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m4gp13-d14ry · 1 day

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OLIVE : Linnet Marrow's Entry 1

Dear diary,

Ecstacy/2/

The Hedera has invaded my room, and the Jasmine isn't growing as well as I had hoped despite its placement in direct sunlight by my window. The lavender is enjoying its new pot - it's not as if my neighbour really needed it anyways. Tomorrow I must water the poppies and the salvia as my medication is running low. My own garden of eden is coming along slowly.

I have found myself in the loving hands of God. I have been given a new ornament but it is just out of reach - I guess I should say he.

To see such a breathtaking sight felt like a sin. I fear I must scrape the vision from my eyes as it is preventing me from being useful to Dr Crane - I had been assisting him with an interrogation with the utmost importance; and yet I found myself fixated on the strange robins outside. I was at fault for allowing the patient to sober from the fear toxin. My dosages have been limited because of this - my personal collection has brought me hope. Dr Crane must have reasons for his actions, if I am to suffer then it is by the will of God. But I wish that I wouldn't have to rely on street drugs.

I have not told him about my newly found blessing: I fear he may lose trust in me and take away my access to the assortment in the back. I have been free from mistakes for 5 weeks, withdrawal is not a pretty sight. The memory of that night has helped me to sleep without assistance - it is strange.

When I saw him, it was as if the moonlight had became a gentle spotlight that illuminated his righteous path. His wings enveloped the darkness of the night like midnight honey suckle. Even in darkness I could his piercing green eyes. They were the eyes of someone who knew the true horrors of this city - it was almost frightening. When the light hit his hair as just the right moment it looked as if day lillies had blossomed. I lack the words to describe the inferno that has charred my thoughts and soul. He seemed well built, strong, well proportioned. I dare to argue not even Michael Angelos depiction of Lucifer could compare to the stature of him.

I am getting off track.

Tomorrow I will be traversing with Dr Crane; no matter what I must find out more about the dove, I must see if he will bring me salvation. I don't think I can trail him, he seems knowledgable even from a glance regarding detection. It would be best to ask Dr Crane about dosing him if possible - though I cannot rely on his generosity for long unless I sort out the blaze that has grasped my bones. I must find the name of the dove or where he lives, what he does ,what he likes, his loved ones

A feeling of being watched has crept into my home. I am guessing this is my punishment for my means of medicinal replacement. It has been a while since I have found such discomfort in a home. I cannot deny I find it funny that it has made my apartment less lonely. I don't reckon the Bible has any passages for help with insanity but it doesn't hurt to check.

Dr Crane may be the Raven Noah first released but he is the dove.

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hopeseternal-blog · 6 years

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new muse: melody, stranger things inspired

BASIC

BIRTH NAME: Melody ████████ ALIAS: Eta AGE: 23 DATE OF BIRTH: November 2nd BIRTHPLACE: ██████ CURRENT LOCATION: SPECIES: Meta human ETHNICITY: Afrikaner [Dutch, German, Irish] GENDER: cisfemale PRONOUNS: she/her ORIENTATION: panromantic/sexual, polyamorous [closeted, doesn’t know terms] RELIGION: N/A OCCUPATION: waitress LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: verse dependent LANGUAGE(s) SPOKEN: English, Russian

APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: Madelaine Petsch EYE COLOUR: Light brown HAIR COLOUR: Ginger HAIR STYLE: Melody’s hair is naturally wavy. While at the NNSS her hair was kept short, not allowed to grow past her ears in case it got in the way during tests. Now that she’s escaped she had let it grow past her waist. DOMINANT HAND: Ambidextrous, uses her right hand more often HEIGHT: 5'5" WEIGHT: 54 kg TATTOOS: The lower case symbol for the Greek letter Eta on the outer side of her left wrist, she often covers the tattoo with a watch. PIERCINGS: Standard lobe piercing and a weave piercing in her right ear. MARKS/SCARS: She has track marks along her arms from repeated injections during experimentation, but most assume they come from previous drug abuse so she covers them with make up. CLOTHING STYLE: For the beginning of her life Melody didn’t have to put any thought into what she was wearing now that she’s free she enjoys experimenting with styles, but more often than not puts comfort of fashion.

