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allisondraste · 5 years

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Temperance (28/?)

Pairing: Nathaniel Howe/ Female, Non-HoF Cousland

Story Summary: Nathaniel and Elissa were childhood friends, but time and distance tore them apart. In the aftermath of the Fifth Blight, and Ferelden’s Civil War, both Elissa and Nathaniel must attempt reconstruct their tattered lives. As a series of events lead them to be reunited, both are reminded of so many years ago when things were much simpler.

Chapter Summary: Liss celebrates a solemn eighteenth birthday with a dog, a duel, and her whole family.

First Chapter Previous Chapter [AO3 LINK]

Highever, 9:25 Dragon

Dear Nate,

I feel like such a little fool for writing a third letter after the first two have gone unanswered. Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve always been ridiculous for thinking that you cared about me. Maybe I fooled myself. It is so very in character for me to run away with my imagination, after all.

I keep telling myself that this is just you doing that irritating thing you do where you shut down instead of feel things. When you were here, it was so easy to snap you out of it. I could knock on your door until the knocking was more annoying than the feelings. I could send Fergus to tease you out of your head. I could see your face, see in your eyes that you didn’t actually hate me. You were just sad.

It’s harder to do that without you here. I can’t tell if you’re annoyed with me or relieved that I am still bothering to care, even though you’re being an absolute arse, and I would be completely justified for hating you, tossing down my pen, and forgetting you ever existed. At this point, I kind of wish I could. It would hurt less, at least.

Maybe you’ve found someone else. If that’s the case, I’m glad. I’m happy that one of us has the ability to move on. Please feel free to forget I ever said anything about being in love with you. I’d be content with just having my friend back.

I guess that’s what hurts the most. I spent my whole childhood with you by my side. You were the person who I ran to whenever I was hurt or upset, the person I told all of my silly stories to, the person I trusted with all my secrets. I also spent a lot of time being there for you. I dealt with your cold shoulder when your father was around. I dealt with your moodiness. I dealt with all of it because that’s what best friends do.

Maker, Nate, I’m not asking you to marry me. I am asking you to be my best friend again. Please.

Love,

Liss

P.S. Fergus says hello. He also says that if he ever sees you again he is going to hug you first, then kick your arse. I told him he’d have to beat me to it.

Liss folded the parchment, slid it into an envelope, and sealed it with a wax stamp that bore her family crest, a ritual she completed each year in the hope that it would summon her friend’s head out of his own arse. Alas, she wasn’t a mage, and her letters would go unanswered, as Nate forgot she existed. Tears burned hot in her eyes, but she would not let them fall. Not this time.

A warm, heavy weight fell on her lap, accompanied by a soft huff and she laughed, looking down to see the massive, honey-colored mabari that lay his head on her.

She gave him a gentle scratch behind the ears, causing his entire rear end to wiggle. “You worry about me too much, Bear.”

Bear raised up and barked in objection.

“Oh, now you just sound like my mother,” she teased, and the dog panted happily, before rolling over and presenting his belly to be scratched. “Nuh-uh, Nope. Not after that tone, mister.”

Bear whimpered, rose to his paws, and slinked over to the corner of the room, where he plopped down on the floor to sulk and stare at Liss with big, pitiful eyes.

Liss unintentionally became Bear’s chosen partner nearly a year prior. She’d wandered into the kennels to search for Fergus, and the dog who was little more than a puppy, ran to her immediately. Fergus arrived several moments later entirely disgusted. He’d been trying to get one of the dogs to imprint on him since he was a boy, with no luck. Now, he insisted on referring to Bear as “not a real warhound” and “an oversized lap dog.” He was just jealous.

Ignoring the hounds pity party, Liss placed the envelope aside and picked up another that was addressed to her in familiar, elegant handwriting. She tore the seal.

Dear Liss,

Happy birthday, sweet friend! I hope this letter finds you well, and that it arrives on (or at least very near) your actual birthday. Otherwise I fear this might seem somewhat strange. Then again, you’ve always been rather fond of strange. How else could you have put up with my brothers and I for all of these years.

I apologize that it has been so long since I last wrote to you. Things have been… uncomfortable since Nathaniel left, and they’ve only gotten worse. Tom is completely self-destructive. I am waiting for the day when he snaps at Father. It would be unfair of me to expect him to have as much restraint as Nate, to always take everything on his shoulders so that everything would be as peaceful as it could be. We miss him dearly.

I sometimes think all of our problems would be solved if by brothers could trade places. Thomas would get his freedom from Father he’s always wanted, and Nate could be home, behaving in an annoyingly responsible fashion.

Maybe he also would not insist on ignoring everyone who cares about him. I know he probably still hasn’t written to you either. I am not a fighter like you are, but I am smart, and I know what to say to break him with my words. I have yet to pay him back for destroying my favorite doll when we were little, after all.

Sorry— I know the last thing you probably want to talk about is my family life or my bull-headed brother . I just… well, there is nobody else to talk to. It’s lonely more times than not. How are you doing? How is Fergus? Little Oren? He must be growing so fast!

I hope that I can visit you soon!

Much Love,

Delilah

Liss wiped a stubborn tear from her face. She had nearly forgotten her own birthday. Bear was at her side again, nudging her with his nose. She placed her hand on his head to acknowledge his comfort and then sighed. Poor Delilah.

She pulled another piece of parchment from her desk. She did not know what to say to Delilah, but she’d not let that keep her from sending a response. Letters deserved answers even if they were hard.

Dear Delilah,

You have excellent timing, as always. Thank you for reminding me of my own birthday. Whatever would I do without you?

I am so sorry to hear that things have been difficult for you since Nathaniel left. I wish there were something I could say to make things better, but I have not even learned what to say to myself. I’m not convinced that words help anything at all. I miss Nate, too. I only hope that he is all right.

My family and I are well! Fergus is a proud pop, and just as doting of a father as I would have expected of him. Oren is absolutely getting so big and I’ve spoiled him already. I think Oriana may resent me for that.

Anyway, it is lovely to hear from you, my friend. You should come visit soon. The summer festival perhaps? I’d love to see you.

Love,

Liss

Just as Liss finished the letter and sealed the envelope, there was a knock at the door, and Bear barked immediately, scurrying over to claw at the wooden surface. He wagged his tail playfully, and she was assured that whoever it was on the other side was safe. Not that anyone unsafe had ever been at her door.

Liss hopped up and rushed to open the door, shushing the excited hound and holding him back by the collar so that he didn’t immediately tackle her visitor.

“Ser Gilmore,” she said, smiling as she saw the young knight’s bright red hair and brown eyes. He was obviously proud of his newly granted knighthood, and flattered by Liss’ remembrance of it, as he held his chin up proudly, even as a pink tint spread over his face.

“Thank you Lady Cousland,” he said, “Most people have yet to become accustomed to me no longer being a squire.”

“By most people, do you happen to mean my brother?” Liss shifted her weight and placed a hand on her hip.

Ser Gilmore laughed and scratched the back of his neck. “He is the biggest offender, my lady.”

“I’ll wag my finger at him about it for you,” Liss promised, winking.

“You are too kind, my lady.”

“Anyway, I am sure you didn’t come to talk about my brother. What do you need?”

“Well,” the man began, looking down at the floor, “I wanted to ask if you might be willing to spar with me, my lady.”

“You know that I am always up for a fight.” Liss said, then furrowed her brows, “But why?”

“That Grey Warden, Duncan, is here looking for recruits.”

“He is? Huh. I didn’t know you wanted to be a Grey Warden.”

“It is a childhood dream of mine. The Grey Wardens are heroes, and they only allow the best among their ranks.”

Ser Gilmore became more and more animated as he spoke. Liss understood completely. She’d read of Grey Wardens her whole life. She asked her father a thousand times if she could join some day. His answer was always the same chuckle and resounding “no.” Helping Ser Gilmore was the closest she’d ever get to that glistening griffon armor.

“You hope to impress Duncan by fighting me? A girl? The daughter of the Teyrn?” She meant none of her words, but she’d heard them enough it was instinct to toss them out before anyone else could. She knew damn well she was twice as good a fighter as half of her father’s army. She was three times better than Fergus, and she didn’t let him forget it.

As if reading her mind, Ser Gilmore flashed her a knowing smile. “There is no more worthy opponent in Highever, my lady.”

Liss snorted. “Well, now I have to do it. Flatterer.”

“I speak only the truth.” He nodded humbly. “Thank you, my lady. I will be waiting down in the courtyard whenever you are ready.”

Ser Gilmore bowed and turned to walk away, and Liss closed the door behind him so that she could put on her gambeson and grab her sword. It was a rusty blade that she’d taken from the barracks just a couple years before, but it was her favorite, and she didn’t want any of the castle guards to use it. In the corner of the room, where the broadsword leaned against the wall, a longbow and quiver of arrows lay as well. Before she picked up the blade, she took the bow in her hands, running her thumb across the letter N that was etched into the wood. She didn’t want the castle guards to use it either.

Outside, the castle was quiet, little more than the pattering of rain against stone to fill the air. It had been that way for weeks now, ever since news reached Highever that King Maric was missing, presumed dead. Ferelden lost its great leader, and even the weather mourned him. Liss knew such superstitions were silly, but she could find little other explanation for the exceptionally cool, rainy weather in the second week of Justinian. Cailan had some big, gregarious shoes to fill.

Ser Gilmore stood alone near the sparring area, hand on the hilt of his blade and looking up at the battlements, clearly watching for signs of Duncan. The Grey Warden had a knack for showing up at opportune moments, and Liss had no doubt he would appear during their duel. Bear ran ahead of her to greet the knight and she quickened her pace to keep up with him.

Ser Gilmore gave the hound a scratch behind the ears, which seemed to satisfy him and he walked over to lay under the awning of a shed, watching the match where he could be dry. Smart boy. Liss, on the other hand, regretted that she hadn’t taken the time to braid her hair, or pull it back in any sort of fashion, as the long curls stuck to her face and neck. Annoying, but not a hindrance.

“You ready, Soldier,” Liss teased, drawing her sword from its sheath strapped on her back, and adjusting her grip so that the hint sat comfortably in her hands.

“So long as you are, Lady Cousland,” Ser Gilmore replied, sliding his longsword from his sheath and lifting his shield that bore the laurel branch crest.

A smirk twitched at the corner of Liss’ mouth and she took a deep breath before charging at her opponent, swinging her sword forcefully, so that it crashed into his shield and staggered him. He nearly lost his balance, but managed to stabilize himself in enough time to swing at her. She parried, and prepared to hit him again. They were a good match skillswise, and they and spent several minutes exchanging blows, back and forth, over and over, as the clanking of steel against steel filled the somber air. Liss could have beaten him at any moment were she to fight dirty, but Ser Gilmore was a Knight, and it would be unfair to be anything but honorable. It was not long until they both were too winded to continue, each pausing to catch their breath.

“You’ve shaped up,” Liss commented through gasps of air.

“You as well,” Ser Gilmore said, laughing and sounding just as out of breath as she was.

Three slow claps echoed from across the Courtyard, and both snapped their heads toward the direction of the sound. Just as Liss expected, Duncan was there, arriving just in time to see the fight. Papa stood next to him, wearing a proud grin.

“Well done,” Duncan said, “Both of you.”

“Thank you,” Ser Gilmore remarked with a nod of his head.

“Yes, thank you,” Liss added, following suit.

“Bryce, are you certain I can’t take them both,” Duncan asked, looking at her father with a wide grin.

“You may take neither of them,” Papa replied, and Ser Gilmore appeared to deflate beside her, “At least not yet. Ser Gilmore here may be young, but he’s one of the best we have. I would hate to see him gone so soon after being knighted. Perhaps in a few years he will be ready to move on.” He glanced at the young knight and winked, causing him to sigh in relief.

“And your daughter,” Duncan asked, seeming to prod her father even further.

“Never,” Papa answered quickly, “Even If Elissa wished to join—“

“I do, Papa,” Liss interjected and he shook his head.

“— It wouldn’t be a proper role for her. She has responsibilities to our family. Not to mention, Eleanor would never allow it. Not her darling girl, not ever.”

“I understand.” Duncan nodded solemnly, and turned to offer Liss and Ser Gilmore a kind smile, before looking back at her father. “Is there anyone else?”

“Yes. Right this way.” Papa motioned to Duncan with his hand and the two men walked away.

Liss turned to face Ser Gilmore, and reached out to clap him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry for, my lady,” he answered, placing his gloved hand over her own that remained on his pauldron and meeting her gaze with a soft, crooked smile.

He loved her in his own way. She could tell in the look of reverence on his face each time he spoke to her. It was in his constant attention to her safety and comfort even when he wasn’t on duty. She should have been delighted to have the unwavering affection of a handsome knight. Delilah would have been. A much younger, more imaginative Liss would have been. It had been a fanciful little girl dream for a knight in shining armor to swoop in and win her heart. She was not sure when that changed, when the desire for powerful, earth shattering romance disappeared, but it had. She wished, more than anything, to be her own knight in shining armor, and to win her own heart back. If it decided to return from the Free Marches of it’s own accord, well, she wouldn’t mind that either.

It would have been simpler if Ser Gilmore didn’t love her. Maybe then she could let herself get lost in the fantasy, forget about grumpy, raven-haired boys that wouldn’t return her letters. However, Ser Gilmore was the kindest of kind men, and she wouldn’t use him like that, especially considering that it could get him in all sorts of trouble for fraternizing with one of his charges. No, if she wanted a distraction, she’d have to find someone else.

Liss had barely gotten dried off and settled in her quarters with a book and Bear’s head across her lap, when another knock thumped on her door. It was to the rhythm of Andraste’s Mabari, and Liss laughed and shook her head, before Bear had the chance to bark at it. She hopped up and ran to the door eagerly.

“Fergus,” she said before she even opened the door to see her brother’s goofy grin and pudgy little Oren in his arms, big brown eyes framed by dark brown curls. He had a wooden soldier figurine in his mouth. Oriana stood behind them smiling pleasantly.

“Oren, tell auntie Liss happy birthday,” Fergus said, bouncing him up and down a few times, “She’s all grown up now.” Oren took the soldier out of his mouth and made some barely intelligible noise that she figured was supposed to be “happy birthday,” then giggled and reached for her with both arms.

Her heart swelled. “Oh come here, you handsome boy,” she cooed as she took him from Fergus’ arms to hold him at her hip with one arm. He tangled his little hands in her damp hair and she knew it was only a matter of time before it would be in his mouth, too. She looked up at Fergus and Oriana, motioning for them to come inside.

“Happy birthday, sis,” Fergus said, wrapping an arm around her and kissing the top of her head.

“Happy birthday, Elissa,” Oriana chimed in, extending out a small, beautifully wrapped package, which Liss took with her free hand. “Fergus insisted on picking it out, but I wrapped it for him.”

“I hope you like it,” Fergus stated proudly.

“Here, Oren, help me out,” she said holding the package up to him. He released a fistful of her hair to grab hold of one end of the deep purple ribbon. Liss pulled the package away from him, so that the ribbon came loose and the packaging fell away, revealing a small, leatherbound journal. On the front, it had a large letter E in script, surrounded by a wreath of laurel branches.

“Oh,” Liss remarked hoarsely, a lump forming in her throat, “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“It’s been a long time since you wrote anything except letters,” Fergus explained, “I figured I could help with that. I do miss sneaking into your room and reading all of your stories.”

“I’m still not over that invasion of privacy, you know,” Liss stated tersely.

“That’s fine,” he replied with a shrug.

The door creaked open again, and her parents entered the room. Mama rushed immediately to her to dote upon Oren, taking him from her arms and humming one of her old pirate songs to him. Oriana appeared to be only a little bit irritated by the notion. Papa walked on more slowly, appearing to hold something behind his back. His smile stretched the entirety of his face causing his eyes to wrinkle up at the sides.

“You have something for me there, Papa,” Liss teased, walking over to meet him. Everyone watched as he pulled a sword from behind his back and handed it to her. She took it with both hands, wrapping one around the filigreed hilt to slide it from its sheath. It was the most beautiful weapon she’d ever seen, so beautiful that it was disarming. An interesting choice for a broadsword, but she could not have adored it any more.

“Happy birthday, pup,” her papa spoke up, voice cracking with emotion, “Your mother and I are so proud of the young lady you’ve grown into. We couldn’t think of a more fitting gift for our girl.”

Returning the sword to its sheath and setting it against the wall, she ran to him, and he embraced her in the warm, fatherly way he always had, squeezing tightly. “Thank you,” she said, and then pulled back away to look at everyone in the room, her family, and her heart felt so full. “Thank you all.”

For a moment, the missing piece didn’t seem so large. She didn’t feel so alone.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #dragon age awakening #nathaniel howe #nathaniel howe x cousland #cousland #howesland #temperance #update

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laurelsofhighever · 5 years

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The Falcon and the Rose Ch. 33 - Certainties and Uncertainties

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

He was late. It meant nothing, but every heartbeat that ticked by with Alistair still yet to appear pulsed a little more painfully in Rosslyn's chest. He’s late – he’s late – he’s late. She smoothed down the creases in her shirt and turned to pace across the antechamber again; the whirlwind of meetings and catchings-up that had followed her landing had left her almost no time to change from the formal attire she had worn on the beach into something fresh and more relaxed. She remembered picking out the deep blue samite with a flutter in her fingers, thinking the rich hue and the spark of gold embroidery at the hems would go well with her grey breeches and black boots, the flare of the collar modest but dipping low enough to expose the line of her throat. And now Alistair was late and she stood in a lonely hall with only the rattle of the wind for company, feeling like a fool for taking such care about her appearance.

Cuno paid little attention to her souring mood, choosing instead to keep his nose pressed to the crack in the door so he could better sniff the hearty, savoury smells wafting through the broch from the kitchen. A puddle of drool was forming on the floor by his feet. He whined as she passed him again, a polite request for why aren’t we in the hall now, please, but she ignored him. The runner she sent to tell Alistair where to meet had left over an hour before, and had had no reason to be waylaid. She had checked with Brantis, who was busy overseeing the storage of their cargo and hadn’t seen him, but asking his whereabouts from one of the guards like some lovelorn fishwife was a step her pride would not allow her to take. Instead, she lingered out of sight of the main way into the broch, agitated, indecisive about whether to go and look for him, to stay and pace, or to march into her grandfather’s hall as if she never made the arrangement in the first place. Every time she turned in one direction, doubt crept in; the more she paced, the more her mind roved in circles.

What if he’s already in there? it wondered traitorously. What if he never got your message and arrived with Nerlina instead of you?

“Stop it,” she growled at herself.

She had never thought about Alistair with other women. Whether that was due to the other demands on her time, or how slowly her regard for him had grown into something more, it hardly mattered now, when she was worrying at the idea like a loose tooth. Really, it was none of her business how he spent his time; she held no claim on him and it was all but expected for young people, especially among the nobility and especially among men, to dally and gain experience of the world before marriage tied them to a single partner. To assume Alistair was different was… too much like hope. They had been growing closer, yes, and her heart had shaken behind her ribs with how close he stood next to her on the Siren's Call only that morning, how he had leaned down, lips parted slightly as if to ask a question – but she had known flirts all her life. Men like Auldubard and Lucien, who hungered after her titles and the body they could use to claim them; Cailan, whose self-love depended on the love of others.

