieutenant.”

“Don’t call me that,” he muttered. Lieutenant was his title from the Order. It felt wrong to hear her speak it here.

“Would you rather I call you by your name?” she asked.

Peeta didn’t respond.

“Didn’t think so.” She turned the brass knob and the door swung in on itself. “Welcome home, lieutenant.”

By noon the next day, she had purified the entire village.

It was a spell, an easy one, that burned away rot and disease. Each time she pressed a hand to a doorway, the windows filled with that bright celestial light, her hair rose above her head as a flame rises above a candlewick, and she burned away any trace of plague inside. Scraps of cloth that had been coughed into, drops of dried blood on the floor, corpses that had been left behind. Each house was spotless when she was done.

They had slept in the house farthest from the others, on the far side of the village. It was small, with only a kitchen, sitting area, and one bedroom. There was a sizable stone hearth in the kitchen, plenty of split logs in a wicker basket by the back door, even some strips of salted caribou meat in the pantry. First, they had scarfed down the meat, and only after, with the salted flesh chewed and swallowed, did they think of their thirst. Peeta made a fire while the witch lugged a burnished pot outside to gather snow. They drank the warm melted water and then collapsed into bed with their clothes still on.

It was a real bed, with a canopied frame and pillows and soft, quilted blankets. Peeta was too tired to object when the witch curled in against his chest, and once more he spent the night with his nose buried deep in her hair.

As exhausted as he was, Peeta was a soldier. He woke early, as he always did, and found that he couldn’t fall back asleep. The pale morning light of dawn bled through the curtains. Anyone else would have rolled over and tried to catch a few more hours of shut-eye, but Peeta couldn’t. The witch’s heat against his chest was too much, like a beating, throbbing wound that refused to heal. He untangled his arm from around her and then hurried to the door, grabbing a spear in the pretense of hunting.

Winter burned his nostrils as he took in deep lungfuls of air. He was a boy raised in the fjords of southern Sjorkden, and a man of the northern academy. He’d thought he’d seen the bitterest winters the world had to offer when ice would form between the stones of his tower dormitory and he and Yasser would have to sleep on the floor by the black iron furnace for warmth. They would go to breakfast with blue nail beds and teeth that chattered so violently sometimes it was hard to chew. But he realized those nights were nothing compared to this, a winter’s chill so sharp that it cut out a spot for you into the very landscape, made you feel as if your skin was crafted of snow, your bones pressed from ice.

He secured the fur around his shoulders and tried to replace thoughts of piercing silver eyes with thoughts of breakfast.

But the winds of the north were unforgiving, and the frigid bite of the air only reminded Peeta of how warm he had been with the witch. By the time he had finished hunting, having speared only one measly hare, his limbs were frozen, joints locked as if welded, lips numb under his teeth as he tried to bite the life back into them.

He found himself anticipating coming back to the village, wanting what he so desperately fled only hours before; to tangle in bed with the witch once more, a merry fire crackling in the hearth, the warm press of her body cradled against his own, his nose buried in the hollow beneath her ear, soaking up the heady scents of jasmine and fresh rain and sunlight until he was drunk on her.

His thoughts were peaceful until he remembered the sin of what he had been considering.

Laying with the witch was practical. The use of her magic against the cold was necessary. There was nothing charming or romantic about having to rely on an enemy for survival. He should despise his needing her.

She wasn’t human. She was dangerous.

It was foolish to forget that.

Yasser collapsed into the seat across from Peeta, his dinner tray laden with a bowl of brown grits, boiled sausages, some mushy looking turnips, and a small cup of water.

“Did you hear what happened to Larone?” he asked, his urgent tone cutting under the loud din of the dining compartment.

“No,” Peeta replied, unsure if he wanted news of how Wilhelm was handling his first witcher voyage. The antics of newbies were fun to hear about at the start, but when tales of seasickness and fatigue reached the ears of experienced witchers, especially witchers on the cusp of earning their freedom, the stories were more annoying than entertaining.

Yasser greedily stuffed a spoonful of grits into his mouth and swallowed before continuing. “Well, I’m telling you anyway. If I have to know, you have to know.”

“Can I finish eating first?”

