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detectivedreameater · 4 years

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Gal Pals || Lydia and Marley

TIMING: About a week ago (before The Red Room) PARTIES: @inspirationdivine and @detectivedreameater SUMMARY: Marley and Lydia meet up for drinks. And while neither leave with what they expected, the evening goes well. For once.

It wasn’t usual for Marley to ask to get drinks before their usual rendezvous. That wasn’t because the company wasn’t good, or that it was just a quick bang and gone, but going out for drinks? If Lydia didn’t know better, there was something to be read into this. What, precisely, Lydia had no idea. The mushroom spores made her headier by the day, more bubbly and enthusiastic and hungry. Hungry for food, for company, for sex, for promises, anything she could get her hands on. She chatted idly with a man at another table about, well, whatever as she waited.

“If the Sox don’t win this upcoming, I’ll eat my shoe. I’m telling you-”

“I’ll hold you to that. Oh, hello darling!” Lydia whipped her head away from him, clearly dismissing him as Marley walked on over. “It’s ever such a pleasure to see you. How are you?”

The strangeness of this evening wasn’t the fact that Lydia was acting off. Marley had remembered one other time Lydia had behaved this way, and it was on their first “date”. The lightness, the joy, the almost carefree attitude. But no, that wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was that Marley had never stopped sleeping with someone and still wanted to be their friend. She just didn’t know if Lydia wanted that, too. Their relationship had been pretty strictly sex, not that either of them didn’t enjoy time with each other. But last time they’d been out, Marley’s abilities had malfunctioned and she’d given Lydia a vicious vision against her will. She’d hurt someone she had come to care about, and the part where Marley felt guilty wasn’t even the worst of it-- it was admitting she cared about someone. That was-- oh, too many names now.

Rubbing her eyes, hidden behind a pair of magic, normal glasses, she pushed into the bar and found Lydia almost right away. She was hard to miss, after all. She smiled at her. “Hello Lydia,” she said back, coming over to her and taking a seat next to her, “I see you got the party started without me. I’m fine. The real question is how are you? Are you healing alright?”

“I’m simply wonderful, and all the better for seeing you again,” Lydia said, running her fingers up Marley’s arm. “I’m…. as healed as one might expect. My wing grew back, my ankle is healed. I’m doing well.” Aside from some long term effects that might not fade. Irritability, clouded judgement, on rare occasions, confusion. In a fae that prided herself on her talent for word play, that stung, still, and it wasn’t like a clouded judgement linked with irritability hadn’t recently resulted in a dead body, or a hurt siren. “But we won’t focus on that now. What have you been up to, detective?” Lydia’s gaze couldn’t help but trace up the long scars on Marley’s face. It had been so long since they’d last met. Too long.

If it weren’t for the fact that Marley knew Lydia was being genuine, she would’ve rolled her eyes at that. “I have that effect sometimes,” she said coyly, giving a half smirk. The man Lydia had been talking to before she got there was grumbling to himself in his drink, and she frowned only for a moment. “I’m glad you’re healing well. I hate being laid up on bed rest, I can’t even imagine you liking it.” When she looked back to Lydia, she could feel her gaze on her face and the lines that marred it started to burn. She turned her face away. “Why don’t we find a more private booth, yeah?” she said, taking Lydia’s hand gently and prodding her away from the public bar and towards the back. “Aside from getting mauled by a bear and stalked by a demon hand, not much. I, uh--” she stopped looked back at Lydia, before continuing on, finding them a secluded booth, “--could really use a nice break, you know?”

“I dislike the lack of control. Someone else made all the decisions for me, whether I lived, whether I died. I hated that part. But, it’s over now, and it does not serve me well to dwell.” Lydia paused as Marley looked away, but nodded, following her beautiful date over to a quieter part of the bar. “My apologies. Stalked by a demon hand? What on earth do you mean?” Lydia asked, pausing even as Marley led them somewhere more private. She couldn’t even begin to imagine. “Yeah, you could, good grief. Well, that is what we’re here for. Not that you don’t deserve more, but maybe tonight can be a start of a good break.” She slid into the secluded booth next to Marley, smiling warmly. “What would that look like for you, do you think? What do you want to have happen in the next while?”

“Yeah,” Marley agreed quietly, “don’t like that.” The vision of Tommy glaring her down, raising his paw, ready to kill her-- deciding whether she lived or died-- flashed in her mind a moment and she blinked it away. Lydia slid into the booth next to her and she felt her cheeks flush, clearing her throat. “It was something called a manumbra. It’s-- kind of a long story, but I thought I’d killed it once already but then it showed back up three times. It’s gone now, though,” she said, waving a waiter over to take her drink order, “hopefully,” she added when he was gone. She glanced over to Lydia, thumbing nervously at her jacket sleeve. “You know, I’m not really sure what that looks like,” she answered finally, “I just know being around you feels...easy.” The waiter brought her drink and she took it gratefully, taking a long sip, letting the alcohol cool her throat. “And as much fun as we have, I sort of uh, am attempting this whole being exclusive thing with someone.” She looked nervously over at her for a moment. “Sorry I didn’t say anything before. I didn’t think you’d actually want to meet up for just drinks.”

A manumbra. Right. Lydia nodded as if she had any idea what that was, but it was clear she didn’t. “I’m so sorry to hear it. How do you know that this time it stuck?” She ordered a top up wine glass from the waiter, just to keep her going. Her eyes lit up at Marley’s compliment, but it felt like there was more, a but hanging at the end of her sentence. “You don’t need to figure it out now, you know.”

A heavy pause lingered in the air as Marley drank, as if there was something on her mind. When she finally spoke, Lydia’s smile fixed on her face. “Ah, I see,” Lydia ducked her chin, looking down at her drink for a second as she readjusted her dress further down her thighs, stung by the momentary rejection and the excited expectations she’d built up for the evening. When she looked up a second later, all of that was dismissed with the wave of her hand. She ought to have seen this coming. “Oh I would have still come, darling, I would have just worn something a little less easy access.” She laughed, gesturing down as her tight dress, which did just have the one set of delicate buttons to unfasten, unlike some of other garments which had more fastenings than Lydia had fingers. “For the record, I don’t love the deceit, but if you’ve found a relationship worth limiting yourself to, all the more power to you. What are they like?”

“Because I saw its dead body this time,” Marley answered plainly, the ire clear in her voice. She was past that part of her life now. The manumbra was as dead as Roland and she needed to move on. She couldn’t afford to keep getting hung up on small things like that. On things she had no control of. She brushed a hand over her eyes, the glasses slipping up a moment to reveal glowing red. “Guess I’m just a textbook work-a-holic. I never know what to do with time off.”

Marley felt a tad guilty as she watched Lydia fuss, readjusting her dress. She looked away, tracing the rim of her glass delicately, chewing on her lower lip. “I’m surprised anyone could actually deceive you, Lydia,” she teased quietly, “but it won’t happen again.” She opened her mouth to say the words, but stopped short when she remembered exactly what Lydia was. The ‘P’ word held too much power here, and Marley knew she couldn’t promise that. She always slipped up. Swallowing, she turned to face Lydia. She reached out and brushed a strand of hair behind Lydia’s ear. “For the record, I really do enjoy our time together. And it’s odd, I guess,” her brows scrunched, “that I felt so nervous about hurting you. Or that you’d reject the notion of--” the ‘F’ word caught in her throat as well, but she swallowed it down, “--just being friends. I’ve never had this before.” She turned away again, fingers tapping at her glass. She let out a long breath.

“She’s wonderful, though,” Marley said, finally picking up her glass and taking another long sip, “this girl I have. She accepts everything of me. Or, well-- everything I’ve told her of me. Which is...a lot.” She glanced over at Lydia. “And she’s like us. And her eyes are-- the most beautiful things I’ve seen.”

“It happens more often than I like to admit,” Lydia said quietly, trying to joke and not quite succeeding. Oh, she’d been rejected before, but not often enough for it not to sting. She took a long drink of her wine, nearly finishing the glass before looking down at Marley, she leant her head into the gentle touch. It probably wasn’t meant to be as intimate as it came across, but it made Lydia smile all the same. “I understand. I’m happy for you, really. But we wouldn’t have had this regular arrangement had I not liked your company. It’s okay, really.” Lydia curled her body closer to Marley’s but in a more friendly way, like how she might sit closer to Deirdre. “She sounds wonderful. It’s so important that you’re on the same page. I’ve learned from…. Far too much experience that if you aren’t on the same page about everything, that one page will be the one to trip you up. So that is wonderful, Marley, Really.” Her smile grew into a wide grin. “Oh, my god, I’m such a sap for hearing people be so romantic. How did you meet?” All sense of let down was gone, as she sipped at her own wine.

There was something to be said for Lydia’s tone, but Marley let it go for the moment. She felt her body tense only slightly when Lydia curled closer, and it made her realize that these soft, intimate touches had never been something she’d shared platonically. With anyone. Her throat felt dry and the drink made it worse. “It’s not something I’ve ever had before,” she said, furrowing her brow, “I wasn’t...this kind of person.” Lydia’s voice sounded so light, so happy-- for her. Fingers tapped nervously at her glass again. “Romance isn’t really my thing. I just-- I guess almost dying made me realize something, though.” She wondered what thing almost dying would have made her realize had Anita not been in the picture. Would she have fought so hard had she had nothing to fight for? “Oh, uh-- it’s kinda boring. We met online, because I’m an insatiable flirt and I chided her into a second date after the first one went poorly.”

“All muses agree on this one. Love catches even the most foolhardy off guard. Not that this need be love, or even an approximation, but it has caught you off guard nonetheless.” Lydia said, but it sounded like it wasn’t the only thing that had caught Marley off guard, as she curled against her. The wine made her warm and fuzzy as as she raised her hand to sumon the waiter for another refill. “I understand that. When I was attacked recently, it shifted my world perspective. It’s awful to say, but something like this is an incredible silver lining.” Lydia looked Marley’s profile up and down somewhere, smiling at the mundane little tale. “Hey, we all have to start somewhere. Clearly, she saw something she liked just as much. I hope it continues well.”

Love. Marley felt her insides twist at the word, squeezing her chest, her heart. She downed the rest of her drink and tapped the cup for another when the waiter came by. She looked over at Lydia, before glancing away again. “I hope it continues well, too, I just...don’t know if I’m cut out for it, you know?” she waved her hand around limply. “All this is-- strange to me. And I’m worried I’m just going to hurt her,” she mumbled, “like I hurt you.” Like she hurt so many before them, her gaze striking fear into anyone who happened to look in her direction at the wrong time. “My eyes hurt people. I thought I was better than that, but one slip up, you know? It just takes one.”

“I think it isn’t so mucha case of whether you are or aren’t, I think it’s a case of what you do. I have always found love easy, but maintaining a relationship takes effort.” Lydia barely glanced as the waitress replaced their drinks, drinking deeply from her glass immediately. “Well, we can almost certainly say that she likes you more than I do,” Lydia said softly, “and I got over it. We’ve all made our fair share of mistakes. No one is perfectly in control in the time.” She slid her hand along Marley’s arm with a soft smile. “The good ones remember that it was a mistake, and create space for you to heal these things together.” Lydia thought about Morgan and Deirdre, who had no shortage of mistakes between the two of them, yet they both forgave each other, over and over. There was space in each other’s worlds for hurt and the healing thereof. “Didn’t your parents ever lose control?

“Oh, you wound me, Lydia,” Marley teased quietly, “here I thought you liked me the most.” It was, after all, her automatic defense when things like feelings and emotions came up. Swallowing it down, she let out a long breath, her arm feeling warm where Lydia’s hand pressed against it. A soothing motion. Marley had never realized before how much she enjoyed the simple act of being comforted. She put a hand on top of Lydia’s and squeezed. “You always know the right thing to say, don’t you?” she half-teased, sipping her alcohol more calmly now. At least until she asked about her parents. Marley paused, stiffening again. The cool glass was still pressed against her lips. She lowered it slowly, setting it down on the coaster. Folded her hands together on the table. “I wouldn’t know,” she said finally, “I never met them.”

Lydia chuckled. “You’ve always had delusions of grandeur, my dear,” she teased right back. “I can’t help that.” Sheturned her hand over in Marley’s, so that she could squeeze it back, her smile softening. For all the delightful hours they’d spent together, this wasn’t anything she’d seen in Marley before. It was a good look, so good that Lydia almost felt a pang of…. Envy (badumtsss). “Talking is kind of our entire thing as a species, one would hope I was good at it,” Lydia replied with a soft smile. Immediately, she felt Marley stiffen up underneath her. “I’m ever so sorry,” Lydia replied softly, and then, before she could help herself, “Do you wish you had?” She flushed, leaning back. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it’s fine,” Marley said, finding her words both sudden and natural. It was her immediate response, but she wasn’t sure she meant it. She’d never really talked about her parents before. Why did she feel okay about it now? Perhaps that was just the kind of energy Lydia gave off. That she was safe to talk about this. That somehow Lydia would understand and accept any truth Marley had. “I don’t know if I do. They-- gave me up for a reason, I guess. I don’t know. I think I wish...I wasn’t raised by humans, but I don’t know if I want to know who they were or why they...gave me up.” Because what if she didn’t like the answer? What if they gave her up because they just didn’t want her?

Was it, Lydia wondered immediately. She listened carefully, swirling her wine glass as Marley talked.“No. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this town, it is that being raised with human expectations can be a cruelty on its own, however wonderful they might otherwise be.” Lydia looked to Marley’s hands, tightly clasped in front of her, and put a hand carefully on top of them. “I can only imagine how hard that is.”