As she turned and paced again, she realised that wasn’t what bothered her. Alistair didn’t care for titles, or the attention of his peers. Others admired him, some grudgingly, but besides his handsome features, he was intelligent, kind, funny, brave in battle, an endless list of traits that made any time she spent with him feel like the first bathe of sunlight after the chill of winter. He deserved so much warmth, she couldn’t blame him if he chose to take up the offer of an eager, willing body.

She hated the idea of it.

She hated that she hated it. She hated how her imagination twisted into dark spaces that sounded like Alistair, that smelled of him, pressed like his hands on her skin, then shut her out, cut the image to pieces with the barbs of her own abnormality, the disinterest that had never bothered her in her previous life. After all, what did desire matter when her world was horses and dogs and how to better work the swing of her blade against a target? She never expected to feel sick at the thought of Alistair touching someone who wasn’t her.

“Enough!” she snapped, loudly enough that Cuno drew his head away from the door, wagging his tail uncertainly. “Sorry, boy,” she said. “That wasn’t meant for you.”

He whined again, tongue lolling as he tramped towards her with the reminder that whatever heartache existed in the world, there was still food to think about. Scratching at his ears, Rosslyn sighed and cast a glance down the empty corridor, heavy with shadow between the beams of evening sun through the windows.

“We’ll be late if we stay here much longer, won’t we?” she huffed at the dog. “Come on, then.”

The noise of the hall swelled around her as she opened the door. Already, the broch was bursting with people, though more trickled in with every moment, crowding through the double doors at the other end of the room as newcomers recognised friends and family among the throng and went to make their greetings. She navigated her way through with the ease of long practice, heading for the wide, curved table opposite the main door that seated the Storm Giant and his entourage.

The broch was almost as she remembered it, a huge, circular construction under a cavernous roof built of concentric slate tiles, supported by basalt columns. Generations ago it would have been dark and smoky inside, but ventilation ducts had been added to the roof, and the Storm Giant himself had commissioned the glazed windows in the walls – they were draughty in the winter but runes for light and heat had been embedded in the lime render, long, spiralling lines forming protective spells in ancient patterns that guaranteed cheer even through the fiercest storms. At the centre, with five long tables radiating out from it like the pages of a newly opened book, a cauldron bubbled over a crackling peat fire, the embers of which hosted dozens of covered platters being kept warm for the start of the feast.

“Your Ladyship!”

She turned at the voice, and watched as two familiar figures battled towards her through the throng. “Wade?”

“Your Ladyship,” the smith panted, collapsing into a dramatic bow. “I wanted to thank you. The forge here is simply sublime, and the smiths – why, there are techniques mastered here that I have only dreamed of!”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she replied, recalling the numerous arguments about the delicacy of the man's anvil. “I suppose that means we won’t have the pleasure of your company on the return trip?”

“Alas, as much as I am honoured to serve king and country, there is simply too much to learn here to waste time mending dents in tin plates for common soldiery.” He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s all simply too fascinating! I’m on my second notebook already, you know.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I cannot express my gratitude to you for allowing me to come, Your Ladyship. You have done me such a great service – and Herren, he’s delighted too.”

“Ecstatic,” Herren agreed, with an indulgent roll of his eyes.

“No thanks needed,” Rosslyn allowed graciously. “I’m pleased you find the Alamarri forgers meet your expectations.”

“Maybe not needed, but I –”

“Wade, perhaps we should go and ask Niall to clarify the stages of that smelting technique he showed you earlier,” Herren interrupted. “I’m sure Her Ladyship has other people she needs to talk to.”

Shaking her head as they departed, Rosslyn resumed her path towards the centre of the room, passing Isabela, already swaying, and Morrence, who was deep in conversation with Leliana, with one hand fussing over the new braids at her temple, and did not notice her. Her grandmother was directing the gathering from the raised platform that separated the curving high table from the lower benches. Minstrels would play there once the servers were finished, but for now Lileas Mac Eanraig held the floor, directing her army of underlings with the kind of poise that took a lifetime to master.

“You’re to be seated third on the right, dear,” she said when Rosslyn bent down to kiss her on the cheek. “Did you have to bring that hound with you?”

She shrugged. “He would have been worse fretting in my room.”

“Your grandfather should be here soon, he’s meeting with the other clan lords about tomorrow. Don’t worry about it – or about helping, you’re our guest tonight. Go and rest yourself.”

By the time Rosslyn ushered Cuno under the table and sat down, the broch was almost full. Alistair was still nowhere to be found, but in the lower part of the room, the crew of the Siren’s Call had already cracked open the barrel of ale Eoin had promised them, and were elbowing room next to the members of Fereldan guard, while Isabela regaled them all with an animated story that made her drink slosh over the rim of her cup. The other tables seated the entourages of the other Clayne lords who had come to hear the request from the king. Each clan sported their own colours over mismatched sets of boiled leather armour – elves, humans, and even a dwarf or two among their number – and all seemed uneasy at having to share space with others who, without a common enemy, were reluctant allies at best. But nobody did more than grumble; the punishment for drawn steel in the broch in peacetime was the loss of a hand.

Content to take in the atmosphere and let her mind drift, Rosslyn leaned her chin on her fist, trying to ignore the rumble of her stomach and the dark, insidious thoughts that still lingered at the back of her mind. She was tired, that was all, and once the night was over and she got some decent rest, there would be no room for them. Cuno butted his head into her lap, and when her only response was to absently scrub his ears, he grumbled and pushed his cold, wet nose into the crook of her elbow.

She recoiled and snapped her gaze down. “What?”

He looked up at her with dark, liquid eyes, and when he was sure he had her attention, he gave the barest tilt of his head towards the dish of cold meat pastries already on the table.

"No,” she told him sternly. “You’ll get food, just not yet. Be polite.”

A mournful sigh puffed against her hand, followed by a tiny, hopeful nudge of his chin. Couldn’t she see how he starved?

She scowled at him, but more for form’s sake than anything else. The dog had perfected his begging while still a puppy, sitting under the high table during dinner in Castle Cousland. Fergus had caught her once during the Satinalia feast, sneaking dumplings sloppy with fat drops of gravy, but her father had said nothing and Cuno had only learned that if he stared long enough, she would always, eventually, yield. Cursing herself, she glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, and quickly lifted one of the pastries off the plate and into the snap of triumphant jaws, before rearranging the plate to make it look like nothing was missing.

“But that’s your only one,” she hissed at him as he snuffled on the floor for any missed crumbs.

A hand descended on her shoulder. “I saw that.”

She jumped, heart thudding as Alistair settled into the chair next to her. “I’m sorry?” His voice had been barely an inch from her ear.

“That’s one rather satisfied mabari,” he answered, shifting his gaze to Cuno, who was licking his paws clean.

“You try saying no to that face.” She took him in, ruffled hair and flushed cheeks, his collar looser than it had been when she left him that morning. None of my business.

He tutted, smirking, oblivious. “Brantis was adamant that it was the height of bad manners among the Clayne to take any food from the table before all the guests were seated – something about disproportionate shares?”

“What did Brantis say about being late to parties held in your honour?” The words snapped out colder than she intended, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek when his face fell into a frown.

“I, uh, got lost,” he said.

“I thought Nerlina was taking care of you?”

“She’s serving tonight, so she had to leave,” he replied slowly, wary of the caustic edge in Rosslyn’s voice but not quite sure of the reason behind it. “Poor Giles and I had to find our way here all by ourselves.”

“Surely it’s not that far,” she replied.

“That’s what I said! Apparently, as a prince, I should have been born with an innate sense of direction, but it started getting foggy and after we went to make sure Connor had settled in we ended up wandering halfway to Orlais before we spotted a group of people heading in this direction and decided to follow them instead.” He leaned closer. “I’m… sorry I’m late.”

“I…”

A shadow passed over them, interrupting.

“Now then,” the Storm Giant boomed. “Tha’s the first I’ve heard o’ royalty apologising for their timekeeping. Most expect the world te dance to their tune and never mind the consequences.” He slapped Alistair on the shoulder as he passed and held out the other meaty hand to squeeze Rosslyn’s as the other clan lords filed behind him and took their places at the other end of the table. None of them spared a glance for the two Fereldans in their midst.

“I hope yer rooms are to yer liking?” the Storm Giant asked.

"Uh, this whole place is amazing,” Alistair stammered. "Not quite what I pictured.”

"Ha! And what did ye picture?”

“More sea monsters, I think.” He glanced to Rosslyn. “And more rain.”

“Tch, the storms come in the winter, and the sea monsters, well, ye hope they never come at all.” The old man shook his head. “There’s a fret rolling in frae the north, mind, so ye’d best hope ye don’t get lost again, laddie. It’s a short way to the cliffs and a long drop intae the sea.”

Somewhere on the other side of the broch, a horn sounded. The large double doors closed with a slam and Lileas wove through the last of the crowd scrambling to their seats.

“Your place, Feachar!” she reminded in an exasperated whisper, and with a final wink the Storm Giant left Rosslyn and Alistair to take his seat in the one of the two large, carved chairs at the centre of the curving table. On his other side, the other clan lords settled into place, as cautious with each other as a meeting of feral cats.

Servers entered from a door set off to one side, carrying glazed pitchers that they dipped into the cauldron in the middle of the room. Some went to the lower tables where the guests held out horn cups or clay tankards, while others approached the high table and filled the cut-glass goblets there with steaming amber liquid.

“Spiced honey mead,” Rosslyn explained when Alistair took a cautious sniff. “It’s stronger than it looks.”

Once everyone had been given a drink and the servers had retreated to the centre of the room, Lileas stood and raised her glass, glancing around as the rest of the broch mirrored her, watching expectantly towards the dais.

“This is a marvellous day,” she announced. “This is a day we welcome new friends and old allies, and see the return of one we thought lost to us.” She turned briefly to Rosslyn, who returned the fond gaze with a small nod of her head. “For tonight, we celebrate, and for tomorrow, we look to the future and the renewing of our bonds.”

After a brief pause to allow the murmur of assent to settle, she spoke again, this time a toast in Clayne, her words a melody that wove through the hall and rang in the silence. Alistair couldn’t understand it, but Brantis had drilled the meaning into him so he wouldn’t feel the need to interrupt with questions, and he followed the pattern of the words as she welcomed each clan in turn, then thanked the servers and the cooks and invited everyone gathered to eat their fill. When she finished, he toasted slainte mhor along with the rest of the broch and took a gulp of the mead.

“How do you find it?” Rosslyn asked, chuckling at the way his eyes watered.

He coughed. “I guess you did warn me – it’s got a kick. But it’s nice.”

“Be careful how much you drink,” she cautioned. “It won’t hit you until you try to stand up.”

“You know you sound different here.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Your Common – you have an accent,” he teased. “Like theirs. Just a little bit.”

“I don’t –” she started, then cleared her throat as she noticed the new broadness of her vowels. “I do not. I don’t. Don’t look at me like that, all smug and smirking like a cat with cream.”

His clever retort was cut short as the servers returned, this time with the platters that had been keeping warm by the fire. Each dish had enough portions for everyone to eat more than enough, and throughout the evening each one would be moved to another part of the room, so everyone could take an equal share in the meal. At the end of the night, the servers would get whatever was left over, as well as whatever choice portions never made it out of the kitchen in the first place. Unlike the fancy meals served at Cailan's table, where each course had a separate flavour palate, here sweet and savoury were mixed, so roasted meats and cheese were set alongside puddings and spiced fruits, with so much choice he barely knew where to start.

Rosslyn laid a restraining hand on his arm as he reached for a dish of small birds glazed in some kind of sauce.

“I wouldn’t, with that one,” she said.

“Why not?”

“It’s gannet.” When he looked at her blankly, she shook her head and huffed. “You know that smell you were complaining about at the docks when we were stuck in Invermathy?”

“Yeeees…”

“Imagine putting that in your mouth.”

He pushed the platter away. “Ah. An acquired taste then?”

She let go of his arm. “Not quite. It’s more… tradition. The Storm Islands weren’t always as prosperous they are now, and people had to make do. Keeping gannet on the table is a reminder of where the people came from, so their hubris doesn’t anger the gods.”

“Aye, and te catch out unwary landlubbers who want te try it.” Eoin pouted at them both from further down the table. “It’s nae fun with you around, lass.”

“Drink more then,” Rosslyn retorted, smirking.

Eoin stuck his tongue out at her, but toasted her nonetheless and downed the contents of his glass. From the steadily rising noise level in the broch, others had the same idea. As the evening wore on, the dishes rotated and people started moving between tables to see old friends, and the Storm Giant boomed louder and louder to his conversation partners with each gulp downed. Alistair failed to notice most of it. In between conversations with their other closest neighbours, Rosslyn had taken to educating him on nautical terms using cutlery and table fittings to illustrate her points, while every now and then throwing choice cuts of meat to the dog under the table. As the drink disappeared, she started giggling and leaned in closer, and more than once he caught her staring fascinated at different parts of his face. The room grew very warm.

“And that’s what green-to-green – Cuno, no – spit that out!”

She dived under the table to wrestle with her dog for an unexpected chicken bone, leaving Alistair a moment to fully appreciate the soft, fuzzy feeling vibrating through his skull. Rosslyn’s hair gleamed in the torchlight where it tumbled down her back; he wanted to touch it. Trying to puzzle out the exact reason why doing so would be a bad idea, he brought his glass to his lips and was disappointed to find it empty. He looked up to flag down a server, but Nerlina had already appeared at his elbow as if she had stepped through the Fade to reach him.

“Refill?” she asked sweetly.

He offered his best grin in return. “Please.”

Rosslyn, finished making sure her dog wasn’t about to choke, poked her head out from under the table again. The wine warming her veins chilled like a breath of cold air across the back of her neck, and all the worries she had shoved away surged back to the forefront of her mind with the sight that greeted her. Alistair sagged tipsily against the table, his eyes caught on the alcohol slowly filling his glass – or perhaps on Nerlina, who was bending over far more than necessary for a half-emptied pitcher of mead, in a very tight bodice with a very low neckline.

“I don’t remember if I thanked you for earlier,” he said, still wearing his cheesy smile as he toasted her and drank.

Nerlina tittered. “It was fun,” she told him, winking as she turned away. “And if you like, I could help you have even more fun later.”

Alistair choked on his drink. He coughed, fumbling to set the glass back on the table without spilling as the alcohol burned in his lungs and up his nose, but Rosslyn, mind frozen, barely noticed. Heat flooded her face. Her pulse threaded through her ears, mortification fusing with whatever force was crushing through her chest, scalding behind her eyes. She stared at Alistair, watching him splutter from far outside herself. When he turned to her, eyes wild with panic, she flinched away, catching her gaze on a stain in the tablecloth.

I should have known. Only the strictures of her noble training and adamant self-restraint kept her from fleeing right there, the knowledge that to leave now would cause insult to her hosts and possibly unwind all the good they meant to do for the king. Everything was too hot, too loud – she buried her fingers into Cuno’s ruff, the coarse fur against her skin the only anchor that kept the world from keeling over sideways. Her blood pulsed like mercury through her chest. I have been an utter, utter fool.

“Rosslyn –”

She pulled her hand away from him, reached shakily for her drink. “It’s not my business.”

“No, you don’t –” He steadied himself. “I – That’s not what it sounded like. At all.”

“I’m here to see we get our ships,” she growled, willing the alcohol to work faster. “Whatever else happens is…” She turned with a smile, brittle even to her herself. “There’s no shame in seeking company.”

“And you think I want Nerlina’s company?” he demanded. His gaze followed the arch of her throat as she tipped back her glass to drain it of its contents. “Rosslyn, no. That’s – I mean, not that she isn’t attractive, I suppose, but –” He blanched. “Maker’s breath… I never considered – I mean, I have considered company in more, uh, general terms, of course, I just…”

Something in the awkward shift of his eyes, the tick rubbing at the back of his neck, pulled Rosslyn back into the present moment. Her heart fluttered at the suspicion rising in her mind.

“You’ve considered it?” she repeated. “Does that mean you’ve never…?” Her lungs constricted.

His eyes blew wide and he leaned away. “Never what? Never had a good pair of shoes?”

“You know what I mean,” she insisted, turning in her seat.

“I’m not sure I do. Have I never seen a basilisk? Ate jellied ham? Have I never…” He glanced about, looking for inspiration, “…licked a lamppost in winter?”

“And now you’re making fun of me.” With hope sinking like lead in her stomach, she turned away again, shifting as far away from him as she could as her mood crashed down and her teeth gritted against the sudden urge to cry.

He caught her fingers before she could fold her arms over her chest. “Make fun of you dear lady?” he teased. “Perish the thought.” The earnest look in his eyes was an apology. He swayed into her line of sight, lowering himself so she had to look down at him as he wrapped her hand in both of his, the world now disappeared behind a tipsy haze and the knot of tension twisting between them.

“Tell me,” he breathed, with a ghost of a grin, “have you ever licked a lamppost in winter?”

“I…” Her memory flashed, to all the conversations between Oriana and the other ladies that left her out; how at court she was teased for her obliviousness, then later reassured an inclination would grow in time, and then later still told in no uncertain terms enjoyment of the act was not required for the getting of heirs. Everyone had always seemed so interested in sex, in the wanting and the expectation, and for the longest time she had thought them all merely bluffing, exaggerating what they felt because that was what was done, until the day she realised the bemusement was hers alone, that others desired in a way she did not, that she was locked outside a gate that had no key.

She couldn’t tell him any of this. Not here, in a public hall rife with interested ears – and how could she do so anyway, without having him turn from her to someone with more than a detached curiosity in that kind of intimacy? What had her life been without him in it?

“No,” she said, dropping her gaze to stare at the point of Cuno’s ear. “I haven’t.”

Alistair squeezed her hand. “Good. I hear it’s quite painful. First you get stuck, and there’s pointing and laughing, and then you become known for miles around as the idiot who got their tongue frozen to a metal pole.”

She couldn’t help the lift of a smile, though the back of her throat still burned. “Is that a warning from personal experience?”

“You wish – some of the village boys did it on a dare once. I myself have also never done it.” His gaze faltered, voice lowered as colour climbed in his face. “That. I know it’s somewhat, uh, expected, but… I don’t know, maybe it’s because of where I came from, but I’ve always thought it would be better to – to be with a person you wanted to be with. That probably doesn’t make any sense.” He started to pull away, but Rosslyn held tight to his hand and didn’t let him.

“I think it does,” she said in a small voice. “To be with someone you trust, when it’s an experience shared, not something taken.”

They were sitting very close now. When Rosslyn glanced up, her breath stilled, caught in the way the torches illuminated beads of gold and amber in Alistair’s tawny eyes. She watched as his gaze trailed away from hers, following the movement of his free hand with rapt concentration as he gathered a stray wisp of her hair and pushed it behind her ear.