HEALTH

PHYSICAL AILMENTS: None NEUROLOGICAL CONDITIONS: Generalised Anxiety Disorder ALLERGIES: Pollen SLEEPING HABITS: She stays up late most nights working and is not a stranger to pulling an all-nighter. Despite this, she also wakes up early and can stay pretty active and alert, even when exhausted, as long as she doesn’t become hungry. EXERCISE HABITS: Melody is used to the exercise routine that she was given at NNSS, so even now that she’s left she goes for a run most mornings and tries to go to the gym twice of week. EATING HABITS: Like many things cooking for herself was something Melody had to learn to do, initially she was living off ready meals until she grew closer with Earl, the owner of the diner she worked at, and he taught her to cook. SOCIABILITY: Melody is very sociable she loves being around people and can’t stand being alone unless she has something to distract her.

PERSONALITY

POSITIVE TRAITS: free-spirited, open-minded, daring, brave, confident, creative, quick-witted, resourceful, loyal NEGATIVE TRAITS: restless, impulsive, stubborn, disorder, envious, obsessive ZODIAC SIGN: Scorpio MBTI: ESTP ENNEAGRAM: 4 TEMPERAMENT: Choleric HOGWARTS HOUSE: Slytherin MORAL ALIGNMENT: Neutral Good VICE: Wrath VIRTUE: Temperance ELEMENT: Fire

FAMILY

FATHER: Nathaniel ████████ née ████████ MOTHER: Stephanie ████████ SIGNIFICANT OTHER: verse and timeline dependent SIBLINGS: Noah ████████ [twin], the other Marked Subjects CHILDREN: none PET(s): a stray King Charles Spaniel she named Margo

SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS

ABILITIES:

Radiation Immunity: Immunity to all forms of radiation. Melody does not require sunscreen and she can look directly at a solar eclipse, etc.

Radiation Absorption: Melody is able to absorb all types of radiation and used it to heal herself at an accelerated rate. The more harmful the radiation to normal humans, the faster and more effective the healing is.

Fire Manipulation: Melody can create, shape and manipulate fire.

Fire Immunity: She is immune to fire/heat, being completely invulnerable to direct and indirect effects.

LIMITATIONS

Radiation Absorption: Absorbing too much radiation in one go can effect her emotional stability.

Fire Manipulation: Control, discipline, and restraint are extremely important. Unconscious, emotion-influenced, impulsive, or reckless use of this power can be catastrophic, and the fire can get out of her control.

Fire Immunity: Only an external immunity, meaning internal organs are still vulnerable to heat/fire.

NEVADA NATIONAL SECURITY SITE

Following the second World War, the Nevada National Security Site was established as one of several national laboratories across the United States, to take part in a program of experiments on human subjects which were designed and undertaken by the CIA, known as “MKUltra”.

In these experiments, participants would be given psychedelic drugs and placed in isolation tanks in hopes of “expanding the boundaries of the mind”. At the start of the 1970s, MKUltra was brought to public attention along with the abuse of the test subjects. Despite this, the program managed to block any inquiries and at some point began abducting children, mostly orphans, to experiment on instead.

These new subjects were kept on the site and called the Marked, they were designated by Greek alphabet names and split into six groups of four based on their ages. The program in Nevada was run by Dr Odette Marks, who the subjects referred to as Gaea or Mama ( smam’s char ). Instead of sensory deprivation being used to trigger powers, the doctors at the site used nuclear radiation.

The Cold War was at its heights in the late 70s and early 80s, causing the CIA to exploit the subjects in the different laboratories across the USA to gain intel on the Russians. Those with abilities that could not be put to use while they remained in the confines of the NNSS were trained in combat and espionage plus they were provided a high school and college education in order to give them a better chance at blending in amongst regular citizens.

BIOGRAPHY

Melody no longer remembers how long she was held within the Nevada National Security Site, she assumes she was taken shortly after she was born as she has no memories of her birth family, she also believes that Dr Mark gave her the name Melody and although she has a complicated relationship with the scientist chose to keep the name after her escape out of nostalgia for the good memories.

The truth is she was taken from her family after her parents were killed in a car accident, only her and Noah, her twin, survived the crash. They were four at the time. The two were in critical condition for a week before a group of doctors claiming to represent a company conducting clinical trials of a new treatment arrived at the hospital. After they were taken away, the twins never saw each other again and became a well known kidnapping, the search lasted for five years until it was listed as a cold case.