Marley gave a hollow chuckle, a grimace on her face. “I didn’t even know what I was until I was 16,” she said, knitting her brows together. Perhaps Lydia, someone so unhuman in her fae ways, was the only one that could really understand the feeling of being judged so humanly. “I was raised by humans who had no idea what I was and they passed me along like a disease,” she said, her voice growing dark, angry. “I think I hated my parents for so long because of that, you know? If they really loved me, why would they leave me with people like that?” She squeezed her glass hard enough to feel it crack, suddenly realizing the space she’d gone into and let go, looking over at Lydia. “Sorry, I--” she didn’t want to hurt her again. “Sorry. It’s...I’ve never talked about this before.” She took her hand again, gentle, so gentle. “I swore to myself I would just forget about them and leave that part of me behind, but now I’m not so sure…”

“It’s okay. You can take your time. Or not. Far be it for me to determine how you should process these things.” Lydia took in a deep breath, smiling ever so warmly. “Family is ever so complicated.” Whatever internal fear Marley felt, Lydia was only catching the superficial hints. It had been a quick swerve, this change from booty call to friends without benefits, but somehow it fit as naturally as everything else. “What do you think would give you what you need? It’s, well, it’s obvious to me they still have a big effect on you, regardless of what you wanted before.”

Marley twiddled her fingers with Lydia’s, trying to let herself relax. Reading too into things wouldn’t do anyone any good. There was the initial pang of anger, like she always felt when people asked about her parents, or tried to tell her how she should feel-- but Lydia was right, and it was always so hard to stay mad at her. Letting out a long breath, Marley composed herself. “I just want to know why,” she finally said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, “what would make them give me up to humans?”

"So find out." Lydia said simply, matching Marley's tone. She leant in, speaking low in soft, deep tones, and wondered ever so briefly what it might have been like to be the one who had caught feelings for her. When she hunted, she shut that part of herself off, unable to stand using the same lines and tones on the people she cared about and the humans she was ensnaring. If they had met at another time, perhaps. Lydia didn’t deal often in what ifs, so let that thought escape the way it had entered, smirking up at the other woman. "Marley, I mean, detective Strider, finding out secrets is your whole job. But only if you want to."

So find out. As if it was just that simple. As if Marley could just pick up a phone and call up her birth parents and ask them why. As if they weren’t either dead or long gone or in a different country. She didn’t know, though, did she? She had no idea who they were or where they were or what they were like. Had she ever wanted to know? Her entire life, was the answer. Even when she’d told herself she didn’t care and didn’t want to, she’d been lying, hadn’t she? She’d always wanted to know. “It is my job, yeah,” she answered quietly, “I always told myself I didn’t want to know, swore them off, but maybe it’s time to think the other way. To...find out who they were.” She had never allowed herself what ifs in her life, because in a situation like hers, they were dangerous. Longing for a family was dangerous. The foster environment didn’t allow for it. But now, she’d been out for so many years, she’d made it through, maybe she could be allowed to pursue those what ifs. “Or, at least, why they gave me up.”

Lydia’s thumb traced idle patterns over the back of Marley’s hands as Marley thought, not urging her to reply. This was quite the turn of the evening, from what she’d first expected, but Lydia didn’t really mind. It was nice to find something deeper under Marley’s surface, especially as she was so familiar with Marley’s surfaces. She listened with a careful smile. “Maybe it is,” she murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind Marley’s ear gently, a glint in her eyes. Maybe it was Marley who made her giddy, or maybe it was the thick spores in the air, but Lydia wanted to see this one through. “So, will you? Go find out?” Lydia prompted, calling the waitress over for another round of drinks.

These gentle, soft touches prodded another what if to dance through Marley’s mind. In another time, could Lydia be the one she could call hers? Could it be someone else sitting here, letting Marley tell them she wanted to be exclusive? She swallowed down the thought. Monogamy wasn’t ever something she’d cared for or thought about, and while it was a struggle, it wasn’t all bad. Knowing someone was only hers was...nice. Even if she did find herself wishing she could share parts of herself with others. “Yeah,” she finally said, smiling over at Lydia, “I will.”

I’ll hold you to that. It was the mushrooms, Lydia decided as she grinned into her wine glass. She was giddy with them, binding everyone and everything. She’d undo it by the end of the season, no harm done. It was just a harmless little thing, and it would help. “Good for you,” Lydia said as she wrapped her arm around Marley’s shoulders. “I realise we’ve only been at it for an hour, but this friendship thing is going quite well, don’t you think?” Lydia teased.

#chatzy #chatzy: lydia #gal pals #lydia #wickedswriting

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phoebonicawrites · 4 years

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Why, Grandma... (in which the author plays a game)

So I bought the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, which is, as the name suggests, a bundle of games by indie creators on itch.io to raise money for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund. And by a bundle I mean a truly ridiculous number of games for a minimum donation of $5. So go check that out! (And if there’s nothing at all you want in there but you can afford to donate, go donate directly at those next two links!)

Anyway, one of those games is called My Welcomed Guest, and it’s a single-player tabletop roleplaying game about being lost in Faerie and trying to get home without angering your host too much. I played through it earlier and created an eerie story with an unhappy ending that I liked enough to want to share. So here it is.

Warnings: manipulation, betrayal, ill-advised fairy deals, memory loss. This isn’t edited at all, just what I wrote down as I was playing it. The first two lines of Act V were taken directly from the game, just for context.

Act I

They say the Fae are beautiful, that they bewitch and beguile mortals, that they can show you pleasures undreamt of. They may have meant this to be a warning, but I longed to know more.

But I knew that to enter their world might mean losing all I had and everyone I loved. A day in Faerie might be a hundred years in this world. When I returned, surely my mother and father would be long dead, my brother and sisters old and weary.

So I stayed at home, and I tended the flocks, until the day I tripped while searching for a lost lamb and fell into a pit I was sure would kill me. I fell for far longer than I should have, and when I landed at the bottom, unhurt, I was not where I should have been.

My mother always warned me to carry an iron nail in my pocket when I went out into the hills, to ward off the Fae and their tricks. I had always been tempted to drop it in the long grass and forget it, but feeling the weight of it now in my pocket, I was glad I had held on to it. The real Faerie was darker and colder than the land of wonders I had imagined.

The sky was dark with clouds, and as I stood and looked around to get my bearings, a hard rain began to fall. In the distance I could see a cottage, with firelight flickering in the windows. I ran to it, and knocked on the door pleading for shelter. An old woman opened the door, and I gasped in shock. She looked for all the world like my grandmother, just as I remembered her from my childhood. Except that Grandmother had been dead these past five years.

She smiled at me, a kind, gentle smile. “Come in, my dear,” she said. “Come in and warm yourself.” I followed her into the house, comforted by the familiarity of her presence, of the little cottage just as I remembered it.

And yet, in the back of my mind, I knew this could not be right. This couldn’t be real. My grandmother was dead, her cottage sold to others. Whatever comfort I felt here was likely to be a trap. I had to remember that.

She offered me a cup of… something. A warm silvery liquid, with tendrils of purple snaking through it. It smelled delicious, but I thought of the tales I had heard of fairy food and what happened to those foolish enough to accept it. My mouth watered and my stomach growled, but I set the cup down on a table beside my chair. For a moment, I saw fire flash in her eyes.

Act II

“I must get home,” I told her, after a silence that seemed like an age. “Please, Grandmother, won’t you help me?”

She said something too quiet for me to hear, gazing into the fire. She muttered to herself like this for a long time. I grew more and more afraid. Eventually, I dared to speak again. “Grandmother?”

“If I help you, you must offer me something in return,” she told me. “But all that I want is your happiness, dear. One true moment of happiness, from your life.”

I thought of the time I remembered being happiest, playing in the stream with my best friend Samantha as a little girl, the flower she plucked from a tree and braided into my hair. And as I thought of it I felt the fairy reach into my mind and pluck it away, and I knew that once there had been a day like that, but I no longer knew the smile on Samantha’s face or the sound of her laughter, or the cool of the water, or the scent of the flower. The loss of it gaped in my head like a missing tooth.

Act III

“Why is it you’re so eager to get home, dear?” she asked me.

I swallowed. “My family and my friends will be missing me,” I told her, which was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The truth was, I was afraid, remembering the story of the little girl who wandered in the woods, the wolf in grandmother’s clothing. I saw her frown as I clasped my shaking hands tight together in my lap.

“Don’t you think this house is lovely, dear?” she asked, and when I nodded my agreement, went on. “Your grandmother always did have good taste. And she was beautiful, too. That’s why I saved her from the lake that day. Why I granted her long life, and all I asked in exchange was that she leave me her most precious thing, when she died. The most precious thing she possessed, in all the years I gave her.” She smiled, sipping from her own cup. “Did you know you were always her favourite, dear?”

My stomach twisted. “She told me she fell in the lake one day and a handsome young man fished her out,” I said, mouth dry. “She didn’t mention the rest of it.”

“Ah, well.” She set the cup aside. “I’ve seen you, darling, wandering and wondering. The look in your eyes as you gaze off into the hills. Hasn’t a part of you longed to come and visit us? What was it you were looking for?”

By now I was far too scared to lie. “They said – the Good People are beautiful, that they can show you untold wonders, and, uh, pleasures,” I mumbled, blushing to the roots of my hair.

She laughed brightly, like the tinkling of bells. She didn’t seem like my grandmother at all any more. “And do you know why it was you stumbled through my door, my dearest?”

“Because… you put it there for me to find.” I bit my lip.

Act IV

“And now you’d like to go home.” She sighed. “Well, we’ve made a bargain, sure enough.”

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

It occurred to me then – an absurdly mundane concern on the face of it, but enough to give me pause – that I’d left the sheep alone on the hillside. If I’d been gone a hundred years, that wouldn’t matter by now, but if it had only been the few hours it felt like, I’d be in trouble with my parents. They’d never believe what had happened to me, not unless I brought back proof.

My eye fell on an ornament on the mantelpiece, a flower made of spun glass so delicate it looked like spiderwebs, certainly nothing my true grandmother had ever owned.

Grandma had always liked to give me little trinkets. I cleared my throat. “Grand… mother?” I asked, tentatively, not sure what else to call her. “May I have this? To remember your kindness by?”

She raised her eyebrows. Hastily, I added, “I’ll give you some more of my happiness, in exchange.”

Her eyes narrowed, but eventually, she nodded. “Very well, child.”

I thought of a warm Christmas morning, my family seated by the fire, for once no squabbling or squalling. I saw it all, and felt it snatched away.

Act V

“Before you lie two doors, one back to your realm, the other to a place of penance. I think you should take the door on the left, but the choice is yours.”

I noted, my heart in my throat, that she hadn’t said anything about which door was which.

I didn’t think she was at all happy to let me leave.

I made for the right-hand door.

I must have walked for years, over rocks and brambles, never growing more or less hungry or tired than I was already, until I found the doors again.

This time I took the left door.

And I walked through endless snow.

There must be one I haven’t tried. The Fae don’t lie. They never really tell the truth, but they don’t lie.

Maybe I should have taken the left-hand door, after all. Or maybe it would all have been the same.

Maybe I’ll never stop searching.

Maybe one day I’ll give up, and make my way back to Grandma’s house, and plead with her to let me in.

#original fiction #fairy tales #my welcomed guest #playthrough

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creativelycryptid · 4 years

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The Thing in the Woods

There have always been things in the woods. This is a fact of life up here, in the mountains. From the first moment human eyes looked out into the first dark woods, other eyes have looked back. Some eyes were friends, some were food or sought us for food, but others were something else entirely. Things, with a capital T. The woods have gotten smaller, over time. Height wise and width. Things have died off slowly. Not entirely, of course. Many adapted, became smaller, better at mimicking coyotes or owls or other things considered natural by people, or just better at hiding in general. Still, there are quite a bit fewer nowadays than there used to be. Every culture has or had their own ways of dealing with them or not dealing with them, as the Thing and situation called for. I’ve lived in the Appalachian mountains for most of my years. Not true deep woods, but deep enough to have my fair of stories about Things. Deep enough to learn a few things too, like how even though coyotes live in packs they don’t hunt in them. If you’re in the woods, being chased by something that looks and sounds like coyotes, they may not be coyotes. Climb a tree and say your prayers. There’s a wide variety of Things: Things that have names (Bigfoot, Mothman), Things that used to have names, and Things that have never had names. This story is about one particular Thing named Bibi.

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When the real estate agent brought me out here the first time, he was highly skeptical. An old woman living alone out in the woods? He was concerned for my health and safety, he said. But I’d lived out here in my younger years, and I remembered how it was. There wasn’t a force on earth short of a heart attack that could’ve kept me from buying this place. A sturdy little house, with a porch just big enough for the table and pair of rockers that sat to one side of the door. I walked through the house with the real estate agent trailing behind me, half-heartedly selling me on the place. I mostly tuned him out. I’d already made up my mind. The only things of interest in all of what he said to me that day were the price (on the high end of affordable), the distance to my nearest neighbor (too far for his comfort but too close for mine), and that it came with the furniture. We went back to his office to get the paperwork in order, and within a few weeks I was settled in.

My first night was lovely. I had a little upstairs bedroom all set up with quilts and books and a little reading lamp. The mattress was mine, of course, no telling how old the one that came with the house was, or what kinds of people the last tenants had been, but I did use their bed frame. I smiled when I lay down, already running through lists of things to unpack in the morning. An art studio across the hall, dishes for the cupboards, boxes of books and blankets for the living room, and seeds for the garden. It was too early to do much planting yet, but I could plan. Oh Lord could I plan. There would be no guest room, naturally. I slept soundly that night, with the comforting sounds of night birds and wind.

The next afternoon I was taking a break from my unpacking and was enjoying some lunch of sandwiches and hot tea on my porch. The last of winter was thawing out, though I figured we still had one good frost to come. The air was a bit nippy, and I was tightening my shawl around my shoulders when the car pulled into my driveway. It wasn’t the real estate agent’s shiny newish car, and it wasn’t a moving van, so I couldn’t see any reason for this beige Toyota something or other to be here. I was about ready to tell the driver as much, too.