“No. Now eat your sausages, growing boy!” Yasser mimicked the garbled, high-pitched accent of one of the servants from the academy, Mrs. Jengon, who had doled out food in the great hall. Each and every student was a “growing boy” in her eyes. Even the ones who had finished their battle with puberty.

Peeta frowned and took a tentative bite of sausage.

“Alright, I’m going to try and say this with as much grace as possible,” Yasser said solemnly but then burst into peals of laughter, slamming a fist against the table so forcefully the plates rattled. “Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t think I can. Larone gave the Heartrender a little too much to chew if you know what I’m saying.”

Peeta stilled. “He didn’t.”

Yasser cocked a thick eyebrow, his mouth crinkling around the corners. With his flaming red hair and bright green eyes gleaming under the oil lamps he looked like some kind of buff leprechaun. “He did. And now half his pisser is being packed in ice.”

Peeta’s stomach rolled, his body instinctually clenching in phantom pain as he imagined it. He set down his fork with the sausage impaled on the end and pushed the plate away.

“God…”

“But don’t tell anyone I told you,” Yasser added. “The commander wants to keep it under wraps. Doesn’t shine very well on him, does it? If his recruits are dumb enough to stick their cocks between witch jaws?”

Peeta didn’t tell a soul but the news still spread through the ranks like a wildfire during drought season. Yasser updated him at breakfast. Larone was in the infirmary being tended to by Dutch, the crew’s one doctor, and wouldn’t be out of recovery until the ship reached Sjorkden. Peeta felt bad for the boy, but it was his own foolishness that had gotten him into trouble, and now he’d never bed a wife or sire heirs. Larone’s power crawl was over before it had even really started.

Peeta relieved Hans Gerholt from guarding duty that night, disgusted when he saw no one had bothered to clean the Heartrender up. Larone’s blood had splattered her face, dried, and then cracked. She looked absolutely monstrous with a red dipped chin.

“You here for a good time too?” she said, picking up on Peeta’s discomfort. He didn’t respond, just sat down stiffly in the guard’s chair and listened to the creaking of the boat, the squeaking of rats in the walls, the soft clinking of the witch’s chains when she shifted across the cell floor. “Your little friend showed me his even littler friend. I barely bit him and it was half off.”

“Stop talking,” Peeta growled, angry at himself that he had risen to her bait. He knew she just wanted to get a rise out of him. The weeping girl was gone, replaced with one who had accepted she had nothing to lose.

“Now your commander…” she drawled, eyes flashing in the partial darkness. “His would have taken more gnawing.”

Peeta didn’t much care for the commander. He was old and cruel, but it was the principal of honor and his loyalties to the Order that made him rise so sharply from his chair that it tipped over. He lunged at her through the bars, pulling her up against the cold metal by her collar. “Hold your tongue, witch, or I’ll cut it out.”

She tsked quietly, hanging limply in his grip. “Did your commander ever tell you where he found me?” She saw the confusion in his eyes and clung to it. “Of course he didn’t. No pious soldier of Sjorkden would ever reveal he had been cavorting in a pleasure house.”

“You’re a whore,” Peeta whispered, almost disbelievingly, the pieces clicking into place. He released her and she fell to the ground in a weakened heap.

On the surface, she looked the same. Wrinkled red dress, oily black hair, sunken cheeks. But now there was something alight inside of her. Heat smoldered like molten silver in her eyes.

“You and your kind have called me many things, lieutenant. Witch. Slum scum. Unholy daughter of Krell. But I’m afraid ‘whore’ is where I draw the line. I did not choose that life, it was thrust upon me, and here I am now. Free of it.”

Peeta looked down at her. He thought the commander had put her in those iron hand caps to keep her from unleashing her powers. She could not kill if she could not curl her fingers. But now he suspected they had come from her time in Ellsworth. How long had she been wearing them? From the rust on the padlocks, he suspected a long time. “How ironic that you speak of freedom while you lounge in chains.”

“Freedom is a fickle thing, lieutenant. I may be stuck here in this cage, but I suspect you carry one wherever you go.”

Peeta’s nostrils flared. That familiar rush of rage he experienced during combat surged through his limbs, but with nowhere to go, his head soon swam with it. “Do not pretend to know me. You’re repulsive. A perversion against nature.”

“I am nature. You are just too brainwashed to see it.”

“Nature does not defile the earth. Or slaughter the innocent by the thousands.”