She remained unconscious for the first few months she was at the Nevada National Security Site, undergoing radiation therapy to enhance her abilities and promote healing, before eventually awaking from her coma. The radiation therapy continued but Melody was also placed in classes with the other subjects her age to be taught both the normal education children their age received and topics that would prepare them to retrieve intel when they were older.

Part of the second oldest group of subjects at the facility, Melody grew to be protective of the children who were brought onto the site over the years, although Dr Marks did her best to make sure the subjects were comfortable so Melody very rarely had to worry. However, everything fell apart when during an experiment an accident caused one of the children, Sigma, to lose her right leg.

It was the last straw, suddenly Melody began to see all that was wrong with the life she was living and grew to hate the scientists who had raised her. It took her months of planning and convincing, but she eventually she had a group together who wished to escape.

They fought their way to freedom, using their abilities to gain the upper hand before fleeing into the desert surrounding the facility. Once they were sure security were no longer following them, Alpha split the group up and sent them in different directions. Melody didn't think separating was wise, but agreed with her older sibling, under the condition that she was allowed to take Sigma with her.

The pair eventually reached a trailer park at the edge of a small town, where Melody broke into an abandoned trailer for them to stay in. At first she found a job as a bike messenger but still had to revert to theft every so often in order to support herself and Sigma, who she managed to put into the local public school.

After a year, Melody and Sinead (Sigma) had become a part of the town’s community, Melody was now working at a local diner, Sinead was at high school and they had moved out of the trailer into a small apartment. Although they tended to be the subject of a lot of town gossip Melody told most that Sinead was her little sister and they had lost their parents a couple of years ago.

#tw child experimentation #more detail will be added to her bio eventually #red hair; the crown you never take off┊m. visage.#a charming young girl capable of being terrible┊m. musings.#are they flaws if i'm in love with them┊m. headcanon.#set a fire down in my sould┊m. meta.#pretty in pink not as innocent as you think┊m. aesthetic.#dresses like the back room of a thrift store┊m. wardrobe.#never learned how to love in small doses┊m. desires.#i just wanted to hear your voice ┊m. music.

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ageofadnaloy · 7 years

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92 truths

thank you @larrypegacorn for tagging me, LEZ GO BITCHES

THE LAST…

Drink: H2o

Phone call: none

Text message: none

Song you listened to: I Feel It Coming by the motherfucking Starboy

Time you cried: 1hr ago

HAVE YOU EVER…

Dated someone twice: Nei

Been cheated on: Nei

Kissed someone and regretted it: Nei

Lost someone special: OMG YES BIMB!

Been Depressed: jada! :(

Gotten drunk and thrown up: Nei

LIST THREE FAVORITE COLORS: Blue, red, yellow

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU…

Made new friends: Yes

Fallen out of love: YES BIMB! BONGA!

Laughed until you cried: Yes HAHAHAHAHAHA SHET

Found out someone was talking about you: OO KKLK

Met someone who changed you: Yes!!!

Found out who your true friends are: idk??

Kissed someone on your Facebook list: YUCK EWWW

How many Facebook friends do you know in real life? i don’t use it na

Do you have any pets? Yes

Do you want to change your name? last name paltan ng Tommeraas

What did you do for your last birthday? Easter so fasting :(

What time did you wake up? mostly 10am

What were you doing at midnight last night? WATCHING SKAM SHET TANGINA YOKO NA

Name something you cannot wait for: Yumaman tas bibilhin ko yung crush ko

When was the last time you saw your mother? 1hr ago

What is one thing you wish you could change about your life? Wag ako masyado mag

What are you listening to right now? Kit Walker talking. hehehe

Have you ever talked to a person named Tom? Holland? Tropa yun e

Something that is getting on your nerves? SKAM NOT HAVING A SEASON 5

Most visited website? Twitter & YouTube

Elementary? yaaash

High School? yesh landian days

College/University? YES KATATAPOS LANG YEY BIMB!