Before I could finish composing an irate but mostly polite invitation to leave, the driver stepped out and started up the porch. She was a woman of about my age, with a darker complexion and wiry gray hair pulled away from her face. Her eyes had smile lines at the corners, and her expression was friendly but firm. She carried a casserole dish with her, covered over in a layer of tinfoil, and I sighed. There was really no getting out of this. I hauled myself out of the rocker.

“Well hey there! I just wanted to stop by and welcome you to the neighborhood. Lord knows the trees won’t do it.” She motioned towards the surrounding woods with the casserole dish and her face crinkled up into a smile.

“That’s mighty kind of you. Here, I’ll take that and let you get back to your day.” The casserole dish was still warm and her hands were cool where I brushed against them. The tinfoil crinkled up at the edges and the smell of warm peaches drifted out.

“Oh, now, I’m in no rush. I was hoping to sit with you a spell and get to know you. Not many people in the area, so I gotta get my conversations in where I can. I’m Ruth, I live about ten minutes that-a-ways.”

“Name’s Lottie. Lemme get some plates and such for this, we can chat while we eat. G’on, have a seat.”

To tell the full truth, I had planned to serve up the cobbler, make as little conversation as I could get away with, and then say my goodbyes. Maybe make a few empty promises to stop round her place one of these days and few even emptier invitations for her to come calling again. If I’d had my way, I’d have been a hermit in the old mountain tradition. I suppose, in the long run, it’s a good thing I didn’t get my way.

I stepped back out onto the porch with two plates of peach cobbler and an extra blanket for Ruth. She accepted her plate with a smile, and our fingers brushed again. To her credit, the cobbler tasted amazing, and I told her as much.

“Secret family recipe” she told me, “plus I canned the peaches myself. I think it adds a little something. Where’d you move from? You sound local enough.”

“Most recently just down the hill, in State Road. I grew up further up the mountain, though, and a little to the west. Lived there from the time I was born till I was, oh, about 35. Surface mining got too close for comfort.” Ruth was nodding the whole time I was talking.

“Yeah that sounds about right. ‘Bout the same for me. Moved down the mountain, got hitched, moved back up the mountain. It’s the circle of life or something pretty close to it.”

“Sure seems that way. Never got married, though. Never struck me as something I ought to do. I like the quiet too much to have some man foolin’ around gettin’ in my way. That’s why I came back up here.”

“Well, there’s plenty of quiet up here, that’s for sure. I’m glad of it myself, but it does get a little lonesome. Ed’s been gone a good - let’s see, what’s it been? - ten years now. He was an alright husband, God rest his soul, but never much of a talker either. The kids have little ‘uns, but they mostly come up in the summer.” Ruth looked off into the trees for a minute, before turning to me. Her face was softer, and her skin didn’t seem as much crinkled as it did folded. Less like paper, more like fabric.

“So I’m glad to have a neighbor now.” She finished, and reached over to pat my hand.

We talked for a while longer, mostly about gardening, before we decided that it was about time to go back to our own businesses. And then, of course, we talked for a little longer, standing next to her car, then through the car window. I waved her off, then went back to unpacking. I tried to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t think about my visitor, but that can only last for so long.

That night, after dinner was eaten and the dishes were cleaned and put away, I settled down on the couch with a glass of whiskey and a crossword puzzle that I just couldn’t focus on. I kept going back and forth in my head about Ruth. It had started off perfectly normal, to be sure. Introducing yourself to your new neighbor with a baked good was the neighborly standard. Hadn’t the conversation gotten a little too familiar too quickly, though? On the other hand, what we’d discussed technically fell into the category of family history, which was well within the range of typical. Although, family history usually ranged to how long your grandparents had lived in the area or which of your relatives had run shine. It wasn’t so much that the visit was strange in general, but it was strange for me. I hadn’t gotten so friendly so quick with someone in decades. And such a long conversation! I hadn’t had a willing conversation longer than 15 minutes in God knows how long. I could’ve gone back and forth for the rest of the night, or at least until I’d finished my whiskey, if I hadn’t had my second, much stranger visitor.

There was a noise in the yard, though I’m hard pressed to say now exactly what it was. A stick snapping or the sound of hurried steps over the gravel in the driveway. I reached for my shotgun and went to take a peek out the front window, running through a list of possible culprits. A bear would be making more noise, it was still too far from spring for a bear to be moving gracefully. It was too big to be an opossum or a racoon. Maybe a deer, maybe a person. I stared out into the darkness.

I couldn’t quite make out where she stood at first, but my eyes adjusted enough to see her, standing towards the middle of my yard. Definitely not a deer, the shadow in my yard moved on two feet, but sort of crouched into herself. It was hard to see her exact shape, but I could tell that she was a little smaller than me, tall and around, even hunched like she was. She looked to be made of shadows, but the parts of her that I figured were her arms and legs stood starkly pale against the night. I tried to angle myself against the window to see her better, and the tip of the shotgun knocked against it, just lightly. I watched her tense, back arching so that now, instead of hunching over, she looked more coiled for a spring. Her head whipped around to face me and we locked eyes.

Good God those eyes. They shone bright in the night, a piercing green that seemed to drill into me. I remember thinking that they were so bright it seemed like they should be casing spotlights in front of her. And that it seemed like she was waiting for something. I held my breath and tried to stay still. I didn’t want to spook her, or incur her wrath. There was no telling, from just this first meeting, what kind of Thing this was in my yard. Some Things are dangerous. I was mostly just hoping she wasn’t one of those.

I’m not so sure of how long we sat there, but eventually she backed up a pace or two and then darted back into the woods. She moved a little like a human, but mostly like a catamount. Which is to say, she had her back up and her head down and moved quick and graceful, but she stayed on two legs. I stayed where I was, watching the darkness. I didn’t sleep quite as well that night.

But the sun came up, as it is wont to do, and there were things that needed doing. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen Things before, there was even a time in my life where it was downright normal to wake up midway through the night and see flashing eyes in the dark, or hear an almost-human voice calling from the woods. I was a little out of practice, that’s all. And maybe I was a little unsettled that I couldn’t quite tell what she was. I was certain I’d feel better after a little breakfast.

I did not feel better after a little breakfast. In fact, as I unloaded more books into the bookshelf I started to wonder if she would be back. While I was deciding where to hang my few pictures and paintings, I thought anxiously about teeth and claws. By the time I was trying to set up my tv I was remembering how she had moved, with a darting swiftness, and wondering if I could shoot her if I had to, and my hands shook so badly I couldn’t get the cables right. It was time for a break.

I hesitated in the doorway for a moment before stepping onto the porch. In the end, though, I decided that this was my home and I wasn’t going to be afraid in it. If that were the case, I might as well move out now. Besides, I reasoned, most Things didn’t come out in the daylight, at least not this close to people. As long as I didn’t go for a walk in the woods, I would be fine.

I sat in the rocker for a few minutes, watching the woods. All was calm. Bird song drifted on the wind, and clouds passed by overhead. Feeling emboldened by the quiet, I decided I should look to see if there were any tracks in the yard. The ground was still fairly hard from the cold, and the Thing had moved lightly, so I doubted there would be, but I looked anyway.

I stood in the middle of my yard, bent over the ground and staring holes into the grass, so focused that I didn’t hear the approaching sound of tires crunching gravel until I heard a voice call to me.

“Lottie? Y’alright?” It was Ruth, leaning out her window with a softly furrowed brow and pursed lips. I straightened and felt a flush creep up my neck, knowing how I must look. I hadn’t even put my hair up yet, and thin wispy strands of silver fell all about my face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. Just saw something out in the yard last night, was checking to see if it left a mark.” The flush crept a little higher as I watched Ruth back her car up a bit and turn into my driveway.

“I’ll help you look. I’m an amateur woodsman of sorts.” She chuckled, climbing out of her car. Despite the chill, my palms were starting to sweat. I wiped them on my jeans and decided it must have been from how I was using them to brace myself as I searched the ground. That was all.

“It’s not a whole lotta use. The ground’s still too hard for any real tracks.” I mumbled, pushing a hand through my hair and wishing she would just leave.

“Well, no harm in having a look around.” She was still smiling, but her voice was so matter of fact that I gave up and just accepted it. Ruth had wandered over to where I was standing and began inspecting the ground. I stood blushing for another minute before I bent over next to her.

Over the next 15 or so minutes we made our way across the yard, walking slowly and inspecting each step. At one point our shoulders brushed, and when I looked up there she was, so close I could feel her breath on my cheek. My heart beat so fast, I had to move away from her or I feared I would faint.

Eventually, we neared the edge of the woods. I stopped a few feet out and wouldn’t have gone any closer if not for Ruth. She kept going and called out to me that she’d found something just inside the tree line. Hesitant but unwilling to be both a fool and a coward, I followed. She’d found a place where recent snowmelt had turned the dirt into mud, and there were just a few footprints. They weren’t what I’d been expecting, though. I’d thought they’d be closer to cat paws, or taloned like a bird, but they were just human. The first couple were just the balls of her feet, but the other three were full prints of slender feet, undeniably human. Ruth turned to me.

“What exactly kind of Thing did you say you saw?” Ruth asked, and I described what I’d seen the best I could. When I’d finished, she smiled and shook her head just a little. “It’s a little far for them to travel, but I’d wager it was just a kid pulling some kinda prank. Probably won’t be back, either way.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t particularly want to say anything. It seemed to me that Ruth was treating me a bit like a tourist who doesn’t know a racoon from a cat, and I was a bit put off by that. Besides, there was something in Ruth’s expression that I couldn’t quite place. A distance in her eyes and a downward tilt to her eyebrows. It looked almost like concern, but then it was gone, and, as cliche as it sounds, I was left to wonder if it had been there at all.

“Well, I suppose you have things to be getting to. Don’t let me keep you any longer.” I may have been a tad sharper than necessary, but she’d bruised my ego, implying I didn’t know the difference between a teenager in a costume and a genuine Thing. She seemed to realize what I was upset about, though, and hurried to sooth me.

“Oh, dear, no, I didn’t mean that you don’t know what you’re talking about. I just meant, well, the footprints are certainly human, so there’s no cause for concern.” She smiled at me.

“I’d hardly say I’m concerned. I can handle myself just fine.” I said. Oh sure, I’d been worrying all morning about whether or not I could defend myself, but that was hardly the point. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was embarrassed to admit it. Good thing I knew better.

“I’m sure you can. Well, I do need to get going, but I’ll stop by later, if that’s alright with you.” Ruth was still smiling at me, and I couldn’t quite decide if it was genuine or placating. I nodded, and she was on her way. I plodded back inside and finished setting up the tv. It didn’t seem nearly so hard now.

Time crept on, and I found myself eyeing the clock more and more. Ruth hadn’t said when exactly she’d be back, but I had assumed it would be sometime near lunch. So as noon rolled around, I was disappointed to be eating alone. After lunch I found myself restless. I paced, not quickly but aimlessly, looking for things to do. The second I started in on a task, though, I was overwhelmed by the need to do something else and returned to pacing. Finally, there was a knock on the door. I hurried to answer, but stopped a foot short of answering and took a breath, chiding myself silently for acting like an excitable schoolgirl. Then I answered.

It was Ruth, of course. This time I invited her in, and we sat on the faded couch that had come with the house, sipping tea. The tv was on from where I’d been using it for background noise earlier, playing some nature documentary about elephants, but Ruth didn’t seem to mind.

“I wanted to apologize for offending you earlier. It’s a little too soon to be picking fights with my new neighbor.” Ruth smiled while she spoke, a little apologetic, a little hopeful.

“Oh, no, it’s quite alright. I was a bit oversensitive about it, that’s all.” I smiled back, trying to match her levels of apology and hope, though I’ve no doubt mine was a sight more awkward than hers. After a brief pause, Ruth cleared her throat.

“Earlier, I got the idea that you knew what you were talking about, that maybe you had experience with Things. I was just wondering what sorts of Things you’d seen before.” Ruth waited patiently while I thought about the best way to answer. Of course I’d had the usual experiences that anyone has if they stay too deep in the woods for too long, but that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, I was sure. Really, there was only one story to tell.

“When I was a girl, I would hear something in the woods calling my name. It was almost always at night, and only from the woods. It never crossed into the open space between the woods and my house. My mother told me that that was just something that happened sometimes, and to just ignore it. Well, one day I’m outside, broad daylight, and I hear it. It sounds close too, closer than normal, and I know I shouldn’t but I look over my shoulder towards it. There it is, standing right at the edge of the woods, and it looks almost exactly like me. Except the proportions are just a little off, like someone tried to draw me from memory but hadn’t seen me in a while. Well, I ran back inside, but it didn’t chase me. I never heard it call my name again.” Well, to be truthful I’d heard it call my name twice more after that, but that didn’t make for a terribly good ending. Ruth let that sit for a minute, and we listened to the narrator describe how intelligent elephants are.

“That’s pretty interesting. I’ve heard of people having their names called, but nothing’s ever called mine. I did hear whistling, though. It definitely wasn’t a bird, but it didn’t seem to be from a person, either. I never saw the source, though. It always raised the hairs on the back of my neck.” Ruth stayed until nearly sunset, talking with me about Things, before heading back to her own house. I invited her to stay for dinner, of course, but she declined, saying that she couldn’t drive well at night and needed to leave before it got dark. As we said our goodbyes on the front porch, though, she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. As much as it embarrasses me to admit it, it made me giddier than I’d been in a long while.