“My people have committed no such crimes. We were healers before you forced our hands to bloodshed. I suggest you try looking upon yourselves before you go blindly doling out sentences.”

Peeta was at a loss for words. The nerve of this girl, injuring Larone and then preaching about who the real enemy was. Coaxing out his anger and frustration when he was normally so good at hiding it. Ever since he ran away from home, he had learned the hard way that emotion in the face of an enemy was weakness. He could not afford to let her under his skin, no matter how hard she clawed away at him. He was ashamed to admit it, but he had found himself thinking about her on nights when he wasn’t on guard duty.

That stopped now.

“Rot in hell,” he spat as he righted his chair.

“You will,” she growled.

The witch burned the red dress in the kitchen fireplace. The fabric steamed and curled into blackened strips, sending dark plumes of smoke up the chimney like released ghouls. Peeta didn’t have to ask her why she did it. He knew she burned the dress to try and burn away the memories of her capture, and perhaps the memories that came before. If he thought about it, the dress must have been from her time in Ellsworth. He could only imagine how a girl of her beauty would fare in the clutches of a pleasure house, the horrors unleashed upon her when the rights to her body were not her own. He wondered how she could even bear touching him.

A man.

A stranger.

If burning the dress had worked, he couldn’t tell. She came to bed in a fur-lined nightgown and quietly rested her cheek on his breastbone. His cheeks burned, shame lacing itself into his stomach lining when he didn’t push her away.

“I’ve never heard a heart song so gentle,” she murmured admiringly. She sounded surprised.

Peeta’s chest ached. He was suddenly self-conscious of how fast he was breathing and in his fight to slow down, hadn’t asked her what she meant.

They raided each house one by one. The people of the village were either dead or had moved on when the plague hit. They left behind dressers full of clothing, shoes, pots and pans, utensils, pottery, carving knives, firewood, axes, the occasional sword, hunting supplies, wax candles, furniture, toys, paintings, family heirlooms. All the trappings of domesticity.

The pair took a pan here and a pair of shoes there. Peeta had found two large packs with which to stuff items in. His pack would contain a small assortment of kitchenware, food, some firewood, and the water sacks. She would carry extra clothing and furs. They planned on spending a couple of nights in the village before restarting their journey north to Fjordhingă.

In the days they spent stocking up on provisions, the witch took over hunting duty. She didn’t hunt with spear or snare as Peeta had learned. She used her powers to crush windpipes and burst hearts. Wild dogs stopped dead in their tracks, keening over like sacks of potatoes. Birds plummeted from the sky, cold before they hit the ground. He enjoyed the bounty, feasting on a new roast every night and salting the leftovers, but with every meal, he grew warier. He had heard the stories of course, of the deathly potential that Heartrenders possessed, but seeing her in action was completely different from hearing some old tale around a campfire. Just how powerful was she? And when she determined he was no longer useful as a means of body heat or when their little truce no longer suited her, how easy would it be to kill him? A curl of her fingers or a flick of her wrist and he’d be dead.

Maybe he’d made a mistake by letting her live.

Every night when he watched her sleep, the voices of the masters pressed into his head, willing his fingers to close around her throat, to witness the light drain from her bulging, terror-filled eyes and have her know that he had bested her.

Him. The seed of a pathetic, weak-willed baker. Wielder of no arcane power and with no legacy to help carve the way. Just him and his own two hands against the world. As it had always been.

But no matter what his common sense was telling him, of how dangerous he knew her kind to be, he couldn’t do it. He would reach for her neck and then freeze, afraid to go any further. If she didn’t stir he’d stay his hand, running feather-light fingers across her pulse point, quietly admiring the way her angled features softened in sleep. But if her eyelids fluttered or her breathing changed he would retreat as if she had burned him.

“Where were you sired?” Peeta asked one night as they ate a bird the witch had caught. The bones were small and Peeta had to be careful not to break them with his teeth. He gnawed on a piece of cartilage as he waited for her reply.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean-” Krellian was not Peeta’s first language. He had picked it up between his boyhood and his blood christening into the Order, but he had limited knowledge of words. He learned Krellian and Narubi and Hannako from old, leather-bound textbooks and even older professors. For years he had studied all the archaic tongues they hoped he would someday snuff out, but he did not know slang or turn of phrase, and his accent was rounded in his mouth compared to the crisp consonants of a native Krellian speaker.

