General hospital spoilers celebrity dirty laundry
Lore Discovery Part 3/3: Fishbones, Flatwoods, and Colonel's Dirty Little Secret
2023.05.29 14:02 Gumbybum Lore Discovery Part 3/3: Fishbones, Flatwoods, and Colonel's Dirty Little Secret
Disclaimer: This post is long, so you may want to save it and read it later. Also, I put a lot of time into both researching this and writing it up. So if all you have is negative feedback, kindly keep it to yourself. Finally, there’s a lot more that I’ve been looking into beyond the scope of this write-up. If you’d like to join my exp-LORE-ation efforts, please let me know.
Edit: I guess hyperlinks aren't working right now, so I'll have to manually paste those in.
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/1327e9a/lore_discovery_responder_colonel_flatwoods_was/
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/135xf3y/lore_discovery_part_2_responder_colonels_postwa
Recap: Part 1 establishes that Colonel is the same kid who was playing with his “baer frends” at the Palace of the Winding Path. Part 2 establishes that Darius Angler was the author of the 4 Untitled Poems.
TLDR (mad spoilers up in here): Fishbones led the raid that killed Colonel and all the Responders in Flatwoods, and he could very well be Darius Angler’s brother. Colonel may have been up to something nefarious with the children of Flatwoods (but not in that way). Ra Ra might be Ward’s granddaughter. And it looks like mole rat teeth are used to craft Day Tripper.
We Begin at the End: November 2096. 13 Bridge Street, Flatwoods, WV. Responder Colonel died in the raider attack on Flatwoods, along with just about every other Responder that resided there. The raiders attacked because a Chem Addict stole all their food and chems and fled to Flatwoods. You can find her body and holotape just West of the river. But before we get to that, we need to look at what Colonel was up to before he died. Most people probably overlooked this detail because they haven’t explored Flatwoods since they were level 3, and at that point they didn’t have a jetpack or the Marsupial mutation. But Colonel’s front AND back porches are completely railed off. If you make it over the front railing, you’ll find the corpses of Colonel and (likely) the raider that killed him, Colonel’s second “Survivor Story,” and a stroller with an intact doll in it. Colonel was the “caregiver for children” in Flatwoods, so the stroller may have once been for an actual baby.
But on the back porch, Colonel was burning books, files, documents, and the contents of a mysterious duffel back on his grill. Colonel definitely had a secret and he was literally trying to burn the evidence. And that secret was his past with the Diehards and Darius Angler. If you follow the road West out of Flatwoods, you’ll eventually arrive at Hillfolk Hotdogs, which is the site of Untitled Poem #3 and the former home of Colonel when he lived with Angler as a child (you can find one of his “baer frends” on the kid-sized bunk bed). But inside the bus(?) at Hillfolk’s, you’ll also find similar documents and a duffel bag, just like the kind Colonel was burning in Flatwoods when he died. As a matter of fact, there are other similarly suspicious duffel bags and file caches along the Ohio River. And this takes us to Ohio River Adventures.
Fishbones is a Dirty Rat Bastard: In the exact same way that the Diehards returned to Crater, a former territory of theirs (and site of Untitled Poem #2), the Diehards also returned to Ohio River Adventures. Now, O.R.A. gets overlooked because there is no main quest line that keeps you returning to this area (maybe the grind for Raider Rep), but this place is former Diehard territory too. Now, it is critically important to know that both Fishbones (Bones) and Blackeye are O.G. Diehards. Blackeye was almost certainly Colonel’s 1st grade teacher back at the Palace of the Winding Path. But what about Bones? Well, my friends, I bet I’m about to tell you something you didn’t already know:
When Margie McClintock died in 2096 (as inferred what Rose tells us during the main quest), Meg Groberg took over and soon thereafter led the Diehards out of Appalachia before returning years later (that, you already knew). You probably also already knew that before Margie died, Meg and the other Diehards went against protocol and “shot first” when robbing people. Meg was a true raider in all the ways that Margie was not. But what you probably didn’t put together is that Margie died around the time that Flatwoods was attacked. According to the Chem Addict from Flatwoods:
“Chems Addict: Well, this is it I guess. Rock bottom I think they call it. I still miss him. Billy. I knew he was too young for me, but he made me feel good. Though it's the old Billy I really miss. The one who used to do nothing all day with me but listen to the radio and drink. I shoulda got out sooner when Billy and his buddies started torturing little cats and dogs. His friends... were no good. But that didn't stop me anyway. I can't believe my wake up call was watching people's heads... get stuck on spikes. So... what is an old gal like me to do? Steal all the food. Steal all the chems. And get the hell out of there. *laughs* I'd trade my last bite of food just to see the look on their faces. Oh, I know it's going to piss off Billy's friends, but I don't give a damn. I tell myself I should feel sorry for the little town across the river. But if I'm being honest, and that's what this tape is for, I don't really care. I call myself an addict, but it ain't the chems that finally got me. It was always Billy.”
I want to emphasize the “heads on spikes” part, because that’s something Margie would never tolerate. But Meg on the other hand let raiders be raiders. The other thing that I want to point out is “Billy.” I’m not saying for certain that this Billy is the same as Darius Angler’s brother, but I am saying that technically no body was ever recovered from the molten steel, and Angler didn’t see the accident happen because he didn’t work at Grafton Steel anymore. It’s possible that “Billy Angler,” who didn’t quit because “he needs the money,” could have taken out some kind of insurance policy, named his chem addict girlfriend as the beneficiary, faked his own death, and skipped town. Do I know for certain that this happened? Of course not. But what I do know is this: FISHBONES’S REAL NAME IS BILLY!!! The reason he’s obsessed with the letter B is because that’s his first initial. You see, at first I thought the raiders that wrecked Flatwoods were Cutthroats because of their whole feud with the Responders. But then I learned that the Flatwoods attack was caused by a bunch of chems that the Addict stole, and the Diehards were Appalachia’s great chems supplier (thanks to Angler). Furthermore, Fishbones’s current operation is spiking Mirelurk meat with an addictive substance (chems). And since Bones is an OG Diehard, it means he was the piece-of-shit raider that attacked Flatwoods and killed Colonel.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fishbones
A Bit About Bruiser: I found a few interesting details about Bruiser at Ohio River Adventures, but nothing too profound. We know that he used to play football, his mascot was a “battle bear,” and that he spent some time in a vault. The likeliest conclusion from this information is that he’s from Grafton, given that’s the only high school in the region with a football field and it’s next to the makeshift vault that formerly housed a few raiders before the BOS took over. If you look up the IRL Grafton High School, you’ll find that it’s on Yates Ave (likely the namesake of Sofie Yates, a Responder turned Raider in Flatwoods) and their mascot is the “Bearcat.” Also, all the varsity jackets in FO76 have the letter B on them, but that’s more Fishbones’s thing. But none of this has anything to do with Colonel or Angler, so let’s move on.
The Charleston Cartel (2079-2082): From the Charleston Capitol Building terminal entries, we know there was a massive chem trade happening in Charleston at this time:
“Name: Matoukas, George
Date of Crime: 10.09.81
Description:
300 Block of Oak. Based on anonymous tip, Responder Atkins found subject peddling vast amounts of illegal chems out of his home. Over 300lbs of illegal chems found in the subject's basement.
Resolution:
Matoukas sentenced to 5 years hard labor under close supervision, with possibility of parole for good behavior. Chems were seized and destroyed.”
Since the Diehards’ operation at the Palace of the Winding Path effectively ended with the great rapture of ‘79, it only makes sense that the Diehards would have to adapt their drug trade elsewhere. If you actually look for raider activity in Charleston (outside of the courthouse), you won’t find a lot, but what you will find is very telling of their operations. You’ll find a dead raider at the chemistry workbench inside Hornwright Industrial Headquarters. You’ll find a few dead raiders in/above the pharmacy on the south side of town. And you’ll find a dead raider lurking outside the doctors’ offices (which is NOT the hospital) to the north. And this takes us to Dr. Joseph.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Joseph_(Fallout_76))
Dr. Joseph was a psychiatrist in Charleston who practiced both before AND after the Great War. He had the authority to refer patients to Allegheny Asylum and write prescriptions; Prescriptions that would be filled at the pharmacy on the south side of Charleston. To one patient, P. Davis, he prescribed Day Tripper. This insightful detail is why the Diehards were operating in Charleston in the first place. As many seasoned players have observed, Day Tripper is not craftable in this game; You can only find it out in the wild. Consider the following terminal entry from the Palace of the Winding Path:
“Log: 12.29.77 Since the war, incense ingredients have been hard to come by. We started rationing weeks ago, in anticipation of this, and doses are much lower. The sedative effects of the incense are a priority, to keep people from freaking out.
I've begun to improvise with some other ingredients and found some creative ways of stretching the supply, at least until things return to relative normal. Other chem supplies are plentiful.”
So here’s what I think happened. If the Diehards were in dire need of Day Tripper to make their custom chems (see: Making Incense), and the Responders had a healthy supply of Day Tripper locked inside a pharmacy in Charleston, and there was also a doctor who wrote prescriptions for Day Tripper, then all the Diehards needed to do was register a new patient with Dr. Joseph. Enter: Darius Angler.
Darius Angler was batshit crazy (if in doubt, refer to his manifesto). Angler, who now resided at Hillfolk Hotdogs, was also just a short trip up the New River from Charleston. He would periodically visit Dr. Joseph, get his prescription filled like a meth-head scoring Sudafed, and used the trip as a cover to smuggle the refined chems into the city. Essentially, I think he just made a loop around the southwest “island” of the Forest (area surrounded on all sides by 3 rivers, referred to as “Zone D”). The loop around Zone D functioned as a supply chain/assembly line for producing the chems that were being smuggled into Charleston. There’s a lot of suspicious stuff happening around here: Raider activity, duffel bags/files, bridge control, coffin conspiracies, etc. that I had to edit out for length, but I’ll try to summarize it here.
Hillfolk Hotdogs is where Angler and Colonel raised mole rats for reasons I’ll explain later. Follow the Ohio River south and you’ll soon come to a boat that’s not far away from a crashed truck loaded up with industrial chemical barrels (useful for producing industrial quantities of chems). South of that is a tent with a duffel bag. Further south you’ll find a 3-story house with suspicious files and a duffle bag hidden in the attic (just like at Hillfolk’s). South of that are some dry-docked boats with a chem box and a duffel bag. Even further south is Ohio River Adventure (a current Raider base of operation that served a similar purpose back then). Southeast of there, by Lewis & Sons, is a little “boat” with 2 stuffed bears, which I think was left behind by Colonel as he reenacted his river adventures with Angler using his bears. Southeast of there is a floating Nuka-Cola structure with a submerged safe guarded by 2 more bears, one of which has a liquor bottle. I think this is a dead drop and the bears are another work of Colonel’s. Heading East up the River you’ll find a raider-operated “store” at the end of a questionable bridge. Further east is Charleston, where George Matoukas was distributing the chems. And on the return trip down the New River is another dead drop directly beneath the Bridge on the west side. It’s a safe by a couch with a bear and Jangles (I think Jangles is supposed to represent George). Again, I think that this big loop is a supply chain/assembly line for moving chems and the components needed to make chems.
The smuggling operation also deviously involved Colonel and his “Baer Frends.” If you jetpack up to the very top of AVR Medical Center, you’ll find two people who OD’ed on chems, each with a stuffed bear next to them. So I think that either the Diehards were sewing chems inside Colonel’s stuffed bears and using them as drug mules to smuggle chems into Charleston, or that Colonel just climbed to the highest point on the hospital (as he did at the Palace and later in Flatwoods) and left two bears as a memorial. But I’m leaning toward the former because of an unmarked location in the Savage Divide that I found. It’s southeast of Bastion Park right at the bend of the monorail line. It’s essentially a fire pit with a bunch of stuffed bears thrown in it with a few dead party-goers around the area. I think this is the location where the Responders destroyed all of the Chems, bears and all, that they confiscated from George Matoukas. Speaking of George Matoukas….
Curious George and the Rocket: According to the above-mentioned terminal entry, George Matoukas was apparently the only criminal who the Responders sentenced to hard labor rather than exile. If you go to Rollins Labor Camp (formerly Rollins Work Camp), you won’t find a whole lot there other than Blood Eagles. But what you WILL find at the very top of the crane structure are two stuffed bears and a Jangles. Colonel, as a child, had a thing for playing with “baer frends in high places.” I can’t say with any certainty what happened here, but maybe Angler was the one who gave the responders that “anonymous tip” because Matoukas was starting to rub off on Colonel, and Angler didn’t want him growing up to be a Raider. Matoukas gets sentenced to hard labor rather than exile, with a change of parole pending “good behavior,” which means “snitching.” So maybe Angler took Colonel to visit his “friend” at the labor camp (visiting hours are a thing), Angler introduced George to a “rocket,” and Colonel used his toys to recreate the scene. Or not. Who knows? But what I do know is that the shitty poet (Angler) moved on from Hillfolk Hotdogs to go to the Cranberry Bog, and I think the Christmas Flood gave him the perfect reason to leave.
Untitled Poem #3: I’m intentionally skipping Untitled Poem #2, partly because I haven’t found much deeper meaning to it, but mostly because what I think it means is little more than conjecture. #3, on the other hand, I feel like I can make sense of it:
“white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river
peeling like asylum walls
hobbled together around dignity that died long ago
simple things to jumpstart fogged memories
holed as teeth hidden in tin
we leave our things pinned
winning only the stuck wings”
I think the phrase “white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river” is the title of the painting in Dr. Joseph’s office. Or at least that’s how Darius Angler would describe it as if it was some kind of Rorschach test. “Peeling like asylum walls, hobbled together around dignity that died long ago” is a reference to the office wallpaper, and perhaps another one of Dr. Joseph’s clients, Daniel Boone.
“Patient: "Boone, D"
Observations:
Interesting case.
Patient responds only to "Daniel Boone" and indeed seems to believe himself to be the historical figure by the same name. I'd heard that some of the hillfolk can end up a bit off after lack of socialization, but I'd not expected to see such a case.
Advised that he be sent to Allegheny rather than the Penitentiary for further observation.”
There’s only a VERY narrow window of plausibility to suggest that Angler is Daniel Boone, so I won’t. But this entry seems to refer back to Untitled Poem #3, with worlds like “hillfolk” (as in Hillfolk Hotdogs), “Allegheny” (as in asylum), and “the historical figure” (as in dignity that died long ago). I think the line “simple things to jumpstart fogged memories'' refers to the Souvenir Magnet on the fridge at Hillfolk Hotdogs, and I think it came from Lady Janet’s Soft Serve (not Cow Spot Creamery). “Holed as teeth hidden in tin” refers to the mole rats that he was raising with Colonel at Hillfolk’s (the cat bowl on the floor is for the mole rat that walks around the trailer like Fry’s dog from Futurama, just waiting for Colonel to come home). And “we leave our things pinned, winning only the stuck wings,” refers to Angler’s (and Colonel’s) escape from the Diehards. I’m assuming this event took place just after the Christmas flood, once the chem operation in Charleston was destroyed with the rest of the city. But if you remember those dead raiders I mentioned earlier, there are a few more. Outside of Dr. Joseph’s office is a dead raider next to an ammo box. Well, next to him is a makeshift bridge that goes over the highway. And if you keep going in the same direction once you step off the bridge you’ll hit the southwest corner of Wade Airport. Immediately in that corner past the fence is a locked truck-trailer (watch out for the mine) with 2 more dead raiders and a power armor chassis (sometimes). I think the last line of the poem refers to this exact event, leaving his power armor (and compatriots) pinned in the back of the trailer so he can steal yet another Vertibird. Angler flew the automated aircraft to Watoga. Why? I don’t know. But it explains how he got to the Cranberry Bog and why his body can be found just a short distance south of the city.
Untitled Poem #4: Just like #2, I don’t have any deep insight into the specifics so all I can do is speculate. I’ll spare you the details. But what I think it’s about is the very end of his relationship with Colonel. I think the time Angler and Colonel spent together in the unmarked cabin southeast of Sunrise Field was just Angler teaching Colonel to be self-sufficient (hunting, trapping, maintaining weapons and whatnot). I think that when the scorched attacked Harper’s Ferry in 2086 that there was also generally increased scorched activity in the eastern half of Appalachia. The poem describes Angler providing cover fire to, or perhaps just drawing fire away from Colonel as he escaped through Big Bend Tunnel, later to be found by the Responders. But again, like with #2, all I can do with this poem is speculate.
The Mysterious Mole Rats: This is a question I’ve had for almost 2 years now, and I think I finally figured it out. Back at the Palace of the Winding Path, there’s a lonely mole rat that lives in the computer room by the garden. There’s also a dead mole rat next to a dead raider pilot by a downed plane that was headed to the Palace from the north. I didn’t know what the Diehards needed mole rats for because I was only looking at the Palace itself. But the answer to this question is found at Lady Janet’s. Everyone thinks that the two bears in gas masks by the chemistry is just a Breaking Bad easter egg. But I think it’s yet another “baer frend” reenactment left behind by Colonel. Do you remember how the cultists at the Palace ran out of ingredients to make the “spiritual incense” and had to improvise? Well, one of the substitute ingredients they used, and the reason they were importing mole rats, and the reason the Diehards took care of the children like they did, is found in the baby carriage at Lady Janet’s.
A stroller full of human jaw bones? Yeah…. Teeth. Or more precisely, “baby teeth.” I suppose mole rat teeth would do in a pinch, but as messed up as it sounds human baby teeth were preferred. This is why the Diehards at the Palace were taking care of those first-graders; because six-year-olds shed baby teeth like it’s raining molars! This also answers a question you didn’t even know you had, and it takes us back to Flatwoods. Here’s a note written by Jeremiah Ward who lived in trailer in the town (and the Ransacked Bunker before that):
“I, Jeremiah Ward, resident in the town of Flatwoods, county of... not sure.
Being of sound mind, and not acting under... duress. Mostly.
Hereby declare this letter to be my last will and testament.
Mia gets the house, and everything in it.
It ain't much but that's all I got to give and... she's all I got.
I know she's still alive.
The Responders say the dogs got her, but I know it ain't true.
They been real good to us. Teaching an old geezer like me how to really cook is something. I'll give em that.
But I know they lyin about those dogs. I seen em in the hills. There's some bad folks scoping us out. They took my granddaughter, I just know it.
I'll get you back, Mia. I promise.”
Mia, a baby who slept in the crib in that trailer, was abducted by raiders. And the only raider gang that ever had any interest in kids was the Diehards. And when you remember that the Responders had a foster care program that would later be run by Colonel once he was older, you’ll remember that a shit load of children went “missing” when Billy (Fishbones) attacked Flatwoods. And if teeth (baby, mole rat, or otherwise) was the secret ingredient in Angler’s chem recipe… and Colonel was Angler’s apprentice for a number of years before he joined the Responders… and Colonel was the caretaker of all of the children of Flatwoods… then exactly what was in those documents that Colonel was burning on his back porch?
Full Circle: So after everything, the Diehards lost their crop of children at the Palace of the Winding Path in 2079, but took the children of Flatwoods and left Appalachia. When they came back, they put Fishbones (Billy) in charge of the Ohio River Adventures operation, who is now spiking the mirelurk meat with a potent chem. It’s totally possible that Ra Ra is actually Mia Ward (Jeremiah Ward’s granddaughter). Hell, it’s even possible that Jeremiah Ward is somehow Ward from Foundation. Since Colonel was obviously keeping, and subsequently burning, secrets, I’d say he was also inclined to keep his raider past a secret as well as the truth about his adoptive father. Like he said in his Survivor’s Story, “he was bad.” Perhaps the reason he kept his Diehard history a secret from the Dassa and the other Responders was because he knew that the Responders were the ones punishing and exiling people back in Charleston. But this whole story began the day Darius Angler decided to get revenge on Grafton Steel. And if his brother hadn’t actually died after all, then it would explain why Angler stayed with the Diehards for as long as he did rather than returning to the Free states. Regardless, this entire story began and ended with Billy. “It was always Billy.”
submitted by Gumbybum to fo76 [link] [comments]
Edit: I guess hyperlinks aren't working right now, so I'll have to manually paste those in.
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/1327e9a/lore_discovery_responder_colonel_flatwoods_was/
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/135xf3y/lore_discovery_part_2_responder_colonels_postwa
Recap: Part 1 establishes that Colonel is the same kid who was playing with his “baer frends” at the Palace of the Winding Path. Part 2 establishes that Darius Angler was the author of the 4 Untitled Poems.
TLDR (mad spoilers up in here): Fishbones led the raid that killed Colonel and all the Responders in Flatwoods, and he could very well be Darius Angler’s brother. Colonel may have been up to something nefarious with the children of Flatwoods (but not in that way). Ra Ra might be Ward’s granddaughter. And it looks like mole rat teeth are used to craft Day Tripper.
We Begin at the End: November 2096. 13 Bridge Street, Flatwoods, WV. Responder Colonel died in the raider attack on Flatwoods, along with just about every other Responder that resided there. The raiders attacked because a Chem Addict stole all their food and chems and fled to Flatwoods. You can find her body and holotape just West of the river. But before we get to that, we need to look at what Colonel was up to before he died. Most people probably overlooked this detail because they haven’t explored Flatwoods since they were level 3, and at that point they didn’t have a jetpack or the Marsupial mutation. But Colonel’s front AND back porches are completely railed off. If you make it over the front railing, you’ll find the corpses of Colonel and (likely) the raider that killed him, Colonel’s second “Survivor Story,” and a stroller with an intact doll in it. Colonel was the “caregiver for children” in Flatwoods, so the stroller may have once been for an actual baby.
But on the back porch, Colonel was burning books, files, documents, and the contents of a mysterious duffel back on his grill. Colonel definitely had a secret and he was literally trying to burn the evidence. And that secret was his past with the Diehards and Darius Angler. If you follow the road West out of Flatwoods, you’ll eventually arrive at Hillfolk Hotdogs, which is the site of Untitled Poem #3 and the former home of Colonel when he lived with Angler as a child (you can find one of his “baer frends” on the kid-sized bunk bed). But inside the bus(?) at Hillfolk’s, you’ll also find similar documents and a duffel bag, just like the kind Colonel was burning in Flatwoods when he died. As a matter of fact, there are other similarly suspicious duffel bags and file caches along the Ohio River. And this takes us to Ohio River Adventures.
Fishbones is a Dirty Rat Bastard: In the exact same way that the Diehards returned to Crater, a former territory of theirs (and site of Untitled Poem #2), the Diehards also returned to Ohio River Adventures. Now, O.R.A. gets overlooked because there is no main quest line that keeps you returning to this area (maybe the grind for Raider Rep), but this place is former Diehard territory too. Now, it is critically important to know that both Fishbones (Bones) and Blackeye are O.G. Diehards. Blackeye was almost certainly Colonel’s 1st grade teacher back at the Palace of the Winding Path. But what about Bones? Well, my friends, I bet I’m about to tell you something you didn’t already know:
When Margie McClintock died in 2096 (as inferred what Rose tells us during the main quest), Meg Groberg took over and soon thereafter led the Diehards out of Appalachia before returning years later (that, you already knew). You probably also already knew that before Margie died, Meg and the other Diehards went against protocol and “shot first” when robbing people. Meg was a true raider in all the ways that Margie was not. But what you probably didn’t put together is that Margie died around the time that Flatwoods was attacked. According to the Chem Addict from Flatwoods:
“Chems Addict: Well, this is it I guess. Rock bottom I think they call it. I still miss him. Billy. I knew he was too young for me, but he made me feel good. Though it's the old Billy I really miss. The one who used to do nothing all day with me but listen to the radio and drink. I shoulda got out sooner when Billy and his buddies started torturing little cats and dogs. His friends... were no good. But that didn't stop me anyway. I can't believe my wake up call was watching people's heads... get stuck on spikes. So... what is an old gal like me to do? Steal all the food. Steal all the chems. And get the hell out of there. *laughs* I'd trade my last bite of food just to see the look on their faces. Oh, I know it's going to piss off Billy's friends, but I don't give a damn. I tell myself I should feel sorry for the little town across the river. But if I'm being honest, and that's what this tape is for, I don't really care. I call myself an addict, but it ain't the chems that finally got me. It was always Billy.”
I want to emphasize the “heads on spikes” part, because that’s something Margie would never tolerate. But Meg on the other hand let raiders be raiders. The other thing that I want to point out is “Billy.” I’m not saying for certain that this Billy is the same as Darius Angler’s brother, but I am saying that technically no body was ever recovered from the molten steel, and Angler didn’t see the accident happen because he didn’t work at Grafton Steel anymore. It’s possible that “Billy Angler,” who didn’t quit because “he needs the money,” could have taken out some kind of insurance policy, named his chem addict girlfriend as the beneficiary, faked his own death, and skipped town. Do I know for certain that this happened? Of course not. But what I do know is this: FISHBONES’S REAL NAME IS BILLY!!! The reason he’s obsessed with the letter B is because that’s his first initial. You see, at first I thought the raiders that wrecked Flatwoods were Cutthroats because of their whole feud with the Responders. But then I learned that the Flatwoods attack was caused by a bunch of chems that the Addict stole, and the Diehards were Appalachia’s great chems supplier (thanks to Angler). Furthermore, Fishbones’s current operation is spiking Mirelurk meat with an addictive substance (chems). And since Bones is an OG Diehard, it means he was the piece-of-shit raider that attacked Flatwoods and killed Colonel.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fishbones
A Bit About Bruiser: I found a few interesting details about Bruiser at Ohio River Adventures, but nothing too profound. We know that he used to play football, his mascot was a “battle bear,” and that he spent some time in a vault. The likeliest conclusion from this information is that he’s from Grafton, given that’s the only high school in the region with a football field and it’s next to the makeshift vault that formerly housed a few raiders before the BOS took over. If you look up the IRL Grafton High School, you’ll find that it’s on Yates Ave (likely the namesake of Sofie Yates, a Responder turned Raider in Flatwoods) and their mascot is the “Bearcat.” Also, all the varsity jackets in FO76 have the letter B on them, but that’s more Fishbones’s thing. But none of this has anything to do with Colonel or Angler, so let’s move on.
The Charleston Cartel (2079-2082): From the Charleston Capitol Building terminal entries, we know there was a massive chem trade happening in Charleston at this time:
“Name: Matoukas, George
Date of Crime: 10.09.81
Description:
300 Block of Oak. Based on anonymous tip, Responder Atkins found subject peddling vast amounts of illegal chems out of his home. Over 300lbs of illegal chems found in the subject's basement.
Resolution:
Matoukas sentenced to 5 years hard labor under close supervision, with possibility of parole for good behavior. Chems were seized and destroyed.”
Since the Diehards’ operation at the Palace of the Winding Path effectively ended with the great rapture of ‘79, it only makes sense that the Diehards would have to adapt their drug trade elsewhere. If you actually look for raider activity in Charleston (outside of the courthouse), you won’t find a lot, but what you will find is very telling of their operations. You’ll find a dead raider at the chemistry workbench inside Hornwright Industrial Headquarters. You’ll find a few dead raiders in/above the pharmacy on the south side of town. And you’ll find a dead raider lurking outside the doctors’ offices (which is NOT the hospital) to the north. And this takes us to Dr. Joseph.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Joseph_(Fallout_76))
Dr. Joseph was a psychiatrist in Charleston who practiced both before AND after the Great War. He had the authority to refer patients to Allegheny Asylum and write prescriptions; Prescriptions that would be filled at the pharmacy on the south side of Charleston. To one patient, P. Davis, he prescribed Day Tripper. This insightful detail is why the Diehards were operating in Charleston in the first place. As many seasoned players have observed, Day Tripper is not craftable in this game; You can only find it out in the wild. Consider the following terminal entry from the Palace of the Winding Path:
“Log: 12.29.77 Since the war, incense ingredients have been hard to come by. We started rationing weeks ago, in anticipation of this, and doses are much lower. The sedative effects of the incense are a priority, to keep people from freaking out.
I've begun to improvise with some other ingredients and found some creative ways of stretching the supply, at least until things return to relative normal. Other chem supplies are plentiful.”
So here’s what I think happened. If the Diehards were in dire need of Day Tripper to make their custom chems (see: Making Incense), and the Responders had a healthy supply of Day Tripper locked inside a pharmacy in Charleston, and there was also a doctor who wrote prescriptions for Day Tripper, then all the Diehards needed to do was register a new patient with Dr. Joseph. Enter: Darius Angler.
Darius Angler was batshit crazy (if in doubt, refer to his manifesto). Angler, who now resided at Hillfolk Hotdogs, was also just a short trip up the New River from Charleston. He would periodically visit Dr. Joseph, get his prescription filled like a meth-head scoring Sudafed, and used the trip as a cover to smuggle the refined chems into the city. Essentially, I think he just made a loop around the southwest “island” of the Forest (area surrounded on all sides by 3 rivers, referred to as “Zone D”). The loop around Zone D functioned as a supply chain/assembly line for producing the chems that were being smuggled into Charleston. There’s a lot of suspicious stuff happening around here: Raider activity, duffel bags/files, bridge control, coffin conspiracies, etc. that I had to edit out for length, but I’ll try to summarize it here.
Hillfolk Hotdogs is where Angler and Colonel raised mole rats for reasons I’ll explain later. Follow the Ohio River south and you’ll soon come to a boat that’s not far away from a crashed truck loaded up with industrial chemical barrels (useful for producing industrial quantities of chems). South of that is a tent with a duffel bag. Further south you’ll find a 3-story house with suspicious files and a duffle bag hidden in the attic (just like at Hillfolk’s). South of that are some dry-docked boats with a chem box and a duffel bag. Even further south is Ohio River Adventure (a current Raider base of operation that served a similar purpose back then). Southeast of there, by Lewis & Sons, is a little “boat” with 2 stuffed bears, which I think was left behind by Colonel as he reenacted his river adventures with Angler using his bears. Southeast of there is a floating Nuka-Cola structure with a submerged safe guarded by 2 more bears, one of which has a liquor bottle. I think this is a dead drop and the bears are another work of Colonel’s. Heading East up the River you’ll find a raider-operated “store” at the end of a questionable bridge. Further east is Charleston, where George Matoukas was distributing the chems. And on the return trip down the New River is another dead drop directly beneath the Bridge on the west side. It’s a safe by a couch with a bear and Jangles (I think Jangles is supposed to represent George). Again, I think that this big loop is a supply chain/assembly line for moving chems and the components needed to make chems.
The smuggling operation also deviously involved Colonel and his “Baer Frends.” If you jetpack up to the very top of AVR Medical Center, you’ll find two people who OD’ed on chems, each with a stuffed bear next to them. So I think that either the Diehards were sewing chems inside Colonel’s stuffed bears and using them as drug mules to smuggle chems into Charleston, or that Colonel just climbed to the highest point on the hospital (as he did at the Palace and later in Flatwoods) and left two bears as a memorial. But I’m leaning toward the former because of an unmarked location in the Savage Divide that I found. It’s southeast of Bastion Park right at the bend of the monorail line. It’s essentially a fire pit with a bunch of stuffed bears thrown in it with a few dead party-goers around the area. I think this is the location where the Responders destroyed all of the Chems, bears and all, that they confiscated from George Matoukas. Speaking of George Matoukas….
Curious George and the Rocket: According to the above-mentioned terminal entry, George Matoukas was apparently the only criminal who the Responders sentenced to hard labor rather than exile. If you go to Rollins Labor Camp (formerly Rollins Work Camp), you won’t find a whole lot there other than Blood Eagles. But what you WILL find at the very top of the crane structure are two stuffed bears and a Jangles. Colonel, as a child, had a thing for playing with “baer frends in high places.” I can’t say with any certainty what happened here, but maybe Angler was the one who gave the responders that “anonymous tip” because Matoukas was starting to rub off on Colonel, and Angler didn’t want him growing up to be a Raider. Matoukas gets sentenced to hard labor rather than exile, with a change of parole pending “good behavior,” which means “snitching.” So maybe Angler took Colonel to visit his “friend” at the labor camp (visiting hours are a thing), Angler introduced George to a “rocket,” and Colonel used his toys to recreate the scene. Or not. Who knows? But what I do know is that the shitty poet (Angler) moved on from Hillfolk Hotdogs to go to the Cranberry Bog, and I think the Christmas Flood gave him the perfect reason to leave.
Untitled Poem #3: I’m intentionally skipping Untitled Poem #2, partly because I haven’t found much deeper meaning to it, but mostly because what I think it means is little more than conjecture. #3, on the other hand, I feel like I can make sense of it:
“white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river
peeling like asylum walls
hobbled together around dignity that died long ago
simple things to jumpstart fogged memories
holed as teeth hidden in tin
we leave our things pinned
winning only the stuck wings”
I think the phrase “white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river” is the title of the painting in Dr. Joseph’s office. Or at least that’s how Darius Angler would describe it as if it was some kind of Rorschach test. “Peeling like asylum walls, hobbled together around dignity that died long ago” is a reference to the office wallpaper, and perhaps another one of Dr. Joseph’s clients, Daniel Boone.
“Patient: "Boone, D"
Observations:
Interesting case.
Patient responds only to "Daniel Boone" and indeed seems to believe himself to be the historical figure by the same name. I'd heard that some of the hillfolk can end up a bit off after lack of socialization, but I'd not expected to see such a case.
Advised that he be sent to Allegheny rather than the Penitentiary for further observation.”
There’s only a VERY narrow window of plausibility to suggest that Angler is Daniel Boone, so I won’t. But this entry seems to refer back to Untitled Poem #3, with worlds like “hillfolk” (as in Hillfolk Hotdogs), “Allegheny” (as in asylum), and “the historical figure” (as in dignity that died long ago). I think the line “simple things to jumpstart fogged memories'' refers to the Souvenir Magnet on the fridge at Hillfolk Hotdogs, and I think it came from Lady Janet’s Soft Serve (not Cow Spot Creamery). “Holed as teeth hidden in tin” refers to the mole rats that he was raising with Colonel at Hillfolk’s (the cat bowl on the floor is for the mole rat that walks around the trailer like Fry’s dog from Futurama, just waiting for Colonel to come home). And “we leave our things pinned, winning only the stuck wings,” refers to Angler’s (and Colonel’s) escape from the Diehards. I’m assuming this event took place just after the Christmas flood, once the chem operation in Charleston was destroyed with the rest of the city. But if you remember those dead raiders I mentioned earlier, there are a few more. Outside of Dr. Joseph’s office is a dead raider next to an ammo box. Well, next to him is a makeshift bridge that goes over the highway. And if you keep going in the same direction once you step off the bridge you’ll hit the southwest corner of Wade Airport. Immediately in that corner past the fence is a locked truck-trailer (watch out for the mine) with 2 more dead raiders and a power armor chassis (sometimes). I think the last line of the poem refers to this exact event, leaving his power armor (and compatriots) pinned in the back of the trailer so he can steal yet another Vertibird. Angler flew the automated aircraft to Watoga. Why? I don’t know. But it explains how he got to the Cranberry Bog and why his body can be found just a short distance south of the city.
Untitled Poem #4: Just like #2, I don’t have any deep insight into the specifics so all I can do is speculate. I’ll spare you the details. But what I think it’s about is the very end of his relationship with Colonel. I think the time Angler and Colonel spent together in the unmarked cabin southeast of Sunrise Field was just Angler teaching Colonel to be self-sufficient (hunting, trapping, maintaining weapons and whatnot). I think that when the scorched attacked Harper’s Ferry in 2086 that there was also generally increased scorched activity in the eastern half of Appalachia. The poem describes Angler providing cover fire to, or perhaps just drawing fire away from Colonel as he escaped through Big Bend Tunnel, later to be found by the Responders. But again, like with #2, all I can do with this poem is speculate.
The Mysterious Mole Rats: This is a question I’ve had for almost 2 years now, and I think I finally figured it out. Back at the Palace of the Winding Path, there’s a lonely mole rat that lives in the computer room by the garden. There’s also a dead mole rat next to a dead raider pilot by a downed plane that was headed to the Palace from the north. I didn’t know what the Diehards needed mole rats for because I was only looking at the Palace itself. But the answer to this question is found at Lady Janet’s. Everyone thinks that the two bears in gas masks by the chemistry is just a Breaking Bad easter egg. But I think it’s yet another “baer frend” reenactment left behind by Colonel. Do you remember how the cultists at the Palace ran out of ingredients to make the “spiritual incense” and had to improvise? Well, one of the substitute ingredients they used, and the reason they were importing mole rats, and the reason the Diehards took care of the children like they did, is found in the baby carriage at Lady Janet’s.
A stroller full of human jaw bones? Yeah…. Teeth. Or more precisely, “baby teeth.” I suppose mole rat teeth would do in a pinch, but as messed up as it sounds human baby teeth were preferred. This is why the Diehards at the Palace were taking care of those first-graders; because six-year-olds shed baby teeth like it’s raining molars! This also answers a question you didn’t even know you had, and it takes us back to Flatwoods. Here’s a note written by Jeremiah Ward who lived in trailer in the town (and the Ransacked Bunker before that):
“I, Jeremiah Ward, resident in the town of Flatwoods, county of... not sure.
Being of sound mind, and not acting under... duress. Mostly.
Hereby declare this letter to be my last will and testament.
Mia gets the house, and everything in it.
It ain't much but that's all I got to give and... she's all I got.
I know she's still alive.
The Responders say the dogs got her, but I know it ain't true.
They been real good to us. Teaching an old geezer like me how to really cook is something. I'll give em that.
But I know they lyin about those dogs. I seen em in the hills. There's some bad folks scoping us out. They took my granddaughter, I just know it.
I'll get you back, Mia. I promise.”
Mia, a baby who slept in the crib in that trailer, was abducted by raiders. And the only raider gang that ever had any interest in kids was the Diehards. And when you remember that the Responders had a foster care program that would later be run by Colonel once he was older, you’ll remember that a shit load of children went “missing” when Billy (Fishbones) attacked Flatwoods. And if teeth (baby, mole rat, or otherwise) was the secret ingredient in Angler’s chem recipe… and Colonel was Angler’s apprentice for a number of years before he joined the Responders… and Colonel was the caretaker of all of the children of Flatwoods… then exactly what was in those documents that Colonel was burning on his back porch?
Full Circle: So after everything, the Diehards lost their crop of children at the Palace of the Winding Path in 2079, but took the children of Flatwoods and left Appalachia. When they came back, they put Fishbones (Billy) in charge of the Ohio River Adventures operation, who is now spiking the mirelurk meat with a potent chem. It’s totally possible that Ra Ra is actually Mia Ward (Jeremiah Ward’s granddaughter). Hell, it’s even possible that Jeremiah Ward is somehow Ward from Foundation. Since Colonel was obviously keeping, and subsequently burning, secrets, I’d say he was also inclined to keep his raider past a secret as well as the truth about his adoptive father. Like he said in his Survivor’s Story, “he was bad.” Perhaps the reason he kept his Diehard history a secret from the Dassa and the other Responders was because he knew that the Responders were the ones punishing and exiling people back in Charleston. But this whole story began the day Darius Angler decided to get revenge on Grafton Steel. And if his brother hadn’t actually died after all, then it would explain why Angler stayed with the Diehards for as long as he did rather than returning to the Free states. Regardless, this entire story began and ended with Billy. “It was always Billy.”
2023.05.29 12:57 Finzombie The Thing in the Cracks - Part 1
By Fin
“Holy crap.” James Talbot stepped back from his handiwork. It was beautiful. It made him want to scream.
Talbot was a chemist, the modern form of an alchemist, and he’d discovered something as wondrous and terrible as the most extreme postulations of his forbearers.
This was it. The culmination of all his works. This is what he’d fought for decades for, why he’d abandoned connections with everyone he’d ever known. But now it was all worth it. He would reveal the Masterwork at the Grand Chemistry Convention. It would steal the show, and he would be revered beyond every other human being who had ever lived.
It had taken Talbot long enough to assemble the Masterwork that he’d shed the title of ‘young’, not to mention most of his non-gray hair. Although it was hard to tell whether that was from aging or from what he’d beheld in his long sojourn. He was only 45, after all, and the rest of his body still held firm from decades of outdoorsmanship.
Talbot stood before a wall, upon which was painted the most intricate design any human had ever seen. It was a diagram of… unknown things. A chart of runes, maps, and artfully painted lines. There was no text in any living language on the diagram, but the harmony within the full tapestry visually sang, imparting something unfathomable in a way that Talbot could somehow fathom. The man who’d made it, who’d studied it for 15 years, barely understood it himself. But he knew that it was the ultimate solution to the entirety of philosophy, containing the answers to every question humanity had ever seen fit to ask. It had existed in his notebook for a while, in bits and pieces, but today had been its first full assembly, and it was magnificent.
He had to keep it hidden, or someone would take it from him.
He retrieved a tarp and threw it over the wall, nailing it in at the top so it hung down to cover his designs. Just to be sure, he moved his desk to block the wall, then locked the door to his office when he left for the day. James Talbot was more excited than he had ever been, and he celebrated that night with a fireplace and a large bottle of whiskey.
Of all the people at his office to commit espionage, Talbot never would’ve suspected the night janitor. This may stem from the fact that he also never suspected the night janitor to be part of a massive secret organization dedicated to keeping humanity as ignorant as possible in matters of the Higher Order.
But no matter what Talbot suspected, Tim Willis was indeed part of this society, and after he’d entered Talbot’s office with his master key to do some routine cleaning, the obvious secrecy surrounding the wall at the back of the room worried him. So he moved the desk out of the way, lifted the tarp, and inhaled sharply.
This was bad. A tapestry of the Higher Order more complete than any he’d seen before, or any reported by the other Censors of the Agency for the Preservation of Humanity.
Willis quickly replaced the tarp and desk. As soon as he’d locked the room, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number for an Alexander Talc.
Talbot arrived the next morning with a song in his heart and a latte in his hand. The former died horribly as soon as he entered his office only to find someone sitting in his chair, and the latter died horribly as it fell from his fingers, limp in shock.
The person in question was a short, slight man who wore thick glasses and a dark gray suit. He was sitting on Talbot’s office chair, facing the now uncovered back wall with all of its eldritch calculations. Talbot’s desk had been moved to the side of the room, left askew with the tarp crumpled up on top.
As Talbot entered, the stranger spun the chair around so he was facing the chemist, a broad smile on his face. He was undeniably attractive, in a delicate sort of way.
“Ah! You must be the aspiring alchemist?” He spoke softly and cheerily, but with an unnerving edge. Talbot couldn’t identify any specific aspect of his voice that disturbed him, but upon further consideration he concluded that it was the incongruity of the situation, the warm friendliness of his tone grating against Talbot’s unease.
Talbot took a step back, shaken. “I don’t… what-”
“Quite an impressive display here. You’ve managed to glean a quite large amount of knowledge about the Higher Order, especially considering you’ve never consulted us at the APH.” He pronounced it phonetically, like Aff.
“What are you-”
Talbot heard a click from behind him, and turned to see Tim Willis, the night janitor, closing and locking his door. He could barely register the betrayal.
“Ah, yes. Tim is working for me. For us. The Agency for the Protection of Humankind really frowns upon anyone attempting to learn the Higher Order.”
Talbot, finally able to form a full sentence, asked, “What’s the Higher Order?”
“You know what it is, of course, although you may not have heard the term. It’s what we call the mechanics of the very fabric of the universe itself. The questions about ‘why are we here?’ and ‘is there a god?’ and all the stuff like that. All theoretical philosophy, basically. And you, apparently through sheer dumb luck,” He turned to admire the mural again, “have managed to find more of it than any human being ever, including us! Quite impressive. Big hand.” The man slow-clapped for Talbot. The small sweet-looking man being sarcastically condescending was jarringly incongruous.
Talbot felt a surge of anger, and it helped him produce a full sentence. “Dumb luck?!?” He advanced on the man. “My Masterwork is the product of 20 years of research and experience! This is the greatest thing anyone has ever done, and how dare you say I achieved it through dumb luck!”
The man raised his hands placatingly. “Okay, okay!” He chuckled. “Years of research, whatever. You found the Higher Order. That’s where we come in.”
“Why?”
“Ah. Well, you see, the reason that no one’s found the entire Higher Order is simple. It’s because we stop them.”
Talbot was incredulous. “What?! Why would you stand in the way of progress like that?!” As a scientist, the possibility that there could be anyone actively against gaining knowledge was incomprehensible to him.
The man grimaced, as though he was about to break some terrible news. “Well… there are some parts of this tapestry you’ve assembled, specifically here...” The man pointed at a small segment of the diagram, a thick horizontal line with four thin lines crossing perpendicularly that turned into five lines on the other side, “That grants access to some other planes of existence. Planes of existence that are home to some very dangerous things. And due to some logistical aspects of the Higher Order,” He gestured at another segment of the diagram entirely composed of square symbols, “if you muck about in their domain, they are able to muck about in ours. The Law of Equivalent Interference.”
“But… how would our finding answers count as ‘mucking about in their domain’? If we knew the danger, we just wouldn’t go there.”
The man was silent, then answered Talbot’s question with a question. “Tell me, Talbot. If humans discovered another dimension, do you really think they’d be able to stay out of it?”
“Fine. But then why do you have to censor the whole thing? Why not give them the benign parts that would still forward human progress by centuries?”
“Because the Higher Order is like Algebra. Or a logic puzzle from Highlights magazine. If you give someone smart enough just a few clues, they’ll eventually assemble the whole picture. Which we desperately want to avoid.”
There was a long and heavy silence.
“Ok.” Said Talbot, wrapping his head around the new information. “So the APH stops people from finding the answers to these questions so our world isn’t destroyed by Fourth Dimensional entities?”
“Exactly!” The man nodded, delighted at Talbot’s comprehension. “Well, they’re technically Fifth Dimensional. The existence of time in our reality means that this is the Fourth Dimension.”
There was another silence.
“Sorry, what was your name again?” Talbot asked.
The man looked utterly devastated. “Oh no! I can’t believe I was so rude!” He vaulted the desk and approached Talbot, stopping just short and shaking his hand. “Alexander Talc, Class 2 Censor Operative for the APH.”
“Censor as in… ?”
“Yes, I censor things. People too, if necessary.”
“So what,” Talbot asked, “You’re here to kill me?”
Talc gasped. “What?!?! No! As if we’d be so barbaric! We’re here to recruit you.”
Talbot’s eyes widened. “Wait, really?”
“Of course! You know more about the Higher Order than any human outside of the APH, and probably more than a majority of those inside of the APH. Your expertise could be vital in preventing a breach in our reality!”
“What would this job entail?”
“Well, we’d need you to fake your death, change your name, burn your research-”
Talbot recoiled.
“Now I know that sounds like a lot,” Talc backpedaled, “But allow me to let you in on a little secret.” He leaned in conspiratorially, then glanced around as though to make sure nobody was listening. Satisfied, he whispered, “The dental is off-the-charts.”
Talbot shook his head. “What happens if I don’t take the job?”
Talc winced. “Things get considerably less pleasant. I have to call in a Class 3 Purge Operative, and that’s always a hassle.”
Talbot chose not to inquire into the purpose of a ‘Purge Operative’.
Talc gently laid a hand on Talbot’s shoulder. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. How about we move to some place more hospitable and you can think it over?”
Talbot nodded, his mind elsewhere. Talc gently guided him out of the room, Willis following and closing the door behind them.
Talbot stared down into his conical paper cup, filled with water that tasted plasticy. The three men were in the lobby of Talbot’s workplace, leaning against a table adorned with donuts and a water cooler.
Talc bit into a day-old bear claw as Talbot swirled his water and considered the situation.
If he accepted the offer, he would be shipped off to another state, away from his home in Bedford, where he would join whatever on earth APH was. Talbot hated the idea of working for an agency whose entire purpose was to destroy knowledge. On the other hand, if he didn’t accept the offer, they’d likely kill him.
Purge Officer…
Would working for the APH really be so bad? Talbot liked Talc enough. Maybe they could be friends. Or… more than friends. And if the APH truly wanted Talbot to be able to suppress the Higher Order, he’d have to know the Higher Order. Which meant research. He could essentially continue on exactly as he was.
Except he would never be recognized as the genius he was. Talbot involuntarily crushed his paper cup as he realized that, if he took the offer, he’d never win a Nobel prize. He’d never present at the Grand Chemistry Convention. He’d never write a revolutionary scientific paper. He would be forgotten.
He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t say no, or he would be killed. He couldn’t accept, or he would be forgotten, which was worse. He had to escape.
But how? This was some sort of world-ruling secret agency. They probably had eyes everywhere. What could he possibly do to get away?
His eyes wandered towards the stairs. The stairs that led to his office, which held the key to every single natural law.
Talbot tossed his cup in the trash, then approached Talc.
“I think I’m ready to make my decision. But first, can I go to the restroom?”
Talc nodded. “Of course! Take all the time you need!”
Talbot nodded and jogged toward the restroom. In the tiled floor under him, he saw Willis’s warped reflection following him discreetly.
He entered the single restroom and quietly opened the window. He could see Willis’s shadow under the door as the man hovered just outside.
Talbot waited a couple seconds, then flushed the toilet, turned on the sink, and silently crept through the window. He fell a few feet to the alley below, and had to suppress a grunt.
Now what? He needed to escape, but his notebook was still upstairs. All his research was in there, and he couldn’t leave it to the APH.
The only ground level entrance to the building was the main lobby door, which was directly in Talc’s sightline. However, who said he had to enter on ground level?
Talbot’s gaze rose to the old fire escape above him. The bottom of the structure was a platform that lined up with the second floor. A ladder was folded up on the platform, an old rusty latch keeping it from reaching ground level. Talbot couldn’t reach the latch from where he was on the ground, so he looked around for a solution.
He had a bum throwing arm, so he couldn’t toss anything up to break it. Unless…
Talbot considered Talc’s words. The very mechanics of the universe itself... He felt a flare of pride as he realized how little Talc truly understood.
The sigil that granted access to the Fifth Dimension was just one of several such Seals. Over all Talbot’s years of study, those portions of the Higher Order were the most applicable. They did not just show universal aspects of reality. They represented those aspects. They were symbolic, and like all symbols, they were powerful.
They were simulacra of natural laws, and could be manipulated in order to manipulate those laws themselves. It allowed anyone who knew the Seals to weave a sort of magic, ignoring the laws of time, space, or gravity by sketching and then destroying the corresponding runes, temporarily destroying that Law’s influence over oneself. Talbot’s hypothesis was that there was a single Greater Seal for each law that controlled that law anywhere and everywhere. If that one was found and destroyed, the laws of reality would change forever.
For greater, wide-scale application, Talbot had scrawled in his notebook, The Greater Aspects must be located and manipulated.
Talbot dropped to the ground and dragged his finger through the alley gravel. He assembled the rocks into a facsimile of a tiny part of the Higher Order, one that he’d experimented with a lot. He looked around for a suitable vessel, settling on a rock. He poured all his mental energy into the stone, and used his hands to scatter the pebbles that made up the Seal of Velocity.
The rock sprang from the ground and soared upwards, clanging against the ladder before anticlimactically falling into a dumpster. From inside, Willis banged on the bathroom door and said something indistinct. Talbot’s second telekinetic toss hit the ladder before falling onto the platform itself. He broke another Seal, and his third throw smacked into the latch, splitting the rusted thing and shooting the ladder downwards.
It made a lot of noise, and Talbot could hear Willis pounding on the bathroom door inside. He seemed to be breaking it down, as Talbot heard wood split with a crunch. Talbot quickly mounted the ladder and climbed up to the platform, trying not to think about the alarming creaking sounds the old construction was making. From there, he took the stairs two at a time, spiraling up and up until he reached the sixth floor.
Six flights of stairs only had him a bit winded by the time he reached his floor. He tried the door to the inside, and found it unlocked.
Talbot entered the hallway outside his office quietly. He considered how this would play out. Willis and Talc would be storming up here at any moment. He had to move quickly.
Talbot entered his workroom, dragging his desk over to block the door. He took a moment to gaze forlornly at his Masterwork, because he would never be able to take it with him. All the same pieces and diagrams were in his notebook, but the full Masterwork was a thing of beauty, one that he would never behold again.
He snapped a picture of it with his phone. It wasn’t the same, but it’d have to do.
Talbot grabbed his notebook, its leather-bound pages bulging with decades of research. Some of the sheaves of paper stuck out at odd angles, newspaper snippets and glossy photographs glued into the most faithful companion Talbot had ever had.
Was there anything else he needed?
The door began to rattle.
Talbot grabbed a sheet of blank paper from his desk and rapidly sketched as many Seals as he could. He had an idea of how he could escape, but he needed to harness his work to do it. Using the Masterwork as a reference, he scrawled the Seal of Time, the Seal of Space, the Seal of Gravity, and, after considering it, the Seal of the Fifth Dimension.
Just in case. He thought.
With a crack, his door burst open, shoving the desk out of the way. Talc and Willis stood there, the latter looking enraged, the former strangely calm.
“Talbot, this doesn’t have to happen this way.” Talc appealed, but Talbot was done listening. He would not be forgotten. He would be immortalized, through his work.
Talbot ripped a corner off of his Seal sheet, and glanced down at the Seal of Time. With a glare at Talc, he stuck it in his mouth and began to chew.
Talbot disappeared with a pop, as Willis lunged towards where he’d just been.
Willis stopped short, then turned to Talc. He was noticeably upset at losing their quarry.
“What do we do now?”
“Well, we follow him.”
“How?”
Talc approached the Masterwork. “It’s simple. I’m sure Talbot understood that time travel doesn’t work the way everyone thinks it does. Cause and Effect are inextricably linked, and cannot be put out of order. Traveling through time actually just creates another dimension, a splintered facsimile of your original where things play out differently.”
“So… to follow him do we just use the Time Sigil?”
“Seal, Willis. And no. That will just create another splinter plane. Now that the reality has already been established, we need to follow him. Using this.”
Talc’s thin fingers traced the outline of another Seal, one Talbot hadn’t thought to inscribe.
“There are many ways to traverse the Multiverse.” Talc said, “Using Seals to rip open the barriers between planes is one of the simplest.”
Talc sketched down two copies of the seal, then separated the two and handed one to Willis. The two locked eyes and nodded in unison. They both rent their sheets in half and disappeared.
Talbot didn’t ‘land’, per se, but he still felt off-balance when he blinked into existence in his office. He staggered, but caught himself before he could fall. The world felt… different here.
Out of everything Talbot had discovered, Multiversal travel was his least considered. He’d been too cowardly to experiment with anything but the Space, Gravity, and Velocity Seals, so this experience was new to him. Naturally, as any scientist does when faced with something unfamiliar, he started taking notes.
Effects of Time/Universe Traversal:
–Slight nausea. Somewhat noticeable. Temporary?
–World overall feels discordant. Silence sounds different than back home. My tinnitus is in another key. Feels like I don’t belong.
–Different frequency hard-coded into every reality?
Before he could assemble an entire thesis on the underlying resonance within the multiverse, he realized with a start that he had to get out of here. Talc and WIllis were likely following him, and even if they weren’t, there were copies of them in this dimension.
Talbot had willed himself about 10 minutes back in time, and it seemed like that’d worked. His Masterwork was complete and the desk and tarp were off to the side. The trio were likely downstairs in the lobby, where Past-Talbot was thinking over the pros and cons of their offer. At least, he thought so. Time travel seemed to create a splintering reality, one that maintained consistency with his original up until the point where he showed up. There were plenty of unfamiliar worlds out there, but the Seal of Time created one quite familiar. Right now Past-Talbot-
Past-Talbot doesn’t sound right. Pretty soon it’ll be my present, then my future. How about Talbot-2?
After settling upon a name to call his double, Talbot exited his office and left through the door that led to the fire escape, in too much of a hurry to close it. He scrambled down the stairs, knocked the latch off the ladder, climbed to the ground, popped open the bathroom window, and climbed inside. Right as he got his arms through, the door opened.
Talbot-2 walked in, then stopped short as he saw himself dangling halfway through the window. Talbot put a finger to his lips, and indicated Willis-2 with his eyes. Talbot-2 silently shut the door, locking Willis-2 outside.
Talbot-2 opened his mouth to speak, but barely got out one word. “What-”
“I’m you, from the future. Well, not from your future, but from a future.”
Talbot-2’s confused expression was replaced with excitement. “So the Time Seal Worked?! Fantastic! What’s it like?!”
“I’d tell you all about it, but I’m currently stuck in a bathroom window and being hunted down by two government agents. Although I don’t actually know if they work for the government…”
Talbot-2 pulled him through the window into the bathroom. “Sorry.”
Once he was in, Talbot glanced at the door behind Talbot-2.
“Okay. Here’s the thing. Some version of Talc and Willis will be here any minute. Whether mine followed me from the future or not, yours will catch on soon. We need to get out of here, and get the Masterwork to somebody else.”
“Wait, which Talc and Willis will show up?”
“One of them… or both of them. It doesn’t really matter! Do we know anybody we can send our notes to?”
Talbot-2 considered it. “Davis?”
Talbot frowned, and opened his notebook to an early page.
Dr. Wilson Davis
–Spineless fool. He calls himself a chemist, but refuses to venture outside the conventions of the industry. No true scientist works a cushy chemical production job! We journey! We endeavor!
Talbot shook his head. “He’d never publish something like this. If they tracked him down, he’d probably take their oppressive offer.”
“Johnson?”
Dr Monica Johnson
—Chemist and conspiracy nut. Super gullible, but generally a good person.
“She’ll believe anything.” Talbot said. “...Which is actually probably a good thing in this case. If she thinks it’s real, she’ll distribute it, and she’s earnest enough to leave my- our name on it.”
Talbot-2 nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Actually, it sounds like an idea, not a plan. What is our plan?”
Talbot thought for several seconds. “Here’s what we do. You pretend to accept their offer, and do whatever they tell you. If all else fails, you’ll get a cushy job working for the government. Meanwhile, I get this,” Talbot indicated his notebook. “To Johnson, and then…” He paused.
Someone knocked on the door.
“And then?” Talbot-2 prompted in a whisper, glancing behind him.
“Then… I’ll figure something out.”
Talbot-2 nodded. “Alright. Are we ready to go?”
“I think so.” Talbot replied.
Talbot slipped out of the window, and Talbot-2 opened the door to greet Willis-2.
The man peered around him. “Who were you talking to in there?”
Talbot-2 shrugged. “Myself. You know, crazy scientist stuff.”
Talbot dropped to the ground, then produced his sheet of Seals. He picked out one specific design, a circle bisected by a thin line. On one side of the line, a stylized forest thrived, and on the other a pictographic city loomed. Talbot ripped the Seal of Space from his paper and stuck it in his mouth, once again disappearing with a pop.
Talc and Willis appeared in Talbot-2’s workroom, and quickly exited. Both spun in the hallway outside, and both spotted the wide-open door to the fire escape. They both moved down the rickety metal construction and found themselves in an alley behind the building.
“See that?” Talc pointed at the window.
“Yeah. Did he go in through it?” Willis asked.
“Of course. But if he used the Seal of Time to try to come back and alert himself, I’m guessing he came through here to talk to him…self, but he couldn’t have left. The only point at which he was in the bathroom, you were right outside. He popped in, popped out, popped another Seal.”
“Is there any guarantee that he came back to alert himself? He could’ve gone to any point in time.”
“I know his type. The out-there intellectual. He’s been burned by everyone but himself. He’ll only trust himself. And if he came to himself before we’d arrived, he wouldn’t believe him.”
“Sorry, who wouldn’t believe him?”
“Him! Aren’t you-” Talc took a moment to consider the context. “You know what, nevermind. The point is that this reality’s Talbot is now in league with our Talbot, and that’s not good.”
“What do we do?”
“Well firstly, we need to cut it down to one Talbot. Two is too many to deal with.” Talc pushed on his earpiece, then spoke. “Hello? Can you hear me, Talc?” There was silence, until something dawned on him. “Ah, dammit. I can’t call my own earpiece.” He adjusted something on his earpiece. “Willis! Do you copy?” Willis heard Talc both from right next to him and through his earpiece. He didn’t hear the reply, but his earpiece buzzed as its exact copy broadcast something. Willis took his earpiece out and squinted at it, curious about the exact Multiversal properties that bonded it to its clone.
“Yes, this is Talc. But not your Talc. Listen, Talbot ran off to this dimension, and we believe he’s working with your Talbot. We need to meet up, then dispose of the dupe.”
Talc listened for a response, and Willis’s earpiece vibrated as his double presumably replied.
Talc turned to Willis. “Alright. They’ll meet us back in Talbot’s office. There we can get rid of the redundant one and track our quarry.”
Their quarry was currently depositing a large package of brown paper in a big blue mailbox.
Talbot paused as he lowered the boxy parcel. This was his life’s work, his notebook and all his scattered papers, and was the second-most important thing he owned, next to the wall that contained the Masterwork itself, which was likely being dismantled by his enemies at that very moment. This was the last 20 years of his life, and he was about to gamble it away to a crazy woman on the off-chance that his legacy might live on. Talbot wished he’d spent more time with reasonable scientists, if only to expand the pool of people he could mail his book to.
With a deep breath, Talbot released the book, wincing at the gentle ‘paff’ sound it made when it fell onto the envelopes at the bottom of the box.
His job complete, Talbot slipped the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and disappeared into the afternoon.
Guns are inelegant, Talc told his subordinate often. They’re loud, messy. Tools of thugs and soldiers, not agents of a higher purpose.
But there’s a downside to not carrying a gun, Willis countered silently. The difference between shooting a person and being forced to kill them more intimately is palpable, and not often a positive.
Willis considered this as Talbot-2 stopped struggling and finally went limp in his arms. Willis released the garotte from around the man’s throat, then lowered him to the floor of the office.
An irritated sigh came from behind him. Willis turned to see Talc shaking his head and walking toward him.
“No, you need to finish the job.” The man said. He kneeled, took Talbot-2’s forehead in one hand, his chin in the other, then jerked his head to the side, snapping his neck.
“If you stop garrotting when he goes limp, he’s just unconscious.” The other Talc, Talc-2, stated.
Willis nodded, numbly. He didn’t really hear the man.
“I know this is hard,” Talc said, shifting into a gentler tone, “But this is all for the good of humanity. If we let these ideas run wild, we’d all be dead.”
“Worse than dead.” Talc-2 added helpfully. “Our very essences would be consumed by dark beings from beyond our world.”
Willis nodded again. He’d heard it all before. So why did he still find it so hard to hurt people?
“So where’s the other one?” Willis-2 asked, seemingly unaware of his double’s predicament.
“That’s the big question, isn’t it.” Talc-2 mused, “However, before we can ponder it, first things first. We need to get a CC team in here to handle that wall.”
All four men were familiar with the APH Cognito Containment Teams, mysterious individuals in surgical masks that took away artifacts of forbidden knowledge to be stored or disposed of.
Talc-2 clicked his earpiece, then said a series of numbers and codes that were unintelligible to either Willis. He finished by saying, “Please send a Class-4 CC team. Over.”
He turned to the others. “They’re on their way. We need to secure Talbot’s place of residence.”
“Do we know that’s where he’ll go next?” Willis-2 asked.
“Not necessarily,” Talc-1 responded, “But it’s quite likely he’ll at least stop there to retrieve personal effects before going somewhere else.”
Both Willises nodded, almost in sync. The logic made sense. They would lock down Talbot’s house first.
All was silent in the small house several miles outside of town that Talbot called his abode. Then frantic footsteps sounded from outside, as someone ran up the footpath leading to the front door. Then, a faint scratching as Talbot scrambled to fit his key into the lock. A quiet clacking came next, as Talbot’s cat descended his cat-tree and approached the door to see what was happening.
Talbot swung the door open and gently pushed the cat out of his way with his foot.
“Sorry Ozzy,” he muttered.
He produced his debit card and snapped it in half, having extracted all the money from his account before arriving here. He pulled several thousand dollars from his pockets and shoved them in his wallet, his backpack, the pocket on the inside of his jacket, and his shoes.
He grabbed a spare toothbrush and tube of toothpaste from the master bathroom, shoving them into the backpack as well. He was going on the run, for god knows how long.
He paused as his eyes fell on his set of keys. He wouldn’t be taking his car or his house, so they’d likely not be necessary.
But I might as well just in case. Talbot grabbed the jangling key ring and slipped it into the inside pocket of his pants.
His cat mewed at his feet. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed his carrier and bowl, both monogrammed with a matching ‘Ozymandius’.
He knew bringing Ozzy was objectively a bad choice. It was impractical and stupid. The cat was loud, and would slow him down. But Talbot couldn’t bear leaving his baby here to be subjected to whatever evil ideas Talc and Willis had in mind.
Talbot coaxed Ozzy into his crate, then picked up the cat and donned his backpack. He took one last look around his house before he opened the front door and was immediately grabbed by both Willises, one of which held a chloroform rag over his mouth until he went limp.
Talbot awoke with a start. He glanced around, disoriented, and immediately registered that he was in some sort of interrogation room. His chair was metal, and bolted to the floor. Before him was a table, and above that table a blinding light mounted on the ceiling shone directly into his eyes. On the wall across from him, very much breaking the theme, was a ‘Hang in there!’ poster and a wall-mounted hand sanitizer dispenser.
Talbot tried to stand, only to find that his wrists and ankles were strapped into the chair. He strained against the bonds, cursing as the straps held strong.
He thought he heard faint snickering.
He turned to glare at the mirror to his right. “What are you planning to do to me?!”
Silence.
“What are you planning to do to my cat?!?”
More silence.
The Talcs and the Willi were standing behind the one-way mirror on Talbot’s left, looking at the back of his head as he shouted at no one. Talc looked mildly amused at Talbot’s complete misunderstanding of the room’s orientation.
Willis-2 glanced at Talc-2, who shrugged and motioned for Talc-1 to enter the larger room. Talc-1 did as asked.
The door at the front of the room opened, and Talc stepped out. He took a seat across from Talbot, and cleared his throat.
“First off, the most important thing. Your cat will be well-cared for, no matter the outcome of this conversation. Great name, by the way.”
Talbot refused to thank him for the compliment.
Talc cleared his throat, and there was a long silence.
“What about my first question?” Talbot asked, his voice trembling.
Talc sighed, then reached below the table.
Several seconds later, he came back up, notably with some difficulty. He slammed Talbot’s notebook down on the table. Next to it, he laid the sheet of seals Talbot had used to traverse space and time.
Talbot was stricken. “How did you-!?”
“Find this? Simple deduction. I’m frankly insulted that you didn’t consider that we’ve been tailing everyone you know for months. Johnson was the only person you could send this to.”
“What did you do to her?!”
“Nothing! We’re not the bad guys here, Talbot. We pulled the package from her porch before she ever got involved. We’d never hurt anyone.”
“Then where am I?” Talbot spat, then rephrased. “I mean… where is the version of me from here? Wait, are you from here or there?”
“I’m from there, assuming you mean your original reality. And Talbot-2 is fine. He’s in the next room.”
Willis winced behind the mirror.
“You never actually answered my question.” Talbot said quietly.
Talc pursed his lips regrettably.
“Well… here’s the thing, Talbot. What I’d like to do is offer you a chance to redeem yourself. I’d like to let you join the APH and help us protect humanity. But you’ve made it clear that that’s not what you want, and if we let you into our fold now, we’d forever be looking over our shoulders, wondering whose side you were truly on. And we can’t just let you go, no no. Your theories would largely be regarded as crackpot, but there are ways to prove these things, and you would certainly find them.”
Talbot swallowed. “Couldn’t you just… you know… erase my memory?”
Talc stifled a laugh. “Unfortunately, this is not Men In Black. Actions have consequences. There are no take-backs. And I’m sorry, Talbot, but this is it for you.” Talc stood, turned on his heel, and left.
“Why the hell’d you wake him up just to tell him that?” Willis muttered behind the glass.
“Hey, wait!” Talbot screamed at him as he departed, but there was no response.
Talbot tried to stand again, but slammed back into his chair as the bonds held.
Willis entered a few minutes later, holding a syringe. He winced at the sight before him. Talbot was hunched over, resting his head on the table. His shoulders were bobbing as though he was sobbing quietly.
Willis approached Talbot and tightened the strap on his right wrist. He moved around him and reached for his left hand, only to see that the strap had been sawed apart, and Talbot’s hand was free.
Willis grabbed his elbow, but Talbot struggled against the man’s grasp. The scientist was trying to keep it firmly on the table under his face.
Frustrated, Willis grabbed Talbot’s head and lifted it back, so he was sitting up straight.
As he beheld Talbot’s face, Willis felt a bolt of fear lance through him. The man was smiling, but it was not a happy smile.
