With the orchard coming back into season, the portion of the Romero clan patriarched by Duck Romero didn't have much time to work on a floral display, but with Wren in her late teens, Robin finally old enough to help out, and Duck wanting to at least try and keep his position of 'one of the more personable Romero siblings, all things considered' They haven't skipped out on making an appearance. Vending instead of presenting this year out of a modified trailer, Wren has spent much of her free time before the event making sweets, fruit tarts and drinks with edible flowers. They're not exactly free, as everything at the booth is for sale for either a donation to town, or a trade to the Romeros directly- but Wren's not above slipping a friend from town a free sample, here and there.

Brute and Robin Have filled their slot at the trailer with floral collars and crowns for the town's pets, the aging leonberger a gleeful model, and Robin a dutiful craftsman of paper flowers that won't immediately get destroyed when the pets shake off- they're premade, but most will find Robin still eagerly working away with scrapbook and construction paper, as well as little wooden beads and leather, provided by his father for the displays.

Duck himself hasn't skipped on finding something to occupy himself as well, though- selling brightly painted, carved wooden animals and sculptures with various additions (Leather cord for pendants/bracelets, some hollowed to rattle/on wheels for children to play with) and custom pencil and charcoal sketches of attendees of the festival in their spring best- simple and quick, but a reflection of a moment in time, nonetheless. He seems to be in higher spirits than usual, as well- his flask nowhere to be found on his person.

ANONYMOUS  asks  the  men:  do  you  all  agree  that  sometimes  you  just  have  to  fuck  her  hard  ??

         If they were all together, the group would erupt into a fit of giddy, obnoxious laughter. All except Jonathan, arms crossed against his chest, index finger on the shelf of his coyly - curled lip. His answer surely is a ‘Yes’. After their fit of laughter, Dante and Vitt would say ‘no’, but do so to not open any speculation into their sex lives ( and ultimately embarrassing their partners ). Raphael, in a tight - lipped grin, says nothing. He, for one, welcomes speculation.

headcanon:

Dakota loves every single holiday and will do even the smallest things to celebrate them. Although for bigger holidays she goes all out on celebrating them. Even if she is spending them alone all her time is spent helping others celebrate- usually by volunteering. It is hard for the harpy to make plans with friends because she likes to keep herself open in case someone ended up alone and wanted company. If volunteering is not an option she will focus on cooking/decorating or worse case scenario is her wondering around town or just getting out of the house.

The worst year, Dakota ended up spending Thanksgiving and Christmas stuck alone in her apartment due to the weather. Without people around her fear of being alone quickly crept in- spending both holidays in bed crying and spiraling. It is always lingering in her head that all she is is a burden and that people only spend the holidays with her because they feel bad. After that year it was hard for her to enjoy any of the holidays -and even her birthday- for the next two years. That second year was the year Dakota decided that getting a pet would be a smart idea so she would not actually be alone.

-Dakota also puts up her Christmas tree before Thanksgiving, usually around the first week of November.-

THE WHISKEY-SOAKED WARDEN: DUCK ROMERO.

Highs and Lows, are all I know, I don't want to be a fucked up father.

"I'm Mallard Romero. I'm 40 years old, and the game warden for Huntsville. I'm a father of two, and a former military general, serving well until I was in my 30s. It was there I met Rusty Craven- Though I know him as Pete Boone. I'm a born and raised Huntsville native, and my family, the Romeros, are well known and respected among the townsfolk. I am ambivalent toward the Commune, and my most prevalent vice is alcohol."

Name: Mallard Cybil Romero

Aliases: Duck, Ducky, Warden Romero, General Romero, Mal

Age: 40 (May 15th) [Taurus]

Sexuality/Gender: Bisexual Biromantic Cis Male [He/Him]

Personality: Well known for being gruff and blunt, Duck is a hard man to love, and an even more difficult one to get along with without already knowing the fact his exterior belies a kinder, softer underneath. A loving father and loyal friend, Duck's harshness is likely just a defense against his own fears and concerns living in Huntsville. Given opportunity to let his guard down, he is full willing to lay his life down for his friends and often has since 2012. The death of his second wife Ophelia Romero seems to weigh heavily on his mind, making him more paranoid and overprotective of the townsfolk- though her loss doesn't seem to have kept him from his willingness to fall into bed with interested parties after a few shots- oddly charming, once one accepts that his face will likely always look like that.

