The maps of the divine cycle so far…

Physical affection prompts! 21! 25!

Prompt: accidentally knocking your head into someone’s chin + playfully biting someone

Established relationship. Beth and Rio try couples yoga. An injury ensues.

Side note: This is the first time I’ve ever attempted writing from Rio’s POV. Augauahgah!!! I feel like all the straight Mexi-boys I know are mad sappy about the ladies in their lives so… this is Big!Soft. Don’t hate.

On Ao3

A Bit of a Stretch 

It goes like this. 

Three months ago, a yoga mat shows up in the car. It’s purple (her favorite color), and Elizabeth probably thought it inconspicuous, neatly rolled up and tucked away in the back. But Rio’s only gotten to where he is in life because he’s got a meticulous handle on the details. So he notices, and it makes him pause -- the reminder of who he is these days. 

And he likes to think he’s a smart guy, evolved and shit. But, he’s got to admit he likes the thought of it -- his girl, Aphrodite trapped in suburbia (or was it Athena?), rolling up in the Wagon to some bougie yoga studio. Elizabeth would swing ‘round the back to grab her mat, doing that walk she does when she’s feeling herself as the other PTA chicks’ jaws drop. He likes the security of his second pair of keys in her hands, on her keychain. 

What did it say about Elizabeth’s hold on him that he fuckin’ delights in this daydreaming? 

And it’s complicated -- ‘cause on one hand, when did he become this guy? Actually, he knows. Three years, eight months, and two days ago. He’s not overly-obsessed with his relationship or anything, but a counter runs in his mind -- how long he’s been with her. So much so that he’s been thinking of getting the date of when she robbed him (the first time) on the inside of his wrist, a complement to the bracelets she’d bestowed him, to drag out as A Move during sex or to embarrass her in front of her friends. 

And on the other hand, it’s like...  damn, it’s been too long since they fucked in the car. 

They cohabitate now -- them and all their kids. They still had an absurd amount of sex in public places (and shit, since when had that been his kink?). He still takes great delight in pushing all her buttons and getting her to unspool around his cock, on his mouth, and in his arms. 

But, they were a lil’ calmer now, less feral. They had partially domesticated what this was and had fun in doing so. They shared a bed now, were crate-trained as it were. 

She and hers are his family. 

But, fuck, he’d been a strict no-strings-attached, hit-it-and-quit-it type of dude for years -- all of his adult life. It was what came with his job. 

He had tried to do his best by Rhea when he had gotten her knocked up. But, looking back on it, the exercise had been doomed. When Marcus was born, Rio was in his late 20s rocketing to the top of the food chain. It had been a time when all he could do was keep his head down and do the work -- running in the streets, scheming, consolidating power, and ultimately, he had to make a choice. 

Was he going to be a boss, a father, or a husband? To be honest, he only had time for one, but he did his best to make fatherhood fit. 

It’s what it was all for in the end, right? 

And yet, somehow despite all and many odds, here he was toting Elizabeth’s yoga mat around in his car. Mick rolls his eyes when he sees it, and there’s the typical jokes about being pussy-whipped and what not. But, yeah -- he loves her. At this point, he can’t really deny it. So, he laughs along with Mick’s jokes, and then sends him to chauffeur their million kids around, just to make sure he knows what's what.

Anyway, after a few weeks, Rio comes home from the gym and finds her practicing alone in the house, the kids scattered to their other respective households. Elizabeth’s got a video going on her phone, and her back is arched in a way he’s only ever seen in bed and she has to realize is provocative. But, she eyes him, self-conscious and with old defensiveness, as she twists into a few shapes. 

He tries to keep it chill, knows about the residual feelings she carries about her body (and Christ, he can’t believe he’s only had the opportunity to shoot her ex-husband once, he should have taken his own advice and emptied the fucking clip). So he settles close to her with his battered copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology from highschool that he’s been trying to get back into, and steals glances at her over the pages. 

He skims the pages on Athena and then Aphrodite, and he likes the hyperbole of each but neither quite fit. 

He eventually comes back to Artemis. 

And, yeah, maybe.

He looks up at Elizabeth again and admires her form. He admires her strength -- that reedy cord of tenacity he’s admired for so long making itself more visible through the facade of soft as she finds new ways to hold herself up and get herself stronger.  Her hair keeps falling into her face and he itches to crawl on the mat with her and pull it out of her face. 

She’s fucking gorgeous.

As she continues, Elizabeth notices him watching, and she starts to get a little playful. Eventually, he lures her off the mat and onto his lap.

Yoga becomes part of her routine on the days she doesn’t feel like driving into the studio. And he gets it. He’s always turned to grounding himself in his body when he’s needed to work through things. His first love had been basketball, soccer while on family vacations (and only with his cousins from Tamaulipas). In high school, it was track, and he still loves running, but with Detroit winters he’s mostly moved on to boxing and tennis. Never yoga, though. 