It was the smile of a trapped animal that knew it would take a limb before it went down. With his eyes, Talbot indicated downwards. Willis slowly lowered his vision to the stainless steel tabletop. In Talbot’s hand was a housekey, the teeth worn down from sawing through the leather strap and scratching a symbol into the table. Right under his hand, the surface was pockmarked with the Seal of the Fifth Dimension.
Willis lunged for Talbot’s wrist, but it was too late. The alchemist brought the key across the symbol, carving another scratch to break the Seal and the boundaries between their reality and one far darker. Neither man had time to scream.
Talbot felt himself slip free of the chair, and out of the leather strap around his wrist.
Willis’s grip loosened, and it felt like he was flung across whatever intermediary pathway connected the fourth and fifth dimensions.
Part Two posted promptly!
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“Holy crap.” James Talbot stepped back from his handiwork. It was beautiful. It made him want to scream.
Talbot was a chemist, the modern form of an alchemist, and he’d discovered something as wondrous and terrible as the most extreme postulations of his forbearers.
This was it. The culmination of all his works. This is what he’d fought for decades for, why he’d abandoned connections with everyone he’d ever known. But now it was all worth it. He would reveal the Masterwork at the Grand Chemistry Convention. It would steal the show, and he would be revered beyond every other human being who had ever lived.
It had taken Talbot long enough to assemble the Masterwork that he’d shed the title of ‘young’, not to mention most of his non-gray hair. Although it was hard to tell whether that was from aging or from what he’d beheld in his long sojourn. He was only 45, after all, and the rest of his body still held firm from decades of outdoorsmanship.
Talbot stood before a wall, upon which was painted the most intricate design any human had ever seen. It was a diagram of… unknown things. A chart of runes, maps, and artfully painted lines. There was no text in any living language on the diagram, but the harmony within the full tapestry visually sang, imparting something unfathomable in a way that Talbot could somehow fathom. The man who’d made it, who’d studied it for 15 years, barely understood it himself. But he knew that it was the ultimate solution to the entirety of philosophy, containing the answers to every question humanity had ever seen fit to ask. It had existed in his notebook for a while, in bits and pieces, but today had been its first full assembly, and it was magnificent.
He had to keep it hidden, or someone would take it from him.
He retrieved a tarp and threw it over the wall, nailing it in at the top so it hung down to cover his designs. Just to be sure, he moved his desk to block the wall, then locked the door to his office when he left for the day. James Talbot was more excited than he had ever been, and he celebrated that night with a fireplace and a large bottle of whiskey.
Of all the people at his office to commit espionage, Talbot never would’ve suspected the night janitor. This may stem from the fact that he also never suspected the night janitor to be part of a massive secret organization dedicated to keeping humanity as ignorant as possible in matters of the Higher Order.
But no matter what Talbot suspected, Tim Willis was indeed part of this society, and after he’d entered Talbot’s office with his master key to do some routine cleaning, the obvious secrecy surrounding the wall at the back of the room worried him. So he moved the desk out of the way, lifted the tarp, and inhaled sharply.
This was bad. A tapestry of the Higher Order more complete than any he’d seen before, or any reported by the other Censors of the Agency for the Preservation of Humanity.
Willis quickly replaced the tarp and desk. As soon as he’d locked the room, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number for an Alexander Talc.
Talbot arrived the next morning with a song in his heart and a latte in his hand. The former died horribly as soon as he entered his office only to find someone sitting in his chair, and the latter died horribly as it fell from his fingers, limp in shock.
The person in question was a short, slight man who wore thick glasses and a dark gray suit. He was sitting on Talbot’s office chair, facing the now uncovered back wall with all of its eldritch calculations. Talbot’s desk had been moved to the side of the room, left askew with the tarp crumpled up on top.
As Talbot entered, the stranger spun the chair around so he was facing the chemist, a broad smile on his face. He was undeniably attractive, in a delicate sort of way.
“Ah! You must be the aspiring alchemist?” He spoke softly and cheerily, but with an unnerving edge. Talbot couldn’t identify any specific aspect of his voice that disturbed him, but upon further consideration he concluded that it was the incongruity of the situation, the warm friendliness of his tone grating against Talbot’s unease.
Talbot took a step back, shaken. “I don’t… what-”
“Quite an impressive display here. You’ve managed to glean a quite large amount of knowledge about the Higher Order, especially considering you’ve never consulted us at the APH.” He pronounced it phonetically, like Aff.
“What are you-”
Talbot heard a click from behind him, and turned to see Tim Willis, the night janitor, closing and locking his door. He could barely register the betrayal.
“Ah, yes. Tim is working for me. For us. The Agency for the Protection of Humankind really frowns upon anyone attempting to learn the Higher Order.”
Talbot, finally able to form a full sentence, asked, “What’s the Higher Order?”
“You know what it is, of course, although you may not have heard the term. It’s what we call the mechanics of the very fabric of the universe itself. The questions about ‘why are we here?’ and ‘is there a god?’ and all the stuff like that. All theoretical philosophy, basically. And you, apparently through sheer dumb luck,” He turned to admire the mural again, “have managed to find more of it than any human being ever, including us! Quite impressive. Big hand.” The man slow-clapped for Talbot. The small sweet-looking man being sarcastically condescending was jarringly incongruous.
Talbot felt a surge of anger, and it helped him produce a full sentence. “Dumb luck?!?” He advanced on the man. “My Masterwork is the product of 20 years of research and experience! This is the greatest thing anyone has ever done, and how dare you say I achieved it through dumb luck!”
The man raised his hands placatingly. “Okay, okay!” He chuckled. “Years of research, whatever. You found the Higher Order. That’s where we come in.”
“Why?”
“Ah. Well, you see, the reason that no one’s found the entire Higher Order is simple. It’s because we stop them.”
Talbot was incredulous. “What?! Why would you stand in the way of progress like that?!” As a scientist, the possibility that there could be anyone actively against gaining knowledge was incomprehensible to him.
The man grimaced, as though he was about to break some terrible news. “Well… there are some parts of this tapestry you’ve assembled, specifically here...” The man pointed at a small segment of the diagram, a thick horizontal line with four thin lines crossing perpendicularly that turned into five lines on the other side, “That grants access to some other planes of existence. Planes of existence that are home to some very dangerous things. And due to some logistical aspects of the Higher Order,” He gestured at another segment of the diagram entirely composed of square symbols, “if you muck about in their domain, they are able to muck about in ours. The Law of Equivalent Interference.”
“But… how would our finding answers count as ‘mucking about in their domain’? If we knew the danger, we just wouldn’t go there.”
The man was silent, then answered Talbot’s question with a question. “Tell me, Talbot. If humans discovered another dimension, do you really think they’d be able to stay out of it?”
“Fine. But then why do you have to censor the whole thing? Why not give them the benign parts that would still forward human progress by centuries?”
“Because the Higher Order is like Algebra. Or a logic puzzle from Highlights magazine. If you give someone smart enough just a few clues, they’ll eventually assemble the whole picture. Which we desperately want to avoid.”
There was a long and heavy silence.
“Ok.” Said Talbot, wrapping his head around the new information. “So the APH stops people from finding the answers to these questions so our world isn’t destroyed by Fourth Dimensional entities?”
“Exactly!” The man nodded, delighted at Talbot’s comprehension. “Well, they’re technically Fifth Dimensional. The existence of time in our reality means that this is the Fourth Dimension.”
There was another silence.
“Sorry, what was your name again?” Talbot asked.
The man looked utterly devastated. “Oh no! I can’t believe I was so rude!” He vaulted the desk and approached Talbot, stopping just short and shaking his hand. “Alexander Talc, Class 2 Censor Operative for the APH.”
“Censor as in… ?”
“Yes, I censor things. People too, if necessary.”
“So what,” Talbot asked, “You’re here to kill me?”
Talc gasped. “What?!?! No! As if we’d be so barbaric! We’re here to recruit you.”
Talbot’s eyes widened. “Wait, really?”
“Of course! You know more about the Higher Order than any human outside of the APH, and probably more than a majority of those inside of the APH. Your expertise could be vital in preventing a breach in our reality!”
“What would this job entail?”
“Well, we’d need you to fake your death, change your name, burn your research-”
Talbot recoiled.
“Now I know that sounds like a lot,” Talc backpedaled, “But allow me to let you in on a little secret.” He leaned in conspiratorially, then glanced around as though to make sure nobody was listening. Satisfied, he whispered, “The dental is off-the-charts.”
Talbot shook his head. “What happens if I don’t take the job?”
Talc winced. “Things get considerably less pleasant. I have to call in a Class 3 Purge Operative, and that’s always a hassle.”
Talbot chose not to inquire into the purpose of a ‘Purge Operative’.
Talc gently laid a hand on Talbot’s shoulder. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. How about we move to some place more hospitable and you can think it over?”
Talbot nodded, his mind elsewhere. Talc gently guided him out of the room, Willis following and closing the door behind them.
Talbot stared down into his conical paper cup, filled with water that tasted plasticy. The three men were in the lobby of Talbot’s workplace, leaning against a table adorned with donuts and a water cooler.
Talc bit into a day-old bear claw as Talbot swirled his water and considered the situation.
If he accepted the offer, he would be shipped off to another state, away from his home in Bedford, where he would join whatever on earth APH was. Talbot hated the idea of working for an agency whose entire purpose was to destroy knowledge. On the other hand, if he didn’t accept the offer, they’d likely kill him.
Purge Officer…
Would working for the APH really be so bad? Talbot liked Talc enough. Maybe they could be friends. Or… more than friends. And if the APH truly wanted Talbot to be able to suppress the Higher Order, he’d have to know the Higher Order. Which meant research. He could essentially continue on exactly as he was.
Except he would never be recognized as the genius he was. Talbot involuntarily crushed his paper cup as he realized that, if he took the offer, he’d never win a Nobel prize. He’d never present at the Grand Chemistry Convention. He’d never write a revolutionary scientific paper. He would be forgotten.
He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t say no, or he would be killed. He couldn’t accept, or he would be forgotten, which was worse. He had to escape.
But how? This was some sort of world-ruling secret agency. They probably had eyes everywhere. What could he possibly do to get away?
His eyes wandered towards the stairs. The stairs that led to his office, which held the key to every single natural law.
Talbot tossed his cup in the trash, then approached Talc.
“I think I’m ready to make my decision. But first, can I go to the restroom?”
Talc nodded. “Of course! Take all the time you need!”
Talbot nodded and jogged toward the restroom. In the tiled floor under him, he saw Willis’s warped reflection following him discreetly.
He entered the single restroom and quietly opened the window. He could see Willis’s shadow under the door as the man hovered just outside.
Talbot waited a couple seconds, then flushed the toilet, turned on the sink, and silently crept through the window. He fell a few feet to the alley below, and had to suppress a grunt.
Now what? He needed to escape, but his notebook was still upstairs. All his research was in there, and he couldn’t leave it to the APH.
The only ground level entrance to the building was the main lobby door, which was directly in Talc’s sightline. However, who said he had to enter on ground level?
Talbot’s gaze rose to the old fire escape above him. The bottom of the structure was a platform that lined up with the second floor. A ladder was folded up on the platform, an old rusty latch keeping it from reaching ground level. Talbot couldn’t reach the latch from where he was on the ground, so he looked around for a solution.
He had a bum throwing arm, so he couldn’t toss anything up to break it. Unless…
Talbot considered Talc’s words. The very mechanics of the universe itself... He felt a flare of pride as he realized how little Talc truly understood.
The sigil that granted access to the Fifth Dimension was just one of several such Seals. Over all Talbot’s years of study, those portions of the Higher Order were the most applicable. They did not just show universal aspects of reality. They represented those aspects. They were symbolic, and like all symbols, they were powerful.
They were simulacra of natural laws, and could be manipulated in order to manipulate those laws themselves. It allowed anyone who knew the Seals to weave a sort of magic, ignoring the laws of time, space, or gravity by sketching and then destroying the corresponding runes, temporarily destroying that Law’s influence over oneself. Talbot’s hypothesis was that there was a single Greater Seal for each law that controlled that law anywhere and everywhere. If that one was found and destroyed, the laws of reality would change forever.
For greater, wide-scale application, Talbot had scrawled in his notebook, The Greater Aspects must be located and manipulated.
Talbot dropped to the ground and dragged his finger through the alley gravel. He assembled the rocks into a facsimile of a tiny part of the Higher Order, one that he’d experimented with a lot. He looked around for a suitable vessel, settling on a rock. He poured all his mental energy into the stone, and used his hands to scatter the pebbles that made up the Seal of Velocity.
The rock sprang from the ground and soared upwards, clanging against the ladder before anticlimactically falling into a dumpster. From inside, Willis banged on the bathroom door and said something indistinct. Talbot’s second telekinetic toss hit the ladder before falling onto the platform itself. He broke another Seal, and his third throw smacked into the latch, splitting the rusted thing and shooting the ladder downwards.
It made a lot of noise, and Talbot could hear Willis pounding on the bathroom door inside. He seemed to be breaking it down, as Talbot heard wood split with a crunch. Talbot quickly mounted the ladder and climbed up to the platform, trying not to think about the alarming creaking sounds the old construction was making. From there, he took the stairs two at a time, spiraling up and up until he reached the sixth floor.
Six flights of stairs only had him a bit winded by the time he reached his floor. He tried the door to the inside, and found it unlocked.
Talbot entered the hallway outside his office quietly. He considered how this would play out. Willis and Talc would be storming up here at any moment. He had to move quickly.
Talbot entered his workroom, dragging his desk over to block the door. He took a moment to gaze forlornly at his Masterwork, because he would never be able to take it with him. All the same pieces and diagrams were in his notebook, but the full Masterwork was a thing of beauty, one that he would never behold again.
He snapped a picture of it with his phone. It wasn’t the same, but it’d have to do.
Talbot grabbed his notebook, its leather-bound pages bulging with decades of research. Some of the sheaves of paper stuck out at odd angles, newspaper snippets and glossy photographs glued into the most faithful companion Talbot had ever had.
Was there anything else he needed?
The door began to rattle.
Talbot grabbed a sheet of blank paper from his desk and rapidly sketched as many Seals as he could. He had an idea of how he could escape, but he needed to harness his work to do it. Using the Masterwork as a reference, he scrawled the Seal of Time, the Seal of Space, the Seal of Gravity, and, after considering it, the Seal of the Fifth Dimension.
Just in case. He thought.
With a crack, his door burst open, shoving the desk out of the way. Talc and Willis stood there, the latter looking enraged, the former strangely calm.
“Talbot, this doesn’t have to happen this way.” Talc appealed, but Talbot was done listening. He would not be forgotten. He would be immortalized, through his work.
Talbot ripped a corner off of his Seal sheet, and glanced down at the Seal of Time. With a glare at Talc, he stuck it in his mouth and began to chew.
Talbot disappeared with a pop, as Willis lunged towards where he’d just been.
Willis stopped short, then turned to Talc. He was noticeably upset at losing their quarry.
“What do we do now?”
“Well, we follow him.”
“How?”
Talc approached the Masterwork. “It’s simple. I’m sure Talbot understood that time travel doesn’t work the way everyone thinks it does. Cause and Effect are inextricably linked, and cannot be put out of order. Traveling through time actually just creates another dimension, a splintered facsimile of your original where things play out differently.”
“So… to follow him do we just use the Time Sigil?”
“Seal, Willis. And no. That will just create another splinter plane. Now that the reality has already been established, we need to follow him. Using this.”
Talc’s thin fingers traced the outline of another Seal, one Talbot hadn’t thought to inscribe.
“There are many ways to traverse the Multiverse.” Talc said, “Using Seals to rip open the barriers between planes is one of the simplest.”
Talc sketched down two copies of the seal, then separated the two and handed one to Willis. The two locked eyes and nodded in unison. They both rent their sheets in half and disappeared.
Talbot didn’t ‘land’, per se, but he still felt off-balance when he blinked into existence in his office. He staggered, but caught himself before he could fall. The world felt… different here.
Out of everything Talbot had discovered, Multiversal travel was his least considered. He’d been too cowardly to experiment with anything but the Space, Gravity, and Velocity Seals, so this experience was new to him. Naturally, as any scientist does when faced with something unfamiliar, he started taking notes.
Effects of Time/Universe Traversal:
–Slight nausea. Somewhat noticeable. Temporary?
–World overall feels discordant. Silence sounds different than back home. My tinnitus is in another key. Feels like I don’t belong.
–Different frequency hard-coded into every reality?
Before he could assemble an entire thesis on the underlying resonance within the multiverse, he realized with a start that he had to get out of here. Talc and WIllis were likely following him, and even if they weren’t, there were copies of them in this dimension.
Talbot had willed himself about 10 minutes back in time, and it seemed like that’d worked. His Masterwork was complete and the desk and tarp were off to the side. The trio were likely downstairs in the lobby, where Past-Talbot was thinking over the pros and cons of their offer. At least, he thought so. Time travel seemed to create a splintering reality, one that maintained consistency with his original up until the point where he showed up. There were plenty of unfamiliar worlds out there, but the Seal of Time created one quite familiar. Right now Past-Talbot-
Past-Talbot doesn’t sound right. Pretty soon it’ll be my present, then my future. How about Talbot-2?
After settling upon a name to call his double, Talbot exited his office and left through the door that led to the fire escape, in too much of a hurry to close it. He scrambled down the stairs, knocked the latch off the ladder, climbed to the ground, popped open the bathroom window, and climbed inside. Right as he got his arms through, the door opened.
Talbot-2 walked in, then stopped short as he saw himself dangling halfway through the window. Talbot put a finger to his lips, and indicated Willis-2 with his eyes. Talbot-2 silently shut the door, locking Willis-2 outside.
Talbot-2 opened his mouth to speak, but barely got out one word. “What-”
“I’m you, from the future. Well, not from your future, but from a future.”
Talbot-2’s confused expression was replaced with excitement. “So the Time Seal Worked?! Fantastic! What’s it like?!”
“I’d tell you all about it, but I’m currently stuck in a bathroom window and being hunted down by two government agents. Although I don’t actually know if they work for the government…”
Talbot-2 pulled him through the window into the bathroom. “Sorry.”
Once he was in, Talbot glanced at the door behind Talbot-2.
“Okay. Here’s the thing. Some version of Talc and Willis will be here any minute. Whether mine followed me from the future or not, yours will catch on soon. We need to get out of here, and get the Masterwork to somebody else.”
“Wait, which Talc and Willis will show up?”
“One of them… or both of them. It doesn’t really matter! Do we know anybody we can send our notes to?”
Talbot-2 considered it. “Davis?”
Talbot frowned, and opened his notebook to an early page.
Dr. Wilson Davis
–Spineless fool. He calls himself a chemist, but refuses to venture outside the conventions of the industry. No true scientist works a cushy chemical production job! We journey! We endeavor!
Talbot shook his head. “He’d never publish something like this. If they tracked him down, he’d probably take their oppressive offer.”
“Johnson?”
Dr Monica Johnson
—Chemist and conspiracy nut. Super gullible, but generally a good person.
“She’ll believe anything.” Talbot said. “...Which is actually probably a good thing in this case. If she thinks it’s real, she’ll distribute it, and she’s earnest enough to leave my- our name on it.”
Talbot-2 nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Actually, it sounds like an idea, not a plan. What is our plan?”
Talbot thought for several seconds. “Here’s what we do. You pretend to accept their offer, and do whatever they tell you. If all else fails, you’ll get a cushy job working for the government. Meanwhile, I get this,” Talbot indicated his notebook. “To Johnson, and then…” He paused.
Someone knocked on the door.
“And then?” Talbot-2 prompted in a whisper, glancing behind him.
“Then… I’ll figure something out.”
Talbot-2 nodded. “Alright. Are we ready to go?”
“I think so.” Talbot replied.
Talbot slipped out of the window, and Talbot-2 opened the door to greet Willis-2.
The man peered around him. “Who were you talking to in there?”
Talbot-2 shrugged. “Myself. You know, crazy scientist stuff.”
Talbot dropped to the ground, then produced his sheet of Seals. He picked out one specific design, a circle bisected by a thin line. On one side of the line, a stylized forest thrived, and on the other a pictographic city loomed. Talbot ripped the Seal of Space from his paper and stuck it in his mouth, once again disappearing with a pop.
Talc and Willis appeared in Talbot-2’s workroom, and quickly exited. Both spun in the hallway outside, and both spotted the wide-open door to the fire escape. They both moved down the rickety metal construction and found themselves in an alley behind the building.
“See that?” Talc pointed at the window.
“Yeah. Did he go in through it?” Willis asked.
“Of course. But if he used the Seal of Time to try to come back and alert himself, I’m guessing he came through here to talk to him…self, but he couldn’t have left. The only point at which he was in the bathroom, you were right outside. He popped in, popped out, popped another Seal.”
“Is there any guarantee that he came back to alert himself? He could’ve gone to any point in time.”
“I know his type. The out-there intellectual. He’s been burned by everyone but himself. He’ll only trust himself. And if he came to himself before we’d arrived, he wouldn’t believe him.”
“Sorry, who wouldn’t believe him?”
“Him! Aren’t you-” Talc took a moment to consider the context. “You know what, nevermind. The point is that this reality’s Talbot is now in league with our Talbot, and that’s not good.”
“What do we do?”
“Well firstly, we need to cut it down to one Talbot. Two is too many to deal with.” Talc pushed on his earpiece, then spoke. “Hello? Can you hear me, Talc?” There was silence, until something dawned on him. “Ah, dammit. I can’t call my own earpiece.” He adjusted something on his earpiece. “Willis! Do you copy?” Willis heard Talc both from right next to him and through his earpiece. He didn’t hear the reply, but his earpiece buzzed as its exact copy broadcast something. Willis took his earpiece out and squinted at it, curious about the exact Multiversal properties that bonded it to its clone.
“Yes, this is Talc. But not your Talc. Listen, Talbot ran off to this dimension, and we believe he’s working with your Talbot. We need to meet up, then dispose of the dupe.”
Talc listened for a response, and Willis’s earpiece vibrated as his double presumably replied.
Talc turned to Willis. “Alright. They’ll meet us back in Talbot’s office. There we can get rid of the redundant one and track our quarry.”
Their quarry was currently depositing a large package of brown paper in a big blue mailbox.
Talbot paused as he lowered the boxy parcel. This was his life’s work, his notebook and all his scattered papers, and was the second-most important thing he owned, next to the wall that contained the Masterwork itself, which was likely being dismantled by his enemies at that very moment. This was the last 20 years of his life, and he was about to gamble it away to a crazy woman on the off-chance that his legacy might live on. Talbot wished he’d spent more time with reasonable scientists, if only to expand the pool of people he could mail his book to.
With a deep breath, Talbot released the book, wincing at the gentle ‘paff’ sound it made when it fell onto the envelopes at the bottom of the box.
His job complete, Talbot slipped the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and disappeared into the afternoon.
Guns are inelegant, Talc told his subordinate often. They’re loud, messy. Tools of thugs and soldiers, not agents of a higher purpose.
But there’s a downside to not carrying a gun, Willis countered silently. The difference between shooting a person and being forced to kill them more intimately is palpable, and not often a positive.
Willis considered this as Talbot-2 stopped struggling and finally went limp in his arms. Willis released the garotte from around the man’s throat, then lowered him to the floor of the office.
An irritated sigh came from behind him. Willis turned to see Talc shaking his head and walking toward him.
“No, you need to finish the job.” The man said. He kneeled, took Talbot-2’s forehead in one hand, his chin in the other, then jerked his head to the side, snapping his neck.
“If you stop garrotting when he goes limp, he’s just unconscious.” The other Talc, Talc-2, stated.
Willis nodded, numbly. He didn’t really hear the man.
“I know this is hard,” Talc said, shifting into a gentler tone, “But this is all for the good of humanity. If we let these ideas run wild, we’d all be dead.”
“Worse than dead.” Talc-2 added helpfully. “Our very essences would be consumed by dark beings from beyond our world.”
Willis nodded again. He’d heard it all before. So why did he still find it so hard to hurt people?
“So where’s the other one?” Willis-2 asked, seemingly unaware of his double’s predicament.
“That’s the big question, isn’t it.” Talc-2 mused, “However, before we can ponder it, first things first. We need to get a CC team in here to handle that wall.”
All four men were familiar with the APH Cognito Containment Teams, mysterious individuals in surgical masks that took away artifacts of forbidden knowledge to be stored or disposed of.
Talc-2 clicked his earpiece, then said a series of numbers and codes that were unintelligible to either Willis. He finished by saying, “Please send a Class-4 CC team. Over.”
He turned to the others. “They’re on their way. We need to secure Talbot’s place of residence.”
“Do we know that’s where he’ll go next?” Willis-2 asked.
“Not necessarily,” Talc-1 responded, “But it’s quite likely he’ll at least stop there to retrieve personal effects before going somewhere else.”
Both Willises nodded, almost in sync. The logic made sense. They would lock down Talbot’s house first.
All was silent in the small house several miles outside of town that Talbot called his abode. Then frantic footsteps sounded from outside, as someone ran up the footpath leading to the front door. Then, a faint scratching as Talbot scrambled to fit his key into the lock. A quiet clacking came next, as Talbot’s cat descended his cat-tree and approached the door to see what was happening.
Talbot swung the door open and gently pushed the cat out of his way with his foot.
“Sorry Ozzy,” he muttered.
He produced his debit card and snapped it in half, having extracted all the money from his account before arriving here. He pulled several thousand dollars from his pockets and shoved them in his wallet, his backpack, the pocket on the inside of his jacket, and his shoes.
He grabbed a spare toothbrush and tube of toothpaste from the master bathroom, shoving them into the backpack as well. He was going on the run, for god knows how long.
He paused as his eyes fell on his set of keys. He wouldn’t be taking his car or his house, so they’d likely not be necessary.
But I might as well just in case. Talbot grabbed the jangling key ring and slipped it into the inside pocket of his pants.
His cat mewed at his feet. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed his carrier and bowl, both monogrammed with a matching ‘Ozymandius’.
He knew bringing Ozzy was objectively a bad choice. It was impractical and stupid. The cat was loud, and would slow him down. But Talbot couldn’t bear leaving his baby here to be subjected to whatever evil ideas Talc and Willis had in mind.
Talbot coaxed Ozzy into his crate, then picked up the cat and donned his backpack. He took one last look around his house before he opened the front door and was immediately grabbed by both Willises, one of which held a chloroform rag over his mouth until he went limp.
Talbot awoke with a start. He glanced around, disoriented, and immediately registered that he was in some sort of interrogation room. His chair was metal, and bolted to the floor. Before him was a table, and above that table a blinding light mounted on the ceiling shone directly into his eyes. On the wall across from him, very much breaking the theme, was a ‘Hang in there!’ poster and a wall-mounted hand sanitizer dispenser.
Talbot tried to stand, only to find that his wrists and ankles were strapped into the chair. He strained against the bonds, cursing as the straps held strong.
He thought he heard faint snickering.
He turned to glare at the mirror to his right. “What are you planning to do to me?!”
Silence.
“What are you planning to do to my cat?!?”
More silence.
The Talcs and the Willi were standing behind the one-way mirror on Talbot’s left, looking at the back of his head as he shouted at no one. Talc looked mildly amused at Talbot’s complete misunderstanding of the room’s orientation.
Willis-2 glanced at Talc-2, who shrugged and motioned for Talc-1 to enter the larger room. Talc-1 did as asked.
The door at the front of the room opened, and Talc stepped out. He took a seat across from Talbot, and cleared his throat.
“First off, the most important thing. Your cat will be well-cared for, no matter the outcome of this conversation. Great name, by the way.”
Talbot refused to thank him for the compliment.
Talc cleared his throat, and there was a long silence.
“What about my first question?” Talbot asked, his voice trembling.
Talc sighed, then reached below the table.
Several seconds later, he came back up, notably with some difficulty. He slammed Talbot’s notebook down on the table. Next to it, he laid the sheet of seals Talbot had used to traverse space and time.
Talbot was stricken. “How did you-!?”
“Find this? Simple deduction. I’m frankly insulted that you didn’t consider that we’ve been tailing everyone you know for months. Johnson was the only person you could send this to.”
“What did you do to her?!”
“Nothing! We’re not the bad guys here, Talbot. We pulled the package from her porch before she ever got involved. We’d never hurt anyone.”
“Then where am I?” Talbot spat, then rephrased. “I mean… where is the version of me from here? Wait, are you from here or there?”
“I’m from there, assuming you mean your original reality. And Talbot-2 is fine. He’s in the next room.”
Willis winced behind the mirror.
“You never actually answered my question.” Talbot said quietly.
Talc pursed his lips regrettably.
“Well… here’s the thing, Talbot. What I’d like to do is offer you a chance to redeem yourself. I’d like to let you join the APH and help us protect humanity. But you’ve made it clear that that’s not what you want, and if we let you into our fold now, we’d forever be looking over our shoulders, wondering whose side you were truly on. And we can’t just let you go, no no. Your theories would largely be regarded as crackpot, but there are ways to prove these things, and you would certainly find them.”
Talbot swallowed. “Couldn’t you just… you know… erase my memory?”
Talc stifled a laugh. “Unfortunately, this is not Men In Black. Actions have consequences. There are no take-backs. And I’m sorry, Talbot, but this is it for you.” Talc stood, turned on his heel, and left.
“Why the hell’d you wake him up just to tell him that?” Willis muttered behind the glass.
“Hey, wait!” Talbot screamed at him as he departed, but there was no response.
Talbot tried to stand again, but slammed back into his chair as the bonds held.
Willis entered a few minutes later, holding a syringe. He winced at the sight before him. Talbot was hunched over, resting his head on the table. His shoulders were bobbing as though he was sobbing quietly.
Willis approached Talbot and tightened the strap on his right wrist. He moved around him and reached for his left hand, only to see that the strap had been sawed apart, and Talbot’s hand was free.
Willis grabbed his elbow, but Talbot struggled against the man’s grasp. The scientist was trying to keep it firmly on the table under his face.
Frustrated, Willis grabbed Talbot’s head and lifted it back, so he was sitting up straight.
As he beheld Talbot’s face, Willis felt a bolt of fear lance through him. The man was smiling, but it was not a happy smile.
It was the smile of a trapped animal that knew it would take a limb before it went down. With his eyes, Talbot indicated downwards. Willis slowly lowered his vision to the stainless steel tabletop. In Talbot’s hand was a housekey, the teeth worn down from sawing through the leather strap and scratching a symbol into the table. Right under his hand, the surface was pockmarked with the Seal of the Fifth Dimension.
Willis lunged for Talbot’s wrist, but it was too late. The alchemist brought the key across the symbol, carving another scratch to break the Seal and the boundaries between their reality and one far darker. Neither man had time to scream.
Talbot felt himself slip free of the chair, and out of the leather strap around his wrist.
Willis’s grip loosened, and it felt like he was flung across whatever intermediary pathway connected the fourth and fifth dimensions.
Part Two posted promptly!
2023.05.29 11:57 Assessment05 Best hotel site
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submitted by Assessment05 to u/Assessment05 [link] [comments]
Best hotel site
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2023.05.29 06:40 urfavsubby I don’t think I like my dad
Since having my first child, I (25F) don’t think I like my dad (59M). I appreciate what he’s done for me. He worked around 70 hrs a week for two years while my mom went back to school. He’s always helpful when it comes to fixing my car, he helped me buy my car. He helped me get my first job. He brought me dinner a few times while I was pregnant. He was there, which is the bare minimum, but also not something everyone can say about their father.
My dad is an alcoholic. A mean one. My house wasn’t too chaotic as far as abuse goes but it had some rough moments. He definitely yelled and berated us (I have two half brothers from my mom’s previous relationships) about our grades. I recall being told I wasn’t good enough and yelled at over getting a C, I had A’s in all my other classes.
While I was in college, I dropped a summer class because I wanted to enjoy having summer off after working hard all year, he yelled at me and told me I couldn’t even find a job without his help and I was stupid. The reality is, he was angry that he was supporting me through college. I was still on his phone plan and car insurance. Instead of admitting he couldn’t afford it, he would constantly hold it over my head whenever I did something he didn’t like.
I was over sexualized at a young age because I developed seemingly overnight. One day in 7th grade, I wore a tank top to school and didn’t think anything of it because I wasn’t used to my new body and it was hot at my crappy school. Well, he noticed the tank top wasn’t in my drawer and went to my school, he pulled me out of school ( which was SO important to him) to make me come home and change. He almost made me change in front of him , he said “since you don’t have a problem showing everyone everything, I’m just gonna stand here and watch” luckily my mom was home and told him he was overdoing it and he left the room. After I changed he ripped the shirt into shreds… it was the first clothing item I bought with my own money.
He constantly made comments about my clothes and my body throughout my teens. How my boobs were big and he thinks I got that from his mom, things fitting me too tight, he noticed how my dirty underwear looked in the laundry room and felt the need to comment (why tf are you looking anyway). He got upset when I wouldn’t kiss him on the lips anymore, I was about 12/13 and hadn’t kissed him on my lips since I was probably 4/5. He said “if I was some boy at school you’d probably kiss me.” He kept asking me to until my mom made him leave me alone about it. One early morning before everyone else was awake he asked me to sit on his lap “like old times” I was probably 13/14, I did it but it made me feel really uneasy. The main reason I moved out was because he was accusing me of going out for “booty calls”, I was a night owl college student going out for chicken nuggets after finishing my homework.
The recent incidents that were the last straw involve my son (9 weeks). On first his day home after spending 10 days in the NICU, he kisses him. Who tf kisses a baby fresh out of NICU? Especially after I asked that no one kiss him because he’s considered high risk for respiratory illness and would likely need to be hospitalized again if he got sick. When I confronted him about it, he tried to play the victim. After getting the silent treatment for a week, he apologized and told me he would be on his best behavior around my son, this included not smoking around my son.
Well last weekend, we needed to sleep over at my parents house while our place got fumigated. Around 3am I finally got my son back to sleep, about 30 minutes later my dad goes in the bathroom and opens the window to smoke (it was around 50 degrees) my son wakes up because he’s cold. I see a towel stuffed under the door, he’s smoking. I get my mom because I didn’t know what to do or say. He tried to apologize but I knew he wasn’t sorry, he was sorry he got caught.
I HATE how he interacts with my son. He’s so loud, annoying and overwhelming. My baby cries or gets fussy when my dad comes around with his obnoxious baby talk. Tomorrow we’re supposed to visit for a barbecue and for my baby to meet his great aunts (my dads sisters), I really don’t wanna go. My dads sisters haven’t cared about me since I was a kid, they just wanna hold the baby.
Oh also, he and my mother (53F) car pool to work and he drives her around drunk. They work an hour from home and their commute includes a busy highway. He keeps telling her he’s gonna go to treatment but I think he’s stringing her along because she keeps giving him ultimatums (get help or move out).
I really can’t stand him anymore and wish I could visit my mom without him being around. God bless my mom for saving me so many times from his nonsense.
submitted by urfavsubby to offmychest [link] [comments]
My dad is an alcoholic. A mean one. My house wasn’t too chaotic as far as abuse goes but it had some rough moments. He definitely yelled and berated us (I have two half brothers from my mom’s previous relationships) about our grades. I recall being told I wasn’t good enough and yelled at over getting a C, I had A’s in all my other classes.
While I was in college, I dropped a summer class because I wanted to enjoy having summer off after working hard all year, he yelled at me and told me I couldn’t even find a job without his help and I was stupid. The reality is, he was angry that he was supporting me through college. I was still on his phone plan and car insurance. Instead of admitting he couldn’t afford it, he would constantly hold it over my head whenever I did something he didn’t like.
I was over sexualized at a young age because I developed seemingly overnight. One day in 7th grade, I wore a tank top to school and didn’t think anything of it because I wasn’t used to my new body and it was hot at my crappy school. Well, he noticed the tank top wasn’t in my drawer and went to my school, he pulled me out of school ( which was SO important to him) to make me come home and change. He almost made me change in front of him , he said “since you don’t have a problem showing everyone everything, I’m just gonna stand here and watch” luckily my mom was home and told him he was overdoing it and he left the room. After I changed he ripped the shirt into shreds… it was the first clothing item I bought with my own money.
He constantly made comments about my clothes and my body throughout my teens. How my boobs were big and he thinks I got that from his mom, things fitting me too tight, he noticed how my dirty underwear looked in the laundry room and felt the need to comment (why tf are you looking anyway). He got upset when I wouldn’t kiss him on the lips anymore, I was about 12/13 and hadn’t kissed him on my lips since I was probably 4/5. He said “if I was some boy at school you’d probably kiss me.” He kept asking me to until my mom made him leave me alone about it. One early morning before everyone else was awake he asked me to sit on his lap “like old times” I was probably 13/14, I did it but it made me feel really uneasy. The main reason I moved out was because he was accusing me of going out for “booty calls”, I was a night owl college student going out for chicken nuggets after finishing my homework.
The recent incidents that were the last straw involve my son (9 weeks). On first his day home after spending 10 days in the NICU, he kisses him. Who tf kisses a baby fresh out of NICU? Especially after I asked that no one kiss him because he’s considered high risk for respiratory illness and would likely need to be hospitalized again if he got sick. When I confronted him about it, he tried to play the victim. After getting the silent treatment for a week, he apologized and told me he would be on his best behavior around my son, this included not smoking around my son.
Well last weekend, we needed to sleep over at my parents house while our place got fumigated. Around 3am I finally got my son back to sleep, about 30 minutes later my dad goes in the bathroom and opens the window to smoke (it was around 50 degrees) my son wakes up because he’s cold. I see a towel stuffed under the door, he’s smoking. I get my mom because I didn’t know what to do or say. He tried to apologize but I knew he wasn’t sorry, he was sorry he got caught.
I HATE how he interacts with my son. He’s so loud, annoying and overwhelming. My baby cries or gets fussy when my dad comes around with his obnoxious baby talk. Tomorrow we’re supposed to visit for a barbecue and for my baby to meet his great aunts (my dads sisters), I really don’t wanna go. My dads sisters haven’t cared about me since I was a kid, they just wanna hold the baby.
Oh also, he and my mother (53F) car pool to work and he drives her around drunk. They work an hour from home and their commute includes a busy highway. He keeps telling her he’s gonna go to treatment but I think he’s stringing her along because she keeps giving him ultimatums (get help or move out).
I really can’t stand him anymore and wish I could visit my mom without him being around. God bless my mom for saving me so many times from his nonsense.
2023.05.29 06:20 hephalumph Fulcrum
 | Fulcrum (Randall Baron) - PL 10Age: 28Height: 5'11" Weight: 183 lb. Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown Strength -1, Stamina 0, Agility 0, Dexterity 2, Fighting -1, Intellect 0, Awareness 2, Presence 0 Advantages Benefit, Wealth 4 (multimillionaire), Luck, Luck (Edit Scene), [Luck, Luck (Edit Scene), Luck (Instant Counter), Luck (Recover)] Skills Expertise: Gambling 4 (+4), Persuasion 4 (+4), Sleight of Hand 2 (+4) Powers Blessed Existence (Advantages: Luck, Luck (Edit Scene), Luck (Instant Counter), Luck (Recover))Newton's Third Law Blast: Damage 10 (Linked; karma, bestowed, luck, DC 25; Extras: Increased Range: ranged, Reaction 3: reaction, Variable Descriptor 2: broad group - Damage type matches deflected attack; Flaws: Source: Powered by an Enemy's attack) Offense Initiative +0 Blast: Damage 10, +10 (DC 25) Grab, -1 (DC Spec 9) Throw, +2 (DC 14) Unarmed, -1 (DC 14) Complications Motivation: Karma: I have a list of individuals I have wronged in the past, and am constantly trying to make reparations for my misdeeds. Aside from that personal quest, I have been charged by Karma herself to expand this and balance the scales whenever I can. Power Loss: If I ignore a mission given to me by Karma, or if I begin to behave badly, an abnormal amount of minor bad things begin obviously happening to me and those around me. If I do not heed that warning, I will lose my powers until I have attoned for my misdeeds. Languages English Defense Dodge 10/0, Parry 10/-1, Fortitude 10/0, Toughness 10, Will 10/2 Power Points Abilities 4 + Powers 135 + Advantages 6 + Skills 5 (10 ranks) + Defenses 0 = 150 Personal Details (This is a blatant ripoff of "My Name is Earl", if it was not obvious) Randall Baron was a two-bit con man and gambler. Not particularly successful in either venture, he made the minimal amount he needed to live a welfare redneck lifestyle. Coasting from con to con, city to city, he felt he was living a free life, without being tied down to a job or any responsibilities. Then his life changed. He bought a scratch ticket at a gas station and won a 20 million dollar jackpot. Just as he was celebrating his good fortune, he was shot and nearly killed - an 'innocent bystander' casualty as the gas station he had just left was being robbed. He had even noticed the duo on their way into the gas station, knew they were probably up to no good, and decided to ignore them. While he was recovering in the hospital, he saw an interview on the TV; and he is still not sure if it was the pain medicine he was on, a glitch in the TV, or Karma herself calling out to him. But it was a philosopher speaking about Karma, and a single sentence was repeated over and over - he believes on the TV itself, but possibly it was all in his head. "Your good thoughts, deeds, and words, will lead to beneficial effects, while your bad thoughts, deeds, and words, will lead to harmful effects." Taking it as a sign, and with a fresh perspective on life thanks to his brush with death, he pledged himself right then and there to rectify all of his misdeeds. He began making a list of all of his cons, thefts, and plain bad behavior and vowed to himself that he was going to make things right. Seemingly immediately after that, his condition stabilized and he surprised his doctors with how quickly he was healing. He left the hospital within the week, far sooner than they had warned him he would be in there, and on his way out he got something stuck to the bottom of his shoe - his winning lottery ticket; he had dropped it when he was shot, and somehow it found its way back to him days later and miles away at the hospital. He began using the money to aid him in righting his own personal wrongdoings, and the more he did so, the better he felt and the better his luck seemed to become in general. Until one day when he got a sudden urge to help someone who was not on his list, and as he did so he felt like he was a conduit for the incarnation of Karma itself. As he continued righting wrongs and protecting those he could from being harmed, he seemed to unlock more and more access to Karma's favor - to the point he recognized that he has indeed gained supernatural benefits and powers to use in her name. He adpoted the persona of Fulcrum, after searching for names related to balance or karma (it is the point where a scale balances). And he has just begun to explore his powers, and to seek out others to work with to help right the wrongs and balance the scales. https://preview.redd.it/8rtf9g7f5p2b1.png?width=432&format=png&auto=webp&s=64215f0d2b3ea4e48507435d99ded29af22e0901 |
2023.05.29 04:46 Still_Needleworker11 Script list as of May 28th
As the title has described, I'll be listing the entirety of scripts that I have done since doing this in Nov. of 2022
Some of this list will be in chronological order while others (Series) will be at the bottom of the list.
I also tried dividing this list from the Female, Male, and Anyone scripts. The series scripts that are completed will not say anything at the end, while the one's ongoing will have a (Cont.) in it. The one's with a "?" are simply weather or not I would continue them.
Hope this make it easier if you wonder weather or not to read any my Ideas. Also, apologies if they are just links and a little messy. I'll try to fix it for the future.
Christmas
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z4zlq3/tomboy_reindeer_girl_trains_to_be_in_this_years/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z6iora/you_talk_with_your_dark_elf_coworker_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z8ifru/your_guardian_angel_visits_you_do_discuss/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zcxt0j/your_guardian_angel_visits_you_do_discuss/
***
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zae1nl/bartender_bunny_girl_helps_you_destress_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zbzask/tsundere_harpy_best_friend_gives_you_a_present/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zdwua7/centaur_in_hospital_during_christmas_season_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zfpsuw/dot_rat_friend_hangs_out_with_you_f4a_tomboy/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zgo91q/your_drider_next_door_neighbor_is_feeling_down/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zkgkvy/shark_girl_celebrates_christmas_with_you_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zn6oxk/running_into_your_former_babysitter_during/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zqdocp/wulver_girl_gives_you_some_fish_when_your_down_on/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zt7um4/spending_time_with_your_goth_girlfriend_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zhizw4/tsundere_santa_finds_you_awake_and_discusses_why/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zor7gk/femboy_childhood_friend_becomes_boyfriend_m4f/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zzlgv1/another_christmas_truce_f4a_wholesome_confession/
***
Female Scripts
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z3z9hn/kuundere_football_coach_comforts_you_after_big/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1020p99/your_childhood_friend_tsundere_dwarf_joins_in/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/104lktj/dragon_girl_plays_with_a_young_child_wanting_to/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10ezamg/you_confess_to_your_alchemist_friend_after_she/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10lixgw/harley_quinn_calms_down_a_teller_having_an/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10kql58/nerdy_arachne_comforts_you_after_your_pet_dies/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10oty3p/girl_you_babysat_is_your_blind_date_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10rd62j/dragon_girl_helps_out_new_trainee_knights_in/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10rfgc0/valac_clara_comforts_you_after_finding_out_you/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10dqeqd/goth_friend_finds_something_off_about_you_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10tgnxd/your_gardevoir_finds_you_upset_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10jwwmx/the_succubus_you_summon_is_your_tomboy_childhood/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10zd7du/you_win_a_date_with_raven_from_a_raffle_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11076j9/you_help_your_dullahan_friend_after_she_got/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/110pprp/eating_lunch_with_kara_danvers_f4m_tomboy/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/111jii2/you_find_out_that_your_new_stepmom_is_a_lamia_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/111vddn/nico_robin_runs_into_you_while_doing_some/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1158rij/you_find_out_that_the_centaur_groundskeeper_was_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/118qbku/iino_miko_corners_you_and_is_about_to_punish_you/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11hph80/diana_prince_aka_wonder_woman_comforts_you_from/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10hin7l/idol_best_friend_confesses_to_you_f4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11sj3i6/kuudere_goth_best_friend_finds_out_you_have_been/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11aj7xv/your_harpy_best_friend_finds_you_crying_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/117hbch/dark_elf_talks_about_joining_your_party_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/129bf1v/your_tomboy_girlfriend_comforts_you_after_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12a2i7e/vampire_math_teacher_finds_out_your_struggling_in/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12a8bt3/the_slime_girl_is_head_of_the_art_department_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11lm9be/tomboy_easter_bunny_sees_what_is_the_matter_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12c94uolder_lamia_girlfriend_flirts_with_you_after_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12nvw7t/former_drill_sgt_finds_you_on_the_streets_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13b8htminotaur_music_teacher_helps_out_one_of_the_othe
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13fc42l/childhood_friend_confesses_that_shes_a_clown_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13iv8nd/rebel_girl_saves_you_from_some_bullies_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13th6o0/buff_girlfriend_comforts_you_after_another_rough/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13r87oa/the_succubus_you_summon_is_your_old_chemistry/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12mpc8m/tomboy_best_friend_patches_you_up_after_you_get/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11jpbkv/snuggling_with_your_tomboy_bf_after_a_very_rough/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/131gjndommy_drider_catches_you_in_her_web_f4m_spicy/
***
Anyone Scripts
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13dgptp/the_general_of_the_demon_army_is_ablind_swordsman/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
Male Scripts
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/109r8f1/femboy_best_friend_comforts_you_from_an_anxiety/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/113hk70/you_look_for_iruma_to_ask_for_help_but_asmodeus/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/117vqo5/femboy_prince_gets_kidnapped_by_a_dragon_girl_m4f/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10t4z98/you_share_a_cup_of_tea_with_death_before_he_takes/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11fsyef/you_find_out_your_history_teacher_is_a_werewolf/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12d8nm9/femboy_prince_comes_by_the_castle_you_serve_and/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/133ekoi/astolfo_wants_to_talk_to_you_a4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1395l0o/the_king_knows_he_confronts_the_knight_protecting/
Series
Tomboy Princess
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10uwth1/tomboy_princess_confesses_to_her_royal_knight_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12c4hcz/spending_time_with_your_tomboy_princess_as_she/
(Cont.)
Lamia Vice Principal
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10dxp3z/lamia_viceprincipal_calls_you_into_her_office_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10mywce/lamia_vice_principal_helps_you_out_with_the/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10uz28f/lamia_viceprincipal_brings_you_back_to_school_f4a/
Supervillain
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/133y6gx/supervillain_finds_something_off_about_you_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13bb1cz/you_visit_the_supervillain_in_prison_before_he
Kaguya sama and Chika
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10yh86h/fujiwara_chika_finds_you_alone_in_the_study_and/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/119pdxt/kaguya_shinomiya_helps_you_out_with_your_dilemma/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12rhcqb/chika_sees_the_results_of_your_labor_f4a/
Cyndir
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11ngzjc/a_tomboy_dragon_girl_wants_to_challenge_you_but/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11sjo4a/cyndir_the_dragon_girl_recovers_from_her_battle/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/124eg94/cyndir_the_dragon_girl_talks_to_you_after_the/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12g9nia/going_to_the_ball_with_your_dragon_gf_cyndir_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12ljb6m/cyndir_has_a_horrible_nightmare_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12sl1td/cyndir_meets_with_the_royal_majesty_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12tr0ki/cyndir_begins_training_with_the_captain_of_the/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1378ecc/cyndirs_mom_comes_to_see_her_daughters_beloved/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13acai9/cyndir_on_royal_guard_duty_f4mf_wholesome_comfort/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13nhnbb/cyndir_gets_jealous_when_you_talk_to_anothe
(Cont.)
Lucky The dog girl
Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z9fwxy/dog_girl_is_your_christmas_gift_f4a_wholesome/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zxx2xs/lucky_the_dog_girl_adjust_to_her_new_home_f4a/
Part 3
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1076axf/lucky_the_dog_girl_gets_jealous_of_you_talking_to/
Part 4
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10n1rg7/lucky_the_dog_girl_goes_to_the_vet_f4a_wholesome/
Part 5
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10sbxgi/lucky_the_dog_girl_watches_a_scary_movie_with_you/
Part 6
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11blb7h/lucky_the_dog_girl_finds_out_your_having_an/
(Cont.)
Principal Drider
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/117vhs1/drider_principal_needs_to_talk_to_you_for_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/119pe69/principal_drider_is_secretly_your_girlfriend_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11c5r30/you_spend_the_night_with_the_drider_principal_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11dymzy/the_pta_could_of_gone_better_for_the_dride
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11kpnk4/the_ultimatum_is_given_to_the_drider_principal/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/125c3n1/jealous_drider_principal_wants_to_talk_to_you_f4m/
(Cont.)
7 Minutes in heaven (Nerd)
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/114cqc0/7_minutes_in_heaven_with_your_nerdy_best_friend/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11c6adh/you_spend_the_night_at_your_new_nerdy_gfs_house/
7 Minutes in heaven (Cheerleader)
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13edxip/7_minutes_in_heaven_with_the_captain_of_the/
(Cont.)
Hex Maniac
Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/105w0uk/hex_maniac_helps_you_out_when_you_feel_down_f4m/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11c6adh/you_spend_the_night_at_your_new_nerdy_gfs_house/
Part 3
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10gp0f0/you_ask_the_hex_maniac_if_she_wouldnt_mind_being/
Part 4
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11tc5i9/you_and_the_hex_maniac_go_on_a_date_f4m_wholesome/
(Cont.)
Buff GF
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13th6o0/buff_girlfriend_comforts_you_after_another_rough/
(Cont.?)
Witch
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/135biom/witch_is_accused_of_harming_neighboring_cities_so/
(Cont.)
Konosuba
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10x04rk/you_spend_some_time_with_wiz_and_she_finds_out/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10vs53d/megumin_finds_you_alone_in_the_forest_and_tries/
Goth Gardevoir
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13of9sm/goth_gardevoir_tries_cheering_you_up_after_a_mass/
(Cont.?)
Star Quarterback
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10fulvs/star_quarterback_confesses_to_childhood_friend/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11pfamo/star_quarterback_asks_friend_if_she_would_go_out/
Oni
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11hqhbs/tsundere_oni_asks_you_for_a_favor_f4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12i6exd/oni_friend_meets_up_with_you_at_her_sisters/
(Cont.)
Supervillain
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/133y6gx/supervillain_finds_something_off_about_you_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13bb1cz/you_visit_the_supervillain_in_prison_before_he
Pinkie the slime girl
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11blays/your_brother_drags_you_to_a_social_event_where/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11fsyme/pinkie_the_slime_girl_sneaks_into_your_room_and/
(Cont.)
Mermaid
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10m6upm/tomboy_mermaid_teaches_you_how_to_swim_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10rfzht/you_run_into_cari_the_tomboy_mermaid_whos/
(Cont.)
Nemona
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11d3np1/nemona_finds_you_after_you_had_a_rough_losing/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11dyn2p/you_challenge_nemona_to_a_pok%C3%A9mon_battle_with_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11kpx7u/you_go_on_a_date_with_nemona_f4m_wholesome/
(Cont.)
Justice the Awesome Demon
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10pzkyw/you_ask_justice_the_awesome_demon_to_be_your_date/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10wobdg/your_date_with_justice_the_awesome_demon_f4m/
Superhero
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/105gyfc/your_superhero_best_friend_finds_out_your_he
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10bh4kt/you_make_up_with_your_best_friend_and_maybe/
Tomboy Pilot
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1010ymtomboy_pilot_f4a_wholesome_flirting_kissing/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/109iikp/tomboy_pilot_asking_for_your_help_f4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10icei3/gator_the_tomboy_test_pilot_joins_you_in_the/
Edit: wasn't sure what category to put this under, I figure discussion was the "Safest" choice. If it wasn't understand this is the first time I did something like this.
submitted by Still_Needleworker11 to ASMRScriptHaven [link] [comments]
Some of this list will be in chronological order while others (Series) will be at the bottom of the list.
I also tried dividing this list from the Female, Male, and Anyone scripts. The series scripts that are completed will not say anything at the end, while the one's ongoing will have a (Cont.) in it. The one's with a "?" are simply weather or not I would continue them.
Hope this make it easier if you wonder weather or not to read any my Ideas. Also, apologies if they are just links and a little messy. I'll try to fix it for the future.
Christmas
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z4zlq3/tomboy_reindeer_girl_trains_to_be_in_this_years/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z6iora/you_talk_with_your_dark_elf_coworker_f4a/
- Guardian Angel
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z8ifru/your_guardian_angel_visits_you_do_discuss/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zcxt0j/your_guardian_angel_visits_you_do_discuss/
***
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zae1nl/bartender_bunny_girl_helps_you_destress_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zbzask/tsundere_harpy_best_friend_gives_you_a_present/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zdwua7/centaur_in_hospital_during_christmas_season_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zfpsuw/dot_rat_friend_hangs_out_with_you_f4a_tomboy/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zgo91q/your_drider_next_door_neighbor_is_feeling_down/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zkgkvy/shark_girl_celebrates_christmas_with_you_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zn6oxk/running_into_your_former_babysitter_during/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zqdocp/wulver_girl_gives_you_some_fish_when_your_down_on/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zt7um4/spending_time_with_your_goth_girlfriend_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zhizw4/tsundere_santa_finds_you_awake_and_discusses_why/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zor7gk/femboy_childhood_friend_becomes_boyfriend_m4f/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zzlgv1/another_christmas_truce_f4a_wholesome_confession/
***
Female Scripts
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z3z9hn/kuundere_football_coach_comforts_you_after_big/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1020p99/your_childhood_friend_tsundere_dwarf_joins_in/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/104lktj/dragon_girl_plays_with_a_young_child_wanting_to/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10ezamg/you_confess_to_your_alchemist_friend_after_she/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10lixgw/harley_quinn_calms_down_a_teller_having_an/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10kql58/nerdy_arachne_comforts_you_after_your_pet_dies/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10oty3p/girl_you_babysat_is_your_blind_date_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10rd62j/dragon_girl_helps_out_new_trainee_knights_in/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10rfgc0/valac_clara_comforts_you_after_finding_out_you/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10dqeqd/goth_friend_finds_something_off_about_you_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10tgnxd/your_gardevoir_finds_you_upset_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10jwwmx/the_succubus_you_summon_is_your_tomboy_childhood/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10zd7du/you_win_a_date_with_raven_from_a_raffle_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11076j9/you_help_your_dullahan_friend_after_she_got/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/110pprp/eating_lunch_with_kara_danvers_f4m_tomboy/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/111jii2/you_find_out_that_your_new_stepmom_is_a_lamia_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/111vddn/nico_robin_runs_into_you_while_doing_some/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1158rij/you_find_out_that_the_centaur_groundskeeper_was_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/118qbku/iino_miko_corners_you_and_is_about_to_punish_you/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11hph80/diana_prince_aka_wonder_woman_comforts_you_from/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10hin7l/idol_best_friend_confesses_to_you_f4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11sj3i6/kuudere_goth_best_friend_finds_out_you_have_been/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11aj7xv/your_harpy_best_friend_finds_you_crying_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/117hbch/dark_elf_talks_about_joining_your_party_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/129bf1v/your_tomboy_girlfriend_comforts_you_after_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12a2i7e/vampire_math_teacher_finds_out_your_struggling_in/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12a8bt3/the_slime_girl_is_head_of_the_art_department_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11lm9be/tomboy_easter_bunny_sees_what_is_the_matter_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12c94uolder_lamia_girlfriend_flirts_with_you_after_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12nvw7t/former_drill_sgt_finds_you_on_the_streets_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13b8htminotaur_music_teacher_helps_out_one_of_the_othe
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13fc42l/childhood_friend_confesses_that_shes_a_clown_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13iv8nd/rebel_girl_saves_you_from_some_bullies_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13th6o0/buff_girlfriend_comforts_you_after_another_rough/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13r87oa/the_succubus_you_summon_is_your_old_chemistry/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12mpc8m/tomboy_best_friend_patches_you_up_after_you_get/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11jpbkv/snuggling_with_your_tomboy_bf_after_a_very_rough/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/131gjndommy_drider_catches_you_in_her_web_f4m_spicy/
***
Anyone Scripts
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13dgptp/the_general_of_the_demon_army_is_ablind_swordsman/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
Male Scripts
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/109r8f1/femboy_best_friend_comforts_you_from_an_anxiety/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/113hk70/you_look_for_iruma_to_ask_for_help_but_asmodeus/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/117vqo5/femboy_prince_gets_kidnapped_by_a_dragon_girl_m4f/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10t4z98/you_share_a_cup_of_tea_with_death_before_he_takes/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11fsyef/you_find_out_your_history_teacher_is_a_werewolf/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12d8nm9/femboy_prince_comes_by_the_castle_you_serve_and/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/133ekoi/astolfo_wants_to_talk_to_you_a4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1395l0o/the_king_knows_he_confronts_the_knight_protecting/
Series
Tomboy Princess
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10uwth1/tomboy_princess_confesses_to_her_royal_knight_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12c4hcz/spending_time_with_your_tomboy_princess_as_she/
(Cont.)
Lamia Vice Principal
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10dxp3z/lamia_viceprincipal_calls_you_into_her_office_f4a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10mywce/lamia_vice_principal_helps_you_out_with_the/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10uz28f/lamia_viceprincipal_brings_you_back_to_school_f4a/
Supervillain
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/133y6gx/supervillain_finds_something_off_about_you_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13bb1cz/you_visit_the_supervillain_in_prison_before_he
Kaguya sama and Chika
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10yh86h/fujiwara_chika_finds_you_alone_in_the_study_and/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/119pdxt/kaguya_shinomiya_helps_you_out_with_your_dilemma/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12rhcqb/chika_sees_the_results_of_your_labor_f4a/
Cyndir
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11ngzjc/a_tomboy_dragon_girl_wants_to_challenge_you_but/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11sjo4a/cyndir_the_dragon_girl_recovers_from_her_battle/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/124eg94/cyndir_the_dragon_girl_talks_to_you_after_the/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12g9nia/going_to_the_ball_with_your_dragon_gf_cyndir_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12ljb6m/cyndir_has_a_horrible_nightmare_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12sl1td/cyndir_meets_with_the_royal_majesty_f4m_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12tr0ki/cyndir_begins_training_with_the_captain_of_the/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12x4avi/demon_lord_torments_her_captor_f4m_knight/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1378ecc/cyndirs_mom_comes_to_see_her_daughters_beloved/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13acai9/cyndir_on_royal_guard_duty_f4mf_wholesome_comfort/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13nhnbb/cyndir_gets_jealous_when_you_talk_to_anothe
(Cont.)
Lucky The dog girl
Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/z9fwxy/dog_girl_is_your_christmas_gift_f4a_wholesome/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/zxx2xs/lucky_the_dog_girl_adjust_to_her_new_home_f4a/
Part 3
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1076axf/lucky_the_dog_girl_gets_jealous_of_you_talking_to/
Part 4
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10n1rg7/lucky_the_dog_girl_goes_to_the_vet_f4a_wholesome/
Part 5
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10sbxgi/lucky_the_dog_girl_watches_a_scary_movie_with_you/
Part 6
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11blb7h/lucky_the_dog_girl_finds_out_your_having_an/
(Cont.)
Principal Drider
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/117vhs1/drider_principal_needs_to_talk_to_you_for_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/119pe69/principal_drider_is_secretly_your_girlfriend_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11c5r30/you_spend_the_night_with_the_drider_principal_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11dymzy/the_pta_could_of_gone_better_for_the_dride
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11kpnk4/the_ultimatum_is_given_to_the_drider_principal/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/125c3n1/jealous_drider_principal_wants_to_talk_to_you_f4m/
(Cont.)
7 Minutes in heaven (Nerd)
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/114cqc0/7_minutes_in_heaven_with_your_nerdy_best_friend/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11c6adh/you_spend_the_night_at_your_new_nerdy_gfs_house/
7 Minutes in heaven (Cheerleader)
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13edxip/7_minutes_in_heaven_with_the_captain_of_the/
(Cont.)
Hex Maniac
Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/105w0uk/hex_maniac_helps_you_out_when_you_feel_down_f4m/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11c6adh/you_spend_the_night_at_your_new_nerdy_gfs_house/
Part 3
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10gp0f0/you_ask_the_hex_maniac_if_she_wouldnt_mind_being/
Part 4
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11tc5i9/you_and_the_hex_maniac_go_on_a_date_f4m_wholesome/
(Cont.)
Buff GF
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13th6o0/buff_girlfriend_comforts_you_after_another_rough/
(Cont.?)
Witch
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/135biom/witch_is_accused_of_harming_neighboring_cities_so/
(Cont.)
Konosuba
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10x04rk/you_spend_some_time_with_wiz_and_she_finds_out/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10vs53d/megumin_finds_you_alone_in_the_forest_and_tries/
Goth Gardevoir
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13of9sm/goth_gardevoir_tries_cheering_you_up_after_a_mass/
(Cont.?)
Star Quarterback
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10fulvs/star_quarterback_confesses_to_childhood_friend/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11pfamo/star_quarterback_asks_friend_if_she_would_go_out/
Oni
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11hqhbs/tsundere_oni_asks_you_for_a_favor_f4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/12i6exd/oni_friend_meets_up_with_you_at_her_sisters/
(Cont.)
Supervillain
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/133y6gx/supervillain_finds_something_off_about_you_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/13bb1cz/you_visit_the_supervillain_in_prison_before_he
Pinkie the slime girl
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11blays/your_brother_drags_you_to_a_social_event_where/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11fsyme/pinkie_the_slime_girl_sneaks_into_your_room_and/
(Cont.)
Mermaid
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10m6upm/tomboy_mermaid_teaches_you_how_to_swim_f4m/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10rfzht/you_run_into_cari_the_tomboy_mermaid_whos/
(Cont.)
Nemona
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11d3np1/nemona_finds_you_after_you_had_a_rough_losing/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11dyn2p/you_challenge_nemona_to_a_pok%C3%A9mon_battle_with_a/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/11kpx7u/you_go_on_a_date_with_nemona_f4m_wholesome/
(Cont.)
Justice the Awesome Demon
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10pzkyw/you_ask_justice_the_awesome_demon_to_be_your_date/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10wobdg/your_date_with_justice_the_awesome_demon_f4m/
Superhero
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/105gyfc/your_superhero_best_friend_finds_out_your_he
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10bh4kt/you_make_up_with_your_best_friend_and_maybe/
Tomboy Pilot
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/1010ymtomboy_pilot_f4a_wholesome_flirting_kissing/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/109iikp/tomboy_pilot_asking_for_your_help_f4a_wholesome/
https://www.reddit.com/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10icei3/gator_the_tomboy_test_pilot_joins_you_in_the/
Edit: wasn't sure what category to put this under, I figure discussion was the "Safest" choice. If it wasn't understand this is the first time I did something like this.
2023.05.29 03:49 The_dots_eat_packman [Railroad Preservation] People have been debating what color a defunct railroad painted its steam locomotives longer than I’ve been alive.
This post expands on a comment I made in last week's scuffle thread about a multi-decade disagreement about what color the now-defunct Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) used to paint its steam locomotives and by extension, what color the 491, a now-restored locomotive operating at the Colorado Railroad Museum (CRM), should have been painted during her restoration. Tie a red bandanna around your neck, grab some popcorn, and sit back for a two-for-one hobby history and drama.
First, four short disclosures. One, I am associated with CRM, but I did not participate in the restoration of 491. Second, I have no preference what color 491 should be, I'm just glad she’s running. Third, this is US-centric, because I'm not going to eat up word count clarifying international differences every paragraph. Fourth, 491 uses she/her pronouns. That’s not woke, it's historically accurate. Deal with it, you friggin’ lopsided, melting snowflake.
Before we get to the drama, let’s get a bit of context and background. The D&RGW railroad was founded in 1870 and eventually became a part of Union Pacific in the 1990s. D&RGW built and operated routes in the US states of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. For a long time, these tracks were among the very few ways to easily travel west of Denver and through the Rocky Mountains. Those corridors were, and still continue to be, foundational parts of the US rail network.
Over time, D&RGW became renowned around the world for operating in some of the most beautiful but technically difficult terrain in North America. The passenger trains themselves became destinations, and the mountainous routes fascinated historians, railroad photographers, and model railroaders. Seriously--just look at this train going up a mountain like a goat. In addition, the railroad was notable for operating an extensive network of "narrow gauge" tracks—the rails were 3' apart instead of the standard 4' 8.5". Without getting too far into the technical weeds, narrow gauge worked better than standard in mountainous terrain.
Another thing that made the D&RGW a darling among railroad enthusiasts is that while they got rid of the steam locomotives on its mainline tracks in late 1940s or early 50s, just like most other railroads did, they kept on chuggin' down the narrow gauge tracks until 1968. To put that in perspective, that's the year the White Album came out, and the year that Planet of the Apes and Night of the Living Dead were released. 1968 was the year before Woodstock and Apollo 11, and only 15 years before the Internet was invented.
1968, in other words, is incredibly recent. It is within the lifespan of some of you reading this post. It should be kept in mind that when we talk about the D&RGW and the 491’s service life, those things, while distant, have not yet faded into history. There are many still-living people who worked on this railroad, operated specific pieces of equipment, and saw it around their communities. There are far more people who had a father, grandfather, uncle, or other relative involved in this industry. We aren’t discussing events in the distant past, and the people who care about this aren’t just hyper-fixated on arcane details of history. For many people, the presence of this railroad, and the continued preservation of its remnants, are intensely personal.
Before we move on, let's take a moment to get some additional context on how railroads used color on their equipment. Today, you might notice that most railroads have a set "livery" that they paint on their locomotives. (UP yellow, BNSF orange, CSX blue, ect.) Prior to about 1900, steam locomotives were just as colorful, and were often decorated with elaborate trimmings made of polished metal. This is actually where the idiom "all the bells and whistles" comes from. Most toys, clip art pictures, and children's television programs depict locomotives from this era.
However, after roughly1900, the appearance of most steam locomotives became far more utilitarian. The Victorian maximalist style started to fall out of favor across the board, especially after the wars, and most railroads in the US accordingly preferred unembellished equipment. Now, their locomotives were most often painted black with minimal amounts of gray, white, or silver trimming.
By about 1900, railroads companies had also noodled out that keeping a brightly colored and decorated locomotive clean enough that it didn't reflect poorly on the company required a lot of labor. Remember, these machines— this is worth harping on both because it's going to be a plot point in a little bit and because modern readers might not fully grasp what “steam power” means—are ON FIRE AT ALL TIMES WHILE OPERATING. A very messy chain of events results from this intrinsic property:
1.Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.
There were some exceptions to this preference. Often, railroads painted passenger locomotives to distinguish them from freight locomotives or to fit into the paint scheme used for every piece of equipment on a specific train. Two good extant and operable examples of colorful locomotives are the Southern Pacific 4449 and the Norfolk & Western 611. Other railroads preferred colorful, but very dark shades of paint for at least some of their locomotives. One of those railroads just so happened to be the D&RGW: There's documented evidence that instead of using black, they painted some of their locomotive a shade of dark green. For the curious, it is approximately hex code 1E3D0E.