That night, and every night after for the next week and a half I stayed up late, waiting for any sign that the Thing might have come back. I didn’t mean to, at first. I would go to bed at a reasonable hour and then stare up at the ceiling for hours, thinking about Ruth (how her hair had looked in the sun, how her hand had been cool and burning at the same time when she lay it on my arm) at first, and then slowly spiraling back to the Thing (how she had seemed too big and too small at the same time, how bright her eyes had shone in the dark). I started staying up in the living room later and later each night. Ruth noticed how tired I was when she visited, and I saw more of that concern I’d seen at the end of our monster hunt. Ruth visited often. Not every day, but most days she’d at least stop in for a hello, sometimes staying for lunch, almost always departing with a kiss on the cheek. I waited for Ruth during the day, and, at night, I waited for the Thing. Finally, I got tired of waiting.

One evening, after Ruth had come and gone and I could be reasonably assured I wouldn’t be caught, I started setting out some food in the yard. A little fruit, some carrots, a potato, some scraps of chicken, and a little bit of old biscuit, since there was no way to be sure what she ate. I set it all out on a tarp, the plastic kind that crinkles when it moves, far enough into the middle that anything with regular sized limbs would have to step on the tarp to get at it. Then I went back inside and began waiting for one last time.

I had almost dozed off when I heard the tarp crinkle. I thought that perhaps I’d dreamed it, but after a pause there were a few more crinkles. I shot out of my chair and stumbled to the door, shaking off sleep as I went. I didn’t even pause to consider that there were plenty of other things it could have been. I just threw the door open, light spilling out onto the front yard, and there she was.

Her face was definitely human, the face of a young woman with dark hair and green eyes. Her eyes didn’t look so much brighter than normal now that she was lit up. She was petite, maybe 5’5” at most, and shaped like a track star. From her neck down to her elbows she was dripping in feathers, black as a raven and thickly layered. Antlers grew out of her tangled hair, ridged in a spiral like gazelle horns, but branching like a deer, too. Those were the first things I noticed, as we stood there, staring at each other. Then she shifted backwards and I noticed two more things. Firstly, that she stood on just the balls of her feet and kept her legs at an awkward bend. And secondly that, where her fingers should have been, were long, tapering, black claws, roughly the same size as fingers. She seemed to know where I was looking and curled her finger-claws in as much as she could, though it was clear that they weren’t as flexible as fingers. She shifted another step backwards, and I knew that she was about to high tail it out of there.

“Wait!” I yelled, and she paused, tipping her head to the right. She looked a little confused, a little startled, but also like she understood, so I kept talking. “It’s for you. The food. You can eat it here or take it with you, but don’t let me run you off. I won’t hurt you. There’s no need for fear.”

I watched as she slowly, ever so slowly, bent down. Her eyes never left mine, half wary and half curious. She picked up a pear in one hand, holding it so delicately that her claws didn’t even graze the peel, and in the other she picked up a piece of chicken and one of the biscuits. She straightened back up mostly and nodded at me just as slowly, before darting off back into the woods. I stood there, watching after her, for God only knows how long. Then the chill brought me back to my senses, and I went back inside.

After that it became something of a nightly routine. After that first night, I opened the door much calmer and greeted her quietly. I took note of what she ate and what she left, figuring out her favorites. I also noticed that she started coming earlier each night, just by a bit. I started waiting on the porch for her, and would chat quietly to her while she ate. It was almost like feeding a stray cat, if I didn’t think too hard about it. And I didn’t. Think too hard about it, that is, though I probably should have.

Of course, life went on during the day. Ruth would stop by and chat about anything and everything. We talked about her children (two, fraternal twins), and grandkids (three, all from her son), and my past (retired elementary school teacher, no family left to speak of), and everything in between. I was getting quite comfortable with her. I’d almost forgotten how much I didn’t like company.

Then, one afternoon as Ruth and I were sitting on the porch, enjoying the slowly warming weather, a vaguely familiar car pulled up into my driveway, behind Ruth’s Toyota and my beat up old Subaru. Out stepped that real estate agent, young and shiny, and he picked his way over to the porch, where he stopped in front of us and leaned against the railing like he was just visiting some friends. I was glad that there were only two chairs, hopefully he would get tired of standing and leave sooner rather than later. Ruth smiled at him.

“Well hello ladies! I just wanted to drop by and see how you were settling in. I was concerned, leaving you all the way out here, but I’m so glad to see you’re making friends!” He sounded like he was making a considerable effort to sound local, but I could tell he was about as local as a coconut. On top of that, he was using that gentle voice people use when they think you’re an idiot or senile, and I was neither. He gave us his most winsome smile, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“Well. As you can see, I’m quite alright. So if that’s all, I’d like to get back to my afternoon, and you’re blocking the view.” I scowled just a bit, and the young man flushed slightly. Ruth eyed us both, looking terribly amused. The man recovered with a slight cough and fixed his smile back in place. He tried to hand me his business card, but when I wouldn’t take it he handed it to Ruth instead.

“Okay then. I should be heading back to work, but don’t hesitate to call if you need anything! Y’all take care now!” And with that he walked back to his car and left with barely a backwards glance. I scoffed.

“I oughta put up a no trespassing sign.” As soon as I said this, Ruth stopped holding back her laughter and started cackling up a storm.

“Lord, Lottie, there was no need to maul the poor kid, bless his heart.” She was grinning at me, and I cracked a little smile, too. She’d reached over and put her hand over mine, squeezing a little to let me know she was teasing.

“I just didn’t like his tone. People’ve been talking to me like I don’t have any sense my whole life, and now that I’m old I’m expected to sit back and take it? No sir I think not.” But I was laughing now too, and I let Ruth tease me good naturedly about being too prickly for my own good.

That night I told my little visitor all about it, and she surprised me by smiling a little at my imitation of the real estate man. I could tell she was warming up to me, and I liked that. By the end of the second week she was arriving just after sundown, and she had started eating while standing flat footed, not poised on the balls of her feet to run. I considered it a major victory. I didn’t think there was much more to it.

Until, one night, she surprised me again. She had finished eating, and I had finished talking, and I had said a soft goodnight, when she paused and lifted her chin. There was a strange tension in her jaw, and I watched her work at it for a moment before she opened her mouth and spoke.

“Th...Hank you. Good ni-ght.” Her voice was rough, almost callused , if a voice can be called such. Her whole body seemed tense, and her eyes locked onto mine, partly showing fear, partly issuing a challenge.

“Good, goodnight. You’re welcome.” I finally managed, and she nodded, running off. I sat there for a long time, before slowly making my way inside and upstairs to bed. My mind was full of nothing but a sort of buzzing static for a good long while. Then, all at once, the thoughts piled in on top of each other. It didn’t seem like feeding a stray cat anymore. If she had language, perhaps her face wasn’t the only part of her that was human. I wasn’t sure what to do about that. I decided that the first step would be telling Ruth. She could help me figure out what to do.

The morning came too soon, a drizzly mess of a day. All day I was listless, and the weather sure didn’t help. It was too wet to be outside, but not wet enough to be relaxing. There was no rain-on-a-tin-roof to soothe me, just an endless drizzle of gray. I paced from room to room, hoping that Ruth would come by, but she never did. The day ran away like the rain down the mountain, and soon I was setting out some food. After a bit of deliberation, I kept the food on the porch, to avoid getting it soggy. I had a feeling that my visitor wouldn’t mind so much, seeing how she lived outside as far as I knew, but no matter how used to the rain you are, dry food is always better than soggy. I set the food away from my chair, though, thinking she might still be a bit skittish.

I almost thought she wouldn’t come. To be fair, it was difficult to tell when the sun was setting, I may have started waiting too soon. But she arrived, and, after the briefest of hesitations, came up on the porch.

“Don’t worry about me, just c’mon and get out of the rain for a bit.” I tried not to stare at her as she ate, but I couldn’t help but look over occasionally, sneaking glances. She sat on the porch, and used her finger claws like sporks, partially skewering, partially scooping. I rocked for a while, staring out into the gloom, gathering my courage. I waited until she had finished her meal before speaking up again.

“Do you have a name?” I tried to keep my rocking steady, but surely she could tell I was nervous. She sat very still. I could see her jaw working.

“Beebeeee”

“Bibi?”

She nodded and looked up at me. She hadn’t left yet, and I stopped rocking to look at her. She was definitely younger than I’d thought, from this close up. Early 20s, at the latest. She was dirty, too, and heavily freckled so that I could hardly tell what was dirt and what was a sunkiss. Her feathers, which I had took to maybe be a shawl she was wearing but could now see were certainly growing out of her, were stuck together with some sort of oily mud. Her hair was what my mother would’ve called a rats nest, though her antlers seemed well cared for. Her claws, too, were shiny and clean.

“Bibi? I wonder if I might...if you’d like, I could get you clean. Run you up a bath, maybe?” I tried to make my voice gentle as I reached a hand out to her. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I left my hand hanging in the air for a minute and, slowly, Bibi placed her claws gently in my hand. I smiled at her, trying hard not to be unnerved by the texture, which was not unlike a bird’s talon.

I didn’t quite get her into a bath, but I did manage a brush through her hair. There were a few rough spots, when the brush hit a snag and she hissed in pain I worried that she would bolt. I took to shushing her like you might a horse in a thunderstorm. Just a bit surprising, it seemed to work. She sat at the foot of my rocker, and I told quiet, old stories to her. While I worked on her hair, I gave her a damp washcloth to take to her face. She tried very hard to hold it gently, but by the time I was done with her hair the washcloth was shredded. She looked up at me, panicked.

“It’s alright. I have plenty of washcloths, no need to fuss over one.” I tried not to use that voice the real estate agent had used on me, the one I hated so much. She stared back at me.

“Iiih-ts alriitght” she repeated with some difficulty. She did seem to be getting better at speaking, but I couldn’t help wondering how long she’d gone without talking. I nodded and smiled reassuringly.

“Bibi, would it be alright if Ruth met you, too?” I’d been telling her about Ruth, of course, but if I was going to tell Ruth about Bibi, it was only fair that Bibi have some say in it.

She tipped her head to the side, considering. Finally, she nodded.

“It’s alllriight.” She said, a little clearer this time.

She left after that. I wanted to invite her inside, to stay somewhere warm and dry for the night, but I thought that might be too much too quickly. I was starting to reconsider my policy on guest rooms. As I lay down, I tried not to think about Bibi, in the woods, alone all night in the cold and rain. I certainly didn’t think about what may have led her to be there, and at such a young age, too. Or how long she must have been there, for her voice to be so scratchy from disuse. I fell asleep, not thinking of any of these things.

The next day was cloudy, but dryer. I was almost prepared for Ruth’s visit, when it came. I made sandwiches and tea, and we sat on the porch, having a nice lunch while I tried to bring the words from my throat into my mouth. Finally I was out of time.

“Ruth, do you remember, a few weeks ago, when I told you about what I saw in my yard?” I watched her stiffen just a bit.

“Yes.”

“I’ve seen her, more’n a few times.” Ruth stiffened more, then sighed.

“I thought you might, but I’d hoped you wouldn’t. The last few people who lived here saw her, just once or twice, but it scared them something awful and they left. I didn’t want...well I just enjoy your company so much. I worried you might leave too.” She looked away, a faint flush creeping up her neck and dusting over her cheek bones. I reached out and took her hand in mine, squeezing gently until she looked back at me.

“Come back later this evening, or stay with me here until then. I want to introduce you to her.” Her eyes widened, and I couldn’t help but notice the blush darken on her cheeks as she squeezed my hand back.

“Introduce me to her? What d’you mean? Things can’t talk, Lottie.”

“This one can. Her name is Bibi, and she’s actually a sweetheart.”

Ruth ended up spending the rest of the day with me as I told her all about Bibi, and what to expect. As evening approached, I could tell Ruth was a bit nervous. Maybe a bit more than a bit. I took both her hands in mine, and they were shaking just a little. I smiled, trying to be reassuring, and then leaned in a kissed her, just gently.

“Don’t worry about a thing. It’s all okay. And if you’re really too nervous, you can always say no. You can stay in here if you’d like, or go home if you’d rather. But it would mean a lot for you to come out with me.”

The introduction could have been smoother, but it could’ve been rougher, too. Bibi had said it was alright for Ruth to come, but I still didn’t know what to expect from her. She didn’t bolt off into the woods, though, and eventually I was able to coax her onto the porch and introduce her properly. Ruth, though she was startled at first, handled it well, and once Bibi got close enough for her to really have a look at, her eyes softened.

“Oh, poor dear.” Ruth said, reaching out a hand to smooth Bibi’s feathers, feeling of the oily mud that I’d yet to get rid of. “We’ll have to do something about that. Some warm vinegar water, maybe. That’ll clear up most things.” Bibi, after sitting a spell, was even able to relax into Ruth’s touch while she ate.

Ruth stayed late into the night, making plans with me about Bibi. The first thing we should do, according to Ruth, was figure out if Bibi had a history as a human, or if she’d always been this way. Tomorrow, we decided, we would drive down into town and take a look at old missing persons reports and newspapers to look for clues. After that it was just a matter of cleaning her up and settling her in to live with me. By that point it was too late for Ruth to be driving home, but I was glad to have her stay the night.

I hadn’t had company for breakfast in quite a while, but it wasn’t nearly so awkward as I thought it might be. We fit well together. And it certainly made going into town together easier. The police station was not terribly helpful, but the library had plenty of old newspapers. After a good couple hours of clicking through slides and flipping through physical copies, I finally landed on a report that seemed promising. I waved Ruth over and showed her the article.

It was a short piece, just a single column with a small photograph at the bottom. It listed an Abigail Waters, age 5, as missing following what appeared to be a domestic dispute turned tragedy. Though there weren’t many details in the paper and no follow-up article, Ruth and I concluded that after whatever awful thing happened, Bibi had fled into the woods and simply stayed there. The paper was dated to nearly 20 years ago. The picture showed a tiny little thing with long dark hair and unusually bright green eyes.

“I wonder when she grew her feathers and her antlers and her claws, before or after the tragedy, all at once or piece by piece.” I whispered, half because we were in a library, half because this was just the sort of thing I felt should be whispered about. Ruth looked contemplative.