Occupation: Former US Marine Corp General, heavily decorated with several tours overseas. Current Game Warden for the town of Huntsville, orchestrating and protecting hunting parties for the townsfolk and similarly offering his watchful eye to the people of the Commune, should they need it. Nobody knows the forests like Duck and his crew, after all.

Affiliations: The Townsfolk of Huntsville, The US Marine Corp (veteran), Monongahela Parks and Game.

Scent Profile: The lingering scent of cut cedar and pine sap, something woody and clinging. Faint notes of cigarette smoke, though he hasn't smoked since his son was born, it lingers on his person. The cloying scent of whiskey sticking to his breath, and gun oil on his palms and knuckles.

Aesthetic: A half empty bottle of whiskey and a fully loaded shotgun watching the sun drop low in a rocking chair on the porch of his longtime home. A dimly lit study and a book he's still not finished all these years later, photos of a family he used to have and has only part of now. Cards from his children made with crayons and colored pencils slowly growing more and more coherent taped to a fridge alongside a map tracking the movements of the ghosts that haunt the town.

A jaded man, with shaky hands, holding onto what he can't let go of, and now I'm terrified- that I'm holy ghosted.

CHAPTER ONE: LIFE IN HUNTSVILLE POST PARADOX.

The head of the skeleton crew that's become of the game and forest recreation board, Duck Romero now oversees the safety of hunting parties and deals with potential animal threats that may move into town from the woods surrounding. He and Rusty Craven provide radios, flashlights, firearms, and other supplies that may be required for hunting parties that either don't own them, or lack the repair skills, or money, required to provide their own. Due to this, and his own paranoia, Duck is one of the few people in town with a substantial backstock of weapons, ammunition, parts, and even explosives, things he gathered in his brief visits home before his long-term deployment in 2012.

One of nine children of Mary-Beth Romero and a number of men, Duck's family is a de-facto matriarchy, raised to be compassionate as he is confident and cutthroat, his children are being taught just the same. 18 year old Wren Romero and 7 year old Robin Romero having lived with their single father since 2017, Duck's alcoholism has long been a cause for concern for the family, made worse in his wife's death and disappearance, he has only recently cleaned up enough to be considered 'responsible' enough to care for his kids, leaning heavily on the kindness of Rusty, the church, and other friends and family to keep them all above water.

As much as he is the respected game warden, he's also well known as the town drunk, belligerent and sick to his core with his vices, it's a common enough sighting to see someone walking Duck back home after one too many to ensure he doesn't meet his end at the brutal hands of a ghost.

V. What’s their biggest pet peeve? (duck)

"When the other Rangers chew their food too gotdamn loud."

"When stupid people do stupid shit that gets those stupid people almost killed, when people keep using all my sticky notes for dumb shit, when I let Hobbes drive the truck for warden shit and he leaves the seat pulled so far up my knees brush my chin, when my son does that thing he's been doing since he was two where he just appears beside my bed watching me sleep when I could swear to god I locked the crib or that he promised he wouldn't- Wow I got a lotta these, damn."

Punchdrunk

A collection of testimonies, from the people who loved him best.

On the back of a school paper, with drawings of dragons and knights locked in fierce battle on the front, 'Ducky R., 7 years old' in scrawled handwriting on its front.

"Mallard seems to be easily distracted in class, but shows an incredible aptitude with music and art. Despite the fact he's loud and requires correction from time to time, he is endlessly helpful, and a pleasure to have as a student."

Another notice comes from a piece of paper from another class, the same dragons and creatures fighting around math tables, these ones adorned with stickers, and crayon.

"Mallard has been improving with his focus in class, but please try to encourage him to focus on work at school, it's difficult to keep him on task, and his eagerness to discuss fantasy cartoons (Dungeon and Dragons, He-Man, and the carebears films, specifically) has derailed him and his classmates numerous times. He is a very bright boy, please ensure he doesn't have his copies of Redwall, Goosebumps, or similar when he comes to school, he has a tendency to focus on them without attention to class at all."

He always got his class work done. He never quite understood why it was a bad thing, he wanted to draw pictures or read. He doesn't do much reading, as he gets older.