Speaking of D&RGW, let's jump back to the 1960s and introduce the specific steam locomotive at the center of this drama: D&RGW no. 491. For you nerds—you know who you are—she is a K-37 Class superheated, outside-frame, 2-8-2 Mikado. She and nine other K-37s were built in-house by the D&RGW in 1928. 491 was taken out of revenue service in 1963.
As an aside, it was actually really rare for railroads to build their own steam locomotives. D&RGW decided to do this because of an entirely different historical drama which, though at the time was complex enough to max out the character limits of gossipy telegrams, can with hindsight be briefly summarized as:
Baldwin Locomotive Works: "Fuck you, pay me."
D&RGW: "NO."
Luckily for the K-37s, by the time they were taken out of service, there had emerged a very dedicated coalition of people actively working to preserve steam power in general and Colorado’s unique railroad history specifically. They were resoundingly successful: All but 8 of the 10 K-37 locomotives, and numerous examples of many other classes, were saved. All tolled, there are about 15 former D&RGW steam locomotives in operable condition or being considered for restoration at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the Cumbres & Toltec railroad, and the Colorado Railroad Museum. Additionally, most of the heritage railroads in Colorado operate on routes decommissioned by the D&RGW.
Two of the K-37s—the 491 and the 493—have been restored to operating condition. The 491 got her second lease on life at CRM in the early 2000s-2010s, and the Durango & Silverton returned the 493 to service in 2020.
While D&S made some purposeful modifications to 493 to render her more suited to 21st century operation, CRM set out with the goal of restoring 491 as close to historically accurate condition as possible. They were in fact contractually bound to do so, since the museum had applied and received significant funding from the Colorado State Historical Fund, and the terms of that grant required that any change made to the locomotive would have to be backed up by records or photographs preserved from her days in revenue service.
That should be easy, right? We just talked about those revenue days that were very recent, didn't we? Hit the independent and the automatic brake, and throw on a handbrake just for good measure, because historical accuracy can be VERY tricky for railroad preservation.
Given that, the revenue service life of most pieces of equipment was, on average, about 40 years, many have been overhauled or significantly modified while in service. Others have been subjected to "Red Green this thing out of my shop and get it back on the mainline" types of repairs that, while technically accurate to the period, were not the typical or best practice and are inappropriate in a preservation setting.
There are, in other words, sometimes multiple and equally well documented versions of “historically accurate,” and it becomes a matter of opinion as to which one is best to recreate. Because of the very powerful personal connections to the equipment we discussed earlier, those opinions are often VERY passionate. It's at this point where we FINALLY where we get to the meat of this drama, because the restoration of the 491 put one specific question in the crossfires of that passion:
What color did the D&RGW paint the 491 and, more importantly, what color should CRM paint her?
Most people assumed that since the 491 showed up at the museum painted almost all black and silver, she would be painted the same way during her restoration. However, given that she had been in service for 35 years, it was possible that she had been repainted at least once or twice. In fact, for a long time, and I mean longer that the internet has even been around long, there has been a dogged faction of people who that believed the 491 operated at least some of her revenue service with her boiler jacket(a thin, metal sheet that holds insulation against the boiler and protects the boiler itself from the elements) painted dark green. As evidence, they pointed to old shop records, a few eyewitness testimonies, and cans of paint found in various facilities. This faction made it known that they wished the 491 to be painted green, and those who preferred black or thought black was better documented raised their objections.
It should have been easy to figure out which color was 'correct,' right? Didn’t you say there are records? There are, but the catch is that while those records amount to a pretty good body of evidence that the D&RGW used green paint at some point, on some of its locomotives, they don't provide a comprehensive record of exactly which locomotives were painted what color at what time. There’s nothing substantive that the 491 herself was painted green.
The next best bet, you'd think, would be to look at photographs. Unfortunately, this isn't reliable. Most of the revenue service photographs of the 491 and her sisters are in black and white, and it is difficult to conclusively determine which colors are being depicted, especially when they are very similar like black and the shade of green in question. Team Green indicated that some pictures render the boiler jacket in slightly lighter shades of gray, meaning it must be a different color, and Team Black counters that the difference might be due to shadows or that paint being more glossy than what was used on other components. Besides, they say, if 491 had been painted green, wouldn't more people REMEMBER her that way? Team Green has a hand answer for that, too: The K-37s simply spent most of their service lives too dirty for the green paint to be seen. That sounds like a stupid ass-pull of an answer, but until we cleaned her up a few weeks ago, I genuinely forgot that 491 was (spoiler alert) painted green.
For YEARS, this was such a hot debate that it probably could have raised 491 up to operating pressure. Some of the source threads I’ve linked to are from the early 2000s—note that many of them mention discussing this issue in the 80s and 90s—and this debate was brought up in pre-internet railfan publications and correspondences. It came to a head when, in the process of the restoration, staff at CRM found flecks of green paint while inspecting and cleaning 491 for restoration. The samples were collected, compared against known samples, and shown to people who were familiar with 491 and other D&RGW locomotives while in service. This exhaustive, almost forensic investigation proved that the 491 had, in fact, been painted green, so proponents of a black boiler jacket revised their position in the face of new evidence.
Just kidding of course.
While there was no question that CRM's restoration of 491 was very well done, there was, and is, a lot of grousing about whether those paint flecks were enough to prove that she was ever painted green. Some say that they were not present in great enough quantities to prove definitively that the paint came from the 491 or to determine exactly what parts of the locomotive had been painted that color.
Others point out that while the 491 and her sisters were built by the D&RGW, the railroad used boilers that had been assembled by Baldwin Locomotive Works earlier than 1928. Unless their customers requested otherwise, Baldwin painted the locomotives and parts it produced green as a default. The presence of the flakes, this opinion states, is only proof that the boiler was painted green at some point, not that it was painted green while it was part of 491.
The complicating factor is that Baldwin appears to have been very inconsistent with how they mixed up their “Baldwin Green:” Sometimes it was a very dark emerald. Other times, as with some paint on the tender 100% established to be Baldwin Green, it is an almost tan shade of olive green. Since we don’t have extant representations of all of those variations, the counterargument goes, we can’t definitively rule out that the boiler jacket samples came from Baldwin.
The most vehement of the anti-green coalition imagined a full-tilt, “Red Alert, folks, Andi in Kansas, you're on the air” level conspiracy about where the paint chips actually came from. They propose that they might have been, *ahem,* conveniently put there by someone who definitely wasn’t a D&RGW employee and who most certainly was not working on the 491 between 1928 and 1963. I don’t want to say much on this, because these folks just won’t be convinced, but that opinion is out there.
Who was convinced that the chips were good evidence, though, was the State Historical Fund, which approved changing the color of 491's boiler jacket to green. That’s how she is to this very day. There’s still some grousing that the she should have been painted black, and the broader debate about exactly which members of the D&RGW fleet was painted green is still a point of contention among narrow gauge railroad enthusiasts. I want to stress again that even though this drama might seem overwrought, most of it comes from a heartfelt dedication to preserving things “correctly,” and very personal reasons to prefer a certain version of “correct.”
I’m going to end this post, though, by saying this: It doesn't really matter what color the 491 actually is, because we also strive for historical accuracy in how often we wipe her down.
Finally, if you ever get a chance to visit the museums or heritage railroads mentioned here or others that weren't relevant, please by all means do so! There are many people working as hard as they can to keep this history alive, and we can always use your support, advocacy, and patronage.
Source
Another source
Third source
submitted by The_dots_eat_packman to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]
First, four short disclosures. One, I am associated with CRM, but I did not participate in the restoration of 491. Second, I have no preference what color 491 should be, I'm just glad she’s running. Third, this is US-centric, because I'm not going to eat up word count clarifying international differences every paragraph. Fourth, 491 uses she/her pronouns. That’s not woke, it's historically accurate. Deal with it, you friggin’ lopsided, melting snowflake.
Before we get to the drama, let’s get a bit of context and background. The D&RGW railroad was founded in 1870 and eventually became a part of Union Pacific in the 1990s. D&RGW built and operated routes in the US states of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. For a long time, these tracks were among the very few ways to easily travel west of Denver and through the Rocky Mountains. Those corridors were, and still continue to be, foundational parts of the US rail network.
Over time, D&RGW became renowned around the world for operating in some of the most beautiful but technically difficult terrain in North America. The passenger trains themselves became destinations, and the mountainous routes fascinated historians, railroad photographers, and model railroaders. Seriously--just look at this train going up a mountain like a goat. In addition, the railroad was notable for operating an extensive network of "narrow gauge" tracks—the rails were 3' apart instead of the standard 4' 8.5". Without getting too far into the technical weeds, narrow gauge worked better than standard in mountainous terrain.
Another thing that made the D&RGW a darling among railroad enthusiasts is that while they got rid of the steam locomotives on its mainline tracks in late 1940s or early 50s, just like most other railroads did, they kept on chuggin' down the narrow gauge tracks until 1968. To put that in perspective, that's the year the White Album came out, and the year that Planet of the Apes and Night of the Living Dead were released. 1968 was the year before Woodstock and Apollo 11, and only 15 years before the Internet was invented.
1968, in other words, is incredibly recent. It is within the lifespan of some of you reading this post. It should be kept in mind that when we talk about the D&RGW and the 491’s service life, those things, while distant, have not yet faded into history. There are many still-living people who worked on this railroad, operated specific pieces of equipment, and saw it around their communities. There are far more people who had a father, grandfather, uncle, or other relative involved in this industry. We aren’t discussing events in the distant past, and the people who care about this aren’t just hyper-fixated on arcane details of history. For many people, the presence of this railroad, and the continued preservation of its remnants, are intensely personal.
Before we move on, let's take a moment to get some additional context on how railroads used color on their equipment. Today, you might notice that most railroads have a set "livery" that they paint on their locomotives. (UP yellow, BNSF orange, CSX blue, ect.) Prior to about 1900, steam locomotives were just as colorful, and were often decorated with elaborate trimmings made of polished metal. This is actually where the idiom "all the bells and whistles" comes from. Most toys, clip art pictures, and children's television programs depict locomotives from this era.
However, after roughly1900, the appearance of most steam locomotives became far more utilitarian. The Victorian maximalist style started to fall out of favor across the board, especially after the wars, and most railroads in the US accordingly preferred unembellished equipment. Now, their locomotives were most often painted black with minimal amounts of gray, white, or silver trimming.
By about 1900, railroads companies had also noodled out that keeping a brightly colored and decorated locomotive clean enough that it didn't reflect poorly on the company required a lot of labor. Remember, these machines— this is worth harping on both because it's going to be a plot point in a little bit and because modern readers might not fully grasp what “steam power” means—are ON FIRE AT ALL TIMES WHILE OPERATING. A very messy chain of events results from this intrinsic property:
1.Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.
- Where there’s smoke and exhaust steam going out the same smokestack, there is the creation of a thick, jet-black sludge of train-dirt.
- The smokestack belching train-dirt is attached to a locomotive that is usually moving forward, which means that cancerous inky puke blows back onto any and every part of the locomotive situated behind the smokestack.
There were some exceptions to this preference. Often, railroads painted passenger locomotives to distinguish them from freight locomotives or to fit into the paint scheme used for every piece of equipment on a specific train. Two good extant and operable examples of colorful locomotives are the Southern Pacific 4449 and the Norfolk & Western 611. Other railroads preferred colorful, but very dark shades of paint for at least some of their locomotives. One of those railroads just so happened to be the D&RGW: There's documented evidence that instead of using black, they painted some of their locomotive a shade of dark green. For the curious, it is approximately hex code 1E3D0E.
Speaking of D&RGW, let's jump back to the 1960s and introduce the specific steam locomotive at the center of this drama: D&RGW no. 491. For you nerds—you know who you are—she is a K-37 Class superheated, outside-frame, 2-8-2 Mikado. She and nine other K-37s were built in-house by the D&RGW in 1928. 491 was taken out of revenue service in 1963.
As an aside, it was actually really rare for railroads to build their own steam locomotives. D&RGW decided to do this because of an entirely different historical drama which, though at the time was complex enough to max out the character limits of gossipy telegrams, can with hindsight be briefly summarized as:
Baldwin Locomotive Works: "Fuck you, pay me."
D&RGW: "NO."
Luckily for the K-37s, by the time they were taken out of service, there had emerged a very dedicated coalition of people actively working to preserve steam power in general and Colorado’s unique railroad history specifically. They were resoundingly successful: All but 8 of the 10 K-37 locomotives, and numerous examples of many other classes, were saved. All tolled, there are about 15 former D&RGW steam locomotives in operable condition or being considered for restoration at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the Cumbres & Toltec railroad, and the Colorado Railroad Museum. Additionally, most of the heritage railroads in Colorado operate on routes decommissioned by the D&RGW.
Two of the K-37s—the 491 and the 493—have been restored to operating condition. The 491 got her second lease on life at CRM in the early 2000s-2010s, and the Durango & Silverton returned the 493 to service in 2020.
While D&S made some purposeful modifications to 493 to render her more suited to 21st century operation, CRM set out with the goal of restoring 491 as close to historically accurate condition as possible. They were in fact contractually bound to do so, since the museum had applied and received significant funding from the Colorado State Historical Fund, and the terms of that grant required that any change made to the locomotive would have to be backed up by records or photographs preserved from her days in revenue service.
That should be easy, right? We just talked about those revenue days that were very recent, didn't we? Hit the independent and the automatic brake, and throw on a handbrake just for good measure, because historical accuracy can be VERY tricky for railroad preservation.
Given that, the revenue service life of most pieces of equipment was, on average, about 40 years, many have been overhauled or significantly modified while in service. Others have been subjected to "Red Green this thing out of my shop and get it back on the mainline" types of repairs that, while technically accurate to the period, were not the typical or best practice and are inappropriate in a preservation setting.
There are, in other words, sometimes multiple and equally well documented versions of “historically accurate,” and it becomes a matter of opinion as to which one is best to recreate. Because of the very powerful personal connections to the equipment we discussed earlier, those opinions are often VERY passionate. It's at this point where we FINALLY where we get to the meat of this drama, because the restoration of the 491 put one specific question in the crossfires of that passion:
What color did the D&RGW paint the 491 and, more importantly, what color should CRM paint her?
Most people assumed that since the 491 showed up at the museum painted almost all black and silver, she would be painted the same way during her restoration. However, given that she had been in service for 35 years, it was possible that she had been repainted at least once or twice. In fact, for a long time, and I mean longer that the internet has even been around long, there has been a dogged faction of people who that believed the 491 operated at least some of her revenue service with her boiler jacket(a thin, metal sheet that holds insulation against the boiler and protects the boiler itself from the elements) painted dark green. As evidence, they pointed to old shop records, a few eyewitness testimonies, and cans of paint found in various facilities. This faction made it known that they wished the 491 to be painted green, and those who preferred black or thought black was better documented raised their objections.
It should have been easy to figure out which color was 'correct,' right? Didn’t you say there are records? There are, but the catch is that while those records amount to a pretty good body of evidence that the D&RGW used green paint at some point, on some of its locomotives, they don't provide a comprehensive record of exactly which locomotives were painted what color at what time. There’s nothing substantive that the 491 herself was painted green.
The next best bet, you'd think, would be to look at photographs. Unfortunately, this isn't reliable. Most of the revenue service photographs of the 491 and her sisters are in black and white, and it is difficult to conclusively determine which colors are being depicted, especially when they are very similar like black and the shade of green in question. Team Green indicated that some pictures render the boiler jacket in slightly lighter shades of gray, meaning it must be a different color, and Team Black counters that the difference might be due to shadows or that paint being more glossy than what was used on other components. Besides, they say, if 491 had been painted green, wouldn't more people REMEMBER her that way? Team Green has a hand answer for that, too: The K-37s simply spent most of their service lives too dirty for the green paint to be seen. That sounds like a stupid ass-pull of an answer, but until we cleaned her up a few weeks ago, I genuinely forgot that 491 was (spoiler alert) painted green.
For YEARS, this was such a hot debate that it probably could have raised 491 up to operating pressure. Some of the source threads I’ve linked to are from the early 2000s—note that many of them mention discussing this issue in the 80s and 90s—and this debate was brought up in pre-internet railfan publications and correspondences. It came to a head when, in the process of the restoration, staff at CRM found flecks of green paint while inspecting and cleaning 491 for restoration. The samples were collected, compared against known samples, and shown to people who were familiar with 491 and other D&RGW locomotives while in service. This exhaustive, almost forensic investigation proved that the 491 had, in fact, been painted green, so proponents of a black boiler jacket revised their position in the face of new evidence.
Just kidding of course.
While there was no question that CRM's restoration of 491 was very well done, there was, and is, a lot of grousing about whether those paint flecks were enough to prove that she was ever painted green. Some say that they were not present in great enough quantities to prove definitively that the paint came from the 491 or to determine exactly what parts of the locomotive had been painted that color.
Others point out that while the 491 and her sisters were built by the D&RGW, the railroad used boilers that had been assembled by Baldwin Locomotive Works earlier than 1928. Unless their customers requested otherwise, Baldwin painted the locomotives and parts it produced green as a default. The presence of the flakes, this opinion states, is only proof that the boiler was painted green at some point, not that it was painted green while it was part of 491.
The complicating factor is that Baldwin appears to have been very inconsistent with how they mixed up their “Baldwin Green:” Sometimes it was a very dark emerald. Other times, as with some paint on the tender 100% established to be Baldwin Green, it is an almost tan shade of olive green. Since we don’t have extant representations of all of those variations, the counterargument goes, we can’t definitively rule out that the boiler jacket samples came from Baldwin.
The most vehement of the anti-green coalition imagined a full-tilt, “Red Alert, folks, Andi in Kansas, you're on the air” level conspiracy about where the paint chips actually came from. They propose that they might have been, *ahem,* conveniently put there by someone who definitely wasn’t a D&RGW employee and who most certainly was not working on the 491 between 1928 and 1963. I don’t want to say much on this, because these folks just won’t be convinced, but that opinion is out there.
Who was convinced that the chips were good evidence, though, was the State Historical Fund, which approved changing the color of 491's boiler jacket to green. That’s how she is to this very day. There’s still some grousing that the she should have been painted black, and the broader debate about exactly which members of the D&RGW fleet was painted green is still a point of contention among narrow gauge railroad enthusiasts. I want to stress again that even though this drama might seem overwrought, most of it comes from a heartfelt dedication to preserving things “correctly,” and very personal reasons to prefer a certain version of “correct.”
I’m going to end this post, though, by saying this: It doesn't really matter what color the 491 actually is, because we also strive for historical accuracy in how often we wipe her down.
Finally, if you ever get a chance to visit the museums or heritage railroads mentioned here or others that weren't relevant, please by all means do so! There are many people working as hard as they can to keep this history alive, and we can always use your support, advocacy, and patronage.
Source
Another source
Third source
2023.05.28 20:40 eulalie_pop Logan made Succession a circle, not a line, and we're about to watch it end where it began
So I’ve been down the rabbit hole, trying to chase every off-the-cuff reference, stray allegory, allusion, comparison, and tangent. I’m going to need you to bear (hug) with me for a bit because I think I’ve stumbled on some truly insane parallels between this show and the myriad of references it makes and it will take a lot of text to justify to you that I'm not crazy (or that I am, but at least I do my research).
This is a show that employs a ton of intertextuality and what the poet T.S. Eliot (someone quoted frequently throughout the series) calls “the mythic method”: essentially using historical, literary, and mythological allusions to draw parallels between characters on the show and characters throughout history (real and imagined).
This method helps the audience to build both conscious and unconscious associations with each of the characters and, ultimately, underscores the Roys’ (and humanity’s) damning commitment to making the same mistakes over and over again. The show seems to draw a lot from Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, biblical parables, Shakespearean tragedy, and modernist poetry (among many other things).
These networks of symbolism span from the earliest recorded history to modern celebrity culture and yet they reveal frighteningly unchanged elements in the stories they tell. The parallels of these references throughout the show serve to highlight the cyclical (the illusion of progress) and deterministic (the illusion of free will) nature of existence.
While I will be dipping in and out of the existing references, I want to call particular attention to the poetry of the aforementioned T.S. Eliot (who champions the mythic method) and John Berryman’s poem Dream Song 29 because I believe much of their work has served as a foundation for characters.
In the show, Frank makes mention of his poem “The Long Song Of J Alfred Prufrock” more than once. Outside of the show, Matthew McFayden (the actor who plays Tom) references the same poem to describe his character. Jeremy Strong (the actor who plays Kendall) says Eliot’s work The Four Quartets is a huge inspiration to his acting and character. A line from this particular work did strike me as being quite on the nose, which is why I continued to comb the poem for more (which it does deliver on):
Circles & Cycles: Endless Recurrence & The Futility Of Progress
The show toys a lot with the philosophical concept of eternal recurrence, which postulates that “time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.”
These eternal loops are symbolized visually with mirrors, water, fractal reflections; in the “uh-huh” and “mhmms” of repeated, near-palindromic dialogue; and in the show events that echo and repeat: in-air death scares, asynchronous business deals, family betrayal, weddings, retreats, implosions, family reunions, trauma bonding, baptism, funerals, etc.
In this understanding of time, there is no linear progress — or even progress at all. Time is cyclical. People are cyclical. As are the events that transpire. This is particularly interesting in a show like Succession whose title alone implies the phrase “line of succession.” Viewers would expect to see what comes next — who comes next — but as Logan himself yells, “Nothing is a line. Everything is moving all the time.”
Logan consistently evokes the circle shape in his speech, “Put a circle around him” he tells Shiv. “We’ve been circling for an hour, tell them we’re out of gas,” he complains in a moment of grim foreshadowing on his plane. “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes,” he shouts during the game of Boar on the Floor.
And he is the bright, burning nebulous center of this circle. He’s described as “carr[ying] his gravity. He's not a man, he's a f*cking planet.” And the people around him are described like satellites and moons. Characters exist in his orbit. And every complete orbit (or “revolution”) leaves characters in exactly the same place. There are motions, there is the illusion of progress, but the result is the same. Eliot again:
As most of us are aware, the show has made very direct mention of the John Berryman poem Dream Song 29. The names of the past three season finales (as well as the name of the upcoming fourth) are all direct excerpts from the poem, which deals with grief and sadness and the guilt of killing someone when you can’t even confirm there’s been someone killed at all.
Berryman consistently wrote about the guilt and grief he experienced from his father’s suicide. Berryman himself would eventually end up taking his own life, which on its own is a brutal reminder of the cycles of trauma. It also doesn’t feel insignificant that Berryman jumped off a bridge.
What’s really interesting is how each subsequent finale is named for a line that comes earlier and earlier in the poem. It also toys with this concept that things come full circle and end where they begin. This echoes Eliot’s essential thesis of the poem:
We see "nobody" and "no one mentioned" a lot when it comes to Logan, who believes most people are "fungible as f*ck," and "pygmies" while he's "1,000 feet tall." When Kendall is involved in the accident, we see him echo "NRPI" or no real person involved.
The reason Kendall couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations is that he couldn’t be the killer his father needed him to be (even if his morality or basis of being a good person is off). This retroactive movement through the poem could be Kendall realizing he is, in fact, the killer his father always needed him to be, enabling him to take the necessary steps of seizing the crown on his own.
Allegories & Allusions: Mythic Comparisons & Determinism
It’s Shakespearean, like Roman says, “I kill Kendall, get crowned king, like we’re in f*cking Hamlet or something.” But it’s not just Hamlet, it’s King Lear, King Richard III, Coriolanus, Macbeth. And it’s not just Shakespeare, it’s Oedipus Rex, The Odyssey, The Waste Land, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Cronus devouring his children, Romulus killing Remus, Noah cursing his child for looking upon him naked.
The concept of the monomyth was popularized in "The Hero With 1000 Faces" and discusses throughout history, throughout different times and places, different cultures, different religions, different people have developed stories with relatively similar fundamental elements. The show is rife with allusions of stories that follow that same thread. Logan is Cronus who is King Lear who is Romulus who is who is. This is another form of endless recurrence: the inability to break the cycle. Or, in a very Hamlet reference, "maybe the poison drips through."
The themes of patricide, fratricide, and incest in particular are rampant. Rhea (like Rhea Jarell) in Greek mythology is both sister and consort to Cronus. Both are part of the first generation of aptly named Titan gods. Cronus overthrew his father Uranus and learns his children are fated to overthrow him. So he eats them as soon as they are born. Logan does refer to people as food a surprising amount throughout the show, varying from red meat to vegetables. He outright calls for blood sacrifice, which evokes the language of the gods.
Logan is referenced specifically as one of the last real American titans in his obituaries and eulogies. The language around him is frequently god-like. He's known as "the big man" or even "the big man upstairs." Tom tells Greg to "be his representative here on earth"; Roman asks the audience, "who is going to climb Mt. Olympus and be the next Dr. Zeus?" And that's where the myth gets interesting.
The only child not to be eaten is Zeus, who does end up killing his father and was surprisingly interested in marrying his mother. We're familiar with this plot formula through a different archetype: the Oedipus Complex, which we see referenced in the show with “Oedipus Roy,” “Oedipussy,” and “stabbing my eyes out.” The same story is repeated again in Hamlet with brother killing and brother and son yelling at his mother about her milky breasts (something Roman does to Shiv more than once). In the show when Logan says to Roman, “You may want to f*ck your mother but I don’t.” We know none of these stories end well. As Connor muses, “It’s not right to kill one’s father; history teaches us that.”
In the story of Romulus and Remus (whose mother’s name is also Rhea), the two brothers were initially chased out of their city as potential threats to the King (yet again). They were left by the river to die and were saved by the river god (important). After successfully overthrowing the kingdom that left them for dead, they agree to found a new city. They ultimately disagreed on which hill to found it and decided to have a bird-watching competition to see who could see the most omens indicating they had divine approval for the hill. Remus says he saw 6 auspicious birds but Romulus claims to see 12. Romulus kills Remus over this.
It should remind you of Logan visiting his childhood home with Ewan: “I saw a mistle thrush at the bandstand,” and the log book he kept as a child of birds he “saw” that Ewan would cross out if he didn’t believe him. It may also echo a part of The Four Quartets, “Other echoes/ Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?/ Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,/ Round the corner. Through the first gate,/ Into our first world, shall we follow/ The deception of the thrush?"
There is much to be said about the themes of warring brothers. Also the themes of fathers worried their children would one day overthrow them who take action to thwart or murder their children, which inadvertently sets into motion the very outcome they fear. It happens over and over again in stories old and new. As Panhandle Pete says, “I push him, he pushes me, and around and around we go.” Or as Eliot puts it, “that the wheel may turn and still / Be forever still.”
Much of these works touch on a sort of determinism, or the slow crushing reality that every action you take — even if that action is an attempt to thwart your fate — will ultimately lead to the same inevitable ending. This is the illusion of free will on top of the illusion of progress. And Logan, in fearing his children would usurp him (and also disparaging his children for not being able to), set into motion his own death and his own messy succession.
It’s also a reminder that the greatest men in life are all the same when laid to rest:
The show has very much been structured around Kendall, and we watch him move through bodies of water with what feels like different symbolism each time. Is he drowning, is he reborn? We witness Kendall at his lowest point face down in a pool and at one of his highest, splashing into the Pacific ocean. We watch a man drown. We watch Logan beg Kendall for water as they walk through Adrien Brody’s maze. We watch Roman clamor for water at the funeral when he needs to calm down. Poetry has long played with this life and death dynamic in water, like the sailors dying of thirst in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner who cry:
Logan is apt to use similar water symbolism, even telling Shiv that she’s marrying a man “fathoms” beneath her. As Rhea tells him, fearful of his own monstrosity, “I can’t see the bottom of the pool. I don’t know if you care about anything. It scares me.” ATN’s major scandal was “death cruises.” Even his operating nemesis is called “Sandy.”
In fact, there is mention of all elements and seasons — in particular, fire from Shiv, air from Roman, and earth from Connor. T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets confront these same themes and share some surprising similarities with show scene locations, dialogue, and plot points.
That’s because Succession is an allegory for the micro and the macro: the rise and fall of families, civilizations, monarchies, dynasties, and empires. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the cycles rinse and repeat. Eliot modeled the four quartets on the 4 elements and the 4 seasons. And you can see even in Succession a similar manifestation of 4 elements. And, well, 4 seasons of the show. (And what occurs after 4 seasons? A full revolution around the sun, bringing you to where you began.)
Water seems to be at the root of it all. Even Ewan’s eulogy meditates on his and Logan’s journey on a boat. Even their abusive uncle is named Noah. In the show, we watch our nobody die by water, we watch our main character nearly die by water, and then we watch him revive in the ocean. As Kendall and his father wind their way through Adrien Brody’s circuitous Long Island home, Kendall remarks, “I think this leads to the ocean.” Because every path leads to the sea in some way or another.
The overarching narration from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is the Arthurian Legend of The Fisher King. This story is told a million different ways with a million different outcomes, but always boils down to an injured or maimed monarch ruling over a dying land. Or as Ewan refers to his "empire of shit": “He’s built a wasteland and called it an empire.”
He’s looking for someone, anyone, to heal him, rescue the kingdom, and ensure the dynasty survives. This is the myth of the holy grail, which, in this show, can be seen as the throne: The original stories of the holy grail were not Christian/religious but they do employ a lot of the same mythmaking from earlier religions and mythologies to tell their stories and thus construct their new realties. As Eliot says in The Four Quartets:
That’s why Kendall’s easy comparisons of himself to Jesus feel less blasphemous than revelatory. Jesus is another hero archetype in the show’s mythology. He is willing to sacrifice himself, which Kendall must do in order to become the successor his father wanted. As he says, "this is a culmination of my life's journey to be crucified for you morons."
(It’s worth noting: In some legends, the knight saves the king; in others, he inadvertently destroys him. We know Logan dies, but it does feel less likely that Waystar Royco survives.) Drowning is a constant feature of Eliot's poems, but so is baptism and renewed life. It is difficult to determine the meaning of water in either instance, except that it doesn't discriminate as a life or death bringer, which is both beautiful and terrifying.
Parallels & Predictions: Piecing The Plot & Poetry Together
To repeat again, as this show is wont to do: “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes!” Logan Roy shouts during a game of Boar On A Floor. It’s an allegory, like many games on the series, and proudly says the quiet part out loud: Logan always wins. Here’s a little boar on the floor reference in The Four Quartets:
Games on Succession (which are a consistent refrain), it turns out, are rarely fun and are often designed to humiliate or inflict pain. The same goes when characters say “I’m just kidding” after an eviscerating remark. Logan thinks life is a game, and as he says, games should be taken seriously. And because Logan explicitly makes the rules, there is no winning, just trudging around the board, passing Go, and collecting $200. The games are essentially Sisyphean tasks that the kids wouldn’t be able to win even if they were actually competent enough to run the company. And yet they keep rolling the boulder. It’s endless. The repetition. It ends where it begins.
We know this show is a game, one that isn't fun at all, and one whose rules Logan made up. Even when there's a winner, there's no winner. So it's almost futile to play at all. That said, it’s impossible to make sense of any of it all without the ending — to confirm this ball has been rolling toward an inevitable conclusion, but given the show’s ending has probably occurred already, here are my thoughts:
“It would be the same at the end of the journey, If you came at night like a broken king, If you came by day not knowing what you came for, It would be the same, when you leave the rough road And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfilment.”
“Success doesn’t really interest me anymore, it’s too easy. Analysis + capital + execution. Fucking, anyone can do that. But failure, that’s a secret. Just as much failure as possible as fast as possible, burn that shit out, that’s interesting.”
I’m not a big believer that Greg will fail so far upwards that he will win (this would feel like a betrayal in its own right), but do I believe there’s a world where Greg gets himself on a piece of paper with a question mark. Maybe???
I’ll end at the ending. Or conclude where Eliot did on The Four Quartets:
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This is a show that employs a ton of intertextuality and what the poet T.S. Eliot (someone quoted frequently throughout the series) calls “the mythic method”: essentially using historical, literary, and mythological allusions to draw parallels between characters on the show and characters throughout history (real and imagined).
This method helps the audience to build both conscious and unconscious associations with each of the characters and, ultimately, underscores the Roys’ (and humanity’s) damning commitment to making the same mistakes over and over again. The show seems to draw a lot from Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, biblical parables, Shakespearean tragedy, and modernist poetry (among many other things).
These networks of symbolism span from the earliest recorded history to modern celebrity culture and yet they reveal frighteningly unchanged elements in the stories they tell. The parallels of these references throughout the show serve to highlight the cyclical (the illusion of progress) and deterministic (the illusion of free will) nature of existence.
While I will be dipping in and out of the existing references, I want to call particular attention to the poetry of the aforementioned T.S. Eliot (who champions the mythic method) and John Berryman’s poem Dream Song 29 because I believe much of their work has served as a foundation for characters.
In the show, Frank makes mention of his poem “The Long Song Of J Alfred Prufrock” more than once. Outside of the show, Matthew McFayden (the actor who plays Tom) references the same poem to describe his character. Jeremy Strong (the actor who plays Kendall) says Eliot’s work The Four Quartets is a huge inspiration to his acting and character. A line from this particular work did strike me as being quite on the nose, which is why I continued to comb the poem for more (which it does deliver on):
"In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is already flesh, fur and faeces, Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf."This will probably be a monster of a post, so I will attempt to break down the following sections between poetic parallels, visual and dialogic symbolism of eternal recurrence, and an exploration of the historical and mythological allusions. Ultimately, I believe all of these clues point to the overwhelming conclusion that we will end where we began, in some way or another.
Circles & Cycles: Endless Recurrence & The Futility Of Progress
The show toys a lot with the philosophical concept of eternal recurrence, which postulates that “time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.”
These eternal loops are symbolized visually with mirrors, water, fractal reflections; in the “uh-huh” and “mhmms” of repeated, near-palindromic dialogue; and in the show events that echo and repeat: in-air death scares, asynchronous business deals, family betrayal, weddings, retreats, implosions, family reunions, trauma bonding, baptism, funerals, etc.
In this understanding of time, there is no linear progress — or even progress at all. Time is cyclical. People are cyclical. As are the events that transpire. This is particularly interesting in a show like Succession whose title alone implies the phrase “line of succession.” Viewers would expect to see what comes next — who comes next — but as Logan himself yells, “Nothing is a line. Everything is moving all the time.”
Logan consistently evokes the circle shape in his speech, “Put a circle around him” he tells Shiv. “We’ve been circling for an hour, tell them we’re out of gas,” he complains in a moment of grim foreshadowing on his plane. “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes,” he shouts during the game of Boar on the Floor.
And he is the bright, burning nebulous center of this circle. He’s described as “carr[ying] his gravity. He's not a man, he's a f*cking planet.” And the people around him are described like satellites and moons. Characters exist in his orbit. And every complete orbit (or “revolution”) leaves characters in exactly the same place. There are motions, there is the illusion of progress, but the result is the same. Eliot again:
“every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure”With this understanding, the show may just end where it begins. Not only in “nothing” happening, but in repeating the same events ad infinitum: A kid tries to take over the family business, they try to align with their siblings, they eventually backstab their siblings, they end out in the cold, and then they reunite, swear not to do it again, until it all repeats.
As most of us are aware, the show has made very direct mention of the John Berryman poem Dream Song 29. The names of the past three season finales (as well as the name of the upcoming fourth) are all direct excerpts from the poem, which deals with grief and sadness and the guilt of killing someone when you can’t even confirm there’s been someone killed at all.
Berryman consistently wrote about the guilt and grief he experienced from his father’s suicide. Berryman himself would eventually end up taking his own life, which on its own is a brutal reminder of the cycles of trauma. It also doesn’t feel insignificant that Berryman jumped off a bridge.
What’s really interesting is how each subsequent finale is named for a line that comes earlier and earlier in the poem. It also toys with this concept that things come full circle and end where they begin. This echoes Eliot’s essential thesis of the poem:
“What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”But while the speaker of the poem comes to realize he has not murdered “nobody” by the poem’s last line; Kendall, moving through the poem backward, must reckon with the idea that he may have killed somebody even if they were a “nobody.” And while we may encounter this as a moment in which Kendall is genuinely despairing over his season 1 inadvertent murder, I believe we are far more likely to see Kendall embrace this moment.
We see "nobody" and "no one mentioned" a lot when it comes to Logan, who believes most people are "fungible as f*ck," and "pygmies" while he's "1,000 feet tall." When Kendall is involved in the accident, we see him echo "NRPI" or no real person involved.
The reason Kendall couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations is that he couldn’t be the killer his father needed him to be (even if his morality or basis of being a good person is off). This retroactive movement through the poem could be Kendall realizing he is, in fact, the killer his father always needed him to be, enabling him to take the necessary steps of seizing the crown on his own.
Allegories & Allusions: Mythic Comparisons & Determinism
It’s Shakespearean, like Roman says, “I kill Kendall, get crowned king, like we’re in f*cking Hamlet or something.” But it’s not just Hamlet, it’s King Lear, King Richard III, Coriolanus, Macbeth. And it’s not just Shakespeare, it’s Oedipus Rex, The Odyssey, The Waste Land, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Cronus devouring his children, Romulus killing Remus, Noah cursing his child for looking upon him naked.
The concept of the monomyth was popularized in "The Hero With 1000 Faces" and discusses throughout history, throughout different times and places, different cultures, different religions, different people have developed stories with relatively similar fundamental elements. The show is rife with allusions of stories that follow that same thread. Logan is Cronus who is King Lear who is Romulus who is who is. This is another form of endless recurrence: the inability to break the cycle. Or, in a very Hamlet reference, "maybe the poison drips through."
The themes of patricide, fratricide, and incest in particular are rampant. Rhea (like Rhea Jarell) in Greek mythology is both sister and consort to Cronus. Both are part of the first generation of aptly named Titan gods. Cronus overthrew his father Uranus and learns his children are fated to overthrow him. So he eats them as soon as they are born. Logan does refer to people as food a surprising amount throughout the show, varying from red meat to vegetables. He outright calls for blood sacrifice, which evokes the language of the gods.
Logan is referenced specifically as one of the last real American titans in his obituaries and eulogies. The language around him is frequently god-like. He's known as "the big man" or even "the big man upstairs." Tom tells Greg to "be his representative here on earth"; Roman asks the audience, "who is going to climb Mt. Olympus and be the next Dr. Zeus?" And that's where the myth gets interesting.
The only child not to be eaten is Zeus, who does end up killing his father and was surprisingly interested in marrying his mother. We're familiar with this plot formula through a different archetype: the Oedipus Complex, which we see referenced in the show with “Oedipus Roy,” “Oedipussy,” and “stabbing my eyes out.” The same story is repeated again in Hamlet with brother killing and brother and son yelling at his mother about her milky breasts (something Roman does to Shiv more than once). In the show when Logan says to Roman, “You may want to f*ck your mother but I don’t.” We know none of these stories end well. As Connor muses, “It’s not right to kill one’s father; history teaches us that.”
In the story of Romulus and Remus (whose mother’s name is also Rhea), the two brothers were initially chased out of their city as potential threats to the King (yet again). They were left by the river to die and were saved by the river god (important). After successfully overthrowing the kingdom that left them for dead, they agree to found a new city. They ultimately disagreed on which hill to found it and decided to have a bird-watching competition to see who could see the most omens indicating they had divine approval for the hill. Remus says he saw 6 auspicious birds but Romulus claims to see 12. Romulus kills Remus over this.
It should remind you of Logan visiting his childhood home with Ewan: “I saw a mistle thrush at the bandstand,” and the log book he kept as a child of birds he “saw” that Ewan would cross out if he didn’t believe him. It may also echo a part of The Four Quartets, “Other echoes/ Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?/ Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,/ Round the corner. Through the first gate,/ Into our first world, shall we follow/ The deception of the thrush?"
There is much to be said about the themes of warring brothers. Also the themes of fathers worried their children would one day overthrow them who take action to thwart or murder their children, which inadvertently sets into motion the very outcome they fear. It happens over and over again in stories old and new. As Panhandle Pete says, “I push him, he pushes me, and around and around we go.” Or as Eliot puts it, “that the wheel may turn and still / Be forever still.”
Much of these works touch on a sort of determinism, or the slow crushing reality that every action you take — even if that action is an attempt to thwart your fate — will ultimately lead to the same inevitable ending. This is the illusion of free will on top of the illusion of progress. And Logan, in fearing his children would usurp him (and also disparaging his children for not being able to), set into motion his own death and his own messy succession.
It’s also a reminder that the greatest men in life are all the same when laid to rest:
"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark…"Structure & Symbolism: Water As Rebirth & Destruction
The show has very much been structured around Kendall, and we watch him move through bodies of water with what feels like different symbolism each time. Is he drowning, is he reborn? We witness Kendall at his lowest point face down in a pool and at one of his highest, splashing into the Pacific ocean. We watch a man drown. We watch Logan beg Kendall for water as they walk through Adrien Brody’s maze. We watch Roman clamor for water at the funeral when he needs to calm down. Poetry has long played with this life and death dynamic in water, like the sailors dying of thirst in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner who cry:
“Water, water, every where,. And all the boards did shrink;. Water, water, every where,. Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ!”This sub has noted Kendall’s connection to water, which has been represented over and over visually. But once you realize every metaphor, analogy, and simile he uses is water-based, you can’t unhear it. He calls his father “a tsunami of corruption” and describes things “as more precious than water”; he calls deals “choppy” and “dead in the water,” and asks to “help steady the ship”; he offers to “row back” on business deals, says timing is “high tide,” and that he has “bigger fish to fry.”
Logan is apt to use similar water symbolism, even telling Shiv that she’s marrying a man “fathoms” beneath her. As Rhea tells him, fearful of his own monstrosity, “I can’t see the bottom of the pool. I don’t know if you care about anything. It scares me.” ATN’s major scandal was “death cruises.” Even his operating nemesis is called “Sandy.”
In fact, there is mention of all elements and seasons — in particular, fire from Shiv, air from Roman, and earth from Connor. T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets confront these same themes and share some surprising similarities with show scene locations, dialogue, and plot points.
That’s because Succession is an allegory for the micro and the macro: the rise and fall of families, civilizations, monarchies, dynasties, and empires. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the cycles rinse and repeat. Eliot modeled the four quartets on the 4 elements and the 4 seasons. And you can see even in Succession a similar manifestation of 4 elements. And, well, 4 seasons of the show. (And what occurs after 4 seasons? A full revolution around the sun, bringing you to where you began.)
Water seems to be at the root of it all. Even Ewan’s eulogy meditates on his and Logan’s journey on a boat. Even their abusive uncle is named Noah. In the show, we watch our nobody die by water, we watch our main character nearly die by water, and then we watch him revive in the ocean. As Kendall and his father wind their way through Adrien Brody’s circuitous Long Island home, Kendall remarks, “I think this leads to the ocean.” Because every path leads to the sea in some way or another.
The overarching narration from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is the Arthurian Legend of The Fisher King. This story is told a million different ways with a million different outcomes, but always boils down to an injured or maimed monarch ruling over a dying land. Or as Ewan refers to his "empire of shit": “He’s built a wasteland and called it an empire.”
He’s looking for someone, anyone, to heal him, rescue the kingdom, and ensure the dynasty survives. This is the myth of the holy grail, which, in this show, can be seen as the throne: The original stories of the holy grail were not Christian/religious but they do employ a lot of the same mythmaking from earlier religions and mythologies to tell their stories and thus construct their new realties. As Eliot says in The Four Quartets:
"The whole earth is our hospital Endowed by the ruined millionaire, Wherein, if we do well, we shall Die of the absolute paternal care That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere."I believe Kendall (and the other children) represent the grail knights who try to save the king. (On the same level they stand in for the gods, the elements, or anything at all). When Christianity became more popular, these myths adapted to Christian overtones, but they still had the Celtic and pagan myths at their core: the grail becomes the chalice from the last supper.
That’s why Kendall’s easy comparisons of himself to Jesus feel less blasphemous than revelatory. Jesus is another hero archetype in the show’s mythology. He is willing to sacrifice himself, which Kendall must do in order to become the successor his father wanted. As he says, "this is a culmination of my life's journey to be crucified for you morons."
(It’s worth noting: In some legends, the knight saves the king; in others, he inadvertently destroys him. We know Logan dies, but it does feel less likely that Waystar Royco survives.) Drowning is a constant feature of Eliot's poems, but so is baptism and renewed life. It is difficult to determine the meaning of water in either instance, except that it doesn't discriminate as a life or death bringer, which is both beautiful and terrifying.
Parallels & Predictions: Piecing The Plot & Poetry Together
To repeat again, as this show is wont to do: “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes!” Logan Roy shouts during a game of Boar On A Floor. It’s an allegory, like many games on the series, and proudly says the quiet part out loud: Logan always wins. Here’s a little boar on the floor reference in The Four Quartets:
"We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars."We’ve seen the L.O.G.A.N. system at work many times and with many people. He dangles a carrot, a morsel of love, as each character attempts to play the game over and over while expecting different results. They are doomed to crawl in that circle, to play that blind game, as Logan angrily shouts, “It’s fun!” And this game doesn't end in death. The children still ask. "What would dad do?"
Games on Succession (which are a consistent refrain), it turns out, are rarely fun and are often designed to humiliate or inflict pain. The same goes when characters say “I’m just kidding” after an eviscerating remark. Logan thinks life is a game, and as he says, games should be taken seriously. And because Logan explicitly makes the rules, there is no winning, just trudging around the board, passing Go, and collecting $200. The games are essentially Sisyphean tasks that the kids wouldn’t be able to win even if they were actually competent enough to run the company. And yet they keep rolling the boulder. It’s endless. The repetition. It ends where it begins.
"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, Every poem an epitaph. And any action Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start. We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them. We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree Are of equal duration. A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments."Please also note the use of “the rose” and “the yew tree,” which are the names of Logan’s siblings Rose and Ewan, which derives from yew-tree. Other important name comparisons include Kendall’s association to spring/river valley; Siobhan’s nickname either a knife (Shiv) or Pinky (a variation of the name Rose); Roman’s connection to Romulus/Corialanus; Tom’s name meaning “twin” because there was already someone named Judas in the bible HELLO; Logan’s name meaning little hollow, which recalls another Eliot poem, The Hollow Men.
We know this show is a game, one that isn't fun at all, and one whose rules Logan made up. Even when there's a winner, there's no winner. So it's almost futile to play at all. That said, it’s impossible to make sense of any of it all without the ending — to confirm this ball has been rolling toward an inevitable conclusion, but given the show’s ending has probably occurred already, here are my thoughts:
- Kendall drowns
“It would be the same at the end of the journey, If you came at night like a broken king, If you came by day not knowing what you came for, It would be the same, when you leave the rough road And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfilment.”
- Kendall is king of the ashes
- Mattson wins it all
- Mattson destroys it all
“Success doesn’t really interest me anymore, it’s too easy. Analysis + capital + execution. Fucking, anyone can do that. But failure, that’s a secret. Just as much failure as possible as fast as possible, burn that shit out, that’s interesting.”
- Tom betrays Shiv
- Greg betrays Tom
I’m not a big believer that Greg will fail so far upwards that he will win (this would feel like a betrayal in its own right), but do I believe there’s a world where Greg gets himself on a piece of paper with a question mark. Maybe???
- Geri finally beats Tom
I’ll end at the ending. Or conclude where Eliot did on The Four Quartets:
"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one."PS. Given ‘Pinky’ is another name for ‘Rose’ does this mean Shiv wins??? JK let’s just watch the show tonight and laugh at our predictions in the morning.
2023.05.28 17:13 Mortimer_Whimsiwick World Hunger Games: 17th Hunger Games: Bloodbath + Day 1
This year’s arena was known as the Everglades. It was a swamp environment spanning four kilometers, making this slightly smaller than the vast savannah of the previous games. The arena was littered with tall mossy trees thin enough for tributes to climb. The high density of the trees along with the thick canopy of foliage above trapped a lot of heat within. There was some debate regarding the amount of water to be pumped in the arena. Due to Head Gamemaker’s preconceived ideas on the mutts and arena events, the crystal-clear swamp water that encompassed 80% of the arena was 15ft at its deepest. There were patches of raised grassland scattered throughout the arena, giving tributes a few areas of relief from the deep waters. The cornucopia stood in the center of a small clearing with the podiums in a semicircle near the southern perimeter. The depth of the water was ankle height, the gamemakers not wanting to hinder the tribute’s movements for the bloodbath. There were a decent number of supplies, however all food and non-weaponous supplies were stored in dark green waterproof bags floating in the puddles. Traditional Hunger Games weapons were also seen floating in the puddles and propped inside the small cornucopia structure.
When the podiums rose out of the arena, tributes felt the humid heat weigh down on them. A few tributes were relieved by the aquatic setting, especially the District 4 tributes. Pearl was wedged between Laurel (7) and Logan (11). She felt intimidated by Laurel’s muscles and decided to ignore her in favour of scanning for escape routes. After pinpointing two routes with more tree cover, she scanned the lineup for Mortimer. She spotted him between Wren (5) and Jack. He noticed Jack and gave him a greeting. Jack asked if it was true Tobias Stephens was dead, him nodding in response. Mortimer said “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll leave you alone for now. Just out of respect for Tobias and for helping deliver the weed to me.” Jack thanked him before searching for Cat. Cat was found standing between Nikita (2) and Neutron (12). Nikita tried to intimidate her, but she brushed it aside. She spotted Mortimer and Jack conversing, pleased it wasn’t confrontational. Mortimer spotted her and she waved to him. He stared at her for a moment before turning his eyes to the cornucopia. She looked at the cornucopia as well, aiming her sights on one of the bigger waterproof bags.
When the gong sounded, Cat sprinted forward towards the bag she set her eyes on. Nikita attempted to tackle her to the ground, but Cat was quick enough to somersault out of the way. She frantically searched for a way out, choosing to run northwest away from the careers. However, she spotted Pearl fighting Mishti (10) for a bag. Mishti was successful at obtaining the bag and pushed Pearl to the ground before grabbing a knife nearby. Cat bolted towards the two girls, hopping over the fallen Burlap (8)’s body. Before Mishti could strike Pearl with her knife, Cat tackled her to the ground. Cat pushed Mishti’s face under the ankle high water and used her knee to keep her head down. She wrenched the knife and pushed the blade into the back of her skull. She looked up to see Pearl already gone. She turned to see a sword propped against the cornucopia wall and decided to risk it.
Meanwhile, Jack hopped off his podium but was swept off his feet by the slippery mud. He frantically pulled himself up, but was relieved that all the nearby tributes were completely ignoring him. He witnessed the first death of the games when Andrei (2) stomped on Terry (5)’s neck, snapping it in an odd angle. He ran alongside the podiums to steer clear of the ongoing chaos all the while searching for Cat. He managed to spot her closing in on a sword. He ran towards her, unaware of an arrow courtesy of Jassy (12) narrowly missing his head. As he neared Cat, he noticed Logan (11) creeping closer to her with a heavy axe in hand. He yelled at Cat to look out, but she didn’t hear. Logan raised his axe at the unaware Cat. Jack jumped forward and pushed Cat out of the line of fire. The axe lodged itself into Jack’s head, sending him falling to the ground. Cat was horrified upon seeing her partner brutally killed in front of her. She decided she let his sacrifice not be in vain and retreated from the clearing with a bag and sword in hand.
Mortimer was one of the first to reach the cornucopia. He snatched a trident from the back of the cornucopia structure. He turned to exit the building only to come face to face with Laurel (7). She had an axe in her hand and voiced her intentions of killing him for her partner Wolvthorne (7). Mortimer warned her to get out of his way, but she charged forwards. Mortimer used his trident to catch her first swipe, pushing her backwards. He swung the trident, cutting Laurel’s face. She was unperturbed and tried striking him. This time, he dodged and thrust the end of his trident in her ribs. He used her brief moment of painful staggering to stab her in the head. He flung her body to the side like a ragdoll and ran back outside. He noticed two bags close together and decided to risk grabbing them. He scooped up both bags with his trident, with one hanging on each side before retreating. He fell to the ground after tripping over the corpse of Shoya (3). As he pulled himself up, he noticed Pearl hiding behind a tree beckoning him to follow her. As he ran, he heard Wolvthorne’s roars of anger after discovering his partner dead. So angry in fact that he managed to disembowel and kill Nikita (2) before escaping east.
When the bloodbath was over, Artemis and Luther followed the order of events. Artemis enjoyed this bloodbath as not only did they have a couple gory kills, but some rare moments of honor. Luther listed Terry (5) as the first death at the hands of Andrei (2), comparing it to the first kill of the 12th Hunger Games when Sparta (D2 female tribute) curb stomped Fleming (D6 male tribute). Cameras then spotted Burlap (8) stabbed in the eye by Olivine (1), making him the second death. On the opposite side was Shoya (3), whose throat was slit by Lionel (1). The next chronological death was Mishti (10), with Artemis wondering why Cat saved Pearl. Luther speculated that they were probably in an alliance. The fifth death was Laurel (7). Artemis felt bummed out to not see more of her as she seemed like victor material. The sixth and seventh deaths took place almost simultaneously. Number six was Neutron (12) after he was stabbed numerous times by Andrei (2). Two seconds afterwards was the death of Jack. Artemis declared his death as honorable and as a redemption from his disastrous interview. The last two kills of this year’s bloodbath were Ryetta (9) and Nikita (2). Ryetta was killed by Lionel when she jumped on his back and tried to gouge his eyes out. Lionel wrenched her off by the hair and bashed her head into the cornucopia structure. Artemis then moved to Nikita’s death and described Wolvthorne as savage. Luther wrapped the bloodbath analysis up and announced nine bloodbath kills, two more than the previous year.
Cat continued to create distance from the clearing. She followed as much grassland as possible, having to wade through the water at a few points. Suddenly, she came across a wide expanse of water with no land in sight. She slipped on a loose twig and fell to the ground at the edge of this lake. Her backpack spilled its contents upon impact, its contents consisting of a sandwich, four fruit packs, a pocket knife, a bottle of water, string, and a small medkit. The thoughts of losing the items she fought so hard for sent her in a panic. She reached out and tried to gather as much as she could. However, she failed to save the sandwich, the knife, and three of the fruit packets as they all sank below its depths.
After saving the rest of her items, she realized her hyperventilating continued. She crossed her legs and put her supplies to the side. The confused viewers in Maximus Square watched as she took deep methodical breaths while moving her arms up and down. They began to realize she was meditating in order to compose herself. Viewers watched as the gamemakers displayed her heart rate and the number slowly decrease. Soon, Cat was able to compose herself. She decided to inspect her remaining supplies, keeping her sword by her side. She opened the medkit and was disappointed by the lack of quantity. It consisted of one roll of medical tape, two bandages, and strangely a wax bottle of clear liquid. She inspected the label, which revealed the contents to be hydrogen peroxide. She took note of this and pocketed the medkit, string, and the one fruit pack.
Cat lastly picked up the water bottle and realized it to be empty. She internally debated collecting water from the lake in front of her. She cautiously dipped a couple fingers in the lake and then tasted the droplets on her fingertips. Tasting nothing out of sorts, she picked up her water bottle. She was interrupted by the mandatory cannons, signaling the end of the bloodbath. Cat quickly scanned her surroundings while carefully listening for tributes. After hearing nothing, she turned back to the water and felt her heart drop. The once clear water had now become cloudy and murky. Cat became dejected, knowing she couldn’t trust the water anymore. She let tears fall from her eyes for a few moments, mourning her dreadful situation. Artemis was about to tease her crying, when she was interrupted by Cat slapping herself in the face. Cat told herself aloud that she had to get it together and plan her next move. She continued to scan the lake and her surroundings. She noticed a near consistent path of grassland heading west around the lake. She decided to head that direction, whispering to herself that “sailor boy” was sure to head that direction. She packed her things and started her journey west along the lake’s borders, with her sword at the ready.
Back in the commentator’s booth, Artemis noted her determination to find the District 4 tributes, speculating whether she had a crush on Mortimer. Luther diverted the topic to the lake. He educated the audience on the layout of the lake, showing through schematics that it spanned at least 35% of the entire arena. At the end of the lake was a thick accumulation of trees and brush the cameras refused to go past. When he and Artemis questioned Head Gamemaker Grimstone, he told them there was a hidden surprise on the possibility a tribute figures out a way across.
The two hosts began checking tabs on the surviving tributes. Olivine and Lionel (1) had split from the clearing and were in the south eastern sector. They watched from the safety of a couple trees as Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) gathered supplies at the cornucopia. Surprisingly, Andrei was indifferent to his new ally having killed Nikita. The two debated their next move, Wolvthorne desiring to find Mortimer for revenge. Andrei admitted that while he was their biggest threat, he would have to put his grievances aside for them to survive the arena. Cameras diverted their attention to Carnelia and Logan (11) as they neared the southeastern perimeter. In close proximity was Horace (10) who was stalking them, using the trees and small mud banks as cover. Vista (3) had climbed up a tree and rested there. Wren (5) had struck up an alliance with Jassy (12) when the two crossed paths in the centre of the arena. Peggy (8) reached the northern perimeter and planted roots at the shore of the lake. John (9) had retreated west and was camouflaging himself with mud. He was nearly seen by Cat minutes into her trek west, but decided against confronting her upon seeing her sword. Artemis urged Luther to point the cameras to the District 4 tributes, which he obliged.
Mortimer had successfully distanced himself from the cornucopia. Cameras captured him diverting the supplies from one of his two backpacks into the other, discarding the empty one in the mud. It was around this time when the cannons sounded. The combined supplies included an empty water bottle, three fruit packs, a sandwich, a bundle of sturdy rope, a sleeping bag, and a small cooking pot. He was half a kilometre away from the lake’s southwest shore when he stopped walking. He turned around and asked the forest if hiding from him was really necessary. Pearl stepped out from behind a tree, asking how he knew she was there. He claimed that he spotted her dirty blonde hair poking out. He asked why she was hiding from him. Pearl asked if he was going to kill her. Mortimer was confused by this and questioned why he would kill her. Pearl defended herself by pointing out how much he hated accepting help from others and thought he would go lone wolf. Mortimer rolled his eyes, muttering “This again” under his breath. He put his right hand up and solemnly swore he wouldn’t kill her, for Gill’s sake. Pearl cautiously stepped out and thanked him. He asked what she had in her bag. She showed her contents, seeing a rain poncho, a water bottle, two apples, and a flint and steel.
Mortimer revealed his contents as well, noting the emptiness of the bottles. He suggested they continue going west, but Pearl pointed at a tall tree nearby. She said she would climb it and get a good vantage point. Mortimer didn’t object as she marched over to the tree and began climbing. While she was climbing higher, cameras noticed how antsy Mortimer was. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis said it appeared as if he was tempted to ditch her. Luther agreed with her observation, but didn’t believe he would just yet. Pearl reached seven metres in height and began surveying the arena. She reported to Mortimer that everything looked the same until she looked northwest and spotted the lake. Mortimer declared they would go there. She agreed and the two began their journey.
Out of nowhere, Pearl asked if he had anything against her father Alexander Riverstone. Mortimer claimed he didn’t and thought he was an honest working man. She retorted by asking for his reason to not accept his or anyone else’s help. Mortimer became annoyed by hearing this question for the umpteenth time, but Pearl insisted he explain. She already heard the story from Gill and wanted to hear his perspective, explaining, “After years of waitressing and hearing all the gossip, I’ve learned there is always another side.” Mortimer sighed and admitted he should’ve accepted his and Gill’s help as they had no gain in doublecrossing him. He cited his mother’s abandonment and the resulting playground bullying as the cornerstone reasons for him not trusting others. Pearl asked how old his mother was when she left, him answering six. Viewers weren’t aware of this detail and felt bad for him.
Before Pearl could press for more, the two had arrived at the lake. They noticed the murkiness of the water and surmised that it was unsafe to drink. Mortimer wondered how it was murky when it was crystal clear earlier. Pearl said she noticed the water became cloudy the second the cannons sounded, deducing that the water will become much more unsafe to drink as the death toll increases. The commentators and gamemakers were impressed with her accurate deduction but pointed out it was Jassy (12) who discovered it first though in a joking manner. Pearl however was more curious about the smell, comparing it to the sewage port at the Cardiff Cliffs. Mortimer agreed and pondered over what to do next.
Pearl climbed up another tree and spotted the stretching shoreline. Mortimer hypothesised how due to the unnatural shape and location of the lake, along with recent Hunger Games trends, there could be something in the northwestern sector on the other side. Pearl sarcastically commented, “Add a boat to the list of things we desperately need.” Mortimer’s eyes lit up and said, “Why not make our own?”, pointing out how they could construct a raft out of the sturdier trees and tie them together with rope, adding that being on the lake would keep them far from other tributes. Pearl admitted it was a good plan, but considered water as the utmost priority. When asked to test the water, Pearl gagged on the taste. Mortimer pulled out his pot and gave it to Pearl, telling her to start a fire.
Around the time Mortimer started his raft project, Cat was taking a break from all the trudging through the damp grassland. She held her only fruit pack in her fingertips and stared at it for several minutes. Viewers could tell she was speculating on whether or not to eat it. She decided against it and put it back in her backpack. She watched the still lake while licking her cracked lips to keep them moist. She dipped two of her fingers into the cloudy water and tasted the droplets. She instantly gagged and spit them out, using her sleeve to wipe her mouth. She then broke off a button from the backpack and stuck it in her mouth. Luther seemed impressed by this, educating the audience on this unique practice of preventing dry mouth.
Cat decided her break was over and stood up with supplies in tow. Suddenly, she heard voices coming from behind her. She listened carefully and recognized the voice of Olivine and Lionel (1). Cameras showed the two bypassing Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) after the two journeyed north to hunt for tributes. While raiding the cornucopia, Olivine played with a pair of binoculars and spotted Pearl in the tree. The two decided to go after her. Cat frantically searched for a place to hide. There were no nearby upright trees and she didn’t have enough time to camouflage herself in the mud. So, in desperation, she burrowed her backpack in the mudbank and waded herself into the lake. Cat ducked her head underwater just in time for Olivine and Lionel to reveal themselves. Many viewers in Maximus Square were at the edge of their seats as the two careers initially began walking past Cat’s location. The situation was filled with more tension when the two stopped before moving out of sight. The two discussed their plan of confronting Pearl, knowing Mortimer is most likely with her. Lionel assured her that the two could take him together. Underwater cameras captured Cat’s face as she struggled to hold her breath. Based on the quality of the cameras’ footage, it appeared that Cat was able to overhear their conversation. Just when it looked like Cat was about to give up, the two careers finally resumed their journey west.
Cat thrust herself out of the water, taking in deep breaths. Supporters of Cat in Maximus Square breathed out in relief as well. Cat dragged herself to shore and flipped herself on her back. She laid there for a few moments catching her breath and wiping the mud off her face. When she held her arm up, she noticed a black spot on her forearm. She grabbed it, pulled it off, and turned it towards her. She instantly recognized it from its sucker and rows of teeth, straight from her studies in the fauna sector in the aquatic station. It was a black worm leech, a relatively new species introduced to the world through the crossbreeding of the European medicinal leech and the terrestrial leech. Cat’s face morphed into one of pure disgust and fright. It took all her inner strength not to scream when she looked down and counted eleven leeches on her legs and forearms. She shakily ripped the leeches off her body one by one, lip quivering as she did so. She tossed the leeches aside and crab-walked away from the shore.
Cat sat on a log for almost an hour, traumatized by the experience. After composing herself, she grabbed her backpack and was about to leave when she recalled Olivine and Lionel’s plan. Realizing Pearl and Mortimer were in danger, she pulled out her empty water bottle. Capital viewers were confused at first, expecting her to “run for the hills”. Their confusion turned to interest as Cat scooped up the leeches and put them inside her bottle along with some of the lakewater. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis was holding herself, cringing at the sight of the leeches. She wondered why Cat would pick them back up. Luther guessed she would use them either to help her allies or food, noting that the leeches were edible. Artemis squealed at the thought. As Cat was about to start moving again, a cannon sounded. It was revealed to be Vista (3) after she climbed down from her tree and decided to bathe in the river. She was also overtaken by leeches and screamed very loudly at the sight of them. Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) heard her screams and found her writhing on the ground swiping at the leeches on her body. Andrei ended her suffering by plunging his sword into her head.
Two hours passed by without incident. Capital viewers still had some nuggets of tribute activity to entertain them. Carnelia and Logan (11) had successfully captured a handful of leeches and were attempting to cook them. Their stalker Horace (10) watched from nearby. The biggest area of interest was with the District 4 tributes and the approaching careers increasing the suspense in Maximus Square. While Mortimer was beginning the construction of the raft, Pearl boiled some water in the pot. She noticed her partner testing his rope on the logs he acquired and showing disappointment with it not being enough to secure the full measurements.
While the water boiled, Pearl gathered the moss growing off the trees and weaved some twine together. She tossed the twine to Mortimer and told him to test it out. She rolled her eyes at the look of skepticism on his face. She challenged him by asking why he was skeptical over some twine. Mortimer claimed he wasn’t suspicious of any malintent but was wondering why she would make it for him. Pearl simply stated, “We’re partners aren’t we?” Mortimer thanked her and tested the twine. He was satisfied with its durability and asked if she could make more. Pearl beckoned him to come to the fire. He walked over and was perplexed by the sight before him. The water still resembled the murky lake water. Pearl claimed she left the water to boil for ten minutes. Mortimer stuck his fingers taste tested it and spat it out in disgust. He said it wasn’t as bad tasting as the lakewater, but was still unsafe to drink. Frustrated, he went back to his raft while Pearl resumed making twine.
The two were unaware that Olivine and Lionel (1) were very close by and were able to pinpoint their location after hearing them talking. Lionel stepped forward and peeked his head behind a tree, ready to approach the unsuspecting Pearl. Pearl lifted her head to wipe the sweat off her face and was horrified to see him towering over her. She screamed at the top of her lungs and sprinted off not a second later. Lionel chased after her and swung his sword down toward her. Pearl shut her eyes preparing for the end, but only heard a single metallic thud. She opened her eyes to see the sword blocked by Mortimer’s trident.
Mortimer barked at Pearl to get behind him and she obeyed. Olivine made herself known brandishing a sword as well, having failed to secure a bow in the bloodbath. The arena and Maximus Square were quiet as the tributes slowly circled each other, Mortimer and Pearl taking measures to not be surrounded by their adversaries. Mortimer tried to make Olivine the closer enemy, knowing she was not nearly as experienced with a sword as Lionel. What he didn't know was she still had decent skills with the sword due to it being her "secondary weapon" that she decided to hide during training. Lionel swung first once again, his blade being caught by the trident. Olivine stepped in to strike while Mortimer was distracted. However, he spotted her and smacked her across the face with the back of the handle. She fell back into the water but before he could take advantage, Lionel went back on the offence.
The next three minutes kept the Capital at the edge of their seat. The two were evenly matched and trapped in a cycle of attack, block, and retaliation all while Pearl watched on, frozen to her spot. Lionel got his sword caught in the trident for the eighth time, but surprised everyone by twisting the blade downwards, pushing the prongs down and exposing Mortimer’s head. Lionel kept twisting in hopes Mortimer would drop his weapon, but he persisted. Just when it seemed like Mortimer was about to give up, he headbutted Lionel, dazing him long enough to free his weapon. Then in a swift motion, Mortimer thrust his trident up Lionel’s chin into his brain, sounding his cannon instantly.
Mortimer couldn’t celebrate for long as he heard Olivine charging towards him. She sliced at him in a frenzy, managing to cut his right eyebrow. She used this distraction to punch him in the face. Mortimer stumbled back a few inches, surprised by the power in her punch. Olivine brought her sword up high, ready to strike him down. Mortimer gave her a powerful uppercut, sending Olivine back three feet. The punch caused her to bite through her tongue, it falling to the ground. Olivine moaned in muffled agony at the sight of it on the floor as her mouth filled with blood. Mortimer thrust the trident in her chest. Suddenly, someone came rushing into the small clearing. It was Cat, having finally arrived to help Mortimer. She paused at the carnage laid before her and put her sword down. She said, “Guess you didn’t need help then.” Olivine’s cannon sounded seconds later.
The viewers in Maximus Square went crazy, cheering for Mortimer’s triumphant victory. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis and Luther were buzzing as well, the latter declaring this as one of the greatest fight sequences in the history of the Hunger Games. Historic documents reflected that sentiment as well. The cheering quickly died down, waiting to see his reaction to Cat’s sudden arrival. Mortimer furrowed his brows and backed her into a tree, saying, “You! You’ve been following us?!” Cat put her hands up and apologized for scaring him. She asked to at least explain herself. Pearl came to her defense and pleaded with him to hear her out. Mortimer relented and told her to spill.