“That’s it exactly,” he murmured. His thumb lingered on her jaw. “Have you… never found anyone like that, my lady?”

Her smile turned wolfish, her cheeks warming with colour. “Well… maybe I just never found a lamppost worth licking before.”

“Maker’s breath.” He reeled away, slumping backwards so his head hit the backrest of his chair with a dull thud, his eyes squeezed shut and his lips drawn inward between his teeth.

“Alistair?”

The concern in her voice brought a giggle bubbling up his throat. The alcohol singing through his blood meant the sound built until he couldn’t stop. In short order, the infection spread to Rosslyn, who doubled over, laughing at nothing until all the breath was driven from her lungs and the awkwardness of their conversation passed into base hysteria. It seemed most of the other guests were too deep in their own cups to notice the exchange, and neither of them felt much like letting go of the other’s hand.

“Here, let me,” Alistair said when she reached for her glass and remembered it was empty. With a slightly unsteady grip, he tipped half of his own drink into hers.

“Thank you.”

Further along the table, the Storm Giant banged on the table with his fist. “Is this a celebration or a wake?” he cried. “We need music! Cuilean, din’t ye say ye brought an Orlesian songstress wi’ ye?”

“Leliana is a Chantry sister,” Rosslyn answered, drawn out of her contemplation of the thumb stroking across her palm. “But she has a fondness for folk tales if she’s in the mood to share.” She beckoned to one of the servers and sent him down into the crowd to where the redhead sat among the Highever guard, and watched as she picked up her lute from under the bench and glided into the empty space in front of the fire pit.

“What song would you have of me, my lord?” she asked the Storm Giant.

Lileas answered. “A good bard knows how to read a room, does she not?”

With a tiny, dimpled smile, Leliana bowed. “I am not a bard, but I will do my best. Perhaps something old to help our wonderful meal digest?”

The broch fell silent. Somebody dashed in with a chair so Leliana could sit, then retreated into the shadows by the kitchen door. She plucked a few notes on her instrument, testing the tuning of the strings.

“I learned this song from a Dalish woman when I was at Halamshiral with my patronesss,” she told them all. “She could not sing well herself, but she liked my voice and missed the old songs of her people, so she taught them to me so I could carry them forward. This one is called ‘Ame Amin’, and it is the lament of an elvhen knight upon witnessing the fall of the Dales.”

“Bloody odd subject matter fae a Chantry sister,” the Storm Giant grunted. His wife batted him on the arm.

Rosslyn had never heard Leliana sing. She knew the older woman had the ability, but hadn’t expected the crystaline quality to her voice as the first few notes climbed through the hall. It purled like the waves of the sea, speaking of loss and renewal, compelling sadness and wistfulness despite the foreign nature of the words. It filled the curve of the vaulted ceiling and returned strange, nascent echoes that isolated and magnified the cadence until everything else fell away. As the servers quietly tidied away the dishes, the cares of the day seemed to sneak in, weighting her limbs with a dull fatigue that sent tingles to the ends of her fingers. She only realised she had closed her eyes when a slight nudge against her shoulder startled her out of her doze.

“It’s getting late,” Alistair murmured as the final notes of the song dissolved into the air.

“Are you telling me it’s bedtime?” she asked through a yawn. “I haven’t had a bedtime since –” The memory shot through her like a cold knife in the ribs. She had spoken those exact words at Glenlough, with her father. Almost the last thing she had ever said to him. “I suppose we’ll need clear heads for the morning.”

“I think I’ve had too much mead for that.”

She chuckled, hiding a second yawn behind her hand as she toed her boot against Cuno’s side to wake him up. Around the hall, others were getting up as well, pleasantly full of food and drink, to begin the long stagger back to cot or hammock.

“Would you mind if I came with you?” Alistair asked as she stood and stretched.

“The night isn’t entirely over yet,” she answered, flashing him a wry grin as more minstrels appeared on the dais. “But if you’re worried about getting lost again, then it’s probably better if I let you tag along.”

“Your Ladyship has such a magnanimous attitude.”

With a tired chuckle, she led the way towards the door that opened onto the courtyard, her fingers buried in Cuno’s ruff to combat the sway of the floor. She paused to bid her grandparents goodnight, like she was a little girl again, but she missed the way the Storm Giant’s eyes narrowed when he spotted Alistair rising to follow her.

They left a comfortable space between them and walked in silence through the night. The cool air shook off some of Rosslyn’s tiredness, but in the brief few hours since the horn had sounded to eat a thick fog had rolled in off the sea, leaving them in a formless, directionless void. The dog disappeared on the scent of some small animal, his snuffling weirdly magnified in the still air, and returned as a patch of heavier shadow in the darkness.

“Here we are, safe and sound,” Rosslyn announced as the round bulk of the guest house materialised through the fog. A pair of whale-oil lamps flanked the low door, casting a greasy pall over their faces as they crossed the threshold. The space inside was dim but warm, laid out in the same wheel-like pattern as the broch, except here each wall radiating out from the communal space in the centre enclosed a room, with another level above reached by a sturdy wooden stairway.

“It’s very cosy in here,” Alistair commented as he followed her to the bottom of the stairs.

“It is. And I suppose this is good night.” Cuno had already padded up to her room, but tradition forbade men from going beyond the ground floor.

Alistair tugged at her fingers. “Just a moment. ‘Good night’ is hardly a fitting farewell to the woman who brought me safely through the perils of a strange land, beset by shadows and mist.”

“It was thirty feet,” she protested, allowing him to close the last casual space between them so she had to tilt her head back to see above his chin.

“Oh hush, I’m trying to be gallant.”

“Are you? In that case, I apologise.” When had he slid his arm around her waist? “Go on.”

He still had hold of her fingers. Her palms were calloused from swordwork, the knuckles flecked with scars, but the skin on the back of her hand was so soft he could spend forever touching it.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured. “I’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell you all day.”

He was so close, filling every sense until she was left dizzy. The small part of her mind not weighed down by alcohol or warmth or the scent of pinesmoke knew she ought to reply, to at least express gratitude for the compliment, but it faded away as she watched him lean down in order to leave a courtly kiss on her hand. His eyes slipped closed. She wanted more. She drew her hand back, amused when he followed blindly, and when he was close enough, with wine and anticipation fizzing through her blood, she caught his cheek and pressed her mouth to his. The muscles under her palm tensed, and for an instant she feared he would pull away, but then he pushed forwards, folding one arm more fully around her waist while the other curled along the line of her jaw. He tasted of honey. She wound her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him forward, matching his eagerness, moulding to the solid shape of him until they overbalanced and had to stumble against the wall to catch themselves.

“Careful,” he breathed, still with his lips at the corner of her mouth.

When she turned into the feeling, he responded, kissed her with light, lingering touches until she was giggling again and had to hide her face in the crook of his neck. Tangled so close, in the dark with silence draped over even the crack of the fire, the divisions between their two bodies grew indistinct, irrelevant, and she could have stayed forever wrapped in it, giddy enough to tremble with the reassuring beat of Alistair’s heart beneath her ear.

“You know, I'm even more glad I passed on the gannet now,” he said, from somewhere above her. “That – that wasn’t too soon, was it?”

She pulled back. “Was it? I’m the one – I kissed you first.”

“You did, didn’t you?” he agreed, delight evident in every line of his face.

“What,” she teased, “were you not paying attention?”

“Oh, it’s not that. I was just wondering…” His voice dropped to a low rumble that stroked a shiver up her back. “Is this the part where I get to do the same?”

Uncertainty crowded back in, warring with her joy. “Only if you want to.”

For a brief instant, it looked like he was going to say something clever, but his gaze dropped to her mouth and with a dismissive shake of his head he leaned down again. The movement was deliberate, measured, the slant of his mouth promising more with everything it held back, and when his tongue peeked across her lips, her knees started shaking.

“I definitely want to,” he told her.

“That’s good to know.” Without quite meaning to, her gaze shifted to the darkened hall around them, with the peat fire burning low in the central hearth. “It’s late.”

“Not for a little while yet, surely?” he tried, with a hopeful quirk of an eyebrow.

“I wish I could say so. Good night, Alistair.” She rose on tiptoe and pressed one final kiss against his mouth, only for him to catch her with another.

“Good night.”

Shaking her head, she untangled their arms, her touch lingering until she stumbled on the first stair and decided to pay attention to where her feet were going instead. She didn’t look back until she reached the mezzanine, and her heart fluttered when she found Alistair still rooted in place, his expression split in a beaming smile she couldn’t miss even in the dark.

#dragon age #dragon age: origins #dragon age au #alistair theirin #alistair x cousland #cousland #rosslyn cousland

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blusollyjd · 5 years

Text

Somewhere in the Mojave...

(The following is a collabo between me and CuddlyMedics! Enjoy Jane being the world’s best, stupidest husband. And getting some unexpected help. :D) ----------

Something that Jane Doe had forgotten about his beloved America was how big its western desert was. It certainly hadn’t looked this big on his map (the one that’d conveniently enough been sitting right on his tray at the Speedee Burger). Not that he was complaining- he knew it would be a long trek to Coldfront. He just hadn’t considered it would be this long. He was certain that he should’ve been halfway there by now, and that he’d have Abel in his arms in no time. But the Mojave was wide, barren and hot. His canteens had run dry long ago, his only respite from his thirst the occasional dust-ridden little town he’d come across that had a little water to spare. He’d remembered some trick about cactuses, but the spines stuck his fingers something awful before he managed to hack deep enough into one to get any decent amount of bitter juice. What the desert lacked in moisture it made up for in snakes, scorpions, red ants and the occasional coyote- all of which seemed to be doing their best to make sure that the Soldier didn’t get that great of a night’s sleep. The night was cool at least, but so many bugs seemed to be interested in his sleeping bag at night that Jane was starting to forgo it. Unless he could find a fairly flat elevated rock to keep him off the ground.

It was hard going. Something in him was wondering if this was a stupid, suicidal course of action. But then he thought of Abel. Abel, who may be dead or sick or hurt, whose letters never reached him, if they were sent at all. Jane had to get to him, and the thought of the Medic filled the Midwesterner with renewed resolve to go another day. But alas, even the most resolute, loyal and stupidly brave Soldiers are bound by the limits of human physiology. And so, it was around the peak of the midday heat that Jane finally collapsed to the dry, cracked ground, mouth parched, vision blurry, and brain baking in the metal confines of his helmet. His fingers dug into the dirt, pulling himself along a few more feet. He thought he saw something in the wavery distance. He was even less sure, but he thought he saw something moving toward him. All he was really sure of was that he was likely never going to reach Abel now. Stupid, he thought as the hot, bright world went dark on him. You’re so goddamn stupid.

But even as the bright world went dark on the Soldier, and all consciousness slipped away from him in a shimmery, hazy cloud of heat, indeed, something was making his way towards him. He wasn’t imagining things. It hadn’t been one of those ‘oasis hallucinations’ he had heard spoken about in the past. After all, the last thing he viewed before the darkness took over wasn’t of a cool, shimmering pond, where the inviting fronds of a palm tree swayed high above the giggling heads of half-naked desert maidens. Wasn’t that what hallucinations were? Cool ponds surrounded by sensual and sexy half-naked women? No. Well, yes, but no. This wasn’t that. This wasn’t anything of the sort.

“Now… what do we have here?”

It was silly to have ever considered such a thing. After all, cool, shimmering ponds and inviting palm trees didn’t talk.

“Is that--”

And, boy, it was a fact that hallucinated giggling, half-naked maidens typically didn’t have that kind of masculine voice.

“Naw. That couldn’t be. ...Could it?”

That was such a nice voice, though.

“It… it is! By the stars n’ stripes! Mr. Doe?”

That kind of masculine voice that rung out with a clear, crisp, southern lilt to it. No, no. That couldn’t be right.

But before the Soldier with heat stroke could even begin to recognize the voice, let alone the world around him, his body gave out on him. With his brain fried from the heat and his thoughts riddled with what remained of his cooked mind, he never truly understood the concept of being picked up and slung over someone’s shoulder, carried a-la-fireman-style, over to a place that had shelter, shade, food, water… and supplies. A place that, in all honesty, had he been aware of his surroundings… Jane Doe would have recognized in a heartbeat. “Hey! Woody!”, the masculine voice with a clear, crisp, southern lilt to it broke the darkness, piercing the quiet of that nothingness. “Woody! We got a live one from the desert!”

The sound of gravel and pebbles crunching underfoot. The smell of old, rotting wood in the air. Of dust and heat, and that particular scent. Like hay and sunbaked peaches. Like sunlight and arid soil. And of course… beer. There was spilled beer nearby, soaking into the clay-baked earth.

The barely audible whisper of the wind through creaking, groaning structures. The lazy humdrum steady thrum of heat exposed bees, whirling and spiraling away from a shriveled up flower, following its own crooked path back to the hive. The smell of home. The sounds of home. The feeling… of a lot of mercenaries calling this base their first ‘home’.

Of Teufort.

Jane was in and out of consciousness for a few days. He’d mutter something unintelligible in his sleep, wake up screaming only to fall asleep again. He’d ask where he was, drink water like some wild man dying of thirst, succumb to exhaustion, only to wake up disoriented again. It was only on the fourth day that he seemed to rest and hydrate enough to finally get his bearings. “...Will…?” He hadn’t seen the younger Soldier in a dog’s age, and in spite of himself, Jane cracked a wide smile. “Will, that’s you…? Jesus, I made it all the way to Teufort….”

“Aww, good. Yer awake.”

The bright eyed and bushy tailed man, by the name of ‘Will’, let out a huge sigh of relief. He had a friendly face and a truly affable smile. He oozed a sort of a saccharine honesty that one simply couldn’t help but warm up to him.

He hadn’t changed at all from the time Jane last saw him. He still had those baby blue eyes. He still had that dirty blond hair, a bit more carefree and loose in style compared to his old military-issued haircut. He still had his trademark helmet-- hung on the wall, at that very moment-- with the painted on peace symbol. And, of course, he still had those adorable dimples whenever he smiled that carefree, almost childlike smile of his. So full of innocence, so jolly and jovial in tone.

William Reed was a rather young soldier. At least, he was younger than Jane. He was also a bit taller than Jane, but not as built. Jane had known him for quite a long time, and though there were obvious similarities between the two, the biggest difference between them was the fact William had officially, and legally, been in the army.

William had served a few years in the wet, steamy jungles of Vietnam, the military issued victim of the dreaded draft. He had endured a good portion of it with nary a cut or bruise until one day his luck ran out. He lost control of his life during a particularly chaotic ambush where a mine exploded, and scalding, twisted shrapnel shredded his leg. He had lost a lot of blood before his allies and fellow soldiers could drag him off to safety.

His term spent over in ‘nam was done for, and the young, now disabled man had returned home.

Still desperate to make money for his family, he allowed himself to fall under the guile of MannCo’s job offering. Even with a damaged leg, they told him he could make himself... useful.

And so he had. The rest… was history. A history, thankfully, that Jane was privy enough to know of.

“Was jus’ beginning to worry, sir,” William honestly admitted to him. His voice rang soft and true, the thick Southern lilt of his accent almost comforting in its vernacular. It was like sweet southern honey, drizzled over everything he said. “You had us both worried. Up and began thinkin’ the desert heat done cooked yer brains half to mush. Like grits too long on the stovetop.”

The soldier pulled up a chair beside Jane and settled down into it. There it was: that same limp of his. His leg hadn’t gotten any better. If Jane had known any better, the limb might have seemed a bit stiffer, the leg a bit more favored.

“Now, now. Jus’ you relax. Don’t need you actually keelin’ over the moment you come ‘round.” Taking a bowl of room temperature water and a rag off of the bedside table, he dampened the cloth before he reached over and, with the gentlest of motions, wiped away any sweat from Jane’s forehead. “Got so many questions for ya, sir. So many. But I’m not sure where to even begin, if I may say so myself.”

Jane couldn’t help but smile, his own blue eyes crinkling at the corners. One hand reached to his side, looking for his helmet out of habit. “Mmm, go ahead and ask away, son. But don’t worry, I won’t be in your hair very long. I need to get moving soon as I can. Got a long way to go yet.” Wherever he’d been going, wherever he’d come from in such terrible condition, it seems that he was planning on pressing onward.

“Need to get movin’ again?” William murmured that under his breath to himself, his brow furrowed in concern. “Jesus, though,” Jane continued, not hearing William mumble. “It’s so good to see you. You’re a sight for sore eyes, Will. How have you been? The leg looks a little stiff, there. Been bothering you much?”

There was no denying it. He was absolutely confused as to what was going on. “Er-- ah, well.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he glanced down at his leg. He looked as if he were pondering its existence, or perhaps the limb’s use. Or maybe he was considering the fact that he did, in fact, have a leg. At least, that’s what his expression looked to portray. It was a bit vague for Jane. “My leg’s been iffy. Been doin’ a lot of jumpin’, sir. Lots of jumpin’. And it’s just been botherin’ me a bit. Especially with that surprise rainstorm we got a few nights back. Desert rain always lingers in my bones.”

William got up, and Jane could see the man move across the room to a chest of drawers. The piece of furniture looked beat up and worn. Maybe even nibbled on by mice. Yup. Those were teeth marks down at the very corner of the left leg.

Was this the soldier’s room? Sure seemed that way. It had a table and chair, and a dresser for clothes. It had a few hooks on the wall where a spare uniform jacket and a helmet hung, along with other such personal items. And there was a shelf there with a few books ranging from military tactics, to accounts of the war in vietnam to one that was, curiously enough, an intro into technology.

“Yeah, sir,” William continued. “I mean... if’fin ya don’t mind, sir, got a whole lotta questions to ask.” He slid a drawer open and rifled through it. He pulled out a shirt and examined it but, based upon his expression alone, after a thorough scrutinizing it must have been unfit for what he had in mind. He simply folded it back up and put it back where it came from. “I mean, like, what in the blue blazes were you doin’ out there all by yer lonesome? I mean, it’s not every day I get to talk again with my idol. Uh-- wait, I-- ”

William stuttered for a moment, clutching another shirt he had just pulled out so tightly he ended up wadding it in his grasp. He turned towards Jane, his cheeks obviously a bit tinted with the signs of a reddening blush.

“I--- I mean,” William began, tone a bit more rushed in his embarrassment, “here I thought ya went to another base, and you, uh… uh…” Unceremoniously stuffing the shirt back into the drawer, the soldier limped over to the open door and called out, “‘Ey! ‘Ey, Woody! Woody! He’s up! Up an’ awake! You wanna meet him?” “Will. At ease. You’re wound up tighter than a goddamn Medic. Just… take a few breaths son. Now. You’re right. I was somewhere else. I’m at Coldfront, usually, but they put me up to fill in at Ravine. But the stint kept dragging on, and I didn’t get no letters back from Abel no matter how many I wrote. Something’s wrong, Will. I know something’s wrong. So I’m going back.” One could only draw one conclusion. Jane Doe seemed hell bent on getting back to Coldfront. And if he’d walked all the way here from Ravine on foot… it seemed to be how he’d planned on making the entire journey. “I didn’t mean to commandeer your quarters this long, son,” Jane added. “Just another night’s rest and I need to keep going.” He didn’t comment on the ‘idol’ remark. It seemed to embarrass the younger Soldier that he’d let it slip out, and besides… at the end of the day, Jane knew he probably wasn’t the best role model.