On the insert of a cassette tape still lingering in the glovebox of a long-abandoned car in the garage of the Romero house, it's been trapped in there since a fender bender including the boys crunched the front end enough that it damaged the locking mechanism. It's all 90s grunge and classic rock, recorded off the radio in the floor of Duck's bedroom by a fifteen year old boy missing one of his frontmost teeth, after an 'incident' with an office chair and a brother only a year older.

"DUCK AND HIS BROTHERS' SICK ASS ROAD TRIP TUNES FOR WHEN THEY LEAVE THIS SHITHOLE TOWN '97, NOT FOR MOM OR BEAU TO LISTEN TO, YOU GUYS DON'T COUNT!"

They never took that road trip- it cost most of the family's funds to replace Duck's missing tooth, and 'leaving this town in the rearview' became a pipe dream- locked away like a mixtape in the glovebox of a crumpled 1990 Ford.

On the margins of an old character sheet for a tabletop game, scrawled in by a kid of a similar mind and love of the world of fantasy.

"Thanks for inviting me to play with you, Cybil, I'll miss all the adventures, and when the time comes to pay visits back home from college, we'll have to put another table together. P.S. I hope someday, the world's nicer to boys like us, with their heads in the clouds and a taste for the fantastic than it is now. I'm sorry I embarrassed you at lunch. I hope when your senior prom rolls around, you don't have to go stag to make other people happy."

there's yellowing stains of coffee and neon-orange from chip-dirtied fingers on the worn paper, 'MR & JT' written once but erased in the corners. It's an Oath of Love Paladin who survived years at a table. Joey Tompkins never comes home to visit from college, and Duck Romero attends his junior and senior proms with Geanie Sanderson.

It's a letter hidden in a patch in a leather jacket, sewn with thread by drunk teenagers at a concert they snuck out to attend, a letter penned for A 17 year old boy who will be retrieved by his brother once he finds him missing with a new ring of gold in his nose, pupils blown on the thrill of sneaking out, and some drug he'd taken off the tongue of the pretty bisexual girl he'd met at the roller rink a couple towns over while flopped out on some bean-bag chair between her and her girlfriend. He's at home here, with the artists and the queers and the freaks.

"To boys with toilet-teeth and broken elbows who won't let me sign their cast with a heart but will take a pill off my lips. To boys who kiss boys and girls and everyone between and neither- to the fearless waterfowl who's run afoul of any and every authority figure who ever thought to tell him what to do. To the freak who's nose I pierced in a dirty basement and all he did was laugh at the pain and do another shot of whiskey- don't let the world burn you out- you can do that all by yourself."

He's not worn the jacket for years, too broad in the chest and shoulders, now. But it sits in his closet, written on in spraypaint and studded by hand, with the names of friends who he never saw again. The taste of freedom lingers on the back of his tongue now, somewhat bitter. He pierces his own daughter's nose with a sewing needle and an old earring for her birthday because she asks. They dull the pain with a shot of whiskey kept back from before all of this and he remembers a room full of maybe the only people who knew him properly.

It's a few words from a friend in a wedding card. It's bitter, maybe, and it's the last thing he'd get before leaving for the military.

"I miss the you you used to be. I hope you know what you're doing. I'm sorry nobody saved you when it mattered the most."

He hid it from his wife, and when the time came that they fell apart, he'd burn every last bit of their ceremony in a grand bonfire over a drink and a burger with his brothers. Except the card. With a raised white cake and 'congrats on your marriage' on the front. It sits in a shoebox in a closet now, alongside hundreds of baby photos of Wren taken on polaroids.

It's written on the back of a picture of Duck and his little brothers, a toddler in a carrier strapped to his chest and a camouflage jacket too big for one of them on one of the younger kids. Duck's smile is megawatt, and his hair and beard have grown back some from the short and tight he wears so regularly, Gladiola's arm slung around his shoulders and her hair tied up in braids. It's the most Romero siblings in a photo taken in years.

"Duck, Gee, Phoenix, Talon, Cassius, Robbie and little Wren, Zoo Trip 2006, AKA Duck and the Ducklings."

there's a zoo brochure kept alongside it, with Duck's careful handwriting marking out the animals his siblings want to see the most, and ones they're notedly afraid of, so he can plan a path through the zoo most satisfactory to the younger siblings. Other photos of him on that day appear perhaps haunted- hollow behind green eyes, a man far too young who's seen hell too many times. War built the man who came home from Iraq, it never quite let go.