Hair color? Black but dyed it brown

Long or short hair? Saks lang

Do you have a crush on someone? OO DAMI

What do you like about yourself? my sense of humor

Piercings? nei

Blood type? A Section A ako ng elem e

Nicknames? JenJen, Jengay, NadineLustre

Relationship status? Taken by Herman Tommeraas

Zodiac sign? Aries totle

Pronouns? she/her

Favorite TV show? ALL TIME? GLEE TALAGA E

Tattoos? Masarap yun! Tig pipiso!

Right or left handed? Right handed, bawal mangaliwa

FIRST…

Surgery: when I was 7

Piercing: nung bata meg

Sport: Soccer pero HS days pa

Vacation: Sa loob ng tyan ng nanay ko for 9 mos

Pair of trainers: Di ko tanda pero sa SOL binili

Eating: Kuko

Drinking: DUGO NG MGA HATERS KO

I’m about to: EWAN KO SAYO DAMI MONG TANONG

Listening to: Vi Er Perfekt Men Verden Er Ikke Det by Cezinado

Waiting for: SKAM SEASON 5 TANGINA PLS DI AKO SUSUKO

Want: Herman Tommeraas

Get married: Yes to Herman Tommeraas

Career: MANGOLETA NG MGA MAY UTANG SAKEN SA PALENGKE

YOUR TYPE…

Hugs or kisses: hugs

Lips or Eyes: Eyes

Shorter or Taller: Taller

Older or younger: Older

Nice arms or nice stomach: Nice arms TAS MEDJ MAY UGAT AWOW

Sensitive or loud: Loud ata

Hook up or relationship: Relationship

Troublemaker or hesitant: Troublemaker

HAVE YOU EVER…

Kissed a stranger: Nei

Drank hard liquor: vodka

Lost glasses/contact lenses: nei

Turned someone down: yes GANDA KO E

Sex on first date: KADIRI AMPOTA

Broke someone’s heart: yeah GANDA KO BIMB U PROUD

Had your heart broken: Yes TANGINA SHET

Been arrested: nei

Cried when someone died: YES OO NAMAN IKAW KAYA MAMATAYAN

Fallen for a friend: ja

DO YOU BELIEVE IN… (life after love)

Yourself: yes

Miracles: YES

Love at first sight: crush tas get to know the person to love him/her

Santa Claus: yep

Kiss on the first date: AGAD MAGDASAL MUNA KAYO CHAR

Angels: YES!! YES!!

OTHER…

Current best friend’s name: Jonas Noah Vasquez is my dream bff

Eye color: Brown

Favorite movie: Shawshank Redemption

WALA AKO ITATAG WALA NAMAN AKO KILALA DITO BYE FELICIA!

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biofunmy · 4 years

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Greeting the New Year in Earth’s Northernmost Settlement

On the flight from Oslo to Svalbard, the sun gave way to night as we crossed the Arctic Circle; for one magical moment, the plane’s wing bisected light and dark perfectly. This would be the last natural light I would see for a week. For half the year, Svalbard, the northernmost inhabited place in the world, is lit by the midnight sun. The other half of the year, the Norwegian archipelago is plunged into the purple darkness of polar night.

Few people have heard of Svalbard and even fewer have seen it. The isolated group of islands is an old mining settlement turned glacial adventuring outpost located 1,200 miles north of mainland Norway, one of the closest landmasses to the North Pole, along with Greenland and Nunavut. The approximately 2,200 inhabitants dotting the desolate tundra are itinerant, a mix of climate scientists, miners and globe-trotting explorers mostly from Russia, Scandinavia and Canada. There are more polar bears than people.

Historically, this archipelago was the isolated purview of turn-of-the-century airship explorers obsessed with finding the Northwest Passage; more recently Svalbard served as the fantastical setting for Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy. Today, it is poised to be the next extreme vacation destination for tourists obsessed with climate change, wilderness and chasing the Northern Lights.

Svalbard is an Arctic desert. Its permafrost makes it the ideal home for the Global Seed Vault, an underground repository for the world’s most vital crops (and likely Svalbard’s most famous tourist attraction, though no tourists are allowed inside). But this permafrost also means nothing can take root, giving the place an eerily lunar landscape, with no trees and few animals.