“When bad things happen to people,” she began slowly, also whispering, “sometimes they grow claws or fangs or spikes. Usually they’re on the inside, they just happened to be on the outside for Bibi.” Her eyes still scanned the clipping while I thought about that. I guessed that it made sense. Wasn’t my prickliness, as Ruth put it, just claws on the inside? Ruth tapped me on the arm and pointed to a detail I’d overlooked before. There was a smaller picture, off to the side a bit so I’d assumed it went with the article next to it, showing the area Bibi had gone missing in.

“The road isn’t named, but that’s right about where your house sits, Lottie.” I nodded and swallowed hard.

“You said the other people who’d lived in that house saw her, too. How many times did she try to go home?” I looked up at Ruth and found her already looking back at me. We didn’t have to speak to know that from now on, there’d be no more trying. Bibi was coming home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was some two years ago, now. I sit in my rocker, Ruth sits in hers, and Bibi sits on the steps. Her claws clink against the glass in her hands as she takes a sip of lemonade, feathers shining deep purple in the sunlight. She’s keeping an eye on the older two grandkids as they run around the yard. The youngest one sits by my feet, her knees pulled up to her chest, her dark brown eyes staring up at me.

“Of course, it took your parents more time to adjust. Your mother worried over Bibi’s claws, thought she might hurt one of you. But she never has, even accidentally, and Bibi won her and your father over in the end.” I reach down and pat the little dear on the head.

“That’s my favorite story.” She says, smiling up at me. There’s no trace of tears now, the scrape on her knee that brought her over to my chair in the first place all but forgotten. She hops up and scampers back out into the yard to play with her big brothers, giving Bibi a quick hug as she passes by.

Bibi comes over to take her place by my feet, and I make a mental note to ask her once again later if she’s sure she doesn’t want her own rocking chair. She leans her head against my knee. I can feel her working her jaw slightly, a tic she never quite lost, but her voice isn’t nearly so rusty anymore.

“It’s my favorite story, too. Thanks for bringing me home.”

#writing #short story #original work #this one's a little longer #cryptid

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aireyverkhovensky · 6 years

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homecoming talk

Good morning, now that I’m finally back in homeward I’m going to go ahead and assume that everyone knows who I am and just move straight on to the subject of this talk, which doubles as my homecoming talk since I just got off my mission like a month ago and also about an old James E. Faust conference talk about how obedience leads to freedom.

Personally, every time I hear someone say something like that my mind immediately jumps to George Orwell’s 1984 so I’m probably not the best person to give this talk. Of course, it really only sounds like that if you reduce the whole concept to a little sound bite. For instance, in the talk itself, James E. Faust quotes David O. McKay in a story about a horse who wants to be free, so he runs away from his pasture, gets hit by a car, and then eats some poisoned grain intended as rat bait and summarily dies. If he’d stayed in the pasture he would have been free to run around all he liked within the safe boundaries of it, and would have just generally had a much better time.

Just speaking for myself, I didn’t really find that the best example of what James E. Faust was trying to say, though. In that case, the reason why the horse died was because he was simply too stupid to live outside of the pasture, which if you applied that to humans would sound incredibly pessimistic and really, downright mean. Fortunately there’s another easy go-to on this subject, that being the Word of Wisdom.

Since this isn’t Utah, we’ve all had the opportunity to talk to nonmembers who are just absolutely shocked that the Word of Wisdom prohibits certain drinks and things like that. We’ve probably all been asked at some point how we could just not drink sweet tea. Younger people have probably, at some point, been asked or will be asked why we can’t do any drugs. To the rest of the world, the Word of Wisdom is very restrictive. It seems that having those rules makes us, by default, less free. But by following the Word of Wisdom, we avoid addiction, which is one of the biggest obstacles to freedom that exists in this world. By following a few rules, we’re able to keep our freedom, and our selves. The same also applies spiritually.

It’s at this point in the talk that I segue into talking about my mission. As many if not all of you know, my entire life as long as I could remember I wanted to go on a mission. This wasn’t necessarily out of obedience to some commandment - after all, I’m not a young man, so it’s not like there was really a standing commandment to go serve a mission. When I got my patriarchal blessing, it did mention missionary work in the sense that it did say very clearly that I would serve a mission, but again I didn’t go because I was obeying the path set out for me in my patriarchal blessing. I went because I wanted to.

However, it can’t really be said that from the start I wasn’t obeying a commandment from God to serve a mission. Maybe I’ve felt that desire my whole life because I got told to do it in the pre-existence. I guess if that were the case I wouldn’t really be able to say. But for the purpose of this talk that’s what we’ll be going with.

Of course, just because God told you to do something doesn’t mean He’s going to make it easy for you. I went home early thirteen months into my eight-month mission. I worked on my papers applying for it for roughly two years. That’s right. I was working on my papers longer than I was on a mission, and longer than I would be out if I’d gone on a proselyting mission. Some of the delay could be blamed on me procrastinating or mis-filling forms, but really not a lot of it. The majority of the delays centered around mental health issues I was literally born with, so I find it kind of hard to just dismiss that as being the fault of the adversary. God kinda set me up there. At this point, I think I could safely say that I was always meant to go on a service mission, and that’s why I got rejected for a proselyting mission… and I know that, since I had always assumed I would go on a proselyting mission, I would have had to get rejected first so that I would know that I had at least tried. I just wonder why it took so long. I don’t have a good answer for that, I might not ever, and maybe that doesn’t really matter.

But the point is that I was absolutely determined to serve a mission, and not even the church missionary department could stop me from doing it. I’m very glad I went on a service mission. I know I did a lot of important things and helped a lot of people. To be honest, I’m amazed I made it as far as I did. Especially in the last five months of my mission, I struggled with medical issues, conflicts with family, and finances. If anyone remembers, my dad lost his job for a while there, and at the time I was trying to pay off a hospital ball and the aunt that I lived with was demanding rent money. I couldn’t afford groceries and pretty much lived off of ramen or free sandwiches provided by a Catholic charity we worked with who made lunches for homeless people. It wasn’t a good diet and because of it, my body grew weaker and I spent the last couple months of my mission exhausted and depressed, and that’s actually the primary reason why I came home a month before the release date they originally gave me when I got an extension.

If that sounds disheartening, rest assured that it was. I remember a financial planning class we missionaries took where we talked about expenditures for the week, and I said that my toothbrush was old and I needed a new one, so my goal for the month was to scrape together enough spare change to get one at Smith’s. One of the elders simply bought a new toothbrush and gave it to me the next day. I cried. I cried because I was grateful, but looking back on it, I start to think that maybe all of that was kind of unfair. I worked so hard and sacrificed so much to go on a mission, and worked even harder once I was out there. But my mental and physical health were circling the drain and there was no one else going through the same issues I was - service missions are still a kind of pilot program, so there aren’t very many of them. My situation was fairly unique to begin with. I ended up being the one who set the precedent for what to do with a service missionary who had to pick between food and a bus pass to get to Welfare Square. I guess in a sense it’s cool to be a trailblazer, but it’s hard to think that there wasn’t anyone out there who could say they knew just what I was going through.

So you might be wondering how I’m going to relate this to the other subject of my talk, the concept of freedom through obedience. Where’s the freedom in this? Well, there’s the obvious answer of no longer being on a mission and no longer having to follow mission rules, but that would kind of undermine what James E. Faust said. I guess the freedom in this case refers to the personal growth underwent both while I was preparing for a proselyting mission that would never be and while I was trying to figure things out in Salt Lake City. I can’t say that I learned to cook or do laundry or manage finances or anything like that since I’d already been doing those for years, but I did learn how to stretch a dollar and how to navigate public transportation like a champ, not to mention a dozen marketable skills, including how to drive a forklift. And those are just the practical skills I learned on my mission that will allow me to provide for myself as I leave home again, for college this time, and my life after that. Spiritually I also benefitted.

It seems every proselyting missionary comes back with some dramatic spiritual experience they had while serving, and they always seem to take place towards the end of their mission, after they’ve already spent over a year teaching people things. For me, it happened at the beginning of my mission. My older brother was talking to me about his mission and somehow or another he upset me and made me feel like my service mission wasn’t a (air quotes) “real” mission and was just a consolation prize for the rejects - thoughts I had already been struggling with, especially since often times the mission did feel like glorified babysitting for some of the missionaries. We were in sacrament meeting, and I had to get up and go to the bathroom so that I could just sit in the handicapped stall and cry and generally feel terrible. A lady from a different ward found me and, of course, since I was wearing my badge, she asked me if I was having troubles with my companion. I told her that I didn’t have a companion, because I was just a service missionary.

She scolded me for saying I was “just” a service missionary. She didn’t really know what a YCSM is - because nobody really knows what a YCSM is - but before I could even explain it to her, she knew that by saying “just” a service missionary I was devaluing the work I was doing and the calling that Heavenly Father had given me.

By the time I returned to sacramenting meeting, nearly an hour later, I’d found that I’d forgotten my copy of Preach My Gospel in the chapel, and while I was gone my brother had written something in it. I really wanted to give y’all an exact quote, but since my family is currently moving and the house has to be kept showroom-quality - we just had an open house yesterday, in fact - I really don’t know where my copy of Preach My Gospel is. It’s a shame, because it was a really nice letter. But I remember what Matthew said, that the goal of any mission, whether it’s proselyting, temple, or service, is to convert just one person. He left it ambiguous who that one person was, but quite frankly it was really obvious. The one person is yourself. Everyone else can come to the gospel in their own time. You go on a mission to convert yourself.

Am I converted? Well, I don’t know about any of the other stuff, since as everyone knows I never really was any good at absorbing information during scripture study. But over the past three years, one thing has become very clear: God has a plan for me, and you, and every person. You don’t necessarily have to follow this plan - agency exists, after all - and maybe there’s a whole bunch of equally viable backup plans, but Heavenly Father doesn’t forget anybody. The road He picked for me for that part of my life wasn’t an easy one, and if my patriarchal blessing is anything to go by, it never will be. But I’ll continue to follow it.

Because that’s where the freedom comes in. The path that God wants you to follow will never lead you to bondage. Sometimes it will seem so, temporally. But in the end, in the next life, you’ll always be free. God gave us freedom for a reason, and gave us a capacity to enjoy it, and to want it and pursue it. The world will tell you where freedom lies, but they’re never looking in the right places. It’s all lined out in the scriptures. All you need is a little obedience, and little faith to keep walking when you can’t see the path ahead.

I know the Church is true and I encourage everyone to serve a mission. If you have mental or physical health issues that would prevent you from going proselyting, please don’t write yourself off. You have options. God delights in service.

In the name of Jesus Christ AMEN

#i'm giving this tomorrow #here you go #i hope they call me on a mission #probably the last thing i'll post in this tag #;_;7

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lady-poppy-verona-blog · 6 years

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plush

“these are the eyes of disarray- would you even care?”

((aka, super duper late challenge two. Thanks for the rp, claire :) title and quote creds to stone temple pilots. 2k words))

🌸

“okay, so… never have i ever done drugs,” caroline says as she starts to touch up her makeup before dinner. poppy lowers a single finger as caroline gasps in shock. “you’re kidding me! poppy, you wild child. what was it?”

“just party drugs- ecstasy, weed, nothing hard. just enough to have a little fun,” poppy says in protest. caroline snorts as she blends some concealer over a teensy blemish over her eyebrow. “okay, never have i ever… had blonde hair?”

caroline flicks her gently. “That’s targeting, bitch. Never have i ever gone on a roller coaster.”

poppy’s fingers stay up. “we had a fair that used to roll through, but i was little and we couldn’t afford going. Never have i ever-” she hears a knock on her door. “Hold that thought, sweet tea.” she walks away from the makeup chair amid protests of dislike towards being called sweet tea and opens the door. Seeing who’s on the other side, she’s glad that she had already changed for dinner. “hello, your highness”

“hello lady poppy, are you ready?” prince nate says, greeting her from the other side of the doorway.

she gives him a warm(ish) smile. “absolutely.”

he holds his arm out for her to take. “how have you been?”

taking his arm , she allows him to lead the way. “fairly well, how about you?”

“pretty good.”

“so” she starts with a smile, “what are we off to do today?” please be food please be food.

“is dinner okay with you?” he asks.

score.“dinner is always okay with me,” she says with a laugh.

with a smile- a rather nice smile, honestly- he says, “let’s go

“so,” she says, floundering for conversation topics that aren’t ‘hey you know what’s cool? the origins of the word apple.’ “what have you been up to recently?”

“dating girls, what about you?” he says with a bit of a laugh.

she begins to list them sarcastically on her fingers. “reading, talking to people, dying of boredom because it’s literally the same thing all the time.”

he shrugs. “sorry about that”

“eh, it’s not your fault. it’s just that people get terribly boring after you’ve been stuck in a room with them for a few weeks,” she says with a laugh. “so what’s on the the menu for tonight?”

“is tacos okay with you?”

“bro, tacos are always okay with me,” she says with a smile. .04 seconds later, she winces at the fact that she just bro zoned the crown prince of illea. she’s supposed to be competing for his heart, not being just dudes being bros.

“good,” he says with a smile. “so tell me about yourself, your home life and friends and such.”

“um, well, my dad was born and raised in honduragua, but my mom emigrated to illea from brazil when she was 13.” thats always a good place to start- it sheds a bit of light on her linguistic background. “i grew up painting from, like, the get-go, so that's always just been the career path for me.”

“so I’m guessing you are really good at painting,” he jokes.

“i’d like to think so,” she responds with a laugh.

“what else do you do?” he sounds like he’s curious, but you can never be too sure with boys. they’re fantastic liars.

“sleep, eat,” she jokes. “no, i just read a lot. i do- well, did- a lot of skateboarding by the beach, and a semi-poor person version of snorkeling.”