It's a school project for a 6 year old girl. It's written in messy handwriting, but it's a letter for her daddy. She'll write hundreds, over the next several years, but this one, he's able to come home and receive, deploying mere months later for the last time- she won't see her father again until she's 9. She'll never let up on hope.

"My daddy's a brave knight, and sometimes that means he's not home. Mommy Phelia says he's a soldier but in all my bedtime stories the people who go away to fight bad guys are knights so that's what my daddy is. I miss him a bunch, sometimes we get to have calls on these weird phones, and me and mommy Phelia have special cards that let us go see him sometimes, those are my favorite days. Last time daddy came home he brought me all kinds of presents. I like when daddy's hair grows back and he has a beard, because that means he's not going to leave again for a long time. I don't like getting haircuts because that means he's gonna be gone again and I really want to finish our stories. Only daddy tells the good stories too, grandma and my uncles don't do the voices right, and they always have to use the books."

To this day, Wren Romero wears her hair long- and always trims her dad's hair just slightly too long to be military issue. Duck hates the paradox, for all it's taken from everyone in town. He's grateful, maybe- that he's gotten to watch his kids grow up.

It's in the personal journal of a former combat medic. One his husband still hasn't found the heart to open, the words of a dead man kept pointedly until he became to weak to write. It's codenames, One that a fleeting knowledge of horror would help people parse out.

"Zombie introduced me to the new recruits today, he's calling the youngest 'Ghostface.' There's not a lot to him, but apparently his aptitude for sniping is unmatched, Kid's barely a hundred twenty soaking wet. Told me when we deployed out this time that he's serious about that girl back home- I'm not exactly bothered, I'm used to it- but it's a little bit of a mixed set of messages when that snake tattoo of his is colored now and it's as loud and proud queer as I think you can get without getting kicked out of the corps. He's still a hard ass, of course, but I guess this means he's gonna be less of a physical pain in mine in the barracks. The kid's apparently from his hometown- Zombie's reputation precedes him there- Can't imagine a time he wasn't some cocksure general running a ship so tight you could make a diamond if you shoved coal up his ass, I wonder which version of him I'd like better."

The author of the journal lies dead in Huntsville cemetery 'beloved husband and uncle' on the stone below his name. A carved blue jay sits in the flowers placed there by his husband and niece, a carefully made bird with wings spread- one glued back on. Some of his sweaters live on in Duck's closet. Duck sometimes wonders if he made the right call, all those years ago. But regret isn't a warm sweater- it's the report of a sniper rifle and a 'got your six!' barked over comms- it's a life debt owed to little more than a kid- a kid that took a lover and then begged him on hands and knees for a release from service for both of them- to care for the last bit of family he had left.

Regret is best left in the sands, shifting and hungry. not here. Still he finds time to wonder.

It's a thousand sticky notes in the Northern ranger station, despite him telling the staff they're running out. It's even more stuck to his desk, drawings of him making a sour face, notices from his deputy, the head ranger, and his assistant. It's reminders of things he needs to get done, and 'happy birthday, boss!' with shitty little cakes drawn under them. It is love in words and pictographs and he pretends to hate it, because they're wasting paper. Sometimes he pulls Hobbes and Clara in a little bit tighter when he greets them after rough shifts. He does it more now, after the hoedown.

"HI MR. DUCK. :)" "hey, Zom, saved you some coffee and a slice of cake. oo rah." "Boss there's a raccoon in the walls at the diner again, I told them you'd take care of it." "Mr. duck look I can draw you." "Hey do you think if somebody came into town with a fucked up right leg you guys could trade? It could be a lady. you'd have nice gams Warden D."

He can't bring himself to throw them away anymore. Well aware that a handful of them are already the last remnants of a young man who doesn't get to do something so simple as 'waste office supplies" anymore. They're still stuck to his computer- he's running out of screen space.

🌈 RAINBOW - what advice would they give to their younger self? (duck)

"That he's not a bad kid."

"He's.... He's an angry kid, a weird kid, one with problems that nobody wanted to help him with- but he's not bad. That... we grow up, you know? And that that clawing want to leave home never goes away, but we find some comfort here eventually. We ain't evil, and that it was wrong of our classmates to act like we were, was worse of the teachers to do the same thing."