Cat regaled her experiences so far, revealing the leeches’ existence and how she found them. Pearl rummaged through her things and pulled out the water bottle, but Cat warned her about the leeches inside. Pearl looked inside and identified the species, revealing they were edible. She walked towards the fire with the bottle. Cat turned back to Mortimer and told him, “I know you are reluctant to trust me, especially considering where we are. But seeing that I helped you with your training score and have something valuable to share, I think you need me as an ally.” Back in the Capital, Artemis said she admired Cat’s guts while Luther expressed interest in the dynamic they’re about to see, confident Mortimer would say yes. Mortimer looked back at Pearl inspecting the leeches, then the open backpack. He relented and accepted her invitation into the group, but warned he would end her if she did anything remotely bad.
Mortimer invited her to sit down by the campsite and go over what they learned. The small fire burnt out and Pearl was trying and failing to reignite it. Cat finally picked up on the rotten egg smell emanating throughout the arena. Mortimer noticed as well, claiming it was worse than before. Pearl asked if they noticed how it became worse the minute the careers died. The two were silent and realised she was right. Pearl speculated that not only will the water be rendered more undrinkable each death, but the smell will get worse. Cat compared the smell to the piles of feces left in Willard Alleyway by warmweed addicts and alcoholics. Mortimer suddenly had an epiphany. He realized that the rotten egg smell meant traces of flammable sulphur were present. Cat suggested they search for the source of the smell before it gets dark. The three fanned out. The search for the rotten smell garnered some moments of comedy. Viewers were laughing at the tributes picking up random objects and bringing them to their faces, left in tears at their disgusted facial expressions. It was ultimately Pearl who discovered the source, having explored the lake shore and found the source to be green algae barely touching the surface. She held her breath while collecting some and handing it to Mortimer. He wringed it off as much water as possible before shooting sparks at it with the flint and steel. After several tries, the algae ignited.
A fire was successfully crafted, and the trio resumed boiling the water. Cat speculated why boiling it wasn’t enough, recalling how it worked for Corpse Beckford in the 10th Hunger Games. Pearl suddenly squealed and stood up. One of the leeches escaped the bottle and began squirming on the ground. Mortimer picked it up and examined the creature. He noticed how sticky his fingertips were, his facing morphing into what Artemis coined as the “thinking face”. Mortimer used the tip of his trident to scrape some of the slime and thrust it into the pot. Cat was about to protest, but Mortimer recalled the species of leech and that it resided in the Rocky Shores neighborhood. He explained how the poorer citizens of District 4 would use the slime of discarded leeches to better purify dirty water. Cat commended him for noticing this and offered to ration the food for dinner. Pearl continued to create twine for the raft, but cameras noticed her constantly watching the nearby trees.
The sun was nearly out of sight and the water was still not fully purified. Mortimer was frustrated that the slime wasn’t enough. Cat told him to calm down and assured him they would figure it out. Pearl was still making twine for the raft when she cut herself with a tiny splinter entangled in the moss. Cat grabbed the first aid kit to bandage the wound before it became infected. Mortimer commented how he wasn’t aware therapists needed to know first aid. Cat responded, “Well, in a district full of addicts, you get a lot of practice.” Pearl asked her why she wanted to be a therapist like Phoebe. Cat explained how she used to be one of the young “zombies” hanging out in Willard Alleyway experimenting with new batches of warmweed. One day when she was thirteen, she had a respiratory attack. Her supposed friends were indifferent to her predicament and fled when Phoebe and peacekeeper escorts walked by. Phoebe spotted her, brought her to the hospital, and took care of her. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis was curious as to why she was dredging up traumatic experiences so nonchalantly. Luther guessed she truly moved past it and told her to keep listening. Cat further described a long conversation she had with Phoebe and how much it changed her life. After that, Cat strongly desired to get clean and was successful after nine arduous months. This was the part where Cat began to feel emotional. Cat explained that she wanted to help others get clean the same way she did, so no more kids are left to die in alleyways. She then revealed that when her mother died of an overdose, it was enough to convince her brother to get clean as well after years of begging. After years of dealing with erratic addicts, she claimed that no one scared her anymore, not even Mortimer. Mortimer apologised for being cross with her before, receiving an accepting smile in return.
While Cat bandaged Pearl’s wound, Mortimer noticed the small bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He examined it and put some droplets in the water. Suddenly, the cloudy substance in the water completely cleared. The three stared in amazement. Pearl asked who would test it first. Mortimer looked at Cat, who annoyedly said, “Fine I’ll do it.” She took a sip and said it tasted like water. After a few moments of no effect, Cat congratulated Mortimer for successfully purifying the water. Mortimer seemed really proud of himself. Suddenly, two sponsor gifts fell from the sky, one with a 4 and one with a 6. The D4 gift contained a mini chemistry kit with droppers, tiny bowls, and vials. A note attached read “I told you friends are the best - G”. The D6 bag contained a picnic of sandwiches and fruit. Pearl was ready to dig in, but Cat insisted they rest as the sun had fully set. Mortimer appeared disappointed, but admitted she was right. He volunteered to take first watch, blushing when Cat claimed he did so just to play with his new set. The two rested while Mortimer got to work purifying more water with his new kit. The portraits of the fallen were presented in the sky. The fallen included Olivine and Lionel (1), Nikita (2), Vista and Shoya (3), Terry (5), Jack (6), Laurel (7), Burlap (8), Ryetta (9), Mishti (10), and Neutron (12). This left 12 tributes remaining.
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When the podiums rose out of the arena, tributes felt the humid heat weigh down on them. A few tributes were relieved by the aquatic setting, especially the District 4 tributes. Pearl was wedged between Laurel (7) and Logan (11). She felt intimidated by Laurel’s muscles and decided to ignore her in favour of scanning for escape routes. After pinpointing two routes with more tree cover, she scanned the lineup for Mortimer. She spotted him between Wren (5) and Jack. He noticed Jack and gave him a greeting. Jack asked if it was true Tobias Stephens was dead, him nodding in response. Mortimer said “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll leave you alone for now. Just out of respect for Tobias and for helping deliver the weed to me.” Jack thanked him before searching for Cat. Cat was found standing between Nikita (2) and Neutron (12). Nikita tried to intimidate her, but she brushed it aside. She spotted Mortimer and Jack conversing, pleased it wasn’t confrontational. Mortimer spotted her and she waved to him. He stared at her for a moment before turning his eyes to the cornucopia. She looked at the cornucopia as well, aiming her sights on one of the bigger waterproof bags.
When the gong sounded, Cat sprinted forward towards the bag she set her eyes on. Nikita attempted to tackle her to the ground, but Cat was quick enough to somersault out of the way. She frantically searched for a way out, choosing to run northwest away from the careers. However, she spotted Pearl fighting Mishti (10) for a bag. Mishti was successful at obtaining the bag and pushed Pearl to the ground before grabbing a knife nearby. Cat bolted towards the two girls, hopping over the fallen Burlap (8)’s body. Before Mishti could strike Pearl with her knife, Cat tackled her to the ground. Cat pushed Mishti’s face under the ankle high water and used her knee to keep her head down. She wrenched the knife and pushed the blade into the back of her skull. She looked up to see Pearl already gone. She turned to see a sword propped against the cornucopia wall and decided to risk it.
Meanwhile, Jack hopped off his podium but was swept off his feet by the slippery mud. He frantically pulled himself up, but was relieved that all the nearby tributes were completely ignoring him. He witnessed the first death of the games when Andrei (2) stomped on Terry (5)’s neck, snapping it in an odd angle. He ran alongside the podiums to steer clear of the ongoing chaos all the while searching for Cat. He managed to spot her closing in on a sword. He ran towards her, unaware of an arrow courtesy of Jassy (12) narrowly missing his head. As he neared Cat, he noticed Logan (11) creeping closer to her with a heavy axe in hand. He yelled at Cat to look out, but she didn’t hear. Logan raised his axe at the unaware Cat. Jack jumped forward and pushed Cat out of the line of fire. The axe lodged itself into Jack’s head, sending him falling to the ground. Cat was horrified upon seeing her partner brutally killed in front of her. She decided she let his sacrifice not be in vain and retreated from the clearing with a bag and sword in hand.
Mortimer was one of the first to reach the cornucopia. He snatched a trident from the back of the cornucopia structure. He turned to exit the building only to come face to face with Laurel (7). She had an axe in her hand and voiced her intentions of killing him for her partner Wolvthorne (7). Mortimer warned her to get out of his way, but she charged forwards. Mortimer used his trident to catch her first swipe, pushing her backwards. He swung the trident, cutting Laurel’s face. She was unperturbed and tried striking him. This time, he dodged and thrust the end of his trident in her ribs. He used her brief moment of painful staggering to stab her in the head. He flung her body to the side like a ragdoll and ran back outside. He noticed two bags close together and decided to risk grabbing them. He scooped up both bags with his trident, with one hanging on each side before retreating. He fell to the ground after tripping over the corpse of Shoya (3). As he pulled himself up, he noticed Pearl hiding behind a tree beckoning him to follow her. As he ran, he heard Wolvthorne’s roars of anger after discovering his partner dead. So angry in fact that he managed to disembowel and kill Nikita (2) before escaping east.
When the bloodbath was over, Artemis and Luther followed the order of events. Artemis enjoyed this bloodbath as not only did they have a couple gory kills, but some rare moments of honor. Luther listed Terry (5) as the first death at the hands of Andrei (2), comparing it to the first kill of the 12th Hunger Games when Sparta (D2 female tribute) curb stomped Fleming (D6 male tribute). Cameras then spotted Burlap (8) stabbed in the eye by Olivine (1), making him the second death. On the opposite side was Shoya (3), whose throat was slit by Lionel (1). The next chronological death was Mishti (10), with Artemis wondering why Cat saved Pearl. Luther speculated that they were probably in an alliance. The fifth death was Laurel (7). Artemis felt bummed out to not see more of her as she seemed like victor material. The sixth and seventh deaths took place almost simultaneously. Number six was Neutron (12) after he was stabbed numerous times by Andrei (2). Two seconds afterwards was the death of Jack. Artemis declared his death as honorable and as a redemption from his disastrous interview. The last two kills of this year’s bloodbath were Ryetta (9) and Nikita (2). Ryetta was killed by Lionel when she jumped on his back and tried to gouge his eyes out. Lionel wrenched her off by the hair and bashed her head into the cornucopia structure. Artemis then moved to Nikita’s death and described Wolvthorne as savage. Luther wrapped the bloodbath analysis up and announced nine bloodbath kills, two more than the previous year.
Cat continued to create distance from the clearing. She followed as much grassland as possible, having to wade through the water at a few points. Suddenly, she came across a wide expanse of water with no land in sight. She slipped on a loose twig and fell to the ground at the edge of this lake. Her backpack spilled its contents upon impact, its contents consisting of a sandwich, four fruit packs, a pocket knife, a bottle of water, string, and a small medkit. The thoughts of losing the items she fought so hard for sent her in a panic. She reached out and tried to gather as much as she could. However, she failed to save the sandwich, the knife, and three of the fruit packets as they all sank below its depths.
After saving the rest of her items, she realized her hyperventilating continued. She crossed her legs and put her supplies to the side. The confused viewers in Maximus Square watched as she took deep methodical breaths while moving her arms up and down. They began to realize she was meditating in order to compose herself. Viewers watched as the gamemakers displayed her heart rate and the number slowly decrease. Soon, Cat was able to compose herself. She decided to inspect her remaining supplies, keeping her sword by her side. She opened the medkit and was disappointed by the lack of quantity. It consisted of one roll of medical tape, two bandages, and strangely a wax bottle of clear liquid. She inspected the label, which revealed the contents to be hydrogen peroxide. She took note of this and pocketed the medkit, string, and the one fruit pack.
Cat lastly picked up the water bottle and realized it to be empty. She internally debated collecting water from the lake in front of her. She cautiously dipped a couple fingers in the lake and then tasted the droplets on her fingertips. Tasting nothing out of sorts, she picked up her water bottle. She was interrupted by the mandatory cannons, signaling the end of the bloodbath. Cat quickly scanned her surroundings while carefully listening for tributes. After hearing nothing, she turned back to the water and felt her heart drop. The once clear water had now become cloudy and murky. Cat became dejected, knowing she couldn’t trust the water anymore. She let tears fall from her eyes for a few moments, mourning her dreadful situation. Artemis was about to tease her crying, when she was interrupted by Cat slapping herself in the face. Cat told herself aloud that she had to get it together and plan her next move. She continued to scan the lake and her surroundings. She noticed a near consistent path of grassland heading west around the lake. She decided to head that direction, whispering to herself that “sailor boy” was sure to head that direction. She packed her things and started her journey west along the lake’s borders, with her sword at the ready.
Back in the commentator’s booth, Artemis noted her determination to find the District 4 tributes, speculating whether she had a crush on Mortimer. Luther diverted the topic to the lake. He educated the audience on the layout of the lake, showing through schematics that it spanned at least 35% of the entire arena. At the end of the lake was a thick accumulation of trees and brush the cameras refused to go past. When he and Artemis questioned Head Gamemaker Grimstone, he told them there was a hidden surprise on the possibility a tribute figures out a way across.
The two hosts began checking tabs on the surviving tributes. Olivine and Lionel (1) had split from the clearing and were in the south eastern sector. They watched from the safety of a couple trees as Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) gathered supplies at the cornucopia. Surprisingly, Andrei was indifferent to his new ally having killed Nikita. The two debated their next move, Wolvthorne desiring to find Mortimer for revenge. Andrei admitted that while he was their biggest threat, he would have to put his grievances aside for them to survive the arena. Cameras diverted their attention to Carnelia and Logan (11) as they neared the southeastern perimeter. In close proximity was Horace (10) who was stalking them, using the trees and small mud banks as cover. Vista (3) had climbed up a tree and rested there. Wren (5) had struck up an alliance with Jassy (12) when the two crossed paths in the centre of the arena. Peggy (8) reached the northern perimeter and planted roots at the shore of the lake. John (9) had retreated west and was camouflaging himself with mud. He was nearly seen by Cat minutes into her trek west, but decided against confronting her upon seeing her sword. Artemis urged Luther to point the cameras to the District 4 tributes, which he obliged.
Mortimer had successfully distanced himself from the cornucopia. Cameras captured him diverting the supplies from one of his two backpacks into the other, discarding the empty one in the mud. It was around this time when the cannons sounded. The combined supplies included an empty water bottle, three fruit packs, a sandwich, a bundle of sturdy rope, a sleeping bag, and a small cooking pot. He was half a kilometre away from the lake’s southwest shore when he stopped walking. He turned around and asked the forest if hiding from him was really necessary. Pearl stepped out from behind a tree, asking how he knew she was there. He claimed that he spotted her dirty blonde hair poking out. He asked why she was hiding from him. Pearl asked if he was going to kill her. Mortimer was confused by this and questioned why he would kill her. Pearl defended herself by pointing out how much he hated accepting help from others and thought he would go lone wolf. Mortimer rolled his eyes, muttering “This again” under his breath. He put his right hand up and solemnly swore he wouldn’t kill her, for Gill’s sake. Pearl cautiously stepped out and thanked him. He asked what she had in her bag. She showed her contents, seeing a rain poncho, a water bottle, two apples, and a flint and steel.
Mortimer revealed his contents as well, noting the emptiness of the bottles. He suggested they continue going west, but Pearl pointed at a tall tree nearby. She said she would climb it and get a good vantage point. Mortimer didn’t object as she marched over to the tree and began climbing. While she was climbing higher, cameras noticed how antsy Mortimer was. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis said it appeared as if he was tempted to ditch her. Luther agreed with her observation, but didn’t believe he would just yet. Pearl reached seven metres in height and began surveying the arena. She reported to Mortimer that everything looked the same until she looked northwest and spotted the lake. Mortimer declared they would go there. She agreed and the two began their journey.
Out of nowhere, Pearl asked if he had anything against her father Alexander Riverstone. Mortimer claimed he didn’t and thought he was an honest working man. She retorted by asking for his reason to not accept his or anyone else’s help. Mortimer became annoyed by hearing this question for the umpteenth time, but Pearl insisted he explain. She already heard the story from Gill and wanted to hear his perspective, explaining, “After years of waitressing and hearing all the gossip, I’ve learned there is always another side.” Mortimer sighed and admitted he should’ve accepted his and Gill’s help as they had no gain in doublecrossing him. He cited his mother’s abandonment and the resulting playground bullying as the cornerstone reasons for him not trusting others. Pearl asked how old his mother was when she left, him answering six. Viewers weren’t aware of this detail and felt bad for him.
Before Pearl could press for more, the two had arrived at the lake. They noticed the murkiness of the water and surmised that it was unsafe to drink. Mortimer wondered how it was murky when it was crystal clear earlier. Pearl said she noticed the water became cloudy the second the cannons sounded, deducing that the water will become much more unsafe to drink as the death toll increases. The commentators and gamemakers were impressed with her accurate deduction but pointed out it was Jassy (12) who discovered it first though in a joking manner. Pearl however was more curious about the smell, comparing it to the sewage port at the Cardiff Cliffs. Mortimer agreed and pondered over what to do next.
Pearl climbed up another tree and spotted the stretching shoreline. Mortimer hypothesised how due to the unnatural shape and location of the lake, along with recent Hunger Games trends, there could be something in the northwestern sector on the other side. Pearl sarcastically commented, “Add a boat to the list of things we desperately need.” Mortimer’s eyes lit up and said, “Why not make our own?”, pointing out how they could construct a raft out of the sturdier trees and tie them together with rope, adding that being on the lake would keep them far from other tributes. Pearl admitted it was a good plan, but considered water as the utmost priority. When asked to test the water, Pearl gagged on the taste. Mortimer pulled out his pot and gave it to Pearl, telling her to start a fire.
Around the time Mortimer started his raft project, Cat was taking a break from all the trudging through the damp grassland. She held her only fruit pack in her fingertips and stared at it for several minutes. Viewers could tell she was speculating on whether or not to eat it. She decided against it and put it back in her backpack. She watched the still lake while licking her cracked lips to keep them moist. She dipped two of her fingers into the cloudy water and tasted the droplets. She instantly gagged and spit them out, using her sleeve to wipe her mouth. She then broke off a button from the backpack and stuck it in her mouth. Luther seemed impressed by this, educating the audience on this unique practice of preventing dry mouth.
Cat decided her break was over and stood up with supplies in tow. Suddenly, she heard voices coming from behind her. She listened carefully and recognized the voice of Olivine and Lionel (1). Cameras showed the two bypassing Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) after the two journeyed north to hunt for tributes. While raiding the cornucopia, Olivine played with a pair of binoculars and spotted Pearl in the tree. The two decided to go after her. Cat frantically searched for a place to hide. There were no nearby upright trees and she didn’t have enough time to camouflage herself in the mud. So, in desperation, she burrowed her backpack in the mudbank and waded herself into the lake. Cat ducked her head underwater just in time for Olivine and Lionel to reveal themselves. Many viewers in Maximus Square were at the edge of their seats as the two careers initially began walking past Cat’s location. The situation was filled with more tension when the two stopped before moving out of sight. The two discussed their plan of confronting Pearl, knowing Mortimer is most likely with her. Lionel assured her that the two could take him together. Underwater cameras captured Cat’s face as she struggled to hold her breath. Based on the quality of the cameras’ footage, it appeared that Cat was able to overhear their conversation. Just when it looked like Cat was about to give up, the two careers finally resumed their journey west.
Cat thrust herself out of the water, taking in deep breaths. Supporters of Cat in Maximus Square breathed out in relief as well. Cat dragged herself to shore and flipped herself on her back. She laid there for a few moments catching her breath and wiping the mud off her face. When she held her arm up, she noticed a black spot on her forearm. She grabbed it, pulled it off, and turned it towards her. She instantly recognized it from its sucker and rows of teeth, straight from her studies in the fauna sector in the aquatic station. It was a black worm leech, a relatively new species introduced to the world through the crossbreeding of the European medicinal leech and the terrestrial leech. Cat’s face morphed into one of pure disgust and fright. It took all her inner strength not to scream when she looked down and counted eleven leeches on her legs and forearms. She shakily ripped the leeches off her body one by one, lip quivering as she did so. She tossed the leeches aside and crab-walked away from the shore.
Cat sat on a log for almost an hour, traumatized by the experience. After composing herself, she grabbed her backpack and was about to leave when she recalled Olivine and Lionel’s plan. Realizing Pearl and Mortimer were in danger, she pulled out her empty water bottle. Capital viewers were confused at first, expecting her to “run for the hills”. Their confusion turned to interest as Cat scooped up the leeches and put them inside her bottle along with some of the lakewater. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis was holding herself, cringing at the sight of the leeches. She wondered why Cat would pick them back up. Luther guessed she would use them either to help her allies or food, noting that the leeches were edible. Artemis squealed at the thought. As Cat was about to start moving again, a cannon sounded. It was revealed to be Vista (3) after she climbed down from her tree and decided to bathe in the river. She was also overtaken by leeches and screamed very loudly at the sight of them. Andrei (2) and Wolvthorne (7) heard her screams and found her writhing on the ground swiping at the leeches on her body. Andrei ended her suffering by plunging his sword into her head.
Two hours passed by without incident. Capital viewers still had some nuggets of tribute activity to entertain them. Carnelia and Logan (11) had successfully captured a handful of leeches and were attempting to cook them. Their stalker Horace (10) watched from nearby. The biggest area of interest was with the District 4 tributes and the approaching careers increasing the suspense in Maximus Square. While Mortimer was beginning the construction of the raft, Pearl boiled some water in the pot. She noticed her partner testing his rope on the logs he acquired and showing disappointment with it not being enough to secure the full measurements.
While the water boiled, Pearl gathered the moss growing off the trees and weaved some twine together. She tossed the twine to Mortimer and told him to test it out. She rolled her eyes at the look of skepticism on his face. She challenged him by asking why he was skeptical over some twine. Mortimer claimed he wasn’t suspicious of any malintent but was wondering why she would make it for him. Pearl simply stated, “We’re partners aren’t we?” Mortimer thanked her and tested the twine. He was satisfied with its durability and asked if she could make more. Pearl beckoned him to come to the fire. He walked over and was perplexed by the sight before him. The water still resembled the murky lake water. Pearl claimed she left the water to boil for ten minutes. Mortimer stuck his fingers taste tested it and spat it out in disgust. He said it wasn’t as bad tasting as the lakewater, but was still unsafe to drink. Frustrated, he went back to his raft while Pearl resumed making twine.
The two were unaware that Olivine and Lionel (1) were very close by and were able to pinpoint their location after hearing them talking. Lionel stepped forward and peeked his head behind a tree, ready to approach the unsuspecting Pearl. Pearl lifted her head to wipe the sweat off her face and was horrified to see him towering over her. She screamed at the top of her lungs and sprinted off not a second later. Lionel chased after her and swung his sword down toward her. Pearl shut her eyes preparing for the end, but only heard a single metallic thud. She opened her eyes to see the sword blocked by Mortimer’s trident.
Mortimer barked at Pearl to get behind him and she obeyed. Olivine made herself known brandishing a sword as well, having failed to secure a bow in the bloodbath. The arena and Maximus Square were quiet as the tributes slowly circled each other, Mortimer and Pearl taking measures to not be surrounded by their adversaries. Mortimer tried to make Olivine the closer enemy, knowing she was not nearly as experienced with a sword as Lionel. What he didn't know was she still had decent skills with the sword due to it being her "secondary weapon" that she decided to hide during training. Lionel swung first once again, his blade being caught by the trident. Olivine stepped in to strike while Mortimer was distracted. However, he spotted her and smacked her across the face with the back of the handle. She fell back into the water but before he could take advantage, Lionel went back on the offence.
The next three minutes kept the Capital at the edge of their seat. The two were evenly matched and trapped in a cycle of attack, block, and retaliation all while Pearl watched on, frozen to her spot. Lionel got his sword caught in the trident for the eighth time, but surprised everyone by twisting the blade downwards, pushing the prongs down and exposing Mortimer’s head. Lionel kept twisting in hopes Mortimer would drop his weapon, but he persisted. Just when it seemed like Mortimer was about to give up, he headbutted Lionel, dazing him long enough to free his weapon. Then in a swift motion, Mortimer thrust his trident up Lionel’s chin into his brain, sounding his cannon instantly.
Mortimer couldn’t celebrate for long as he heard Olivine charging towards him. She sliced at him in a frenzy, managing to cut his right eyebrow. She used this distraction to punch him in the face. Mortimer stumbled back a few inches, surprised by the power in her punch. Olivine brought her sword up high, ready to strike him down. Mortimer gave her a powerful uppercut, sending Olivine back three feet. The punch caused her to bite through her tongue, it falling to the ground. Olivine moaned in muffled agony at the sight of it on the floor as her mouth filled with blood. Mortimer thrust the trident in her chest. Suddenly, someone came rushing into the small clearing. It was Cat, having finally arrived to help Mortimer. She paused at the carnage laid before her and put her sword down. She said, “Guess you didn’t need help then.” Olivine’s cannon sounded seconds later.
The viewers in Maximus Square went crazy, cheering for Mortimer’s triumphant victory. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis and Luther were buzzing as well, the latter declaring this as one of the greatest fight sequences in the history of the Hunger Games. Historic documents reflected that sentiment as well. The cheering quickly died down, waiting to see his reaction to Cat’s sudden arrival. Mortimer furrowed his brows and backed her into a tree, saying, “You! You’ve been following us?!” Cat put her hands up and apologized for scaring him. She asked to at least explain herself. Pearl came to her defense and pleaded with him to hear her out. Mortimer relented and told her to spill.
Cat regaled her experiences so far, revealing the leeches’ existence and how she found them. Pearl rummaged through her things and pulled out the water bottle, but Cat warned her about the leeches inside. Pearl looked inside and identified the species, revealing they were edible. She walked towards the fire with the bottle. Cat turned back to Mortimer and told him, “I know you are reluctant to trust me, especially considering where we are. But seeing that I helped you with your training score and have something valuable to share, I think you need me as an ally.” Back in the Capital, Artemis said she admired Cat’s guts while Luther expressed interest in the dynamic they’re about to see, confident Mortimer would say yes. Mortimer looked back at Pearl inspecting the leeches, then the open backpack. He relented and accepted her invitation into the group, but warned he would end her if she did anything remotely bad.
Mortimer invited her to sit down by the campsite and go over what they learned. The small fire burnt out and Pearl was trying and failing to reignite it. Cat finally picked up on the rotten egg smell emanating throughout the arena. Mortimer noticed as well, claiming it was worse than before. Pearl asked if they noticed how it became worse the minute the careers died. The two were silent and realised she was right. Pearl speculated that not only will the water be rendered more undrinkable each death, but the smell will get worse. Cat compared the smell to the piles of feces left in Willard Alleyway by warmweed addicts and alcoholics. Mortimer suddenly had an epiphany. He realized that the rotten egg smell meant traces of flammable sulphur were present. Cat suggested they search for the source of the smell before it gets dark. The three fanned out. The search for the rotten smell garnered some moments of comedy. Viewers were laughing at the tributes picking up random objects and bringing them to their faces, left in tears at their disgusted facial expressions. It was ultimately Pearl who discovered the source, having explored the lake shore and found the source to be green algae barely touching the surface. She held her breath while collecting some and handing it to Mortimer. He wringed it off as much water as possible before shooting sparks at it with the flint and steel. After several tries, the algae ignited.
A fire was successfully crafted, and the trio resumed boiling the water. Cat speculated why boiling it wasn’t enough, recalling how it worked for Corpse Beckford in the 10th Hunger Games. Pearl suddenly squealed and stood up. One of the leeches escaped the bottle and began squirming on the ground. Mortimer picked it up and examined the creature. He noticed how sticky his fingertips were, his facing morphing into what Artemis coined as the “thinking face”. Mortimer used the tip of his trident to scrape some of the slime and thrust it into the pot. Cat was about to protest, but Mortimer recalled the species of leech and that it resided in the Rocky Shores neighborhood. He explained how the poorer citizens of District 4 would use the slime of discarded leeches to better purify dirty water. Cat commended him for noticing this and offered to ration the food for dinner. Pearl continued to create twine for the raft, but cameras noticed her constantly watching the nearby trees.
The sun was nearly out of sight and the water was still not fully purified. Mortimer was frustrated that the slime wasn’t enough. Cat told him to calm down and assured him they would figure it out. Pearl was still making twine for the raft when she cut herself with a tiny splinter entangled in the moss. Cat grabbed the first aid kit to bandage the wound before it became infected. Mortimer commented how he wasn’t aware therapists needed to know first aid. Cat responded, “Well, in a district full of addicts, you get a lot of practice.” Pearl asked her why she wanted to be a therapist like Phoebe. Cat explained how she used to be one of the young “zombies” hanging out in Willard Alleyway experimenting with new batches of warmweed. One day when she was thirteen, she had a respiratory attack. Her supposed friends were indifferent to her predicament and fled when Phoebe and peacekeeper escorts walked by. Phoebe spotted her, brought her to the hospital, and took care of her. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis was curious as to why she was dredging up traumatic experiences so nonchalantly. Luther guessed she truly moved past it and told her to keep listening. Cat further described a long conversation she had with Phoebe and how much it changed her life. After that, Cat strongly desired to get clean and was successful after nine arduous months. This was the part where Cat began to feel emotional. Cat explained that she wanted to help others get clean the same way she did, so no more kids are left to die in alleyways. She then revealed that when her mother died of an overdose, it was enough to convince her brother to get clean as well after years of begging. After years of dealing with erratic addicts, she claimed that no one scared her anymore, not even Mortimer. Mortimer apologised for being cross with her before, receiving an accepting smile in return.
While Cat bandaged Pearl’s wound, Mortimer noticed the small bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He examined it and put some droplets in the water. Suddenly, the cloudy substance in the water completely cleared. The three stared in amazement. Pearl asked who would test it first. Mortimer looked at Cat, who annoyedly said, “Fine I’ll do it.” She took a sip and said it tasted like water. After a few moments of no effect, Cat congratulated Mortimer for successfully purifying the water. Mortimer seemed really proud of himself. Suddenly, two sponsor gifts fell from the sky, one with a 4 and one with a 6. The D4 gift contained a mini chemistry kit with droppers, tiny bowls, and vials. A note attached read “I told you friends are the best - G”. The D6 bag contained a picnic of sandwiches and fruit. Pearl was ready to dig in, but Cat insisted they rest as the sun had fully set. Mortimer appeared disappointed, but admitted she was right. He volunteered to take first watch, blushing when Cat claimed he did so just to play with his new set. The two rested while Mortimer got to work purifying more water with his new kit. The portraits of the fallen were presented in the sky. The fallen included Olivine and Lionel (1), Nikita (2), Vista and Shoya (3), Terry (5), Jack (6), Laurel (7), Burlap (8), Ryetta (9), Mishti (10), and Neutron (12). This left 12 tributes remaining.
2023.05.28 14:23 Franciskeyscottfitz I have a small bsd discord for talking about the show and characters with other bsd fans, its a really friendly place for people to share their thoughts, opinions, art, theories, etc... (please read post before clicking link)
This server is meant to be a place where you can talk about this amazing show and share your love for it with other people. Its a place for discussion and fun, so don't join if you can't be respectful of others opinions and feelings.
If you do join, please feel free to engage as much as you like! everyone who joins this server is looking for people to talk too, so never feel like your input isn't welcome. But if you don't feel comfortable posting, there is no pressure to.
Here is a full list of the server rules:
No hate speech.
Do not harass people for having different opinions about characters/ships/the show in general, keep discussions civil and respectful
No predatory behaviour, if someone is sending you messages that make you uncomfortable please let me know
Have fun, remember that this server is to celebrate the series we all love, so don't feel like your bothering people by posting your thoughts and creations
Please put a basic introduction in the introductions channel, you don't have to put anything personal, just please give what pronouns you want people to use for you.
Criticism and ranting are allowed and encouraged, but do not make them targeted at individual users.
This is a discussion discord. Its for everyone to talk, and share what they think. YOU ARE NEVER BUTTING IN. everyone who joined the server joined to find people to talk too, so by engaging you aren't being annoying or unwelcome, you are furthering the conversation.
This server is not spoiler free!
There are chats for non-bsd stuff too, from other shows to IRL stuff.
Because I am fairly new to running a discord, the link is only going to let the first few of people join so the server doesn't get overwhelmed.
Link: https://discord.gg/VZbSBZ4U
submitted by Franciskeyscottfitz to BungouStrayDogs [link] [comments]
If you do join, please feel free to engage as much as you like! everyone who joins this server is looking for people to talk too, so never feel like your input isn't welcome. But if you don't feel comfortable posting, there is no pressure to.
Here is a full list of the server rules:
No hate speech.
Do not harass people for having different opinions about characters/ships/the show in general, keep discussions civil and respectful
No predatory behaviour, if someone is sending you messages that make you uncomfortable please let me know
Have fun, remember that this server is to celebrate the series we all love, so don't feel like your bothering people by posting your thoughts and creations
Please put a basic introduction in the introductions channel, you don't have to put anything personal, just please give what pronouns you want people to use for you.
Criticism and ranting are allowed and encouraged, but do not make them targeted at individual users.
This is a discussion discord. Its for everyone to talk, and share what they think. YOU ARE NEVER BUTTING IN. everyone who joined the server joined to find people to talk too, so by engaging you aren't being annoying or unwelcome, you are furthering the conversation.
This server is not spoiler free!
There are chats for non-bsd stuff too, from other shows to IRL stuff.
Because I am fairly new to running a discord, the link is only going to let the first few of people join so the server doesn't get overwhelmed.
Link: https://discord.gg/VZbSBZ4U
2023.05.28 14:08 No_Eight Lifestyle of the Zonowōdjon
 | She held her breath as the clinker nosed onto the island. It was barely more than the size of two houses, covered in tall grass and reeds, but she hadn’t set sights on it for its size. It was hard to tell, so far from the coast, but it did not appear to have the sloping beach of a sandbar island, and even seemed to drift gently with the wind, as would their ship if the oars were docked. If she was right, this was one of the wandering islands. submitted by No_Eight to DawnPowers [link] [comments] Her grandmother had told stories to all the children of the village, of her own time on fishing voyages aboard the longboats, and of finding a wandering island herself. Assembled through the will of a powerful spirit, wandering islands were as much life as land, imparting some of the lost vigor of the first generation unto the soil and allowing it to again wander the lakes. To weather the night here may not seem practical, small as the wandering islands typically are. But the spirits of these islands are kindly if offered due respect, and always protect those who sleep on their backs. And to return to the village with such a story… when she too became an elder, she could regale the next generation with her own story, not just the one she carried from her grandmother. She teased the land with one foot, and finding it solid hauled herself over the strake and onto the land. It bobbed slightly as it took her weight, and she felt her heart soar as the remaining crew disembarked behind her. As some of their number began fetching the poles and reed mats that would make their lean-tos for the coming night, she watched one of the oarsmen reverently offer a prayer to the ship-shrine, before taking a pinch of sacred ash from the urn within. He took slow, measured steps to the center of the island, before beginning his observances to the spirit who would watch over them that night. She almost wished she could help, but this was his role, and a spirit prefers to commune with only one regardless. He scattered the ash into the grass of the island as he shook a small chime, two strings of small shells tied on both ends to a T-shaped stick, and filled the quiet air with a gentle percussion. She could not hear his prayers; they were silent after all. But she could witness his devotion in his bearing, and imagine the honor he felt at getting this chance. It felt strange to see the wild shrine rituals without a shrine, or even an urn, but in truth it would be impossible to erect a shrine here. The proper observances could not be carried out should the island drift and never again be found. To build a shrine, a promise to a spirit that could not be kept, would be a cruelty that the village would not be forgiven for. Perhaps they would instead leave some of the reeds they carried, shredding their mats the same way old thatch is returned to rot in the marshes, for even a spirit powerful enough to set an island adrift must respect the cycle of death and rebirth, and could make use of their gift. But for this night, they and the spirit would share a kinship, and they would depart on the morrow with a story and a blessing. The ZonowōdjonClaim MapThe Zonowōdjon (families of the lake, originally from family.lake-ɢᴇɴ), also known to call themselves simply the Wōdjon, live in the coastal forests and shallow hills along the shores of the southern Titonean lakes. They comprise a collection of small villages, most constructed within reach of waterways with access to the lakes, if not on their very shore. More than anything, the Zonowōdjon are united by their animistic practices and sense of shared identity through language, as well as their predisposition to fishing and wetlands forage over the paddy agriculture predominant elsewhere in Tritonea. Subsistence, Industry, and LifestyleAgriculture practiced by Zonowōdjon is more akin to horticulture. Long domesticated crops of the region such as zizania have made their way into Zonowōdjon hands, but large dedicated irrigation systems are largely not in use. Opportunistic replanting of common forage goods is frequent, typically in gardens just outside the circle of houses. While a fair amount of village labor is tied up in the planting and tending of these gardens, they do not provide a majority of Zonowōdjon caloric intake. Rather, the quantities of vegetable matter their relatively small population sizes demand are served well by a mixture of forage and horticulture, the former seeing many villages built within reach of the freshwater marshes where their most harvested good, cattail, is found.Cattail is employed for a variety of purposes, both culinary and industrial. Young shoots and narrow leaves are consumed as vegetables, while the root is harvested seasonally, dried, and processed into flour. Tubers found in the root system are also consumed as a vegetable, as are the immature flower spikes. The bast fiber of the stem is processed for use in textiles, as are the leaf fibers, though the former are more productive and make up a greater share of Zonowōdjon textile goods. Lastly, the stems are harvested whole for the production of wicker, thatch roofing, and reed boats. Beyond cattail, Lotus is commonly foraged for use as a vegetable, particularly its root. Nuts, fruits, and herbs also comprise a major element of Zonowōdjon food culture, though many are sourced exclusively from forage. Wild alliums are the most prevalent aromatic the Zonowōdjon harvest, while cranberries are one or the more prevalent fruits, used both fresh and dried in cooking. Hemp, both foraged and gardened, serves as a secondary source of textile fiber, and its seeds are heavily employed in cooking. Oil is pressed from seeds and nuts, with pecan being the most common source, but is not produced in great quantities by the Zonowōdjon themselves, and some oil comes by trade with their more agriculturally developed neighbors. Lastly, mushrooming is a major tradition among Zonowōdjon, comprising a significant portion of their diet during seasons when mushroom forage is plentiful. FishingThe true backbone of Zonowōdjon subsistence is fishing. Fish, shellfish, and crustaceans are caught through a mixture of open-water net fishing, sunken basket traps, river and stream weirs, and manual forage for shellfish in shallower waters. Crayfish are one of the most common catches in the basket traps and are prized more as a delicacy than a staple food, while larger fish from open-water fishing comprise the bulk of seafood by weight, and enable villages closer to the lake shore to grow larger, and their descendants to found new villages more frequently. Both canoes and wading fishers deploy seine nets and cast nets.The development of more sophisticated nets, the need for more hands to operate them, and the weight of increased hauls have all driven the development of Zonowōdjon shipbuilding significantly. While traditional reed boats and birchbark canoes are still frequently employed, particularly in rivers and streams and for more coastal operations, open water fishing trips make use of larger and far more sophisticated sewn-plank longboats with proper oar locks. Even large villages may only have one or several such boats, and their construction and maintenance is a significant expenditure of labor and point of clan pride. Crews on these boats often leave their village for days at a time, camping on small islands or distant shores. The reed-mats used to construct their temporary lean-tos are carried on the ship itself, chosen for their low weight. These larger longboats typically manage drop nets, though they may also be used to deploy seine nets with the aid of smaller outriding canoes, as the longboats are better able to transport a large catch. CuisineZonowōdjon cuisine centers zizania, cattail flour, and fish as staples. A common preparation of fish involves slicing the fish crosswise and stewing in an aromatic and seasoned stock. Both the flavorful broth and the flesh of the fish are fully consumed, with the aid of a lumpy flatbread produced from cattail flour. A flat stone atop a stone tripod, constructed above a fire, is the main method for production of flatbreads. Fish may also be dry roasted whole or sliced, with seeds and herbs pressed into the flesh if it has been sliced first. When catches are in excess of what can be consumed, which is common for coastal villages with longboats, fish will be smoke-cured for preservation and hung in a store hut. Smoke cured fish may still be cooked in a broth as above, or eaten as is. Regardless, at family meals it is common for older family members to pick the flesh of the fish from the bone after cooking is done, and distribute it to those younger than them. Another common dish is zizania pilaf, cooked in a thinner stock than fish. This dish often includes dried fruits, nuts, root and vegetables, and sometimes smaller seafood like shellfish and crayfish, with what is included owing more to seasonality and availability of forage than strict recipe. One more dish of note is a vegetable fritter, formed with shredded leaf and vegetable matter, mixed thoroughly with cattail flour, water, and seasonings before being fried. As oil production is marginal in many Zonowōdjon villages, this forms a less frequent component of the diet, but as a result holds a certain prestige. Ceremonies such as weddings, feasts when hosting representatives of other villages, and spiritual observances and festivals are more likely to see production of fritters. Notably, a vegetable fritter is a common burnt offering at shrines due to its status as a festival food.ArchitectureVillages are typically constructed of permanent dwellings. All buildings are single-storey, and roofed with cattail thatch. Most buildings are single room, and constructed of wattle-and-daub between upright wooden posts, though additional standing posts may support the roof in a longhouse. The clan patriarch lives in a longhouse, which may also be used as a storehouse and hold clan shrines. Cookstoves and fires are typically built outside during fair seasons, shielded by low reed mat walls and thatch lean-tos, though they are often moved to interior firepits during cold weather. Flooring is predominantly woven reed mats, which are easily pulled back to expose bare soil should a fire be constructed inside. Some homes feature bunk beds constructed flush with the wall.A village never contains more than three clans, and most frequently consist of only one. Houses are generally communal sleeping spaces, so many villages contain few buildings, and some may be devoted entirely to stores. Houses are generally arrayed so that all doors face the center, which is a beaten earth area free of plants and used for celebrations and ceremonies, as well as being used daily for the practice of industry such as processing cattail and weaving. Doing daily labor indoors is frowned upon during fair weather. ToolsThe Zonowōdjon make use of knapped stone and jade tools, reed wicker baskets, hemp or cattail-fiber sacks and ropes, and primarily burn wood for fire. Western obsidian infrequently permeates Tritonia through trade, so many villages are able to make use of obsidian knives, and some use obsidian in jewelry as well. Shells and bone feature prominently in jewelry and ornamentation, and shells are also the primary material used for shrine chimes. Wood carvings are frequently used for ornamentation, particularly on shrines, and those chimes which are not shell are often carved wood. Wooden chimes that can create clear ringing tones are particularly prized, and make auspicious gifts to other villages. Stone-tipped spears are the most common weapons wielded by Zonowōdjon villagers, though clubs with a flat wooden handle and a setting of a fist-sized smooth stone are also common. Obsidian is rarely used in weaponry.Spirituality and MythologyThe Father Moon is seen as the shepherd of souls and the patron of reincarnation. He is also the father of men and fish, and fish scales are said to shimmer like moonlight on the surface of water because of his blessing within them. Moonbeams contain souls of the deceased returning to the world both as spirits and to enter new flesh, and the Father Moon travels to the edge of the world every night to collect those souls that have traveled the dark rivers beneath the earth to reach him.The Mother Sun is seen as the patron of flowers and plants, particularly the cattail. Filled with both warmth and rage, she begat the first life in the world, but cares little for the cycle of souls overseen by the Father Moon after the two generations she directly birthed died or otherwise left the lakes. T’sawayda is a psychopomp and the mythological ancestor of the Zonowōdjon. They are depicted both as a giant man and an enormous fish, or with elements of both such as the head of a pike on the torso of a man. They are a member of the Zonowōdjon third gender, leaning to masculine expression, and are a member of the second generation of life. They are seen as the first of the second generation to climb from land to shore, and thus their descendents are all the Zonowōdjon. T’sawayda urged all their descendents to reap the Mother Sun’s bounty on land, but stay close to the shore to partake of the Father Moon’s bounty. T’sawayda is said to now make their home in the depths of the lake, with one door of their longhouse opening to the waters of the lake, and another to the bank of the dark rivers beneath the world. They find and guide lost souls, such as Zonowōdjon who die on the water and risk becoming demons, freeing them from their flesh and offering them hospitality before sending them on their voyage to reunite with the Father Moon. Zonowōdjon believe the world is full of spirits, souls without constraining flesh who embody much of the natural world or protect those within it. There are believed to be local spirits both of locations, such as hills, marshes, and groves, as well as spirits to things within, such as the spirit of fish in a given marsh, or the spirit of a particularly ancient tree. Further, all villages and even most permanent buildings have venerated tutelary spirits. ShrinesThe core of Zonowōdjon spiritual practice is composed of maintaining shrines and holding public festivals. Shrines are dedicated to a local or tutelary spirit, with the latter also often seen as an ancestral spirit from a member of the clan in that village. For those spirits within buildings, a shrine is a simple as a clay urn which bears a pictorial representation of the spirit, into which offerings are placed. For spirits of larger areas, a shrine is constructed, usually from wood, either sewn or assembled through joinery. These shrines contain the urn which venerates the spirit proper. Most shrine urns feature a lid, often a wicker lid which is replaced annually during the vernal festival observances. Shell chimes are often hung from the roof of freestanding shrines, should there be enough clearance, or from poles erected around the shrine or the boughs of nearby trees. Similar chimes are held and shaken by shrine tenders during their observances, whether or not a shrine itself bears standing chimes.Spirit urns often contain permanent offerings, with obsidian, bone, shell, and jade beads being common. Beads may initially be on a string, but the burning of offerings often leaves the beads free within the ash. During festivals and days of spiritual observance, offerings of food are placed within the urn. Offerings in distant shrines may be permitted to rot, but typically the offering is burned before being placed within the urn. Should an urn break, the shrine tender is expected to go into a period of grief and observance, and produce a replacement urn before interring the shards at the base of the shrine. Beads and other permanent offerings are transferred. With the small population of most villages, a single man may be expected to tend multiple shrines, but the most important shrines may have a single tender. The clan patriarch is seen as symbolically responsible for the shrine to their clan’s guardian spirit, and the patriarch leading an entire village for the village spirit’s shrine as well. Clinkers, the prized sewn-plank boats used for open-water fishing trips, hold a similar importance to homes, and thus contain a shrine. Typically the shrine is a small cavity constructed in the prow of the ship, containing a spirit urn. It is commonly believed that new ships are guarded by the returning spirit of an ancestor, so placing family ash or even bone shards within the shrine urn is often part of dedicating a new clinker. Souls are believed to descend to the world starting on the full moon, so dedications of new homes and boats are usually practiced on the night of the full moon, that the soul of an ancestor might find the shrine and become a guardian for the new structure. CreationAll the world was one lake, stretching to the ends of the world, and no souls lived within it. Thus, the Mother Sun and the Father Moon came together to cast the first life to the earth. The first life was enormous, and as it died, the massive corpses divided the world into smaller lakes. The Mother Sun was grieved, but tried again. The next generation was composed of smaller beings, but the world was still unable to bear their weight. Most voluntarily climbed to the sky, becoming stars, though some today choose to return to a world that is too small for them, creating disasters that terrorize the third generation. The third generation was the last attempt, and still lives upon the world, birthed by the giants of the second generation before their exodus, but blessed with life by the sky. After so many generations, the seed of the Father Moon was spent, and he went dark for the first time. It is only when many of the third generation died their first death and returned to the edge of the world that the Father Moon gathered them back to himself, and once again began to shine. Thus, the Father Moon became a shepherd of souls, gaining and losing his light as the cycles of death and rebirth flow.The Afterlife & Funerary PracticeThe Zonowōdjon do not believe in an afterlife as such, but rather in the eventual return of souls, though some may claim the dark rivers of the underworld amount to some form of hell or purgatory. The Zonowōdjon believe that the soul resides in the bones, and is constrained by the flesh. The soul must sink into the Earth to travel the great rivers under the Earth to its edge, where it will be gently collected by the Moon after a long, dark voyage. Souls embraced by the moon are returned to the lakes in the form of gentle moonbeams, souls ready to find new life. Souls of animals likewise find themselves returned to the lakes by the Moon. A soul may become the new guardian spirit of a home or village, or find itself embodied in a new human life. Those souls who return as tutelary spirits are particularly venerated, and it is believed that important ancestors return to protect the homes, boats, and villages of their descendants. Conversely, a soul lost in the dark rivers who never returns to the moon may find itself twisted by the dark, and eventually claw its way up through the lakebeds as a demon. Demons may also spawn from a soul trapped in the darkness of its own dead flesh, a fate seen as especially common for those lost to the waters of the lake. Thus, prayers for the deliverance of the missing to the Father Moon are common.By far the most common funeral practice is cremation, as it is believed the soul cannot be liberated while flesh still encases bone. After a cremation, bones often remain. Many villages maintain ossuaries composed of shallow earthen mounds beyond the circle of homes in which bones are interred, sometimes alongside carvings, clothing, or even jewelry. Smaller villages without ossuary mounds have simpler burial grounds further outside of the village, with skulls alone being instead interred at the foundation of family dwellings. In both cases, carvings may be made on the forehead of an intact skull before burial, and a shrine urn decorated to match, in hopes that the soul of the deceased will return to grace the village as a tutelary spirit. Some ash from every burial is placed in the spirit urn of a family home, some in the village longhouse, and often distributed to important shrines of the region surrounding the village, with the latter being obligatory for those who served a particular spirit. Remaining ash is stored in a communal family urn, and on the construction of new homes, some ash from this urn is ritually placed in a small pot or basket which is buried at the foundation to consecrate the ground, and allow the descending spirits of ancestors to find and protect the site. Culture and GenderZonowōdjon clan names are matrilineal, but the ruling structure of clans and villages is more patriarchal, with each clan having a patriarch who serves as both the face of the clan, and the arbiter of important decisions. However, there is a strong cultural importance put on the opinions of elderly women, who hold a similar social importance to clan patriarchs as the retainers of oral history. They wield de facto authority in villages, especially those containing multiple clans. Most villages contain 1-3 clans, with one clan’s patriarch holding primary authority, extending from their role as the face of the village when meeting with outsiders or people from other villages.Gender roles are not particularly strict among younger individuals, especially the unmarried, with only clan patriarchs and village elders taking on especially gendered roles. Both men and women participate in fishing and forage, as well as cooking and food processing and preservation. Older women tend to perform most weaving, as it is a position of some prestige that does not require them to leave the village. A major exception is during mushrooming seasons, when elderly women are trusted to identify safe forage, and often leave the village alongside the typical younger foragers. The main gender differences observed are that it is seen as a more womanly role to plant and tend a garden, while it is seen as a more manly role to perform observances and burn offerings at a shrine (though at major ceremonies, it is still elderly woman who recount myths and tales for those in attendance, while a man performs the actual shrine observances). Zonowōdjon culture also observes a third gender, though it is mutable and can express as leaning to either male or female gendered expression based on the individual. The Zonowōdjon believe the third gender to be an expression of the returned soul of another life in a differently sexed body. Visibly intersex children are always identified as belonging to this gender, but individuals who are not visibly intersex may also find themselves identified through other means. Commonly, showing early aptitude with reading the stars is seen as a sign that a child is of the third gender, as is a child showing both interest and aptitude in the weaving usually practiced by elderly woman. Regardless of birth sex, members of the third gender identified in this way tend to lean to some feminine aspects and gain some of the prestige granted elderly women, while those identified by their intersex characteristics tend to lean masculine. Members of this third gender are respected, but not particularly venerated. A member of the third gender can be a shrine tender, just as a man might, and participate in any labor, but are usually seen as beyond the institution of marriage and thus live their lives unmarried. FestivalsThere are several seasonal festivals observed by the Zonowōdjon, though precise timing varies heavily from village to village, with each usually choosing a phase of the moon, timed from the start of a season, to begin and end observances. Most festivals are multi-day affairs, With each day being dedicated to the observance of one particular god or heroic ancestor. Typically only one day features a full feast, and while spiritual observance happen on every day, the last day of a festival week usually sees a large communal observance. For multiple festivals, the decoration of the village is an important observance. Slender cloth drapes hung from the roofs of buildings and the boughs of trees mark the largest vernal festival, while wreaths of zizania stalks and cattail reeds hung on walls and poles mark the autumnal zizania festival. Some festivals call for decorations to be placed on poles erected in the common areas. While for some villages these poles are a temporary fixture, in other towns they remain year-round, but only feature their festival decorations during the week of observance and otherwise remain bare.A major feature of several festivals, including the zizania festival in autumn, is circumambulation around a temporary shrine or ritual fetish constructed in a village center. Though circumambulation is practiced elsewhere in Zonowōdjon spirituality, here it persists for as long as two hours, described as beginning as the sun sets and ending when the moon is fully ascended to the sky.In addition to festivals, many clans have other non-festival observances. It is a common practice for most families to forgo the eating of fish on the new moon, and to fast during the daylight hours of both half-moons. TechsKey:
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2023.05.28 13:25 Super-Branch-1642 The OG champion of democracy
 | submitted by Super-Branch-1642 to chutyapa [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 07:34 Oggy20 Military Ball, 9th of September, 1944
Just like every year on 9th of September, 1944 was no different. Military was, again, organizing a ball to celebrate the foundation of the Republic.
Mark always found this event exciting. He was a staunch republican but that was not the only reason. Ball has always been one of the only activities where high ranking officers sat together and talked to each other in a lightened mood.
He went into the ball room and immediately after, one of the other officers called to him. He was the commander of the 2nd Army, Eric Hill. “Come, Mark. Sit with us.”
Mark saluted and sat down on a chair. The table was crowded with generals, almost everyone here was also a member of the General Staff. A server rushed towards him in order to get his order.
Mark turned towards the waiter and said, “Just water.”
Server nodded and rushed. Eric spoke out;
“You are not staying I assume?”
Mark replied, “No, General. I’m not. We’ve spotted movements on the other side of the Rummish border. My division is currently investigating the issue. I’ll depart for Narbel in a few hours.”
Eric nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. "I see. Duty calls, as always. It's a shame you won't be able to stay and enjoy the festivities, Mark. But I trust your judgment when it comes to matters of national security."
Mark nodded solemnly. "Thank you, General. It's unfortunate timing, but our duty to protect the Republic must always come first. I'll do everything in my power to ensure the safety of our borders."
As the server returned with Mark's glass of water, he took a sip and continued, "We've been monitoring the Rummish border closely for any signs of aggression. It seems tensions have been escalating recently. Have you received any specific intelligence regarding the movements?"
Eric leaned in, his expression serious. "Indeed, Mark. Our intelligence reports indicate that the Rummish forces have been conducting military exercises near the border. It's difficult to determine their exact intentions, but it's clear they're flexing their military might. We cannot afford to underestimate them."
Mark nodded again, his mind already focused on the impending mission. "I understand, General. I'll make sure my unit is prepared for any possible scenarios. We cannot afford to let our guard down."
Another officer, General Roberts, interjected, "Mark, I've heard rumors of a potential diplomatic solution to ease the tensions. Do you think there's any truth to that?"
Mark glanced at General Roberts, contemplating the question. "It's hard to say, General. Diplomatic solutions are always preferable, but we must be cautious. The Rummish have been known to use diplomacy as a tactic to buy time or gather intelligence. Remember Dome? Everyone thought it was safe and sound until the Rummish took the city overnight. We must remain vigilant and prepared for any outcome."
Eric added, "Indeed, Mark. Diplomacy may be an option, but we cannot rely solely on it. Our military strength and readiness are crucial in maintaining our security and protecting our interests."
Mark nodded in agreement with General Eric's statement. "You're absolutely right, General. Diplomacy can only go so far, and in times of uncertainty, it's our military strength and readiness that ensure the safety and stability of our Republic."
General Roberts, a seasoned veteran, chimed in. "I remember a time during the Battle of Zeharen when we were outnumbered and outgunned. It was a grueling fight, but our determination and the valor of our soldiers turned the tide. We held our ground, pushing back the rebel forces and securing a crucial victory. You were also protecting our northern flank in that battle, Mark. If we fight our battles like we fought in Zeharen, no one will even dare to attack Sordland."
Mark listened intently, his eyes reflecting a mixture of respect and questioning. He surely admired Roberts's patriotism and heroism but have always criticized his 'unrealistic approaches to modern problems'. Mark replied, "It's stories like these, General Roberts, that remind us of the sacrifices and courage displayed by our men and women on the front lines. Their unwavering dedication and bravery make us proud to serve alongside them. But we must also remember that not only bravery can win a fight. Having a more maneuverable unit with better weaponry has enabled us to shed less Sordish blood while crushing the rebels."
General Hill, known for his experience, shared a more somber tale. "During the Siege of Holsord in the Civil War, I commanded a battalion that was tasked with holding a critical position. We fought tooth and nail, enduring heavy bombardment and relentless assaults. Many lives were lost, and the toll it took on our soldiers was immense. But we held that position, not just for the sake of victory, but for the comradeship and unwavering bond that develops in the face of adversity."
Mark's gaze turned introspective, his mind filled with memories of fallen comrades. "War is a harsh and unforgiving reality, General. It tests the limits of our humanity and challenges our notions of what is right and just. It's our duty as leaders to honor the sacrifices made by those who came before us and strive for a world where peace prevails."
“Do you have any memories to share with us, Mark? You fought in the civil war, were with us in Zeharen and also fought against BFF. I’m sure you have dozens of memories right now.” said General Roberts. Mark Replied;
“Yes, General. But one of them still scratches my mind.” Mark replied and continued, “In Bergia, especially in winter time, BFF return to the mountains like bears going into hibernation. Because as terrorists with no clear pathway between mountains and with very light clothing, it becomes very hard for them to move from hill to hill, mountain to mountain. And in the first days of the spring, they come out from their caves, like bears themselves.”
General Hill laughed and said, “Come on, Mark. We already know how BFF operates.”
Mark smiled and continued, “In that time, while guarding his post in the outskirts of Deyr, one Sergeant Major spotted something with his binoculars, approximately 500 meters away. He noticed that someone was running away from the forest towards an open area with practically no cover. Sergeant noticed that the person he was watching seemed to be short and slender for an adult. Sergeant thinks to himself that it might be a child running, but the way the person is running doesn't seem playful; they are running while looking behind as if they're escaping from something. Then, a larger figure resembling a horse enters the frame from the same forest and starts chasing after the kid. After analyzing the figure for three seconds, the sergeant shouts, "Damn, it's a bear!" and leaves the binoculars, grabs his weapon, and sounds the alarm at his post. Taking three out of the five soldiers from his post and starts to rush towards the location where the child is, firing a shot into the air every hundred meters, alternating between sprints and fast running.”
“At the halfway point, the sergeant sees that the bear catches up to the little girl and claws at her from behind. Then, a horrifying scream pierces through the air.”
“When the gendermaries arrive, the girl lies face down, covered in blood in the snowy mud. She appears to be weakened from the injury and the running while a very aggressive brown bear has bitten her ankle and is shaking its head like a crocodile, trying to tear it off. The girl is also being thrown around in the mud with the force of the bear's shaking. The sergeant quickly realizes the life-threatening danger, shoots the bear with great marksmanship and immediately calls for help on his radio. Fortunately, the gendarmerie vehicle is on patrol nearby and quickly arrives at the scene with its sirens. The sergeant slings his rifle across his back and lifts the girl onto his right shoulder, then starts running towards the main road. Displaying the true valor of a Sordish soldier with a blue beret, he manages to run at a steady pace with the heavily wounded girl on his shoulder for eight minutes uphill, finally reaching the gendarmerie patrol vehicle. He places the girl on the vehicle's floor and jumps inside himself and without even turning off the sirens, they rush towards the state hospital. It should be noted that despite losing a significant amount of blood, the young girl remains conscious. Along the way, the gendarmes try to talk to her, keeping her awake. She says her name is Cassie.”
“Why was the girl there at that time? She thought she could take a shortcut through the forest to the village road and sing a couple more Bludish folk songs before it gets dark. Little did she realize that she would encounter a bear on her way.”
“Upon reaching the emergency room, while the first aid is being administered, Cassie asks for her "big soldier brother" since she is scared of the nurses and doctors. The sergeant, covered in blood and dirt, holding his rifle, takes a seat next to her and tries to comfort her. Meanwhile, the doctors intervene in the open wound. It should be noted again that Cassie has a broken left fibula, multiple abrasions and contusions, her clothes are torn to shreds, and her back is completely exposed. Deep scars, around 45-50 centimeters long can be seen extending from her right scapula to her left kidney. Additionally, there is a severe injury on her ankle. Even though a bear's strike to the back often results in a fatal outcome, she somehow hangs on to life.
“Later, we heard that the girl received a total of 121 stitches. She's doing well and recovering. The entire district gendarmerie is laughing all day because a girl's life was saved. The local Bludish population started calling the sergeant as ‘Ayıboğan’, which refers to the strength of a bear in the local dialect.”
“Every time when I read propaganda posters distributed by BFF that the Gendarmerie and Sordish Armed Forces is a tool fed by the fascist Sollists to silence and enslave the Bludish people, I always think of the sergeant major who left his position and equipment behind and ran an absolute marathon to save the girl's life. Then a question keeps revolving in my mind. What is Sordish Armed Forces and the Gendarmerie truly protects? Just a post, a position with sandbags and heavy weaponry or children like Cassie?”
General Roberts replied, “Children, of course.” all of the table seemed to be agreeing with him, maybe except a few officers. He continued, “What happened to the Sergeant Major?”
Mark replied, “I've given Sergeant Major a commendation for leaving his post in line of duty, a post which he must protect with his life. Because he left his post in order to protect a child, even Bludish, a citizen of this Republic.”
The atmosphere around the table grew more solemn as each general shared their own stories, some glorious, some heart wrenching and some with dilemmas. The clinking of glasses and the distant melodies from the ballroom provided a stark contrast to the weight of their memories.
General Roberts, attempting to lighten the mood, raised his glass and said, "To our fallen comrades and to the unwavering spirit of the men and women who have fought for our Republic!"
The other generals raised their glasses in unison, echoing his sentiment. Mark's eyes met with the others, and in that moment, they understood the gravity of their roles as leaders and the importance of preserving the legacy of those who had fought and sacrificed before them.
As the night continued, the conversation shifted towards lighter topics, interspersed with moments of laughter and camaraderie. They shared stories of triumphs and defeats, of bonds forged in the crucible of combat, and the collective sense of purpose that bound them together.
In that moment, amidst the military ball and the company of fellow generals, Mark found solace and inspiration. He knew that regardless of the challenges ahead, he stood shoulder to shoulder with comrades who shared his commitment and determination to protect the Republic…
submitted by Oggy20 to SordlandRP [link] [comments]
Mark always found this event exciting. He was a staunch republican but that was not the only reason. Ball has always been one of the only activities where high ranking officers sat together and talked to each other in a lightened mood.
He went into the ball room and immediately after, one of the other officers called to him. He was the commander of the 2nd Army, Eric Hill. “Come, Mark. Sit with us.”
Mark saluted and sat down on a chair. The table was crowded with generals, almost everyone here was also a member of the General Staff. A server rushed towards him in order to get his order.
Mark turned towards the waiter and said, “Just water.”
Server nodded and rushed. Eric spoke out;
“You are not staying I assume?”
Mark replied, “No, General. I’m not. We’ve spotted movements on the other side of the Rummish border. My division is currently investigating the issue. I’ll depart for Narbel in a few hours.”
Eric nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. "I see. Duty calls, as always. It's a shame you won't be able to stay and enjoy the festivities, Mark. But I trust your judgment when it comes to matters of national security."
Mark nodded solemnly. "Thank you, General. It's unfortunate timing, but our duty to protect the Republic must always come first. I'll do everything in my power to ensure the safety of our borders."
As the server returned with Mark's glass of water, he took a sip and continued, "We've been monitoring the Rummish border closely for any signs of aggression. It seems tensions have been escalating recently. Have you received any specific intelligence regarding the movements?"
Eric leaned in, his expression serious. "Indeed, Mark. Our intelligence reports indicate that the Rummish forces have been conducting military exercises near the border. It's difficult to determine their exact intentions, but it's clear they're flexing their military might. We cannot afford to underestimate them."
Mark nodded again, his mind already focused on the impending mission. "I understand, General. I'll make sure my unit is prepared for any possible scenarios. We cannot afford to let our guard down."
Another officer, General Roberts, interjected, "Mark, I've heard rumors of a potential diplomatic solution to ease the tensions. Do you think there's any truth to that?"
Mark glanced at General Roberts, contemplating the question. "It's hard to say, General. Diplomatic solutions are always preferable, but we must be cautious. The Rummish have been known to use diplomacy as a tactic to buy time or gather intelligence. Remember Dome? Everyone thought it was safe and sound until the Rummish took the city overnight. We must remain vigilant and prepared for any outcome."
Eric added, "Indeed, Mark. Diplomacy may be an option, but we cannot rely solely on it. Our military strength and readiness are crucial in maintaining our security and protecting our interests."
Mark nodded in agreement with General Eric's statement. "You're absolutely right, General. Diplomacy can only go so far, and in times of uncertainty, it's our military strength and readiness that ensure the safety and stability of our Republic."
General Roberts, a seasoned veteran, chimed in. "I remember a time during the Battle of Zeharen when we were outnumbered and outgunned. It was a grueling fight, but our determination and the valor of our soldiers turned the tide. We held our ground, pushing back the rebel forces and securing a crucial victory. You were also protecting our northern flank in that battle, Mark. If we fight our battles like we fought in Zeharen, no one will even dare to attack Sordland."
Mark listened intently, his eyes reflecting a mixture of respect and questioning. He surely admired Roberts's patriotism and heroism but have always criticized his 'unrealistic approaches to modern problems'. Mark replied, "It's stories like these, General Roberts, that remind us of the sacrifices and courage displayed by our men and women on the front lines. Their unwavering dedication and bravery make us proud to serve alongside them. But we must also remember that not only bravery can win a fight. Having a more maneuverable unit with better weaponry has enabled us to shed less Sordish blood while crushing the rebels."
General Hill, known for his experience, shared a more somber tale. "During the Siege of Holsord in the Civil War, I commanded a battalion that was tasked with holding a critical position. We fought tooth and nail, enduring heavy bombardment and relentless assaults. Many lives were lost, and the toll it took on our soldiers was immense. But we held that position, not just for the sake of victory, but for the comradeship and unwavering bond that develops in the face of adversity."
Mark's gaze turned introspective, his mind filled with memories of fallen comrades. "War is a harsh and unforgiving reality, General. It tests the limits of our humanity and challenges our notions of what is right and just. It's our duty as leaders to honor the sacrifices made by those who came before us and strive for a world where peace prevails."
“Do you have any memories to share with us, Mark? You fought in the civil war, were with us in Zeharen and also fought against BFF. I’m sure you have dozens of memories right now.” said General Roberts. Mark Replied;
“Yes, General. But one of them still scratches my mind.” Mark replied and continued, “In Bergia, especially in winter time, BFF return to the mountains like bears going into hibernation. Because as terrorists with no clear pathway between mountains and with very light clothing, it becomes very hard for them to move from hill to hill, mountain to mountain. And in the first days of the spring, they come out from their caves, like bears themselves.”
General Hill laughed and said, “Come on, Mark. We already know how BFF operates.”
Mark smiled and continued, “In that time, while guarding his post in the outskirts of Deyr, one Sergeant Major spotted something with his binoculars, approximately 500 meters away. He noticed that someone was running away from the forest towards an open area with practically no cover. Sergeant noticed that the person he was watching seemed to be short and slender for an adult. Sergeant thinks to himself that it might be a child running, but the way the person is running doesn't seem playful; they are running while looking behind as if they're escaping from something. Then, a larger figure resembling a horse enters the frame from the same forest and starts chasing after the kid. After analyzing the figure for three seconds, the sergeant shouts, "Damn, it's a bear!" and leaves the binoculars, grabs his weapon, and sounds the alarm at his post. Taking three out of the five soldiers from his post and starts to rush towards the location where the child is, firing a shot into the air every hundred meters, alternating between sprints and fast running.”
“At the halfway point, the sergeant sees that the bear catches up to the little girl and claws at her from behind. Then, a horrifying scream pierces through the air.”