She spoke as if she were tiptoeing through a flower field.

He spoke as if he were crashing through it.

“Where did you… grow?”

“Grow up?”

Grow up. Peeta slotted the term into his memory for future use. “Yes. Where in Krell did you grow up?”

The witch narrowed her eyes, those silvery irises glowing like moonlight from behind a cloud’s ragged border. “Why? Are you planning your next raid?”

“No, I-” He ducked his head, his cheeks burning furiously. “I’m just curious.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I won’t tell you, lieutenant,” she snarled. She threw down her uneaten bird’s wing, splattering congealed blood everywhere. “Besides, you don’t deserve to know.” Her anger was eager, ready to be unleashed upon him even in quiet, semi-companionable moments such as mealtime. She confused him. Why was she flirty and seductive when they lay in bed together but bitter and closed off when he tried having a casual conversation?

Although to be fair, he hadn’t been very open with her either. And not particularly kind.

“It was just a question.”

“A dangerous one. Go ahead and ask another. See if I’ll talk.” Her eyes glittered as if they were playing a game she knew she would win.

Just another thing he didn’t like about the witch. How ashamed he felt when talking to her. Minor slip-ups, cracks in his armor of indifference. She had a talent for coaxing them out of him as if she were pulling secrets from a drunk man.

But he was in too deep now. Might as well try to get something out of her.

He lowered his gaze to the fire and asked, “Then what’s your favorite color?”

The witch blinked. She hadn’t been expecting such a mundane inquiry. She was silent for a moment, probably contemplating if giving away this piece of information would in any way compromise her. She decided a favorite color was harmless.

“Green.”

He pictured it. The verdant green of a forest. Lush and deep and full of secrets.

Just like her.

“Mine is orange,” he offered. “Soft. Like a sunset.”

She cocked a dark brow. “Not red for the blood of your enemies?”

Peeta raised the drumstick back up to his mouth, suppressing a smile. “That comes in a close second.”

She had laughed then, a sound so joyful and clear that Peeta’s heart clenched and he stopped chewing just to hear her better.

She awoke screaming one night, flailing about under the sheets and shoving him away as if he were stabbing her. He had been awake when it started, unable to quiet a storm of racing thoughts. If he hadn’t been so alert, perhaps he wouldn’t have sprung to her aid so quickly.

“What is it?” he demanded, suspecting there was something biting her under the covers. He threw the blankets back, but there was nothing. “Huh?” he asked when he couldn’t make out her quaking mumbles.

“Just a dream, it was just a dream,” she whispered to herself, and then she dissolved into tears. Her face glistened wetly in the moonlight and she shrank away when he reached to pull the covers back over her.

The next night, he took some furs and slept by the fire in the kitchen, afraid she wouldn’t want him in bed with her. But when he was about to doze off, she padded through the doorway.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Sleeping.”

“On the floor?”

“But… you… last night… ” he stammered.

Her face hardened as she crossed her arms self-consciously. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’d feel better if you stayed in the room with me.”

“You kicked me,” he argued.

“Not on purpose,” she hissed.

The two glared at each other, and then the tension broke. The witch softened, her shoulders sagging like a loose bowstring. “Please.”

He should have told her no. Instead, he said: “Alright.”

She dreamed of clients. Harsh hands and sour breath. Shackles looped around a bed frame.

He wasn’t allowed to touch her after those dreams. Not for a long while at least, and when they would eventually come together again, he let her choose when to climb back into his arms.

“What makes me different?” he asked quietly one night as she clutched his shirt, her tears drying over his heart.

She raised her head to meet his eyes. “Can you feel your own heartbeat?”

He could if he focused. If he held his breath and silenced his thoughts. He nodded.

She sounded sad, as if she were quoting somebody when she said, “If you listen close enough, you can hear that all heartbeats are different.”

It sounded like Krellian nonsense. Heartbeats sounded like heartbeats, but it was out before he thought to stop himself. “What is mine like?”

She laid her head back down and inhaled slowly through her nose, listening. “It’s gentle and steady. Like the lapping of the ocean. Ever present and soothing. I’ve never heard one quite like it.” She inhaled again, steeling herself. “It makes me feel safe. Which is ironic because it belongs to you.”