The extreme isolation and hardness of the landscape is what drew me here, too. I took the trip with my partner Noah. Both of our marriages had recently ended, and in our 40s, we were suddenly rootless, dislocated in a way neither of us had expected. It was as though we’d sat on the shoreline, watching a glacier crumble into the ocean. We’d found each other, but our relationship was still new and untested. Perhaps we’d been drawn to the Arctic to see if anything permanent in the world still existed.

And so, at the end of December, after spending a few days in Oslo exploring Grünerløkka’s record shops and the Viking Museum’s ships, we took a direct morning flight to Svalbard. I imagined stepping off the plane into a sea of phosphorescent green aurora, but when we arrived, the sky was cloudy. Noah had seen the Northern lights many times, mostly in Iceland, but this would be my first experience. I loved the idea of the sun setting off a solar flare 92 million miles away, and having it appear here in all its eerie ectoplasmic beauty, like some ghostly atomic postcard.

A set of stairs was rolled up to the plane’s exit door and along with everyone else we wrapped our bodies in our serious coats and hats and mittens before stepping out into the icy air. At the bottom of the slippery staircase, a woman in a reflective flightsuit directed us toward the airport with hand-held lantern flares. A silver foil tiara spelled out Happy New Year on top of her white-blond bun. It was 10 in the morning on New Year’s Eve and pitch black.

Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s main settlement, is essentially two roads in a giant T. This once untouchable frontier has evolved into a study in contrasts, a balance of scarcity and opulence, some of the world’s roughest terrain inexplicably mixed with luxury. For a long time, Svalbard was reserved for the tourist elite because of the difficulty and cost of travel, not to mention the expense of outfitting yourself with the right boots, parka, layers and more to withstand the cold. Visitors tend to be either young adventurers working their way across the world or high-end travelers checking off their bucket lists, and most of the lodging and restaurant options fall into either the budget or splurge category. There is little middle ground.

We booked a room at Funken Lodge, a modern hotel with clean lines and Scandinavian efficiency, where we were welcomed with drinks by the fireplace at the hotel bar (rooms are currently about $150 to $180 a night, breakfast included). We’d made New Year’s Eve dinner reservations at Huset, the highest-end of the handful of restaurants in town, and that evening took a taxi to the unassuming building tucked dramatically at the foot of a towering glacier, where the row of snowmobiles parked out front made it look more ski-lodge than fine Nordic dining. The building has, at various times served as the island’s post office, church, school and airport terminal, as well as a miner’s boardinghouse. Today it is also the understated home to one of the largest wine cellars in Scandinavia with 15,000 bottles and a Two Wine Glass distinction from Wine Spectator magazine.

Huset’s staid interior was in stark contrast to the decadence of the plates. Our five-course meal (1,200 Norwegian krone each, or about $131 per person) started with an appetizer of woody chanterelles that had been foraged locally. Glistening cuts of Isfjord cod and roe were nestled atop beds of lichen and ptarmigan feathers. The main course showcased local reindeer two ways (tartare and made into hearty sausage), accompanied by strands of salty kelp harvested from the island’s shoreline and microgreens provided by the island’s sole greenhouse, a pink geodesic dome visible from the main road. The structure’s neon blink was the only colored light on the island, like a pair of neon Wayfarers in a sea of mirrored Aviators.

The waiter told us that the restaurant turned into a local’s nightclub after dinner, so we stayed in our corner, sipping from our many half-glasses of wine as the demure dining room changed over to flashing lights and techno. A few minutes before midnight, Noah and I pulled our coats and boots on and half-stumbled, half-skated to the edge of the parking lot between the restaurant and the high wall of the glacier. Some of the kitchen staff lit off fireworks, holding the cardboard containers as the flares launched into the air, refracting off the towering wall of glittering ice until everything was bathed in flame. They were not Northern Lights, but these man-made sparkles of color had their own kind of otherworldly beauty.

We woke to the first day of the new year and nursed our hangovers, grateful for the dark. Months earlier, we’d booked a Northern Light Safari with Dog Sled (2,780 krone for two). In the safe glow of a computer screen at home, this had sounded whimsical and romantic. Now, it was mildly terrifying.

Our guide picked us up in a cube van from the hotel, and as we drove farther out of town the streetlamps disappeared, replaced by polar bear warning signs. From a distance, Green Dog Svalbard looked more like a maximum-security prison than a dog-sledding outfit, but the guide explained the chain-link fence and floodlights were needed to keep the dogs safe from polar bears. This was comforting, until I realized the point of our trip was to take the dogs from camp out onto the glacier.