Jane’s logic was never a sound, sane sort of thing. Everyone knew it. This particular soldier was loonier than a crate full of wildly excitable squirrels. It was a well known fact that his personal dossier (nestled within the confines of MannCo’s records) had each and every strange event, scenario, and situation that the man had ever been involved with painstakingly accounted for. And each account only got weirder and weirder with passing time. Weirder… and, of course, more and more unbelievable.

The bedridden soldier could see William pace back and forth a few steps. Four one way, turn. Four another way, turn. Repeat. A small pacing routine that involved slow, careful steps and an intense session of processing the information he was just given.

“Coldfront. Right. I know that base. Not the best thin’. Been there only once ‘fore. For a short, short stint. Like… a few weeks. Couldn’t handle it. The cold and, er…” Trailing off, he patted his bad leg, once. “Cold made my bones hurt too much. So they sent me back. Ended up here. Went from Sawmill, to Coldfront, to Teufort. Came here right when you were goin’ there, sir. Had to have.”

Footfalls creaked along the wooden floor as William made his way across the room to his table. Equally worn as the dresser, he leaned against it for support. Crossing his arms over his chest, Jane could see a frown beginning to etch on his face.

“And it’s no problem, sir. Really isn’t. Not usin’ my room much these days.” A smile formed at that, but, quickly, he mentally shook himself and got back on topic. “Brought you here. I was jus’ lucky I found ya. Was out doin’ practice jumps when I saw ya collapse. Would’a brought ya to the medbay, but I’m pret’y sure our docs wouldn’t want to treat a non-base worker. If ya know what I mean.” Shrugging, William looked over at his superior, confusion etched on his face. “But, uh… sir. Coldfront? That’s… hundreds a’ thousands a’... well, a lotta miles away. So far away that I’m fairly certain you would’a--”

“Yea, sugarloaf? He’s awake?”

Jane could see William’s eyes brighten as the younger soldier looked towards the door. There, standing in the welcoming entrance, was a rather plump looking man of short stature. Garbed in the uniform of an Engineer, he had the familiar, thick electrical gloves on his hands and the old fashioned coveralls associated with most of his kind. His goggles were pushed all the way up to his forehead, partially covering the bandana wrapped around his forehead in an attempt to keep the sweat out of his eyes. And his eyes? They were a soft brown. The color of milk chocolate. His black hair was short and styled, but just a little bit messy. ‘Hard hat’ messy.

“Oh, Woody!” Excitement coursing through him, William all but forgot, at least for the moment, the sheer absurdity of Mr. Doe’s hellbent, but incredibly foolish, escapade. “Honeybee, this is the soldier I was talkin’ about.” Gesturing towards the bedridden man, he added, “Jane, this is Elwood. Elwood, Jane.” Jane sat up, making himself as presentable as possible. A proper Soldier must have some sense of decorum, after all. “Nice to meet you. Wish the circumstances were better.”

“Likewise, pardner,” the engineer replied. Quite the suave charmer, he hooked his thumbs in his belt and flashed Jane an unforgettable smile. Jane grinned in spite of himself, sky-blue eyes glancing between the two of them. So, this must be love. They made a very handsome couple. If Jane had to say so objectively, the Engineer was a good looking man, in a different but very complimentary way to Will’s boyish good looks. “I was just telling Will that I won’t be a bother much longer. Gotta make my way back to Coldfront soon as possible.”

The engineer had just run a hand through his hair to fix it, to appear more presentable himself, when Jane uttered that little statement of his. The engineer, Elwood, slowly looked towards William who, upon catching sight of the techie’s stare, sheepishly gave that nervous, boyish grin of his, all the while holding his hands up in the visual defense of not knowing anything.

“...Coldfront.” Elwood blinked a few times in bemusement as he tried to get his brain to process what the man had just told him. “But we found ya here, sonny.”

“Technically, I did.”

“Yea, that’s true, sugarloaf. You found ‘em.” Elwood nodded at William, giving a warm chuckle at how the man simply beamed at doing a job well done. “But... you found him out there in the desert. All walkin’ about all stumblin’ and bumblin’ from the heat, half outta his mind. Looney off his rocker, remember? Ya carried him all the way over to me and you were sayin’ how he was sayin’ the strangest stuff. Stuff that didn’t make a darn lick’a sense.”

William opened his mouth as if to say something, but he caught that familiar look in Elwood’s eyes. He knew that the man had already figured it out.

“You were walkin’,” Elwood continued, turning his attention back to Jane. “You were… so, wait, let me get this straight.” Pushing the bandana up a little bit, he scratched his forehead. “Uh, Jane, was it? Jane, pardner, tell me somethin’. And tell me the honest to God truth. Don’t you go lyin’ on me.” He quizzically quirked an eyebrow, his face clouded by befuddlement. “Were you… don’t tell me you were walkin’ to Coldfront? All the way? Walkin’, on foot?”

“...yes?” Jane shifted a bit, brows knit. He wasn’t sure how old Elwood was, but that no-nonsense look made him feel like a kid who’d come to class without his homework. “It’s all I can do. My Medic needs me, I can feel it in my bones. I can’t take the train and I can’t teleport. But I can’t let that stop me. Abel’s in trouble, I know he is, and I have to get back to him. I’ve waited too long already, and I don’t know if I am even too late. I just know I have not heard from him in weeks and weeks and that is not like him.” Jane squared his shoulders stubbornly. Nothing was going to budge him. One way or another, if he had to hike an impossible path, Jane Doe was making it back to Coldfront, no ifs ands or buts.

Again, Elwood rapidly blinked, but this time the visual display of his facial cues were not out of bemusement but we're, instead, out of the inability to process that bit of information. He was absolutely flabbergasted over what he had just heard, and he was reeling from it all.

“You…”

“I know that Medic,” William quickly interjected, as if hoping his currently malfunctioning beau would up and decide not to speak what was on his mind. “I remember Abel. Swell guy. Real nice. He was always nice to me, I mean. Made me tea a few times. Baked me cookies. Made sure I was bandaged up after a training session. I knew you two were a thing, but, you haven’t been able to reach out to him? And he hasn’t replied to you? At all?”

“...You…”

“I’m sure he’s alright, sir,” William said, in a slightly more rushed tone of voice. “Ain’t that righ’, Woody? Yeah. I’m sure it’s not too late for him or anythin’. He’s prob’ly just busy or, uh, well...” William left the support of the table behind him as he inched closer to Jane. “Have ya tried callin’ him? No. No, wait. Coldfront. Hard to get any phone to connect with that base. Uh, let’s see…”

Elwood had stopped blinking and mentally malfunctioning and, by now, had his face screwed up into an unreadable mask that could only be vaguely described as ‘something far past the human limitation for astonishment’ and ‘beyond an appalling sense of loss for the general faith one had in humanity’.

“Oh! Oh, wait! Have you--”

From where Jane sat in the bed, he could see Elwood walk up behind William and, with a heavy sense of, perhaps, mourning, he placed his hand upon the younger man’s shoulder. Something was whispered into William’s ear, and the sweet soldier gave the engineer a rather puzzled look.

“Oh? ...Oh, uh, Mr. Doe, sir? Woody here wants to talk to me about somethin’ real fast-like. Just be a moment, sir. Just a moment. Promise.”

Elwood quickly (and with a sense of urgency) ushered the younger soldier out of the door. But Jane, from where he sat, could see just a bit of each person. An arm here, or a leg there. Someone moving about from just around the corner of the entranceway. And then the hushed whispering began. Hard to make out, hard to understand. It was a lowered decibel that made deciphering what was being said hard. Jane, in the meantime, glanced out the window. Down at his hands, which were fidgeting with themselves. Abel. He had to get better so he could get home to him.

“Yer prankin’ me, sugarloaf.”

“I’m not, Woody.”

“You promise me?”

“I promise, I do.”

“Willy--”

“This is just Jane,” William confessed, lowering his voice even further in hopes Jane wouldn’t hear this. “I’ve known him for years. He’s always been a bit… well, a bit…”

“A few shy of a box of screws?”

“I mean--”

“A few colors short of a crayon box?”

“I jus’--”

“Denser than a sack of wet rocks? Thicker than batter--”

“It's just Jane,” William replied with a sigh. He held up his hands, once more, in the defense of not knowing. And it was true. He didn’t know what to say or do. It was not a typical sort of situation.

Elwood jabbed his thumb in the direction of the doorway and hissed, under his breath, “this poor sonuva thinks he can walk all the way to that alpine mountain range by walkin’ through the Mojave desert.”

“Well--”

“Does he realize those mountains are on a separate continent? That base is halfway across the world! It’s on a continent that is separated by a body of water, and that particular body of water jus’ happens to be an ocean! What’s he gonna do? Swim that, too?”

“I know, I know. I think he jus’ thinks he can get to Coldfront if he keeps walkin’ while findin’ alternate methods of travel along the way.”

“Didn’t sound like it. He’s fully intendin’ on walking there.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Elwood breathed deep, calming himself. “Listen, darl, I get it. You look up to this guy an’ all. But he’s as oblivious as a herd of cows on steak day. He’s gonna get himself killed by pullin’ off this stunt. I’m awf’ly sorry to tell ya this, but either the sun done baked his brains for good, or he’s an absolute buffoon.”

“...He’s loyal.” William let out his breath. He hadn’t realized that he was holding it in. “That’s... what he is. Loyal.” He wrung his hands together, finding himself fidgeting just a bit by shifting weight from one foot to the other. “An’, I mean… he’s one of the most loyal soldiers I ever met. It’s why I look up to him, Woody. He’s everythin’ a soldier should be. Honest, loyal an’ true. He believes in himself an’ doesn’t believe in failure. He’s ready for the cause, ready to do the impossible, even if it’s to trek halfway across the world jus’ to be with someone again. Even with my bad leg,” he flashed the engineer a boyishly sweet smile, “I’d do the same for you.”

Elwood’s features softened, creases forming at the corner of his eyes as he smiled. Reaching up, he lightly gripped his soldier’s coat collar before tugging him down, just enough, to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I know ya would,” he replied, patting his beloved’s cheek. “An’ I love that about’cha. Real loyal. Real protective. And a damn fine looker.”

“Woody…”

“Righ’. Time for flirtin’ later. Got it, stud.” Grinning at the blush that was coloring the soldier’s cheeks, he gestured towards the door. “We let yer friend wait long ‘nough. Pret’y sure he’s one of them soldier types that gets real antsy when ya leave them alone for too long. Like an overgrown puppy, all antsy and nervous an’ ready to piss on the carpet.”

“That’s… actually accurate, Woody. Save for the peein’ part.”

“Come, now. Let’s see if we can get him to Coldfront without lettin’ him go out there and take the distance on foot.”

Elwood gently coaxed William forward, letting him back into the room first. However, he had the last say in everything. He had his last say without words, but with his actions instead.

With a quick, sly slap to his soldier’s rear.

“Uh-- Jane? Sir?”

William slid back into the room first, his cheeks a little red from what must have been blushing. He cleared his throat, moving aside so Elwood could enter next. The engineer had a wily smile on his face; the look of a pleased and sated cheshire cat, happy with whatever spoils it had accrued.

Jane, for his part, didn't seem to notice them at first. He was looking at something he’d apparently plucked out of his helmet: a photograph of someone Will might know, but Elwood probably wouldn’t. It was of a man in a Medic’s uniform. He had gentle grey-blue eyes, salt and pepper hair, and a warm, kind smile. The Soldier’s thumb slid tenderly over the image of the Medic’s cheek as he mumbled to himself. “I’m coming, Abel,” Jane was heard muttering under his breath. “I’ll be there soon as I can…”

William tentatively took a step towards him. “Sir?” Realizing he wasn’t alone anymore, Jane quickly cleared his throat, stuffed the picture back into his helmet, and tugged it over his eyes, blushing a bit. “Y-yes?”

William and Elwood shared a quick glance, each one silently asking who would go first. With a small hand gesture, and nod of his head, it was the younger soldier who took the reigns.

“You’re awfully worried, aren’tcha, sir?” Giving a small smile to the helmet (where Jane’s eyes would be) and to the photo tucked within it, he added in a kind and gentle tone, “I would be, too. I’d do anythin’ for Woody, like you would for Abel. You’re rather sweet on him, and so is he. He loves ya, sir. So much.” Moving over to the edge of the bed, he sat down, politely folding his hands in his lap. He sat straight and true-- an attentive little soldier in the presence of superiors. “Woody and I… we got to talkin’, and we wanted to help you.”

“Y’see,” Elwood began pointedly, as he began pulling up a chair to sit in it, backwards, so his arms were folded atop the chair’s short back, “Coldfront’s a bit of a loner base, way out there halfway ‘cross the world. And where you are now… well, y’see, you’re too far away to walk to it. It’s imposs--”

William cleared his throat and gave the engineer a tentative, but worried, look.

“--I, I mean… it’d be hard. Sure. Way harder than it should be. So we were thinkin’ about it… and we want to help.” “You can help me?” Jane’s mouth cracked into the big, craggy smile he was known for, the one he wore best when flying through the sky or in Abel’s presence. “I would appreciate that, I would. Anything that can get me home faster than walking. Which I would absolutely do if I had to. But...heh. I may be in a little trouble when I get back. I went AWOL from Ravine because they would not let me leave.” Jane fidgeted a little. He hadn’t thought that through when he left- he had the singular goal of getting back to Abel.

Elwood couldn’t help but give a small smile himself. For being denser than a sack of wet rocks, the soldier… had a pretty nice smile. No wonder some bloke fell in love with this guy. Maybe he wasn’t the smartest person alive but, confound it, when he smiled, he was absolutely charming.

But the engineer’s smile quickly went away once it sunk into his brain what he had just said.

“--wait, you what?”

William, too, looked to be surprised. A soldier going AWOL was a terrible thing. Especially so since many did just that during his own personal stint in jungles of ‘nam, and he remembered what happened to them, what punishment befell them. A soldier going AWOL was one of the worst things a soldier could commit. Or... at least that’s what the army’s superiors drilled into their brains.

“S--Sir, they-- they don’t know where you are? What if they’re lookin’ for ya? What if--”

“Lad’s got some balls on him!” Elwood laughed heartily, a good sounding laugh that was true and honest and came from the depths of one’s belly. “Look at him! Snuck under the gaze of those stiff suits and members a’ management over there at Ravine, and they’re none the wiser! Bunch of dogs runnin’ around in circles, sniffin’ their asses instead of sniffin’ for clues. I gotta admit, Jane, I had my doubts. But I’m damn impressed.”

Jane scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “I was not trying to be. I just need to get home. I couldn’t go by teleporter or train because they kept catching me and telling me I could not leave. So I left on foot. They couldn’t stop me that way.” He frowned. “I probably still can’t teleport. And if they catch me on one of the trains I will be court-martialed for sure. How are you going to get me home? I mean, you are an Engineer, if anyone can figure something out you can. I have never met an Engie who wasn’t smart as a whip.”

“Well, would’ya look at that. Ol’ boy’s butterin’ me up.”

“Don’t let it get to yer head, Woody.”

Beaming, the engineer turned his attention back to the soldier in bed. “But, ya know, as crackpot as this all seems, you’ve got a point there. If ya up and went AWOL at Ravine, they’ll have put a notice out to any other bases. You won’t be able to use a lotta MannCo’s devices. Like a teleporter, and stuff like that. So I can’t possibly calibrate somethin’ for ya an’ get a ‘porter up and runnin’. ‘Sides, your records aside, your chip might’ave been temporarily turned off, so you prob’ly wouldn’t be able to use the teleporter anyway, even if you wanted to. And as far as train, that’s most definitely a no-go.”

With a fair bit of musing and thinking, the engineer lapsed into a steadfast silence. Once or twice William looked towards his way, but Elwood didn’t seem to notice. The gears in his head were turning, and he was formulating any sort of escape plan that could eventually be possible.

“...wait.” An imaginary lightbulb dinged over the engineer’s head, and he jovially rubbed his gloved hands together. “Jane, I think ya might be wrong ‘bout one thing. I think you could use one particular route. Might be the best way goin’ about things, too. It’ll take a long time, but not as long as if you were doin’ it on foot.” Leaning forward, the engineer gave a mock stage whisper, going, “so, how do ya feel ‘bout trains?” Jane shrugged. “They’re alright. I never thought about them a lot. Alright for getting one place to another. Kind of shaky after a while. But I can’t use the train, you already said so.”

“He’s got a point, Woody.” William looked towards the engineer, a frown forming. “You did say trains were outta the question…”

“Now, now, hear me out.”

Getting up from the chair, Elwood began to pace the room. Like a passionate professor conducting a lecture before his befuddled students, he took the stage and began to explain aloud the finer machinations of his grand plan.

A train, he admitted, had not been his first thought. In fact, he thought it had been one of the major options that had to be avoided. Security was tight, and surely, by now, MannCo would have passed on Jane’s picture through the cybernetic grapevine. No doubt each base had received the information and the notice of the man’s absence. Mercenaries who went missing could very well lead to legal troubles later on. With the leaking of information, of blueprints…

But maybe that was the most logical option to take. After all, sometimes there was safety in heightened security. Even if that bit of security was being primed against you.

“...but what I’m thinkin’,” Wood continued on, feeling in his element explaining his ideas, devising a course of action, “is that we wait and get’cha on one of our supply trains. MannCo likes to run trains from base to base, shipping supplies from place to place, keepin’ the wheels on the tracks. As long as a box is properly addressed, they’re a bit lax on checkin’ the contents. They just chuck the box onto the train, and they move it ‘long its merry way.” “Whoa, whoa-- wait a minute there, Woody.” William bounced his attention back and forth between Jane and the engineer. “Are you suggestin’ what I think you’re suggestin’?”

With a rather wide, jolly smile, the engineer turned towards Jane. With his hands on his hips, he winked. “Well? You followin’ me so far, Jane?” “YES. Ahem. Yes. I think I follow you clearly.” Jane was grinning. “You want to mail Abel a box that lets him know that I am on my way!” William and Elwood could be greatly forgiven for their responses in marveling at Jane’s boneheaded answer. He certainly wasn’t known for his intelligence, as Woody had astutely remarked.

The Engineer gave a patient sort of sigh, raising his hands to his face so he could cover it. His shoulders rose and fell with each exhalation of breath, of the passing of time in the most exhausting sort of way.

“I think,” William interjected, hoping to diffuse the situation and get Elwood back on his feet (metaphorically, of course), “what Woody’s tryin’ to say here is that if we find a box big enough, and label it all correctly an’ do a mock up job of having a supply crate addressed to Coldfront, yer’ll eventually get sent there, sir.”