“When the gendermaries arrive, the girl lies face down, covered in blood in the snowy mud. She appears to be weakened from the injury and the running while a very aggressive brown bear has bitten her ankle and is shaking its head like a crocodile, trying to tear it off. The girl is also being thrown around in the mud with the force of the bear's shaking. The sergeant quickly realizes the life-threatening danger, shoots the bear with great marksmanship and immediately calls for help on his radio. Fortunately, the gendarmerie vehicle is on patrol nearby and quickly arrives at the scene with its sirens. The sergeant slings his rifle across his back and lifts the girl onto his right shoulder, then starts running towards the main road. Displaying the true valor of a Sordish soldier with a blue beret, he manages to run at a steady pace with the heavily wounded girl on his shoulder for eight minutes uphill, finally reaching the gendarmerie patrol vehicle. He places the girl on the vehicle's floor and jumps inside himself and without even turning off the sirens, they rush towards the state hospital. It should be noted that despite losing a significant amount of blood, the young girl remains conscious. Along the way, the gendarmes try to talk to her, keeping her awake. She says her name is Cassie.”
“Why was the girl there at that time? She thought she could take a shortcut through the forest to the village road and sing a couple more Bludish folk songs before it gets dark. Little did she realize that she would encounter a bear on her way.”
“Upon reaching the emergency room, while the first aid is being administered, Cassie asks for her "big soldier brother" since she is scared of the nurses and doctors. The sergeant, covered in blood and dirt, holding his rifle, takes a seat next to her and tries to comfort her. Meanwhile, the doctors intervene in the open wound. It should be noted again that Cassie has a broken left fibula, multiple abrasions and contusions, her clothes are torn to shreds, and her back is completely exposed. Deep scars, around 45-50 centimeters long can be seen extending from her right scapula to her left kidney. Additionally, there is a severe injury on her ankle. Even though a bear's strike to the back often results in a fatal outcome, she somehow hangs on to life.
“Later, we heard that the girl received a total of 121 stitches. She's doing well and recovering. The entire district gendarmerie is laughing all day because a girl's life was saved. The local Bludish population started calling the sergeant as ‘Ayıboğan’, which refers to the strength of a bear in the local dialect.”
“Every time when I read propaganda posters distributed by BFF that the Gendarmerie and Sordish Armed Forces is a tool fed by the fascist Sollists to silence and enslave the Bludish people, I always think of the sergeant major who left his position and equipment behind and ran an absolute marathon to save the girl's life. Then a question keeps revolving in my mind. What is Sordish Armed Forces and the Gendarmerie truly protects? Just a post, a position with sandbags and heavy weaponry or children like Cassie?”
General Roberts replied, “Children, of course.” all of the table seemed to be agreeing with him, maybe except a few officers. He continued, “What happened to the Sergeant Major?”
Mark replied, “I've given Sergeant Major a commendation for leaving his post in line of duty, a post which he must protect with his life. Because he left his post in order to protect a child, even Bludish, a citizen of this Republic.”
The atmosphere around the table grew more solemn as each general shared their own stories, some glorious, some heart wrenching and some with dilemmas. The clinking of glasses and the distant melodies from the ballroom provided a stark contrast to the weight of their memories.
General Roberts, attempting to lighten the mood, raised his glass and said, "To our fallen comrades and to the unwavering spirit of the men and women who have fought for our Republic!"
The other generals raised their glasses in unison, echoing his sentiment. Mark's eyes met with the others, and in that moment, they understood the gravity of their roles as leaders and the importance of preserving the legacy of those who had fought and sacrificed before them.
As the night continued, the conversation shifted towards lighter topics, interspersed with moments of laughter and camaraderie. They shared stories of triumphs and defeats, of bonds forged in the crucible of combat, and the collective sense of purpose that bound them together.
In that moment, amidst the military ball and the company of fellow generals, Mark found solace and inspiration. He knew that regardless of the challenges ahead, he stood shoulder to shoulder with comrades who shared his commitment and determination to protect the Republic…
2023.05.28 06:34 bimbo_wannabe_ [I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 5: The Dead Are Especially Nosy Down Here
![[I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 5: The Dead Are Especially Nosy Down Here](https://preview.redd.it/zkaxtarwkj2b1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=8b33a651493fb05e79994bff658fc34e98166e4e "[I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 5: The Dead Are Especially Nosy Down Here") | Previous Part: https://www.reddit.com/redditserials/comments/13sxdo9/i_accidentally_joined_the_mafia_in_south_brooklyn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button submitted by bimbo_wannabe_ to redditserials [link] [comments] These last few parts have taken a lot longer for me to write than I thought. A lot of shit has gone down in the last two months, and a lot of it, frankly, is kind of a blur. But I figure, if you've stuck with me this long, then you deserve to know how it all ended up so I'm going to try my best to remember every detail of what happened. Me? I've spent every free hour I've had, just lying in bed. I've got a lot of healed wounds that still hurt me pretty damned badly. Blood loss from multiple gunshot wounds and then drowning in the East River, dying and then being brought back while still human, incidentally, takes a lot out of a guy. But… I'm getting way ahead of myself. Where were we, again? Oh yeah, that's right. The funeral without caskets, inside of a Ukrainian restaurant just off the boardwalk in Brighton Beach. That's where I left off at. ()()() Antoni's corpse and I had spoken together for a while longer, about Beccs and their baby, actually, sitting there in the floor in front of the three empty bathroom stalls. The next moment, as usual, he was… just gone. It took a while to slow the bleeding, and it took even longer to try and clean myself up with just hand soap and paper towels and the water from the sink. Nobody came into the bathroom again, and as I left, I saw why. There was a sign on the door that read 'Out of Order' with something printed below it in Cyrillic that I imagined probably said the same thing as the English. My new winter coat had been left on the floor in front of the door and the Emergency Exit at the end of the hall had its alarm disabled and had been left propped open with a brick. I took that as a clear message that they didn't want me rejoining the party, so I exited into the alley and sat on a milk crate chain-smoking until 2 PM when the funeral ended. The weather app on my phone said it was 10 degrees outside, but oddly enough the cold air felt soothing on my bruised face. My eyes were nearly swollen shut, and every now and again I had to pull some of the toilet paper out that I'd stuffed in my pocket to wipe another trickle of blood from my nose when I sniffed a little too hard and moved the clots loose. At 1:57, I started to hear people exiting the restaurant, so I moved onto the sidewalk to wait for Becca. The people leaving the funeral only glanced at me for a second and then looked away with a bored expression, like I wasn't even there. Finally, only Becca and Toni's immediate family were still inside. Tatiana gave Becca a hug, Igor, a gentle handshake, and Antoni Sr. bent down, cupped his hands around Becca's face and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. I could see that his right hand was bandaged and he was holding it straighter than his left. Good. I hoped the fucker had broken it when he'd punched me in the jaw. As Becca exited, I could tell she was angry even before she stomped over to me and shoved me three times in quick succession. Like Jimmy, Becca was a lot stronger than she looked, but now I knew why. I couldn't do much but ball up and take the hits. "Where the fuck did you go? You just took off and left me there by myself. 'He wouldn't have left without saying goodbye if he had a choice.' You knew, you cocksucker, you knew, you knew he was dead!" "Yeah, I knew! Antoni was in the news. But we gotta get the fuck out of here, Beccs, you're making a scene, another one, and I gotta get outta this neighborhood before something worse happens to me." The high color of anger in her cheeks dropped away immediately into a pallid white. She'd been so pissed she'd never once registered the state of my face. "Jesus Christ, Tony, what the fuck happened to you?" "Your little Polish sausage's Daddy Dearest just beat the fuck out of me in the men's bathroom, that's what the fuck happened." "Why would he do that?" Becca asked, but I didn't answer. She looked back to Skovorodka, following my gaze. Antoni Sr. was still standing there, just inside the front door, watching me with narrowed eyes, his hands folded neatly behind his back like a soldier at ease. It reminded me a lot of how Antoni used to stand while we were waiting for the train together. "Fuck," she muttered, then "Shit," and grabbed me by the arm. "Come on." "Why would he do that?" She asked me again as we climbed the stairs to the train platform. "Antoni was Mob, Becca, Bratva. His whole goddamned family is. Him and his brothers and his father and his fucking Russian uncle, and I'd say your Mama Tatiana probably isn't in the dark about what her brother and her hubby and his sons do to make a living, either. I don't know why the Zabrowskas were on the Avenue, but suffice to say it was probably for nefarious reasons, and Jimmy found out about it and took care of business. "Only I don't think he realized exactly who he was taking out at the time he did it, or else he never would have put the body in the River for somebody to find. And then the other three showed up to avenge their brother, only two of 'em never made it past Bianchi any farther than Antoni did." "The fuck are you trying to say?" Her tone says she already understands just fine and doesn't want to. "I'm saying your dear sweet Mamma killed your boyfriend, Becca. She removed all the identifying marks from his body, ate what she wanted, then pulled all his teeth out and chewed off his hands and his feet. They dumped the body in the East River and they found him about 5 days ago, floating off of Battery Park." "Oh God. That's why. I asked Tatiana where Antoni was going to be buried and she told me in the public cemetery on Hart Island. They're not claiming the body because they don't wanna go to the cops. For the last week I been cussing him for everything he was worth, and he's been laying in the fucking morgue." She pressed her hand to her mouth, and I saw her bloodshot eyes filling with tears again. "Please don't cry, Becca, cause I'm gonna start crying again and I've cried enough for today." She sniffed back her tears and swallowed hard. "But I don't understand, Tony, what the fuck does that have to do with you?" "They knew, Beccs, they knew how the Zabrowskas died, who killed them, and they knew I helped Moretti get rid of the bodies afterwards. That's why Antoni's father went after me. The uh… the fucking Pakhan thought Jimmy sent me there to rub it in their faces that they weren't going to be able to bury any of their boys." "How the fuck would they know that?" She barked at me. "Somebody's feeding them information and not some asshole on the street, somebody from inside the Camorra." "Who would do that?" I saw her eyes darting about wildly as she tried to think of the answer to her own question. "I don't know, uh, the driver that brought Moretti, he didn't look like he was too fond of Bianchi, maybe he's a fucking option." "Frankie? I mean, him and Ma have never gotten along. He's never liked her and the feeling's mutual but… that doesn't make any sense, Frankie's always been loyal to the Camorra. Rossi always said he practically muttered the Omerta in his fucking sleep, that he was a soldato down to the bones." "I have no idea, Becca, but it gets worse," I said quietly. If it didn't hurt so goddamned bad, I would've squeezed my eyes shut. "How the fuck could it possibly get worse, Tony?" "First you gotta promise you're not gonna hit me again." Her hand balled into a fist, and I couldn't help but flinch. "I'm gonna knock you the fuck out right now if you don't stop wasting my time, Cipriani." "I sold her out, Becca. Bianchi. I told them where she lives and how to find her tonight." "You what!?" "I had to! He was gonna cut my fucking fingers off, and I don't know if he was going to take all four or just three but I wasn't about to fucking find out. I kind of need those fingers seeing as I'm a fucking southpaw!" I held my left hand out to her, curled my fingers inward, but the third finger just… stayed straight. "Ah, fuck, I didn't even notice that." "Jesus Christ, the tendon's been cut," she whispered, and when she pressed her hand to her mouth again she looked less like she was swallowing back tears and more like she was trying to swallow back vomit. I couldn't really blame her. I felt pretty nauseous myself. "You know, I'm, I'm not worried about Ma," she said, finally. "It wouldn't be the first time somebody's tried to take her out. She's harder to kill than they think." "Would, uh, would cutting her head off work? Cause if so I think they're already pretty aware of how to get the job done. They… they know Bianchi's not human, Becca." Her face got paler, if that was even possible, and her eyes were the size of saucers. "This is a goddamn nuclear disaster. Jesus fuck." We stood the last few minutes waiting for the train in silence. As the doors slid shut and we sat down, Becca began laughing wildly. "So you're in hysterics for real, huh?" I asked. "You're gonna have to forgive me, I'm a little slow on the uptake today, but I just got it, Polish sausage… only, he wasn't little, you know, he was hung like a fucking horse, and it's a goddamn tragedy for women everywhere that the man isn't on this earth anymore. And he knew how to use it, too. Best sex I ever had in my life… only sex I ever had in my life, but that's not the fucking point." A short, barking sob tore out of her. I groaned. "You know, that is way, way more information than I ever wanted to know about you and Antoni's sex life. You couldn't, uh, you couldn't let that one pass by, huh?" "I never pass up the opportunity to make a good dick joke. And he had Good Dick." I laughed and regretted it as it tightened muscles in my stomach that were still a little angry about being used as Antoni Sr's personal punching bag. "Touché, Miss Rebecca, touché." "The two-faced bastard, I gotta give the motherfucker that much, you know, it's a uniquely personal way to say Fuck You to the Underboss, getting his teenaged daughter pregnant. I am so, so goddamned tired of being a pawn in other people's games. He's lucky he's already dead or I'd kill the bitch myself," she whispered. "It wasn't a game, Becca, what happened between you and Antoni," I whispered back. I knew because Antoni's corpse had told me as much. "Don't ask me how I know, cause I don't wanna talk about it, but it wasn't a game. You didn't know about him and he didn't know about you and it was a big, fucked up coincidence. You loved him, and he really, truly loved you... he worshiped the ground you walked on." Actually, he had said he worshiped the boots she walked in, but I figured it was a translation issue. "It was a regular old Romeo and Juliet: Brooklyn Edition." She squeezed her eyes shut, snorted and at the same time choked on another sob. "Yeah, but Romeo and Juliet ended in a double suicide, not a murder and a single mother." Her tiny hand went to her mouth again, and she wasn't able to hold back the tears this time. "I miss him, Tony, I miss him so fucking much." "You know, Beccs, I miss him, too." I miss him when he was alive, not looking like a walking nightmare, and talking my goddamned ear off half the time, but I wasn't about to tell her that. "He was the first friend I made down here." "It's fucking stupid. I still remember every single thing he said to me those first few times I met him." "Odd as it is, I do too, Beccs. He was that kind of guy, I guess, he didn't have to work hard to make an impression on people. It was, uh, three days after I moved in, I think. I was in the basement, getting ready to do my laundry that morning, fighting with the stuck knob on that machine down at the end? And he walks in with his clothes basket balanced on his hip and reaches past me and just… turned the fucking thing, like it wasn't even stuck to begin with. 'It has an attitude, but it likes me,' he says, and I say, 'I can see that.' "And he, he told me his name. 'Zabrowska,' he says, 'Antoni.' And I laughed and said, 'Nice to meet you, Toni, I'm Tony.' 'Really?' he says, and I say 'Yeah. Really. Antonio Alessio Gioele Cipriani, the third, if you please.'" "Goddamn, that name is painfully Italian. No wonder you tell everybody 'Just call me Tony,'" Becca snorted. "Thank you, Miss Rebecca, I can assure you I didn't pick it myself. But, 'Ah,' Toni says and kind of taps his hand in the center of his chest, 'Junior.' And I laughed again and said 'Our parents were goddamned creative when it came to the baby naming, right?' And he laughed, too, and shook my hand. "And uh, a few days after that he showed up outside of my apartment and asked me if I wanted to go watch a game with him and his brothers at the sports bar down the street. It was Poland vs Korea. I still don't know shit about soccer, I've always been more of an American football kind of guy, but I did learn quite a few Polish swear words that day. Apparently they'd all bet money on the home team winning that game." "I bet you did. Poland kept catching red cards that whole game. I bet on Korea, of course, and altogether I won 8 grand from four extremely pissed off Polish dudes when we stomped their ass all over the pitch. I had no idea how seriously the four of them took soccer. Antoni wouldn't even talk to me for three days. Probably didn't help I made an ass of myself laughing at all of them. Course, I woulda bet more if I'd known they were good for it. Dry cleaners, my ass," Becca spat. "Well, in Antoni's defense, he probably did work at a dry cleaners like he told us, just like you work at a bodega, and Jimmy and me work at a restaurant, and Pops works at a hardware store. We all got day jobs. You know, I hate to bust your balls, Becca, but did it… never occur to you to ask Antoni if the tattoos meant something?" "No," she said weakly. "I mean, I knew they were prison tats but Jesus Christ, half the people I know have been to prison. You've been to prison, half of my cousins have been to prison, hell, Pops has been to prison. You weren't here then, but all of 2016 to 2020 I was wearing a 'Free Rossi' t-shirt everyday, a lot of people in this neighborhood did. Ma got him off on the Murder 1 charges but numbers are numbers, and she couldn't get him out of the Tax Evasion. But I figured, if Antoni didn't wanna talk about it, then it was none of my business what had happened before we met each other." She'd minded her own business a little too hard this time. "What did you and Antoni talk about, Becca?" "Everything! And anything, and nothing, all at the same time. He'd complain about living with his brothers, about Misiu always leaving hair all over the bathroom, and how Ciech always left sugar all over the kitchen counter after he made his coffee. And I'd complain about having to pick up all the empty bottles of makgeolli after my Dad in the morning. I'd help him wash all the dishes his dirty ass brothers would leave piled in the sink, and fold everybody's clothes. "We got along well, me and Antoni, we were actually very compatible, we were both neat freaks when it came to our housekeeping. We even folded our towels the same way. And he'd bitch about how Igor could never balance the register correctly at the end of the day, and I'd bitch about how my Dad never checked our invoices correctly, and I was always having to cuss out the distribution reps for shorting us on our deliveries myself. "And we'd watch TV together. He always made fun of me for the lame ass old Chuck Lorre sitcoms I loved to watch, and I'd make fun of him for all the stupid cop dramas he watched, every Law and Order known to man, and Blue Bloods and shit. We just… talked to each other, like we were two regular people, just living our lives. It was simple and it was easy, and it was enough, it was goddamned enough for me. Our relationship was the one normal thing I had going in my fucked up life." She cracked at the end, sobbing brokenly. She turned her head to the side, pressed her face into my bicep as she wrapped both arms around mine. Tears filled my eyes, as well, and now I was wiping snot out of my nose as well as blood. I felt goddamned sorry for the kid, and I felt like she had a right to cry, but I had to distract her, for my own sake. "So tell me, when was the first time you talked to Antoni? Was that the same day he asked you out?" "No, there was some time between the two. He'd been there about a week, I guess, after they moved in. They got there back in like April. I'd fucked with him the first day, you know, asked him where the hell the accent came from, and he said Poland, and I told him welcome to America cause I felt like being a dick. And he said that he'd already been in country five years and I laughed at him and told him, goddamn, I couldn't tell cause he still sounded like he was fresh off the boat. And he got this look on his face, like he was trying to decide if he needed to be offended or not, so I told him I was just fucking with him, that he was doing better than my Mom, God rest her, cause it was seven years after she got here from Seoul before she even learned a word of English and my Dad was the one that had to teach her." "Makes sense. I moved in in June, Toni mentioned he'd only been in the building about two months hisself." She nodded, I could feel the movement in the sleeve of my coat where her cheek was pressed to my arm. "Him and his brothers started coming in every day after that and you know, I kind of had my eye on him from the first time I talked to him. He was goddamn gorgeous, quite literally the walking definition of 'tall, dark, and handsome.' He had those incredibly blue eyes, and that fucking accent, man, shit put me in knots everytime he came in. I learned them all pretty quick, and Antoni was easy. He got the same thing everyday, box of Newport 100s and a pack of Russian Cream Backwoods with a large slushy. You know I gotta keep the cups behind the counter because motherfuckers'll fill it up and walk out when I get busy. I saw him when he came in, and went over to the ATM, so I had his shit sitting on the counter waiting for him." Becca had a talent for memorizing all of the regular's orders, it wasn't unusual to see a long line of cigarettes, blunts, medicine, sometimes even crack pipes and Chore Boys, and anything else she kept behind the counter, set up neatly next to the register. She also had a talent for running both registers at the same time when the line got overly long and she was there alone. Sometimes I had no idea how she kept up with it all, but that was just Becca. "And this drunk asshole came in, right after, he didn't even belong in the neighborhood, he stayed in Bed-Stuy, but he was with his cousin, and his cousin I knew and he was shooting me apologetic looks so I was already on guard. I was in a bad goddamn mood that day, anyway. And the drunk bitch, he walked over to the bathroom and tried to open it." "Key's behind the counter," I said, and she nodded. "And the key costs five dollars cause people make a fucking mess in the bathroom and I ain't cleaning that shit everyday for free. Well, drunk fuck got pissed and started talking a bunch of shit and threw his five dollars down on the counter, and you know, I can't stand that. You don't throw money at me, I ain't a goddamned stripper, you can put that shit in my hand or you can get the fuck out my store. And, I said 'Naw, son, for you it's gonna cost ten, five dollar Drunk Dick surcharge for being an asshole and cutting my line.' And the motherfucker… he called me a fucking stupid little bitch, and he told me people like me needed to be sent back to my own country." I made a sound of disapproval, already seeing where this was headed. "I hate that stupid shit. Where the fuck am I getting sent back to? The fucking hospital in Manhattan where I was born? Everybody in the store just kind of stopped and stood there, and dude's cousin? He just shook his head at me and walked right out the store and left him there." "He wasn't gonna get involved, huh?" I asked. "Fuck no. He wasn't stupid. I… uh, I was seeing red by that point so I balled up his money and I threw it across the store and told him to get the fuck out. I don't even remember half the shit I said to him, but I was yelling and he was yelling back and all of a sudden Antoni was… just there. I never even noticed him walking up. He was a big motherfucker, but goddamn he was quick and quiet when he wanted to be." Becca laced her fingers through the fingers of my right hand and I gave them a squeeze as she readjusted her head against my shoulder. I turned mine to press a kiss to her hair. She was short enough that I didn't have to worry about bumping my nose. As I turned back, I noticed that there was a puddle of water on the seat across from us, and a pit formed in my stomach immediately. My face felt cold as the blood drained from it. The puddle of water made me more than just a little nervous to see it. I had new enemies stacking up quick, and the last thing I needed was a pissed off, jealous ghost because his grieving fiancée was getting a little handsy with me. But… Antoni never showed himself, so I could only assume he approved of my offering her comfort in her time of need. Either that or he was waiting till I was alone to express his displeasure. "'Is there a problem here?' was all he asked and the drunk bitch turned around and he got even more pissed. He goes 'Man, fuck you, white boy. Mind your own goddamned business.' And Antoni kind of got in his face, and goes, 'I have made it my business. She told you to leave. Either remove yourself or I will remove you.' "And the liquor must've given him a bigger set of balls than he actually had, cause he took a swing at him. And Antoni, he just kind of… leaned back a little to avoid the swing and then leaned back in and… he knocked that bitch out cold with one punch. And then he picked him up, literally picked him up, and threw his ass out on the sidewalk, and kind of dusted his hands off afterwards." "Well, if he's anything like his father then he could throw a hell of a right cross." Becca laughed weakly. "Yeah, his Dad boxes, they all did, you know, from when they were young. Antoni told me he got in his Dad's face once when he was about 16, and Old Papa Zabrowska coldcocked him in the kitchen, and when he woke up on the couch, his Dad dragged him out back in the alley and beat him bloody. Told him if his little grown ass thought he was a man, then he was grown enough to get his ass stomped like a man." That made me feel a little better, to be honest. At least I wasn't the only one I knew who had caught an ass kicking from Antoni Sr. "I bet he didn't talk shit to his Pops again after that, huh?" "I asked him that exact question, he said 'Oh no, no, never again. I learned my lesson.' Toni and his brothers, though, were always getting in fights, even when I knew them. He told me it was hard on their Mama, back in Kraków, having four hormonal, teenaged boys with just shy of a year between each of them, you know cause… us fucking Roman Catholics ain't too fond of any method of contraception." "I didn't know you was Catholic, too, B." "Of course. Rossi is a devout Catholic, and that's how he raised me, and Nia, she's an Angel, you know, a Fallen One, that's what they call themselves, but she's even got real wings. A little more leathery and less feathery, but… same thing. She goes to Mass daily, turns out demons are actually very religious. Both of my parents were atheists, and that's how they raised me, but after some of the shit I've seen, you know, it ain't too unbelievable that there's a Big Guy upstairs." She sniffed again, wiped at her nose and I offered her a bit of toilet paper from my pocket. "That's how it all got started, the War in Heaven. God created Adam, the first living human body, and he told all the spirits in Heaven to kneel to him. And at least half of them weren't too fond of that idea, and the Morning Star stepped up as representative and said they wouldn't kneel to anyone but God. And they, uh, they lost the War, and He banished them all to Earth, to wander without bodies of their own while the other side got to come to Earth one at a time, to live their lives. "But… then there was the first murder, Abel. Cain beat him to death with a rock, and the blood on the ground, the first human blood ever shed in violence, it called to God, but He wasn't the only one it called to. The blood, it gave him a way inside of a body. Lucifer. He was the First One. He's still here, you know, I've met him. He has a particular fondness for Nia, he calls her Young One, cause according to him 1607 wasn't all that long ago." "I guess it isn't when you're that old." "But, back to what I was saying about Toni, all of them were packed into one place together like fucking sardines, the four boys sharing one bedroom in a two bedroom apartment, and all having vastly different personalities. Tatiana is little, like me, and I don't imagine she could do much to break them up when they got to fighting about everything from who ate all the leftovers to who got the top bunks on the beds." "Probably not," I answered. "I mean, I could practically smell the testosterone in their fucking apartment whenever I walked in, and it was probably even worse back then. And apparently, that had been their Dad's method of keeping them from tearing up his wife's house all the time. Whenever a problem inevitably developed, he'd just take them down to the gym and throw them in the ring without any gloves and tell them to fucking handle it, and whoever was still standing at the end was the one that won the argument. "Uh, but, uh, when Toni hit the guy, all, all I could do was stand there with my mouth hanging open like a fucking fish. I mean, I was in love, right that fucking second, standing there. The hormones were running on overdrive, my head was practically spinning with how fast all the blood rushed south, you know? Everybody was still standing there and Antoni tried to get back in line and I said, 'Uh-uh. Take your shit and go on.' And he goes," Beccs began laughing again, laughed so hard there were tears in her eyes once more. "He goes, 'Am I in trouble?''' I had to wrap my left arm tight around my stomach because I couldn't stop myself from laughing either. The makeshift bandage on my left hand that I'd wound out of paper towel had soaked through, I was going to have to change it soon. "He didn't say that, Becca." "Yes the fuck, he did. And I went, 'No, you dumbass, it's on the house, and in case I gotta translate, that means it's free. Small price to pay for a security detail.' And he just kind of blinked at me for a second, before he nodded his head and grabbed his things off the counter, went and filled his slushy up." "You probably scared the piss out of him for that second, he probably thought he'd been found out. That's what they call it, what he was, Obshchak, Security Group." "He stopped before he left, and told me thank you. And I said 'No, dziękuję', thank you. And then I winked at him and said 'Miłej nocy, piękna.'" She straightened up as the train began to slow for our stop. "And what did that mean?" "Have a good night, gorgeous." She said with a watery grin. "Smooth, B, real smooth. Nothing quite like hitting on a man in his native language. " "I mean, you know us, Tony, we got Southern Hospitality down here. As long as you're not an asshole, I do everything I can to make sure everyone feels welcome when they come inside. That's why there's a sign on the door that says 'DMZ.' They might have beef on the streets but don't nobody take that shit inside my store. And that means asking the Mexicans down the street if they need a bolsa, and making sure I ordered Farid's miswaks so he didn't have to walk all the way down to the Pakistani store, and sometimes it means learning a little bit of Polish so I could flirt with the new guy downstairs the next time he came in." We exited the train, made the switch, and stood on the platform waiting for the next to take us back to Avenue U. As I glanced to the side, I could see a puddle forming on the platform next to me, drip by drip. It was already freezing around the edges. As it turned out, I wasn't the only nosy fuck around here. "And apparently the flirting was well received by our dearly departed half-Russian friend." "Apparently, cause about a week later I was having a busy fucking Friday night and my Dad had already gone home, and I was trying to shut her down but motherfuckers kept coming inside right up until 11. I made DeAndre from downstairs stand at the door and tell people we were closed and that he was the last customer for the night and after I rung him up I told him to flip the sign on the door and I'd lock it when I finished my cigarette count… only, I forgot to ever lock it, and DeDe's traitorous ass, he fucking set me up. He knew I had a thing for Antoni, and when he saw him coming down off the platform and rushing down the sidewalk, he let him in and told him he was the last customer for the night and to flip the sign on the door." She closed her eyes for a moment. "It took me… exactly 16 minutes to notice he was there. I know, cause after I was done pissing myself when I figured out I wasn't alone, the Polish smart-ass showed me his watch. He'd set a timer when he realized I wasn't paying any attention to him, and then just stood there, waiting to see how long it would take. I had my earphones in, and it took four songs," she held up her hand and ticked them off with her fingers. "'Savage Like', 'Money, Sex, Drugs', 'Proud' and 'Only.' "I turned around and screamed like a little bitch when I saw him. And then I got pissed, cause I was embarrassed, I'd been singing along to all the songs cause I thought I was alone in the store. I started screaming at him. 'What the fuck, you can't read? The sign says Closed.' And he goes 'No, it didn't. It still said Open. I turned it myself.' I hadn't counted down my register yet, so I just went ahead and grabbed his shit and rung him up, cussing DeDe the whole time and I asked him how long he'd been standing there, and he showed me his watch. And he says, 'You shouldn't wear those, it's dangerous,' talking about my headphones, and I said, 'What are you, my fucking father?' And he got kind of a funny look on his face." I released a weak snicker, holding my stomach tight again. I couldn't resist fucking with them both a little bit. "He kinda had a point, Becca. Although, I can tell you he was probably less concerned about being your father and more concerned about becoming your Daddy." "Oh, so now you got the dirty jokes," Becca said flatly. "What can I say, B, you're a bad influence on me." "Eh," she said after a moment, "You wouldn't be the first. You know, months later he told me that he'd stood there that long because he didn't think he'd have the nerve to ask what he wanted to ask the next time if he left, which, you know, what the fuck? What am I, scary?" I couldn't help but laugh again. "Yes, Becca, you are, you're fucking terrifying half the time. You might be a short fuck but dynamite comes in small packages, you know? He was probably afraid you'd tell him to suck your dick and ban him from the store for a month like every other poor motherfucker I've seen ask you out, and he probably didn't want to go through your particular brand of ridicule in front of an audience, on top of that, with all the other customers laughing him out of the store." "It ain't my fault I'm this size," she said after a moment, shooting me a perturbed look. "No shit, Sherlock. It's genetics." "It ain't even that. It's the blood. I mean, my parents were both tall, you know, for Koreans, anyway, my Mom was 5'6. I probably would've been too if I'd had the chance, but, you know, the blood it… stops things. Why do you think Jimmy looks the way he does? I mean, Pops believes in 'aging gracefully,' as he says, but old Giacomino is a vain fuck, and he's got more of a taste for 'the Stuff' than Rocco ever had. He turned 65 this year, he's only two years younger than Pops, he was already 34 years old when he met Nia for the first time. He tells people he's got a good plastic surgeon, when they ask. And the same thing happened to me. My body wanted to stay 8 years old, forever. "Rossi had to get hormones, fucking estrogen and progesterone and HGH, off the black market to force my body to start puberty and to fucking grow. It's not like we could go to a doctor and explain why I needed the prescription. I mean, these tits aren't even mine. Ma bought 'em for my sixteenth birthday so I wouldn't feel so goddamned self-conscious. Nia's not exactly flat-chested, as you know, neither was my Mom, and it kind of gave me a fucking complex when I was growing up." "I mean, is she? I haven't really noticed," I replied, evasively. "Yes, you have, you lying fuck. There isn't a straight or bisexual man, or a lesbian or bisexual woman for that matter, that comes within fifty feet of Appolonia Bianchi that doesn't notice all of her unnatural charms. It made for some interesting 'family' trips during the summer when we'd leave the city, lemme tell you. I asked Pops once, you know, if he ever got jealous when she'd show up with some random dick she'd run across, cause I used to think it was pretty shitty of her. "I said she could've at least kept things on the downlow and not throw it in Rocco's face every few days. But he told me no, he loved her, he understood her nature very well and he'd accepted what she was years before I was even born, and that she loved him too, and more importantly, respected him. She always introduced the men to him because that was what he'd asked of her. That it was the one aspect of control he had in the situation, giving his 'permission' for her little liaisons. That it made him feel better to let them know they might be getting a piece, but she'd be ending every night lying in his bed, regardless of what they did." I nodded. "I guess I can kind of see his point." "But, the blood, that's how I ended up pregnant. I mean, I'm not a dumbass, I know how babies are made, but I wasn't worried about using condoms with Antoni, neither of us wanted to. I told him if he gave me anything I'd cut his dick off, and he knew I was serious, too, and he considered it a proportional response. I didn't even think I could get pregnant. "I stopped the birth control when I was 16 because it was making me gain weight and my cheer coach bitched me out in front of fucking everybody, and Rossi's guy said I needed to keep taking it to keep my hormone levels even. So I told Antoni I didnt want to get into my medical history, but suffice to say I was probably fucking sterile anyway, so he didn't have to worry about it, and he told me he wasn't worried about it at all. But apparently my fucking parts work better than I thought." "Or maybe he had some damned determined swimmers, who knows." "I don't know why I was even concerned about not using condoms anyway. Technically we were all excommunicated as of 2014. Pope said the mafiosi lifestyle isn't compatible with the Catholic one. You know, I wonder how Antoni would feel about all this, I wonder if he'd be pissed, think I lied to him about not being able to get pregnant." "You're just gonna have to take my word for it, B, but he's not angry in the least, he's pretty fucking proud of hisself." I'd say his chest was stuck out but he didn't have much of a chest left these days, so I just kept that part to myself. "Pretty sure he said he wasn't worried about it because he was hoping you were wrong about being sterile." Beccs gave me a strange look but the train arrived at just that moment. The people exiting did quite a bit of staring, unlike the people leaving the funeral, but I just tucked my arm around Becca and shouldered my way past them and found us a seat. The drops of water followed us into the train. "What's with the present tense, Tony? Is that some kind of cliche 'he's lookin' down on you' bullshit?" I snorted and wiped the bubble of blood from my nose, staring at the puddle of water that was starting to form in the seat next to us. I could feel the cold emanating from Antoni all along my left side. Oddly enough, it was easing the intense ache in my nearly severed ring finger. "He ain't looking down on us, B, I can tell you that much." "So it's a Hell joke?" "No, not really. But then again, I'm pretty sure we're all in Hell right this second, Miss Rebecca, so yes, yes it is." |
2023.05.28 05:00 Kazevenikov Cryptid Chronicle - Chapter 30
A special thanks to u/bluefishcake for the wonderful original story and sandbox to play in.
A special thanks to my editors LordHenry7898, RandomTinkerer, Swimming_Good_8507, CatsInTrenchcoats, and KLiCKonthat.
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired me to tell my own in this universe. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), CarCU131 (The Cook), and Rhion-618 (Just One Drop)
Hy’shq’e Ay Si’am (Thank you noble friends)
Chapter 30: A Promise Kept
Kalai stepped off the shuttle to the Vaida’s headquarters and into a running tackle-hug from Sitry. “Oh Kalai, I could kill you right now! You got to see the Great Barrier Reef in person, you bitch!” Sitry’s cheerful voice was muffled from where she was still buried in her chest. Kalai staggered backwards a pace or two, happy to be back from her whirlwind adventure around Earth with her father.
Naranjo and Papa Rhaxiid were there on the platform to welcome her back too, but their welcomes were more sedate.
“Not to mention you got out of work for half our damn trip. Ugh, it’s so not fair!” Naranjo huffed as Kalai gave him a sisterly hug.
Papa Rhaxiid reached up and chucked her chin before turning to lead the way back inside from the forested platform. “Welcome back, sweet-sprout, we’ve missed you. Come on, we’ll get you settled again and off to work. There’s quite a bit you need to catch up on if you want your credits.”
The chuckles from the twins behind her were full of sibling malice, but she knew how to shut the pair of them up. “Papa Rhaxiid? I’ve got the paper on Biodiversity in the Reef you asked for, along with the dissection report and stomach content analysis of the tuna we caught. I want to put the finishing touches on it and do a final proofread first before I send them to you.” The man turned and gave her a warm smile as they entered the building.
“Good, why don’t you go take your things back up and say hello to Andy? I’ll give you an hour and a half to get freshened up, then I want you to report to Aquarium 12 with Dr. Sor’ansa. You can put your snorkeling practice to work there.” Papa Rhaxiid walked the three of them to the residential elevator. “I’m heading back to my office. Andy’s been requested by Maetro Pae’ella to work the kitchens for something called ‘Bison burgers'. Apparently it’s a type of indigenous bovine that the eastern Bands raise. That and something from Europe called ‘French Fries’.”
Kalai couldn’t help but get excited as she and her siblings piled into the elevator back to their little shared apartment. Sure the food she’d had all over the place was good, but so far nothing had been able to compare to Andy and his Salishian cooking.
“Nerd, I can’t believe you cheated and did work on your vacation." Naranjo broke the silence of the elevator after a little bit and stuck his tongue out at her.
“Spit to windward, you vain little weed. Don’t hate me because I’m awesome.” Kalai’s riposte caused Naranjo to fold his arms and huff. Sitry simply ambushed her with an ear flick.
The elevator door opened to their floor before Kalai couldn’t bear the silence from Sitry any longer. “So, did you bag him yet, you lucky bitch?”
“No she hasn’t!” Naranjo’s singsong mockery of his sister interrupted Sitry’s response. “Papa hasn’t let Sitry even NEAR Andy without one of them around!”
“Rub it in, you snitch, besides, he did kiss me first,” Sitry preened happily as she playfully shoved Kalai’s shoulder.
Kalai pretended to stumble and almost caught Sitry’s foot, but she was just a hair too slow. “Yeah, and then you gave him a black eye, you clod.”
“Will you let it go? It was an accident!”
“It’s not even the only one he got either." Naranjo’s interjection stopped her right in front of their door.
“Wait, what? Who hurt him this time?” Kalai let her bag thunk to the floor as she turned to look accusingly between Sitry and Narny.
Sitry folded her arms and her ears twitched back as she shot a dark look at their door. “He ‘fell down’ yesterday while out at one of the Hatcheries we gave to the Hwatcoms. Mrs. Toloui nearly had a fit! She said she could smell another human on him and that he was covered in blood!”
Narny nodded primly as Kalai tried to process what they were telling her. “WHAT? Did she call out the militia? Track down whoever hurt him?”
“No, and he refused treatment and insisted that no one did it to him! When papa tried to talk to him, Andy said some stupid human macho shit about pain healing and birds liking scars. I don’t know, sometimes humans… they’re frickin’ insane!”
The door shot open and there stood Andy. His left eye was an angry puffy yellow and blue mess, and there were three points on his lips where a dark cinnabar line marked a crack. Kalai and her siblings stood in wide eyed shock at his sudden appearance and the only sound was the music emanating from the common room behind him.
Andy looked up and down at the three without saying a word. He cocked an eyebrow and snagged Kalai’s bag before any of them could react and cleared the doorway for them.
Kalai sputtered at the impropriety but Naranjo and Sitry just shrugged and walked in after Andy. “Femboys, am I right?” Narny whispered to Kalai as he passed. Kalai followed behind and was greeted by the white fluff-ball, Puck, who hopped up and down, whining for attention. She bent down and started scratching his ears and back. While Puck rubbed up against her hands, Andy settled back down at the table where his omnipad was hooked up to a keypad. Her heart started to sink a bit and Kalai shot Sitry a jealous look before the music came to a sudden halt and Andy interrupted the beginnings of her pity party.
“Ok, Kem’ira, I got the pics now and I’m telling you to declare yourself to the farmers first! I guarantee if you tell them you’re with the new DNR and you’re there to kill all the Scotch Broom in their pasture lands, they’ll stop trying to shoot you for trespassing!”
Kalai’s mood jumped up a bit. It’s not that he doesn’t care to see me, he’s in a meeting!
“No, no I’m not coming out to talk this over with them, I’ve got my own work to do! Either you start talking to folks like I showed you how, or ask the militia to give you one of their armored catsuits to wear under your uniform… Uh-huh, good luck." Andy hung up on the call and leaned back as Puck scampered over and hopped up in his lap.
Andy rubbed his temples before shaking his head. He seemed to relax a bit and Puck slid off to follow Sitry to the kitchen. Andy looked over and gave Kalai a happy smile that made her flush. “Welcome back! So how was the land down under? That tuna was fan-frickin’-tastic, if you aren’t sick of seafood I’ll do something fancy with it tomorrow to celebrate your coming back. Can’t tonight though, I got volun-told to be head chef tonight and I… Oh damnit! I’m late! Come to dinner, burgers and fries Indian style tonight. Gotta run!” With that, Andy went dashing out the door with Puck barking and scrambling along after him.
Kalai felt her heart sink back down again, as he left. “Andy I-” She started but he was gone.
“Yeah, it’s been like that for the whole week. The only time we get to hang out is dinner.” Sitry commiserated as she took Kalai’s bag into their room. “On the other hand, we might get to catch up during the family meal tonight.”
The dinner was delicious, though a bit weird. It tasted alright, but there was a certain aftertaste on the sandwich that just didn’t sit right with Kalai. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. The french fries more than made up for it though, and Mama Sakalbi had to hold a science trivia contest to see who got the last little handful.
Kalai and Narny were already silently plotting with each other for their revenge against their sister who had won and refused to share the last few matchsticks when Andy finally joined their table. He was sweaty and he smelled of woodsmoke and french fries. Kalai jumped up and offered him a seat next to her with a nervous smile. He took it gratefully and seemed to sag a bit as he gulped down a glass of water.
“Andy, I think you may be finding your calling as a culinary ambassador,” Mama Aftasia beamed. “A toast to the chef!”
Andy gave a shy smile and looked down as Kalai and the rest of the family gave a hearty ‘Here, here!”
“It’s a simple enough recipe; it’s just using bison instead of cow, that’s all, and I don’t know anyone who’d turn down hand cut fresh fries. It’s kind of hard to screw up.”
“Young man, you are speaking to a woman who found a way to take cold water and dried wumpa flakes and wind up with a Class-4 fire. Cooking has always seemed like ‘blight mysticism’ to me, and these foods? These flavors? Nothing short of a Greenwood miracle in my opinion." Mama Aftasia continued her praise of Andy, which only caused him to shrink even lower in his seat.
“To be honest, I like your salmon better,” Kalai said, and the whole table went silent. Kalai held her ground though, and was rewarded with a tired but genuine laugh from Andy that brought him back out of his shell.
“You know, I do too. My Clan were fisherpeople, not buffalo chasers.” Andy gave Kalai a cheeky grin, which she returned happily, her heart glowing. Mama Aftasia and Mama Sakalbi both blinked in bemusement at Andy’s statement while Sitry just giggled.
“Speaking of which, Andy, I received a call from Elder Alex Hwatcom.” Papa Rhaxiid’s change of subject instantly perked Andy up, and he stared silently, waiting. “He extended an invitation to our family to attend his family gathering this Friday-”
“Alex said that? He used those words?” Andy shook his head in shock as he interrupted Papa Rhaxiid. The table went quiet and everyone held their breath as they looked between the two men.
Papa Rhaxiid adopted as good an impression of the human Elder as he could. “I’d like to extend an invitation for you and your family to be guests at our family gathering this saturday up at the White… something… lodge-”
“The White Ram Lodge?” Andy sat forward, interjecting again as the color drained from his face.
“Yes, that’s the one! I asked if we could bring anything since the last time they hosted us they put on that wonderful spread. He said if we could bring a few salmon for the family, that would be wonderful.”
Andy leaned back and took another sip of ice water before holding the glass to his blackened eye. “Alex Hwatcom… just invited you… to a gathering… and he told you to ‘bring a few salmon’? Do you realize what a huge honor this is?”
Rhaxiid looked from his wives to his children with mild concern. “Um, I thought it was only dinner, but your reaction tells me there’s more significance to this than I originally thought. I was thinking about our stocks of adult Sockeye, but then I remembered in his story how important King Salmon are. Of course, I’d like to defer to you for the choice since you know these animals and the cultural expectations with this invitation better than we do.”
Andy was silent for a moment before he put the glass down. “I’d recommend a ‘hard no’ to all your clone stock!” Now it was the Vaidas’ turn to be shocked, as each of Kalai’s Erbian family’s jaws dropped in synch. Before anyone could say anything, Andy continued, “You need to bring wild-caught. Farm-raised salmon wouldn’t… well we can tell, and you can taste the difference between them. We need to go fishing!” Kalai leaned towards Andy slightly as he lowered his head and started mumbling to himself. She was just able to make out what he was saying to himself as Mama Sakalbi and Mama Aftasia began whispering to each other. “...need to get the Gillnetter out of storage, check what’s running and select the mesh. I’m gonna need a deckhand too.”
Kalai reached a hand out but stopped short of touching him. “Andy?”
He popped up and spoke for the whole table to hear. “I need a shuttle to the mainland and a waiver against the fishing ban. I’ve got to get my boat and the drum ready for sea ” Rhaxiid and Aftasia sputtered in confusion, but Mama Sakalbi had a shadow fall over her, and her ears pulled back.
“Do you mean to say you want to go out on the water? Risk the ecological balance for… dinner?”
Andy looked Sakalbi dead in the eye and gave her a firm nod. “Why don’t you come out and see how we did this before you got here. Think of it as a chance to see the way we’ve fished for the last hundred or so years, and then I can explain the way we used to fish before that.”
The offer snapped Rhaxiid out of his confusion and he brightened. “A learning experience? Wonderful, we’ll make a day of it!” His hands shot out to grab both his wives’ and Kalai could feel the vibrations in the floor from where he was excitedly tapping his feet.
“If you don’t mind hard, smelly work. Uncle Willy always called it ‘the worst desk in the prettiest office.' It’ll be a bit cramped, but I’ve got room on the boat for a few guests and observers; four I think would be ok. She’s a working boat, not a pleasure cruiser,” Andy explained. That sent the whole lot of them excitedly talking among themselves.
Kalai was about to lean in to talk to Mama Aftasia, but Andy caught her attention first. “I don’t suppose you’d want to go back out on the water, given you just got back from pleasure-boating-”
Kalai’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest. “I wouldn’t miss it for my own colony planet!”
--------------------
Kalai stood on the pier, bundled in her thermal sailor’s coat. It was still dark and the wind blew from the north in a cold little morning breeze. Kalai took a deep breath and reveled in the smell of the fresh sea air. The soft chattering of Mama Sakalbi’s teeth broke the silence. “It’s a bit chillier than it said it was going to be.”
“The water always does that. It’s never as warm as the lubbers say it’ll be,” Papa spoke as he handed her back her thermos of hot chocolate.
Papa stood next to Kalai and nudged her with his elbow. Even in the dark, Kalai could see him smile up at her and jerk his head at the shivering Erbian. He was also wearing a thermal sailor’s coat, and his hands were stuffed in his pockets to keep them warm, just like Kalai’s. “Landswoman,” he whispered to her and the two of them shared a knowing smile. It was strange, but welcome when she'd told Papa about her upcoming day fishing with Andy, and he’d politely requested to join them. Papa Rhaxiid had graciously given his spot up to accommodate her birth father. Narny was all for it until Andy had explained what they were going to do, but then surrendered his challenge to the fourth guest space, not wanting to go anywhere NEAR anything that could see him come face to face with a Lion’s Mane Jelly. Sitry had done a happy little dance when she found out, but only yesterday had come down with Thistle Fever, and was bundled off to bed by her parents. It left Kalai, Mama Sakalbi, and Papa to accompany Andy on his fishing trip.
The water brushed against the shore behind them quietly. In the gloom, Kalai could just barely make out the outline of the nearest island mountain, but only because the stars had disappeared behind it. It was almost four in the morning, but Kalai had managed a catnap on the shuttle to the empty little lot that had been the boat launch. Aside from the water, the world was silent. Even the breeze made almost no noise and a sense of peace surrounded them. Everything was so calm, Kalai felt like she didn’t have a care in the world.
In the distance, a low rumbling sound of a motor rose from being almost imperceptible to a rolling drum of thunder. From around the point, two green floating lights sped through the darkness, and a spotlight turned on. The beam of light moved jerkily until it came to rest on the pier where they were standing and Kalai started waving her arms. Sakalbi’s omnipad rang, and Andy’s voice shouted over the speaker and the background noise for them to shine a light on the edge of the pier to help him park the boat.
Kalai and Papa moved closer and turned their omnipad flashlights on and waved them as the boat swung gracefully around and glided in alongside them. Kalai caught the rope that flew over the railing of the boat and she heard more than saw Andy moving around on the deck as she tied off on one of the mooring cleats. Several lights clicked on and the deck was bathed in light enough for Kalai to get a clear view of the boat they’d be spending the day on.
Andy hadn’t lied. Kalai saw that this little vessel was a working boat with no frills at all. When he’d told her they’d be going fishing, she’d envisioned something like the charter boat papa had taken her on out of Nantucket. Sporty, fast with a nod to comfort and function. This was not that at all. A giant wheel as wide as Kalai’s outstretched arms that looked like a sideways spool of thread was secured to the deck amidships and dominated the deckspace. Wrapped around it was a fluorescent green tangle with a line of oblong white and yellow corks and rope. There was a covered hatchway sitting behind the drum in front of the raised step to the enclosed cabin. Two large windows let the light out to two children’s bunks, a little table with a booth seat and a raised captain’s chair in front of the helm and engine controls. Andy shut down the engine and that peaceful stillness returned.
“Oway there!” Kalai called, “ship oway! Request permission to come aboard.” Kalai gave the traditional greeting of a Shil’vati sailor.
“Permission granted! Anyone need a stepstool?” Andy finally stepped into the light and Kalai got a look at him. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and the same bright orange coveralls she’d seen the fishmongers wearing on their date.
“I wouldn’t mind a hand, Mr. Shelokset.” Papa He’osforos braced a foot on the railing of the boat and Andy pulled him up.
“Just call me Andy, Doc, and welcome aboard. Jackie should be along any minute now with the day’s groceries, and the cabin’s out of the cold. You can get yourself set wherever you find comfortable.” Papa nodded and disappeared around the other side of the wheel moving towards the bow.
Kalai helped Mama Sakalbi into the boat next, and she quickly ducked into the cabin that took up the entire stern section save for a little ledge that ran along the outside. Andy gripped Kalai’s hand and she smiled as he pulled her deftly aboard. The boat rocked a little on its mooring, and Kalai almost fell into Andy, who wordlessly put his arms around her waist to catch her as she lost her balance. She flailed for a moment before she steadied herself against him.
“Gotcha,” Andy smiled, and Kalai could see him flush almost as much as she could feel herself doing as their noses almost touched. Those big dark brown eyes surrounded by white orbs drew her in and she felt she could lose herself in them. Kalai started as Andy danced her around him and moved her towards the cabin door.
“It might be a little cramped for you in there, but the Mary Jean wasn’t built for pleasure boating, she’s a working girl. Sit tight, I gotta check a few things in the back.” Andy patted the railing affectionately before he hopped up and scooted along the outside of the cabin towards the stern. Kalai couldn’t help the little longing groan that came out as he left her there on the little tiny quarterdeck. Her heart was hammering in her chest as half formed fantasies danced at the edges of her mind.
“I saw that, little minnow.” Papa’s voice was soft, but his tone and the sudden broken silence nearly gave her a heart attack.
Kalai could only stammer as her father stared at her with a cocked eyebrow. A thump from the cabin window behind saw an amused Mama Sakalbi daintily sipping at her thermos with her ears twitched forward in interest, staring out at her. “Papa I… he-”
Papa moved carefully around the covered hatchway to stand next to her, leaning back against the cabin window and heaved a sigh. “I must say I’m surprised. This lovely man’s got good clean lines and is very well cared for. It speaks well of his Skipper.”
It took a full minute for Kalai’s brain to process that he was talking about the boat and not Andy. “And the way Andy brought him in smooth in near complete darkness? It gives me confidence in his abilities.”
Kalai breathed a silent sigh of relief and exasperation. Although she was happy to be spending more time with her father, bringing him on what she’d hoped would be a sailing date wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind for ‘family time’. He wants me to find a nice young man and spend time with him on a boat, but the first chance I get Papa decides to clam-jam me.
From up on shore, the sound and lights of a large human vehicle screeching to a halt heralded the last of their party to arrive. Kalai heard the clomping footsteps coming down the pier and moved to the railing to lend a hand.
“Ahoy Mary Jean! Raggedy Andy, you there?” Kalai stared with wide eyed surprise to see a human female, loaded down with plastic bags and sporting two human weapons on her shoulder. The two of them locked eyes, and while Kalai didn’t understand everything the girl shouted in surprise, she had caught and understood the phrase, “What the fuck?”
“Easy now, they’re my guests, and the one inside is the boss!” Andy appeared on the pier instantly before either Kalai or the woman could react further.
“Ya didn’t tell me we were having pur-” The woman glared at Kalai and her father. She had switched to Vatikre thankfully, but her tone was hostile as she dropped everything but her weapons. “I mean, hwun’eetums, aboard. A gal could get the wrong idea pretty quick in the dark when there’s no warning.”
“Knock it off Jackie. Let’s get the grub aboard and shove off.” Andy picked up some of the bags and took the guns as Kalai offered a helping hand over the railing. “Oh, Kalai, this is Jackie. Jackie? Kalai. That’s her dad over there, Doc He’osforos. He saw and treated Kay Tee a few years back.” Andy jerked his head towards the direction of Kalai’s father as she held out a hand to the human girl. On a quick inspection, she appeared to be about the same age as her and Andy. She had a round face and was about as dark complected as Andy was. She was shorter, only a few inches taller than Papa, but when Jackie grabbed Kalai’s hand to hop up onto the rail, she could feel the strength and the compact muscle hidden by the baggy sweatshirt and pants.
“Wait a minute, did you say Mini-Me over there saw Kay Tee? You’re fuckin’ with me!” Jackie stumbled a bit as she hopped down onto the deck with a loud thunk and advanced on Papa who shrank away at her advance. “You saw li’l Kay Tee? Where the fuck is he? Is he alright? Is he still fighting the good fight?”
“Last I saw, yes, he was ‘fighting the good fight.’” Papa looked over at Andy with a slightly worried expression. Andy smacked the girl in the back of the head, causing her to flinch and she opened the door to the cabin for Andy to go inside.
Jackie rubbed the back of her head and laughed. “Well that’s a little bit of alright, innit? Maybe today’s gonna be a good day after all!”
“Jackie, get suited up and get on the bow. I need a good pair of eyes on the roller horns,” Kalai heard Andy shout from the cabin, followed by a whole lot of thumping and banging from cabinets being opened and closed.
“You got it, ol’ man. We going to your place or mine?” Jackie sidestepped in and opened a tiny little closet and pulled out a set of rain gear that was identical to what Andy was wearing. Kalai collected herself and stood in the doorway next to her father as they both leaned in.
“Mine; Chuck said the Yaw’much are running from the South. We’ll do a set nor’west of Lummi in the Rosario and see if we can get some Fraser Kings,” Andy replied as he turned the engine back on and the vessel roared to life.
“Chuck? Isn’t that one of your cousins? I didn’t know he could keep track of the movements of Salmon, may I ask how he does it?” Mama Sakalbi perked up as she pulled a set of earplugs out of a pocket and inserted them.
Andy prevaricated a bit, looking from Jackie back to Sakalbi then to Kalai and Papa. “I’d rather not answer that-”
“Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!”
Jackie began singing a human song, and Andy threw her the dirtiest of looks as she finished getting into the orange coveralls. Mama Sakalbi sputtered as Andy shrugged apologetically.
“Make a hole!” Jackie called, and she and Andy came back out as Kalai and Papa made room for them. Andy hopped back onto the dock to cast off while Papa ducked into the cabin.
“Can I help?” Kalai offered as Andy shoved the vessel off and leapt the gap over the black water below.
“You want to be useful? Come forward! I could use an extra set of eyes!” Jackie called back, and Kalai felt a slap on her shoulder from the boisterous human woman.
------------------
Andy stood at the helm, watching Jackie and Kalai as he leaned to get a better view of them past the Net drum. The bow was lifting up again, and the gentle little swells became like speed bumps, jostling them up and down in a predictable bouncing rhythm.
“Are you sure you couldn’t slow down, Andy? It’s a bit rough, don’t you think?” Sakalbi was hanging on to the table and her thermos with a worried expression on her face.
“I could, but we’ll miss the morning set. We want to bomb out the buoy right when the tide changes. If we’re lucky, then we’ll get around seventy or eighty by slack tide this afternoon and call it a day.”
“How do you know where to fish?” Dr. He’osforos was making a good show of standing and maintaining his balance with his hand on the booth.
“Well, there’s two ways you know. The first is you fish the spots your family’s fished since time began. Every family has about two or three different secret spots that we know there’s fish in, and we’re pretty defensive about their locations. The second is by smell. Right now it’s the tail end of the King season, and you can smell them in the water.” Andy turned and saw the incredulity etched on the faces of the two aliens.
“No, I’m serious! King Salmon slime is really pungent, and you can smell them when they’re close to the surface. We get to the fishing spot and take a deep whiff. If we smell them, we’ll set the nets.” Andy laughed at the disbelief on their faces as the GPS on his omnipad beeped and he turned to sail around the last buoy and head for the fishing ground.
“I’ve never noticed that in any of the Kings we’ve raised-”
Andy suppressed a laugh as they caught a larger swell as they left the lee of Lummi Island. Andy reveled in the feeling of weightlessness as the deck rose up and fell out from underneath their feet, leaving everyone suspended for a moment in midair before falling back down. A massive spray of water rose and washed over the deck, drenching Kalai and Jackie, who were still forward. “Cloned and farmed Kings don’t have that same smell. Wild ones smell and taste different, I’m telling you!” Andy pulled back slightly on the throttle as they climbed the next swell. “Brace!” he called as they climbed and fell once again.
There was a look of fear on Sakalbi’s face as she gripped the table for dear life, but to Andy’s surprise, the Doctor looked completely unfazed, and was handling the rise and fall of the deck like an old salt. “You look like you’ve done this before, Doc.”
“I’ve done a stint or two at sea before,” he spoke, in the same tone Andy would have used when trying not to sound too confident, and Andy smiled.
“Kalai keeps talking about loving the sea and sailing. Did you teach her to sail?”
“Yes, me and her mothers. When they were home, we would take the family yacht out in the Vaascon Straits and sail around the Occidiens. Kalai practically spent all her early childhood on a sailboat.”
“And almost every waking moment on one in Junior Academy. I swear you couldn’t dig her out with a trowel when she wanted to go sailing,” Sakalbi managed to add in a word as the boat slowed, and the dramatic rise and fall of the deck slowed with it.
“What about you, Mr. Shelokset, did your father teach you to sail too?”
“I was too young before he passed. My Great Uncle Willy taught me after I came home, and Grandma took me out to the family fishing sites when she wasn’t busy with the Council. For the first two or three years after they let us come home, fishing was the only way to feed our families, but the Militia and the Cambrians would try and sink our boats or arrest us whenever we tried to go out.”
“And that’s why you’re so good at maneuvering your vessel in the dark with no instruments?” Mrs. Vaida had folded her arms, and her voice twinged with that imperious tone she’d had when they’d first met.
Andy huffed a dry laugh. “I did what I had to for me and my people and to survive, Ma’am. I don’t like breaking the law or dodging lasers and gunfire, but there’s a lot of poor families that need to eat.”
The GPS beeped, and Andy gave Mrs. Vaida a slightly defiant look to counter her furrowed brow. “We’re here,” he said as he threw the engine in neutral and opened the cabin door.
Andy walked out and took a deep breath, but all he could smell was the net and the exhaust from the engine. “HEY JACKIE! WE SMELL MONEY?” Andy yelled out as he took stock of the sky. The first signs of sunrise were chasing all but the morning stars away and a light fog was rolling in from the north.
“FUCK YEAH I CAN SMELL ‘EM, ANDY! LET’S BOMB OUT AND GET BREAKFAST GOING!” Jackie looked slightly manic as she smiled brightly. Kalai, on the other hand, looked wet and miserable as she shivered, arms wrapped around herself. Andy gave his cousin a disgusted look as he pieced together what had happened. Every deckhand learned when to duck behind the raised bow and the roller horns that guided the nets so as not to get a faceful of spray when cutting through a swell. It was also a classic hazing trick for Senior Deckhands to let Junior Deckhands learn this the hard way.
Andy moved forward to stand in front of the two of them. Kalai was trying to squeeze her coat dry, but Andy knew it wouldn’t do much good until the sun came out. Jackie at least had the sense to look a little remorseful. “Kalai, why don’t you go sit in the cabin and get out of that wet coat. It’s cold enough out here even for us-”
“No way, Andy. Junior deckhand Kally here wants to impress you and get her dainty soft hands dirty! She’s been bragging about being a sailorwoman and wants to learn to fish ‘your way!” Jackie gave Kalai’s shoulder a wet slap as the poor alien woman went blue. Out of cold or embarrassment, Andy couldn’t tell.
All Andy could do was shake his head and huff. “Ok then! Secure the buoy and sling on my mark. I’ll get us in position!” Andy couldn’t help but chuckle as he heard Jackie start ordering Kalai about. Andy went back into the cabin and looked in the closet/bathroom to see if there was anything hanging up that he could give Kalai. There was only the one rain slicker and a few of Andy’s old sweaters from when he was a lot smaller. Well, looks like I’ll just be cold today. He quickly stripped out of his sweatshirt and grabbed the slicker before throwing a switch on the main control. Dr. He’osforos and Mrs. Vaida threw him quizzical looks as he went back outside wearing less than when he came in. He was down to a sleeveless shirt and his coveralls, and the morning breeze cut right through him and he braced his jaw to keep it from chattering.
“We’re ready to go- Andy, why are you practically naked from the waist up?” Kalai was staring wide eyed at him as he approached her and Jackie was on the bow. Jackie had everything ready; the buoy line was strung through the horns and ready to toss out. A giant orange and blue beach ball sized float hung at the end of the line to mark the end and make it easier to pick up later.
“Trade me your coat for these. If Jackie’s putting you to work, you’ll need these to keep warm.”
“I’m alright, I can-”
“I’m the Skipper of this boat, and I’m ordering you to take off that wet coat and put these on; and Jackie?” Andy gave his cousin a long and piercing look. “Give her the elbow gloves, not the halfsies.”
The scoff and the muttered Salishian profanities meant he’d read the next prank she’d had in mind right. She was planning on giving her the cloth gloves with only the palms and fingers coated in rubber. While perfectly fine for fishing, Andy knew they tended to get soaked through very quickly and did nothing to keep jellyfish stingers and fish slime off your hands. Kalai sputtered for a moment before she complied gratefully and she accepted the dry clothes and rain slicker.
Andy saw Jackie give him a strange look before looking back at Kalai, but he paid it no mind. He walked back to the controls on the drum and switched off the hydraulics, placing the mechanism in neutral. “SLING IT!” Andy called as he took the small jerry rigged steering wheel and threw the boat in reverse. Kalai jumped as the line started unspooling the net into the water at a rapid pace.
Andy set an ‘S’ bend in the quarter mile long net, zigzagging backwards until they came to the end of the line. Andy stopped the boat as Jackie tied off the other large buoy and tossed it over the side, unstringing the cork-line from the roller horns in the process. He pulled hard over and put a bit of distance from the net before shutting the engine down. The line of white and yellow corks marking the net bobbed lazily with the swells as silence settled over the water again. The waves rocked the boat gently as Andy found his sea legs again.
“Alright, I’ll get breakfast going. Jackie, Kalai? Post the watch for seals,” Andy called as he walked back into the cabin to fire up the tiny little gas stove.
Sakalbi, having found the confidence to stand at last, poked her head out of the cabin and stood on by the hatch to the fish hold. “Seals? Why would you need to watch for seals?”
Andy grit his teeth and looked over from where he was cracking open and scrambling eggs. “They’re the spawn of Satan and we hate their guts!” Andy bit out. Jackie came back and pulled the two shotguns and a pair of binoculars from the closet. Andy reached over to a side cabinet and pulled out a box of shells for them. Both his boss and the Doctor’s eyes got wide.
“Seals are the enemy of our blood. Were it not for the invasion, our unending war against these vermin would continue to this day!” Jackie growled as she loaded one for herself and rested the other on Andy’s seat at the helm.
The look of growing horror on Sakalbi’s face towards their facetious declarations caused Andy to chuckle a bit, before launching into an explanation. “We’re not fans of the species because they’ll wait until a fish gets caught in the net and then they’ll steal it, costing us a fish AND ripping a big hole in our nets that we then have to take time to repair. We use the shotguns and buckshot to give them a nice welt and convince them not to hang around, because they’ll wait up on the surface and watch the buoys, just like us. A single seal can and will take between five and ten fish. The worst is when they start getting full, they’ll just bite out the bellies of a salmon in the net. We can’t really do anything with that fish once it’s ‘seal-bit’. So yes, as fishermen, we hate them.”
“Learned opportunism in apex predators as a response to human activity… I think I’ll go see this behavior for myself!” Sakalbi practically rushed out the door towards the bow where Jackie was sitting on the roller horns explaining to Kalai how to spot the bastards, leaving Andy alone in the cabin with the Doctor while he cooked breakfast for them all.
Dr. He’osforos sat down heavily in the booth and pulled out his omnipad. “I’ve had a word with my friend in the Interior. She’s pulled the warrant for your brother, and I’ve withdrawn the charges I filed.”
Andy froze and turned around slowly. The only sound was the sizzle and pop of the eggs and chorizo that he’d added to them in the skillet. “You mean… it’s done? He can come home?” A wave of light headed euphoria swept over Andy and he swayed with the gentle rocking of the boat. “I will pay you back, Doc-”
The doctor held up his hand and stopped Andy. “We’ll call it even, but there’s something… I was able to get my hands on this,” Andy watched as the doctor swiped something towards his omnipad and it dinged. “What is it if I may-”
“Are you really asking an Indian to tell you a story? Because it’s going to be a long one if you are.” “I’m Sevastutavan, young man; we invented long stories.”
Andy froze and stared at the screen of his omnipad. The Vatikre was heavily accented, and Andy had a bit of trouble with the unfamiliar accent, but centered in the frame in a hospital room, sitting in a wheelchair, was a Salishian boy. Andy blinked in surprise as he stared at the screen. “Is that-”
“I am Ikw’is’hi’ehlah, and this bearer is… of the Orca Clan Sheloksets. I drove our Haida enemies onto the rocks and took many heads when they attacked our winter village on Orcas Island. I signed the Treaty with the Great White Father and I fought against the slavers of the south-”
Andy wanted to grab the omnipad but the smell of overcooking eggs brought his attention back to breakfast and Andy stirred and scrapped the food quickly, trying to save it.
“I asked her for any materials she could give me on your brother. Pictures, recordings, anything. This is what she gave me. It's the last known recording of your brother during an interrogation conducted by a Navy Commissar prior to his escape. It seems he made friends with a Pod of Deaths Head Commandos. Quite a bit of the recording has been redacted, but… there are portions of it where he talks about his family and his history. I thought you might like to have it.”
Andy hurriedly pulled out paper plates and a slice of bread for everyone and scooped a heaping portion of the chorizo eggs onto them. He handed the doctor his before leaning out the cabin door. “Slop’s on, come and get it!”
Andy sat down after moving the shotgun out of the way and started the video over again as the three women came back to grab their plates and lost himself watching his brother start telling his story.
“What’s that?” Andy heard Kalai ask over his shoulder, and he paused the video.
“That’s my brother! That’s Kay Tee!”
“Holy shit, what?” Jackie nearly shoved Kalai into Andy as she jammed her bread slice down her gullet and crowded in to see the screen.
Andy started the video over a second time and they watched in silence. “God, that brings back memories. Back when mom was still alive and before we broke up the warband. I can’t believe that slippery little punk ghosted a pod of Commandos for two fucking years! Holy shit, that’s badass!”
Before Andy could say anything, Sakalbi started coughing and brought the binoculars up. “Uh, Andy? Jackie? What do we do about sharks?”
Jackie looked at Andy in confusion. “Sharks? There’s nothing but Dogs around here.”
“Well those are shark fins and they’re charging the net!” Sakalbi pointed and Andy looked up to see dorsal fins charging the center of the net.
Andy looked at Jackie and spoke the same words in tandem, “Oh shit!”
First:
https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/yz0u3h/the_cryptid_chronicle_chapter_1/
Previous:
https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/13nh0oe/cryptid_chronicle_chapter_29/
Next:
To be posted 6/4/23
submitted by Kazevenikov to Sexyspacebabes [link] [comments]
A special thanks to my editors LordHenry7898, RandomTinkerer, Swimming_Good_8507, CatsInTrenchcoats, and KLiCKonthat.