He smiled but she couldn’t see it. Then he asked, “And what does yours sound like?”

There was a long pause and then she said, “You can listen if you want.” She sat up in bed, pulling him along with her, and with gentle hands twined through his hair, tipped his ear to her breast.

It was hard to concentrate. The heels of her hand on his cheeks and her fingers laced across his scalp made him feel as if she were touching him everywhere. But then he forced himself to lean into her chest, the shell of his ear pressing against her sternum, searching for the sounds of her very being.

At first, he heard nothing, just felt the rise and fall of her breaths, but then, as if cotton had been removed from his ears, he heard the heavy beat of life. The first thud was loud like a cannon shot, but the second was quiet, like the dull closing of a door. Her heart sounded like it was limping on stilts. Hobbling along unevenly. Long step, short step. Over and over. Cautious. Afraid. So unlike the girl he’d come to know. But it was all there, hidden away deep inside of her.

“See?” she whispered. “We’re different.”

But they weren’t. Not really.

When she fell asleep and Peeta remained awake, he tried reaching within himself to feel his own heart again. It was like the constant beating of waves as she said, but he didn’t find it soothing. Every beat felt achingly blunt, as if his heart was slowly ripping itself apart to make more room.

It terrified him that he didn’t know what that meant.

On the morning of their departure, he rose, dressed in a black tunic and pants, clasped a heavy fur cloak around his shoulders, and then sheathed a sword at his hip. He stepped outside to swing it around, getting the feel for its weight.

The sword was heavy, made of polished steel that glinted in the cloudy morning light. Compared to the swords he had grown up with, the blade was plain. There were no holy etchings in its metal face, no onyx embedded into the hilt, and no divine blessings had been uttered over it, but he felt a fierce rush of strength all the same. Peeta was used to heavy swords and the leather-wrapped pommel felt right in his hands, as if he’d been missing a part of himself without a weapon.

“Is that really necessary?” the witch asked, her voice carrying from inside the house and over the frostbitten yard. When he laid eyes on her, a hot jolt flooded his body as if he’d just caught himself from falling off a roof.

She leaned against the doorframe, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, but he could tell from the way she warily focused on the blade that she was on high alert. A caribou hide nightdress brushed the tops of her dusky knees and her hair was loose and mussed on one side. The side she had pressed against his body in the night, Peeta realized.

“What else would you have me use?” Peeta asked darkly, unsure why the witch got to use her powers whenever she wanted, but when it came to Peeta’s talents they were disapproved of.

“You have a Heartrender with you,” she said arrogantly, pointing at herself. “You’re just going to be lugging around a sword for show and no offense but I’d rather you carry extra food.”

“It’s not for show. This sword is to protect myself against you,” he said angrily, pointing the blade in her direction.

She took a hurried step back as if she expected him to advance. There was a heavy, quiet moment as Peeta watched her from behind the sword’s edge.

And then she sharply twisted her wrist.

Peeta’s heart rate skyrocketed.

Her voice was low, dangerous as she said: “I don’t know what your superiors told you, but a sword is no match for a Heartrender.” She began squeezing her fingers together and Peeta’s heart stuttered, his chest clenching painfully as if he were having a heart attack. Stabbing heat pulsing through every vein in his body as if his blood had turned to molten lava. He fell to his knees, dropping the sword into the hard-packed dirt with a hollow clang.

“Stop,” he begged, clutching at his chest. His breaths came in ragged pants. He was falling apart under the pressure. “Please.”

She tensed her hand, unsure whether or not to let up. Her eyes were frightened, but there was resolve there too, as if she had imagined this situation before and had already decided the outcome. This was her chance. She had a pack full of food and supplies. She had her enemy in her clutches. She was going to do it. He was going to die, right here, in an abandoned village where no one would think to come looking for him. Where no one would know his name. All who wandered would stay away from the black flag, and he’d be the feast for wild animals and the decay of time.

He should have killed her when he had the chance but he had been weak and now his chances were spent.

She squeezed tighter, her fingertips almost touching her palm. And then all of a sudden, her face crumpled. With a strangled gasp of breath, she released him. He fell to the ground in a quivering heap as his heart rate plummeted and then righted itself.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, trying to stem the flow of tears with her hands. She disappeared back inside the house and Peeta was left to stare shamefully at his own tears pooling in the dirt.

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