“That,” Elwood said, almost wearily, as his hands fell away from his face. “That’s exactly what I meant.” He inhaled once more, exhaled once more, and regained the strength to continue, once more. “So... all we gotta do is make sure we find you a crate big ‘nough for you to fit in. Fill it with some stuff so it’s not too inconspicuous. Pack plenty of blankets--”

“--rations, too. Food, water, supplies--”

“--and address it all proper to the mandatory protocols, and MannCo’ll think none the wiser.” Jabbing his thumb towards the open door, Elwood indicated the whole of the base, the company, as he added, “I may work for these folks, and they’re the ones signin’ my paychecks at the end of the day, but I can tell ya straight up: bein’ in the business this long, most of ‘em don’t know a real gun from a squirt gun. A lot’a the higher ups in management only care about the money and the statistics, and the gainin’ of territory. Profits. The business of profiting. But,” he tapped the side of his engineering goggles, “they don’t pay attention to the important stuff. And I bet’cha anythin’ we can get you on your way back to yer base, and back to yer pret’y lil’ Medic.”

“You are going to mail ME to Abel?” Jane’s eyes widened under his helmet. Then he threw back his head and laughed- not in a mocking way, but in absolute elation. It was such a simple, yet brilliant idea! He couldn’t believe he didn’t think of it himself. “THAT IS ABSOLUTE GENIUS. YOU DESERVE A MEDAL.” He could just imagine it: it would be like a present. Abel would open up the box unaware, and out he’d pop like a big American jack-in-the-box. If he was able to. The delight on the Soldier’s face fell a bit, shoulders drooping. “I just hope I am not too late. If he isn’t answering my letters something must be very, very wrong. He would never ignore me.”

Elwood and William exchanged silent, worried looks. It was common knowledge that Coldfront was a base of bad luck. From its terrible blizzards to delayed supply trains, to respawn glitches and the like, a lot of bad luck could befall the ill-fated mercenaries there. Sometimes mercenaries didn’t survive. Sometimes mercenaries took a walk outside, and an unpredicted spot of bad weather would crop up, obscuring their path. They could get lost. They could lose their way. They could freeze to death, just outside the respawn boundary lines.

A lot could have happened to the Medic. But there was no use working the soldier up, upsetting him with more potential bad news.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” came the younger soldier’s chipper tone. Always the bright optimistic, he looked towards the sunrises, not the sunsets, in life. “Ya gotta remember, sir, at Coldfront postal service gets slowed down and phone lines don’t always work. I remember Abel. He was a real tough Medic. Strong, steadfast. Loyal, too. Loyal and protective of you.” Giving Jane that boyish grin, he reached over and, with a truly wholesome sense of support, laid his hand upon his shoulder. “He wouldn’t give up on you. He’s there. I’m sure everything is fine. I’m sure nothin’ bad has happened.”

Elwood couldn’t help but smile to himself and softly shake his head. “Listen, Jane. Jus’ met’cha today. And it hasn’t even been that long. But if yer doc is anythin’ like ya… he’s probably worried sick about you, and is doin’ anythin’ he can to reach out to you. So I wouldn’t worry ‘bout it. I would focus on gettin’ there and gettin’ to him. And after that, pieces will jus’ fall back into place.”

“That’s right.” Giving Jane’s shoulder a reaffirming squeeze, William nodded. “Focus on the goal, sir. Focus on that. Keep your head on your task, and complete the mission. Don’t worry ‘bout what may or may not happen.”

“You both are right.” Squaring his shoulders once more, Jane felt a renewed sense of resolve overcome him. There was hope after all. He'd get there in time. Nothing bad has happened. He'd jump out of that box and he'd see Abel’s warm smile. “Nothing bad has happened. Soon I'll be there and everything will be fine.”

It would take a day or two, Elwood informed him. They would have to locate a crate big enough and prepare it for the trip. Then he'd have to look up the exact coordinates and shipping label codes for Coldfront in order to create a mockup of a supply label. It could be done, he assured him. There was no doubt in his mind they'd get Jane on his way.

Jane tried arguing the fact, seeing as two days time was just too long to wait, but the two mercenaries from Teufort knew it was just his anxious nerves getting the best of him. With some time and luck, they managed to convince him to stay where he was and rest up.

To all of this, Jane agreed. He did so on account that he knew they wouldn't lie to him. He'd rest up and stay put... as long as he could stretch his legs and get some fresh air.

“No training in the desert,” Elwood warned him. “We don't need to go back to square one with you half-baked to death.”

“AFFIRMATIVE. I would not want that either. I couldn't return to Abel if I were dead.”

A plan was set in motion. William went about gathering up the supplies while Elwood did his magic, finding a suitable crate, looking up the proper coordinates and making shipping label templates. Jane did his part and rested in bed, occasionally taking small trips in order to stretch his legs and get his muscles moving again.

Jane wanted to get back to Abel as soon as possible, but he had to be patient. Like the Medic sometimes said, ‘patience is a virtuoso’. Or something like that. He couldn't quite remember. Remembering was hard sometimes.

He began to count the minutes until all was ready. Hold on, Abel. Just hold on.

--------

Finally, everything was ready. The crate was as big as Elwood could make without arousing too much suspicion- big enough to fit one Soldier inside with a certain amount of comfort, as well as enough rations and water to see him through the journey. Holes were subtly drilled in the crate where it would allow for the best airflow possible while not looking like airholes- after all, the manifest said the crate was full of medical equipment, and x-rays and defibrillators and other such things did not need to breathe. Clambering into the crate, Jane hunkered down, arranging his travel rations and his few possessions as comfortably as he could. It was not going to be the cushiest way to travel, but that didn’t matter. If he got back to Abel, any amount of discomfort and rationing and peeing in an empty Mann-Cola bottle would be absolutely worth it, just as much as walking halfway around the world would have been. Looking up, he tipped his helmet back, regarding the two men who had helped him. “You boys are a credit to this man’s Team, and a credit to America. If you ever need my help for anything at all, let me know and I will do my best. I give my word as a Soldier I will.”

“Aw, shucks, sir.” William couldn’t help but beam at this. He was rather proud of himself that he had made his idol proud. He knew Jane wasn’t all that smart, and he was incredibly bullheaded, but he was brave. And he was the epitome of a soldier; someone he aspired to be. “You’ll be there in no time. Don’t you worry none.”

“And… there.” Elwood stood back from the crate, admiring all the hard work that had gone into it. He had placed the final parcel of rations in there with Jane, making sure the man had quite a few flasks of water and, of course, a bucket. For what came after the eating and the drinking. “That should do it, boy. Now, Jane,” the suave, charming engineer leaned against the crate, “don’t you be a stranger. Sugarloaf here is enamored by you.”

“Woody!”

“Aw, look at him. He’s adorable when he blushes.”

William grumbled to himself, his face aflame with his shy embarrassment. He tugged his helmet down a little, covering his eyes, unknowingly mimicking his idol in many ways, from many distant situations. But a little kiss to his cheek from the engineer caused him to lighten up.

“He’s right, though, sir. Don’t be a stranger.” He took the helmet away from his face. With hopeful eyes, the younger soldier smiled at him. “Please, come back n’ visit, alright?”

“And next time, bring your darlin’ little turtledove with you.” “Jesus. You two are so goddamn cute.” Jane laughed roughly, his eyes twinkling a bit, before clearing his throat. “Yes. I will tell Abel everything that happened here. If all is well he will probably want to come and thank you himself.” Sitting up straight, Jane snapped the two a sharp, proper salute, and then slouched back down to allow his friends to put the lid on the crate.

“Good luck, sir.”

“Pleasure meetin’ ya, Jane.”

The two hefted the lid and, both smiling ear to ear, the placed it on the crate. A moment later, the whirring sound of a drill pierced the sturdy wood of the structure. Everything was being nailed into place, and the crate, with the man inside, was all ready for its voyage.

A soft thudding sound heralded William’s little good luck gesture. He was giving the lid a gentle, reassuring pat.

Soon the box was hefted (surely by the two), and Jane was jostled inside.

He wanted to play his harmonica but he had been warned that, no matter what happened, he couldn’t make a sound. Silence was anathema to any Soldier, but deep down, Jane knew Woody was right- a single out of place noise could get him caught. So he stayed quiet, even as the hours passed, a train whistle finally blew, and the engine- and its cargo- set out on its long journey to Coldfront.

#jane doe #william walker #elwood hansford #writing collab #zecuddlyblumedic

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aboxfullofocs · 6 years

Text

Under the bed

He was sleeping under the bed.

That had been where Galmar Stone-Fist had come to find the Warlock the Stormcloaks called Gold-Blooded. Of course, that was no what Galmar called him, Ulfric had given him his own titles, but to Galmar, he was a Fire-Bear through and though, even if his skin had that golden of his muddled high-elf blood.

The Civil War had been won, but not the unrest. A new had arisen for them, the threat of the Thalmor and the Empire coming for them. But for now, most of the soldiers took a deserved rest, including Fire Bear who had taken a small flat on the Grey Quarter, no less. After the deal with the Butcher, the half-elf half-nord abandoned the house and asked for anything, but that place.

“Heck! I’ll take a dog house for all I care! Shor knows I’m already called a mutt!”

While Ulfric solved things with Elisif about the moot in Solitude, Gamar had returned to Windhelm alongside his most trusted Stormcloaks, among them, of course, the (probably) insane high-elf of nord blood who had joined the Stormcloaks to fight against the empire and the Thalmor. But now the Jarl of Windhelm had returned.

But alas, it seemed like the Thalmor had come for them sooner than he expected and there was no one else Galmar could trust to do this. He needed someone to infiltrate quietly but come out with a bang, and, Fire-Bear was the perfect person for it.

He entered the bedroom in the small cozy loft, the bed appeared to have someone sleeping on it, but once he got close he realized there were pillows under the blankets. At first he thought Lysander had left, but he had found the man, sleeping under the bed. Galmar tilted his head surprised, he had not seen not even fellow Nords sleep like that before, especially when they had a bed at their disposal.

Yet, there he was, and though he was clearly dressed for sleep, Galmar could tell the mage was armed to the teeth and the boots were close for picking if necessary. His hair was held on a bun with sharp long needles that almost appeared like dragger that could poke a man’s eyes out.

“How doesn’t he poke himself with those needles?!” Galmar mumbled staring and the two large needles.

“Practice!”

“HOLY FUCKING DAMNIT!” Galmar yelled. With the startled jump Galmar had achieve to hit his back against the table nearby, causing the array of books and vials on top of it fall off. Galmar scurried to stop them but when he realized it was too late, he gave up and sighed in frustration.

Lysander watched with a grin from under the bed and pulled himself up. He leaned against the bed and crossed his arms, waiting for Galmar to state his business.

“How long you been awake, you little shit?” Galmar growled.

“Hardly little, mate! And the moment you entered the appartment,” the white wolfish grin crossed the elf’s lips. “Light sleeper and all.”

“I’ll never get used to that,” Galmar sighed. He had been startled before by the man’s reflexes or the fact that he could lay perfectly motionless as if he was dead only to strike.

“So, what’s up Stonefist, and not the sky. Why you waking up lil ol’ me so early in the morning?” And, in his almost theatrical manner the elf walked over and leaned towards Galmar, he was a couple of inches taller than Galmar, having to lower his head to meet Galmar’s eyes. Damn elf had gold even on his so called green eyes.

“Missed my beautiful golden eyes? Longing for my touch? Wanted to hear my sultry voice?”

“Aaah! Bugger off witch-elf!” Galmar yelled swatting the elf away who jumped back laughing. “Can you be serious for two seconds?”

“Hard to, my ability to concentrate remained in Apocrytha alongside my sanity! Miss it dearly, should write it a letter, ‘Dear Sanity-”

“Fire-Bear!” Galmar called and the elf laughed harder.

Finally done with joking around he sat on the bed and crossed his arms and legs, his expression hardening. “Yes, Stonefist?”

“I have a mission for you.”

“And here I thought you came to ask me out on a date, I love me some Nord accent,” he mocked.

“Thought you were married!” Galmar frowned.

“Me and Brenna are in an open relationship, she being a saaaad hagraven and me being slightly insane and all!” He placed a hand on his chest.

“Don’t call your wife that!” Galmar rolled his eyes.

“I’m not calling names, she is a hagraven! Have I told you how I got drunk once and went down on a daedric pri-”

“Aye! Aye! You never shut up with that joke!”

The elf laughed and shook his head. “Ma’Iiq never lies! But seriously now, what’s wrong, mate, what type of mission?”

“Rescue mission. One of our patrols was captured by Thalmor enforcers and we need you to get them out,” he explained. “Your the only one of us who’s been to the Thalmor Embassy and the only one to get out unscathed.”

“If you call being shot in the right nad with an ice spike unscathed, sure!” He shrugged. “But I thought the Embassy was abandoned.”

“And it was, but that didn’t stop them from repurposing the building,” Galmar crossed his arms. “We need you to find our men before they kill them, quietly. After they are safe and you have gathered as much intel as possible as to why they’re here-”

“To kill humans and inferior mer,” he shrugged. “No need to be a brain surgeon for that one.”

“A what?!” Galmar lifted a brow. “As I was saying, we need you to get them out, then blow those witch-elves into Oblivion on your way out!”

“I’ll send them straight to the Shivering-Isles, or do you prefer Hircine’s Hunting Grounds, luv?” Lysander winked. “I have missed Elenwen! Think she’ll be there? Think she’ll shoot me in the nad again? The other nad! My left cheek feels jealous. The right one gets shot and no one attends the left one! Such a loss.”

“Lysander!” Galmar actually had to brush his temple to stop himself from throwing something at the elf. “By Ysmir you’re excruciating!”

“I take pride in being extremely abnoxious! But sure, I can do that.”

“Get dressed, Ulfric has more details for you.”

“His royal highness is here? Isn’t he in Solituded getting nice and personal with Elisif? She’s overhyped if you ask me! My sultry Brenna is much more charming, beautiful feathers, you know!”

“LYSANDER!”

“Okay! Sheesh! Going! No sense of humor! Maybe you should crack a smile mate, but I’d be careful, your face could get stuck!”

Galmar shook his head and walked to the door. He stopped himself and looked over at the elf who was starting to get undressed, grumbling under breath.

“Fire-bear,” Galmar started. "Why do you sleep under the bed?”

The elf stopped and he heard a scoff. “No one checks under the bed before piercing it with a sword.”

“Wait... What?”

“You heard me right,” Lysander shrugged and removed his cotton clothes. Galmar looked away, though he stole a glance, not at the elf, but at his scars. Galmar had seen many war wounds and scars, but he would never get used to “those”, sometimes it looked like they never healed. He could swear they got worse by the second.

“Were you stabbed while sleeping once?”

“Twice, actually,” he shrugged. “Dad always said I was daft, I’d hate to prove him wrong, so I didn’t learn the first time around. In my defense, the second time I was high on skooma and moonsugar.”

“Who stabbed you?” Galmar asked with honest curiosity. He wanted to know what manner of cowardly person would stab a sleeping man.

“Both times by imperial legates”, and he looked over at Galmar. “The first time it was actually my brother. It was when me and father left the army to fight for Hammerfell. As for the second time, someone - an arsehole thalmor spy khajiit- had tipped the local Imperials of Legion dissidents! My life was saved by Ja’Vashani, a khajiit mercenary. He spent three months taking care of me, made sure I got clean of the skooma after it. ‘No skooma for you! Ja’Vashani will not waste time taking care of silly elf if skooma gets him killed again!’”

“Your brother tried to kill you.”

“Of course he did, I’d be offended if he didn’t!” He laughed. “He’s a proud, purebred, Summerset Isles highborn, Altmer, I’m the mutt that shows him our highborn, purebred, altmer mother couldn’t resist some nord arse. If we meet during the war I will be personally offended if he doesn’t try to kill me at least twice.”

“Why don’t you just kill him?”

And Lysander walked over to Galmar.

“Would you kill Rolf if he was an Imperial?”

Galmar blinked. “Of course I would! I would do anything for Skyrim!”

Lysander grinned and patted his cheek. “Then Lady Sky has a hell of a warrior at her side.”

Galmar stared at him in silence and Lysander grinned.

“So mate! Food! I ain’t going to blow up thalmor on an empty stomach! You in for some chickens? I don’t think the local grey elves hate my balls yet. But they’re dunmer, they hate everyone by design, so they probably do.”

And he turned to Galmar once more, hands on his hips, something he did when he was about to ramble random knowledge.

“Ever been to Morrowind? They used to have slaves you know! Argonian slaves. They worked on Plantations, but when the Red Mountains went KABOOOOM, the Argonians broke free and killed their masters. That’s why Black Marsh and Morrowind are at war. Dunmer got it coming if you ask me! They take a lot after the Altmer you know. Both have brooms up their arses! I honestely think Lorkan shoved a broom up their arses when he willed dunmer and altmer into existence! Like, he saw a broom and went, that would fit so well up dunmer and altmer behinds! Thankfully my behind is half-nord so no broom up there, not so sure about di-”

“Fire-Bear!” Galmar by this point was failing at holding back laughter at the insanity of all the elf said. And whatever momentary seriousness Lysander showed was gone.

“So, chickens!”

#my writting #skyrim #original altmer character #lysander firebear #foolishness

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dramallamadingdang · 6 years

Text

The longest reply post in the history of ever.

These go back, like, two weeks, because I am a very bad llama. An I should probably break this up into multiple posts, but I don’t wanna go through and select replies again. So...apologies to those for whom the “Read More” cuts don’t work?

These be for @getmygameon, @alicenorthernlights-blog, @eulaliasims, @penig, @tamtam-go92, @didilysims, @taylors-simblr, @mortia, @delicatesoul88, @twofingerswhiskey, annnnnnnd @immerso-sims...

getmygameon replied to your photo “Owen, running in terror from Olivia. …..Well, OK, really he was...”

Small miracles, dear. Small miracles ;) *pats*

Yeah. :) I’m actually surprised Owen made it to graduation. He didn’t have great chances of going to class/finals, according to my rules -- which is why he often ended up on probation -- but eventually his Fortune aspiration kicked in and worked in his favor. He rolled up wants to go to class because of it, and rolled wants override the manual rolls I do to decide that.

alicenorthernlights-blog replied to your post “I woke up this evening in one of those little dream-induced panicky...”

Hyperactive shield volcanoes. The scaries thing I can think about Hawaii.

I dunno...Hyperactive volcanoes aren’t bad. They are constantly letting off steam, quite literally, so they just kind of constantly belch instead of going, “Oh, hey, I think I’ll catastrophically explode this week.” I worry about the quiet ones. Like, the last time I was in Naples/Capri and visiting Pompeii/Herculaneum, Vesuvius -- which is overdue for explosion -- was all grumbly and belching smoke. Creepy! Or there’s all those up in the Cascades here in the States that are kinda overdue to explode. And then there’s Yellowstone, which is practically underneath me. If that thing ever goes, we all gonna die. :)

To me, the scariest thing about Hawai’i is...the cost of living. Yowza. Which, now that I think about it, might have factored into the dream. Cost of living at possible destinations is definitely a factor when it comes to emigration planning. :) Hawai’i would be a terrible option in that regard even if it wasn’t part of the US. :)

eulaliasims replied to your photoset “Oriana toddlerated into a crisp untextured white tux, some cheekbones...”