Before sledding, we hung up our fancy parkas and shouldered into bulky jumpsuits that smelled like dog and hooked oversized sheepskin mitts on a string around our necks. This reminded me sweetly of a child’s mittens, until the guide warned us that unguarded our hands would get frostbitten in less than five minutes.

From the hut we followed the guide into the open-air kennel. Names were painted onto each of the dozens of doghouses, and dogs whimpered and leapt with excitement, pulling on their chains staked to the frozen ground. Each sledge held two people and the dogs were organized into teams of six. The guide shouted some general directions over the deafening howling; I tried to listen while wrestling our dogs into formation, sweating profusely under my layers, goggles completely fogged. “Here is your anchor!” He held up a heavy ball of spiked metal attached to the sled. “Make sure you secure your anchor, or it will flop around dangerously and claw you in the leg!”

Noah and I got our bearings on the sledge, essentially a roughhewn Flexible Flyer with a high back, which I sat against and he stood behind. With no fanfare, the guide’s whistle pierced the night, and our six huskies were running, the lights and safety and noise of the kennel disappearing behind us.

Even with a hood, balaclava and goggles, the wind froze my breath in my chest. We were racing through the Bolterdalen Valley, but we could have been on the moon, and I felt like an astronaut floating in space. Our path was lit only by my headlamp, though the dogs clearly knew where to go, and although Noah held reins in his hands, we were just passengers. A few minutes in, we were so completely alone on the ridge of the glacier, so completely in the middle of nowhere, that I began to feel panicky. I concentrated on the dogs’ rhythmic breathing echoing into the icy silence and tried to calm down.

By the time we returned to camp more than an hour later, I could not feel my jaw or feet. Noah and I worked at unhooking our dogs and returning them to their doghouses, and suddenly I was a sweaty mess again, jaw and feet tingling back to life.

In the van on the way back to the hotel, Noah cracked a handwarmer to life and slipped it between our palms. “Did you see the Northern lights?” he asked, flushed. Apparently they’d appeared in the middle of the trip, but I’d been so focused on the dogs, and keeping my balance on the sledge, I’d completely missed them.

Going inside the glacier

The next few days blended into one long night. We ate elaborate meals of Arctic char and gravlax at our hotel restaurant and handmade chocolates from Fruene, the world’s northernmost chocolate shop. We slept late and took long walks through town, wary of bears. Everywhere we went, our snow pants made a shush-shush sound.

One night, we layered up for an evening glacier hike. Our guide Martin drove us to a cluster of miner’s cabins at the edge of town where he handed out headlamps and springy-teethed crampons for the bottoms of our boots.

Martin was tall and trim and he secured his rifle to his back with an embroidered strap of red and green and gold. He cautioned us to stay together — our group of six could only go as fast as the slowest hiker to stay safe from polar bears since he was the only one with a gun. His husky, Tequila, joined us on the two-hours of precarious ice trekking, until we arrived at an unassuming hole the size of a sewer grate on the top of the glacier. We took turns sliding down a tunnel into the dark.

The ice came alive under our headlamps, and the glossy gray ribcages of stalagmites and stalactites made me feel like Jonah inside his whale. The swirls of sediment made wavy marbled ribbons in the wall, and the clicking of our crampons echoed through the tunnels. It felt like walking on teeth and bone and glass.

Summer snowmelt created these caverns. We’d been hiking above a network of underground tunnels. Martin passed around cookies and cups of syrupy blackcurrant juice, leaving purple stains on a makeshift ice bar, and after an hour of wandering inside the tunnels, we crawled back out to Tequila and into a snowstorm. We trekked downhill in an ebullient line, giddy despite the icy crevices and drop-offs that lurked beyond the pale light of our headlamps under the cloudy night sky. There were no Northern Lights, but as we hiked back, a small triangle of light appeared between the glaciers. Town.