"I'd tell him that the day he caught Mr. Tompkins talking about how... the school'd be better off if he walked off into the woods and just didn't come back, wasn't your fault. you were- barely more than a little boy- and the fact he only backpedaled after you started crying, after you got so upset that you damn near threw up in that office was the fault of the adult, not the fifteen year old boy who went home and begged his mom to let him skip the rest of the semester."

"I'd tell him that one day, we wake up, and we're not happy but we're better. That we're a couple wives in, but we wouldn't trade our kids for the world. That we're a pretty okay dad, I think."

"I'd tell him that when he turns 16, and that kid in the cafeteria keeps at him, calling him a monster, a freak, making fun of him for bein' feminine, bein' into dungeons and dragons, havin' two friends and preferrin' the company of a gun and the woods or a guitar and a practice room, when he takes his lunch, and dumps it into the book he saved months and months of lawn mowing money and allowance for, then hits him so hard his glasses sail across the room and into the garbage-"

"That he's not the villain there, that he endured as much as he could, because he already brought so much trouble home to Eddie especially and didn't want to make more trouble. He was defending himself, and it wasn't his fault. We... We weren't a bad kid. And at the end of the day..."

"I'd tell him we deserved better. but someday we... get that better."

"Guess I'd also tell him not to bother wastin' bullets on the freaks who swarm the house the day he gets home, and uh. that he should go easy on the Oxy. We only had the one bottle and I'd kill fer one right now."

Familiar Scars

Gore tw, mentions of kidnapping.

He's never been obvious about it.

"What's your name, kid?" "Tyler..." "Okay, Tyler, well, it's cold out, and it's late, and you're naked as the day you were stitched, so why don't you come on down from there, an' me and you will have some cocoa at th' ranger station?" "Okay." And that had been how it started, hadn't it? A spacy teenage boy close to dark, out in the woods where he didn't belong. Duck had dressed him in clothes too big and made him a spot in the ranger station during his watch. He would have done it for anyone, kind despite his personality and temper- but Tyler was different- he saw the world through a lens that Duck could never pretend to understand, one that saw good in everything he encountered, where Duck himself saw only the cruelty of others, idling below the surface- mankind was capable of just as many horrors as the monsters outside, and Tyler had experienced them. but still he loved the world and the people in it with a fervor that almost made him... jealous.

He's never been obvious about it.

"Mr. Duck!" "Hey, Ty, just bringin' by some kills we ain't using for the commune." He had held up a bundle of rabbits, and the young man- not a boy anymore, really- had run over, hugged him around the waist. "You behavin' yourself?" "Sure am, Mr. Duck! Here I can help you carry stuff, man." Duck allowed it, passing over a few rolls of pelts and leather, leaving the hanging creatures slung over his shoulder. They'd made the walk around the commune to find Sunflower together, Tyler telling him about his day, Duck happy to listen. It was often a lot of listening, on his part, letting Tyler ramble and ask questions as they occurred to him- and Duck did his best to answer dutifully, when the time came- no matter how odd they may have been. He doesn't stay long- his aid to the commune extends only to his extra catches- not listening to Sunflower preach about safety in numbers, or whatever it is she uses to recruit- and he takes his leave, fluffing Tyler's hair gently. "you be good, now." "Yessir Mr. Duck, sir." Duck knows he means it.

He's never been obvious about it.

"Why do you keep goin' out to help me?" "Because it's the right thing to do, Ty." "You act like you're so mean all the time- you've never been mean to me, man." "Because you haven't earned it... Go to sleep, kid, I've only got 2 hours before I'm back on watch." "Okay. Hey, Mr. Duck?" "Yeah, Tyler?" "I love you man." "......" He learns quickly that Tyler is loose with love and affection, in a way Duck never could be. He never returns the favor in words, but actions, keeping the younger man out of trouble- answering calls to come get him, when he's dissociated somewhere, the association with safety he's garnered with Tyler one he doesn't take lightly. The world had failed him time and again- had him kidnapped then stranded in Huntsville, arrested him in his youth. It's why when he sees him at the hoedown dressed to his best with flowers for Kitty between his own dance with Percy, Duck can't help but smile- watch him love the way he feels like only Tyler can. They're cute, he reasons, and if anybody in this town deserved to be happy, unashamedly, unquestioningly happy- it was Tyler.

He's never been obv- THE DOOR!