I love the combo of pure white tuxedo and enormous (for a toddler) bun. Oriana's got a real Look.

Ohgodohgod, 90s flashback to that Roxette song! :D

When my son -- who’s now a big, bad Army Ranger who’s killed people -- was around kindergarten age, that was his favorite song, and he sang it (with all the wrong words) while doing this hysterically-amusing dance to it. Which of course I recorded to keep as blackmail material. So now it’s like, “Behave, or your unit commander -- or, worse, your unit in general -- gets a copy of this, bucko.”

*ahem* But yes, she is totally fabulous! And Maxis fails at tuxedos.

penig replied to your photo “Amelia is Unthrilled about potty training. But at least she...”

Nobody's thrilled about pottytraining. Can't blame her for that.

But she’s a Family Sim! She’s supposed to love this stuff! She’s supposed to be so proud of her little precious darling using the potty! She’s supposed to be glowing with maternal contentedness that she gets to stand there and watch her kid poop!

...OK, OK, so in game-reality Family Sims are THE WORST at actually raising and interacting with their kids as opposed to just making/birthing them. (I’m tellin’ ya: Pleasure Sims are THE BEST parents...and Owen has a Pleasure secondary.) But, you know, they’re supposed to like this stuff. Ideally. Or at least theoretically.

tamtam-go92 replied to your photoset “Owen is, of course, excited to have another baby to cuddle, now that...”

Love how oriana's Shirt matches owen's skin.

HAH! It does, doesn’t it?

Which reminds me that I need to get baby clothes working in my game again. Since I dumped all my custom clothing and just defaulted most of the Maxis stuff, I’m back to diaper-clad babies...

didilysims replied to your post “So sad about the deaths �� Why don't you use Comfort soup? What are...”

Wait, are *you* saying you caused this plague?? MURDERER!!!! (I'm kidding...sort of. ;) )

MEA CULPA! I AM A PIXEL MURDERER! :D

Although, I didn’t deliberately start the sickness in this household. Sage came home from work with it. So it’s all the game’s fault.

taylors-simblr replied to your post “So sad about the deaths �� Why don't you use Comfort soup? What are...”

I’m very similar to this. I get super attached to my sims, but I still don’t coddle them. I do allow them to plead to the reaper otherwise I’d lose a lot more sims and I only have a small population. I just get very sad when my sims die, have a break from playing, them get over it. I always have the clones of them to play with anyway

I imagine it’s hard when Sims to whom you’re attached die. I mean, there are players who avoid it entirely, never allowing Sims to age past adult (or to age at all) and who use mods to make things non-deadly because they’re so attached. I confess that I don’t understand the mindset, myself, especially because you can make clones of them or resurrect them at will or whatever, but it does exist and is valid and all that.

But yeah, if you have or allow only a playable population, you don’t really need population control. :) I’m more of a “let ‘em breed freely, then cull the herd when necessary” sort of player, though.

mortia replied to your post “So sad about the deaths �� Why don't you use Comfort soup? What are...”

I like this. I also use the Realistic Sickness mod but I DO get attached to my pixel people and find myself coddling the hell out of them the second they even start to sniffle. I need to stop doing that and just let life play out once in a while.

I can understand, intellectually, the desire to coddle. I don’t really feel it myself because I don’t “attach” to pixel people, but I understand that other people do. There are times when I’ve felt a need to coddle that have nothing to do with attachment, though. Like, if I really wanted a particular Sim to breed because of unique facial features or the recessive genes they have and stuff like that. And I think I have coddled a few of those at times, over the years. But generally, I’m of the opinion that it makes no sense to use Real Sickness if you’re going to coddle because it just makes the coddling more drawn-out and frustrating. :) Then again, I suppose I can see where you might want to coddle your faves -- or, say, those in higher classes who might have access to some sort of dubious “medicine,” in a medieval game -- and let everyone else die as they will.

penig replied to your post “But alas: It was not to be.”

What?! Nooooo!

YEEEEEES! :) Well, OK, kind of “no” because child ghosts are wacky in that they just teleport around instead of float because they don’t have the proper animations. (Which is dumb. I mean, they made it possible for children to die -- as opposed to the immortal babies/toddlers -- so you’d think they’d’ve given child ghosts the proper floating animations, but noooooooo!) So, I kinda wish she’d croaked after her teen age-up, but...such is my game.

didilysims replied to your photo “Yeah, that hike was definitely not a good idea. :( I’m bummed. :( Sage...”

Sickness is not to be taken lightly. You should know this!!!

Yeah, yeah, bad llama! BAD! NO PEAR 4 ME!

(One of our llamas goes absolutely insane for pears. She adores them, has since she was weaned. If she sees that you have one, she will follow you around and stick her head over your shoulder and poke you with her muzzle and give you little hums and long-lashed puppy-dog eyes until you give it to her. Only for pears, though. Other fruit she can take or leave, but she’s a total pear whore. And you can’t even trick her with pears that are oddly-colored or oddly-shaped. Like Asian pears, which are apple-shaped. She knows the difference between an apple and an Asian pear. Llamas -- camelids in general, but especially llamas -- are kind of scary-smart that way. I wish they could tutor the super-stupid horses. Seriously, if horses hadn’t been domesticated, I don’t think they’d still exist. They’re great big idiots constantly looking for new and interesting ways to die. Deer are geniuses compared to them. Sure, they’re loyal as all hell, and very trainable, and I love them to death, but...Dumb to the core, all of them.)

didilysims replied to your photo “Meanwhile, Gwendolyn exists and got gave herself a promotion! We’ll...”

ALlamaInEveryHome would make an excellent username...

It would be! Wish I’d thought of it, when I made this Tumblr. :)

didilysims replied to your photo “Heeeey, Cherry! I totally just knocked up your daughter, man. It was...”

Umm...tell me more about this (harvestable?) peach tree please. :)

‘Tis one of Sun & Moon’s seasonal fruit trees, from this set here. 12/10 would recommend. :)

mortia replied to your photoset “To get everyone’s mind off Sage’s death, Emmy took the girls on an...”

Ooh these are lovely!

didilysims replied to your photoset “To get everyone’s mind off Sage’s death, Emmy took the girls on an...”

This is such a gorgeous lot--and the background too!

It is one of my favorite lots that I’ve built. But it’s also kind of annoying. Since it slopes so much from road to waterline, much of the lot is pretty much unusable. Like, Sims trying to talk to another Sim just do a lot of stomping and yelling because of the slope. I kind of hate that in Sims 2 Sims can’t really interact with each other on anything other than flat ground. (They fixed this for Castaway, which is one of the things I love about that game, but not TS2. WHY??!) It’s one of the reasons why I (usually) build only on flat lots and why I’m (generally) fond of flattening beach lots from road to waterline, too. So...Yeah, that lot is very pretty to look at, but it’s pretty much only usable in the 10-tile-wide strip of flat beach. The rest just generates lots of yelling and stomping. So, it’s also kind of wasted space. :\

penig replied to your photo “Annnnnnd a couple hours later, this happened. *headdesk* I kind of...”

Everyone grieves in their own way?

I suppose one could see it as doing something life-affirming in the aftermath of death. Especially when you’re sick and possibly facing death yourself. Although I gotta say that sex is not high on my to-do list when I’m sick. :) But, to each their own!

eulaliasims replied to your photo “Yeah, that hike was definitely not a good idea. :( I’m bummed. :( Sage...”

Noooo, Sage. :(

I know. I was bummed. :( But, life -- or the game, in this case -- goes on. :)

tamtam-go92 replied to your photo “Stephanie does most of the gardening these days, while her dad’s at...”

What can you even do there?

Fishing, apparently. Which Sims can do pretty much anywhere there’s water, so what’s the point? :)

penig replied to your photo “Sage doesn’t do sitting still very well, and the next day he rolled up...”

This is what happens when you don't lock 'em in their rooms. You could have sent him out by himself, you know.

I could have...but my rule for hikes is that as many people in the household as possible go on them when any household member rolls a want for one and is able to take one. So, obviously toddlers get left behind as well as someone to care for them, and if anyone’s imminently due to go to work/school they don’t go, but everyone else, including pets, goes. Even if they’re sick.

penig replied to your photo “Stephanie does most of the gardening these days, while her dad’s at...”

It has major routing fails and a fishing hole. Also the hydroponic garden for some reason.

Yeah, I’m afraid I’m pretty unimpressed with the hobby lots in general. :\ The only one I ever really use is the Cuisine one, and that just for food contests. I think what I’m eventually going to do, instead of fussing around to make over the hidden hobby lots, is just build all my own “hobby lots,” but just make them regular community lots and then use the Visitor Controller to limit their patronage to Sims for whom the dedicated hobby is their OTH. I think that would make them busier overall, which would be nice. They won’t have the hobby leaders...but if I wanted to, I could make them owned by the game-generated leaders, so they’d still be there...although I don’t know if they’d retain their “leader” functions, since I’d have to make them temporarily playable to buy the lots. It’ll be something to experiment with...one day. :) A large community-lot garden would be nice for Nature Sims to grow/maintain/harvest...although I suppose they’d have to stay on it for a number of days. And it’d be better if gardening was autonomous...And...

Well, anyway! it makes sense to have the hydroponic garden on the Nature lot, I suppose. I guess when the devs were building the lots, they just threw in anything that was related to (or “assigned” to, via the coding) that hobby that existed at the time.

delicatesoul88 replied to your post “So Tumblr decided to unfollow a bunch of people for me. :\”

It does that to me too! All the time! I really wish it wouldn't...

Yeah, I’ve seen people complaining about Tumblr unfollowing people as long as I’ve had a Tumblr. (Four years, geez!) Honestly, I always kind of suspected that people claimed that it did that in order to “cover up” the fact that they’d unfollowed people deliberately. But then it happened to me! And I didn’t even realize it! I just assumed those people had gone quiet for a while, as people do off and on...until I saw reblogs of posts that I didn’t recall having seen. And then I looked through the blogs I follow and, sure enough, they were no longer there. :\ I knew I didn’t do it, even by accident, because I don’t think I’ve ever unfollowed anyone, even when they announce they’re leaving... just in case they come back like, say, Trapping did. I’ll mute reblogs, sometimes, if they reblog a lot of non-Sims stuff, esp. real-world political/social things that I use Tumblr to escape from for a little while, but I’ll still want to see any original stuff they post. Otherwise I wouldn’t have followed them in the first place.

Anyway, yeah, it’s very, very annoying, and I wish that Tumblr would address whatever’s causing it. But then, Tumblr seems to like to try to control what we see, don’t they? :\ Thank God for Xkit! :D

eulaliasims replied to your post “Replies, yay!”

I love the graying snouts on the dogs too. :) Older doggos are great. Cats too! Kittens are lovely, but older cats are highly underrated. Grumpy old lady cats are the best.

Yeah, I have a huge soft spot for grumpy old lady cats. My own RL grumpy old lady cat passed away rather recently. (She was almost 19 when she got really sick and I decided to have her euthanized, so she had a good long, but always kind of sickly life, probably since she was a very runty runt of the litter.) Once she got past kittenhood, she wasn’t the cuddly kind -- she appreciated being petted and scritched and she would curl up next to you of her own volition, but would never get in a lap or tolerate being picked up or held -- but she was very chatty. She’d sit near me, and we’d have long cat-sound “conversations.” I often imagined that she was bitching to me about all the annoying young ‘uns and all the damn dogs underfoot.

I kinda wish the cats/dogs in game had more varied behaviors like that, but I understand the coding limitations and all. *sigh*

penig replied to your photoset “Samantha, childified. She looks just like Sage, down to the Vulcan...”

Bathtub piracy is one of the most important traits its possible to pass on.

YES IT IS! Bathtub piracy is probably one of those things that annoy a lot of people but that I just love, love, love. :)

penig replied to your photo “Later, the other Emmy GilsCarbo called this Emmy GilsCarbo. :) (The...”

You could start calling Simon's Emmy Em instead.

I could, yes...but I rather like confusing myself. Messing with my brain is so much fun! S’why I appreciate hallucinogens. :)

twofingerswhiskey replied to your post “SO MUCH DEGRASSED, THEY COULD CALL YOU DEGRASSI. okay there's my joke...”

The show is actually super popular, everyone I know has at least heard of it - it's been around for more than two generations, so I mean, yeah :D

Two generations? Really? I thought it was just a 90s thing. But then, I haven’t really watched TV since the early 90s, so there’s that. :) Anyway, I know the name of the show, but I know nothing about it other than that, since I never watched it. Seemed like it was aimed at a demographic that...isn’t me. :) My kids, maybe, but not me.

immerso-sims replied to your photoset “Annnnnd the younger daughter, Samantha. ”

Goopy and Sandy's genes still going strong!

They are! Goopy’s nose seems to override Sandy’s, but Sandy’s lips and jawline seem to override Goopy’s, so it all comes out even.

immerso-sims replied to your photo “Heeeey, Cherry! I totally just knocked up your daughter, man. It was...”

I am laughing way too hard at this :D

Yeah, I think Sam is pretty much the most amusing Sim I’ve had in my game, ever, and he’s not even a playable. And really, I kinda hope he never becomes playable because then he’d probably become all boringly domesticated. It’s just, as an ex-llama-mascot, he’s freakin’ everywhere, and he’s apparently in a sort of eternally-adolescent hormonal overdrive. Don “Lothario” is a total amateur compared to this guy. Some folks will probably dislike him for that (and perhaps will dislike me “glorifying” or approving of his behavior or whatever), but I take this game not-seriously-at-all, and I have never had a Sim who’s made me laugh so much, sometimes in exasperation but also because he just does goofy things. I’ve had ex-llamas in my game before, but they’ve not been nearly so entertaining.

#getmygameon #alicenorthernlights-blog #eulaliasims #penig #tamtam-go92 #didilysims #taylors-simblr #mortia #delicatesoul88 #twofingerswhiskey #immerso-sims #replies

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okamidensetsu · 6 years

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-4th Annual Best of List(s)-

The Rest Of The Best (of my acquired toys) of 2016

This is my rest of the best list for 2016. Not all of the toys above were necessarily released in 2016, I just happened to acquire them during that year.

These are the toys I cut out of my top 10…Yes! Top 10 toys of the year. 2016 was the year I purchased the most toys I have ever bought in a given year. And I’ve said it the past three years jokingly, but it’s been a tradition that I can never stick to a top five toys of the year. But I think due to the pure volume of good toys I’ve been fortunate enough to pick up, I’m finally throwing the top five rule out! But I digress... The toys on “The Rest of the Best” are not in any particular order, although there are 3 on this list that I wanted ever so badly to add to my top 10 that just had to be cut to refrain from having more than a top 10! Thanks for reading and enjoy!

This one is coming in January of 2018!! I’m over a year late!!!! Life certainly got in the way this past year and a half. I didn’t even start photographing these toys til 6 months ago. It’s been rough but I just couldn’t miss a year. I’m happy to start rolling these out finally!

The Rest Of The Best:

10. Star Wars The Black Series - 6″ Scarif Stormtrooper Squad Leader - I absolutely love this design! The Black Series does this suit justice! I would still love the chance to pick up the S.H. Figuarts version of this one, but TBS gets the job done here. This one has great paint apps and posability! Just a well rounded figure at this price point. My one complaint is the elbow joint, but because of the range of the hand/wrist joint I can pull off lots of poses rather naturally!

9. D-SPEC - Metal Gear Rex - I said it in my original post, but at retail pricing, I’m not sure I could recommend this figure. But I feel like the $30 - $50 range is perfect for this one. The pictures do a poor job of getting the overall cuteness of this one across! This is an amazing representation of Rex and all that he represents. The silhouette, despite its super deformed stylings, comes across perfectly. The engineering stuffed into this little form is also impressive. While its transformation into “tank” mode is rather simple (as is the actual transformation in-game), it still gets the job done and comes across really well. I’d highly recommend this one if the price is right!

8. Figma SP-068b - Sarah Bryant - Ironically this figure looks better than the original release of Virtua Fighter for the Saturn. And that statement alone is why I’m so very excited (as well as thoroughly confused) as to why or how this figure exists! When I saw these get announced, it was an instant pre-order. While it started out as an ironic (but also pricey) purchase the lasting effect was much more than a joke. I love the Figma Virtua Fighter releases. The nostalgia I have for this particular game is undeniable. I played the hell out of the original VF release growing up. Just owning these brings a smile to my face. And seeing them represented on my shelf is a surreal but beautiful thing. But this isn’t just pure nostalgia. This is another silky smooth figma release. Unlike the original game’s release; the janky polygon look really lends itself to GSC’s famous joint system and translates perfectly to an unhindered toy experience. Honestly Akira could have had this slot as well..but Sarah Bryant’s alt outfit is just so badass - it had to be here.

7. Lego General Grievous - I don’t feature Lego enough on my blog, but Grievous (and another certain set) made me change that almost immediately. The scale of this one is impressive to say the least. Almost a foot tall and boasting an arm span of around the same length, he is a behemoth of construction. And due to how he is constructed (and this goes for the rest of the line) he is very posable and playable! While I can’t say definitively that Grievous is in scale with the rest of his line-mates, he definitely looks it when standing next to the rest of the build-a-figures. Despite how you may feel about the prequels, Grievous has always been a fun character with an awesome design. If you can find it near retail (and especially below) I implore you to pick this one up! I guarantee you will still be impressed by the scale!

6. Transformers Titans Return Deluxe Wolfwire & Monxo - A toy I have dreamed of getting an updated release for years! Growing up with transformers and seeing G1 Weirdwolf for the first time ignited the idea of a grail in my childhood. Fifteen years later and here we are. While the hype for this one passed over me years ago, I was still very excited to be able to get this figure. I pre-ordered this wave months prior to release to just to be sure...and it was all for Wolfwire. This one might be higher on my list if his name were still Weirdwolf. Just kidding. Wolfwire is pretty good too. I was thoroughly impressed with the wolf mode and his robot mode. I am not usually impressed by the posability of a Transformers “vehicle mode” but the quadruped was very emotive! What a treat at the Deluxe scale.

5. Lego Ideas Wall-E - I love Lego. I love Wall-E. This Lego Ideas set was a perfect match. Coming in at a fun and impressive scale, Wall-E is playable in all the ways you’d expect and (just like his on-screen counterpart) incredibly emotive in its subtlety. I mean Wall-E is like 75% eye movement/head nods and this nails it. @approachingfarewell and I had a really great night drinking and building this one together. The one complaint I had was remedied before I even opened the box. The neck joint from the original build is kind of a hot mess, but they include an alternative build in the box. And if for whatever reason you don’t have these instructions, you can pull them up online.

4. Acid Rain - The Taste of Coffee - Acid Rain delivers again. This time a set based on the story that started it all. I gush about this line constantly. This one delivers on everything you would expect: incredible amounts of detail, playability and durability. The new feature here is the gore. I did not want to picture that here but if you wanted to see what that looks like you can click on the link to the original set. I really hope they include gore with future releases as well. It adds another layer of grit to these toys that other lines just don’t have.