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired me to tell my own in this universe. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), CarCU131 (The Cook), and Rhion-618 (Just One Drop)
Hy’shq’e Ay Si’am (Thank you noble friends)
Chapter 30: A Promise Kept
Kalai stepped off the shuttle to the Vaida’s headquarters and into a running tackle-hug from Sitry. “Oh Kalai, I could kill you right now! You got to see the Great Barrier Reef in person, you bitch!” Sitry’s cheerful voice was muffled from where she was still buried in her chest. Kalai staggered backwards a pace or two, happy to be back from her whirlwind adventure around Earth with her father.
Naranjo and Papa Rhaxiid were there on the platform to welcome her back too, but their welcomes were more sedate.
“Not to mention you got out of work for half our damn trip. Ugh, it’s so not fair!” Naranjo huffed as Kalai gave him a sisterly hug.
Papa Rhaxiid reached up and chucked her chin before turning to lead the way back inside from the forested platform. “Welcome back, sweet-sprout, we’ve missed you. Come on, we’ll get you settled again and off to work. There’s quite a bit you need to catch up on if you want your credits.”
The chuckles from the twins behind her were full of sibling malice, but she knew how to shut the pair of them up. “Papa Rhaxiid? I’ve got the paper on Biodiversity in the Reef you asked for, along with the dissection report and stomach content analysis of the tuna we caught. I want to put the finishing touches on it and do a final proofread first before I send them to you.” The man turned and gave her a warm smile as they entered the building.
“Good, why don’t you go take your things back up and say hello to Andy? I’ll give you an hour and a half to get freshened up, then I want you to report to Aquarium 12 with Dr. Sor’ansa. You can put your snorkeling practice to work there.” Papa Rhaxiid walked the three of them to the residential elevator. “I’m heading back to my office. Andy’s been requested by Maetro Pae’ella to work the kitchens for something called ‘Bison burgers'. Apparently it’s a type of indigenous bovine that the eastern Bands raise. That and something from Europe called ‘French Fries’.”
Kalai couldn’t help but get excited as she and her siblings piled into the elevator back to their little shared apartment. Sure the food she’d had all over the place was good, but so far nothing had been able to compare to Andy and his Salishian cooking.
“Nerd, I can’t believe you cheated and did work on your vacation." Naranjo broke the silence of the elevator after a little bit and stuck his tongue out at her.
“Spit to windward, you vain little weed. Don’t hate me because I’m awesome.” Kalai’s riposte caused Naranjo to fold his arms and huff. Sitry simply ambushed her with an ear flick.
The elevator door opened to their floor before Kalai couldn’t bear the silence from Sitry any longer. “So, did you bag him yet, you lucky bitch?”
“No she hasn’t!” Naranjo’s singsong mockery of his sister interrupted Sitry’s response. “Papa hasn’t let Sitry even NEAR Andy without one of them around!”
“Rub it in, you snitch, besides, he did kiss me first,” Sitry preened happily as she playfully shoved Kalai’s shoulder.
Kalai pretended to stumble and almost caught Sitry’s foot, but she was just a hair too slow. “Yeah, and then you gave him a black eye, you clod.”
“Will you let it go? It was an accident!”
“It’s not even the only one he got either." Naranjo’s interjection stopped her right in front of their door.
“Wait, what? Who hurt him this time?” Kalai let her bag thunk to the floor as she turned to look accusingly between Sitry and Narny.
Sitry folded her arms and her ears twitched back as she shot a dark look at their door. “He ‘fell down’ yesterday while out at one of the Hatcheries we gave to the Hwatcoms. Mrs. Toloui nearly had a fit! She said she could smell another human on him and that he was covered in blood!”
Narny nodded primly as Kalai tried to process what they were telling her. “WHAT? Did she call out the militia? Track down whoever hurt him?”
“No, and he refused treatment and insisted that no one did it to him! When papa tried to talk to him, Andy said some stupid human macho shit about pain healing and birds liking scars. I don’t know, sometimes humans… they’re frickin’ insane!”
The door shot open and there stood Andy. His left eye was an angry puffy yellow and blue mess, and there were three points on his lips where a dark cinnabar line marked a crack. Kalai and her siblings stood in wide eyed shock at his sudden appearance and the only sound was the music emanating from the common room behind him.
Andy looked up and down at the three without saying a word. He cocked an eyebrow and snagged Kalai’s bag before any of them could react and cleared the doorway for them.
Kalai sputtered at the impropriety but Naranjo and Sitry just shrugged and walked in after Andy. “Femboys, am I right?” Narny whispered to Kalai as he passed. Kalai followed behind and was greeted by the white fluff-ball, Puck, who hopped up and down, whining for attention. She bent down and started scratching his ears and back. While Puck rubbed up against her hands, Andy settled back down at the table where his omnipad was hooked up to a keypad. Her heart started to sink a bit and Kalai shot Sitry a jealous look before the music came to a sudden halt and Andy interrupted the beginnings of her pity party.
“Ok, Kem’ira, I got the pics now and I’m telling you to declare yourself to the farmers first! I guarantee if you tell them you’re with the new DNR and you’re there to kill all the Scotch Broom in their pasture lands, they’ll stop trying to shoot you for trespassing!”
Kalai’s mood jumped up a bit. It’s not that he doesn’t care to see me, he’s in a meeting!
“No, no I’m not coming out to talk this over with them, I’ve got my own work to do! Either you start talking to folks like I showed you how, or ask the militia to give you one of their armored catsuits to wear under your uniform… Uh-huh, good luck." Andy hung up on the call and leaned back as Puck scampered over and hopped up in his lap.
Andy rubbed his temples before shaking his head. He seemed to relax a bit and Puck slid off to follow Sitry to the kitchen. Andy looked over and gave Kalai a happy smile that made her flush. “Welcome back! So how was the land down under? That tuna was fan-frickin’-tastic, if you aren’t sick of seafood I’ll do something fancy with it tomorrow to celebrate your coming back. Can’t tonight though, I got volun-told to be head chef tonight and I… Oh damnit! I’m late! Come to dinner, burgers and fries Indian style tonight. Gotta run!” With that, Andy went dashing out the door with Puck barking and scrambling along after him.
Kalai felt her heart sink back down again, as he left. “Andy I-” She started but he was gone.
“Yeah, it’s been like that for the whole week. The only time we get to hang out is dinner.” Sitry commiserated as she took Kalai’s bag into their room. “On the other hand, we might get to catch up during the family meal tonight.”
Kalai and Narny were already silently plotting with each other for their revenge against their sister who had won and refused to share the last few matchsticks when Andy finally joined their table. He was sweaty and he smelled of woodsmoke and french fries. Kalai jumped up and offered him a seat next to her with a nervous smile. He took it gratefully and seemed to sag a bit as he gulped down a glass of water.
“Andy, I think you may be finding your calling as a culinary ambassador,” Mama Aftasia beamed. “A toast to the chef!”
Andy gave a shy smile and looked down as Kalai and the rest of the family gave a hearty ‘Here, here!”
“It’s a simple enough recipe; it’s just using bison instead of cow, that’s all, and I don’t know anyone who’d turn down hand cut fresh fries. It’s kind of hard to screw up.”
“Young man, you are speaking to a woman who found a way to take cold water and dried wumpa flakes and wind up with a Class-4 fire. Cooking has always seemed like ‘blight mysticism’ to me, and these foods? These flavors? Nothing short of a Greenwood miracle in my opinion." Mama Aftasia continued her praise of Andy, which only caused him to shrink even lower in his seat.
“To be honest, I like your salmon better,” Kalai said, and the whole table went silent. Kalai held her ground though, and was rewarded with a tired but genuine laugh from Andy that brought him back out of his shell.
“You know, I do too. My Clan were fisherpeople, not buffalo chasers.” Andy gave Kalai a cheeky grin, which she returned happily, her heart glowing. Mama Aftasia and Mama Sakalbi both blinked in bemusement at Andy’s statement while Sitry just giggled.
“Speaking of which, Andy, I received a call from Elder Alex Hwatcom.” Papa Rhaxiid’s change of subject instantly perked Andy up, and he stared silently, waiting. “He extended an invitation to our family to attend his family gathering this Friday-”
“Alex said that? He used those words?” Andy shook his head in shock as he interrupted Papa Rhaxiid. The table went quiet and everyone held their breath as they looked between the two men.
Papa Rhaxiid adopted as good an impression of the human Elder as he could. “I’d like to extend an invitation for you and your family to be guests at our family gathering this saturday up at the White… something… lodge-”
“The White Ram Lodge?” Andy sat forward, interjecting again as the color drained from his face.
“Yes, that’s the one! I asked if we could bring anything since the last time they hosted us they put on that wonderful spread. He said if we could bring a few salmon for the family, that would be wonderful.”
Andy leaned back and took another sip of ice water before holding the glass to his blackened eye. “Alex Hwatcom… just invited you… to a gathering… and he told you to ‘bring a few salmon’? Do you realize what a huge honor this is?”
Rhaxiid looked from his wives to his children with mild concern. “Um, I thought it was only dinner, but your reaction tells me there’s more significance to this than I originally thought. I was thinking about our stocks of adult Sockeye, but then I remembered in his story how important King Salmon are. Of course, I’d like to defer to you for the choice since you know these animals and the cultural expectations with this invitation better than we do.”
Andy was silent for a moment before he put the glass down. “I’d recommend a ‘hard no’ to all your clone stock!” Now it was the Vaidas’ turn to be shocked, as each of Kalai’s Erbian family’s jaws dropped in synch. Before anyone could say anything, Andy continued, “You need to bring wild-caught. Farm-raised salmon wouldn’t… well we can tell, and you can taste the difference between them. We need to go fishing!” Kalai leaned towards Andy slightly as he lowered his head and started mumbling to himself. She was just able to make out what he was saying to himself as Mama Sakalbi and Mama Aftasia began whispering to each other. “...need to get the Gillnetter out of storage, check what’s running and select the mesh. I’m gonna need a deckhand too.”
Kalai reached a hand out but stopped short of touching him. “Andy?”
He popped up and spoke for the whole table to hear. “I need a shuttle to the mainland and a waiver against the fishing ban. I’ve got to get my boat and the drum ready for sea ” Rhaxiid and Aftasia sputtered in confusion, but Mama Sakalbi had a shadow fall over her, and her ears pulled back.
“Do you mean to say you want to go out on the water? Risk the ecological balance for… dinner?”
Andy looked Sakalbi dead in the eye and gave her a firm nod. “Why don’t you come out and see how we did this before you got here. Think of it as a chance to see the way we’ve fished for the last hundred or so years, and then I can explain the way we used to fish before that.”
The offer snapped Rhaxiid out of his confusion and he brightened. “A learning experience? Wonderful, we’ll make a day of it!” His hands shot out to grab both his wives’ and Kalai could feel the vibrations in the floor from where he was excitedly tapping his feet.
“If you don’t mind hard, smelly work. Uncle Willy always called it ‘the worst desk in the prettiest office.' It’ll be a bit cramped, but I’ve got room on the boat for a few guests and observers; four I think would be ok. She’s a working boat, not a pleasure cruiser,” Andy explained. That sent the whole lot of them excitedly talking among themselves.
Kalai was about to lean in to talk to Mama Aftasia, but Andy caught her attention first. “I don’t suppose you’d want to go back out on the water, given you just got back from pleasure-boating-”
Kalai’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest. “I wouldn’t miss it for my own colony planet!”
--------------------
Kalai stood on the pier, bundled in her thermal sailor’s coat. It was still dark and the wind blew from the north in a cold little morning breeze. Kalai took a deep breath and reveled in the smell of the fresh sea air. The soft chattering of Mama Sakalbi’s teeth broke the silence. “It’s a bit chillier than it said it was going to be.”
“The water always does that. It’s never as warm as the lubbers say it’ll be,” Papa spoke as he handed her back her thermos of hot chocolate.
Papa stood next to Kalai and nudged her with his elbow. Even in the dark, Kalai could see him smile up at her and jerk his head at the shivering Erbian. He was also wearing a thermal sailor’s coat, and his hands were stuffed in his pockets to keep them warm, just like Kalai’s. “Landswoman,” he whispered to her and the two of them shared a knowing smile. It was strange, but welcome when she'd told Papa about her upcoming day fishing with Andy, and he’d politely requested to join them. Papa Rhaxiid had graciously given his spot up to accommodate her birth father. Narny was all for it until Andy had explained what they were going to do, but then surrendered his challenge to the fourth guest space, not wanting to go anywhere NEAR anything that could see him come face to face with a Lion’s Mane Jelly. Sitry had done a happy little dance when she found out, but only yesterday had come down with Thistle Fever, and was bundled off to bed by her parents. It left Kalai, Mama Sakalbi, and Papa to accompany Andy on his fishing trip.
The water brushed against the shore behind them quietly. In the gloom, Kalai could just barely make out the outline of the nearest island mountain, but only because the stars had disappeared behind it. It was almost four in the morning, but Kalai had managed a catnap on the shuttle to the empty little lot that had been the boat launch. Aside from the water, the world was silent. Even the breeze made almost no noise and a sense of peace surrounded them. Everything was so calm, Kalai felt like she didn’t have a care in the world.
In the distance, a low rumbling sound of a motor rose from being almost imperceptible to a rolling drum of thunder. From around the point, two green floating lights sped through the darkness, and a spotlight turned on. The beam of light moved jerkily until it came to rest on the pier where they were standing and Kalai started waving her arms. Sakalbi’s omnipad rang, and Andy’s voice shouted over the speaker and the background noise for them to shine a light on the edge of the pier to help him park the boat.
Kalai and Papa moved closer and turned their omnipad flashlights on and waved them as the boat swung gracefully around and glided in alongside them. Kalai caught the rope that flew over the railing of the boat and she heard more than saw Andy moving around on the deck as she tied off on one of the mooring cleats. Several lights clicked on and the deck was bathed in light enough for Kalai to get a clear view of the boat they’d be spending the day on.
Andy hadn’t lied. Kalai saw that this little vessel was a working boat with no frills at all. When he’d told her they’d be going fishing, she’d envisioned something like the charter boat papa had taken her on out of Nantucket. Sporty, fast with a nod to comfort and function. This was not that at all. A giant wheel as wide as Kalai’s outstretched arms that looked like a sideways spool of thread was secured to the deck amidships and dominated the deckspace. Wrapped around it was a fluorescent green tangle with a line of oblong white and yellow corks and rope. There was a covered hatchway sitting behind the drum in front of the raised step to the enclosed cabin. Two large windows let the light out to two children’s bunks, a little table with a booth seat and a raised captain’s chair in front of the helm and engine controls. Andy shut down the engine and that peaceful stillness returned.
“Oway there!” Kalai called, “ship oway! Request permission to come aboard.” Kalai gave the traditional greeting of a Shil’vati sailor.
“Permission granted! Anyone need a stepstool?” Andy finally stepped into the light and Kalai got a look at him. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and the same bright orange coveralls she’d seen the fishmongers wearing on their date.
“I wouldn’t mind a hand, Mr. Shelokset.” Papa He’osforos braced a foot on the railing of the boat and Andy pulled him up.
“Just call me Andy, Doc, and welcome aboard. Jackie should be along any minute now with the day’s groceries, and the cabin’s out of the cold. You can get yourself set wherever you find comfortable.” Papa nodded and disappeared around the other side of the wheel moving towards the bow.
Kalai helped Mama Sakalbi into the boat next, and she quickly ducked into the cabin that took up the entire stern section save for a little ledge that ran along the outside. Andy gripped Kalai’s hand and she smiled as he pulled her deftly aboard. The boat rocked a little on its mooring, and Kalai almost fell into Andy, who wordlessly put his arms around her waist to catch her as she lost her balance. She flailed for a moment before she steadied herself against him.
“Gotcha,” Andy smiled, and Kalai could see him flush almost as much as she could feel herself doing as their noses almost touched. Those big dark brown eyes surrounded by white orbs drew her in and she felt she could lose herself in them. Kalai started as Andy danced her around him and moved her towards the cabin door.
“It might be a little cramped for you in there, but the Mary Jean wasn’t built for pleasure boating, she’s a working girl. Sit tight, I gotta check a few things in the back.” Andy patted the railing affectionately before he hopped up and scooted along the outside of the cabin towards the stern. Kalai couldn’t help the little longing groan that came out as he left her there on the little tiny quarterdeck. Her heart was hammering in her chest as half formed fantasies danced at the edges of her mind.
“I saw that, little minnow.” Papa’s voice was soft, but his tone and the sudden broken silence nearly gave her a heart attack.
Kalai could only stammer as her father stared at her with a cocked eyebrow. A thump from the cabin window behind saw an amused Mama Sakalbi daintily sipping at her thermos with her ears twitched forward in interest, staring out at her. “Papa I… he-”
Papa moved carefully around the covered hatchway to stand next to her, leaning back against the cabin window and heaved a sigh. “I must say I’m surprised. This lovely man’s got good clean lines and is very well cared for. It speaks well of his Skipper.”
It took a full minute for Kalai’s brain to process that he was talking about the boat and not Andy. “And the way Andy brought him in smooth in near complete darkness? It gives me confidence in his abilities.”
Kalai breathed a silent sigh of relief and exasperation. Although she was happy to be spending more time with her father, bringing him on what she’d hoped would be a sailing date wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind for ‘family time’. He wants me to find a nice young man and spend time with him on a boat, but the first chance I get Papa decides to clam-jam me.
From up on shore, the sound and lights of a large human vehicle screeching to a halt heralded the last of their party to arrive. Kalai heard the clomping footsteps coming down the pier and moved to the railing to lend a hand.
“Ahoy Mary Jean! Raggedy Andy, you there?” Kalai stared with wide eyed surprise to see a human female, loaded down with plastic bags and sporting two human weapons on her shoulder. The two of them locked eyes, and while Kalai didn’t understand everything the girl shouted in surprise, she had caught and understood the phrase, “What the fuck?”
“Easy now, they’re my guests, and the one inside is the boss!” Andy appeared on the pier instantly before either Kalai or the woman could react further.
“Ya didn’t tell me we were having pur-” The woman glared at Kalai and her father. She had switched to Vatikre thankfully, but her tone was hostile as she dropped everything but her weapons. “I mean, hwun’eetums, aboard. A gal could get the wrong idea pretty quick in the dark when there’s no warning.”
“Knock it off Jackie. Let’s get the grub aboard and shove off.” Andy picked up some of the bags and took the guns as Kalai offered a helping hand over the railing. “Oh, Kalai, this is Jackie. Jackie? Kalai. That’s her dad over there, Doc He’osforos. He saw and treated Kay Tee a few years back.” Andy jerked his head towards the direction of Kalai’s father as she held out a hand to the human girl. On a quick inspection, she appeared to be about the same age as her and Andy. She had a round face and was about as dark complected as Andy was. She was shorter, only a few inches taller than Papa, but when Jackie grabbed Kalai’s hand to hop up onto the rail, she could feel the strength and the compact muscle hidden by the baggy sweatshirt and pants.
“Wait a minute, did you say Mini-Me over there saw Kay Tee? You’re fuckin’ with me!” Jackie stumbled a bit as she hopped down onto the deck with a loud thunk and advanced on Papa who shrank away at her advance. “You saw li’l Kay Tee? Where the fuck is he? Is he alright? Is he still fighting the good fight?”
“Last I saw, yes, he was ‘fighting the good fight.’” Papa looked over at Andy with a slightly worried expression. Andy smacked the girl in the back of the head, causing her to flinch and she opened the door to the cabin for Andy to go inside.
Jackie rubbed the back of her head and laughed. “Well that’s a little bit of alright, innit? Maybe today’s gonna be a good day after all!”
“Jackie, get suited up and get on the bow. I need a good pair of eyes on the roller horns,” Kalai heard Andy shout from the cabin, followed by a whole lot of thumping and banging from cabinets being opened and closed.
“You got it, ol’ man. We going to your place or mine?” Jackie sidestepped in and opened a tiny little closet and pulled out a set of rain gear that was identical to what Andy was wearing. Kalai collected herself and stood in the doorway next to her father as they both leaned in.
“Mine; Chuck said the Yaw’much are running from the South. We’ll do a set nor’west of Lummi in the Rosario and see if we can get some Fraser Kings,” Andy replied as he turned the engine back on and the vessel roared to life.
“Chuck? Isn’t that one of your cousins? I didn’t know he could keep track of the movements of Salmon, may I ask how he does it?” Mama Sakalbi perked up as she pulled a set of earplugs out of a pocket and inserted them.
Andy prevaricated a bit, looking from Jackie back to Sakalbi then to Kalai and Papa. “I’d rather not answer that-”
“Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!”
Jackie began singing a human song, and Andy threw her the dirtiest of looks as she finished getting into the orange coveralls. Mama Sakalbi sputtered as Andy shrugged apologetically.
“Make a hole!” Jackie called, and she and Andy came back out as Kalai and Papa made room for them. Andy hopped back onto the dock to cast off while Papa ducked into the cabin.
“Can I help?” Kalai offered as Andy shoved the vessel off and leapt the gap over the black water below.
“You want to be useful? Come forward! I could use an extra set of eyes!” Jackie called back, and Kalai felt a slap on her shoulder from the boisterous human woman.
------------------
Andy stood at the helm, watching Jackie and Kalai as he leaned to get a better view of them past the Net drum. The bow was lifting up again, and the gentle little swells became like speed bumps, jostling them up and down in a predictable bouncing rhythm.
“Are you sure you couldn’t slow down, Andy? It’s a bit rough, don’t you think?” Sakalbi was hanging on to the table and her thermos with a worried expression on her face.
“I could, but we’ll miss the morning set. We want to bomb out the buoy right when the tide changes. If we’re lucky, then we’ll get around seventy or eighty by slack tide this afternoon and call it a day.”
“How do you know where to fish?” Dr. He’osforos was making a good show of standing and maintaining his balance with his hand on the booth.
“Well, there’s two ways you know. The first is you fish the spots your family’s fished since time began. Every family has about two or three different secret spots that we know there’s fish in, and we’re pretty defensive about their locations. The second is by smell. Right now it’s the tail end of the King season, and you can smell them in the water.” Andy turned and saw the incredulity etched on the faces of the two aliens.
“No, I’m serious! King Salmon slime is really pungent, and you can smell them when they’re close to the surface. We get to the fishing spot and take a deep whiff. If we smell them, we’ll set the nets.” Andy laughed at the disbelief on their faces as the GPS on his omnipad beeped and he turned to sail around the last buoy and head for the fishing ground.
“I’ve never noticed that in any of the Kings we’ve raised-”
Andy suppressed a laugh as they caught a larger swell as they left the lee of Lummi Island. Andy reveled in the feeling of weightlessness as the deck rose up and fell out from underneath their feet, leaving everyone suspended for a moment in midair before falling back down. A massive spray of water rose and washed over the deck, drenching Kalai and Jackie, who were still forward. “Cloned and farmed Kings don’t have that same smell. Wild ones smell and taste different, I’m telling you!” Andy pulled back slightly on the throttle as they climbed the next swell. “Brace!” he called as they climbed and fell once again.
There was a look of fear on Sakalbi’s face as she gripped the table for dear life, but to Andy’s surprise, the Doctor looked completely unfazed, and was handling the rise and fall of the deck like an old salt. “You look like you’ve done this before, Doc.”
“I’ve done a stint or two at sea before,” he spoke, in the same tone Andy would have used when trying not to sound too confident, and Andy smiled.
“Kalai keeps talking about loving the sea and sailing. Did you teach her to sail?”
“Yes, me and her mothers. When they were home, we would take the family yacht out in the Vaascon Straits and sail around the Occidiens. Kalai practically spent all her early childhood on a sailboat.”
“And almost every waking moment on one in Junior Academy. I swear you couldn’t dig her out with a trowel when she wanted to go sailing,” Sakalbi managed to add in a word as the boat slowed, and the dramatic rise and fall of the deck slowed with it.
“What about you, Mr. Shelokset, did your father teach you to sail too?”
“I was too young before he passed. My Great Uncle Willy taught me after I came home, and Grandma took me out to the family fishing sites when she wasn’t busy with the Council. For the first two or three years after they let us come home, fishing was the only way to feed our families, but the Militia and the Cambrians would try and sink our boats or arrest us whenever we tried to go out.”
“And that’s why you’re so good at maneuvering your vessel in the dark with no instruments?” Mrs. Vaida had folded her arms, and her voice twinged with that imperious tone she’d had when they’d first met.
Andy huffed a dry laugh. “I did what I had to for me and my people and to survive, Ma’am. I don’t like breaking the law or dodging lasers and gunfire, but there’s a lot of poor families that need to eat.”
The GPS beeped, and Andy gave Mrs. Vaida a slightly defiant look to counter her furrowed brow. “We’re here,” he said as he threw the engine in neutral and opened the cabin door.
Andy walked out and took a deep breath, but all he could smell was the net and the exhaust from the engine. “HEY JACKIE! WE SMELL MONEY?” Andy yelled out as he took stock of the sky. The first signs of sunrise were chasing all but the morning stars away and a light fog was rolling in from the north.
“FUCK YEAH I CAN SMELL ‘EM, ANDY! LET’S BOMB OUT AND GET BREAKFAST GOING!” Jackie looked slightly manic as she smiled brightly. Kalai, on the other hand, looked wet and miserable as she shivered, arms wrapped around herself. Andy gave his cousin a disgusted look as he pieced together what had happened. Every deckhand learned when to duck behind the raised bow and the roller horns that guided the nets so as not to get a faceful of spray when cutting through a swell. It was also a classic hazing trick for Senior Deckhands to let Junior Deckhands learn this the hard way.
Andy moved forward to stand in front of the two of them. Kalai was trying to squeeze her coat dry, but Andy knew it wouldn’t do much good until the sun came out. Jackie at least had the sense to look a little remorseful. “Kalai, why don’t you go sit in the cabin and get out of that wet coat. It’s cold enough out here even for us-”
“No way, Andy. Junior deckhand Kally here wants to impress you and get her dainty soft hands dirty! She’s been bragging about being a sailorwoman and wants to learn to fish ‘your way!” Jackie gave Kalai’s shoulder a wet slap as the poor alien woman went blue. Out of cold or embarrassment, Andy couldn’t tell.
All Andy could do was shake his head and huff. “Ok then! Secure the buoy and sling on my mark. I’ll get us in position!” Andy couldn’t help but chuckle as he heard Jackie start ordering Kalai about. Andy went back into the cabin and looked in the closet/bathroom to see if there was anything hanging up that he could give Kalai. There was only the one rain slicker and a few of Andy’s old sweaters from when he was a lot smaller. Well, looks like I’ll just be cold today. He quickly stripped out of his sweatshirt and grabbed the slicker before throwing a switch on the main control. Dr. He’osforos and Mrs. Vaida threw him quizzical looks as he went back outside wearing less than when he came in. He was down to a sleeveless shirt and his coveralls, and the morning breeze cut right through him and he braced his jaw to keep it from chattering.
“We’re ready to go- Andy, why are you practically naked from the waist up?” Kalai was staring wide eyed at him as he approached her and Jackie was on the bow. Jackie had everything ready; the buoy line was strung through the horns and ready to toss out. A giant orange and blue beach ball sized float hung at the end of the line to mark the end and make it easier to pick up later.
“Trade me your coat for these. If Jackie’s putting you to work, you’ll need these to keep warm.”
“I’m alright, I can-”
“I’m the Skipper of this boat, and I’m ordering you to take off that wet coat and put these on; and Jackie?” Andy gave his cousin a long and piercing look. “Give her the elbow gloves, not the halfsies.”
The scoff and the muttered Salishian profanities meant he’d read the next prank she’d had in mind right. She was planning on giving her the cloth gloves with only the palms and fingers coated in rubber. While perfectly fine for fishing, Andy knew they tended to get soaked through very quickly and did nothing to keep jellyfish stingers and fish slime off your hands. Kalai sputtered for a moment before she complied gratefully and she accepted the dry clothes and rain slicker.
Andy saw Jackie give him a strange look before looking back at Kalai, but he paid it no mind. He walked back to the controls on the drum and switched off the hydraulics, placing the mechanism in neutral. “SLING IT!” Andy called as he took the small jerry rigged steering wheel and threw the boat in reverse. Kalai jumped as the line started unspooling the net into the water at a rapid pace.
Andy set an ‘S’ bend in the quarter mile long net, zigzagging backwards until they came to the end of the line. Andy stopped the boat as Jackie tied off the other large buoy and tossed it over the side, unstringing the cork-line from the roller horns in the process. He pulled hard over and put a bit of distance from the net before shutting the engine down. The line of white and yellow corks marking the net bobbed lazily with the swells as silence settled over the water again. The waves rocked the boat gently as Andy found his sea legs again.
“Alright, I’ll get breakfast going. Jackie, Kalai? Post the watch for seals,” Andy called as he walked back into the cabin to fire up the tiny little gas stove.
Sakalbi, having found the confidence to stand at last, poked her head out of the cabin and stood on by the hatch to the fish hold. “Seals? Why would you need to watch for seals?”
Andy grit his teeth and looked over from where he was cracking open and scrambling eggs. “They’re the spawn of Satan and we hate their guts!” Andy bit out. Jackie came back and pulled the two shotguns and a pair of binoculars from the closet. Andy reached over to a side cabinet and pulled out a box of shells for them. Both his boss and the Doctor’s eyes got wide.
“Seals are the enemy of our blood. Were it not for the invasion, our unending war against these vermin would continue to this day!” Jackie growled as she loaded one for herself and rested the other on Andy’s seat at the helm.
The look of growing horror on Sakalbi’s face towards their facetious declarations caused Andy to chuckle a bit, before launching into an explanation. “We’re not fans of the species because they’ll wait until a fish gets caught in the net and then they’ll steal it, costing us a fish AND ripping a big hole in our nets that we then have to take time to repair. We use the shotguns and buckshot to give them a nice welt and convince them not to hang around, because they’ll wait up on the surface and watch the buoys, just like us. A single seal can and will take between five and ten fish. The worst is when they start getting full, they’ll just bite out the bellies of a salmon in the net. We can’t really do anything with that fish once it’s ‘seal-bit’. So yes, as fishermen, we hate them.”
“Learned opportunism in apex predators as a response to human activity… I think I’ll go see this behavior for myself!” Sakalbi practically rushed out the door towards the bow where Jackie was sitting on the roller horns explaining to Kalai how to spot the bastards, leaving Andy alone in the cabin with the Doctor while he cooked breakfast for them all.
Dr. He’osforos sat down heavily in the booth and pulled out his omnipad. “I’ve had a word with my friend in the Interior. She’s pulled the warrant for your brother, and I’ve withdrawn the charges I filed.”
Andy froze and turned around slowly. The only sound was the sizzle and pop of the eggs and chorizo that he’d added to them in the skillet. “You mean… it’s done? He can come home?” A wave of light headed euphoria swept over Andy and he swayed with the gentle rocking of the boat. “I will pay you back, Doc-”
The doctor held up his hand and stopped Andy. “We’ll call it even, but there’s something… I was able to get my hands on this,” Andy watched as the doctor swiped something towards his omnipad and it dinged. “What is it if I may-”
“Are you really asking an Indian to tell you a story? Because it’s going to be a long one if you are.” “I’m Sevastutavan, young man; we invented long stories.”
Andy froze and stared at the screen of his omnipad. The Vatikre was heavily accented, and Andy had a bit of trouble with the unfamiliar accent, but centered in the frame in a hospital room, sitting in a wheelchair, was a Salishian boy. Andy blinked in surprise as he stared at the screen. “Is that-”
“I am Ikw’is’hi’ehlah, and this bearer is… of the Orca Clan Sheloksets. I drove our Haida enemies onto the rocks and took many heads when they attacked our winter village on Orcas Island. I signed the Treaty with the Great White Father and I fought against the slavers of the south-”
Andy wanted to grab the omnipad but the smell of overcooking eggs brought his attention back to breakfast and Andy stirred and scrapped the food quickly, trying to save it.
“I asked her for any materials she could give me on your brother. Pictures, recordings, anything. This is what she gave me. It's the last known recording of your brother during an interrogation conducted by a Navy Commissar prior to his escape. It seems he made friends with a Pod of Deaths Head Commandos. Quite a bit of the recording has been redacted, but… there are portions of it where he talks about his family and his history. I thought you might like to have it.”
Andy hurriedly pulled out paper plates and a slice of bread for everyone and scooped a heaping portion of the chorizo eggs onto them. He handed the doctor his before leaning out the cabin door. “Slop’s on, come and get it!”
Andy sat down after moving the shotgun out of the way and started the video over again as the three women came back to grab their plates and lost himself watching his brother start telling his story.
“What’s that?” Andy heard Kalai ask over his shoulder, and he paused the video.
“That’s my brother! That’s Kay Tee!”
“Holy shit, what?” Jackie nearly shoved Kalai into Andy as she jammed her bread slice down her gullet and crowded in to see the screen.
Andy started the video over a second time and they watched in silence. “God, that brings back memories. Back when mom was still alive and before we broke up the warband. I can’t believe that slippery little punk ghosted a pod of Commandos for two fucking years! Holy shit, that’s badass!”
Before Andy could say anything, Sakalbi started coughing and brought the binoculars up. “Uh, Andy? Jackie? What do we do about sharks?”
Jackie looked at Andy in confusion. “Sharks? There’s nothing but Dogs around here.”
“Well those are shark fins and they’re charging the net!” Sakalbi pointed and Andy looked up to see dorsal fins charging the center of the net.
Andy looked at Jackie and spoke the same words in tandem, “Oh shit!”
First:
https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/yz0u3h/the_cryptid_chronicle_chapter_1/
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https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/13nh0oe/cryptid_chronicle_chapter_29/
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To be posted 6/4/23
2023.05.28 00:23 2006bruin My (32M) girlfriend (29F) is upset with me because I don't do 50% of the house work. How do we find a reasonable compromise?
**I am NOT OP. Original post by u/Successful_Leek96 in TwoHotTakes
trigger warnings: none
mood spoilers: none
My (32M) girlfriend (29F) is upset with me because I don't do 50% of the house work. How do we find a reasonable compromise? - May 18, 2023
When we first met she made it fairly clear that she expected me, as a man, to be a provider and as we continued dating for a while, her expectations were in line with me assuming a very traditional gender role. I was fine with this, i've build a fairly successful career and pay roughly 90% of our combined communal bills on a 320k salary while she makes 40k. I do all the maintenance for our cars, the boat, and all the yard work. It's been about 2 years of living together and up until now I felt things were going well.
She has recently started complaining that i'm not carrying my weight around the house. I don't do any of the cooking, do very little of the cleaning, and don't do the laundry. I felt our division of labor was fairly well established - I do all the traditional male work and pay the bills and she maintains the homestead. But if I still have to do half of the house work while almost entirely carrying the financial burden and the yard work, then her contribution would be far less than mine.
I've also recently mentioned that when we have kids, I would prefer to have them homeschooled since she's going to be a stay at home mom anyway. She wasn't very receptive to the idea, since she wants to have daytime hobbies while she's still a stay at home mom. This didn't make any sense to me "stay at home" doesn't imply using the free time to pursue hobbies, it's meant to tend to the house and the kids.
Edit:
This keeps being asked so i'll answer; I work almost 70 hours a week and she works around 25. I've literally started having panic attacks between the demands at work and getting home to being antagonized. I've had to pull over on the side of the road several times in the last month
Update: My (32M) girlfriend (29F) is upset with me because I don't do 50% of the house work. - May 20, 2023
The last 48 hours have been really eventful and while i'm still processing all that's happened, I figured posting would help me gain some mental clarity.
The night after posting here, I decided to just have a frank discussion with her and figure out how we can divide our responsibilities fairly. I first laid out the math; I work roughly 70 hour weeks and have an hour commute 6 days a week - another hour spent on getting ready for work and another hour is spent at the gym or jogging. I typically then spend 3-4 hours on average per weekend working on outdoor projects or indoor repairs - some weekends are more eventful than others but I felt this was a fair estimate.
I explained that this leaves me with an average of less than 3 hours a day to just live. As she already knows, most days I wake up, get ready for work, leave, and within an hour of getting back, I head to bed. I'm not a messy person and generally pick up after myself. Since i'm barely home, if I start doing 50% of the house work, i'd practically be cleaning up after her and her two dogs.
She was resolute about having me contribute 50% to the housework and kept mentioning that the idea of me doing less housework made her uncomfortable. Eventually we settled at just having a maid come in twice a week.
We had been drinking while having this discussion and continued after we decided on the maid. We were quite a bit more drunk when she mentioned for the first time ever that she had around 15k in credit card debt from before we met that she wanted me clear up before we got married. It just kind of hit me like lightning at that point - this relationship makes life easier for her, but makes life harder for me. Before we met I was content in my apartment 5-10 minutes walking distance from work with my 2015 Corolla and basic furniture. Since then I've bought a house she wanted, near the water which i'm not a fan of, a boat she wanted, with a pool i didn't want, thousands spent on furniture she wanted, and a BMW I didn't want. I even got her a job at my company so she could earn as much as she did before but only work 25 hour weeks.
When we woke up yesterday I called off work and I just told her that this relationship wasn't going to work; I just explained to her that my life wasn't getting easier or happier, just the opposite. She was really keen on arguing and eventually even said she no longer wanted the maid, but I didn't really budge. She left around noon with her dogs and I assume she went to her parents' house since I started getting calls from them. I didn't really have the energy to respond so I just ignored them. I'm not exactly sure when she'll do so, but I hope she'll be able to collect her things in the next few weeks. She can keep working at my company for a couple more months until she finds something more suitable.
Reminder - I am not the original poster.
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trigger warnings: none
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My (32M) girlfriend (29F) is upset with me because I don't do 50% of the house work. How do we find a reasonable compromise? - May 18, 2023
When we first met she made it fairly clear that she expected me, as a man, to be a provider and as we continued dating for a while, her expectations were in line with me assuming a very traditional gender role. I was fine with this, i've build a fairly successful career and pay roughly 90% of our combined communal bills on a 320k salary while she makes 40k. I do all the maintenance for our cars, the boat, and all the yard work. It's been about 2 years of living together and up until now I felt things were going well.
She has recently started complaining that i'm not carrying my weight around the house. I don't do any of the cooking, do very little of the cleaning, and don't do the laundry. I felt our division of labor was fairly well established - I do all the traditional male work and pay the bills and she maintains the homestead. But if I still have to do half of the house work while almost entirely carrying the financial burden and the yard work, then her contribution would be far less than mine.
I've also recently mentioned that when we have kids, I would prefer to have them homeschooled since she's going to be a stay at home mom anyway. She wasn't very receptive to the idea, since she wants to have daytime hobbies while she's still a stay at home mom. This didn't make any sense to me "stay at home" doesn't imply using the free time to pursue hobbies, it's meant to tend to the house and the kids.
Edit:
This keeps being asked so i'll answer; I work almost 70 hours a week and she works around 25. I've literally started having panic attacks between the demands at work and getting home to being antagonized. I've had to pull over on the side of the road several times in the last month
Update: My (32M) girlfriend (29F) is upset with me because I don't do 50% of the house work. - May 20, 2023
The last 48 hours have been really eventful and while i'm still processing all that's happened, I figured posting would help me gain some mental clarity.
The night after posting here, I decided to just have a frank discussion with her and figure out how we can divide our responsibilities fairly. I first laid out the math; I work roughly 70 hour weeks and have an hour commute 6 days a week - another hour spent on getting ready for work and another hour is spent at the gym or jogging. I typically then spend 3-4 hours on average per weekend working on outdoor projects or indoor repairs - some weekends are more eventful than others but I felt this was a fair estimate.
I explained that this leaves me with an average of less than 3 hours a day to just live. As she already knows, most days I wake up, get ready for work, leave, and within an hour of getting back, I head to bed. I'm not a messy person and generally pick up after myself. Since i'm barely home, if I start doing 50% of the house work, i'd practically be cleaning up after her and her two dogs.
She was resolute about having me contribute 50% to the housework and kept mentioning that the idea of me doing less housework made her uncomfortable. Eventually we settled at just having a maid come in twice a week.
We had been drinking while having this discussion and continued after we decided on the maid. We were quite a bit more drunk when she mentioned for the first time ever that she had around 15k in credit card debt from before we met that she wanted me clear up before we got married. It just kind of hit me like lightning at that point - this relationship makes life easier for her, but makes life harder for me. Before we met I was content in my apartment 5-10 minutes walking distance from work with my 2015 Corolla and basic furniture. Since then I've bought a house she wanted, near the water which i'm not a fan of, a boat she wanted, with a pool i didn't want, thousands spent on furniture she wanted, and a BMW I didn't want. I even got her a job at my company so she could earn as much as she did before but only work 25 hour weeks.
When we woke up yesterday I called off work and I just told her that this relationship wasn't going to work; I just explained to her that my life wasn't getting easier or happier, just the opposite. She was really keen on arguing and eventually even said she no longer wanted the maid, but I didn't really budge. She left around noon with her dogs and I assume she went to her parents' house since I started getting calls from them. I didn't really have the energy to respond so I just ignored them. I'm not exactly sure when she'll do so, but I hope she'll be able to collect her things in the next few weeks. She can keep working at my company for a couple more months until she finds something more suitable.
Reminder - I am not the original poster.
2023.05.27 20:16 Mortimer_Whimsiwick World Hunger Games: 17th Hunger Games: Reapings
The weeks leading up to the 17th Hunger Games were especially eventful as the Capital was still reeling from the previous year’s spectacular games. Sherpa Kapoor, with the help of his lion friends, had proven himself to be the most popular tribute in Hunger Games history since Ashley Chen (victor of the 13th Hunger Games)’s revenge plot. The Capital was kept satisfied with reruns as well as the continuing increasing sales of 16th HG merchandise. This consisted of Kapoor Pride plushies, replica gaffi sticks, and the most sought-after item: the latest in the line of Panem Champion Funko Pop. Every year, a new action figure is made for the latest victor of the Hunger Games. It was the most popular collectible in the Capital. In fact, since the Golden Victors concept was introduced, a new line of Funko Pop was released, separating the first ten victors (called the First Champions) and the Golden Victors by changing the color of the clothes and weapons to gold.
Hunger Games mania had started once more a week before the reaping cycle. Artemis Radcliffe interviewed Head Gamemaker Grimstone on her morning show Good Morning Panem, expressing relief that the Sherpa craze had died down. Grimstone responded that that kind of excitement was the nature of the Golden Victors and he hoped he would be able to replicate that level of success. However, he did admit it was up to the tributes to decide that. As usual, Artemis pushed for details only to receive tight lips from the gamemaker. She responded to herself, telling the audience she'll never learn the futility of getting spoilers from a gamemaker.
A week later, Sherpa had to put his restaurant endeavors on hold as he was called for the reaping tour. His entourage consisted of his brother Zacharie, Cassandra (his mentor), and surviving Kapoor Pride member Parth. After a depressing reaping at his home district, Cassandra had to separate from the group to take care of the first half of mentoring his tributes Mishti and Horace. So, Troy van Stomm (victor of the 5th Hunger Games) volunteered to tag along, mostly in hopes to become Sherpa’s friend. A notable incident happened during the District 8 reaping, when the younger brother of Asaad (D8 tribute of 16th games who was killed by Sherpa), Burlap, was reaped and attempted to assault Sherpa on the stage. Parth tackled him to the ground but was stopped by Sherpa before he could injure him further.
After witnessing the reaping games of District 2 sire Nikita and Andrei, Sherpa and his entourage arrived in District 6. He was given a tour by Mayor Bengtsson and District 6’s only victor Phoebe Bentley. They introduced to Sherpa a recently completed construction project, the Luxury Viking Cruise. This week-long cruise trip would sail the seas of Districts 4 and 6, even granting a tour of the Faroe Island Base. Despite being a victor for nearly a year, Sherpa was shocked by the fancy architecture and opulence. The remainder of the tour was a bit of a downer, Sherpa seeing firsthand the combined effects of poverty and the warmweed epidemic. His spirits were lifted when Phoebe enthusiastically showed him the Kento Rehabilitation Center. Both Sherpa and Troy decided to inject some of their money into the community, buying a variety of the local liquors outside of the Johnson Jazzy Juices brand. During lunch, Phoebe introduced them to her husband, local piloting legend Jackson Williams, and her “arena baby” Mirabelle. Sherpa allowed Mirabelle to pet Parth while he asked Jackson some piloting questions.
After lunch, everyone headed over to the reaping square where he was greeted by the mayor. He chatted for about ten minutes as the oil and vomit stained amber clad youths filed into the enclosure, the process taking longer as peacekeepers had to round up inebriated youths who tried to ditch the process. Sherpa made his victor’s speech more lively, bringing up his restaurant business and performing a couple tricks with Parth. Some of the youths enjoyed the show and applauded him. After his speech, Phoebe urged him to pull out the first name from the female reaping bowl. Sherpa took a deep breath and shoved his hand in the bowl. He unfolded the paper and announced eighteen year old Catilina "Cat" Verter as tribute.
Cat was a tall medium built woman with ginger curls and round glasses and was known as one of the assistant instructors at the Kento Rehabilitation Centre, so she knew District 6’s sole victor Phoebe Bentley quite well. Phoebe apparently was funding Cat's scholarship to become a licensed therapist. Phoebe put her hand over her mouth in shock when Cat’s name was called. Cat walked up to the stage, with a tightness in her chest and tears streaming down her face. She shook hands with Sherpa and said his pet lion was cute. She turned towards the cameras, forcing a smile in an attempt to convince Capital audiences she wasn’t unhappy with her situation. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis fell for the fake smile, commenting how she must be excited to represent her district. Her co-commentator Capricorn Luther rolled his eyes in annoyance and told her to just keep watching.
Sherpa walked over to the male reaping bowl, feeling slight relief the first wasn’t a drugged out zombie. He shuffled to the male reaping bowl and pulled out the name of fifteen year old Jackknife "Jack" Clutch. Cameras found Jack in the middle of the horde of inebriated youth. Jack was a short brown haired lad who was ragged looking from head to toe due to a recent warmweed binge. Despite this, he was less skinny and pale looking than his peers to the surprise of Artemis and Luther. Luther pulled some notes and revealed Jack had managed to stay sober for 10 months, recently relapsing after the Good Morning Panem interview. He read further and discovered that Jack was one of the young refinery workers in one of the hovercraft warehouses. Artemis read the remainder of the notes and found it interesting to hear he was imprisoned four months ago after getting caught trying to smuggle warmweed across the Orkney Stretch, a stretch of water fashioned as an aquatic border separating the two districts. Despite the previous soberness, he was in too much of a trance to notice being reaped and was dragged to the stage by peacekeepers. He limply shook hands with Sherpa and absentmindedly walked into Parth before finding his place to the left of the stage. Mayor Bengtsson indifferently congratulated this year’s tributes before dismissing them to their waiting rooms. Phoebe dismissed herself to the hoverjet, kissing her husband and Mirabelle goodbye. Sherpa and his entourage also left for their next stop in the reaping tour: District 4.
Cat was visited by her older brother Tank and a coworker Pedal. The Juicy Tidbits podcast disclosed that her mother had passed away two years ago and her father was passed out drunk at the Kjellberg Brewery. The group embraced and shared in the sorrowful moment. Tank and Pedal tried to cram as much advice as they could into the session, but Cat was feeling overwhelmed. She assured them she had a great mentor who would surely help her win. Cat told Tank to sell her belongings and drew a map to the location of her pocketed earnings and her will. She thanked him for always being there and becoming sober for her. She turned to Pedal and thanked him for being her best friend, regretting never asking him out. She asked Pedal to take care of her patients, attempting to make a list of important details. However, the peacekeepers arrived before she could finish and escorted her to the hoverjet.
Meanwhile, Jack was visited by Tyre, his only friend who was one of the few who managed to stay sober during the sudden uptake of drugs and alcohol at reaping week. She consoled him as he began to cry and reassured his other friends would come if they weren't also high. Jack claimed to not care about them, but instead expressed disappointment in his parents for not coming. Tyre assured him that she believed in him. Jack shrugged and said, “At least I’ll die knowing I had one friend.” Tyre responded with “If that nervous wreck Oslo could make it as far as he did, then I'm sure you can get that little bit extra and win." She kissed him on the lips before giving him a final embrace, promising a surprised Jack that she would wait for him. Jack then made her promise that if he doesn’t make it to not wait so long to find someone else. The peacekeepers arrived and brought him to the hoverjet.
When Jack and Cat got on the hovercraft, Phoebe was already waiting at the dining table. She asked Jack to hand over any contraband warmweed he may have before they got started. He initially refused, arguing that he would need them to not break down during training. Cat reminded him that his best chance at winning would be staying sober, recalling Phoebe telling her about last year’s tributes ruining their pregames chances due to them being high. She offered to help him stay calm during the following events, bringing up her training in therapy. This seemed to persuade him to hand over the warmweed he kept in his pocket. Little did they know, he was secretly concealing a teeny fraction in the sole of his shoe. The group spent the next few hours discussing strategy. As opposed to most mentors, who would explain the upcoming events before having them watch previous games, Phoebe crafted a presentation with a slide show. The slideshow touched on the topics of the pregame events, finding water sources, creating makeshift weapons and making and handling alliances. In previous years, Phoebe used pictures and videos from previous games but this year she replaced them with stop motion animation and drawings depicting the scenarios.
When the presentation was over, Phoebe asked her tributes to tell her what their strategy for training would be. Cat was the first to answer, detailing how she would use her time to learn survival skills. However, she was indecisive on what weapon to choose. Jack, on the other hand, decided he would learn to use a knife and try his hand at camouflage. Phoebe appeared satisfied with their initial answers and instructed them to mull over their indecision. She gave them the time of noon tomorrow to come to her with their final decision. Phoebe attempted to retire her tributes to their quarters, but Jack asked if he could watch her games. Phoebe was taken aback by this. She was about to refuse, but Cat expressed her desire to see it as well. Phoebe relented and turned on the 3rd Hunger Games. While watching, Jack commended the swordsmanship of Kento (the D3 tribute and Mirabelle’s biological father) before considering practicing with a sword instead. Cat repeated the praise while condemning Carson (Phoebe’s district partner)’s brutality, even going as far as comparing him to one of the unruly patients in the mental asylum ward at the Kento Rehabilitation Centre. She turned to hear Phoebe’s thoughts, but saw her tearfully struggling to refrain herself from grabbing a bottle of whiskey. Cat rushed to her and put the bottle down, embracing her as she cried. She ordered Jack to turn off the games, which he did after seeing the climactic battle between her and Carson. Phoebe eventually calmed down and ordered her tributes to bed for the night. Night cameras showed that Cat did some light reading on a book about lizards and amphibians she found before sleeping. Meanwhile, Jack mulled over whether or not he should consume his contraband. He ultimately decided to ask the peacekeeper outside his door to bring him a strong tasting but nonalcoholic drink. He learned from him that all of the drinks in the District 6 apartment were nonalcoholic, leading him to accept a lemon vodka.
The next morning, the tributes woke up to a light breakfast and were asked to clean up quickly and select clothes provided in their wardrobes. This became a tradition Phoebe picked up for her tributes after Jase Toliver tried it for the District 8 tributes of the 2nd Quinquennial Quell (15th Hunger Games). The tradition became handy that year as the Capital was going through a heat wave. Due to being farther north and experiencing the harshest winters of Panem, District 6 wasn’t used to the warmer climate. This was brought up when Jack opened one of the windows, which blew a humid draft in. Phoebe instructed them to dress for the heat, Cat choosing a V neck tank top with cutoff denim shorts while Jack wore a henley shirt with board shorts.
The tributes were greeted by a respectable sized crowd despite being on the lower end of the visitation numbers. District 6 usually ended up with the second or third lowest turnout. depending on the sobriety of their tributes with this year having the fifth lowest turnout. Many of the crowd members flocked to Phoebe, either calling her by name or as “The Philosopher”. Many asked how Mirabelle was doing, knowing she turned thirteen not long ago. Phoebe graciously answered their questions, but urged them to meet her tributes. Jack took surprisingly well to the crowd, shaking hands with people his age and charming an elderly woman with flattery. She pinched his cheeks, telling him how adorable he was and promising to sponsor him if he keeps it up. Cat was nervous at first, but the people skills she learned from her job quickly took over. She gave pleasantries and charmed the crowds with her manners. She even managed to convince a few Captalites to open up about their personal lives so she could get them to relate to her. Jack walked over to her while she was advising a certain young man to tell his crush how he felt. Jack put his arm around her shoulder and assured them she could be everyone’s shrink if she could. Cat piggybacked off this, declaring that they would be missing out if they didn’t sponsor them. When Phoebe finally managed to escape the paparazzi, she ushered her tributes into the limousine. Phoebe thanked them for behaving and making a good impression. Cat commended Jack’s people skills, wondering where they were before. Jack simply stated he realized the gravity of the situation while he was dressing and decided to do his best to make it home to his friend Tyre.
When the group arrived at the apartment, they were greeted by this year’s stylist Sasha Grasseed. Phoebe became annoyed upon recognizing her. It was rumored that Sasha had only achieved her position by sleeping with pregame event organizer Dermont Toolly. Cat and Jack attempted to introduce themselves, but Sasha cut them off. She claimed to be on a tight schedule and barked at them to stand in place for their measurements. She then ordered her assistant Morrana Cloudveil to do the measurements. Phoebe questioned if having an assistant was allowed, but Sasha brushed this off claiming it made things easier. Phoebe mumbled to herself, “Yeah because everything comes easy for you.” The Juicy Tidbits podcast had a five-minute discussion over this particular comment, wondering if there was unspoken beef between the two. Phoebe asked to see some of the design, but Sasha said she already decided on a mechanic outfit covered in nails. Phoebe tried to speak again but was rudely interrupted. An exasperated Sasha growled that her design was final, and she was going to leave to get started and to "find an actual drink".
By the time she left, Morrana apologized for Sasha's behavior and remarked that she tried to tell her she was thinking of the nuts, bolts and nails used for construction. Phoebe said that it was fine and suggested to her tributes to try and play into the peculiar nature of the designs. Jack asked what her problem was, calling her a “high strung bitch queen”. Cat suggested Sasha thought the position was above her talents and only accepted to hopefully win the title of Blanco Fashion Magazine’s Best Dressed. Phoebe considered the theory plausible and suggested they throw Sasha under the bus in interviews if the parade doesn’t work out. Morrana agreed, explaining that the only way to bring down a stylist is if they screw up and enough people talk about it. Cat and Jack promised to do so. Phoebe decided to turn on replays of the reapings and advised her tributes to study their opponents.
Immediately after leaving District 6, Sherpa and his entourage arrived in District 4. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis and Luther revealed that District 4 was also going through a heat wave, which forced the refrigeration system to work overtime to protect the latest catch and produce. Three freezer boxes, two containing salmon and one squid, had to be emptied and their contents disposed of when the insulation failed. As Mayor Phillip gave Sherpa a tour, people would stop and stare at Parth as he trailed along. Little kids ran up and asked to pet him, to which Sherpa happily obliged. Sherpa showed much interest in District 4’s naval and fishing industry, especially the latter. Much to Sherpa's dismay, especially after seeing mass poverty across the other districts, he complained about some of the fish being thrown away despite still being good to eat. He claimed that some citizens across Panem would be willing to eat it, buying some various fillets on the spot. He did a cooking demonstration for Mayor Phillip, creating sushi with salmon and serving it as their lunch.
On their way to the reaping square, they stopped to pick up District 4’s victor Gill Henderson at the Slippery Shell, the most popular pub in District 4 where Dolph Masterson (ally to Bacchus Johnson of the 9th Hunger Games) dreamed of the many cocktails now sold under the Johnson’s Jazzy Juices brand. When they arrived at the reaping square, the blue clad potential tributes were already lined up and waiting. Sherpa noticed that the majority looked unfazed due to District 4 generally performing quite well, many holding onto the hope of their next victor coming very soon. So much so that the district had the honour of having the Capital’s third fan group, the Buccaneers, always ready to support them.
Sherpa gave a pre-translated speech that he read very well due to improvements in his English. He asked the women if they had any volunteers. Receiving no reply, he stepped towards the female reaping bowl. He pulled out the name of fourteen year old Pearl Riverstone. Cameras zoomed in on a short tanned girl with dirty blonde pigtails wearing a sky blue skirt and white shirt. Pearl loudly cried over her name being called and begged anyone to volunteer for her. As she sombered forward, protests were heard across the crowd. Luther pulled up a note card and revealed that Pearl's parents ran one of the many pubs across District 4. Her family’s pub The Brine was one of the more popular amongst working class people, attendance sometimes rivalling the Slippery Shell. Pearl would normally be found waiting tables at The Brine or playing with her friends on the riverwalk. Sherpa felt sorry for the girl and forgoed the hand shaking in place of letting her hug Parth. Pearl thanked Sherpa and proceeded to take her place to the right of the stage.
Sherpa took a deep breath and reiterated the volunteer question to the men. He again received no reply and went towards the male reaping bowl. He pulled a name from the bottom and pulled it out, nearly dropping it when a gust of wind blew through. He read the name of eighteen year old Mortimer Beckett. Many members in the enclosures and outside audiences began whispering amongst themselves. Gill Henderson appeared surprised, clueing Capital viewers that he was familiar with him. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis urged the cameras to find this person, wondering what made him so known. Cameras circled around the area for a moment until spotting a muscled man with sunkissed brown wavy hair and hazel green eyes. The most interesting thing about him was the shackles on his hands and being accompanied by two peacekeepers.
Mortimer cursed to himself upon hearing his name and grumbled to his guards to get it over with. While he shuffled to the stage, Luther pulled some notes together. He revealed to the audience that Mortimer was a shiphand who worked on the same dock Gill Henderson manages. The chains were as a precaution as two weeks ago, Mortimer was caught smuggling a small supply of warmweed and District 6 professor Tobias Stephens into District 4’s waters. Tobias was seeking asylum in District 4 and was given a fake ID, but was caught hours after landing. He was executed in District 4’s town square. Artemis thought he looked handsome and wanted to see the muscles underneath his thin white undershirt. She was confused by the black eyeliner encompassing his right eye, wondering if he tried to paint a tattoo there. She also swore she could see something blue etched into his skin, wondering if he had a back tattoo. Mortimer didn’t want to shake Sherpa’s hand, but was intimidated by Parth’s cold black eyes and relented. Mayor Phillip congratulated this year’s tributes before dismissing them to the waiting rooms in the Town Centre.
Pearl was visited by both parents and her older sister Henrietta. Pearl couldn’t stop crying, her parents trying her best to calm her down. It was eventually Henrietta that temporarily ceased her hysterics. She asked her little sister to listen to her mentor and try her best. She implied she could remind Gill of the district partner he lost in his games and get extra attention. Pearl asked, “What about my partner? He could protect me.” Henrietta’s face furrowed into a frown. She insisted she not trust him, claiming he would only look out for himself like he always did. Pearl lamented that she couldn’t possibly win and was scared. Her mother assured her that a fourteen year old girl from District 7 won before, reminding her of Vixen Furtherson (victor of the 14th Hunger Games). Pearl asked if they thought she could have the chance to meet her, to which the parents thought she would. The four had a final embrace before peacekeepers arrived. Pearl resumed her hysterics the second the first peacekeeper grabbed her and she cried as she was dragged to the Speedy Submarine.
Meanwhile, Mortimer was initially all alone in his room. He was pacing back and forth, a couple tears falling from his eyes. Suddenly, the door opened and his girlfriend Meridia Vilewater entered. She embraced him and apologised for not coming sooner. Mortimer said it was alright, simply glad someone showed up. Meridia said, “I’m sorry your father couldn’t make it. I promise to look after him.” Mortimer thanked her and expressed how grateful he was for her being there when the entire town wasn’t. He joked how her father didn’t have to worry about him poking around anymore, but Meridia began to tear up upon hearing this. He apologised and assured her he would try his best to win and not only bring honour to the district, but possibly help his father. He then snarkily said, “Who knows? Maybe your dad will accept me?” Meridia betted he would and gave him a final embrace, knowing their time was short. Mortimer whispered to her the location of his secret stash of “medicine” before being dragged out of the room and to the Speedy Submarine.
Pearl and Mortimer found themselves in the lounge area. Pearl nervously sat on the couch and waited for their mentor to show. Mortimer gave her a stare before silently resigning himself to the bar. He was downing a Woeful Whiskful cocktail from Johnson’s Jazzy Juices when their mentor Gill Henderson entered the room. He gave a momentary glance to Mortimer before introducing himself to Pearl. Pearl claimed to know him from his shanty performance during the Saint Patrick’s Day celebration at The Brine. Gill appreciated the sentiment before diverting the conversation. He point-blankedly asked what skills she had. She shrugged and simply stated she was a waitress. Gill pondered over this and asked how many orders she handled on average. Pearl answered she would normally keep track of the orders of 4-5 tables simultaneously, even recalling a day she juggled eight tables at once. Gill explained she was an effective communicator and a multitasker, two skills that could prove crucial to her survival. He caught her nervously glancing at the despondent Mortimer sitting on the barstool. Gill walked over to him and greeted him. Pearl asked if he knew him, to which Gill confirmed. Mortimer dejectedly stated that everyone knew him and that he was infamous. Gill argued that he didn’t help himself with the image he projected and asked what his father would think. Mortimer snapped that he didn’t know anything and to drop it. The tone in his voice scared Pearl, but Mortimer was kind enough to apologise to her for his outburst.
Gill took this opportunity to give them the routine rundown of the events to come. He recommended they devise ways to get the Capital to like them, reminding them of the importance of sponsors. Gill looked down at Pearl and said she was adorable and could use that. Pearl decided to better improve her look to play into the cute persona. Gill turned to Mortimer, who was still sipping from his glass but paying close attention. Gill said that his criminal record and standoffish attitude wouldn’t help matters, suggesting he lighten up. He also explained that he knew some of his stories that could be used as sob stories for the audience. Mortimer claimed those to be private. He grumbled that he didn’t need any help before resigning himself to the training room. Gill hollered back to at least consider using his strength as an asset. Pearl asked what his deal was, claiming to have only heard the story of him smuggling “the professor from 6’ in. Gill sighed and asked her to sit down. He decided to disclose that Mortimer’s mother abandoned him and his disabled father when he was six, leaving him to become man of the house. He had some traumatic experiences with a few of District 4’s bad apples and had trust issues, enough to turn away those who genuinely wanted to help, including Alexander Riverstone. Pearl, hearing her father’s name dropped, wanted to know more, but Gill decided it was a story for another time. He instead called the dinner cart in and turned on the TV. He turned on the 13th and 14th Hunger Games, both erecting Ashley Chen and Vixen Furtherson, the youngest victors in history. Gill asked Pearl to take notes on their performances in hopes of settling on a strategy.
While she took notes, Gill visited the training room and approached Mortimer who was lifting weights. Gill notified him of the dinner cart and pleaded with him to join them. Mortimer relented and dropped his weight. Before they entered the lounge area, Gill put a hand on Mortimer’s shoulder and told him there was no shame in wanting to talk as he didn’t want him to die in the arena with things remaining unsaid. Mortimer hesitated before wordlessly filling his plate. He brought his plate to the couch and began watching the finale of the 14th games with Pearl. When the games ended, Pearl got up to make her plate while Mortimer turned on Gill’s games and made notes of his own. Pearl sat down to watch and chuckled at the iconic “Bye Felicia” tagline but averted her eyes when Gill’s district partner Angel was killed. When the finale showdown between Gill and Furler (D12 male tribute) came up, Mortimer paid close attention. Pearl asked if he was studying his trident fighting style to which he confirmed, stating his desire to practise the trident. After dinner, Gill broke into song and began improvising a sea shanty. Pearl began to dance to the melody while Mortimer nodded his head and slipped a smile in. Gill sent his tributes to bed and spent an extra few minutes at the bar, drinking a Huma Hurricane.
The next morning, the Speedy Submarine arrived at the Darius Dock on the Capital docks. Gill ordered his tributes to brush their hair and teeth as well as put on nice clothes. He even loaned his aftershave to Mortimer when there wasn’t any found in his room. Gill inspected them head to toe and reminded them to make an impression, telling Pearl to stay adorable and Mortimer to lighten up. The hatch opened and the three were bombarded with the cheers of adoring Buccaneers (avid fans of District 4). While most of the attendees swarmed around this year’s tributes, there was a small zealous group who called for the Brotherly Sailor, asking him to sing. Gill refrained from doing so, knowing it would take away attention from his mentees. Pearl played into her cuteness, flashing big smiles and waving her hands. She took pictures with many of the young girls, some even asking to touch her pigtails. One blushing boy walked up with a golden tiara and asked to put it on her head. She nodded and bowed, letting him place the tiara on her head. She thanked her “prince charming”, telling him she will go on a date with him if she wins.
Meanwhile, Mortimer didn’t say much but received much attention regardless. He took pictures with many of the teens in the crowds, one even giving him a prop trident to pose with. He also allowed the girls to squeeze his biceps and fawn over his wavy hair. Mortimer was beginning to feel annoyed and tried to find an excuse to step away. It came to a head when one eager girl asked if he had a girlfriend. He wretched himself away from the girls’ grasp, but another girl still had a hold of his shirt. The shirt tore to shreds in her hands, exposing the massive back tattoo on his back. Cameras got a close look at the illustration of the fabled Kraken inked onto the majority of his back, some of its tentacles stretching up his neck and around his chest. This unexpected turn of events becomes its own fiasco with more girls putting their hands all over his back. Pearl pushed some of the girls away and took pictures with the Kraken. Gill noticed this and quickly ushered his tributes to the limousine.
The three arrived at their apartment to see their stylist Minerva Panson waiting for them. Minerva was a tattoo artist who applied for the position of Hunger Games stylist to expand her business. This was Minerva’s second year as a stylist, having been District 11’s stylist the previous year. She greeted Gill and his tributes, excited to talk parade costumes with them. She knelt down and told Pearl how adorable she was, pinching her cheeks. She stood up and was slightly put off by Mortimer, who still felt humiliated by what happened at the parade. Minerva said she loved his tattoo, but it needed some polishing. Mortimer grunted a thanks and went into his room to find a shirt. Pearl was excited to see what outfit she had planned, begging to see her sketchbook. Minerva flipped through the pages with Gill, pointing out her favourites. Gill asked about her most recent sketch of an underwater king and mermaid costume. Minerva explained that she was inspired after a recent tattoo she gave a Buccaneer and the idea was reinforced by Mortimer’s Kraken tattoo. Pearl liked her mermaid outfit and asked if she could have her hair wet.
Mortimer came back in to see their final decision. Minerva said he would have to showcase his tattoo some more to go with her costume idea, revealing that it went viral on the Capital Internet. Mortimer was against it at first, but relented when Minerva offered to polish it and add a new one of his choosing at the ends of the tentacles on his chest. Interested, he agreed. She wondered aloud about the eyeliner around his right eye, rubbing her thumb on it. She inspected the residue and revealed to the room’s occupants it was fake. Mortimer sighed and admitted it was, but insisted he only applied it to spite those who dislike him and that he would never etch an actual tattoo on his face. While Minerva worked, Pearl complimented Mortimer’s tattoo, remarking how if she won, she would get a tattoo of her own. Mortimer chuckled, saying, “Just remember, real tattoos are permanent.”
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Hunger Games mania had started once more a week before the reaping cycle. Artemis Radcliffe interviewed Head Gamemaker Grimstone on her morning show Good Morning Panem, expressing relief that the Sherpa craze had died down. Grimstone responded that that kind of excitement was the nature of the Golden Victors and he hoped he would be able to replicate that level of success. However, he did admit it was up to the tributes to decide that. As usual, Artemis pushed for details only to receive tight lips from the gamemaker. She responded to herself, telling the audience she'll never learn the futility of getting spoilers from a gamemaker.
A week later, Sherpa had to put his restaurant endeavors on hold as he was called for the reaping tour. His entourage consisted of his brother Zacharie, Cassandra (his mentor), and surviving Kapoor Pride member Parth. After a depressing reaping at his home district, Cassandra had to separate from the group to take care of the first half of mentoring his tributes Mishti and Horace. So, Troy van Stomm (victor of the 5th Hunger Games) volunteered to tag along, mostly in hopes to become Sherpa’s friend. A notable incident happened during the District 8 reaping, when the younger brother of Asaad (D8 tribute of 16th games who was killed by Sherpa), Burlap, was reaped and attempted to assault Sherpa on the stage. Parth tackled him to the ground but was stopped by Sherpa before he could injure him further.