“semi-poor person snorkeling?” he asks, a sceptical look in his eyes

“me and my friends can’t afford real snorkeling gear, so we just use cheapo goggles and milkshake straws and swim way out,” she explains, laughing slightly at his expression.

“sounds super safe!” he smiles at her.

“safe as life,” she tells him lightly.

“we probably have real snorkeling stuff if you want to borrow it some time,” he says as they enter the dining room.

“seriously?” she asks. he nods. “that would be awesome.”

“yeah, it’s probably in the pool room in a closet somewhere.”

“we should go do that sometime,” she says with a smile, laughing when he pulls a face. as they eat the conversation flows rather naturally. they get along well, which helps her opinion of him immensely. she /despises/ when people can’t keep a conversation.

at the end o the date, he’s managed to vement himself as a certified Good Dude™ in her mind (not something andrew is too excited about hearing), but not as boyfriend material, per se. she likes him enough, but not as anything other than a friend.

🌸

caroline knocks gently on the door and enters the room in the evening, a week after poppy’s date with the prince. she had been busy with princess mallory after one of her maids fell ill, so poppy had been left with marissa and laurel. she doesn’t mind them, but in the time she’d been at the palace, she’s become far closer to caroline than she had the others.

marissa and laurel hadn’t known how to deal with poppy coming back to her room after lunch barely holding back tears, had argued when she sent them away, had made everything worse. poppy is laying face down in her bed, her cheeks and pillows tearstained, nearly suffocating in the massive amounts of fluff covering her face. the mattress shifts as caroline sits down next to her. “what’s wrong, poppy?”

another great thing about caroline- she’s the only one who hasn’t insisted on calling her lady poppy. as soon as poppy had explained that it made her uncomfortable, she’d immediately stopped, referring to her as “lady” only if someone of importance was around. they’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but poppy feels like if there’s one person in the palace she can tell anything to, it’s her.

she sits up, wiping her cheeks and pulling her knees to her chest. “do you know officer moore?”

she frowns. “of course, you talk to him all the time. besides,” she adds, “laurel has a big crush on him. what did he do?”

poppy sighs, the tears about ready to start up again. “i used to date him, back in honduragua. i didn’t know he was here, and then he /was/ and he said he wanted to talk and we accidentally…” her voice drops to a whisper. “wehadsex.”

caroline’s jaw drops. “oh poppy, you didn’t.” when poppy nods, caroline hits her on the shoulder. “that’s treason! you could be put to death! this is serious, p!”

she mutters, “well we aren’t anymore. we broke up.”

caroline puts a hand on her shoulder. “i’m so sorry. what happened?”

the story comes flowing out of her- how she had thought it was going to be one of their normal meetings, hanging out in an abandoned room or storage closet and talking, but had ended up being just another ending. he hadn’t been gentle about it either, just saying that he wasn’t going to risk his life for her. “sorry, poppy,” he’d said. “you aren’t worth that.” she had almost immediately run back to her room and broke down, leaving her other maids clueless as to what to do.

caroline looks sympathetic. “i mean, thank god, because of the whole “committing treason” thing, but breakups are always rough. my last breakup… that did not go well, let’s just say that.”

poppy’s ears perk up at the mention of her past. caroline rarely talks about herself- the most poppy knows is her parents died and she was sent to angeles to find a job. “who was it? what happened?”

she sighs. “it was a maid a couple years ago. she’s gone now- started working for a family of twos last year- but lord it was awkward for a while.” she shakes her head as she recalls it. “we were only together for six months, but bless her soul, she was super serious about it.” poppy is starting to calm down, caroline’s southern cadence and soft and gentle voice soothing her raw nerves and semi broken heart. as she finishes her story, poppy asks the question that’s been on her mind since the mention of “maid”.

“so… you like girls, then?” she asks with absolutely zero tact.

she lets out a quick burst of laughter. “what was your first clue, detective?” she smiles, blushing slightly. “yeah, i’m gay. i hope that doesn’t make you feel weird.”

poppy shakes her head a little frantically. “oh, god, no, not at all! i’m bisexual, i know you’re not attracted to every girl you see,” she says with a bit of a laugh tingeing the end of her sentence. /i am a little attracted to you, though/, comes a quickly dismissed thought from the back of her mind. caroline is wearing a deep blue dress, skin tight and barely reaching past her butt with itty bitty spaghetti straps and a deep neckline. poppy’s never seen her out of a maid’s uniform, and she’s a little shocked (and happy) to see her in something that makes her look so good. “are you off to do anything, um, /special/ tonight?”

she glances down at the dress. “are you talking about the dress?” she laughs a little. “some guard asked if i wanted to go to dinner. i’m off tomorrow, so i said sure and boom, here i am.” she whispers in a jokingly conspiratorial tone, “don’t tell him about the whole ‘i only like women’ thing.”

poppy gets out of bed- not looking very good, or very decent. she has her hair on top of her head messily, and nothing on but a shirt she stole from tommy and a pair of boyshorts. “you look really good, cariña. want me to take a…” she pauses for a moment, forgetting what the word is in english. “a, um, imagem?”

caroline raises an eyebrow. “does that mean picture? i’m fine with that.”

poppy smiles and grabs her phone. “is it okay if i put it on social media?” caroline nods. “excellent. the world deserves to see your beauty,” she says dramatically.

she leads her over to her makeup area, and as she organizes it so it won’t look messy, caroline checks her makeup in the mirror. “you’re good, cutie. now pose!” she’s kind stiff at first, but eventually warms up, easing into the the idea of being photographed, of being the center of attention. “yes, girl! you’re a natural!” caroline blushes and giggles slightly.

she moves away from the ‘set’, flushed and smiling. “are you cheered up now, darlin’?” her southern honey voice takes off the g on words when she’s not paying much attention. she hates it (“it makes me sound like a hick!”); poppy loves it (“no, it makes you sound adorable!”).

poppy smiles at her. “what’s your instagram? i gotta tag you.”

caroline thinks for a moment. “csdaniels. i don’t use it that often though.”

“what does the ‘s’ stand for?” she asks. “serena? sarah? sara with no h?”

“stella, actually.”

“stella is a great song by all time low,” poppy says with a laugh.

caroline shakes her head with a smile. “i’ll see you later,” she says as she picks up her bag and heads towards the door.

“see ya,” poppy says as she leaves. just before caroline closes the door, poppy blurts out, “do you want to hang out tomorrow night? I know it’s your off day and you probably have better things to do, but if you wanted too… the offer stands.”

caroline smiles at her, cheeks pink. “i’d love too, p. be here at eight?”

poppy, beaming, replies with a fierce nod and a “sounds great. have fun with your guard!”

she says something that sounds like “i’ll try my best” before she shuts the door.

poppy flings herself back on her bed, all thoughts and worries of andrew gone, replaced by thoughts of nothing but her.

#late af sorry fam #challenge two

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lexpistachio · 7 years

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Yo, your opinion doesn't bother me so much as I like debating? And like. I don't expect to change your opinion, just like you won't change mine, and you're totally within your right to not respond if you don't want to! I think with me, I don't see the issues presented as having disappeared? Like just because Jack has been doing well mentally doesn't mean his anxiety is totally gone. Bittys checking problem isn't gone, either, just because he's gotten better at handling them. 1/?

And maybe it’s because I went into CP knowing what to expect but like. I always thought the whole point of CP was “hey hockey’s cool but Fuck the NHLs homophobia and Fuck toxic masculinity. We don’t need it.” It should also be noted Ngozi did write something about homophobia/toxic masculinity in hockey. It was called Harvey, it was a screenplay she did for a class, and she wrote check please to be it’s counter. A Gay player with a toxic team vs an accepting one 2/2

Outsourced homophobia anyone?

Kidding aside, do you mean Hardy not Harvey, of which only the first 15 pages was shared? Firstly, I have read that and it features hypermasculinity and internalized homophobia but I didn’t see the toxic vs happy team comparison that you’re talking about. Maybe you have access to the complete script, maybe it’s really Harvey and you have, like, a different script altogether, I don’t know, and I honestly don’t care because that’s not what we’re discussing. We’re talking about CP as a body of work. You don’t tell each and every one of future buyers of the comics to, hey, read the script she wrote back in college, all the issues are there, this is the fluffy companion. We look into this particular piece as it is.

Going back, I don’t think you got the point of my answers to your previous asks: it’s not particularly the lack of homophobia that bothers us here. It’s not. It’s the erasure of this issues that were present at the beginning, which makes for an unsatisfying narrative. Homophobia and hypermasculinity in sports was real when Bitty was afraid to tell his dad, or his team, it might’ve been real when Jack OD’d, but now that they’ve come out (at Jack’s behest, may I add), it’s suddenly gone? Did the comics just present coming out as a cure to homophobia? That depiction makes my eye twitch, as a queer, but never mind that. Narratively speaking, it’s just unsatisfying, is all.

Allow me to be a little more pedantic here and talk a little about narratology. One of the most interesting explanations that I’ve read on why we read is by Peter Brooks, who said that we’re driven to read because of our drive to find meaningful, bounded, totalizing order to the chaos that is life, and if the natural state is quiescence, it is interrupted by dilations (through discursive manipulations), which are necessary also to give us a sense at the end that the narrative has reached a proper closure—that feeling of “ah yes, of course!” Basically, what he says is that in plotting, it’s necessary for loose ends to be tied for the purpose of reading to be fulfilled. How do we do that? He borrows from Freud and says that it’s through repetition of a past trauma. The goal is “to make an end to its reproductive insistence in the present, to lead the analysand to understanding that the past is indeed past, and then to incorporate this past, as past, within [the analysand’s] present, so that the life’s story can once again progress.”

It’s all fancy shmancy for: don’t leave your plot points behind because it’s fucking annoying.

That is to say, regarding your point that Jack’s anxiety or Bitty’s problem not disappearing, let me remind you that it’s fiction that we’re talking about here. They’re fictional characters. It’s like the metaphysical question about the tree in the forest: if homophobia and anxiety and checking problems (? what) exist out of frame and they aren’t manifesting in the comics itself, do they still exist? Maybe to your imagination, but more importantly, do they matter if these don’t affect the comics’ characterizations, the plot or the narrative at all? I don’t think so.

And the nature of oppression, or maybe any significant burdens for a long time at that–they tend to warp you, subconsciously, and it affects your attitude, your habits, your decision-making. A story: I grew up poor, and when I was growing up, my parents didn’t have money to spare me lunch money, so we have to eat every single food on our dining table because we can’t afford to get hungry outside. Years later, I had dinner with a colleague who was in charge of the tab that night. He noticed I was taking a long time in eating my food, and I was still trying to finish it even though some of our other friends had moved on to post-meal chatter. He said, “You don’t have to finish that, you know,” and it seems innocuous enough but I felt my cheeks flushing. I felt humiliated in that I recognized that I was still on that habit of voraciously eating everything in front of me if it was in abundance because I was afraid of being hungry. I realized I had certain behaviors affected by the oppression that I carried, even though some of them aren’t present anymore: I tend to hoard things, I stock food a lot. The oppressions I still carry, I can’t even begin to describe. My parents think mental health illnesses are weakness and laziness that I could snap out of any moment, so I try not to be a burden and would rather curl in by myself rather than seek help when I break down. Having grown up in a traditionally Christian environment, I can’t talk about my queerness to my family. I don’t even write about it in my journal in fear they will come to look at it and reject me (which, I know they will). I certainly don’t hold a person of the same-sex’s hand outside when on a walk or talk to a significant other in a public kitchen in a shared house where my peers will be able to walk on me anytime. Such is the nature of oppression: it incites fear and manifests in the littlest of ways.

Check Please used to be so relatable in that sense, but stopped being so. Now everything’s just smooth and shiny with no past traces of anything at all. I remember Jack being so relatable in the ways he felt closed off to people and I was so interested on how he manages it once he goes pro, but the lack of repetition of these themes just makes for (1) inconsistent characterization (2) unresolved issues and (3) a seeming lack of insight on the nature of oppression, or at the very least, poor plotting decisions. Not to go post hoc ergo propter hoc on this, but love/coming out -> issues missing/not discussed, ergo? Fallacious, but that seems to be a problematic portrayal if I do say so myself.

(and not to go ballistic, but really? the way to fuck NHL’s homophobia and toxic masculinity is to pretend they don’t exist? really, you’re affirming that?)

Anyway, as I’ve said before that it’s okay if you want fluff; personally, if I’d wanted fluff, I’d read a fic. Though, even then, I like a satisfying story, but that’s just me. This has been a long enough post just to tell a person I have no chance of convincing anyway, apparently. I’m busy and tired, yo, and just so you know, people in this fandom with unpopular opinions have been harassed and driven into deleting their accounts, you know? So if you want a proper debate that doesn’t put me on the defensive I’d be glad to entertain you over the little smiley chatbubble in the right hand corner of your dashboard, thanks.

#omgcheckplease #omgcp_critical #jack zimmermann #Anonymous

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zenyattasperceptrons · 7 years

Text

(previous chapter) (whole series)

Gabe was prepared for a lot of things to be difficult. He knew that Jesse wasn’t going to open up to him immediately. He knew that Jesse didn’t even like to talk to people he wasn’t comfortable around--though the more time he spent with the kid, the more he recognized how often he non-verbally said things instead. Gabriel knew he was going to have to deal with a lot of things, and he took on this responsibility happily.

But the one thing he was not prepared for was how difficult clothes shopping was going to be.

He didn’t want to force anything on Jesse that wasn’t absolutely necessary from a biological standpoint, no matter what societal pressures might be. The only things required in his house were eating a reasonable amount of food, drinking water in some form, and showering at least occasionally, please. Anything else they could talk about.

But. That said.

None of Jesse’s clothes fit. For a while Gabe couldn’t help but wonder who it was that kept him in this state--surely there were other people who worked with him that would be willing to grab a few things from a thrift store.