3. Play Arts Kai - D-Dog - I freaking love D-Dog! It’s very rare we get a quadruped representation of a given character (and I just so happen to have two on this list)! Usually animal representation is relegated to a small statue or a simplified toy. So not only was it a surprise that this DD was released, but it was also a great figure in its own right. I could get DD to sit..which on its own is very impressive. Not only does this one has a lot of range, but it also boasts lots of great accessories too. You actually have some decent customization/load out options for your desk operations. I got this goodboi on sale and I feel like that was a steal...but also the retail price for all of the PAK these days are just gross. Get this at a price you are comfortable paying and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

2. Transformers Titans Return Legends Gnaw - This was a great year for Legends releases. Another certain Legends release will be featured in my Top 10 but unfortunately this one just missed the cut. This ferocious yet adorable release was one I regret not army building while I had the chance. I might try to get a Takara version that’s how impressed I am with this release! While limited by the sculpt, there is just so much detail and character in this little package it’s really easy to look past these minor grievances and appreciate what is there. But unfortunately there were just some toys that did it better for me. It was really hard for me to put this one lower on my list but I cannot recommend this figure enough. Even if it’s just to have as a little desk buddy.

1. Transformers Titans Return Deluxe Brainstorm - What a shame that this was a limited release. In my opinion this was a better use of the Blurr mold than Blurr himself. The wings of Brainstorm in vehicle mode add so much more to the silhouette that I feel this should have been the Brainstorm mold, and then Blurr could have been the limited release. But that is purely a personal belief. This all comes down to aesthetics, and this one just does it all for me. I mean look at that cockpitcone-gunshield thing! It looks fantastic in vehicle mode and held in robot mode. And the colors. If you were to put Brainstorm’s colors on a pallet wheel I wouldn’t even know where to begin but they sure made them work here. It breaks up the sculpt incredibly well. I love this figure. It was so hard to take this off my Top 10..but alas here we are. The top 10 starts here!

Thank you for reading! I will start posting my Top Toys of 2016 soon!

『Toys of The Year 2016』

#toys #toys of the year 2016 #toys of the year #mgs toys #mgs #d dog #star wars #star wars toys #figma #the black series #lego #transformers #titans return #transformers titans return #toy photography

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bnrobertson1 · 4 years

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“The Old Guard” (BRNR #35)

Watching Netflix’s The Old Guard on a rainy Sunday afternoon, an accusatory bolt hit my brain: am I close-minded? Here’s a film with decent (if derivative) action scenes, a non-terrible narrative about immortal do-gooders that hardly seems ridiculous in the Marvel-era, and Charlize Theron clearly trying to recapture the fire of Fury Road’s Furiosa. I should be on board, or at least entertained. Alas, I found the experience to be just awful.

At first, I was disappointed in myself. I thought for sure a lot of my bored malice towards the film was based on some sort of subconscious contempt towards the showiness of its “progressive” values, that posit corporations are evil and that women and homosexuals can kill just as good as 80s Schwarzenegger*. After all, the film pretty much had all the makings of a good, dumb action flick- cool locations, neat weapons, well-considered production design. The story certainly had more ambition than, say, the John Wick series, a film series I have simply adored. Did I have some deep-rooted prejudice that restricted my enjoyment of this piece of popcorn entertainment? Soul searching followed…

*Not to brag, but I spelled that correctly on my first attempt.

…and discovered that nope, I’m good. The reason I didn’t like the movie is because it is joyless. Starting from the offset, The Old Guard takes a ridiculous self-serious posture that plagues its far-too-long running time. Sure, there are swings at tongue-in-cheek Schwarzeneggerian* quips here and there, but they seem like they were written by an international conglomerate of scribes then strung through Google translate about a half dozen times (“She’s forgotten more ways to kill than most armies know”- what in the fuck are you talking about?). The filmmakers clearly thought they were telling a serious story, which, good for them, but instead of nailing the fun part of an action film, they want to make it clear that they are trying to subvert the form. You can almost hear the high-five in the crowded writer’s room when a (in fairness, not poorly written) homosexual proclamation of love pops up its head about halfway in- but it’s absurd, forced placement makes it feel like a box checked as opposed to a moment earned, transforming the attempt at gravitas into “Good God, fuck this movie.” *That one took a couple tries

Action movies are by their very nature ridiculous. People who can take out full rooms of highly trained paramilitary types just using an axe and a pistol simply don’t exist. That’s why the best realize how silly they are, even if they’re trying to make a bigger statement about whatever cause. I mentioned the simplicity of John Wick* earlier, but that’s one of the funniest, best things about the movie- the neighborhoods of bodies decimated due to a dog’s death makes the absurdity of the film all the more clear, fun, and- in its own way- profound. *A film which I firmly believe is actually about America’s unhealthy obsession with pets

Playing action films totally straight rarely works. Christopher Nolan may be the only modern director who can do it. I’m sure there might be some who found the messaging in The Old Guard as profound as The Matrix (a textbook example of something that was better when it embraced it’s silliness). And good for them- but it’s critical adoration says more about more about modern criticism’s goals than the qualities of the film itself. Putting a progressive wrapper on your banal action movie doesn’t elevate it.

My point better illustrated by Parks and Recreation:

dailymotion

Oh, the movie gets a D because it made me self-reflect needlessly.

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nomanicsdak · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://manicdak.com/unfinished-business/

Unfinished Business

We are back! Not months and months later for once! Right now, I am questless, so it’s time to search out some more exclamation points and question marks! I find a temple of Posiden which is right next to some dudes practicing thier long jump, which is more like a hop. Are they training for the Olympics perhaps? I also find the wreck of the Argo in this area. You know, the ship Jason piloted. I do not find any golden fleeces here, just the guard that is chasing me around. After I collect all the treasure from Posiden’s temple, I run directly into the neighboring bandit camp.

Don’t Bite Me!!!

Pause. Why are bandit’s setting up camp mere feet from a guard filled temple??? Well, these bold bandit’s team up with the guard’s chasing me, and it’s all a recipe for desyncronization. It doesn’t help that I keep hitting the button for calling Ikaros instead of the one for my sword. On the second go round, I’m succeeding, but trying not to kill any precious attack doggos. Luckily I don’t have to, because a wolf shows up to dispatch half the bandit camp and thier little dogs too. Thank you, wild doggo.

Just as I reach Korinth and some person in a camp with a timed quest—I open the quest screen to discover that I am not done with the brother’s post-quest meetups. Tim also wants to meet me apparently. Well, he should have said so with words instead of sidelong glances. I guess we can do a quick backtrack and “spar” with him. Hopefully that is not some sort of double entendre, but I also learn that thier questline is called A Brother’s Seduction, so—

Shark Hunter Was Here

Before I have to fight anybody, even if it ends up being romantic fighting, the game beseeches me to please! please! replace my gear with better stuff from my inventory, so let’s do that. Then, I have to steal a fishing boat with a bunch of sharks strapped to it, Old Man and the Sea style, because Tim is on some rocks in the middle of the water.

Okay, well, I can do hearts dialogue with this guy too, but I do not choose that, since I already did with Lykinos and it just doesn’t feel right. We’re just going to fight instead! The backstory here is that he used to spar with his dad on this rock out in the ocean, and he still comes there to be sad. He doesn’t seem to actually want to spar, so we’ll see how this goes.

Update!: So he has PTSD for sure. After Alexios beats him in the sparring match, he is clearly having flashbacks to some sort of trauma. He thinks he is going to lose control and murder me, and — Oh, god — timed choices. Crapness. Does it even matter, or am I going to truly cock thins up if I pick the wrong ones? I end up talking him down from the ledge in any case.

We get to also have a heart to heart. Turns out he did once lose control and murder a fellow during battle. Yikes, dude. That was why he was discharged from the army. He hid this from his dad, so he could make him proud. I comfort him until he feels better and then we stare stoically into the sunset, thinkin’ about all the murder we’ve perpetrated I presume.

It is Assassin’s Creed after all.

After this, the game informs me that I should check up on the bros back at their house, so I guess we’ll do that. I get back on the sharkboat and paddle my way back to shore. When I get there , the place is trashed and Lykinos is crying in a corner. Dammit. The bandits abducted Tim. I have to go rescue him now!

Seriously, eff these bandits. They’re all going down! You want money, so leave all the money on the table and steal Tim??

Off I go to a new area of the map and the bandits are holed up in some giant fortress. I run around getting them all first, because I learned the hard way that they’ll just kill the prisoners that you free if you let them out before all the bandits are gone.

When I let Tim out, he doesn’t want to go because there are still bandits??? Some of the dudes I let out of cages are running around and they kill the last one that I didn’t find right as I arrive, and finally we get a cut scene of Alexios calming Tim down.

Top Bad Guy

Hey, remember when I was wondering if there was a bigger loan shark? I found him. The actual bandit leader, not all the guys I just assassinated shows up. As it turns out, dear old dad was not only hitting up the loan sharks, but he was working for them as a smuggler too. One time he took money from them for gambling and they killed him for it. They never got the money back, so that’s why they’re hassling my boys. I should probably just stab these shady ne’er do wells , but instead I pay for the debts myself!

Lykinos makes his case

Tim makes his case

Once that is done, the boys thank Alexios and then start fighting over him. Tim never thought he would see happiness again like when he is with Alexios, and Lykinos thinks we’re soulmates. Oh, boy. Lol, I get options to choose one or the other, or neither. I choose neither, because—and I repeat, my heart belongs to the cute country doctor and/or the man-ho of Greece, Alkibiades. The bros are both super disappointed and walk away. Sorry, bros! I must keep moving on!

I head back to Korinthia, stopping to defeat a huntress camp and to see what quests I have in the queue already, I find one about helping a captain on a beach, so I head off in that direction. Along the way I learn that Alexios thinks carrying boats over land is a dumb idea. Clearly he and Fitzcarraldo have wildly different opinions on this. I arrive at the handsome pirate’s shore. Let’s see what he has going on.

Hello, Captain!

Here’s the story… Soldiers have been taking out pirates. Obviously, I am on the side of the pirates in thi situation somehow. Cool. Well, anyway, this dude’s brother went out to take on the military and didn’t come back. I choose the cagey option when I reveal I know he got eaten by sharks. I don’t tell him that I visited his bro’s grave. (This is one of the graves I went to when that lady asked me her obtuse riddle last time.) This guy’s new plan is to build an unsinkable ship that surely the army won’t be able to defeat and thus his village will be saved.

Is his villiage the boat? Like—I’m pretty sure if the military wanted to exact revenge or something, they could just burn the village to the ground? But I probably shouldn’t give them any ideas. I’m here to gather supplies though! I have to collect only Olive wood, which I already have because I walk or swim everywhere and pick up everything along the way. (Sorry, Phobos! I love you, good horse-o, but I always forget you exist!)

Next I have to go get a protective eye from a shipwreck—If the eye is protective, then how come it’s in a shipwreck? Oh, well. Who am I to question lucky charms. Off we swim!

Okay, the eye was on pirate guy’s old ship. He’s sad about how the pirate ways led to such death, and Alexios advises him that maybe he could use Titanic II for other things besides piracy. He agrees and pays me the last of the pirate treasure for good measure. Alright!

Titanic II

Now, I learn that this dude was part of that old lady’s riddle quest. Why do these quest lines keep making me think I’m finished when I’m not? I supposed I’ll return to her and help the guy who’s brother got eaten by a lion? Let’s find out! Who is this woman??? IS she a goddess? She’s sending me to a volcano island now, and is curious to know about what my gathering wood and advising the dude to quit piracy says about my character. I mean, I’ll do it, because she’s behaving suspiciously witch/godlike. I mean, the prince got turned into a beast because he didn’t help the old lady in disguise, right? Volcano island it is!

But first, I have to retrieve a key from a graveyard hermit, because this quest has something to do with this lady’s locked vault. I return to the graveyard to meet the hermit, and he is also a weird duck. A weird duck who doesn’t have the key. He left it on a guarded island somewhere. Gee, thanks. I guess it’s time for a swim. Or not. It’s far enough away that I have to find a dock and call Barny.

As it turns out, this thing is guarded by lions. Is this the test? and not volcano island? Well, it is a location that requires me to kill the alpha lion so— I shoot them all accidentally with knockout arrows because I forgot I used up all the pointy ones. As it turns out, taming the alpha animal will also clear the location, so now I have a lion friend for as long as it takes me to get back to my boat I guess.

Lion friend tearin’ up the town

OMG. He came with me! Lol, I return to the old lady and lion friend materializes out of nowhere. Surprise, lady! I brought one with me! He’s off to go fight the guards that were chasing me, so I’m afraid he wont be long for this world after all. Alas.

I return the key and learn that I am going to Haephestus’s foundry to find a helmet and not a volcano…thought I guess it could also be a volcano. I am ready as I’ll ever be, lady! Let’s do it!

Update: The guard’s did not kill Lion!

#assassin's creed #odyssey #Assassin's Creed #Games #Odyssey

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dadsontour · 7 years

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Dads on tour: Things operate a little differently in Argentina

My dad loves to write a holiday letter. And they’re usually too funny not to share. Names have been changed to protect fellow passengers (you’ll understand why)…

This letter is the latest update on the current jaunt around South America.

“It was interesting that the passports were processed overnight on the boat by the Argentineans, content to put a stamp inside, and then assume everyone found their way off the boat and onshore at Ushuaia. Then, on passing through security to board for El Calafate, no need to take out the computer, “just go through!”

El Calafate is quite a few degrees north of Ushuaia and finds itself at the southern end of the northern Patagonia if you get what I mean.

Clearly not enough pre travel research done here as it came as a surprise to be out on the Argentinean steppe, with snow covered mountains in the distance. Not too much grows here, even the sheep are sparsely spread.

The calafate berry however is fairly common across all environments in this part of the world – a fruit very similar to a blueberry but growing on an incredibly threatening bush best described as a cross between a box thorn and a blackberry, but more thorns! Needless to say it is possible to load up on its jam, wine, soaps and anything else that can be flavoured.

Argentina seems to be grappling with tourism as a means of boosting the floundering economy in these parts. Prices are all over the place. Yes staple items seem cheap (the humble empanada, Sth America’s answer to the meat pie, is everywhere) but then anything with a scent of tourism about it, starts at $150 (that would be 150 Argentinean Pesos - roughly $10USD).

With a change to a conservative government just over 12 months ago there is an attempt to cool down inflation but the figures were released yesterday showing that the inflation rate for the year just gone was 36% with 25% expected in 2017.

That is a country in turmoil, which under the previous government just printed more money and claimed inflation was not a problem. The Big Mac index was manipulated by doing a deal with McDonalds that the Big Mac had to be the cheapest in the world here if they wanted to trade in Argentina.

To fill in an afternoon waiting for the bus to head further north, what better than a long walk to and around a wetland, supposedly displaying local birdlife – yes 150 Pesos later and having seen a few gulls and 3 stray dogs a contribution to the economy had been made! A few days later I subsequently found the birdlife in abundance further around the bay – they too seemingly didn’t want to pay admission.

“The buses are an experience in themselves. Both the buses and the drivers are oversized.”

From here a short bus ride of 210 kms finds the far north outpost of Patagonia at El Chaten. The buses are an experience in themselves. Oversized (both the buses and the drivers), the buses come with an air horn that seems to be the driver’s main weapon as he blasts it incessantly to terrorise smaller vehicles as well as greet all his friends along the way.

It was not difficult to translate the airhorn messages. The road (Ruta 40) has its own “legendary” history, snaking north to south through Argentina as far as politics and waterways will permit. It is well made but comes with painted sidelines only, lending itself to some degree of negotiation (for want of a better word) about where the centre of the road is.

The buses work on Sth American time of course (as one Argentinean said to me, there is no word in Spanish that literally means NOW, rather than say sometime in the next 15 minutes).

“The lottery of preallocated bus seating”

Having paid the 20 pesos tax to “use” the bus terminal, the lottery of preallocated bus seating had me seated beside an Italian traveller who was couch surfing through South America whilst doing his PhD in Taiwan, before returning to his Italian roots mid year (only child and his parents wanted him back!) to set up a permaculture business.

Of course his supervisor was not aware he was out of Taiwan and Piedro was still contemplating how he would explain unavailability for a meeting in Taiwan next Friday, let alone that he wouldn’t be back until March! Adding new meaning to “working from home”, his thesis on the impact of radiation on permacultures near power stations hit hurdles getting any radiation data from the Government, but of course the PhD was going on.

El Chalten is a small village of 600 people in winter, exploding to backpacker central in summer. If you are not compressed between an oversized backpack and a day pack on the chest, then there is an uncomfortable feeling of being out of place.

Of course this is way beyond the travel plans of the American traveller – not too many backpacks there! Apart from Argentineans in large numbers, French, German and Australian accents abound. With a degree of embarrassment I extracted my suitcase with wheels from the luggage pit of the bus and headed off directly over the road to a hostelia as the burdened down back packers headed off into the distance to find their hostels much further along the one main (paved) road that joined the 15 blocks of El Chalten.

So what is the difference between a hostelia and a hostel? I suspect it starts with being opposite the bus terminal and having an ensuite, but let’s not get too carried away, having the proportions of a typical Japanese hotel room, where the walls can almost be touched from the centre of the room and in this case where the walls and ceilings are so thin that the snoring above and beside booms in!

A hostelia, as with a hostel no doubt, has a friendly feeling. People talk! On the first morning I met some Brits sharing a transfer out to a strategic starting point on the walk to Mt Fitzroy. The conversation was interrupted mid sentence by “Is that a British accent I hear?” directed at the people behind. Oh the excitement - they had not met a single Brit in the last two weeks.

“Brits can’t afford to travel now you know”

I was dropped like a hot spud as they shared their stories of what they managed to book pre Brexit and how they are now suffering. “Brits can’t afford to travel now you know” My immediate thoughts were of a penniless Barmy Army unable to make the journey to Australia next summer.

The fellow Brit behind was contemplating how she could face up to ever working full time again – she liked her travel. “We thought we met some Brits the other day but they turned out to be Australians” said in disgust! Needless to say I met them many times over, he craving for a “good feed of hake” and she for wi-fi. Alas they would be back in Bath by mid week.

Armed with a “hostelia lunchbox” (150 pesos of course!) the walk to Mt Fitzroy o Chalten provided another set of stunning landscapes with the physical challenge of a rise of 400 metres in the last 1 km to the glacial lake at the base of the peak.

They were deciding to take a naked plunge into the glacial waters to test the impact of glaciation on the human appendage “

With many many people doing this walk at this time of year the stage was set for an extrovert or two, so there they were deciding to take a naked plunge into the glacial waters to test the impact of glaciation on the human appendage – they soon found out! I guess by now the whole performance is across Facebook many times over.

The second most popular walk is of similar distance, but supposedly up a much more gentle slope to Lago Torres, another glacial lake, containing lots of icebergs.