Hysterics and chaos. Duck glancing up from where he and Tyler had been conversing- the younger man tucked close to his side- to witness the rush for the door, Rusty abandoning his place to book it with the group- Duck withdrawing his sidearm and starting off behind the swarm desperate to shut the door- only for his knee to tweak because he dares to run. He tries to ignore spires of pain but reaches the door late- just in time to watch ghostly hands grab Tyler by the shoulders and yank him outside- just in time for Alice to collapse into his chest. He takes a moment, to look for his daughter- Where's Wren he wonders, through the madness- spotting exactly what Rusty had been bolting for now- the girl held far away from the madness in the ranger's iron grip-, his hands over her ears. He'd likely been looking for Sissy- but too far from her at the time to help- he'd found Wren instead. It takes only seconds to calm that fear and focus on the moment.

Blood streaks snow and the sound of skin tearing and bone cracking is one he knows well, prepping meat on his own- watching unlucky fools who ignore the town's warnings wander off into the woods at night. But its different here. He wants to go out behind him, wants to throw that door back open and find some way to save what surely was one of the few kind hearts still left in this town. He knows better than to obey that want, holding Alice close and trying his best to comfort an old friend.

Tyler falls quiet. and the beasts lose interest, moving back to stare into windows and whisper to the people inside. Duck's mind goes numb, and he untangles from Alice. He walks to a table, sitting down and reaching down his thigh- unholstering a flask he'd left alone for weeks now. He unscrews the lid now, emptying the contents and trying to focus on the way it burns his throat and chest instead of the way he aches. The screams. The knowledge that when the sun comes up, and the storm passes, it's a friend he'll bury, not some out of town idiot. He wonders for a moment, as tears sting in green eyes, if he should have been more obvious about it.

"Okay. Hey, Mr. Duck?" "Yeah, Tyler?" "I love you man." He grunts, rolls over. It's only when Duck's alarm wakes him, and Tyler is still fast asleep, wrapped in a blanket on a cot hundreds of feet up in the air, that Duck sighs.

"Love you too, kid."

He just hopes he did enough, while he could. "Alright, everybody, show's over." He calls, voice strong despite the way he aches. "Everybody move back from th' door. Don't look out the windows, you know the drill." The least he can do is keep Tyler's memory something comforting.

Not a husk in the snow.

What do I do when you don’t feel whole You’re hanging by a thread just to see if I’ll let go Of what we’ve grown to be What do I do when your lips turn cold And the teeth you bare are not your own???

While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them. (duck)

Growing up, Duck looked up to his older brothers. Largely modeling his behavior after Beau, it's inarguably the source of his addictive personality and emotional repression, these things quickly reinforced by his mother. His violent tendencies were certainly already present, but fostered by Hawk, they only managed to flourish, making Duck a particularly violent alcoholic with an unwillingness to talk about his feelings. When he joined the Marines, he looked up to his commanding officer, who taught him more healthy coping mechanisms throughout training, insisting upon a focus on self-respect and improvement, He sobered up rather heavily over the course of his early training, though it didn't help with his emotional availability, it made him at the minimum more approachable- allowing others to break past the shell he felt safest beneath to further soften his rougher edges.

W. What’s their favourite sport? (duck)

Duck's favorite sport is most likely baseball, something he played all through high school and well into his adulthood within the marines, he's rather good at it, not quite worthy of the big leagues, but with an impressive swing and a tenacity that few people tend to display, he's brought the rangers team and the howling 13's skirmish crew to a handful of victories with solid support- and people willing to look the other way, when he starts trash talking the pitcher to throw them off their game for a home run level pitch.

"Been married twice, Ain't seen nothin' come of it worthwhile that wasn't one 'a the kids. One of 'em up and ran, other one.... Well, you ain't seen Oph since that night neither, have you?"

Twice married, twice single, and a father of two, Mallard Romero's family ties are perhaps just as scattered and strange as the ones that make up his mother's. Initially married fresh out of high school to Geanie Romero (img 1), Duck's first wife was not a woman well liked by the people of Huntsville. Reputed as somewhat of a bitch with a willingness to use Duck's fondness for her- and regular absences to sneak around behind his back with the barflies and sinners in the next town over. They would conceive their daughter Wren LeAnne Romero (img 3) Whilst Duck was home on leave at 22. While his family and surely, the families that loved and respected the Romeros for what they did for the town had gladly gone out of their way to assist the young couple, Duck would soon be deployed again amid Geanie's pregnancy, a further cause for friction between the couple, and while he would manage familial leave in time to return home to help raise his daughter, the pair would find themselves at odds.