And yeah, he has some reservations, and yeah, it makes him feel their differences. He’s a tad judgemental about the white-owned yoga studios gentrifying the fuck out of his city. Blocks he grew up running in Detroit-propper suddenly got white people eyein’ up his tats and clutching their wallets. And shit, when has yoga ever been for guys like him? 

But, life increasingly becomes more complicated. 

He can still like that E’s found something that’s for her and he likes the peace it brings her. He appreciates the way it unknots her shoulders, the particular vibe it gives their day afterward when she’s able to let go of some of that stress she carries. He tries to complement it by eating her out and that special type of really good sex that comes from whatever alchemy is between their bodies. And yeah, he likes the headspace it gets her in, how it shifts the way she approaches their work, and the new depth it adds to the way they touch each other when sex isn’t her only form of therapy. 

So when she gets a water bottle with the yoga studio’s branding, Rio teases her a bit but he encourages her to go for the membership. Naturally, E being E, it don’t take her long to make nice with the owners. And then Elizabeth comes home excited about how she had just committed to doing a run of the studio’s promotional swag at the store. He and Elizabeth end up with a postcard on their fridge, a color photo of the studio’s abstract mural. The other side has text that advertises an event line up at the studio that includes a fucking “gong-bath”. It takes him a week to let it go. 

Actually, he hasn’t. He still brings it up.

But, then a second yoga mat appears -- a green one -- tucked away in the spare bedroom, mostly hidden under some of her crafting materials. He finds it, wonders for a split second why she needs two and has an answering inkling of where this might be going. 

The next day, a lil’ custom print for a “partners” yoga event gets pinned next to the first postcard on the fridge. 

And like... he loves her and all. But, does it really go that deep?

Rio pauses in front of the fridge, sipping his tea and staring at the picture of a white dude balancing presumably his Black girlfriend in a pose above his head. His eyes track to where Elizabeth sits in the other room knitting and watching the latest episode of her British baking show (he has half the mind to submit her name to the American spin-off). Considering what she’s up to, she sits with her back a lil’ too straight (on edge one might say) clearly waiting for a comment or for him to show her some grace.

And…

Nope. He’s not going to make it that easy for her. 

To her credit, after her episode is done, Elizabeth FaceTimes Ruby and asks her first. Then, as if to make a point that she’s rounding out her bases, she calls her sister. And it’s true that Marks’ sisters’ relationship is as close as it's ever been -- their family criming has forced Elizabeth to trust her sister with her life. But, damn, if he knows she don’t trust Annie to do anything remotely acrobatic, much less cartwheel Elizabeth into the air. 

He settles at the island in their kitchen with his tea and his work. She’s got the call on speaker in the other room, when Annie asks, “And gang boo?” 

“What about him?” 

Rio scoffs loud enough to be heard in the other room.  

“Why doesn’t he go with you?” 

E pauses, probably fiddling with the strand of her knitting yarn on the couch behind him. “It just doesn’t really seem like his thing?”

Annie snorts. “Have you asked him?”

“No,” Elizabeth sighs into the phone, as if she isn’t a few paces away, having a very audible conversation. 

“Don’t people usually go with their SO’s to these things? I mean I appreciate that you think I have the upper body strength for this, but you have to know that I will never in my life be able to do a push-up.”

“It was just a thought--” 

Annie continues, stuck mid-rant, “And, like there’s no way I can be your counterweight. You have so much more body than me. We’re like completely different proportions. ” 

“Well, so are me and Christopher.” 

“Yeah, but Christopher actually has body strength. Lots of it. “ Annie retorts. “And he’s going to love you sweaty, and sticking your butt up into the air, bendy and wearing tight clothing--”

He bites at his bottom lip and supposes yeah, he could try it once. 

“Okay, fine! I’ll ask him.”

Rio waits for her to come to him as he tries to make headway on his accounting. But, E doesn’t show. 

Instead, it comes later -- when they’re in bed. She’s being extra-nice, extra-smiley, and charming, cracking jokes and making him laugh. He hates it except he also loves it -- when she thinks she can get the drop on him like her dumb ass ex-husband. Except, unfortunately for Rio, she really does know her target. 

She waits until right after she blows him to ask. 

Elizabeth crawls up his spent, panting body, and pins him with hers. She kisses him hotly with her mouth that tastes like his come and he fucking loves when she does that. Then, she retreats to bite playfully at his chin and asks if he’s seen the flyer on the refrigerator.

And he gives her a little shit about it but…

He admires the strategy

------

The couple's yoga class is on a Saturday morning.

It’s the middle of March, and he’s fucking over winter. Detroit, so far from Mexico and so close to being the fucking North Pole. 

The temperature means he’s got to get bundled up in sweats, put on his damn parka and snow boots, all to take it back off again when he gets there. Apparently, the studio is heated perennially at 90 degrees. He don’t know how Elizabeth handles it, she’s so bothered by heat. He complains to her, and she reminds him that this is just like when he goes to the gym on his own. Except this time, they’re doing something together. And she’s being all shy in a way she usually isn’t any more around him and she’s fuckin’ happy he’s coming with her. 