And then, one day, he asked Jesse if he wanted to go clothes shopping, and got an immediate and emphatic “No,” which was rare enough that Gabriel took it to heart and left him alone for the time being.

The next time they were driving near a reasonably priced store, he asked again, and Jesse’s answer was even more emphatic than last time, throwing in a glare for good measure.

But he could only take seeing this kid’s ankles for so long. He couldn’t possibly be comfortable. There had to be something Gabe could do to get him into better clothes.

So when Jesse came out of his room to rustle around the kitchen one bright summer day, Gabriel took the opportunity.

“Hey, Jess,” he greeted, setting his book down and leaning forward from his place on the couch. “Can I borrow you for a second?”

Jesse gave him a wary glance, but walked over anyways, picking at his fingernails. “What,” he prodded, choosing to remain standing.

“I know you don’t like shopping for clothes,” he started, already getting a frown from Jesse, halfway between a scowl and a pout. “But I’m pretty sure you’re not going to stop growing anytime soon. Wearing things that are too small can actually hurt you, and I don’t want that. So...I don’t know why you don’t like it, and you don’t have to tell me, but if there’s anything I can do to make it easier, I’ll try my best. You just have to nudge me in the right direction. Okay?”

Jesse didn’t look up, still fidgeting with his hands. But Gabe knew well enough that he was listening.

“...what do you want me to get,” he mumbled, after a moment.

“Um...” Gabe looked away, considering. “A week’s worth of clothes? Two pairs of pants and a few shirts is the least you can get away with, but we’d have to go back again before you start school. Or, well, whatever you want to substitute in for those. You’re the one wearing them, it’s not really my business what you pick.” He shrugged. “The only catch is I don’t have a ton of money to spend. But there’s a few places in the mall I could afford, if that sounds good to you.”

Another long moment of consideration, and then, “Fine.”

“Fine, the mall?”

“Fine the mall,” Jesse repeated blankly, frowning. And then, “Yeah. Fine, the mall.” He finally looked up at Gabe with a face that implied he might have added “you weirdo” after his agreement if he had felt comfortable doing so.

“Great!” Gabe went, genuinely thrilled at this conclusion. “Thanks for understanding.”

“Yeah,” went Jesse. “Whatever.”

Despite this precursory agreement, the actual process of shopping was still a bit like pulling teeth. He would have offered to release Jesse into a store and let him go off on his own, but he didn’t trust the world enough to feel safe doing that--and, admittedly, didn’t quite trust Jesse yet, either.

The compromise was to follow him around and do his absolute best to pretend like he wasn’t there. No assuming he knew Jesse’s style and making suggestions for him, no comments on what he was picking out. Just a hopefully unobtrusive and nonjudgmental watchful eye.

Still, it took a while for Jesse to start seriously considering things rather than passing them off after a quick glance, and even longer for him to actually pull something off the rack and hold it up to himself, questioning the size.

Thankfully, wandering past a wall of jeans proved to be a breakthrough, and Jesse soon disappeared into a changing room and looked not entirely discouraged when he came back out. It took another hour, Jesse steadily but surely slowing down as time passed, before he finally put the (haphazardly gathered) bundle of clothes and tags into Gabe’s hands, avoiding eye contact.

“Thanks,” Gabe said, not bothering to look over Jesse’s selection. It seemed like a decent amount, and even if it wasn’t, he’d at least met him halfway. “Anything you actually want to see while we’re here?”

Jesse glanced to the side immediately, an answer obviously already in mind. “Um,” he went. “Shoes?”

A surprising response, but he tried not to let it show. “Sure,” he said, gesturing forward. “Lead the way.”

Jesse scurried off with more enthusiasm than Gabe had seen out of him...maybe ever, and he followed after him with a smile. There wasn’t a huge selection of footwear in that particular store, but still, Jesse made a show of going down the aisles and giving things the barest glance before moving on. If Gabriel had to guess, he’d already seen something he was interested in and was feigning apathy. Was he worried Gabe would have a negative reaction to his enthusiasm? He couldn’t imagine what reason he would have to react badly to a choice of shoes, but he kept that possibility in mind. He would watch what he said.

Then, suddenly, the answer became clear as Jesse stopped in front of a pair of shoes that weren’t entirely dissimilar to cowboy boots. Nothing like the real thing, of course, but they were under $50, so he didn’t think he had any room to complain. Jesse pulled out a box and held a shoe up to his foot as if he wasn’t entirely sure what his size was. He tried again with a different pair, and sat down to put them on, wiggling his toes. They looked to Gabe to be a little too big, but he wasn’t entirely sure that was a bad thing. Jesse would grow, right?

He scratched at his beard, fidgeting in sudden uncertainty. Right?

Well, the worst that could happen is Jesse would need a new pair of shoes. That wouldn’t put him too far back.

A shoe box was soon presented to him, though this time Jesse met his eyes, frowning almost defiantly. Gabe took the box.

“They fit alright?”

Nod, nod.

“Anything else?”

He shook his head.

So they went to the checkout. And then back to the car. Jesse followed a pace behind all the while, staring at the ground.

He was characteristically silent for most of the way back, but at a particularly long stoplight, Gabe decided to take a chance at conversation.

“So,” he said, glancing over. The boots, the movies, the pigtail braids, all coalesced in his mind. “Cowboys?”

Jesse’s shoulders tensed, and his ears went pink. Probably his face, too, but as he was staring out the window, there wasn’t any way to tell.

Gabe sat back, looking away. Traffic, thank god, finally began to move. “That’s pretty cool,” he said, not entirely sure how to respond to Jesse’s discomfort. “I like sewing, myself.”

Jesse looked over at him. “Sewing?” he said, disbelieving. “Isn’t that a girl thing?”

He frowned. What topic should he broach first, here?

“I guess,” Gabe decided to agree. “I grew up with my mom, so I learned a lot of skills like that. Cooking, cleaning...I’m glad she taught me all of them, but sewing is the only one I do for fun.”

“Hmph...” Jesse went, quietly, turning away once again. He didn’t say anything else for another few minutes, so Gabe tried something else.

“So,” he started, again. “Out of curiosity, was shopping as bad as you expected it to be?”

“Fuck off,” responded Jesse.

Gabe, after a brief moment of consideration, laughed. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ “

Jesse didn’t correct him. Except that, after about a minute, he did.

“...it was okay,” he mumbled.

Gabe nodded. “I take it you'd rather not go back.”

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” said Gabe. “Hopefully you won’t have to for a while.”

(next)

#my shit #jesse is a good son #just a few more before i can stop with the weird gender doublespeak or whateve #this one ended up ...r ly long. oh well

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writerspink · 5 years

Text

K-12 Words

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1.1

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1.2

interest job because such think thirteen subject answer letter meet north length need times divide (by) times table edge soft months present energy point sound log south wide members exercise flowers set found things heart cause site brother teacher live read billion another distance written kept direction developed wall east happy million world must house turn west change well twenty felt put end does large big even here why ask went men land different home us move try kind hand picture again off dress play spell air away animal page mother study still learn should America

2.1

paragraph weather window third believe discovered simple gone paint new store form cells matter follow perhaps cannot good means around line center kind reason move forest sentence return instruments beside represent wild study back farmers sum difference product quotient remainder mother animal land region record summer general caterpillar scratch modern adjust passenger promise equal creak almost croak book dainty song high every near add food between own below country plant last school father keep tree never start city earth eyes light thought head under story saw left don’t few while along might close something seem next hard open example begin life always those both paper together got group often run

2.2

misty poor caution pest phrase life startle squirm alone centaur rise mountain above illustrator footprint temperature decorate country sweat sometimes hair smiled everything began thick compass themselves enough took although splendid crowded second act attach sly talk wonder let’s whirl someone Africa borrow beat belong blink per fasten pain begin drenched bed shell free earth tiny slippery count factors important until children side feet car mile night walk white sea grow river four carry state once book hear stop without late miss idea eat face watch far Indian real almost let girl mountains cut young soon list song being leave family it’s

3.1

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3.2

being instead ache exactly hard speed buy age late artistic close affordable fraction eyes appetite complain sleep seem eat below remove rusty grow glum stormy trust enormous scale open add grab upset weed denied expensive story terrified lead jumped died basket side bear bend list tomb while batch grateful father gleaming dress light sprinkle amount exclaim result yank leave cheat whimper angle outside remain heap champion surprise dodge moment fancy squeeze pretend village shriek city thunder rapid iron striped don’t attitude bell hat tug isn’t applause children honest cross spring freezing listen wind rock space covered fast several hold himself toward five step morning passed vowel true hundred against pattern numeral table north expert slowly money map farm pulled draw voice seen cold cried plan notice south sing war ground fall king town I’ll unit figure certain field travel wood fire upon

4.1

pattern cave hope mile group travel blush killed seed bottom hide important let ticket timid pounds restart silent cranky keep real bright quite curved repeat trip without dart consonant mountains quiet apologize roar grip groan bolt food injury century exhausted cabin atmosphere floor it’s scold transportation delighted giant hill something build fog method rough left everyone obey deserve speak therefore soon french switch until pushed state knob hobby between surround collect fire I’ll arrive road happened certain top order astronomy inches club catch farm nibble color yourself received connect told gaze check wear English half ten fly gave box finally wait correct oh quickly person became shown minutes strong verb stars front feel fact street decided contain course surface produce building ocean class note nothing rest carefully scientists inside wheels stay green known island week less machine base ago stood

4.2

round award crowd slowly yet products, goods, services vowel himself strange whose draw team hold feel flood sent save stood yard notice warn enemy deep please flap coast music wrote safe blast behind island lizard figure famous garden correct whisper listen joined clear share net thus calf maybe cried piece fold seen england decided bank fell pair control clean telescope trouble glass float morning horse produce course hunting rest step statement contain shouted filled zigzag accident cents instrument fly single express visit desert seeds chew dome experiment break gravity against branch size low plane system ran boat game force brought understand warm common bring explain dry though language shape thousands yes equation government heat full hot check object am rule among noun power cannot able six dark ball material special heavy fine circle include built

5.1

mark wealthy row feeling across attention ran map students inside design art mouth ring skill hot during shelter full till log (book) blossom discard bring quickly scientists party town covered wise early cram grain harm goal pause inform heal clue fame freeze badge pimple dim missionary diet dumb rod march agree stick government bulb mall ban greed skiing poison stove image grew fact material dangerous flow gap ago stack explain didn’t strong voice true drawing surface gift corner cloud since king dawn pulled dozen friends greedy burning upon knew insect decimal nervous pay foot weak smooth aware steady serve lost nonetheless beach front atlas questions less cost slight motor banner wire area carefully separate equation local minutes fast table plan fine waves fair sing dive suppose boat thousands shape among toward gas factory birds wait understand sure ship report captain human game history reflect special brave bounce though else can’t matter square syllables perhaps bill felt suddenly test direction center farmers ready anything divided general energy subject Europe moon region return believe dance members picked simple cells paint mind love cause rain exercise eggs train blue wish drop developed window difference distance heart site sum summer wall forest probably

5.2

include cage language base red brain building feast better built demolish excess leap tower ocean plains cold claw information scholar climbed woman worry strand heavy herd common ground damp pack choose president least increase half english invent class measure dash tremble object become doubt became bare wheels continued shiver engine core couple business stars week peak numeral brought nothing touch reached uncle symbols however rumor evening inasmuch (as) force curious heat career system valley dust flock spray robber practice lonely remember luxury warm heard calm rock frighten leader difficulty best gum cheer key support universe stream bit usually fish parade balance money note cliff stand proof you’re pale machine complete cool shown street today shy easy several search unit war power caught settle itself fuel mention fresh planet plane straight period person able direct space wood seal field circle lady board besides hours passed known whole similar underline main winter wide written length reason kept interest arms brother race present beautiful store job edge past sign record finished discovered wild happy beside gone sky grass million west lay weather root instruments meet third months paragraph raised represent soft whether clothes flowers shall teacher held describe drive appreciate structure visible artificial

6.1

afraid absorb british seat fear stretched furniture sight oxygen coward rope clever yellow albeit confess passage france fan cattle spot explore rather active death effect mine create wash printed process origin rose swift woe planets doze gasp chief perform triumph value substances tone score predict property movement harsh tube settled defend reverse ancient blood sharp border fierce plunge consider terms vision intend total schedule attract average intelligent corn dead southern glide supply convince send continent brief mural symbol crew chance suffix habit insects entered nursery especially spread drift major fig diagram guess wit sugar predator science necessary moisture park ordeal nectar fortunate flutter gun forward globe misery molecules arctic won’t actually addition washington cling rare lie steel pastime soldiers chill accordingly capital prevent solution greek sensitive electric agreed thin provide indicate northern volunteer sell tied triangle action opposite shoulder imitate steer wander except match cross speak solve appear metal son either ice sleep village factors result jumped snow ride care floor hill pushed baby buy century outside everything tall already instead phrase soil bed copy free hope spring case laughed nation quite type themselves temperature bright lead everyone method section lake iron within dictionary bargain loyal resource struggle vary capture exclaim gloomy insist restless shallow shatter talent atmosphere brilliant endure glance precious unite certain clasp depart journey observe superb treasure wisdom