Geanie had never wanted children, and in many cases, depending on who you asked- she'd never much wanted Duck either, preferring only the security that came from his name, a marriage, and his position in the military- it was his absence she enjoyed, and his presence that inconvenienced. They would limp along like a wounded animal in a snare for four more years, Duck deploying only once in the meantime- long enough for Geanie to up and leave. She'd vanished, with no word or note as to where she might have gone, leaving the little home the two shared in the middle of town- and their 4 year old daughter in the care of a family friend.

Eventually they'd divorce, completely through letters and phone calls, and it would be at the courthouse that Duck would meet Ophelia Silverweilt- Though she would soon be Ophelia Romero. A young notary at the courthouse at a mere 21, she'd grown fond of the handsome young soldier only 5 years her elder, and his daughter, the little girl often seen in tow with lopsided pigtails, a sucker, and mismatched rain boots. They hit it off, despite Duck's already prevalent drinking problem, and the fact he was perhaps still too damaged to be romantically involved with anyone, they became friends, meeting up when Duck would return from tours or training out of state for a drink, dinner, and coffee, the next morning.

They'd marry when Duck turned 28, six year old Wren the flower girl in their wedding- and lovingly adopted by her stepmother, adored as if her own child and finally wearing pigtails in the right place, a motherly, more feminine touch than her husband's beneficial to Ophelia's newfound family. Unlike Geanie, Ophelia was well liked by the Romero family, Duck's friends, and most of the people she met in Huntsville, always giving a pleasant hello and good morning to any and all who crossed her path before she drove a town over for work.

She would cause no trouble in Duck's absence, either, focusing on raising Wren and keeping in steadfast contact with her husband, and upon their return in 2011, his squadmates in Leon and Rusty Craven. Upon the paradox in 2012, she'd lose contact with Mallard- her last notification of his existence at all that he'd been injured severely the month before in an incident overseas, and was recovering at a Veteran's Hospital in Maine. They'd been due to drive out and visit him on April 27th. She'd survive that first night of horror through her in-laws, the storm cellar of the Romero home the place she'd sheltered up with the rest of them, holding Wren close and assuring the girl that it was all going to be fine, tomorrow.

It wasn't, of course. And Ophelia threw herself into whatever it took to help the town survive. She spent the next two years learning to hunt, track, and prep animals, to gather in the forests, under the watchful eye of Rusty Craven. The world would not treat her gently, anymore, and that meant she too, would be gentle no longer. She was a new person, when Duck's rental car rolled back through the city limits, when she threw arms around his neck and kissed him breathless on a cold winter's day.

Oh, the Romeros were unstoppable. A hunting team the likes of which no one could compete, it was Mallard and Ophelia who pushed for his position as head warden of the game board when the predecessor died to the ghosts, and it would be that same January of his return that Ophelia would fall pregnant. Robin Constantine Romero Would be born 9 months later, and the family of 4 would make the best of their situation, headed by the ever-stern but compassionate Duck, and guided more gently by Oph's softer heart, they put their best foot forward in what felt like Hell, and that fondness for them had them on the track to be the new synonym for the family name when the townspeople said "the Romeros."

Duck's drinking would get out of hand alongside his PTSD. The town would run out of painkillers, Duck's wounds still fresh in his mind making his sleep come restlessly, Night Terrors of the horrors of war, and the horrors of his reality gripping his throat in tandem. At little more than 35 years old, Duck was falling to pieces, and with two kids to raise, and a wife reliant on his ability to hunt to keep them alive, thanks to her presence at home with their toddler son, friction found its way between them again.

It wouldn't have the chance to tear them apart, as she'd vanish one night, with no trace of her but a note.

Mal.

I love you. I love you more than I can say, more than I could ever say, you and the children have been a bright spot on my life, before and well after this happened. I don't want you to think that you could have done something to change this, because I don't think you could. I don't know what happens, after this. But neither do you, and while I let it scare me, it's poisoned you.

I love you, I love you. I don't know what comes on the other side, but maybe it's something gentler than you drinking yourself into a slumber and me crossing my fingers that this isn't the night you choke to death on your own vomit. that this isn't a night you stagger into the living room to curse God for something I don't think he ever had a hand in. I know it hurt, watching Lee die, seeing Russel broken like that. I know it hurt then and now, trying to be a rock for him and us, for the townspeople.