After witnessing the reaping games of District 2 sire Nikita and Andrei, Sherpa and his entourage arrived in District 6. He was given a tour by Mayor Bengtsson and District 6’s only victor Phoebe Bentley. They introduced to Sherpa a recently completed construction project, the Luxury Viking Cruise. This week-long cruise trip would sail the seas of Districts 4 and 6, even granting a tour of the Faroe Island Base. Despite being a victor for nearly a year, Sherpa was shocked by the fancy architecture and opulence. The remainder of the tour was a bit of a downer, Sherpa seeing firsthand the combined effects of poverty and the warmweed epidemic. His spirits were lifted when Phoebe enthusiastically showed him the Kento Rehabilitation Center. Both Sherpa and Troy decided to inject some of their money into the community, buying a variety of the local liquors outside of the Johnson Jazzy Juices brand. During lunch, Phoebe introduced them to her husband, local piloting legend Jackson Williams, and her “arena baby” Mirabelle. Sherpa allowed Mirabelle to pet Parth while he asked Jackson some piloting questions.
After lunch, everyone headed over to the reaping square where he was greeted by the mayor. He chatted for about ten minutes as the oil and vomit stained amber clad youths filed into the enclosure, the process taking longer as peacekeepers had to round up inebriated youths who tried to ditch the process. Sherpa made his victor’s speech more lively, bringing up his restaurant business and performing a couple tricks with Parth. Some of the youths enjoyed the show and applauded him. After his speech, Phoebe urged him to pull out the first name from the female reaping bowl. Sherpa took a deep breath and shoved his hand in the bowl. He unfolded the paper and announced eighteen year old Catilina "Cat" Verter as tribute.
Cat was a tall medium built woman with ginger curls and round glasses and was known as one of the assistant instructors at the Kento Rehabilitation Centre, so she knew District 6’s sole victor Phoebe Bentley quite well. Phoebe apparently was funding Cat's scholarship to become a licensed therapist. Phoebe put her hand over her mouth in shock when Cat’s name was called. Cat walked up to the stage, with a tightness in her chest and tears streaming down her face. She shook hands with Sherpa and said his pet lion was cute. She turned towards the cameras, forcing a smile in an attempt to convince Capital audiences she wasn’t unhappy with her situation. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis fell for the fake smile, commenting how she must be excited to represent her district. Her co-commentator Capricorn Luther rolled his eyes in annoyance and told her to just keep watching.
Sherpa walked over to the male reaping bowl, feeling slight relief the first wasn’t a drugged out zombie. He shuffled to the male reaping bowl and pulled out the name of fifteen year old Jackknife "Jack" Clutch. Cameras found Jack in the middle of the horde of inebriated youth. Jack was a short brown haired lad who was ragged looking from head to toe due to a recent warmweed binge. Despite this, he was less skinny and pale looking than his peers to the surprise of Artemis and Luther. Luther pulled some notes and revealed Jack had managed to stay sober for 10 months, recently relapsing after the Good Morning Panem interview. He read further and discovered that Jack was one of the young refinery workers in one of the hovercraft warehouses. Artemis read the remainder of the notes and found it interesting to hear he was imprisoned four months ago after getting caught trying to smuggle warmweed across the Orkney Stretch, a stretch of water fashioned as an aquatic border separating the two districts. Despite the previous soberness, he was in too much of a trance to notice being reaped and was dragged to the stage by peacekeepers. He limply shook hands with Sherpa and absentmindedly walked into Parth before finding his place to the left of the stage. Mayor Bengtsson indifferently congratulated this year’s tributes before dismissing them to their waiting rooms. Phoebe dismissed herself to the hoverjet, kissing her husband and Mirabelle goodbye. Sherpa and his entourage also left for their next stop in the reaping tour: District 4.
Cat was visited by her older brother Tank and a coworker Pedal. The Juicy Tidbits podcast disclosed that her mother had passed away two years ago and her father was passed out drunk at the Kjellberg Brewery. The group embraced and shared in the sorrowful moment. Tank and Pedal tried to cram as much advice as they could into the session, but Cat was feeling overwhelmed. She assured them she had a great mentor who would surely help her win. Cat told Tank to sell her belongings and drew a map to the location of her pocketed earnings and her will. She thanked him for always being there and becoming sober for her. She turned to Pedal and thanked him for being her best friend, regretting never asking him out. She asked Pedal to take care of her patients, attempting to make a list of important details. However, the peacekeepers arrived before she could finish and escorted her to the hoverjet.
Meanwhile, Jack was visited by Tyre, his only friend who was one of the few who managed to stay sober during the sudden uptake of drugs and alcohol at reaping week. She consoled him as he began to cry and reassured his other friends would come if they weren't also high. Jack claimed to not care about them, but instead expressed disappointment in his parents for not coming. Tyre assured him that she believed in him. Jack shrugged and said, “At least I’ll die knowing I had one friend.” Tyre responded with “If that nervous wreck Oslo could make it as far as he did, then I'm sure you can get that little bit extra and win." She kissed him on the lips before giving him a final embrace, promising a surprised Jack that she would wait for him. Jack then made her promise that if he doesn’t make it to not wait so long to find someone else. The peacekeepers arrived and brought him to the hoverjet.
When Jack and Cat got on the hovercraft, Phoebe was already waiting at the dining table. She asked Jack to hand over any contraband warmweed he may have before they got started. He initially refused, arguing that he would need them to not break down during training. Cat reminded him that his best chance at winning would be staying sober, recalling Phoebe telling her about last year’s tributes ruining their pregames chances due to them being high. She offered to help him stay calm during the following events, bringing up her training in therapy. This seemed to persuade him to hand over the warmweed he kept in his pocket. Little did they know, he was secretly concealing a teeny fraction in the sole of his shoe. The group spent the next few hours discussing strategy. As opposed to most mentors, who would explain the upcoming events before having them watch previous games, Phoebe crafted a presentation with a slide show. The slideshow touched on the topics of the pregame events, finding water sources, creating makeshift weapons and making and handling alliances. In previous years, Phoebe used pictures and videos from previous games but this year she replaced them with stop motion animation and drawings depicting the scenarios.
When the presentation was over, Phoebe asked her tributes to tell her what their strategy for training would be. Cat was the first to answer, detailing how she would use her time to learn survival skills. However, she was indecisive on what weapon to choose. Jack, on the other hand, decided he would learn to use a knife and try his hand at camouflage. Phoebe appeared satisfied with their initial answers and instructed them to mull over their indecision. She gave them the time of noon tomorrow to come to her with their final decision. Phoebe attempted to retire her tributes to their quarters, but Jack asked if he could watch her games. Phoebe was taken aback by this. She was about to refuse, but Cat expressed her desire to see it as well. Phoebe relented and turned on the 3rd Hunger Games. While watching, Jack commended the swordsmanship of Kento (the D3 tribute and Mirabelle’s biological father) before considering practicing with a sword instead. Cat repeated the praise while condemning Carson (Phoebe’s district partner)’s brutality, even going as far as comparing him to one of the unruly patients in the mental asylum ward at the Kento Rehabilitation Centre. She turned to hear Phoebe’s thoughts, but saw her tearfully struggling to refrain herself from grabbing a bottle of whiskey. Cat rushed to her and put the bottle down, embracing her as she cried. She ordered Jack to turn off the games, which he did after seeing the climactic battle between her and Carson. Phoebe eventually calmed down and ordered her tributes to bed for the night. Night cameras showed that Cat did some light reading on a book about lizards and amphibians she found before sleeping. Meanwhile, Jack mulled over whether or not he should consume his contraband. He ultimately decided to ask the peacekeeper outside his door to bring him a strong tasting but nonalcoholic drink. He learned from him that all of the drinks in the District 6 apartment were nonalcoholic, leading him to accept a lemon vodka.
The next morning, the tributes woke up to a light breakfast and were asked to clean up quickly and select clothes provided in their wardrobes. This became a tradition Phoebe picked up for her tributes after Jase Toliver tried it for the District 8 tributes of the 2nd Quinquennial Quell (15th Hunger Games). The tradition became handy that year as the Capital was going through a heat wave. Due to being farther north and experiencing the harshest winters of Panem, District 6 wasn’t used to the warmer climate. This was brought up when Jack opened one of the windows, which blew a humid draft in. Phoebe instructed them to dress for the heat, Cat choosing a V neck tank top with cutoff denim shorts while Jack wore a henley shirt with board shorts.
The tributes were greeted by a respectable sized crowd despite being on the lower end of the visitation numbers. District 6 usually ended up with the second or third lowest turnout. depending on the sobriety of their tributes with this year having the fifth lowest turnout. Many of the crowd members flocked to Phoebe, either calling her by name or as “The Philosopher”. Many asked how Mirabelle was doing, knowing she turned thirteen not long ago. Phoebe graciously answered their questions, but urged them to meet her tributes. Jack took surprisingly well to the crowd, shaking hands with people his age and charming an elderly woman with flattery. She pinched his cheeks, telling him how adorable he was and promising to sponsor him if he keeps it up. Cat was nervous at first, but the people skills she learned from her job quickly took over. She gave pleasantries and charmed the crowds with her manners. She even managed to convince a few Captalites to open up about their personal lives so she could get them to relate to her. Jack walked over to her while she was advising a certain young man to tell his crush how he felt. Jack put his arm around her shoulder and assured them she could be everyone’s shrink if she could. Cat piggybacked off this, declaring that they would be missing out if they didn’t sponsor them. When Phoebe finally managed to escape the paparazzi, she ushered her tributes into the limousine. Phoebe thanked them for behaving and making a good impression. Cat commended Jack’s people skills, wondering where they were before. Jack simply stated he realized the gravity of the situation while he was dressing and decided to do his best to make it home to his friend Tyre.
When the group arrived at the apartment, they were greeted by this year’s stylist Sasha Grasseed. Phoebe became annoyed upon recognizing her. It was rumored that Sasha had only achieved her position by sleeping with pregame event organizer Dermont Toolly. Cat and Jack attempted to introduce themselves, but Sasha cut them off. She claimed to be on a tight schedule and barked at them to stand in place for their measurements. She then ordered her assistant Morrana Cloudveil to do the measurements. Phoebe questioned if having an assistant was allowed, but Sasha brushed this off claiming it made things easier. Phoebe mumbled to herself, “Yeah because everything comes easy for you.” The Juicy Tidbits podcast had a five-minute discussion over this particular comment, wondering if there was unspoken beef between the two. Phoebe asked to see some of the design, but Sasha said she already decided on a mechanic outfit covered in nails. Phoebe tried to speak again but was rudely interrupted. An exasperated Sasha growled that her design was final, and she was going to leave to get started and to "find an actual drink".
By the time she left, Morrana apologized for Sasha's behavior and remarked that she tried to tell her she was thinking of the nuts, bolts and nails used for construction. Phoebe said that it was fine and suggested to her tributes to try and play into the peculiar nature of the designs. Jack asked what her problem was, calling her a “high strung bitch queen”. Cat suggested Sasha thought the position was above her talents and only accepted to hopefully win the title of Blanco Fashion Magazine’s Best Dressed. Phoebe considered the theory plausible and suggested they throw Sasha under the bus in interviews if the parade doesn’t work out. Morrana agreed, explaining that the only way to bring down a stylist is if they screw up and enough people talk about it. Cat and Jack promised to do so. Phoebe decided to turn on replays of the reapings and advised her tributes to study their opponents.
Immediately after leaving District 6, Sherpa and his entourage arrived in District 4. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis and Luther revealed that District 4 was also going through a heat wave, which forced the refrigeration system to work overtime to protect the latest catch and produce. Three freezer boxes, two containing salmon and one squid, had to be emptied and their contents disposed of when the insulation failed. As Mayor Phillip gave Sherpa a tour, people would stop and stare at Parth as he trailed along. Little kids ran up and asked to pet him, to which Sherpa happily obliged. Sherpa showed much interest in District 4’s naval and fishing industry, especially the latter. Much to Sherpa's dismay, especially after seeing mass poverty across the other districts, he complained about some of the fish being thrown away despite still being good to eat. He claimed that some citizens across Panem would be willing to eat it, buying some various fillets on the spot. He did a cooking demonstration for Mayor Phillip, creating sushi with salmon and serving it as their lunch.
On their way to the reaping square, they stopped to pick up District 4’s victor Gill Henderson at the Slippery Shell, the most popular pub in District 4 where Dolph Masterson (ally to Bacchus Johnson of the 9th Hunger Games) dreamed of the many cocktails now sold under the Johnson’s Jazzy Juices brand. When they arrived at the reaping square, the blue clad potential tributes were already lined up and waiting. Sherpa noticed that the majority looked unfazed due to District 4 generally performing quite well, many holding onto the hope of their next victor coming very soon. So much so that the district had the honour of having the Capital’s third fan group, the Buccaneers, always ready to support them.
Sherpa gave a pre-translated speech that he read very well due to improvements in his English. He asked the women if they had any volunteers. Receiving no reply, he stepped towards the female reaping bowl. He pulled out the name of fourteen year old Pearl Riverstone. Cameras zoomed in on a short tanned girl with dirty blonde pigtails wearing a sky blue skirt and white shirt. Pearl loudly cried over her name being called and begged anyone to volunteer for her. As she sombered forward, protests were heard across the crowd. Luther pulled up a note card and revealed that Pearl's parents ran one of the many pubs across District 4. Her family’s pub The Brine was one of the more popular amongst working class people, attendance sometimes rivalling the Slippery Shell. Pearl would normally be found waiting tables at The Brine or playing with her friends on the riverwalk. Sherpa felt sorry for the girl and forgoed the hand shaking in place of letting her hug Parth. Pearl thanked Sherpa and proceeded to take her place to the right of the stage.
Sherpa took a deep breath and reiterated the volunteer question to the men. He again received no reply and went towards the male reaping bowl. He pulled a name from the bottom and pulled it out, nearly dropping it when a gust of wind blew through. He read the name of eighteen year old Mortimer Beckett. Many members in the enclosures and outside audiences began whispering amongst themselves. Gill Henderson appeared surprised, clueing Capital viewers that he was familiar with him. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis urged the cameras to find this person, wondering what made him so known. Cameras circled around the area for a moment until spotting a muscled man with sunkissed brown wavy hair and hazel green eyes. The most interesting thing about him was the shackles on his hands and being accompanied by two peacekeepers.
Mortimer cursed to himself upon hearing his name and grumbled to his guards to get it over with. While he shuffled to the stage, Luther pulled some notes together. He revealed to the audience that Mortimer was a shiphand who worked on the same dock Gill Henderson manages. The chains were as a precaution as two weeks ago, Mortimer was caught smuggling a small supply of warmweed and District 6 professor Tobias Stephens into District 4’s waters. Tobias was seeking asylum in District 4 and was given a fake ID, but was caught hours after landing. He was executed in District 4’s town square. Artemis thought he looked handsome and wanted to see the muscles underneath his thin white undershirt. She was confused by the black eyeliner encompassing his right eye, wondering if he tried to paint a tattoo there. She also swore she could see something blue etched into his skin, wondering if he had a back tattoo. Mortimer didn’t want to shake Sherpa’s hand, but was intimidated by Parth’s cold black eyes and relented. Mayor Phillip congratulated this year’s tributes before dismissing them to the waiting rooms in the Town Centre.
Pearl was visited by both parents and her older sister Henrietta. Pearl couldn’t stop crying, her parents trying her best to calm her down. It was eventually Henrietta that temporarily ceased her hysterics. She asked her little sister to listen to her mentor and try her best. She implied she could remind Gill of the district partner he lost in his games and get extra attention. Pearl asked, “What about my partner? He could protect me.” Henrietta’s face furrowed into a frown. She insisted she not trust him, claiming he would only look out for himself like he always did. Pearl lamented that she couldn’t possibly win and was scared. Her mother assured her that a fourteen year old girl from District 7 won before, reminding her of Vixen Furtherson (victor of the 14th Hunger Games). Pearl asked if they thought she could have the chance to meet her, to which the parents thought she would. The four had a final embrace before peacekeepers arrived. Pearl resumed her hysterics the second the first peacekeeper grabbed her and she cried as she was dragged to the Speedy Submarine.
Meanwhile, Mortimer was initially all alone in his room. He was pacing back and forth, a couple tears falling from his eyes. Suddenly, the door opened and his girlfriend Meridia Vilewater entered. She embraced him and apologised for not coming sooner. Mortimer said it was alright, simply glad someone showed up. Meridia said, “I’m sorry your father couldn’t make it. I promise to look after him.” Mortimer thanked her and expressed how grateful he was for her being there when the entire town wasn’t. He joked how her father didn’t have to worry about him poking around anymore, but Meridia began to tear up upon hearing this. He apologised and assured her he would try his best to win and not only bring honour to the district, but possibly help his father. He then snarkily said, “Who knows? Maybe your dad will accept me?” Meridia betted he would and gave him a final embrace, knowing their time was short. Mortimer whispered to her the location of his secret stash of “medicine” before being dragged out of the room and to the Speedy Submarine.
Pearl and Mortimer found themselves in the lounge area. Pearl nervously sat on the couch and waited for their mentor to show. Mortimer gave her a stare before silently resigning himself to the bar. He was downing a Woeful Whiskful cocktail from Johnson’s Jazzy Juices when their mentor Gill Henderson entered the room. He gave a momentary glance to Mortimer before introducing himself to Pearl. Pearl claimed to know him from his shanty performance during the Saint Patrick’s Day celebration at The Brine. Gill appreciated the sentiment before diverting the conversation. He point-blankedly asked what skills she had. She shrugged and simply stated she was a waitress. Gill pondered over this and asked how many orders she handled on average. Pearl answered she would normally keep track of the orders of 4-5 tables simultaneously, even recalling a day she juggled eight tables at once. Gill explained she was an effective communicator and a multitasker, two skills that could prove crucial to her survival. He caught her nervously glancing at the despondent Mortimer sitting on the barstool. Gill walked over to him and greeted him. Pearl asked if he knew him, to which Gill confirmed. Mortimer dejectedly stated that everyone knew him and that he was infamous. Gill argued that he didn’t help himself with the image he projected and asked what his father would think. Mortimer snapped that he didn’t know anything and to drop it. The tone in his voice scared Pearl, but Mortimer was kind enough to apologise to her for his outburst.
Gill took this opportunity to give them the routine rundown of the events to come. He recommended they devise ways to get the Capital to like them, reminding them of the importance of sponsors. Gill looked down at Pearl and said she was adorable and could use that. Pearl decided to better improve her look to play into the cute persona. Gill turned to Mortimer, who was still sipping from his glass but paying close attention. Gill said that his criminal record and standoffish attitude wouldn’t help matters, suggesting he lighten up. He also explained that he knew some of his stories that could be used as sob stories for the audience. Mortimer claimed those to be private. He grumbled that he didn’t need any help before resigning himself to the training room. Gill hollered back to at least consider using his strength as an asset. Pearl asked what his deal was, claiming to have only heard the story of him smuggling “the professor from 6’ in. Gill sighed and asked her to sit down. He decided to disclose that Mortimer’s mother abandoned him and his disabled father when he was six, leaving him to become man of the house. He had some traumatic experiences with a few of District 4’s bad apples and had trust issues, enough to turn away those who genuinely wanted to help, including Alexander Riverstone. Pearl, hearing her father’s name dropped, wanted to know more, but Gill decided it was a story for another time. He instead called the dinner cart in and turned on the TV. He turned on the 13th and 14th Hunger Games, both erecting Ashley Chen and Vixen Furtherson, the youngest victors in history. Gill asked Pearl to take notes on their performances in hopes of settling on a strategy.
While she took notes, Gill visited the training room and approached Mortimer who was lifting weights. Gill notified him of the dinner cart and pleaded with him to join them. Mortimer relented and dropped his weight. Before they entered the lounge area, Gill put a hand on Mortimer’s shoulder and told him there was no shame in wanting to talk as he didn’t want him to die in the arena with things remaining unsaid. Mortimer hesitated before wordlessly filling his plate. He brought his plate to the couch and began watching the finale of the 14th games with Pearl. When the games ended, Pearl got up to make her plate while Mortimer turned on Gill’s games and made notes of his own. Pearl sat down to watch and chuckled at the iconic “Bye Felicia” tagline but averted her eyes when Gill’s district partner Angel was killed. When the finale showdown between Gill and Furler (D12 male tribute) came up, Mortimer paid close attention. Pearl asked if he was studying his trident fighting style to which he confirmed, stating his desire to practise the trident. After dinner, Gill broke into song and began improvising a sea shanty. Pearl began to dance to the melody while Mortimer nodded his head and slipped a smile in. Gill sent his tributes to bed and spent an extra few minutes at the bar, drinking a Huma Hurricane.
The next morning, the Speedy Submarine arrived at the Darius Dock on the Capital docks. Gill ordered his tributes to brush their hair and teeth as well as put on nice clothes. He even loaned his aftershave to Mortimer when there wasn’t any found in his room. Gill inspected them head to toe and reminded them to make an impression, telling Pearl to stay adorable and Mortimer to lighten up. The hatch opened and the three were bombarded with the cheers of adoring Buccaneers (avid fans of District 4). While most of the attendees swarmed around this year’s tributes, there was a small zealous group who called for the Brotherly Sailor, asking him to sing. Gill refrained from doing so, knowing it would take away attention from his mentees. Pearl played into her cuteness, flashing big smiles and waving her hands. She took pictures with many of the young girls, some even asking to touch her pigtails. One blushing boy walked up with a golden tiara and asked to put it on her head. She nodded and bowed, letting him place the tiara on her head. She thanked her “prince charming”, telling him she will go on a date with him if she wins.
Meanwhile, Mortimer didn’t say much but received much attention regardless. He took pictures with many of the teens in the crowds, one even giving him a prop trident to pose with. He also allowed the girls to squeeze his biceps and fawn over his wavy hair. Mortimer was beginning to feel annoyed and tried to find an excuse to step away. It came to a head when one eager girl asked if he had a girlfriend. He wretched himself away from the girls’ grasp, but another girl still had a hold of his shirt. The shirt tore to shreds in her hands, exposing the massive back tattoo on his back. Cameras got a close look at the illustration of the fabled Kraken inked onto the majority of his back, some of its tentacles stretching up his neck and around his chest. This unexpected turn of events becomes its own fiasco with more girls putting their hands all over his back. Pearl pushed some of the girls away and took pictures with the Kraken. Gill noticed this and quickly ushered his tributes to the limousine.
The three arrived at their apartment to see their stylist Minerva Panson waiting for them. Minerva was a tattoo artist who applied for the position of Hunger Games stylist to expand her business. This was Minerva’s second year as a stylist, having been District 11’s stylist the previous year. She greeted Gill and his tributes, excited to talk parade costumes with them. She knelt down and told Pearl how adorable she was, pinching her cheeks. She stood up and was slightly put off by Mortimer, who still felt humiliated by what happened at the parade. Minerva said she loved his tattoo, but it needed some polishing. Mortimer grunted a thanks and went into his room to find a shirt. Pearl was excited to see what outfit she had planned, begging to see her sketchbook. Minerva flipped through the pages with Gill, pointing out her favourites. Gill asked about her most recent sketch of an underwater king and mermaid costume. Minerva explained that she was inspired after a recent tattoo she gave a Buccaneer and the idea was reinforced by Mortimer’s Kraken tattoo. Pearl liked her mermaid outfit and asked if she could have her hair wet.
Mortimer came back in to see their final decision. Minerva said he would have to showcase his tattoo some more to go with her costume idea, revealing that it went viral on the Capital Internet. Mortimer was against it at first, but relented when Minerva offered to polish it and add a new one of his choosing at the ends of the tentacles on his chest. Interested, he agreed. She wondered aloud about the eyeliner around his right eye, rubbing her thumb on it. She inspected the residue and revealed to the room’s occupants it was fake. Mortimer sighed and admitted it was, but insisted he only applied it to spite those who dislike him and that he would never etch an actual tattoo on his face. While Minerva worked, Pearl complimented Mortimer’s tattoo, remarking how if she won, she would get a tattoo of her own. Mortimer chuckled, saying, “Just remember, real tattoos are permanent.”
2023.05.27 18:48 Crohwned Hopefully a fair Scarlet Lady review from a return VV cruiser.
Warning- this ended up being much longer than I thought when I started. Wall of text incoming!
Up front, to get my "bias" out there, VV has been my wife and I's go-to cruise line since our first Scarlet Lady sailing back when cruise ships were first starting to sail again after COVID. We absolutely love the VV vibe, service, food, and all there is to do on the ship. For other folks who have sailed VV in the past (and specifically on the Scarlet Lady) I thought I'd post a review with some changes we noticed on the sailing we just got off of. I really hope that this review is helpful, and shares both the good and not-so-good things we experienced in a fair way.
The Overall TL;DR- We had a a great time, but a lot of the shine when it comes to service seems to have faded. Dining in the restaurants was spectacular as always, but dining in the Galley was not a great experience for us on this sailing. We *really* enjoyed the new (to us) Its a Ship Show, but the Guilty Pleasures show didn't strike much of a chord. We had a lot of fun with the other "smaller" entertainment, and really enjoyed our time in ports. Due to our frustrations with the service on board we're taking a bit of a wait and see approach for our next cruise- I'm hopeful that this was a one-off bump in the road, but if it turns out this is the direction VV is going, it isn't a good thing.
Our cruise started off with a big thud. The incoming sailing had been a chartered sailing, and apparently a bunch of people refused to get off the ship until very, very late in the morning, which delayed boarding significantly for some (early boarding groups were delayed more than the later groups). While this was out of VVs control, the port employees reaction was not. I understand that it was a stressful situation for all involved, but there seemed to be a lack of care from the employees who were managing the lines. They seemed annoyed, and irritated, and were short with waiting passengers, and for a long time were slim on letting us know what was going on. (YMMV, as the waiting lines are all out front, and some lines may have had better service than others- I'm only presenting what I observed around me).
Once we got on board, and went to our room, it was clear that the room cleaning had been rushed. While our room had been all made up, there were dirty glasses in our bathroom, and some "gross" stuff that had been wiped on the inside of the bathroom door but not cleaned (I wont go into any more details, but just say, it wasn't a pleasant thing to brush up against). That said our room attendant was FANTASTIC as we were able to get her attention, and she was mortified that something so bad was missed, and immediately got someone to come to our room to clean the bathroom. She then asked when our dinner reservation was and let us know that while we were at dinner, she'd have the entire room re-cleaned/made up to ensure that nothing else was missed.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the only room issue we had. We've had rooms directly under the Galley in the past, and never had any issues with noise. Our room (and our neighbors room) on this sailing, was directly under a seating area with heavy wooden chairs/stools directly on the tile floor. TIL that the sound of heavy chairs scraping on tile gets amplified greatly with the ship's steel structure. Every minute or two, there would be an extremely loud "GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" sound. It took me a while to figure out it was the chairs in the Galley, and at one point I joked that someone must be playing shuffle board by sliding deck loungers across the floor above us. Luckily we had brought good ear plugs, or we would have suffered the fate of our neighbors who were unable to sleep much the entire cruise. We spoke to sailor services about this, and the person we talked to essentially just shrugged it off saying there was nothing they could do (in a very "I dont really care about your issue" way), and even said that it couldn't be that loud (narrator- it WAS that loud). Our neighbors said they went down and talked to sailor services about it every single day (as they were unable to sleep), and on the final day in Bimini, were told they could be moved to another room. So a lesson learned- while other rooms under The Galley are just fine, there are some areas you *dont* want to be. Avoid rooms directly under The Galley. VV- if you read these threads at all, an easy fix- put some Teflon sliders and/or rubber feet under the legs of the heavy wooden chairs/stools that are on tile in the Galley (like you have on the wire/metal chairs). It'll not only greatly reduce the noise, but will also keep the tiles from getting scratched up. The level of noise could have been a complete trip ruiner for us, had we not brought ear-plugs, and had we been treated like our neighbor cabin was.
Speaking of The Galley, this was the biggest negative change for us. Many of the servers in the Galley seemed either inexperienced, or like they just didn't want to serve anyone. One example was when we sat down at 11:55pm for lunch one day. The server told us most of the places didn't open until noon, then walked away. At 12:20, we finally got up and moved to a new spot, as a server had still not returned to take our order. A few days in, we found that the servers who worked the outdoor area at the aft of the ship were much more attentive and provided great service. That said, our food almost always came out to us cold, and the quality seemed like it had taken a nose-dive from our last sailing. The 2 big exceptions- the Sushi bento boxes were WONDERFUL, and the French Toast I had one morning was great. Unfortunately, we went from loving the Galley for a bite to eat on our prior cruises, to avoiding it on this sailing. (We ate a lot of steak bites and polenta at the dock, so all was not lost :D ).
One last thing we noticed- empty glasses/plates/etc.. all over the ship. In one case near the pool, a couple left took their towels with them, leaving a couple of plates and empty drink glasses. A new couple came and moved the dirty dishes next to the loungers, got the attention of a server and asked if it could be cleaned up. Over an hour later when my wife and I were leaving, the dirty dishes were still there. My wife and I like to walk laps around the ship a lot, and on both the top decks and promenade level, we noticed a lot of dirty dishes just sitting out on tables, the ground etc.
Overall, the issues that came up for us on the ship related to service were a huge contrast from our prior sailings. Sailor Services didn't seem very interested in resolving (or even empathizing with) the two issues we brought up to them, and the service in the galley (and general level of service on the ship) definitely feels like it has gone downhill. And holy cow this turned out long! Lets move on to some greener pastures!
Restaurant Dining
As we have had in the past, the restaurant dining was fantastic.
On the first night, as we always do, we went to Test Kitchen. For those who have done Test Kitchen before, on this sailing it was the Corn/Beet/Salmon/Lamb/Strawberry menu. While a lot of people complain about this menu, I quite like it, including the Asparagus Sorbet. Our server was extremely friendly and knowledgeable about the menu, and chatted with us quite a bit, answering all of our questions about how things were prepared, what they'd pair well with, etc. I had the test-kitchen Old Fashioned cocktail and loved it. I can totally see how Test Kitchen is not for some people, but my wife and I always enjoy the experience, and this sailing was as good as its always been for us.
On the second evening, we went to my favorite restaurant onboard, Pink Agave. Being my favorite, I am always worried that I'll be let down, but never am, and this sailing was no exception. We ended up eating with a passenger we met in line and had fantastic conversations for the entire meal. We ordered all of the small plates for the table, and enjoyed sampling everything. For our mains, I ordered the Ribeye (which IMO is the best steak on the ship), and my wife had the smoked pork. There was also sea bass on the menu, so we ordered one to split- surf and turf FTW! All the food was great! There were no misses at all, and our server, like at the test kitchen was amazing!
Night Three was The Wake. For appetizers, my wife ordered the Wedge Salad which she said was great, and I decided to try something new- the Bone Marrow, and it was very nice! My wife then had the Fillet, and I took the recommendation from our server and went with the Hanger Steak for the first time. After sharing, we both agreed- the Fillet was good, but the Hanger Steak was FANTASTIC. We had Spinach, Twice Baked Potatoes, and Asparagus for our sides, which all came out delicious. For dessert, we both had our favorite on the ship- the Lemon Cheesecake, and it was wonderful as always. Our server at the Wake was our favorite this trip. That evening we were celebrating our wedding anniversary, and our server was so kind, and genuinely happy for us. She brought even more joy to a very happy evening for us.
Night four was Gunbae. Food-wise this is probably our least favorite restaurant on the ship, but it is always a very fun and energetic evening! We both always enjoy the appetizers, but feel like the main courses end up being a bit over-cooked and don't have a whole lot of flavor. I think with Gunbae your experience can be heavily dependent on who you are seated with, and our table-mates were a ton of fun, so it all turned out great! We both really enjoyed the green-tea ice cream at the end (I don't recall ever having this before? Is it new?), and FINALLY, I won the counting drinking game (I'm normally the first or second person out). :D
For our final night, we did Extra Virgin. We've never done EV on the final night, and for us, I think I'd schedule it earlier in our itinerary, as by this point on a cruise were we ate entirely too much, a really heavy/rich dinner was probably the last thing we needed. The food was fantastic as always- for appetizers, my wife had the Crispy Artichokes which she enjoyed, and I had the meatballs where were delicious (though i was only able to eat about half of them). For our main, I had the Gnocchi, and my wife had the spaghetti bolognese). She passed on dessert, but I had the Whisky gelato, and it was very yummy!
The only non-shining experience in the restaurants was breakfast/brunch at Razzle Dazzle. It wasn't as good as it had been in the past (cold eggs and missing parts of our order) and it felt quite rushed. I don't have a whole lot to say about it other than that.
On the other hand, we had breakfast at The Wake on our disembarkation morning, and it was AMAZING. We split the banana french toast, and each had Steak and Eggs, and it was the best breakfast we had all week. It was a great way to end the cruise.
On past cruises, I always felt a little let down by The Wake. It was always good, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't really live up to the hype in my mind. On this sailing, The Wake absolutely lived up to the hype for us, both for dinner and breakfast. Pink Agave is still my favorite, but I was much more impressed by The Wake on this sailing than in the past.
Shows/Entertainment
I'll touch on the shows that were new to us on this sailing. The first show we went to was the Guilty Pleasures show, which ended up being a fun sing-along, interrupted by IMO, not very entertaining or funny comedy. Singing along to the songs was a blast, and they most definitely were the guilty pleasure songs that my wife and I belt out when we're driving alone in the car. Unfortunately between the songs was what I can only describe as a "plot-based standup comedy routine that told the same tired joke again, and again, and again." If it had just been a music/sing-along, I would have loved it. But hey, everyone is entertained by different things, so I hope there were those who enjoyed the show!
On Gunbae night, we also hit up the late showing of It's a Ship Show. It had a small-portion dinner (we've had first dinner.. why not have second dinner?!?) and the food was fine. The show itself is a variety show, with a very fun Emcee, a good band, a fantastic singer, and several very entertaining acts. We both really enjoyed It's a Ship Show, and would highly recommend it if its on your sailing. I wont say much more as I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but it was a lot of fun.
On this sailing my wife and I were going for a more relaxed vibe, and as we'd seen them all before, didn't go to any of the mainstay shows (Duel Reality, UNTITLED, Ships in the night, etc..).
For the smaller activities, we did the VH1/Shake-weight workout which was a blast as always (though they seemed to tone down the innuendo a bit from prior sailings), and had a ton of fun getting our butts kicked in Dodgeball.
One thing we noticed on this sailing that disappointed us a bit- in the past the "Happenings" cast always seemed to be out and about, and a presence on the ship. I love magic/slight of hand, my wife loves art, and we're both foodies and love games, so we'd get to know (specifically) The Charmer, The Artist, The Foodie, and The Gamer, both during their events, and just chatting with them around the ship. This time around, outside of their specific events, we didn't see them out and about at all. Additionally, it felt like their events weren't really planned for a more full ship like we were on. For example, the Charmer's Lounge was done at the Sip Lounge. He worked his way from one end of the room to the other, table by table, spending about 15-20 minutes at each table. We were lucky that we picked the third table from where he started, and so we "only" had to wait an hour. Half way through the event, it looked like they started kicking people at the other end of the Sip Lounge out, to do afternoon Tea. I think he might have gotten through all of 15-20 people, when there were well over 50 who showed up to the event. Also, this was the only time I ever even saw The Charmer out and about the entire cruise.
Having those interactions was something we really missed from prior sailings, and perhaps we were just always in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they definitely didn't seem to have the presence they had onboard in the past.
Excursions
We did one excursion on this trip- in Cozumel we did the Snorkeling/Beach day/Cooking/Tequila Tasting, where they take you to a private beach/resort, have you snorkel off the beach, show you how to make a really tasty Guac, and let you taste some Tequila, all the while having a buffet for lunch and open bar. We had a very nice time on shore, and our guide was lots of fun. It wasn't terribly expensive as far as excursions go (about $80pp if I recall), and I'm very glad we did it. The only thing about it that gave me some pause- the description of the excursion specifically states that your price includes gratuities, yet the guide was specifically asking for tips. I didn't tip him as much as I normally would if gratuities weren't included, but it was just a little bit awkward.
We didn't do an excursion in Bimini, but were on the first tram to the beach, and spent the entire morning between swimming in the ocean and in the great pool they have at the resort. As always, Bimini was one of the highlights of the cruise, and was an absolute blast.
Our Takeaways
First off, if you read this far, WOW. I didn't realize this was going to be such a novel, but here we are! :D Overall my wife and I both had a great time on our cruise. The food was fantastic, most of the shows/events we went to were a blast, and as always on a VV cruise, we met and got to know a bunch of wonderful people, while relaxing and spending some quality time with each other. Our excursion in Cozumel and time in Bimini were wonderful.
That said, this is the first time we haven't put down a deposit on a future cruise. One of the places where we always saw so much value in sailing with VV, and a huge reason we were willing to pay the VV premium was the level of service on the ship, and on this sailing there were a lot of misses in that regard, and for the first time, we didn't feel like we got quite as much value out of what we paid for the cruise (because of what is important to us, YMMV). That's not to say we wont be sailing with VV again- its just that we want to watch how things trend, and how things settle out as the other ships come online and the various ship crews get used to more full ships. As I said ages ago in the beginning of my review- we really hope that this was just a one-off not-as-spectacular sailing for us.
I've seen others talk about how the Scarlet Lady has become the defacto "Training" ship, and from our experience this sailing, I wouldn't doubt it. While that is a reason, it is not an excuse. If that is what's going on I hope it is a temporary situation, as I don't think the quality of a sailor's cruise should be affected by what ship happens to be leaving port the dates they can sail. So here is to hoping that VV gets this all figured out soon, and the experience on ALL of their ships gets back to what it has been in the past.
Finally, I'll just say, if you find yourself on a cruise, and something the cruise line does is letting you down, don't let it ruin your trip. While we were disappointed in several aspects of the service, my wife and I were still able to fully enjoy our cruise, and specifically our time with each other. It was a special anniversary trip for us, and it would have been an absolute shame if we let the issues we had with VV's service ruin it. Instead we filed our issues away, continued to enjoy all the ship had to offer, and will use our experience to shape who/where we do our next cruise with, rather than letting it run the experience in the moment.
submitted by Crohwned to VirginVoyages [link] [comments]
Up front, to get my "bias" out there, VV has been my wife and I's go-to cruise line since our first Scarlet Lady sailing back when cruise ships were first starting to sail again after COVID. We absolutely love the VV vibe, service, food, and all there is to do on the ship. For other folks who have sailed VV in the past (and specifically on the Scarlet Lady) I thought I'd post a review with some changes we noticed on the sailing we just got off of. I really hope that this review is helpful, and shares both the good and not-so-good things we experienced in a fair way.
The Overall TL;DR- We had a a great time, but a lot of the shine when it comes to service seems to have faded. Dining in the restaurants was spectacular as always, but dining in the Galley was not a great experience for us on this sailing. We *really* enjoyed the new (to us) Its a Ship Show, but the Guilty Pleasures show didn't strike much of a chord. We had a lot of fun with the other "smaller" entertainment, and really enjoyed our time in ports. Due to our frustrations with the service on board we're taking a bit of a wait and see approach for our next cruise- I'm hopeful that this was a one-off bump in the road, but if it turns out this is the direction VV is going, it isn't a good thing.
The Review
Service Issues Lets get the negative part of the review out of the way. And keep in mind, while I'm not going to be real positive here, we did still have a great time on board, and didn't let this get in the way of our fun. That said, it did have an impact on our cruise, and I felt it was worth mentioning, because it is my wife and I's biggest concern about VV going forward. I will also admit that you notice a bad service experience much more than when it goes smoothly, so there is some bias here.Our cruise started off with a big thud. The incoming sailing had been a chartered sailing, and apparently a bunch of people refused to get off the ship until very, very late in the morning, which delayed boarding significantly for some (early boarding groups were delayed more than the later groups). While this was out of VVs control, the port employees reaction was not. I understand that it was a stressful situation for all involved, but there seemed to be a lack of care from the employees who were managing the lines. They seemed annoyed, and irritated, and were short with waiting passengers, and for a long time were slim on letting us know what was going on. (YMMV, as the waiting lines are all out front, and some lines may have had better service than others- I'm only presenting what I observed around me).
Once we got on board, and went to our room, it was clear that the room cleaning had been rushed. While our room had been all made up, there were dirty glasses in our bathroom, and some "gross" stuff that had been wiped on the inside of the bathroom door but not cleaned (I wont go into any more details, but just say, it wasn't a pleasant thing to brush up against). That said our room attendant was FANTASTIC as we were able to get her attention, and she was mortified that something so bad was missed, and immediately got someone to come to our room to clean the bathroom. She then asked when our dinner reservation was and let us know that while we were at dinner, she'd have the entire room re-cleaned/made up to ensure that nothing else was missed.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the only room issue we had. We've had rooms directly under the Galley in the past, and never had any issues with noise. Our room (and our neighbors room) on this sailing, was directly under a seating area with heavy wooden chairs/stools directly on the tile floor. TIL that the sound of heavy chairs scraping on tile gets amplified greatly with the ship's steel structure. Every minute or two, there would be an extremely loud "GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" sound. It took me a while to figure out it was the chairs in the Galley, and at one point I joked that someone must be playing shuffle board by sliding deck loungers across the floor above us. Luckily we had brought good ear plugs, or we would have suffered the fate of our neighbors who were unable to sleep much the entire cruise. We spoke to sailor services about this, and the person we talked to essentially just shrugged it off saying there was nothing they could do (in a very "I dont really care about your issue" way), and even said that it couldn't be that loud (narrator- it WAS that loud). Our neighbors said they went down and talked to sailor services about it every single day (as they were unable to sleep), and on the final day in Bimini, were told they could be moved to another room. So a lesson learned- while other rooms under The Galley are just fine, there are some areas you *dont* want to be. Avoid rooms directly under The Galley. VV- if you read these threads at all, an easy fix- put some Teflon sliders and/or rubber feet under the legs of the heavy wooden chairs/stools that are on tile in the Galley (like you have on the wire/metal chairs). It'll not only greatly reduce the noise, but will also keep the tiles from getting scratched up. The level of noise could have been a complete trip ruiner for us, had we not brought ear-plugs, and had we been treated like our neighbor cabin was.
Speaking of The Galley, this was the biggest negative change for us. Many of the servers in the Galley seemed either inexperienced, or like they just didn't want to serve anyone. One example was when we sat down at 11:55pm for lunch one day. The server told us most of the places didn't open until noon, then walked away. At 12:20, we finally got up and moved to a new spot, as a server had still not returned to take our order. A few days in, we found that the servers who worked the outdoor area at the aft of the ship were much more attentive and provided great service. That said, our food almost always came out to us cold, and the quality seemed like it had taken a nose-dive from our last sailing. The 2 big exceptions- the Sushi bento boxes were WONDERFUL, and the French Toast I had one morning was great. Unfortunately, we went from loving the Galley for a bite to eat on our prior cruises, to avoiding it on this sailing. (We ate a lot of steak bites and polenta at the dock, so all was not lost :D ).
One last thing we noticed- empty glasses/plates/etc.. all over the ship. In one case near the pool, a couple left took their towels with them, leaving a couple of plates and empty drink glasses. A new couple came and moved the dirty dishes next to the loungers, got the attention of a server and asked if it could be cleaned up. Over an hour later when my wife and I were leaving, the dirty dishes were still there. My wife and I like to walk laps around the ship a lot, and on both the top decks and promenade level, we noticed a lot of dirty dishes just sitting out on tables, the ground etc.
Overall, the issues that came up for us on the ship related to service were a huge contrast from our prior sailings. Sailor Services didn't seem very interested in resolving (or even empathizing with) the two issues we brought up to them, and the service in the galley (and general level of service on the ship) definitely feels like it has gone downhill. And holy cow this turned out long! Lets move on to some greener pastures!
Restaurant Dining
As we have had in the past, the restaurant dining was fantastic.
On the first night, as we always do, we went to Test Kitchen. For those who have done Test Kitchen before, on this sailing it was the Corn/Beet/Salmon/Lamb/Strawberry menu. While a lot of people complain about this menu, I quite like it, including the Asparagus Sorbet. Our server was extremely friendly and knowledgeable about the menu, and chatted with us quite a bit, answering all of our questions about how things were prepared, what they'd pair well with, etc. I had the test-kitchen Old Fashioned cocktail and loved it. I can totally see how Test Kitchen is not for some people, but my wife and I always enjoy the experience, and this sailing was as good as its always been for us.
On the second evening, we went to my favorite restaurant onboard, Pink Agave. Being my favorite, I am always worried that I'll be let down, but never am, and this sailing was no exception. We ended up eating with a passenger we met in line and had fantastic conversations for the entire meal. We ordered all of the small plates for the table, and enjoyed sampling everything. For our mains, I ordered the Ribeye (which IMO is the best steak on the ship), and my wife had the smoked pork. There was also sea bass on the menu, so we ordered one to split- surf and turf FTW! All the food was great! There were no misses at all, and our server, like at the test kitchen was amazing!
Night Three was The Wake. For appetizers, my wife ordered the Wedge Salad which she said was great, and I decided to try something new- the Bone Marrow, and it was very nice! My wife then had the Fillet, and I took the recommendation from our server and went with the Hanger Steak for the first time. After sharing, we both agreed- the Fillet was good, but the Hanger Steak was FANTASTIC. We had Spinach, Twice Baked Potatoes, and Asparagus for our sides, which all came out delicious. For dessert, we both had our favorite on the ship- the Lemon Cheesecake, and it was wonderful as always. Our server at the Wake was our favorite this trip. That evening we were celebrating our wedding anniversary, and our server was so kind, and genuinely happy for us. She brought even more joy to a very happy evening for us.
Night four was Gunbae. Food-wise this is probably our least favorite restaurant on the ship, but it is always a very fun and energetic evening! We both always enjoy the appetizers, but feel like the main courses end up being a bit over-cooked and don't have a whole lot of flavor. I think with Gunbae your experience can be heavily dependent on who you are seated with, and our table-mates were a ton of fun, so it all turned out great! We both really enjoyed the green-tea ice cream at the end (I don't recall ever having this before? Is it new?), and FINALLY, I won the counting drinking game (I'm normally the first or second person out). :D
For our final night, we did Extra Virgin. We've never done EV on the final night, and for us, I think I'd schedule it earlier in our itinerary, as by this point on a cruise were we ate entirely too much, a really heavy/rich dinner was probably the last thing we needed. The food was fantastic as always- for appetizers, my wife had the Crispy Artichokes which she enjoyed, and I had the meatballs where were delicious (though i was only able to eat about half of them). For our main, I had the Gnocchi, and my wife had the spaghetti bolognese). She passed on dessert, but I had the Whisky gelato, and it was very yummy!
The only non-shining experience in the restaurants was breakfast/brunch at Razzle Dazzle. It wasn't as good as it had been in the past (cold eggs and missing parts of our order) and it felt quite rushed. I don't have a whole lot to say about it other than that.
On the other hand, we had breakfast at The Wake on our disembarkation morning, and it was AMAZING. We split the banana french toast, and each had Steak and Eggs, and it was the best breakfast we had all week. It was a great way to end the cruise.
On past cruises, I always felt a little let down by The Wake. It was always good, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't really live up to the hype in my mind. On this sailing, The Wake absolutely lived up to the hype for us, both for dinner and breakfast. Pink Agave is still my favorite, but I was much more impressed by The Wake on this sailing than in the past.
Shows/Entertainment
I'll touch on the shows that were new to us on this sailing. The first show we went to was the Guilty Pleasures show, which ended up being a fun sing-along, interrupted by IMO, not very entertaining or funny comedy. Singing along to the songs was a blast, and they most definitely were the guilty pleasure songs that my wife and I belt out when we're driving alone in the car. Unfortunately between the songs was what I can only describe as a "plot-based standup comedy routine that told the same tired joke again, and again, and again." If it had just been a music/sing-along, I would have loved it. But hey, everyone is entertained by different things, so I hope there were those who enjoyed the show!
On Gunbae night, we also hit up the late showing of It's a Ship Show. It had a small-portion dinner (we've had first dinner.. why not have second dinner?!?) and the food was fine. The show itself is a variety show, with a very fun Emcee, a good band, a fantastic singer, and several very entertaining acts. We both really enjoyed It's a Ship Show, and would highly recommend it if its on your sailing. I wont say much more as I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but it was a lot of fun.
On this sailing my wife and I were going for a more relaxed vibe, and as we'd seen them all before, didn't go to any of the mainstay shows (Duel Reality, UNTITLED, Ships in the night, etc..).
For the smaller activities, we did the VH1/Shake-weight workout which was a blast as always (though they seemed to tone down the innuendo a bit from prior sailings), and had a ton of fun getting our butts kicked in Dodgeball.
One thing we noticed on this sailing that disappointed us a bit- in the past the "Happenings" cast always seemed to be out and about, and a presence on the ship. I love magic/slight of hand, my wife loves art, and we're both foodies and love games, so we'd get to know (specifically) The Charmer, The Artist, The Foodie, and The Gamer, both during their events, and just chatting with them around the ship. This time around, outside of their specific events, we didn't see them out and about at all. Additionally, it felt like their events weren't really planned for a more full ship like we were on. For example, the Charmer's Lounge was done at the Sip Lounge. He worked his way from one end of the room to the other, table by table, spending about 15-20 minutes at each table. We were lucky that we picked the third table from where he started, and so we "only" had to wait an hour. Half way through the event, it looked like they started kicking people at the other end of the Sip Lounge out, to do afternoon Tea. I think he might have gotten through all of 15-20 people, when there were well over 50 who showed up to the event. Also, this was the only time I ever even saw The Charmer out and about the entire cruise.
Having those interactions was something we really missed from prior sailings, and perhaps we were just always in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they definitely didn't seem to have the presence they had onboard in the past.
Excursions
We did one excursion on this trip- in Cozumel we did the Snorkeling/Beach day/Cooking/Tequila Tasting, where they take you to a private beach/resort, have you snorkel off the beach, show you how to make a really tasty Guac, and let you taste some Tequila, all the while having a buffet for lunch and open bar. We had a very nice time on shore, and our guide was lots of fun. It wasn't terribly expensive as far as excursions go (about $80pp if I recall), and I'm very glad we did it. The only thing about it that gave me some pause- the description of the excursion specifically states that your price includes gratuities, yet the guide was specifically asking for tips. I didn't tip him as much as I normally would if gratuities weren't included, but it was just a little bit awkward.
We didn't do an excursion in Bimini, but were on the first tram to the beach, and spent the entire morning between swimming in the ocean and in the great pool they have at the resort. As always, Bimini was one of the highlights of the cruise, and was an absolute blast.
Our Takeaways
First off, if you read this far, WOW. I didn't realize this was going to be such a novel, but here we are! :D Overall my wife and I both had a great time on our cruise. The food was fantastic, most of the shows/events we went to were a blast, and as always on a VV cruise, we met and got to know a bunch of wonderful people, while relaxing and spending some quality time with each other. Our excursion in Cozumel and time in Bimini were wonderful.
That said, this is the first time we haven't put down a deposit on a future cruise. One of the places where we always saw so much value in sailing with VV, and a huge reason we were willing to pay the VV premium was the level of service on the ship, and on this sailing there were a lot of misses in that regard, and for the first time, we didn't feel like we got quite as much value out of what we paid for the cruise (because of what is important to us, YMMV). That's not to say we wont be sailing with VV again- its just that we want to watch how things trend, and how things settle out as the other ships come online and the various ship crews get used to more full ships. As I said ages ago in the beginning of my review- we really hope that this was just a one-off not-as-spectacular sailing for us.
I've seen others talk about how the Scarlet Lady has become the defacto "Training" ship, and from our experience this sailing, I wouldn't doubt it. While that is a reason, it is not an excuse. If that is what's going on I hope it is a temporary situation, as I don't think the quality of a sailor's cruise should be affected by what ship happens to be leaving port the dates they can sail. So here is to hoping that VV gets this all figured out soon, and the experience on ALL of their ships gets back to what it has been in the past.
Finally, I'll just say, if you find yourself on a cruise, and something the cruise line does is letting you down, don't let it ruin your trip. While we were disappointed in several aspects of the service, my wife and I were still able to fully enjoy our cruise, and specifically our time with each other. It was a special anniversary trip for us, and it would have been an absolute shame if we let the issues we had with VV's service ruin it. Instead we filed our issues away, continued to enjoy all the ship had to offer, and will use our experience to shape who/where we do our next cruise with, rather than letting it run the experience in the moment.
2023.05.27 18:03 Lillian_Madwhip Lily Madwhip Must Die : Chapter 16 - All Hell Breaks Loose
I’m trying to remember the last time I ate. Was it breakfast? Maybe it was lunch. The cafeteria had these fish cake things that were round like hockey pucks and mostly breading. Stick them between a shriveled hamburger bun and you’ve got yourself a sandwich. I’ve had them before. I always get a packet of mustard to add flavor to it because otherwise it’s like eating a soggy piece of cardboard.
But did I eat the mustard fish cake sandwich? I didn’t really remember. Not until now. Yes, I ate the mustard fish cake sandwich. I even added extra mustard because I was annoyed. It’s all coming back to me... from the pit of my stomach, up my esophagus and out past my tongue and teeth.
HYURRRRK!
I barf mustard yellow onto the grass in front of everybody. You would too if you just saw a man get his head ripped off, okay? I’m not going to stop seeing that, not even when I’m old and gray, if I live that long. It’s burned into my brain, like that scene in the movie Poltergeist where the camera guy hallucinates peeling his face off after eating maggoty meat. Why’d my dad let me watch that movie anyway?
I’m not looking anymore. I can’t look. I just shut my eyes and taste the lingering mustard flavor on my tongue. Even with my eyes closed though, I can see it all in my head using just my ears. That heavy FLUMP sound like someone dropping a bag of laundry is Mr. Gin’s body collapsing into a pile. The softer thump to my right is his head landing in the grass between me and Mr. Dutch after Samael tosses it aside.
That loud CRACK sound? The gun. Something wet spatters across my face. That’s blood obviously. I’m not sure whose. I flinch when I feel it. Samael hisses. Did they hit him? Is he bleeding? Several more CRACKs. A whistling sound. I put my hands over my ears and crouch into a ball. Be as small as I can. Be a piddle bug. Curl in on myself.
“SAMAEL!” Dumah shouts, “CONTAIN YOURSELF!”
Ms. Gwendolyn screams.
Felix yells over the noise. “WENDY, RUN!”
I peek through my lids for a second. Madame Wendy is wreathed in smoke. She’s still got the gun pointed at Samael. Her face looks like she just swallowed one of those red-hot cinnamon jawbreakers. I don’t get the love people have for those things. They just burn. Why torture yourself by putting a thing that burns on your tongue? Last year in science, our teacher brought a jug of cinnamon extract to school for some lab thing and one of the boys in the front row got his hands on it and took a swig. He had to go to the nurse. That stuff’s poison or something. Someone said it probably ate through his stomach lining and was burning a hole straight to the butt of his pants.
Samael is as tall as an adult. His body is all twisted and stretchy like one of those Stretch Armstrong toys. I imagine this is what that kid Mike Teevee from the Willy Wonka movie looked like after they stretched him cuz he got shrunk. That movie was a nightmare.
Dumah is grabbing Samael’s wrists and trying to twist them behind his back. It’s not really working though because Samael’s arms just stretch further, and you can hear popping as his elbows and wrists come undone. Their struggle is just a few feet away from me. They step and sway like two dancers but there’s a headless corpse at their feet and Dumah trips over it, sending him tumbling to the ground. He doesn’t let go of Samael though, or at least his arms.
Samael’s arms pop off at the shoulders with a sickening sound. If I hadn’t just emptied my stomach down here in the grass --which I’m squatting way too close to-- I’d probably lose my lunch at the sight and sound. Instead, I just have one of those unpleasant heaves that wrenches the muscles in your chest and make it hurt. I duck waddle backward to get away from my own sick and the insanity in front of me.
I can’t take this. This is too much. The songs I try to sing in my head to drown out the sounds aren’t working. Another gunshot. Screams of enjoyment on the other side of the tents. People having a great time at night with their families, oblivious to the death going on right here.
“Lily,” Paschar says something. He’s trying to settle me down but it’s not working either. I can’t hear his words; all I can hear is some sort of squelching sound. Dumah shouting stuff. I think it’s Latin or some other dead language. Mr. Dutch is gibbering too. I hear him say the word, “mommy.”
STOP IT! STOP IT ALL! ALL OF IT!
I scream just to drown out the sounds. I don’t care if anybody hears me. I want to not hear them. I want them to go away! Felix, Samael, Dumah, Ms. Gwendy, even poor Mr. Dutch. I want them all to just--
--GO--
--AWAY!
I have the power to do it too! I can make them go away. Why am I cowering here? Why am I duck waddling around on the grass, screaming with my hands over my ears? I’m not helpless. I’m not. I just need to--
I open my eyes. I kind of wish I hadn’t. Samael looks nothing like me anymore. He’s twisted into an adult with splinters of bone coming out of his shoulder sockets, like they’re trying to reform a pair of arms. Dumah is casually beating him about the head and shoulders with his own detached limbs. It’s almost comical except for how disgusting and awful it is. He’s yelling more nonsensical stuff in a loud, booming voice that seems to echo off of nothing.
Madame Wendy has fallen to the ground holding the pistol. Her finger seems to be trying to pull the trigger again and again but it’s just clicking. No more gunshots. No more bullets.
Felix is standing still, frozen in place. Maybe he thinks if he doesn’t move, Samael won’t see him. Maybe his brain just fried trying to understand what he’s seeing, what Hellish nightmare just popped into reality in front of him. The girl he hated more than anyone else living (but not dead, sorry Meredith) suddenly turned into some sort of silly putty monster that ripped the head off his friend and is coming for him next.
I don’t bother looking at Mr. Dutch.
Instead, I focus. I can hear Paschar shouting at me in the back of my mind but I drown him out with my song. It’s not one I heard on the radio. It’s not one Ms. Pembrook made us sing in music class. It’s one I make up on the spot. It’s a song about a girl who’s tired of being controlled by everyone around her. She’s exhausted from all the awful things she’s seen and all the people she loves that she’s lost. But she has this special gift. She can rip holes between our world and the dream world. She can make delicate, small cuts that rip the butt of a boy’s pants, but she can also make giant stinking holes.
So I scream at the top of my lungs and I throw my hands out and I make a giant, stinking hole in the Veil. I don’t know what it looks like to everybody else, but to me it’s like the air and the ground and the people all in front of me are a page in a book. A really well-illustrated page. Maybe one of those Bill Peet books, he was always good at drawing stuff. But someone punched a big, fat, black hole in the page.
I know what’s in that hole. Void. The emptiness of untouched Veil. It’s not space where you would suffocate because there’s no air, it’s more like flying or falling forever until you either make your own reality or just go completely insane. I’m guessing about that second part. I don’t really know what happens if you don’t make your own reality because I only ever did. And maybe I could do that because of who I am. It’s all still a big mystery to me.
“WHAT IS THIS?!” Felix yells. He’s staring into the blackness of the tear. I had kinda meant to just catch everybody in it, but for all my effort I really only made a rip the size of a kiddie pool. You know, one of those heavy plastic pools your dad drags out of the garage, muttering to himself about why you can’t just play in the sprinkler and then spends two hours filling it from a hose and when he’s finally done the thing is filled with floating dead bugs and other stuff you don’t want to touch. I don’t know why adults invent stuff like that.
Suddenly, Samael is behind Felix. He rises up from out of nowhere like a marionette. His arm stumps are a pair of rubbery-looking bones with polished knobby ends. Even though he has no hands on them, he still manages to wrap his bone arms around the shocked and confused Felix. There’s a big grin on his face that is NOT my face. It’s HIS face. He’s him. The him who we met in that prison cell thing in Hell. Fanged teeth, reddish eyes. Like a vampire if vampires had knobby bone arms instead of capes.
“Thanks for the assistance!” Samael yells to me from across the tear.
“I didn’t do that for you!” I yell back.
Felix shouts something I can’t make out. He reaches down and tries to swat away the bone arms that are rubbery-bending around his torso.
Madame Wendy is fumbling with something in one of her many pockets and rattling the gun in her hand. I think she might have more bullets and is reloading it.
Where did Dumah go?
I see half an arm on the ground right by the edge of the tear. It’s one of Samael’s that popped out of his shoulder sockets. I think maybe I opened the tear right on top of Dumah. Oops.
Samael grins at me. He hefts up Felix like a sack of flour or rice or some other sort of sack. Felix screams and claws at his face and head. Samael’s face and head, not his own face and head. He’s not THAT crazy... yet.
I cover my eyes with my hands but peek through my fingers. I just saw Samael twist Mr. Gin’s head off like a screw, so I’m already envisioning him ripping Felix in half.
He doesn’t though. He just casually chucks Felix right into the hole I made and starts laughing maniacally. It’s a surreal thing to witness because even though I’m standing on the other side of the hole that I assume has width and length and height, it looks 2D like a Road Runner cartoon and I can see Felix go falling into the blackness like I’m looking down into a well and watching Felix fall to the bottom of it.
Madame Wendy screams, “FELIX!” and does some wrist flick thing with the gun in her hand. She points it at me.
I throw a hand up between us. “Hey whoa! I’m the good guy!”
Am I? I mean, I kinda just got Felix killed. Felix and Mr. Gin. Sure, they seemed pretty awful, but would they have been quite as bad if they hadn’t been having to deal with me and my problems that I bring with me everywhere I go? To Madame Wendy I’m sure I’m a REAL bad person. Yeah, fair enough. Go ahead and shoot me.
Without thinking, I flick my wrist at her, just a sort of “whatever” kind of motion, giving her the go-ahead to empty a few rounds into my meatball and put us both out of our misery. But of course, things can never be that simple. Instead, I accidentally make another micro-tear in the Veil right where her wrist and her hand meet, and the whole thing just falls right off, followed by a scream of panic and pain from her and a big ol’ spurt of blood from her severed wrist.
I clench my fists up to avoid making the same mistake twice and hurry over to her. “Oh geez! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!” I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m running on some sort of autopilot. I pick up the hand and hold it with the fingers pointing down so the blood stays inside.
Madame Wendy is not having any of it. She slaps me away with her still attached hand. It stings but probably not as much as getting your hand cut off so I don’t cry. I just fall backward and drop the hand on the ground. She scrambles, reaching for it. No, wait, she’s reaching for the gun again. We’re back to the shooting me scenario.
“Oh just give me the gun,” I tell her, unable to hide my exhaustion, “I’ll do it myself.”
She picks it up, hugging her stump to her chest and getting blood all over her pretty ruffles. She points the gun right in my face.
“Devil!” she yells.
Samael steps between us, grinning at her with that same fangy smile that haunts my dreams. “At your service,” he hisses at the poor woman.
The sound of the gun fills my ears with ringing. At the same instant, the back of Samael’s head sort of pops open like a pretty flower. Red splatters my vision. And lastly I feel a sharp sensation in the side of my head that jerks me backward. Like from my eyebrow to my ear just getting yanked by an angry giant’s hand. Did I just get shot? Then the bullet is in my brain now, I bet. Except I’m still thinking. Well maybe that’s how being dead works, after all. Wasn’t Roger stuck in his dead body, thinking and waiting? I’m just gonna let gravity catch me and fall down here on the grass, get a feeling for being dead now.
The grass is wet. I can still feel it. It tickles the back of my neck. I don’t think you feel things when you’re dead. Okay, Lil, you’re not dead. But there’s blood in your eyes and something cut you across the forehead, I guess. Why doesn’t it burn inside my head though?
That Wendy lady fires again and again. I can’t see if she’s even accomplishing anything with Samael. Seems to me he just keeps going, like that Energizer Bunny in the battery commercials. Samael, he keeps going and going and going...
...and going and going...
“Get off of her!”
Oh hey, that’s Dumah’s voice. Dumah’s back. How convenient.
Another gunshot, followed by clicking again. Madame Wendy needs to get a gun that holds more bullets.
“Oh stop it, you ponce,” I hear Dumah say in a very agitated manner.
I peek an eye open, the one that’s not got blood in it and stings something fierce. Dumah’s given up his skin suit and is standing there on the edge of the tear in his robes and his Skeletor face exposed. He’s the spitting image of that Grim Reaper guy. They probably modeled him after Dumah or something.
Dumah kneels down next to the phony baloney fortune teller and pries the gun out of her fingers. “Give me that before you hurt somebody who can actually suffer,” he says like a father talking to his daughter who he caught playing with making milkshakes in the blender, but nobody told her you needed to put the top on it. “Now give me your hand. No, the other one, that one beside you on the ground. I’ll reattach it.”
I wonder if he can do that with Mr. Gin and his head.
“What... what are you?” Madame Wendy whispers at him. She looks pale and tired. Who knows how many pints of blood she’s lost by now.
He puts a boney finger to his teeth. “Shhh,” he says to her, “be quiet.”
She opens her mouth to respond but nothing comes out. She realizes this and her eyes start darting around in a panic. Dumah holds her by the wrist and then takes the severed hand and-- totally gets between me and everything he’s doing so I don’t even get to see. Oh come on!
Since I can’t watch his magic, I look around instead. My neck feels stiff. Where’d Samael go? Oh, there he is, laying next to me with a big, nasty hole in the middle of his face. I can see inside his head. It’s not the graphic, gross, brain-filled situation you’d expect. There are things inside his head, dark things that seem to be moving, squirming like a bowl of worms (unless it’s Halloween, then it’s just spaghetti that grownups tell you is a bowl of worms). They seem to be entangling with each other in the middle of the big, gaping hole.
Someone else steps out of the tear as if it was just a doorway into a really dark room. I recognize Barrattiel. He surveys the scene and makes a big “O” with his mouth. He glances briefly at Mr. Dutch who seems to be looking past everything with his mouth hanging open slightly. Then Barrattiel looks in the direction of me and Samael and Dumah and Madame Wendy, raises his eyebrows, goes, “ah!” and nods, then comes over.
“Barrattiel,” I sputter. There’s something hot and salty in my mouth. “I think she shot me in the head but I’m not dead.”
He just lifts a finger silently in the same manner as, “give me one second,” and starts picking up Samael instead. I can’t hide feeling a bit puzzled by this. I frown at him. My eye tingles more from this so I grit my teeth and wait for it to pass.
“Sam’s regenerating,” Barrattiel whispers to me, “I’ve got to get him across the threshold before he can resist. I’ll be right back for you.”
Oh sure, Samael can regenerate. Damn angels and all their powers and all they give us is the power to burn stuff and see the future and junk.
“What a mess,” Dumah mutters. He looks over at me. “Look at the size of this rip. This is almost as bad as Guatemala. There’s going to be Hell to pay for this.” He turns to Barrattiel. “Quickly now! And then fetch the stitcher. We need to close this immediately.”
Barrattiel nods. “Right.” He gives me a shrug. “Dumah will check on you.”
What happened in Guatemala? That’s not cool, referencing things I don’t know anything about. Paschar is silent on the matter so apparently nobody’s going to fill me in. Heck, I don’t even know where Guatemala is. I’m going to have to remember to look it up in the encyclopedia. I wonder if that’s where Abaddon and I went and got the cow pitcher that’s now never going to be returned to its owner.
I reach up and touch my forehead. There must be a hole or something in my skull. I don’t feel anything though. Of course, I haven’t felt any sort of pain this whole time. Even the stabby wound in my guts from the shard of cow pitcher. Is that still there? I stick a finger in it. Yep, still there, and still gross.
After a minute, Dumah twists his arms hard like a panicked trucker down a windy road and I hear a loud crack from the other side of him followed by a muffled groan of pain.
“Yes yes, go ahead and cry,” he says to Madame Wendy. “You can speak now.”
“Wh-what’s going to happen to me?” she asks in a frightened, child-like voice.
Dumah takes her head in his hands and twists and turns her every which way. “Well, you’ve lost about twenty-some odd years off your expected life span... and that hand is going to ache like a son-of-a-bitch when the weather is bad... but all-in-all, I’d say you’ll be fine.” He straightens up and brushes off his dirty, old robe. “Of course, there’s a place in the Pit specifically for false prophets.”
The false prophet Wendy stares at him with a slowly drifting jaw and then swallows the mother of all throat lumps.
“Go to sleep,” I hear Dumah say, followed by a soft thump of something or someone falling down on the wet grass nearby. He appears over me, looking down, studying me with his empty Skeletor eyes. “What have you got on your forehead?” he asks.
“I think it’s a gunshot wound,” I tell him.
“No, it’s one of those runes you weren’t supposed to play with. Gebo... jara... I’m afraid I’m not fluent in their precise qualities.” he kneels down and sticks his boney thumb in my face. I can feel him trying to rub the symbols off. “If I remove these, your head will explode.”