A gentle walk in a glacial valley – there is an oxymoron with boulders to be dodged and climbed over. Nevertheless, another meeting with Piedro along the track indicated that the PhD wasn’t progressing too far. Once at the lake with some great views, which could have been even greater had the cloud blown away (but not to be), the option existed for a short climb further up the moraine to look down on the glacier as it breaks off into the lake.

Welcome Demitrios, who has travelled to these parts from Greece, joining a camping trip in a yellow truck which started back in Quito in November and will finish at Rio for the Carnivale. Now Demitrios asked if he could follow me up this track as he was scared of heights.

“I must be in the centre of the photo, everytime!”

I soon found out why he wanted to follow. “Could you take a photo of me here please?” ... and here...and here! “I must be in the centre of the photo, everytime!” OK he has a photo of himself hiding the glacier, etc, etc. I left Demitrios at the top contemplating if he would break away from his camping trip as he didn’t really like camping anyway. “You know I am a winter swimmer” No, before you think it there were icebergs in this lake!

An early morning departure from El Chalten back to El Calafate with a bus driver obsessed with his air horn ensured that those bedraggled backpackers some of whom looked like they had slept on the hard earth with their thin sleeping mats (I do remember!) one night too many could not get any rest onboard.

I travelled beside an Argentinean student who had studied law and decided he could not change the world by that means so had turned to studying his passion (music) and doing the things he really wanted to do. Interesting conversation as he spoke of life in B.A. post the election a year ago where as he put it a bad government took over from a poorly performing one.

He was genuinely concerned for his future as a young person in Argentina. All of that said he reminded me of how safe a place Argentina is for travel (“but be very careful in B.A.”)

So, back to El Calafate for one last dose of Patagonia to visit the amazing Perito Moreno Glacier, the glacier of all glaciers in the park. A quick check in to the hotel which seemed to waver between being upmarket and mutton dressed up as lamb. It is located on the Avenue of the Liberator –South American cities seem to make big statements in their street names.

With a small degree of pain and suffering in the calves from the previous few days of walking, taking the elevator up the one floor seemed a good alternative. Good, until it refused to open at piso 2.

“The lift is stuck, get me out of here!”

Now here’s a challenge, Spanish classes didn’t extend to “The lift is stuck, get me out of here!” No phone available so what does a person do? Ringing the alarm bell and thumping on the door didn’t produce the desired result. In time the sound of a vacuum cleaner was in earshot and with increased intensity of bashing on the door, eventually a room service man came to the rescue forcing the door open. Needless to say the lift has been out of service since.

Perito Moreno Glacier lived up to expectations, even if it came after grappling with a bus load of “locals” who had to be first off the bus, first on the boat, in the best positions for selfies on the boat for the first 5 minutes before going back inside and then first off the boat.

What an amazing sight to see pieces of ice calving off the front of the glacier and crashing to the water with a noise equivalent to a clap of thunder. At 70 metres in height at the front, it is a lot of ice coming into the water.

Wow! Patagonia has been absolutely amazing and has certainly lived up to all the expectations I had prior to the trip.

Dad

#travel #travelblog #travelblogger #Patagonia #argentina

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swapnagangadharan · 6 years

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We got out of the jeep and were totally in awe of the surroundings, a 360 degree view of the huge mountains up close and that glacier.. Were we dreaming? That’s exactly how we felt..

The stone homes looked enigmatic and there was no one there. Manoj went up to the deserted village to check if anyone came back yet. We meandered, walking around in a daze.

Then out came one, then two. Yup just two men giving us quizzical looks. Manoj knew one of them. He was Gambhir Singh, he used to study with Manoj at Dharchula school and he was truly Gambhir with no smile, just looking at us, while the other guy was smiling but silent.

We introduced ourselves and asked them if we could stay here for the night? Anything can be arranged? We just wanted to explore the mountains and spend some time here. And slowly they warmed up to us.

It looked sunny but it was still cold and it was afternoon, so Gambhir opened his Dhaba and the other guy made us Hot Maggie noodles. Manoj joined in and we three were so hungry we just slurped the noodles.

I saw a PCO/STD booth and badly wanted to call someone to say Hey guess where I am? That one crazy phone call! But alas! it was not operational.

As we started chatting, they informed us that the village was still empty. There were only two other guys, Gambhir Singh’s father who was the Sarpanch and Santu Singh. The women and children with the live stock would start their journey back here in a week’s time or so. We were so glad there were at least 4 of them.

We spoke passionately about the Mountains, where we came from and we spoke wholeheartedly. We were very happy to be here and we told them that.

In no time we all became friends, yes,the inhibitions in each one of us just went away and by this time Manoj had become really close to us. So we asked him, can he stay back? We would love to have him with us .We can explore tomorrow morning up and beyond the village and the meadows Gambhir and the other guy was talking about and then leave for Dharchula in the evening.

Manoj by now didn’t require much convincing 🙂 He smiled and said Kyo Nahi? On our way towards the village he had seen that his savari of Army Jawans had already been picked up by another vehicle, we saw them crossing by so he said there was no point in going back empty handed and he needed a holiday too 🙂

The other guy with Gambhir Singh was nicknamed ‘INDIAN’ yup, they called him Indian because he preferred a certain brand of rum that was called Indian! Another name they called him was ‘Chura Liya’. I don’t know what’s the reason for that name though!

And get ready for this, They were all a big fan of Allu Arjun! For those who were lucky enough to not know this Allu Arjun, let me initiate you. He is one of the popular heroes of Telugu Cinema, a whatnot mass hero, and to think of all places I had to hear that the whole village loved him. All his movies were dubbed in Hindi and he was pretty popular this side! For God’s sake, Hyderabad and Telugu Cinema was haunting me here too!

Bhim told me that I should somehow get this message across to Allu Arjun that he had a huge fan following in Uttarakhand and honestly I do want to tell that midget hero about it!

The way we all warmed up to each other was incredible I tell you. I doubt if we would have been that open and free back in the cities to strangers. Here there was no suspicion, no mistrust. The people of the hills are wonderful and I only hope time and again that nothing should taint their genuineness.

Then Gambhir Singh (I called him Gautam Gambhir 🙂 ) told us he had a surprise and off we went with him, walked up to the village homes and he took us to this stone home and inside past the dilapidated rooms, deep inside was a snooker table!! Yup snooker table of all things! A proper room at that! We laughed out loud. Who would think of all things, this would be there in the most remote of places!

Bhim, Gambhir, Manoj and Indian played Snooker while I watched,laughed and played Hindi Music to motivate them. It was fun to watch them, chatting up and I could see Bhim enjoying himself thoroughly! Who would think we would end up doing all this at 10,000 feet altitude? 🙂

After almost two hours we took our backpacks from the jeep and were led up to the topmost area of the village. There was just silence. All homes were traditionally locked with a cloth and iron paddle like the olden times. What a backdrop the village had. The Mountains and the stone homes were dazzling.

No matter how much one treks, the huffing and panting always exists . So we huffed and puffed all the way up on the incline to our room. It was a beautiful stone house and the moment we saw our room,we were delighted. Two comfortable beds set up step by step and a small window and everything inside was traditional. It was very welcoming. We were happy and thankful that we had a shelter for the night and we truly felt this was luxury.

We asked about wild animals and they said wild animals come when no one is in the village so we asked, so will there be wild animals in the night here because there were only 4 people now, almost empty and they only smiled and said Na Na! It would be a little scary to answer Nature’s calls outside in the night but we had our head lamps and that was good enough.

After throwing our backpacks in the room, we decided to go for a stroll outside the village, just walk ahead and see where it takes us. Manoj was going with Gambhir and Indian to get some firewood for them, it was going to get pretty cold.

We started walking along with no one in sight and absolute pin drop silence. It seemed like even the Mountains and the wind wanted to be still.

We kept walking until we saw a small clearing, we climbed up to it and sat on top of a big rock. We were blissfully happy and you can see from our pics how much. We were joking, laughing, sometimes just silence, solitude, one doesn’t need to communicate in words, it’s just there. We were taking it all in.

It was almost 4.30 pm and in the Himalayas one never knew how everything could get suddenly dark. So we slowly started our walk back and looked up to the mountains and the dense forest up there, who knew what all animals were there?

As we reached the village, suddenly Bhim pointed me to something behind me and what do I see? A little rascal of a puppy, so happy and ecstatic he was bouncing towards us! Like All the way down almost crashing towards us 🙂

Oh Gosh, I can still feel that furball! He was a hardy stock, coming from mountain dog breeds, he was just a few months old but he had such character and individuality! Nibbling on our hands and feet, he was seriously happy seeing us! Some new humans smell finally in this deserted village! He was yelping in happiness and he ran up with us as we went to relax in our room. And his name? TIM TIM 🙂

He took turns in jumping from my bed to Bhim’s bed taking all the pampering and belly rubs he could possibly get and Boing! just like that he ran out again! I so wished he could stay with us for the night and hoped he would be inside some room at night. He was an easy prey right now being so young.

Gambhir and Indian brought us Hot Chai and Manoj joined us with Santu Singh. We all sat on the bed and had a great time. We chatted about our lives, the village and everything light hearted, it was all Masti!(fun). It tells me always, there are no barriers or boundaries really, we complicated humans screw it unnecessarily.

So what was the plan tomorrow? Indian would take us to explore beyond the village and he said you have no idea what you are going to see tomorrow! Usually locals didn’t like outsiders to explore without their permission but he could manage because there were so few of them here anyways. Gambhir also said he might join us, we insisted he must. We had become such a tight group.

I asked about TIM TIM and Gambhir said it was his puppy and he always keeps him inside the house for the night. Thank God!

It was pitch dark by 6 pm and we were huddled in the room, they had a solar lamp which they gave to us. They brought us hot dinner at 7 pm and I mean hot in steel tiffin boxes. Rotis, Rice, Onions and the most delicious Dal I tell you! We hogged, like really hogged and wiped it clean.

They told us to be ready by 7.30 am the next day, it was going to be quite a long trek. It will take a whole day and we had to start off to Dharchula before it got dark. The routes looked dangerous in day light itself, we couldn’t take a chance. They would wake us up at 6.30 am.

It was only 8 pm but it was late night mountain time so we wanted to rest up and maybe pinch ourselves to see if this was real? The whole day felt unreal, the way it went. The journey, the village, the people, Tim Tim and to know that we were going up towards the mountains tomorrow, close to the Glacier! We didn’t expect we would ever do that!

As we lied down, Bhim and I were chatting and we decided to play Antakshari, yup just two crazy persons but here is the glitch, we would play Antakshari only to 90’s Hindi film songs, Yes Sir! It was hilarious as we sparred on songs, halted, sang badly and slowly drifted off to sleep.What a day…

Mountains, Indian & Tim Tim – Part XIV We got out of the jeep and were totally in awe of the surroundings, a 360 degree view of the huge mountains up close and that glacier..

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holcouk · 6 years

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Letters from the Western Front: Sister Kate Luard’s 1917

Hannah Salisbury, Engagement and Events Manager, with thanks to Caroline Stevens for sharing extracts from Kate’s letters relating to the Battle of Passchendaele

As 2017 draws to a close we may well reflect on what the year has brought, to ourselves, our families and friends, and the wider world.

Doubtless our ancestors did the same thing 100 years ago, as the First World War dragged on into the new year.

Sister Kate Luard, an Essex nurse who volunteered for military service, had by this time been serving as a nurse on the Western Front for three years and three months. She must have seen countless soldiers suffering from all sorts of unthinkable wounds pass through her wards, and still there was no end in sight.

1917 brought some of the biggest challenges and most dangerous situations that Kate would face during the war, and these are detailed in the letters she sent home to her family. To help put the letters into a geographical context, please see the map at the end of this post which tracks some of the locations where Kate wrote from during 1917. Many of the letters quoted here are reproduced in Unknown Warriors: The Letters of Kate Luard, RRC and Bar, Nursing Sister in France, 1914-1918 – these are referenced here as UW.

Some of Kate Luard’s letters sent to her family during her First World War service

From early March until early June 1917 Kate was with No. 32 Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) in Warlencourt, in between Bapaume and Beaumont-Hamel. Her early letters from there describe the business of getting the CCS ready to go, in preparation for what would become the Battle of Arras. The construction of huts and tents took place in the snow and within range of the German guns. On Sunday 4th March she wrote of her first night there:

We had a lively night last night. We were cosily tucked up in bed with dozens of blankets, and our oil stoves burning in our canvas huts and I’d just put my lamp out, when big enemy shells came whizzing overhead from two directions. They burst a long way past us, but made a tremendous noise being fired (from a big naval gun they run up close to their line), and loud screams overhead. Our 9.2s and 12-inch in the wood here kept it up all night with lions’ roars. (Sunday 4th March 1917, UW)

In her role as sister in charge, Kate was not only responsible for organising the nursing staff and orderlies, but also for running the Mess and keeping everyone fed:

Feeding them is going to weigh heavily no my chest. It is one person’s job to run a Mess at the Back of Beyond, and I have this Hospital (700 beds) to run for night and day, with the peculiar difficulties of a new-born unfinished Camp, and emergency work. For the Mess you settle a rice putting, but there is no rice, and the cows have anthrax, so there’s no fresh milk, and the Canteen has run out of Ideal milk. Well, have a jam tart; lots of jam in the British Army, but no flour, no suet, no tinned fruits, no eggs, no beans or dried peas, not one potato each. But there is bacon, ration bread and tinned butter (when you can get it), jam, marmalade sometimes, cheese, stew, Army biscuits, tea, some sugar, and sometimes mustard, and sometimes oatmeal and cornflour. Also we have only 1½ lbs of coal per person per day, so when that is used up you have to go and look for wood, to cook your dinner and boil your water. Everyone is ravenous in this high air and outdoor life, and so long as there’s enough of it, you can eat anything. None of them I hope will grumble if we can work up the true Active Service spirit, but it is an anxiety. (Monday 12 March 1917, UW).

Once the hospital was ready to go but the fighting not yet begun, Kate and two other nurses took the opportunity to explore the surrounding areas:

Then you come to what was Gommécourt. It must have been, when it existed, full of orchards, and half in and half out of a wood. Now there is one wall of one house left. The wood and the orchards are blackened spikes sticking up out of what looks now like a mad confusion of deep trenches and deep dug-outs battered to bits. We went with an electric torch down two staircases of one and stepped into a pond at the bottom. Some are dry and clean and have the beds still in them. You step over unexploded shells, bombs and grenades of every description – and we saw one aerial torpedo – an ugly brute. I picked up a nose-cap; and the sapper who was with us said hastily, ‘That’s no good,’ and snatched it out of my hand and threw it out of sight; it still had the detonator in it. Then he picked one up without its detonator and gave it to me… Here you get to see the culmination of destruction for which all civilised nations are still straining all their resources. Isn’t it hopelessly mad? (Friday 23 March 1917, UW)

(Q 4915) Branchless trees and shattered house. Gommecourt, March 1917. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://ift.tt/2keP7eH

The Battle of Arras began on Easter Monday, 9th April 1917. The following day Kate wrote:

The 3rd Army went over the top yesterday… all is splendid, but here are horrors all day and all night… All are doing 16 hours on and 8 off and some of us 18 on and 6 off… Stretchers on the floor are back-breaking work, and one’s feet give out after a certain time, but as long as one’s head and nerves hold out, nothing else matters and we are all very fit… The wards are like battlefields, with battered wrecks in every bed and on stretchers between the beds and down the middles… The Theatre teams have done 70 operations in the 24 hours. (Tuesday 10 April, UW)

By 25th July 1917 Kate and No. 32 CCS had moved on to Brandhoek, to specialise in treating severe abdominal wounds. They were stationed close behind the lines at what would become the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). Kate was in charge of 40 nurses and almost 100 nursing orderlies.

This venture so close to the Line is of the nature of an experiment in life-saving, to reduce the mortality rate from abdominal and chest wounds. Hence this Advanced Abdominal Centre, to which all abdominal and chest wounds are taken from a large attacking area, instead of going on with the rest to the C.C.S.’s six miles back. We are entirely under Canvas, with huge marquees for Wards, except the Theatre which is a long hut. The Wards are both sides of a long, wide central walk of duckboards. (Friday 27 July, UW)

Everything has been going at full pitch – with the 12 Teams in Theatre only breaking off for hasty meals – the Dressing Hut, the Preparation Ward and Resuscitation and the four huge Acute Wards, which fill up from the Theatre; the Officers’ Ward, the Moribund and German Ward. Soon after 10 o’clock this morning he [Fritz] began putting over high explosives. Everyone had to put on tin hats and carry on. They burst on two sides of us, not 50 yards away – no direct hits on to us but streams of hot shrapnel. …. they came over everywhere, even through our Canvas Huts in our q

CB Mail Sender

uarters. Luckily we were so frantically busy. It doesn’t look as if we should ever sleep again. Of course, a good many die, but a great many seem to be going to do. We get them one hour after injury, which is our ‘raison d’être’ for being here. It is pouring rain, alas, and they are brought in sopping. (July 31st, 11pm)

Stretcher bearers at Passchendaele (Imperial War Museums)

It has been a pretty frightful day – 44 funerals yesterday and about as many to-day. After 24 hours of peace the battle seems to have broken out again; the din is terrific. (Wednesday, August 1st, UW)

Crowds of letters from mothers and wives who’ve only just heard from the W.O. [War Office] and had no letter from me, are pouring in, and have to be answered. I’ve managed to write 200 so far, but there are 466. (Monday, September 3rd, UW)

On 5 September Kate was allowed a spell of leave and she returned to England for a couple of weeks, returning to France at the end of September. She spent the remainder of the year with two other Casualty Clearing Stations – No. 37 at Godeswaersvelde and then No.54 CCS at Merville before rejoining No.32 CCS at Marchelepot in early 1918. At Christmas, she wrote home to her father:

My darling father,

This is timed I hope to bring you my very dear love on Xmas Morning – I do hope you will all have a happy day…

This 4th Christmas in France looks like being a comparatively peaceful one so far, but the peacefulness is only on the surface. Both sides are stiffening up like two dogs showing their teeth…

The Division is busy giving concerts in our big theatre this week. Each Battalion has its own Troupe, and the rivalry is keen. Some are excellent. We Three Sisters are the solitary and distinguished females in a pack of 600 men and inspire occasional witty & polite sallies from the Performers. We sit in the front row between Colonels of the 3 DG’ s and 2nd Black Watch & others, now commanding Welsh Battalions. Each concert party has its star “Girl” marvellously got up as in a London Music Hall. Some sing falsetto & some roar their songs in a deep bass coming from a low neck & chiffon dress, lovely silk stockings & high heels!

We’ve had a bitter North Wind & frost today & all have chilblains but not badly. Still only our 3 heroes in the Ward.

Best love to all

Your loving daughter

KEL [Kate Evelyn Luard]

(ERO ref. D/DLu 55/13/1, included in postscript of new edition of Unknown Warriors)

There were 11 more months of the war in store, and Kate remained on the Western Front to the end. You can read more of her letters in Unknown Warriors: the letters of Kate Luard RRC and Bar, Nursing Sister in France 1914-1918.

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Locations mentioned in this blog post where Kate’s letters were sent from (click each marker for more information):

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