Please, don't think you could have done something to change this. And don't stretch yourself thin. I step into tomorrow, as I step into the twilight. Maybe there's a way we meet again, in the future, in that place prettier than this one you always promised to take me to.

-Ophelia.

The note would start a manhunt, but wherever Ophelia Romero went, remains a mystery. Her body never found, little more than a bloodied scrap of her nightgown left on the branches of a tree.

Duck raises his children alone, now, and his drinking has lightened- though this is surely because of intervention of friends and family, and the need to be present to care for his children.

Once divorced, once widowed, Mal isn't too sure he's subscribing to 'third time's the charm.'

Headcanon Post assets (For quick access on the go. For me to look at my hard work. you know how it be.)

ANONYMOUS  asks  everyone  :  what’s  your  favorite  (  sex  )  position  ??

        Raphael mutters something about comfort, both in setting and with his partners, but never making it clear what sex position he favors.

                                    Jonathan is a simple, dominant man. “Doggystyle.”

            “uh, normal sex positions?” it’s missionary but vitt’s too embarrassed to admit it.

                                                    Dante won’t say. Outright refuses. 

          “ It depends, ” Ada bites her lip giddily. “ I’d say spooning! Or . . . missionary. I guess it depends! ”

                                           P  A  T  R  I  C  I  D  E

                              no man comes into this world thinking            KNOWING            he’s going to kill his father. Shit, Dante didn’t even know the man who raised him wasn’t his biological father until some drunken brawl that occured in his youth. No . . . The Don loved the man who raised him, his true father, a selfless, kind, and still a very proud man in his old age. He possessed no inherent desire to pursue a relationship with his rumored father . . . not at first. As he ages, stepping into the vastness of adulthood, he silently observes the other capofamiglia ( before he becomes one himself ) and recognizes features and traits present in his own being. It’s confirmation comes with an invitation from Don Puleo, and it is at his orchard estate that he lays bare to Dante his conception and the plan he has for his illegitimate son. The carpenter bitterly denies the other’s offer, knowing ( along with having a young pregnant wife and his own shop and apprentice ) that being a soldier for his warlord father would cause his mother great despair. They depart on ill - terms but this is not when he decides to kill his father.           No             It’s when his influence grows in Termini Imerese, his children become grown, and his businesses flourish. The security of his station in life allows him to grow bolder - not arrogant - but bolder. Sabotage and espionage plagues Jonathan Puleo and he becomes irate and much more brutal. Revolt was inevitable, Dante surmised, let those who pay their taxes to him quarter him like he despot he was. He had no reason to plot his father’s death UNTIL a rumor trickles down from the countryside; Don Puleo has a young wife, no older than Dante’s oldest daughter. It’s confirmed at the Festa del Santo Saverio, spotting the morose pregnant girl, sporting a black veil, next to his aged father. In his mind, he apologizes to her; she’ll need to wear her veil for a little while longer.             Dante brings his half - brother Jonathan, a former priest, as a false mediator in his meeting with their father. Don Puleo expects him to finally cede to his wishes, along with luring the son that bears his name into his nefarious deeds, but only gains a knife in the neck. It’s Dante who wields the blade, not Jon, for the latter’s role was to cement, through excellent forgery, the late Don Puleo’s assets into his widow’s name ( because he decided his estranged sons were more worthy than his wife ).            Jonathan’s death catalyzes Dante’s position amongst the mafia clans because, though it was PROVEN that it was a saboteur who murdered Jonathan, there was a sneaking suspicion that the former carpenter had SOMETHING to do with it. He takes the title of CAPOFAMIGLIA, filling the empty position left by Don Puleo’s death, and acquiring his soldiers and agenda. Dante rules nothing like his father, being cold and hard is required, yes, but never cruel. While Palermo’s mafia knows little peace, the new capofamiglia busies himself with mitigating the damages done by careless warlords like his late father.                           He thinks little of his father’s death however; it was a necessary evil.

dante’s dad (not jonathan) always sneaks him a few lire when he comes to visit, even though dante is basically a warlord and always insists on giving HIM money. dante ends up giving it back to his mom when he says goodbye, along with the money he came to give his parents. they never want to accept it but, hey, it’s his job to take care of them.