“That’s alright,” I sigh, looking up at the pretty stars. I want to go be a star and just shine down on everyone. “I’ve had enough anyway. Let’s get on with the exploding heads.”
“I was joking, I have no idea what will happen.”
Probably my head will melt like the laundry room door. That’s fine too. I can’t feel anything anyway so I doubt it’ll hurt. I take my finger and stick it back in my cow pitcher wound, dab it around some, get it nice and bloody. I stop and really think for a moment where everything in my life went wrong that I’m lying on the grass behind the tents at a carnival sticking my finger in a stab wound to use my own blood to wipe a magic rune off my forehead.
Someone steps through the Veil tear. I figure it must be Dumah’s crew of stitchers or whatever he called them. But it’s not. Dumah glances up from hovering over me and is visibly shocked, which is saying a lot since his face is a freaking skull and incapable of emotion.
“Abaddon,” he says, standing up, “What are you doing here? You spoke with Zadkiel?”
It is indeed Abaddon. He hasn’t even bothered to hide his extra pair of arms either. He’s got all four out on display in some sort of white shirt with not only no sleeves, but no sides to it either. Like, why wear anything at all at that point? The front and back flap just looks silly to me. He also doesn’t have any pants on, but before you read too much into that, his weird shirt thing is more like a long dress, I guess. He’s got a gold-looking piece of rope tied around his waist with tassels on it.
“I’ve come to help,” Abaddon says in his matter-of-fact tone.
“Help whom, brother?” Paschar speaks up.
Abaddon looks at my doll and says nothing. Then I notice that his lower left hand is clutching something against his side. It kind of looks like he broke a stalactite off the ceiling of a cave and is wielding it like a small baseball bat.
You ever been sitting at your dinner table and everybody’s talking about their day and then your mom mentions that she ran into her old friend Todd and your dad says, “is that the Todd you used to date in college?” and she says, “yes. He runs a successful travel agency now.” and then the room gets really quiet and there’s like this feeling in the air that maybe there’s a hidden conversation being had and you aren’t privy to it? Well, that’s what it feels like now. Dumah, Abaddon, Paschar, are all quiet. The fair is still going on somewhere and people are laughing and screaming happy sounds, but me and Mr. Dutch and Madame Wendy are sitting there wondering if mom and dad are having a silent argument in their heads.
Paschar finally repeats himself, in a slower manner. “Help... whom?”
Why are the hairs on my arm bristling up?
“Stamus contra malum,” replies Abaddon. He lifts the small stalactite bat and raises it across his forehead, then back down and across his chest. “We stand against evil.”
“You helped Samael escape.” Paschar doesn’t sound the least bit surprised. I’m surprised to hear him say it. Abaddon? Help Samael? But he was helping me with the blood and everything! Paschar is still talking. “I asked myself how Samael managed to do his vanishing act. We saw him in his cell before Lily woke and he was in her mind. But that wasn’t Samael, was it? It was Onokole, child of Hecate.”
“Oh no,” I whisper.
Abaddon clenches his jaw for a second. “I know this is hard to understand, brother, but Samael is right.”
“What does *that* mean?” Dumah steps back from the tear and Abaddon. I see his arm reach behind his back and with a snickety-snick his big, curved blade thingy unfolds in his hand.
“The great evil is coming,” Abaddon points with his upper right arm toward the sky. “You know this. It is why we do what we do. And we have spent eons preparing for it, building this wall against it, training these children to stand against it as the first row of pawns on the board. But look at them! Look at this!” he gestures with another arm toward my big, ol tear in the Veil. “We are fighting amongst ourselves when we should be working together! Your own Generals are ripping down the very wall they are meant to defend! We don’t stand a chance as long as we continue to--”
“Who is it talking to?”
I look over at Madame Wendy. She’s gripping her reattached hand with her other hand and trembling so bad that her jangles are jangling. She’s looking at me, but also keep side-eyeing Abaddon.
“He’s talking to my doll,” I whisper to her, so as to not interrupt Abaddon’s speech he’s giving. From the sound of it, he’s been holding this all in a long time and just needs to vent. Far be it from me to interrupt “Lord of the Bottomless Pit” when he’s monologuing.
“--is to stand together!” Abaddon is still going. I missed some of what he said thanks to that false prophet lady, dang it. “The Potestates *need* to be alarmed! Look at the signs! The first two seals are broken! Come and see!”
Dumah puts a hand on Abaddon’s shoulder. It looks like a gentle gesture, but Abaddon reels from it and swings his stalactite bat thing at Dumah’s head. Dumah takes the hit with stride, staggering back a moment and then casually shaking it off like someone who just got splashed in the face with cold spaghetti water.
“Abaddon, let us talk about this on the other side. This is neither the time nor place to have these discussions. I’m already going to have to--” he starts making a sweeping gesture at us normal folk lying in the grass. He pauses for a moment to specifically point out Mr. Gin’s headless body.
“It’s too late.”
Those words come from the tear. One white leg steps out of the blackness. Then another, along with the complete, regenerated body of Samael. He’s him now. He’s not me or some bizarre, twisted nightmare version of in between us both. He slicks back his hair with two hands drenched in red blood. It’s spattered across his suit that he somehow got. Maybe it’s a part of him? I don’t know. Angels can do anything it seems like.
“I come now to you as the lion,” he says with a mouth full of pointy teeth, “to lead mankind into a new age. To prepare them for the war that is to come.”
“WHERE IS BARRATTIEL?!” Dumah yells in a booming voice. Some of the laughing and hooting from fairgoers around the way on the main thoroughfare go quiet, that’s how loud he is.
Samael sticks one of his bloody fingers in his mouth and sucks on it for a second like a baby with its pacifier. He spots me watching and winks. My tummy does a tumble and considers finding more past meal to send up my throat.
“He’ll be fine,” Samael finally says with red teeth, “I didn’t have to completely incapacitate him like I did poor Nathaniel. Dear, sweet, little Bar can’t do much more than challenge me to a slap fight. That’s what he did, anyway, and you could say I won.”
Dumah finally reveals the giant blade he was keeping behind his back. He opens his jawbone and roars. I’m talking a big, darn roar. He drowns out everything else. Even Abaddon shrinks away when he hears it, bringing his stalac-bat up in front of him like it’s a shield. Even Samael cringes slightly, looking almost surprised. I hope he is. I want him to be shocked and confused and scared because that’s what I am and I hate him.
“Brothers!” shouts Paschar, barely audible over Dumah’s mountainous roar.
Abaddon flicks two of his wrists, causing the ground on either side of Dumah to erupt into a dozen sharp, pointy, earthy spikes, impaling him from every direction before he can take a single step.
It doesn’t stop Dumah’s roar, it just stops him from following through on attacking them both with his weapon. He swings wildly, missing Abaddon by inches, and then stumbles, sliding down on the spikes so that the stick up around him like a thorny crown.
Samael takes a deep breath. “How the mighty have fallen. Poor brother, you should have listened to me. Now you can stay here, among the children. I just wanted you to know that you could have had a place by my side. Like dear Abaddon.”
He smiles at Abaddon. Abaddon doesn’t smile back. He looks frustrated.
“The Veil is now officially off limits, as it always should have been. Don’t try to enter it. I will destroy you. I must make it stronger. I must protect the Throne. This has always been my job, my one, singular purpose. Do not try to keep me from my purpose again... Dumbass.”
And with that, Abaddon and Samael trudge slowly backward into the darkness of the tear. I can’t see them but I’d wager they’re standing on the other side of it, looking out at the lot of us and giggling to themselves. They’re just like the jerk girls from school. They think they’re better than everybody.
Bit by bit, the rip starts shrinking at the edges. Within five minutes, it’s gone, leaving just a normal empty bit of field behind some carnival tents with Mr. Dutch looking completely out of his mind, Madame Wendy shaking and sobbing, Dumah sagged quietly into a ball on the spikes, me sitting with wet pants and covered and blood, and of course one headless body.
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But did I eat the mustard fish cake sandwich? I didn’t really remember. Not until now. Yes, I ate the mustard fish cake sandwich. I even added extra mustard because I was annoyed. It’s all coming back to me... from the pit of my stomach, up my esophagus and out past my tongue and teeth.
HYURRRRK!
I barf mustard yellow onto the grass in front of everybody. You would too if you just saw a man get his head ripped off, okay? I’m not going to stop seeing that, not even when I’m old and gray, if I live that long. It’s burned into my brain, like that scene in the movie Poltergeist where the camera guy hallucinates peeling his face off after eating maggoty meat. Why’d my dad let me watch that movie anyway?
I’m not looking anymore. I can’t look. I just shut my eyes and taste the lingering mustard flavor on my tongue. Even with my eyes closed though, I can see it all in my head using just my ears. That heavy FLUMP sound like someone dropping a bag of laundry is Mr. Gin’s body collapsing into a pile. The softer thump to my right is his head landing in the grass between me and Mr. Dutch after Samael tosses it aside.
That loud CRACK sound? The gun. Something wet spatters across my face. That’s blood obviously. I’m not sure whose. I flinch when I feel it. Samael hisses. Did they hit him? Is he bleeding? Several more CRACKs. A whistling sound. I put my hands over my ears and crouch into a ball. Be as small as I can. Be a piddle bug. Curl in on myself.
“SAMAEL!” Dumah shouts, “CONTAIN YOURSELF!”
Ms. Gwendolyn screams.
Felix yells over the noise. “WENDY, RUN!”
I peek through my lids for a second. Madame Wendy is wreathed in smoke. She’s still got the gun pointed at Samael. Her face looks like she just swallowed one of those red-hot cinnamon jawbreakers. I don’t get the love people have for those things. They just burn. Why torture yourself by putting a thing that burns on your tongue? Last year in science, our teacher brought a jug of cinnamon extract to school for some lab thing and one of the boys in the front row got his hands on it and took a swig. He had to go to the nurse. That stuff’s poison or something. Someone said it probably ate through his stomach lining and was burning a hole straight to the butt of his pants.
Samael is as tall as an adult. His body is all twisted and stretchy like one of those Stretch Armstrong toys. I imagine this is what that kid Mike Teevee from the Willy Wonka movie looked like after they stretched him cuz he got shrunk. That movie was a nightmare.
Dumah is grabbing Samael’s wrists and trying to twist them behind his back. It’s not really working though because Samael’s arms just stretch further, and you can hear popping as his elbows and wrists come undone. Their struggle is just a few feet away from me. They step and sway like two dancers but there’s a headless corpse at their feet and Dumah trips over it, sending him tumbling to the ground. He doesn’t let go of Samael though, or at least his arms.
Samael’s arms pop off at the shoulders with a sickening sound. If I hadn’t just emptied my stomach down here in the grass --which I’m squatting way too close to-- I’d probably lose my lunch at the sight and sound. Instead, I just have one of those unpleasant heaves that wrenches the muscles in your chest and make it hurt. I duck waddle backward to get away from my own sick and the insanity in front of me.
I can’t take this. This is too much. The songs I try to sing in my head to drown out the sounds aren’t working. Another gunshot. Screams of enjoyment on the other side of the tents. People having a great time at night with their families, oblivious to the death going on right here.
“Lily,” Paschar says something. He’s trying to settle me down but it’s not working either. I can’t hear his words; all I can hear is some sort of squelching sound. Dumah shouting stuff. I think it’s Latin or some other dead language. Mr. Dutch is gibbering too. I hear him say the word, “mommy.”
STOP IT! STOP IT ALL! ALL OF IT!
I scream just to drown out the sounds. I don’t care if anybody hears me. I want to not hear them. I want them to go away! Felix, Samael, Dumah, Ms. Gwendy, even poor Mr. Dutch. I want them all to just--
--GO--
--AWAY!
I have the power to do it too! I can make them go away. Why am I cowering here? Why am I duck waddling around on the grass, screaming with my hands over my ears? I’m not helpless. I’m not. I just need to--
I open my eyes. I kind of wish I hadn’t. Samael looks nothing like me anymore. He’s twisted into an adult with splinters of bone coming out of his shoulder sockets, like they’re trying to reform a pair of arms. Dumah is casually beating him about the head and shoulders with his own detached limbs. It’s almost comical except for how disgusting and awful it is. He’s yelling more nonsensical stuff in a loud, booming voice that seems to echo off of nothing.
Madame Wendy has fallen to the ground holding the pistol. Her finger seems to be trying to pull the trigger again and again but it’s just clicking. No more gunshots. No more bullets.
Felix is standing still, frozen in place. Maybe he thinks if he doesn’t move, Samael won’t see him. Maybe his brain just fried trying to understand what he’s seeing, what Hellish nightmare just popped into reality in front of him. The girl he hated more than anyone else living (but not dead, sorry Meredith) suddenly turned into some sort of silly putty monster that ripped the head off his friend and is coming for him next.
I don’t bother looking at Mr. Dutch.
Instead, I focus. I can hear Paschar shouting at me in the back of my mind but I drown him out with my song. It’s not one I heard on the radio. It’s not one Ms. Pembrook made us sing in music class. It’s one I make up on the spot. It’s a song about a girl who’s tired of being controlled by everyone around her. She’s exhausted from all the awful things she’s seen and all the people she loves that she’s lost. But she has this special gift. She can rip holes between our world and the dream world. She can make delicate, small cuts that rip the butt of a boy’s pants, but she can also make giant stinking holes.
So I scream at the top of my lungs and I throw my hands out and I make a giant, stinking hole in the Veil. I don’t know what it looks like to everybody else, but to me it’s like the air and the ground and the people all in front of me are a page in a book. A really well-illustrated page. Maybe one of those Bill Peet books, he was always good at drawing stuff. But someone punched a big, fat, black hole in the page.
I know what’s in that hole. Void. The emptiness of untouched Veil. It’s not space where you would suffocate because there’s no air, it’s more like flying or falling forever until you either make your own reality or just go completely insane. I’m guessing about that second part. I don’t really know what happens if you don’t make your own reality because I only ever did. And maybe I could do that because of who I am. It’s all still a big mystery to me.
“WHAT IS THIS?!” Felix yells. He’s staring into the blackness of the tear. I had kinda meant to just catch everybody in it, but for all my effort I really only made a rip the size of a kiddie pool. You know, one of those heavy plastic pools your dad drags out of the garage, muttering to himself about why you can’t just play in the sprinkler and then spends two hours filling it from a hose and when he’s finally done the thing is filled with floating dead bugs and other stuff you don’t want to touch. I don’t know why adults invent stuff like that.
Suddenly, Samael is behind Felix. He rises up from out of nowhere like a marionette. His arm stumps are a pair of rubbery-looking bones with polished knobby ends. Even though he has no hands on them, he still manages to wrap his bone arms around the shocked and confused Felix. There’s a big grin on his face that is NOT my face. It’s HIS face. He’s him. The him who we met in that prison cell thing in Hell. Fanged teeth, reddish eyes. Like a vampire if vampires had knobby bone arms instead of capes.
“Thanks for the assistance!” Samael yells to me from across the tear.
“I didn’t do that for you!” I yell back.
Felix shouts something I can’t make out. He reaches down and tries to swat away the bone arms that are rubbery-bending around his torso.
Madame Wendy is fumbling with something in one of her many pockets and rattling the gun in her hand. I think she might have more bullets and is reloading it.
Where did Dumah go?
I see half an arm on the ground right by the edge of the tear. It’s one of Samael’s that popped out of his shoulder sockets. I think maybe I opened the tear right on top of Dumah. Oops.
Samael grins at me. He hefts up Felix like a sack of flour or rice or some other sort of sack. Felix screams and claws at his face and head. Samael’s face and head, not his own face and head. He’s not THAT crazy... yet.
I cover my eyes with my hands but peek through my fingers. I just saw Samael twist Mr. Gin’s head off like a screw, so I’m already envisioning him ripping Felix in half.
He doesn’t though. He just casually chucks Felix right into the hole I made and starts laughing maniacally. It’s a surreal thing to witness because even though I’m standing on the other side of the hole that I assume has width and length and height, it looks 2D like a Road Runner cartoon and I can see Felix go falling into the blackness like I’m looking down into a well and watching Felix fall to the bottom of it.
Madame Wendy screams, “FELIX!” and does some wrist flick thing with the gun in her hand. She points it at me.
I throw a hand up between us. “Hey whoa! I’m the good guy!”
Am I? I mean, I kinda just got Felix killed. Felix and Mr. Gin. Sure, they seemed pretty awful, but would they have been quite as bad if they hadn’t been having to deal with me and my problems that I bring with me everywhere I go? To Madame Wendy I’m sure I’m a REAL bad person. Yeah, fair enough. Go ahead and shoot me.
Without thinking, I flick my wrist at her, just a sort of “whatever” kind of motion, giving her the go-ahead to empty a few rounds into my meatball and put us both out of our misery. But of course, things can never be that simple. Instead, I accidentally make another micro-tear in the Veil right where her wrist and her hand meet, and the whole thing just falls right off, followed by a scream of panic and pain from her and a big ol’ spurt of blood from her severed wrist.
I clench my fists up to avoid making the same mistake twice and hurry over to her. “Oh geez! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!” I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m running on some sort of autopilot. I pick up the hand and hold it with the fingers pointing down so the blood stays inside.
Madame Wendy is not having any of it. She slaps me away with her still attached hand. It stings but probably not as much as getting your hand cut off so I don’t cry. I just fall backward and drop the hand on the ground. She scrambles, reaching for it. No, wait, she’s reaching for the gun again. We’re back to the shooting me scenario.
“Oh just give me the gun,” I tell her, unable to hide my exhaustion, “I’ll do it myself.”
She picks it up, hugging her stump to her chest and getting blood all over her pretty ruffles. She points the gun right in my face.
“Devil!” she yells.
Samael steps between us, grinning at her with that same fangy smile that haunts my dreams. “At your service,” he hisses at the poor woman.
The sound of the gun fills my ears with ringing. At the same instant, the back of Samael’s head sort of pops open like a pretty flower. Red splatters my vision. And lastly I feel a sharp sensation in the side of my head that jerks me backward. Like from my eyebrow to my ear just getting yanked by an angry giant’s hand. Did I just get shot? Then the bullet is in my brain now, I bet. Except I’m still thinking. Well maybe that’s how being dead works, after all. Wasn’t Roger stuck in his dead body, thinking and waiting? I’m just gonna let gravity catch me and fall down here on the grass, get a feeling for being dead now.
The grass is wet. I can still feel it. It tickles the back of my neck. I don’t think you feel things when you’re dead. Okay, Lil, you’re not dead. But there’s blood in your eyes and something cut you across the forehead, I guess. Why doesn’t it burn inside my head though?
That Wendy lady fires again and again. I can’t see if she’s even accomplishing anything with Samael. Seems to me he just keeps going, like that Energizer Bunny in the battery commercials. Samael, he keeps going and going and going...
...and going and going...
“Get off of her!”
Oh hey, that’s Dumah’s voice. Dumah’s back. How convenient.
Another gunshot, followed by clicking again. Madame Wendy needs to get a gun that holds more bullets.
“Oh stop it, you ponce,” I hear Dumah say in a very agitated manner.
I peek an eye open, the one that’s not got blood in it and stings something fierce. Dumah’s given up his skin suit and is standing there on the edge of the tear in his robes and his Skeletor face exposed. He’s the spitting image of that Grim Reaper guy. They probably modeled him after Dumah or something.
Dumah kneels down next to the phony baloney fortune teller and pries the gun out of her fingers. “Give me that before you hurt somebody who can actually suffer,” he says like a father talking to his daughter who he caught playing with making milkshakes in the blender, but nobody told her you needed to put the top on it. “Now give me your hand. No, the other one, that one beside you on the ground. I’ll reattach it.”
I wonder if he can do that with Mr. Gin and his head.
“What... what are you?” Madame Wendy whispers at him. She looks pale and tired. Who knows how many pints of blood she’s lost by now.
He puts a boney finger to his teeth. “Shhh,” he says to her, “be quiet.”
She opens her mouth to respond but nothing comes out. She realizes this and her eyes start darting around in a panic. Dumah holds her by the wrist and then takes the severed hand and-- totally gets between me and everything he’s doing so I don’t even get to see. Oh come on!
Since I can’t watch his magic, I look around instead. My neck feels stiff. Where’d Samael go? Oh, there he is, laying next to me with a big, nasty hole in the middle of his face. I can see inside his head. It’s not the graphic, gross, brain-filled situation you’d expect. There are things inside his head, dark things that seem to be moving, squirming like a bowl of worms (unless it’s Halloween, then it’s just spaghetti that grownups tell you is a bowl of worms). They seem to be entangling with each other in the middle of the big, gaping hole.
Someone else steps out of the tear as if it was just a doorway into a really dark room. I recognize Barrattiel. He surveys the scene and makes a big “O” with his mouth. He glances briefly at Mr. Dutch who seems to be looking past everything with his mouth hanging open slightly. Then Barrattiel looks in the direction of me and Samael and Dumah and Madame Wendy, raises his eyebrows, goes, “ah!” and nods, then comes over.
“Barrattiel,” I sputter. There’s something hot and salty in my mouth. “I think she shot me in the head but I’m not dead.”
He just lifts a finger silently in the same manner as, “give me one second,” and starts picking up Samael instead. I can’t hide feeling a bit puzzled by this. I frown at him. My eye tingles more from this so I grit my teeth and wait for it to pass.
“Sam’s regenerating,” Barrattiel whispers to me, “I’ve got to get him across the threshold before he can resist. I’ll be right back for you.”
Oh sure, Samael can regenerate. Damn angels and all their powers and all they give us is the power to burn stuff and see the future and junk.
“What a mess,” Dumah mutters. He looks over at me. “Look at the size of this rip. This is almost as bad as Guatemala. There’s going to be Hell to pay for this.” He turns to Barrattiel. “Quickly now! And then fetch the stitcher. We need to close this immediately.”
Barrattiel nods. “Right.” He gives me a shrug. “Dumah will check on you.”
What happened in Guatemala? That’s not cool, referencing things I don’t know anything about. Paschar is silent on the matter so apparently nobody’s going to fill me in. Heck, I don’t even know where Guatemala is. I’m going to have to remember to look it up in the encyclopedia. I wonder if that’s where Abaddon and I went and got the cow pitcher that’s now never going to be returned to its owner.
I reach up and touch my forehead. There must be a hole or something in my skull. I don’t feel anything though. Of course, I haven’t felt any sort of pain this whole time. Even the stabby wound in my guts from the shard of cow pitcher. Is that still there? I stick a finger in it. Yep, still there, and still gross.
After a minute, Dumah twists his arms hard like a panicked trucker down a windy road and I hear a loud crack from the other side of him followed by a muffled groan of pain.
“Yes yes, go ahead and cry,” he says to Madame Wendy. “You can speak now.”
“Wh-what’s going to happen to me?” she asks in a frightened, child-like voice.
Dumah takes her head in his hands and twists and turns her every which way. “Well, you’ve lost about twenty-some odd years off your expected life span... and that hand is going to ache like a son-of-a-bitch when the weather is bad... but all-in-all, I’d say you’ll be fine.” He straightens up and brushes off his dirty, old robe. “Of course, there’s a place in the Pit specifically for false prophets.”
The false prophet Wendy stares at him with a slowly drifting jaw and then swallows the mother of all throat lumps.
“Go to sleep,” I hear Dumah say, followed by a soft thump of something or someone falling down on the wet grass nearby. He appears over me, looking down, studying me with his empty Skeletor eyes. “What have you got on your forehead?” he asks.
“I think it’s a gunshot wound,” I tell him.
“No, it’s one of those runes you weren’t supposed to play with. Gebo... jara... I’m afraid I’m not fluent in their precise qualities.” he kneels down and sticks his boney thumb in my face. I can feel him trying to rub the symbols off. “If I remove these, your head will explode.”
“That’s alright,” I sigh, looking up at the pretty stars. I want to go be a star and just shine down on everyone. “I’ve had enough anyway. Let’s get on with the exploding heads.”
“I was joking, I have no idea what will happen.”
Probably my head will melt like the laundry room door. That’s fine too. I can’t feel anything anyway so I doubt it’ll hurt. I take my finger and stick it back in my cow pitcher wound, dab it around some, get it nice and bloody. I stop and really think for a moment where everything in my life went wrong that I’m lying on the grass behind the tents at a carnival sticking my finger in a stab wound to use my own blood to wipe a magic rune off my forehead.
Someone steps through the Veil tear. I figure it must be Dumah’s crew of stitchers or whatever he called them. But it’s not. Dumah glances up from hovering over me and is visibly shocked, which is saying a lot since his face is a freaking skull and incapable of emotion.
“Abaddon,” he says, standing up, “What are you doing here? You spoke with Zadkiel?”
It is indeed Abaddon. He hasn’t even bothered to hide his extra pair of arms either. He’s got all four out on display in some sort of white shirt with not only no sleeves, but no sides to it either. Like, why wear anything at all at that point? The front and back flap just looks silly to me. He also doesn’t have any pants on, but before you read too much into that, his weird shirt thing is more like a long dress, I guess. He’s got a gold-looking piece of rope tied around his waist with tassels on it.
“I’ve come to help,” Abaddon says in his matter-of-fact tone.
“Help whom, brother?” Paschar speaks up.
Abaddon looks at my doll and says nothing. Then I notice that his lower left hand is clutching something against his side. It kind of looks like he broke a stalactite off the ceiling of a cave and is wielding it like a small baseball bat.
You ever been sitting at your dinner table and everybody’s talking about their day and then your mom mentions that she ran into her old friend Todd and your dad says, “is that the Todd you used to date in college?” and she says, “yes. He runs a successful travel agency now.” and then the room gets really quiet and there’s like this feeling in the air that maybe there’s a hidden conversation being had and you aren’t privy to it? Well, that’s what it feels like now. Dumah, Abaddon, Paschar, are all quiet. The fair is still going on somewhere and people are laughing and screaming happy sounds, but me and Mr. Dutch and Madame Wendy are sitting there wondering if mom and dad are having a silent argument in their heads.
Paschar finally repeats himself, in a slower manner. “Help... whom?”
Why are the hairs on my arm bristling up?
“Stamus contra malum,” replies Abaddon. He lifts the small stalactite bat and raises it across his forehead, then back down and across his chest. “We stand against evil.”
“You helped Samael escape.” Paschar doesn’t sound the least bit surprised. I’m surprised to hear him say it. Abaddon? Help Samael? But he was helping me with the blood and everything! Paschar is still talking. “I asked myself how Samael managed to do his vanishing act. We saw him in his cell before Lily woke and he was in her mind. But that wasn’t Samael, was it? It was Onokole, child of Hecate.”
“Oh no,” I whisper.
Abaddon clenches his jaw for a second. “I know this is hard to understand, brother, but Samael is right.”
“What does *that* mean?” Dumah steps back from the tear and Abaddon. I see his arm reach behind his back and with a snickety-snick his big, curved blade thingy unfolds in his hand.
“The great evil is coming,” Abaddon points with his upper right arm toward the sky. “You know this. It is why we do what we do. And we have spent eons preparing for it, building this wall against it, training these children to stand against it as the first row of pawns on the board. But look at them! Look at this!” he gestures with another arm toward my big, ol tear in the Veil. “We are fighting amongst ourselves when we should be working together! Your own Generals are ripping down the very wall they are meant to defend! We don’t stand a chance as long as we continue to--”
“Who is it talking to?”
I look over at Madame Wendy. She’s gripping her reattached hand with her other hand and trembling so bad that her jangles are jangling. She’s looking at me, but also keep side-eyeing Abaddon.
“He’s talking to my doll,” I whisper to her, so as to not interrupt Abaddon’s speech he’s giving. From the sound of it, he’s been holding this all in a long time and just needs to vent. Far be it from me to interrupt “Lord of the Bottomless Pit” when he’s monologuing.
“--is to stand together!” Abaddon is still going. I missed some of what he said thanks to that false prophet lady, dang it. “The Potestates *need* to be alarmed! Look at the signs! The first two seals are broken! Come and see!”
Dumah puts a hand on Abaddon’s shoulder. It looks like a gentle gesture, but Abaddon reels from it and swings his stalactite bat thing at Dumah’s head. Dumah takes the hit with stride, staggering back a moment and then casually shaking it off like someone who just got splashed in the face with cold spaghetti water.
“Abaddon, let us talk about this on the other side. This is neither the time nor place to have these discussions. I’m already going to have to--” he starts making a sweeping gesture at us normal folk lying in the grass. He pauses for a moment to specifically point out Mr. Gin’s headless body.
“It’s too late.”
Those words come from the tear. One white leg steps out of the blackness. Then another, along with the complete, regenerated body of Samael. He’s him now. He’s not me or some bizarre, twisted nightmare version of in between us both. He slicks back his hair with two hands drenched in red blood. It’s spattered across his suit that he somehow got. Maybe it’s a part of him? I don’t know. Angels can do anything it seems like.
“I come now to you as the lion,” he says with a mouth full of pointy teeth, “to lead mankind into a new age. To prepare them for the war that is to come.”
“WHERE IS BARRATTIEL?!” Dumah yells in a booming voice. Some of the laughing and hooting from fairgoers around the way on the main thoroughfare go quiet, that’s how loud he is.
Samael sticks one of his bloody fingers in his mouth and sucks on it for a second like a baby with its pacifier. He spots me watching and winks. My tummy does a tumble and considers finding more past meal to send up my throat.
“He’ll be fine,” Samael finally says with red teeth, “I didn’t have to completely incapacitate him like I did poor Nathaniel. Dear, sweet, little Bar can’t do much more than challenge me to a slap fight. That’s what he did, anyway, and you could say I won.”
Dumah finally reveals the giant blade he was keeping behind his back. He opens his jawbone and roars. I’m talking a big, darn roar. He drowns out everything else. Even Abaddon shrinks away when he hears it, bringing his stalac-bat up in front of him like it’s a shield. Even Samael cringes slightly, looking almost surprised. I hope he is. I want him to be shocked and confused and scared because that’s what I am and I hate him.
“Brothers!” shouts Paschar, barely audible over Dumah’s mountainous roar.
Abaddon flicks two of his wrists, causing the ground on either side of Dumah to erupt into a dozen sharp, pointy, earthy spikes, impaling him from every direction before he can take a single step.
It doesn’t stop Dumah’s roar, it just stops him from following through on attacking them both with his weapon. He swings wildly, missing Abaddon by inches, and then stumbles, sliding down on the spikes so that the stick up around him like a thorny crown.
Samael takes a deep breath. “How the mighty have fallen. Poor brother, you should have listened to me. Now you can stay here, among the children. I just wanted you to know that you could have had a place by my side. Like dear Abaddon.”
He smiles at Abaddon. Abaddon doesn’t smile back. He looks frustrated.
“The Veil is now officially off limits, as it always should have been. Don’t try to enter it. I will destroy you. I must make it stronger. I must protect the Throne. This has always been my job, my one, singular purpose. Do not try to keep me from my purpose again... Dumbass.”
And with that, Abaddon and Samael trudge slowly backward into the darkness of the tear. I can’t see them but I’d wager they’re standing on the other side of it, looking out at the lot of us and giggling to themselves. They’re just like the jerk girls from school. They think they’re better than everybody.
Bit by bit, the rip starts shrinking at the edges. Within five minutes, it’s gone, leaving just a normal empty bit of field behind some carnival tents with Mr. Dutch looking completely out of his mind, Madame Wendy shaking and sobbing, Dumah sagged quietly into a ball on the spikes, me sitting with wet pants and covered and blood, and of course one headless body.
2023.05.27 17:18 criminator98 Coworkers…
So this is my first full time job. I am a pet care attendant at a vet hospital. We basically feed the animals, walk them, bathe them, clean the cages and clean the whole hospital. We mop, do laundry, trash, etc. im paid like $11/hr and work from 6:30 am until 5:30 pm 4 days a week and then alternate weekends. I don’t love it but I really need experience in a vet clinic for my resume to work towards bigger goals. My problem is my coworkers (shocker). One of them like lives and breathes this job. Its her life. And the other just is kind of a bitch and will be really mean when telling me to do stuff (im new, been there for about 2 1/2 months). My other coworker is lazy and pushes stuff onto me and others to do but then criticizes u when its not done perfectly. And lastly my supervisor is a 70 year old woman with no self esteem and so many health problems. She can barely do her job and is so stubborn about certain things that dont make sense (ie putting a pet bed in a cage with a dog that has been having extreme episodes of diarrhea). Like we are just gonna have to keep removing them and cleaning them and pet beds are really bad for our washing machine. They keep breaking them. So anyway, i do care about doing a good job. I want to work with animals as I love them so much. And i live in a colleg town where jobs are constantly being taken and this is the first clinic in months that would hire me. I feel if i try to go to another clinic itll be a grass aint always greener situation and that ill regret it. My parents and friends keep telling me to just keep my head down, do my job and go home. Which ive been doing. But its hard when my coworkers keep constantly messaging me about any mistakes i made or saying that i need to be better at ths and that. Because for me it’s temporary but for them they live and breathe this. Like my god on my days off they message me saying things theyve noticed i messed up on and need to fix. Or they get mad because i slept in on MY DAY OFF so couldn’t immediately respond to the groupme. Its only been like 3 months and im already at my wits end. I try so hard to go in every day with a positive mindset and just do what i can to be helpful and friendly but it feels like im never good enough. I see them rolling their eyes at me when i mess up or them talking shit “secretly” to eachother. Its so weird too because one on one they are nice and we even chat and laugh or have a good conversation. But then they act like the biggest assholes ive ever met. Communication is non existent there. Its just “you shouldve read my mind” attitudes and passive aggressive remarks. But when i try to express this to my parents they say they think im way too bothered by it and to just ignore it. But its so hard to ignore when they are always in ur face. This job has been horrible for my depression but i feel like its just because im not used to dealing with coworkers in general and that its a maturity issue on my part. Maybe ive been too coddled. Maybe i really do just need to suck it up and get over it. I just feel kinda worthless and stupid rn for even letting this bother me so bad because its only temporary. At least i think so.
submitted by criminator98 to Adulting [link] [comments]
2023.05.27 16:06 empathosynchrony My wife is not the woman I used to know. She let the fame get to her
I am not the OOP. OOP is PassengerTraining913 posting on /offmychest
Trigger Warnings: Emotional abuse, Betrayal (imo)
Mood Spoilers: Infuriating, sad
My wife is not the woman I used to know. She let the fame get to her - May, 19 2023
I know I won't probably get anything meaningful from reddit, but at this stage of life I don't have a single soul to talk to.
I met my wife when I was 15 in high school, she was 17. That latter part of my teenage years was probably the hardest of my life, since in half a year I lost my mother. Never knew my dad so she was the only thing I could consider "family".
At that time, me and my wife were only friends, but she was there for me, and grieved with me. I think I started developing feelings for her during that time.
We started dating when I was 17, and we got married 7 years later.
For context, my wife was very frugal and unmaterialstic. She never cared about clothes, makeup, brands, cars, ect.. Always spending money on thrift shops or during sales on whatever she liked. I remember trying to impress her with my 370z just for her to react with "what car is this? A Corolla?" So yeah. I think you get the type. But that's what I liked about her the most. And also, she was the most caring person I ever knew.
In our family, she's the successful one, always working in big corporations. Regarding myself, I always worked as a community first responder for my local hospital. The salary wasn't high, but I loved my job, helping people as I could.
Fast forward, two years ago she received an offer from an important company for an executive position, offering four (yes, four) times her salary (and let me tell you, her salary wasn't bad by any means). But we should've to move to a different city. At first, I was doubtful, since that would've mean losing my job and not be sure if I could have contributed financially to our family for an indefinite time period, but she said that she could have sustained the family effortlessly with this new job, and for that time I could have looked after the house and groceries, till I could've found a new job. Since she was so enthusiastic, I accepted. I was happy to support my wife's carrier.
Well, the best way I can put it is that my wife underwent a crazy trasformation. Some Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide type thing, if you know what I mean. She started caring more and more about luxury brands, jewels, cars, etc. I don't think you can quite imagine my disbelief seeing her coming back home with a Versace bag after seeing her for years wearing 10$ coats from our local trift shop.
She also started hanging out with her new female coworkers a lot. My wife isn't very extroverted or very social, so that was quite the shock, but I was very very happy for her. I thought that she finally found her dimension after years of struggling.
But that happiness started fading after she started coming way later and home every day. And later. And later. Until it was a miracle to be able to talk to her for 10 minutes a day. I thought it was very busy with work (since well being an executive means lots of work), till she started posting lots of photos of her with her coworkers drinking, going shopping and stuff. The fun part is, she never finds time to reply to my text, but she always has a minute to post photos. And when she replies, she says that she's "working".
She also literally stopped saying things to me altogheter. Have you ever experienced your wife/husband going to work with an Audi A3 and then coming back home with a Porsche Macan GTS? Well, I did, and let me tell you. It's no fun. I confronted her on if it was a business issued car, which it isn't, then on why she spent so much money on a car when she didn't care not even a little about cars. Her passive aggressive response was that it's her money and that she entitled to do as she pleases.
Or have you experienced not seeing your wife/husband coming back home for a night and not replying to text just to receive a call the following afternoon saying that she forgot telling me that she left for a business trip? Well. I hope you haven't.
But the worse is when she invited me for lunch with her coworkers. I was very happy because that was the first time we were doing something together in months, and I thought that what I've experienced before what only a phase and that it was all ended.
My wife left first because she had work to do, so I dressed up nicely and left two hours after to the scheduled restaurant.
For context, I sold years before my 370z because I didn't need a sportscar no more, so my daily driver is a very frugal Renault Clio. I like it, and since I don't need that much, I don't have reasons to upgrade to a pricer model or brand. Well, I get to the restaurant, park my car in front of it, get inside just to see my wife staring at me like horror stricken. She gets up from the table and takes me outside of the restaurant, then proceed to literally insult me for parking my Clio in front of the restaurant and in front of her table, saying that I embarrassed her and that I should've parked it somewhere hidden. I was completely at a loss for words. I asked her why, and she said that it was a cheap, non luxury car, not representative of her lifestyle. She then gets back inside the restaurant, warning me not to embarass her like this again. I attended the rest of the lunch in shock. That day I realized that that girl I had at my side wasn't my wife. It wasn't the girl I married anymore.
My wife is now out of the house, celebrating a great year for the company, and I'm here at home writing this with the divorce papers in front of me. I don't think I can handle this situation anymore. I tried lots and lots of time to talk to her, to tell her how I feel, to tell her that she changed, that she's not the same woman I knew. But she just doesn't listen. She always says that she has no time and that she needs to work, or she tries to minimize the situation saying that it's not true and that she never changed.
She wanted kids, now she doesn't want them anymore, saying that they would rob her time from her carreer. She wanted to travel, now she doesn't want to do it, for the same reason. Is she really the same woman I married?
But still, I can't bring myself to talk about divorce with her. Most likely because I hope that somewhere hidden inside of her there's still the woman I loved and still love. Even if this doesn't seems like the case.
(Update) My wife is not the woman I used to know. She let the fame get her. - May 20, 2023
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who reached out to me in the comments or in DMs. I really appreciated it and it helped me retaining my composure and mental clarity. I'm sorry I couldn't reply to you all but I tried to read everything and I really appreciate all of you.
Well, after that business party my wife didn't came back home. I tried contacting her since I was very worried but she didn't pick up the phone not even once. She came back home in the morning exactly when I was about to leave for her workplace to ask about her.
I asked her what happened, and she said she stayed at this female coworkers' house since she drank a lot and she was in no condition to drive (fair enough). I told her that she could've sent a text to warn me, and that I would've gone to get her. Her response was "With what? The Clio?". I stood there in silence, and she later said that she forgot about warning me. I asked how she was feeling, only to be answered in monosyllabes.
We minded our own business for a while, then she comes to me and she says she has something to discuss about. I tell her that I have something to discuss with her too.
And well, would you look at that? She asked for divorce. I wasn't expecting that at all. I asked her why, and her reply was that after talking to her friends she understood that I wasn't fit to be her husband, that we have different values and different lifestyles, and that she deserves a man of a similiar worth compared to her. She was just waiting for the right time to brought it up, and after the party she made up her mind.
I'm going to be completely honest, that was a low blow, but I just smiled at her. I tried talking to her, proposing to separate for a while to see how things go, I even proposed couple therapy like someone suggested. But she was dead set on it. So I calmly told her everything I needed to say, from the fact that I was thinking about divorce too to the fact that I felt like she changed, concluding saying that I'm sure she will find an awesome man since I know her worth having been her husband for more than 9 years, but that I know what I'm worth too.
We decided to separate for the moment, and we will arrange the divorce later on, since she has no time now, but we have a verbal agreement on some things. I decided to go back to my hometown to relax and to decide what's next for me. I should be able to regain my previous position in the hospital, but it's all to see. Also, one of my friends there offered to host me until I found an housing. I'm really grateful to him.
But well I understood that my wife couldn't care less about me when the lengthiest discussion we had concerned who was taking the dog. For context, we got him a month after moving since she always wanted one and to keep me some company. But in two years, she probably spent the equivalent of two hours with him. I always took care of him and well he's been a more than loyal companion in those two years.
So, she literrally made a fuss about the fact that I couldn't take the dog with me, for maybe half an hour or so. I told her that I didn't care at all, I was taking him with me since she doesn't have time to care for him, and it was very strange for her to say those things when she didn't care not even a bit about him for two years.
So I packed the necessary and before leaving, I asked her if she was cheating on me, and she denied. And I will trust her on that. I read a lot of people in the previous post talking about hiring a PI, but I'm not going to do that. I trust what she said, and even if it wasn't the truth, I honestly don't want to hear nothing about it. It would only make me feel worse.
I feel calm, but inside I feel like I've lost an important piece of myself. The things she said didn't hurt me initially, however the more I think about them, the more heartbroken I feel. But I'm trying to focus on nicer thoughts, like meeting one of my old friends which I haven't seen in a long time. I'm still trying to process everything, it all happened so fast. Though I must say that seeing my dog so happy inside the Clio brightened up my mood a lot. He loves car rides.
Even if things went down this road, I still wish her all the best. I could never forget what she did back then for me and in general in those 16 years spent together as a couple.
I may do another update in the future about how things went, but for now, goodbye - I will take some time to focus on myself and on the upcoming divorce. Again thanks to everyone. Take care.
Reminder: I am not OOP, this is a repost
submitted by empathosynchrony to BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]
Trigger Warnings: Emotional abuse, Betrayal (imo)
Mood Spoilers: Infuriating, sad
I know I won't probably get anything meaningful from reddit, but at this stage of life I don't have a single soul to talk to.
I met my wife when I was 15 in high school, she was 17. That latter part of my teenage years was probably the hardest of my life, since in half a year I lost my mother. Never knew my dad so she was the only thing I could consider "family".
At that time, me and my wife were only friends, but she was there for me, and grieved with me. I think I started developing feelings for her during that time.
We started dating when I was 17, and we got married 7 years later.
For context, my wife was very frugal and unmaterialstic. She never cared about clothes, makeup, brands, cars, ect.. Always spending money on thrift shops or during sales on whatever she liked. I remember trying to impress her with my 370z just for her to react with "what car is this? A Corolla?" So yeah. I think you get the type. But that's what I liked about her the most. And also, she was the most caring person I ever knew.
In our family, she's the successful one, always working in big corporations. Regarding myself, I always worked as a community first responder for my local hospital. The salary wasn't high, but I loved my job, helping people as I could.
Fast forward, two years ago she received an offer from an important company for an executive position, offering four (yes, four) times her salary (and let me tell you, her salary wasn't bad by any means). But we should've to move to a different city. At first, I was doubtful, since that would've mean losing my job and not be sure if I could have contributed financially to our family for an indefinite time period, but she said that she could have sustained the family effortlessly with this new job, and for that time I could have looked after the house and groceries, till I could've found a new job. Since she was so enthusiastic, I accepted. I was happy to support my wife's carrier.
Well, the best way I can put it is that my wife underwent a crazy trasformation. Some Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide type thing, if you know what I mean. She started caring more and more about luxury brands, jewels, cars, etc. I don't think you can quite imagine my disbelief seeing her coming back home with a Versace bag after seeing her for years wearing 10$ coats from our local trift shop.
She also started hanging out with her new female coworkers a lot. My wife isn't very extroverted or very social, so that was quite the shock, but I was very very happy for her. I thought that she finally found her dimension after years of struggling.
But that happiness started fading after she started coming way later and home every day. And later. And later. Until it was a miracle to be able to talk to her for 10 minutes a day. I thought it was very busy with work (since well being an executive means lots of work), till she started posting lots of photos of her with her coworkers drinking, going shopping and stuff. The fun part is, she never finds time to reply to my text, but she always has a minute to post photos. And when she replies, she says that she's "working".
She also literally stopped saying things to me altogheter. Have you ever experienced your wife/husband going to work with an Audi A3 and then coming back home with a Porsche Macan GTS? Well, I did, and let me tell you. It's no fun. I confronted her on if it was a business issued car, which it isn't, then on why she spent so much money on a car when she didn't care not even a little about cars. Her passive aggressive response was that it's her money and that she entitled to do as she pleases.
Or have you experienced not seeing your wife/husband coming back home for a night and not replying to text just to receive a call the following afternoon saying that she forgot telling me that she left for a business trip? Well. I hope you haven't.
But the worse is when she invited me for lunch with her coworkers. I was very happy because that was the first time we were doing something together in months, and I thought that what I've experienced before what only a phase and that it was all ended.
My wife left first because she had work to do, so I dressed up nicely and left two hours after to the scheduled restaurant.
For context, I sold years before my 370z because I didn't need a sportscar no more, so my daily driver is a very frugal Renault Clio. I like it, and since I don't need that much, I don't have reasons to upgrade to a pricer model or brand. Well, I get to the restaurant, park my car in front of it, get inside just to see my wife staring at me like horror stricken. She gets up from the table and takes me outside of the restaurant, then proceed to literally insult me for parking my Clio in front of the restaurant and in front of her table, saying that I embarrassed her and that I should've parked it somewhere hidden. I was completely at a loss for words. I asked her why, and she said that it was a cheap, non luxury car, not representative of her lifestyle. She then gets back inside the restaurant, warning me not to embarass her like this again. I attended the rest of the lunch in shock. That day I realized that that girl I had at my side wasn't my wife. It wasn't the girl I married anymore.
My wife is now out of the house, celebrating a great year for the company, and I'm here at home writing this with the divorce papers in front of me. I don't think I can handle this situation anymore. I tried lots and lots of time to talk to her, to tell her how I feel, to tell her that she changed, that she's not the same woman I knew. But she just doesn't listen. She always says that she has no time and that she needs to work, or she tries to minimize the situation saying that it's not true and that she never changed.
She wanted kids, now she doesn't want them anymore, saying that they would rob her time from her carreer. She wanted to travel, now she doesn't want to do it, for the same reason. Is she really the same woman I married?
But still, I can't bring myself to talk about divorce with her. Most likely because I hope that somewhere hidden inside of her there's still the woman I loved and still love. Even if this doesn't seems like the case.
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who reached out to me in the comments or in DMs. I really appreciated it and it helped me retaining my composure and mental clarity. I'm sorry I couldn't reply to you all but I tried to read everything and I really appreciate all of you.
Well, after that business party my wife didn't came back home. I tried contacting her since I was very worried but she didn't pick up the phone not even once. She came back home in the morning exactly when I was about to leave for her workplace to ask about her.
I asked her what happened, and she said she stayed at this female coworkers' house since she drank a lot and she was in no condition to drive (fair enough). I told her that she could've sent a text to warn me, and that I would've gone to get her. Her response was "With what? The Clio?". I stood there in silence, and she later said that she forgot about warning me. I asked how she was feeling, only to be answered in monosyllabes.
We minded our own business for a while, then she comes to me and she says she has something to discuss about. I tell her that I have something to discuss with her too.
And well, would you look at that? She asked for divorce. I wasn't expecting that at all. I asked her why, and her reply was that after talking to her friends she understood that I wasn't fit to be her husband, that we have different values and different lifestyles, and that she deserves a man of a similiar worth compared to her. She was just waiting for the right time to brought it up, and after the party she made up her mind.
I'm going to be completely honest, that was a low blow, but I just smiled at her. I tried talking to her, proposing to separate for a while to see how things go, I even proposed couple therapy like someone suggested. But she was dead set on it. So I calmly told her everything I needed to say, from the fact that I was thinking about divorce too to the fact that I felt like she changed, concluding saying that I'm sure she will find an awesome man since I know her worth having been her husband for more than 9 years, but that I know what I'm worth too.
We decided to separate for the moment, and we will arrange the divorce later on, since she has no time now, but we have a verbal agreement on some things. I decided to go back to my hometown to relax and to decide what's next for me. I should be able to regain my previous position in the hospital, but it's all to see. Also, one of my friends there offered to host me until I found an housing. I'm really grateful to him.
But well I understood that my wife couldn't care less about me when the lengthiest discussion we had concerned who was taking the dog. For context, we got him a month after moving since she always wanted one and to keep me some company. But in two years, she probably spent the equivalent of two hours with him. I always took care of him and well he's been a more than loyal companion in those two years.
So, she literrally made a fuss about the fact that I couldn't take the dog with me, for maybe half an hour or so. I told her that I didn't care at all, I was taking him with me since she doesn't have time to care for him, and it was very strange for her to say those things when she didn't care not even a bit about him for two years.
So I packed the necessary and before leaving, I asked her if she was cheating on me, and she denied. And I will trust her on that. I read a lot of people in the previous post talking about hiring a PI, but I'm not going to do that. I trust what she said, and even if it wasn't the truth, I honestly don't want to hear nothing about it. It would only make me feel worse.
I feel calm, but inside I feel like I've lost an important piece of myself. The things she said didn't hurt me initially, however the more I think about them, the more heartbroken I feel. But I'm trying to focus on nicer thoughts, like meeting one of my old friends which I haven't seen in a long time. I'm still trying to process everything, it all happened so fast. Though I must say that seeing my dog so happy inside the Clio brightened up my mood a lot. He loves car rides.
Even if things went down this road, I still wish her all the best. I could never forget what she did back then for me and in general in those 16 years spent together as a couple.
I may do another update in the future about how things went, but for now, goodbye - I will take some time to focus on myself and on the upcoming divorce. Again thanks to everyone. Take care.
2023.05.27 14:27 Angel466 [Bob the hobo] A Celestial Wars Spin-Off Part 0836
PART EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX
[Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2]
Thursday
Constantine Julius pushed his oversized laundry cart through the pristine white halls, the flat soles of his sneakers barely making a sound and certainly, not one that could be heard over the squeak of the mop bucket being pushed behind him. His cleaner’s outfit was one size larger than he would’ve liked, but it was necessary to avoid having any unwanted attention drawn to himself.
As it was, he still had his shoulder-length powder-blond hair folded up under a scruffy caramel-brown wig and wore modified Coke-bottle glasses that made his eyes appear bigger than they were. The latter was so that when people needed to describe him, the first thing that came to mind was the dark brown contact lenses he wore.
“Glen and Maxine,” Haynes’ voice murmured, deep inside his ear canal as he approached the nurse’s station. “Glen is divorced and fighting for custody of his twin girls, and Maxine is looking forward to her retirement party next month.”
Without acknowledging the information, Constantine gave the pair a friendly smile. Not over friendly, as that would reveal the pads he’d poked into his cheeks to change the contours of his face, but friendly enough to convey his connection to these people.
“Glen. Maxine,” he said, nodding as he pushed the cart ahead of him.
Both straightened. “Who are you?” they demanded as the janitor with the mop bucket went around and continued on down the hall.
“Victor Elright,” Constantine answered, leaning on the rail of his cart. “Are you any closer to getting custody of those girls of yours?”
If anything, the guard’s eyes narrowed, and he began typing on a keyboard behind the desk.
Constantine faux-frowned and looked at the older nurse with greying hair. “Did it not go well?”
“How do you know about Glen’s kids?”
“Johnny J is his best friend,” Haynes filled in.
“Johnny J and my sister run in the same circles. I haven’t spoken to either of them in a couple of weeks, but he talks a lot about how bullshit it is that she’s keeping them from him.”
“Yeah, it is,” the nurse agreed, relaxing, especially when the guard also seemed to relax.
“You normally do the south wing,” he said, though it was only mildly accusatory.
“Yeah. Ella asked me to cover for her tonight since it’s my night off. Her son’s not feeling well, but officially she’s the one not feeling well … if you get my drift.” Constantine gave him the side-eye, for most sick leave didn’t allow for children who needed to be cared for.
The story was one they’d prefabricated before coming in, having intercepted Ella a block from her home.
“Yeah, a lot of that kidfluenza is going around these days, isn’t it, Glen?” the nurse smirked, looking up at the security guard, whose lips twisted to one side as he looked pointedly at the ceiling.
Constantine chuckled. “So, am I good to go?”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Glen asked, more procedural than any real desire to know.
“Pretty sure they don’t make the beds any differently over this side of the hospital,” he smirked, then looked at the nurse. “Oh, and if I don’t see you before next month, have fun spending all that define-contribution money. You’ve got a lot of people envious right now.”
“I’ll bet,” Maxine chuckled.
“Nice twist, using sick kids to connect to the single dad,” Haynes voiced through his earpiece.
“Mmmn,” Constantine hummed, though inwardly, it was a no-brainer. Schmoozing was his forte. That, shooting impossible targets and spending money. It was what he brought to the table, and he was very good at all three.
He pushed his cart down the corridor, stopping at every second room and going in to change the towels. His target room was at the far end, nine rooms down from the nurse’s station. But what had him inwardly frowning was the fact that the Master-At-Arms that had only just been assigned to the room that afternoon was noticeably absent and had been for the better part of an hour, for reasons Haynes couldn’t identify. He really didn’t enjoy the trepidation that crept across his skin, but this was going to be their only opportunity, so they had to take it.
After a minute or two, Constantine unlocked the room’s second door from the roof and the floor, pushed it open wide, and dragged his cart inside. He already knew the janitor was in the room before he entered, and as soon he was through, he pulled the curtain around the door partially closed and removed a Sig Sauer P220 Legion complete with an Obsidian 45 silencer from between the folds of the towels.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the weapon, but he hadn’t made it this far by leaving witnesses. So far, the guard and the nurse were still at the station at the other end of the hall.
“Talk when we get him out of here, Noah,” he hissed, for the boss was too busy telling their target what he was going to do to him, if the vindictively evil glint in the older man’s eyes was anything to go by. “He had guards on him an hour ago, and now they’re gone? I don’t like this. It reeks of a trap …”
Noah didn’t look up. “Why would they leave him for bait? No one knows about him, according to Haynes. Right?”
The latter question wasn’t meant for him, so Constantine didn’t answer.
“From what I’ve been able to ascertain,” the tech guru of their team agreed in their ears. “But when have you ever known Julius’ on-site instincts to let us down?”
That had the assassin smiling on the inside.
Noah Lancaster straightened away from the bed. “Bear?”
“Three minutes from the loading dock.”
“Are those dock cameras looped?”
“Affirmative,” Haynes drawled, for he knew better than to doubt her. This whole thing was making the boss-man crazy, not that Constantine could blame him. “I had a harder time hacking my high school system to give myself six weeks’ winter vacation back when I was fourteen.”
“What’d you do that for?” Bear asked.
“We had an exchange student from down under who said their annual break ran from mid-December to the end of January, making everything from Christmas Eve to Chinese New Year’s one big party. I decided to give it a try.”
“Did you get away with it?”
“Duh. I got perfect A’s that season.”
Constantine only half listened to the banter. If Haynes was breaking out the history books, she really was having an easy time of it. Anything remotely difficult had her fully focused on her screens.
“Julius,” Noah whispered sharply, bringing Constantine’s head up. The boss man had Portsmith’s sheets shoved to the bottom of the bed and the boy twisted to sit on the side of his bed with a fist curled into the fabric of his pyjama shirt to hold him upright. Having weight on that shattered leg with all those pins sticking out of it must have been agony, but just as Haynes had said, the bastard showed nothing in his face. It was like he’d checked out.
For his sake, he’d better hope he can stay there. Then again, fuck him. We’ll figure out a way to dig him back out. He felt that way, not only for Noah and his family’s pain, but the sheer audacity of this little bastard being able to elude them for three freakin’ years! “Keep an eye on the hallway for us,” Constantine murmured to Haynes as he pushed the cart right over to his boss. He flipped open the two lids of dirty laundry, revealing one large, reinforced bag where there should have been two.
“It’s a good thing he’s so unresponsive,” Noah sneered, dropping Portsmith’s feet into the bag and lifting his knees to fold him in half while Constantine eased Portsmith’s shoulders downwards and tossed his arms over the top of his head almost in an afterthought. Portsmith’s head was rolled forward and pressed into his knees, and towels were then wedged down the sides to keep the metallic points of his leg and shoulder pins from poking through a bag that was only supposed to have dirty laundry inside.
Constantine could understand Noah’s desire for revenge, but in his mind, this was stupid. The man was a vegetable. They were risking everything to get even with a man who couldn’t even scream. According to Haynes’s digging, he was still inside that broken body, just trapped. A waking coma patient. Noah had been adamant that just knowing Portsmith would feel everything coming his way would be enough for him.
“Don’t worry,” the boss man purred once Portsmith was situated. “Your parents will find what I leave of you … in about three years.” Noah’s voice was so filled with righteous venom that even Constantine, a veteran assassin who’d be known the world over if his true body count ever came to light, shuddered.
* * *
Two minutes later, having pushed the cart past the nurse’s station with a friendly wave of goodnight and entered the elevator, Constantine pushed the cart through the halls and out onto the loading dock. Noah joined him shortly afterwards, having stayed behind to prep the pillows to make it appear like Portsmith was sleeping behind a partially drawn curtain.
Bear was already out of the van, helping Constantine load the entire cart into the back. Ghost had melted into the shadows and was no doubt watching their backs for anyone Haynes missed.
The extraction went exactly as planned, with one exception. Once Bear had them back on the road and he and Noah had stripped out of their disguises and dumped them in a trash bag to be burned later (including the remnants of the spray-on gloves that were peeled off), a noise came from Portsmith’s laundry bag. It was low, and it was muffled, but it slowly grew in volume, causing everyone in the van to look at each other in shock.
The noise turned into words as liquid seeped through the bottom of the heavy-duty laundry bag and slid across the floorboards towards the back doors.
“Motherfuckers! I swear I’ll have every fucking last one of you…!” the man of the hour swore, wriggling despite the immense pain he had to be in.
Opening the lids just a bit, Constantine could see Portsmith struggling to escape the bag.
Without saying a word, Ghost drew a knife, reversed it in his fingers and slammed the hilt into the spot that wriggled the hardest, causing the mass to scream. “Shut up or bleed,” Ghost rasped, pushing the hilt of the knife against his broken voice box to speak in that gravelly whisper of his.
Alex stared up at them wide-eyed, then swallowed and whimpered in a blend of fear and agony. Ghost’s growl as he dropped the lid closed spoke volumes.
Well, well, well. The living dead chose this moment to rejoin the living? How … wonderful.
And if the evil chuckle of sheer delight that reverberated through Noah Lancaster’s throat from the front passenger seat of the van was anything to go by, the boss man couldn’t be happier.
* * *
As the van drove down N 12 Avenue on its way to the airport, liquid dripped from the bumper to land on the asphalt between the wheels. A few seconds later, the mass then lifted off the ground, curled in the air as if forming a rainbow, and vanished before touching the ground again.
* * *
[Next Chapter]
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I'd love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!
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Thursday
Constantine Julius pushed his oversized laundry cart through the pristine white halls, the flat soles of his sneakers barely making a sound and certainly, not one that could be heard over the squeak of the mop bucket being pushed behind him. His cleaner’s outfit was one size larger than he would’ve liked, but it was necessary to avoid having any unwanted attention drawn to himself.
As it was, he still had his shoulder-length powder-blond hair folded up under a scruffy caramel-brown wig and wore modified Coke-bottle glasses that made his eyes appear bigger than they were. The latter was so that when people needed to describe him, the first thing that came to mind was the dark brown contact lenses he wore.
“Glen and Maxine,” Haynes’ voice murmured, deep inside his ear canal as he approached the nurse’s station. “Glen is divorced and fighting for custody of his twin girls, and Maxine is looking forward to her retirement party next month.”
Without acknowledging the information, Constantine gave the pair a friendly smile. Not over friendly, as that would reveal the pads he’d poked into his cheeks to change the contours of his face, but friendly enough to convey his connection to these people.
“Glen. Maxine,” he said, nodding as he pushed the cart ahead of him.
Both straightened. “Who are you?” they demanded as the janitor with the mop bucket went around and continued on down the hall.
“Victor Elright,” Constantine answered, leaning on the rail of his cart. “Are you any closer to getting custody of those girls of yours?”
If anything, the guard’s eyes narrowed, and he began typing on a keyboard behind the desk.
Constantine faux-frowned and looked at the older nurse with greying hair. “Did it not go well?”
“How do you know about Glen’s kids?”
“Johnny J is his best friend,” Haynes filled in.
“Johnny J and my sister run in the same circles. I haven’t spoken to either of them in a couple of weeks, but he talks a lot about how bullshit it is that she’s keeping them from him.”
“Yeah, it is,” the nurse agreed, relaxing, especially when the guard also seemed to relax.
“You normally do the south wing,” he said, though it was only mildly accusatory.
“Yeah. Ella asked me to cover for her tonight since it’s my night off. Her son’s not feeling well, but officially she’s the one not feeling well … if you get my drift.” Constantine gave him the side-eye, for most sick leave didn’t allow for children who needed to be cared for.
The story was one they’d prefabricated before coming in, having intercepted Ella a block from her home.
“Yeah, a lot of that kidfluenza is going around these days, isn’t it, Glen?” the nurse smirked, looking up at the security guard, whose lips twisted to one side as he looked pointedly at the ceiling.
Constantine chuckled. “So, am I good to go?”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Glen asked, more procedural than any real desire to know.
“Pretty sure they don’t make the beds any differently over this side of the hospital,” he smirked, then looked at the nurse. “Oh, and if I don’t see you before next month, have fun spending all that define-contribution money. You’ve got a lot of people envious right now.”
“I’ll bet,” Maxine chuckled.
“Nice twist, using sick kids to connect to the single dad,” Haynes voiced through his earpiece.
“Mmmn,” Constantine hummed, though inwardly, it was a no-brainer. Schmoozing was his forte. That, shooting impossible targets and spending money. It was what he brought to the table, and he was very good at all three.
He pushed his cart down the corridor, stopping at every second room and going in to change the towels. His target room was at the far end, nine rooms down from the nurse’s station. But what had him inwardly frowning was the fact that the Master-At-Arms that had only just been assigned to the room that afternoon was noticeably absent and had been for the better part of an hour, for reasons Haynes couldn’t identify. He really didn’t enjoy the trepidation that crept across his skin, but this was going to be their only opportunity, so they had to take it.
After a minute or two, Constantine unlocked the room’s second door from the roof and the floor, pushed it open wide, and dragged his cart inside. He already knew the janitor was in the room before he entered, and as soon he was through, he pulled the curtain around the door partially closed and removed a Sig Sauer P220 Legion complete with an Obsidian 45 silencer from between the folds of the towels.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the weapon, but he hadn’t made it this far by leaving witnesses. So far, the guard and the nurse were still at the station at the other end of the hall.
“Talk when we get him out of here, Noah,” he hissed, for the boss was too busy telling their target what he was going to do to him, if the vindictively evil glint in the older man’s eyes was anything to go by. “He had guards on him an hour ago, and now they’re gone? I don’t like this. It reeks of a trap …”
Noah didn’t look up. “Why would they leave him for bait? No one knows about him, according to Haynes. Right?”
The latter question wasn’t meant for him, so Constantine didn’t answer.
“From what I’ve been able to ascertain,” the tech guru of their team agreed in their ears. “But when have you ever known Julius’ on-site instincts to let us down?”
That had the assassin smiling on the inside.
Noah Lancaster straightened away from the bed. “Bear?”
“Three minutes from the loading dock.”
“Are those dock cameras looped?”
“Affirmative,” Haynes drawled, for he knew better than to doubt her. This whole thing was making the boss-man crazy, not that Constantine could blame him. “I had a harder time hacking my high school system to give myself six weeks’ winter vacation back when I was fourteen.”
“What’d you do that for?” Bear asked.
“We had an exchange student from down under who said their annual break ran from mid-December to the end of January, making everything from Christmas Eve to Chinese New Year’s one big party. I decided to give it a try.”
“Did you get away with it?”
“Duh. I got perfect A’s that season.”
Constantine only half listened to the banter. If Haynes was breaking out the history books, she really was having an easy time of it. Anything remotely difficult had her fully focused on her screens.
“Julius,” Noah whispered sharply, bringing Constantine’s head up. The boss man had Portsmith’s sheets shoved to the bottom of the bed and the boy twisted to sit on the side of his bed with a fist curled into the fabric of his pyjama shirt to hold him upright. Having weight on that shattered leg with all those pins sticking out of it must have been agony, but just as Haynes had said, the bastard showed nothing in his face. It was like he’d checked out.
For his sake, he’d better hope he can stay there. Then again, fuck him. We’ll figure out a way to dig him back out. He felt that way, not only for Noah and his family’s pain, but the sheer audacity of this little bastard being able to elude them for three freakin’ years! “Keep an eye on the hallway for us,” Constantine murmured to Haynes as he pushed the cart right over to his boss. He flipped open the two lids of dirty laundry, revealing one large, reinforced bag where there should have been two.
“It’s a good thing he’s so unresponsive,” Noah sneered, dropping Portsmith’s feet into the bag and lifting his knees to fold him in half while Constantine eased Portsmith’s shoulders downwards and tossed his arms over the top of his head almost in an afterthought. Portsmith’s head was rolled forward and pressed into his knees, and towels were then wedged down the sides to keep the metallic points of his leg and shoulder pins from poking through a bag that was only supposed to have dirty laundry inside.
Constantine could understand Noah’s desire for revenge, but in his mind, this was stupid. The man was a vegetable. They were risking everything to get even with a man who couldn’t even scream. According to Haynes’s digging, he was still inside that broken body, just trapped. A waking coma patient. Noah had been adamant that just knowing Portsmith would feel everything coming his way would be enough for him.
“Don’t worry,” the boss man purred once Portsmith was situated. “Your parents will find what I leave of you … in about three years.” Noah’s voice was so filled with righteous venom that even Constantine, a veteran assassin who’d be known the world over if his true body count ever came to light, shuddered.
* * *
Two minutes later, having pushed the cart past the nurse’s station with a friendly wave of goodnight and entered the elevator, Constantine pushed the cart through the halls and out onto the loading dock. Noah joined him shortly afterwards, having stayed behind to prep the pillows to make it appear like Portsmith was sleeping behind a partially drawn curtain.
Bear was already out of the van, helping Constantine load the entire cart into the back. Ghost had melted into the shadows and was no doubt watching their backs for anyone Haynes missed.
The extraction went exactly as planned, with one exception. Once Bear had them back on the road and he and Noah had stripped out of their disguises and dumped them in a trash bag to be burned later (including the remnants of the spray-on gloves that were peeled off), a noise came from Portsmith’s laundry bag. It was low, and it was muffled, but it slowly grew in volume, causing everyone in the van to look at each other in shock.
The noise turned into words as liquid seeped through the bottom of the heavy-duty laundry bag and slid across the floorboards towards the back doors.
“Motherfuckers! I swear I’ll have every fucking last one of you…!” the man of the hour swore, wriggling despite the immense pain he had to be in.
Opening the lids just a bit, Constantine could see Portsmith struggling to escape the bag.
Without saying a word, Ghost drew a knife, reversed it in his fingers and slammed the hilt into the spot that wriggled the hardest, causing the mass to scream. “Shut up or bleed,” Ghost rasped, pushing the hilt of the knife against his broken voice box to speak in that gravelly whisper of his.
Alex stared up at them wide-eyed, then swallowed and whimpered in a blend of fear and agony. Ghost’s growl as he dropped the lid closed spoke volumes.
Well, well, well. The living dead chose this moment to rejoin the living? How … wonderful.
And if the evil chuckle of sheer delight that reverberated through Noah Lancaster’s throat from the front passenger seat of the van was anything to go by, the boss man couldn’t be happier.
* * *
As the van drove down N 12 Avenue on its way to the airport, liquid dripped from the bumper to land on the asphalt between the wheels. A few seconds later, the mass then lifted off the ground, curled in the air as if forming a rainbow, and vanished before touching the ground again.
* * *
[Next Chapter]
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I'd love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!