I spied the strange pink glow of the geodesic dome, the island’s unlikely greenhouse. As my crampons gripped the ice, I thought about the beds of tender green leaves that I imagined populated it. Why try to grow something in an Arctic desert, a place that by nature is uninhabitable to anything with roots? No one can be born in Svalbard — pregnant women are required to leave the island weeks before their due date — and you cannot be buried there because of the permafrost. And yet, this neon dome pulsed, a pink heart on an otherwise blank slate, offering the promise of new growth where none was expected, roots where otherwise there were none.

Hot dogs and the aurora

Noah’s birthday arrived on the final day of our trip, and I packed our hotel towels and slippers into a bag and told him I’d arranged for a surprise. I’d reserved space on an excursion called “Sauna Meal & Aurora Borealis,” and soon, after driving in a cube van to an isolated campsite on the tundra, we were helping our guide Misha stretch a canvas cover across the crisscrossed spines of a tent frame over a portable sauna. Misha made hot dogs over an open fire in a steel caldron on the ice while we waited for the sauna to heat up. This was the least glamorous meal we ate in Svalbard, and yet it managed to still feel extraordinary as we sat together around the fire, drinking tea and eating hot dogs in the Arctic.

After the barbecue, we stripped off layer after thermal layer, scuttling the 20-foot distance between tents in just a towel and slippers. Once the sauna tent’s flap was securely zipped, we sat in lawn chairs on the ice in the small dark space, listening to the hiss of the water on the rocks. We sweated, luxuriating in the heat, pawing snowballs from the floor and running them against our bare skin. This was the strangest but perhaps most fitting way for our time in the Arctic to end, I thought, huddled together with full bellies on the tundra, Misha patrolling the perimeter for polar bears.

After some time, I wiped the fog from the small slice of clear plastic in the side of the tent and realized the stars were ablaze in the sky, and as I scanned the edge of the glacier I saw something forming: like a cloud, but more ghostly. I grabbed Noah’s arm and we ran outside.

We stood, staring, in slippers and towels on the tundra, as the milky wash of the aurora sparkled across the sky. The lights weren’t green; they weren’t any color, really, but I’d never seen anything like it. My sweat felt like all the stars in the sky were wrapped around my body in a blanket, little spears of heat and ice, and when I turned to Noah his skin was bathed in silver, as if his body was part of the aurora itself.

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epicwrites · 2 years

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8) receiver has been sitting in sender’s lap but sender needs to get up for something, so they just simply carry receiver with them. [ REVERSE ! ] for @rosiewriting | from pick up / carry meme

The day had seemed like an endless one. The office had picked up a pretty big case - which meant they were dedicating more and more man hours to the project just to be sure it was done properly. With Nia busy with her own projects relating to Neomenia, it was a wonder if they got to spend any time together at all.

Noah had settled down on the couch when he arrived home, tie loosened from his neck and sleeves rolled to his elbows. He must’ve dozed off then and there because the next thing he recalled was Nia slipping into his lap, an arm looping around his neck and fingers combing affectionately through his hair. “How’s my sleepy head?” she cooed, pressing her lips to his forehead.

He breathed out a soft sigh, looping his arms around her waist and holding her close, leaning up to capture her lips briefly with his own. “Exhausted,” he murmured in response to her question, reaching a hand up to curl a rouge strand of hair behind her ear. “But I want to hear about -”

Before he could even finish the question the phone began to ring in the other room. Noah’s eyes shifted in the direction of it, but Nia didn’t move from her place in his lap. “Ignore it,” she said simply, pressing a hand against his chest as she only made herself more comfortable in his lap. “It’s probably the office -” “You’re off the clock, my darling.” “Am I ever really -”

Her fingers pressed to his lips to stifle his words and he just gave her a look in return before his eyes flicked back in the direction of the incessant ringing. Well, if she wasn’t going to move...

His arms hooked around her and he rose from his seat anyway, holding her firmly in his arms. “Noah!” She gasped as he did so, though it dissolved into laughter as he brought her across the room with him to deposit her on the kitchen counter before picking up the phone.

#char: noah pierce #opp: nia faulkner #//no idea what this is but we rolled with it

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m4gp13-d14ry · 1 day

Text

OLIVE : Linnet Marrow's Entry 1

Dear diary,

Ecstacy/2/

I have found myself in the loving hands of God. I have been given a new ornament but it is just out of reach - I guess I should say he.

I am getting off track.

Dr Crane may be the Raven Noah first released but he is the dove.

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