6.2

prepared journey trade delicate arrived track cotton hoe furnish exciting view grasp level branches privilege limit wrong enable ability various moreover spoil starve dollars digest advice sense accuse pretty wasn’t industry adopt loyal suggested blow treasure cook adjective doesn’t wings tools crops loud smell frail wisdom fit expect ahead lifted deed device weight gradual respect interesting arrange particular compound examine cable climate division individual talent fatal entire advantage opponent wouldn’t elements column custom enjoy grace theory suitable wife shoes determine allow marsh workers difficult repeated thrill position born distant revive magnificent shop sir army struggled deal plural rich rhythm rely poem company string locate church mystify elegant led actual responsible japanese huge fun meat observe swim office chart avoid factories block called experience win crumple brilliant located pole bought conditions sister details primary survey truck recall disease radio rate scatter decay signal approach launch hair age amount scale pounds although per broken moment tiny possible gold milk quiet natural lot stone act build middle speed count consonant someone sail rolled bear wonder smiled angle fraction Africa killed melody bottom trip hole poor let’s fight surprise French died beat exactly remain fingers clever coast explore imitate pierce rare symbol triumph ancient cling disturb expose perform remote timid bashful brief compete consider delightful honor reflex remark brink chill conquer fortunate fury intend pattern vibrant wit

7.1

capture remark western outcome risk current bold compare resident ambition arrest furthermore desire confuse accurate disclose considerable contribute calculate baggage literacy noble era benefit orchard shabby content precious manufacture dusk afford assist demonstrate instant concentrate sturdy severe blend vacant weary carefree host limb pointless prepare inspire shallow chamber vast ease attentive source frantic lack recent distress basic permit threat analyze distract meadow mistrust jagged prefer sole envy hail reduce arena tour annual apparent recognize captivity burrow proceed develop humble resist peculiar response communicate circular variety frequent reveal essential disaster plead mature appropriate attractive request congratulate address destructive fragile modest attempt tradition ancestor focus flexible conclude venture impact generosity routine tragic crafty furious blossom concern ascend awkward master queasy release portion plentiful alert heroic extraordinary frontier descend invisible coax entrance capable peer terror mock outstanding valiant typical competition hardship entertain eager limp survive tidy antonym duplicate abolish approach approve glory magnificent meek prompt revive watchful wreckage audible consume glide origin prevent punctuate representative scorn stout woe arch authentic clarify declare grant grave opponent valid yearn admirable automatic devotion distant dreary exhaust kindle predict separation stunt

7.2

evade debate dedicate budge available miniature petrify pasture banquet pedestrian solitary decline reassure nonchalant exhibit realistic exert abuse dictate minor monarch concept character strategy soar beverage tropical withdraw challenge kin navigate purchase reliable mischief solo combine vivid aroma spurt illuminate narrator retain excavate avalanche preserve suspend accomplish exasperate obsolete occasion myth reign sparse gorge intense revert antagonist talon aggressive alternate retire cautiously blizzard require endanger luxurious senseless portable sever compensate companion visual immense slither guardian compassion escalate detect protagonist oasis altitude assume seldom courteous absurd edible identical pardon approximate taunt achievement homonym hearty convert wilderness industrious sluggish thrifty deprive independent bland confident anxious astound numerous resemble route access jubilation saunter hazy impressive document moral crave gigantic bungle prefix summit overthrow perish visible translate comply intercept feeble exult compose negative suffocate frigid synonym appeal dominate deplete abundant economy desperate diligent commend boycott jovial onset burden fixture objective siege barrier conceive formal inquire penalize picturesque predator privilege slumber advantage ambition defiant fearsome imply merit negotiate purify revoke wretched absorb amateur channel elegant grace inspect lame tiresome tranquil boast eloquent glisten ideal infectious invest locate ripple sufficient uproar

8.1

apprehensive dialogue prejudice marvel eligible accommodate arrogant distinct knack deposit liberate cumulative consequence strive salvage chronological unique vow concise influence lure poverty priority legislation significant conserve verdict leisure erupt beacon stationary generate provoke efficient campaign paraphrase swarm adhere eerie mere mimic deteriorate literal preliminary solar soothe expanse ignite verge recount apparel terrain ample quest composure majority collide prominent duration pursue innovation omniscient resolute unruly optimist restrain agony convenient constant prosper elaborate genre retrieve exploit continuous dissolve dwell persecute abandon meager elude rural retaliate primitive remote blunder propel vital designate cultivate loathe consent drastic fuse maximum negotiate barren transform conspicuous possess allegiance beneficial former factor deluge vibrant intimidate idiom dense awe rigorous manipulate transport discretion hostile clarity arid parody boisterous capacity massive prosecute declare stifle remorse refuge predicament treacherous inevitable ingenious plummet adapt monotonous accumulate reinforce extract reluctant vacate hazardous inept diminish domestic linger context excel cancel distribute document fragile myth reject scuffle solitary temporary veteran assault convert dispute impressive justify misleading numerous productive shrewd strategy villain bluff cautious consist despise haven miniature monarch obstacle postpone straggle vivid aggressive associate deceive emigrate flexible glamour hazy luxurious mishap overwhelm span blemish blunt capable conclude detect fatigue festive hospitality nomad supreme

8.2

exclude civic compact painstaking supplement habitat leeway minute hoax contaminate likeness migration commentary extinct tangible originate urban unanimous subordinate collaborate obstacle esteem encounter futile cordial trait improvises superior exaggerate anticipate cope evolve eclipse dissent anguish subsequent sanctuary formulates makeshift controversy diversity terminate precise equivalent pamper prior potential obnoxious radiant predatory presume permanent pending simultaneously tamper supervise perceived vicious patronize trickle stodgy rant oration preview species poised perturb vista wince yearn persist shirk status tragedy trivial snare vindictive wrath recede peevish rupture unscathed random toxic void orthodox subtle resume sequel upright wary overwhelm perjury uncertainty prowess utmost throb pluck pique vengeance pelt urgent substantial robust sullen retort ponder whim saga sham reprimand vocation assimilate dub defect accord embark desist dialect chastise banter inaugurate ovation barter muse blasé stamina atrocity deter principal liberal epoch preposterous advocate audacious dispatch incense deplore institute deceptive component subside spontaneous bonanza ultimate wrangle clarify hindrance irascible plausible profound infinite accomplish apparent capacity civilian conceal duplicate keen provoke spurt undoing vast withdraw barrier calculate compose considerable deputy industrious jolt loot rejoice reliable senseless shrivel alternate demolish energetic enforce feat hearty mature observant primary resign strive verdict brisk cherish considerate displace downfall estimate humiliate identical improper poll soothe vicinity abolish appeal brittle condemn descend dictator expand famine portable prey thrifty visual

9.1

stance vie instill exceptional avail strident formidable rebuke enhance benign perspective tedious aloof encroach memoir mien desolate inventive prodigy staple stint fallacy grope vilify recur assail tirade antics recourse clad jurisdiction caption pseudonym reception humane ornate sage ungainly overt sedative amiss convey connoisseur rational enigma fortify servile fastidious contagious elite disgruntled eccentric pioneer abet luminous era sleek serene proficient rue articulate awry pungent wage deploy anarchy culminate inventory commemorate muster adept durable foreboding lucrative modify authority transition confiscate pivotal analogy avid flair ferret decree voracious imperative grapple deface augment shackle legendary trepidation discern glut cache endeavor attribute phenomenon balmy bizarre gullible loll rankle decipher sublime rubble renounce porous turbulent heritage hover pithy allot minimize agile renown fend revenue versa gaunt haven dire doctrine intricate conservative exotic facilitate bountiful cite panorama swelter foster indifferent millennium gingerly conscientious intervene mercenary citadel obviously rely supportive sympathy weakling atmosphere decay gradual impact noticeable recede stability variation approximately astronomical calculation criterion diameter evaluate orbit sphere agricultural decline disorder identify probable thrive expected widespread bulletin contribution diversity enlist intercept operation recruit survival abruptly ally collide confident conflict protective taunt adaptation dormant forage frigid hibernate insulate export glisten influence landscape native plantation restore urge blare connection errand exchange

9.2

feasible teem pang vice tycoon succumb capacious onslaught excerpt eventful forfeit crusade tract haggard susceptible exemplify ardent crucial excruciating embargo disdain apprehend surpass sporadic flustered languish conventional disposition theme plunder ignore project complaint title dramatic delivery litter experimental clinic arrogance preparation remind atomic occasional conscious deny maturity closure stressed translator animate observation physical further gently registration suppress combination amazing constructive allied poetry passion ecstasy mystery cheerful contribution spirit failed gummy commerce prove disagreement raid consume embarrass preference migrant devour encouragement quote mythology destined destination illuminating struggle accent ungrateful giggle approval confidence expose scientist operation superstitious emergency manners absolutely swallow readily mutual bound crisp orient stress sort stare comfort verbal heel challenging advertisement envious sex scar astonish basis accuracy enviable alliance specific chef embarrassed counter tolerable sympathetic gradually vanish informative amaze royal furry insist jealousy simplify quiver collaborate dedicated flexible function mimic obstacle technique archaeologist fragment historian intact preserve reconstruct remnant commence deed exaggeration heroic impress pose saunter wring astound concealed inquisitive interpret perplexed precise reconsider suspicious anticipation defy entitled neutral outspoken reserved sought equal absorb affect circulate conserve cycle necessity seep barren expression meaningful plume focused genius perspective prospect stunned superb transition assume guarantee nominate

10.1

install reticent corroborate regretfully strength murder concise cunning intention holy satire query confused progression disillusion background mundane abrupt multiple enormously introduce emulate harmful pragmatic pity rebut liberate enthusiastic elucidate camaraderie disparage nature creep profitability impression racist sobriety occupy autonomy currently amiable reiterate reproduce cripple modest offer atom provincial augment ungratefully expansion yield rashly allude immigration silence epitome exacerbate somber avid dispute vindicate collaborate manufacturer embellish superficial propaganda incompetent objective diminish statistics endure ambivalent perpetuate illuminate phenomenon exasperate originality restrict anxiety anthropology circumstances aesthetic manufacturing conventional dubious vulnerable reality precedent entity success term critical repair underscore stepmother republican hesitantly classic wary contents prediction immediate invoke notorious implicit excluding input skeptical foster element punish frank humanity profound dessert orthodox substance disappear encourage neighborhood elder superfluous naive ascertain complacent resilient deafening military tend prudent glare acceptance skillfully induce monster beam gullible conciliate vessel petty cantankerous disclose archaeology anecdote disdain electronics substantiate subjective tourism advisable joyful incredible provocative psychological ruins discipline condone indifferent misfortune judgmental industrialize tasty assume astute mission mar protective definitely escape oppress shocked virtual zealous endorse qualification hostile eccentric abstract disparate geographical scrutinize generalization tolerate activity claim dogmatic influential obsolete extol implausible subsequent resource chronic benevolent improve confidential ambiguous seriously dearth perplex hatred throughout dine contemporary evoke essentially economic flagrant obscure alleviate eloquent dreaadful clumsy sympathy victim condemn vigor condescend spontaneous quell reprehensible substantially sleeve equivocal ironic decry errand articulate progressive eradicate refreshments elicit aspiration recently exemplary bribery theoretical disingenuous partisan revere particle nostalgia self-aggrandizement debunk tyranny rhetoric hierarchy warning whimsical venerate commend assert miserable awful vibe constrain undermine explicit differentiate compliment scrupulous contempt erroneous ideal refute imply cynical rash presume insight revival vary delay renounce indignant offensive temperate circumstantial export peep logo advertise suppress distort chunk convoluted denounce overwhelming fertility rigorous acquire arrogant university antagonize profitable indulgent strategic breathing idiosyncrasy profession frugal discern accommodation adversary incredulous disturbance digress social belie roam smug continual pertinent voluntarily elite subtle blame sincerity lick horror censure involvement candid infer futile impetuous exploit bewilder sustain diligent sincere protect sealed musical empathy callous parenthetical insure acorn sarcasm seize sacrificially allege emphatic irrelevant progress diplomatic stunned improvise deride reconcile meticulous deject scientifically incontrovertible pressure justify gloomy depict supplant endurance analogous diary bolster slip contemplate pesticide glow religious advocate negligent creator lament fundamental embrace throne inherent inferior valuable thrive trivial pretense reserved capricious refresh refusal flight boost explanation coherent prevalent tenacious official royalty assassin rub poach delete

10.2

warrant circumscribed somewhat explosive optimistic mandate previously detract opinion intuitive feasible intimate persistent humble simplicity tempt deliberate painful unethical fundamentals discrepancy remorse pessimistic possibility conclusion acknowledge impregnate soberly creation paralyze suitability oblige tranquil medal arbitrate pacify illusory susceptible vibrate vengeance infection democratic stressful grave speculative sample identification stifle obligation revenge organization namely mediocre practical scream weaken consensus affectionate deficient treacherous console isolation ingenious memory melodrama despair awestruck composition regret recommendation celebrity decision devoid opaque ornamentation longevity participate dread restore interrogate aid accordingly mislead embarrassment optimism domestic apt funds virtue geography fundamentally thoroughly press despite horrible chilling rental esteemed disappointment innovative contemplation assign popularize haunt deafen serene percent estrangement suffer extravagant throng estimate comment priesthood mass dreadfully promote periphery animated saying relate clarity triple derivative succeed distortion register suicide improvement discreet inquisition probable curative incident praise convenience baffle covet dreadful genuinely weary undisturbed disgruntled humility renown nonchalant monopoly comedy vague decisive inconsequential announcement fabricated nevertheless vigilant scarce neglectful hushed attainment tedious explode snatch pslm agency sentimental tension adhere meanwhile sacred avert conformity likewise challenger accessible responsibility peril contact event roast fallible catastrophic competitor violate resolute deceive exaggeration discredit intolerable approve paste dimly novelist demeanor norm politician satisfaction obvious vehicle reservation defer involve restoration crush audible assistant backpack attain inanimate commemorate confrontation emigration parasite disperse quantitative laughter policy vulgar occasionally repay effective eulogy starvation empty therapeutic overall immortal encompass inappropriate opportune engagement illustrate turmoil observatory classification expression reminiscence comedian invention depress remedy protagonist gesture texture diplomatic election prolong conducive emotional invigorate curiosity expressive %

K-12 Words was originally published on PinkWrite

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