The night before she had presented the green mat to him. He had said “Thank you” como su mamá lo enseño, and committed to stepping outside of his comfort zone. 

“Show me how this goes, darlin’?” 

Elizabeth had swelled up with the thrill of explaining something to him, and launched into it, “Yoga’s basis is breathing…” 

She had given him the low-down and gotten him started in the basic poses. He liked her hands, soft, and prim and careful, pushing and pulling at him and adjusting his posture. He had ended up fucking her on the mat -- as a proper thank you and to give her a little something to think about in class tomorrow as they contort their bodies in a way she’s adamant is not meant to be sexual. 

And he’s not trying to be a dick or ruin the day for her, but he’s dragging his feet a little bit. He don’t really want to be spending his morning off, kid-less, in a room focusing on his breathing surrounded by crunchy, white gentrifiers. 

And he might be simmering a choice comment about how it’s ironic that she wants him to focus on his breathing after she was the one who fucking shot him in the lung that one time...

But, he knows she’s not thinking of it like that and he knows if he just told it to her she’d get it. But, he don’t want to make it all about him and the struggle... and he’s rich now ain’t he? And Elizabeth’s excited to have him with her while she does her thing, excited to show him off -- and that gives him enough energy to walk through the door, green mat under one arm, and her hand in his. 

Immediately, they’re ensconced in a wave of warmth as they step into the heated studio, and there’s an earthy smell hitting him strong. He zeroes in on the incense lit at the check-in counter and Rio’s nose wrinkles in distaste on its own accord. 

Elizabeth squeezes her hand, in a silent reprimand. Behave. Then, she moves around the counter to hug some of the people hanging out back there.

There’s a flurry of introductions, a Bridgid, a Cassandra, Bryce, Patsy, and Tiffany. Tiffany is Black and he thinks Cassandra could be Latina… He ain’t sure. They’re all revealed to be instructors or staff of some kind and E seems to be chummy with all of them. He knows Tiffany is her favorite and will move heaven and hell (and their fucking drop schedule) to make it to class with her. 

He isn’t sure exactly why so many of them are but apparently, they like to hang out here? His palms itch and he feels the sweat start to drip under his thick jacket. 

E starts to pull off her winter clothes, as she lingers in conversation with Tiffany, asking her about her husband and how Tiffany’s weight training is going. He blinks at his girl and the shit she can pull out of her repertoire.  

“I’m so glad you get to finally meet Christopher.” 

Tiffany turns to smile wide at him. “Beth has made so much progress in the past few months.” 

“It’s nice to meet you,” and she’s got a friendly vibe so he tries to dial up the charm. Smiling, and playing the proper beau, “She talks about y’all all the time.” 

Behind them, he clocks that instructor, Brad or Bryce, checking out Elizabeth’s ass when she ain’t looking. And sure he’s about Rio’s height and got some definition on his abs, but his jaw’s too square like it’s never taken a hit, his muscles never used in a fight. 

Rio snags the eyes of some chicks looking at him a little too eager. Damn, it’s Saturday morning and these people need to chill. 

And he rolls his eyes, tsking, then steps closer and loops a hand around Elizabeth’s waist, drops it down to her ass for a moment. He makes a show of leaving a kiss against her temple and then he bounds towards the cubbies, ready to shed some clothes. His jacket is about to kill him. 

As he peels off of the layers, he looks around, and okay -- it’s not as white as he worried it was. There’s other POC settling in for the class, at least one other interracial couple, too. And that Cassandra chick’s sweatshirt says “Chingona AF’ on the back. She’s the same shade of light brown as him, a mid-30s willowy mujer with a queer buzzcut.

He loosens up a bit and settles into the space. This heated shit is nice.

A few moments later, Elizabeth joins him and after they’re done tucking their stuff away, she draws him over to her favorite corner. They roll out their mats -- purple and green -- side-by-side. 

They settle on their respective mats and Rio takes the opportunity to give Elizabeth the same once over that asshole did. Her ass really does look great in those pants and she could fill out any shirt. Her eyes linger over him too, tracing his skin, the bar tattoos peeking out from under his t-shirt that she’s seen a million times and then her eyes meet his and she gives him that small, crooked lil’ smile. 

He’s not one for religion, but every so often he takes his mom to Spanish mass. All the viejitos and pious Catholic types think he’s a banger but his ma’s still excited to show him off. He sits with her in the pew and when the priest asks for the congregation to give thanks to God, he says a prayer for the riches that have come to him, the health and brilliance of his son, the vitality of the other little ones in his life now, and Elizabeth. And when he thinks of her in those moments, he sees her in his mind’s eye with this exact look on her face. 

And to top it all off, the 90-degree heat is already working some kind of magic on the knot he’s been trying to get out of his shoulder for the past two weeks. 

He smiles back at her. 

“This shit is dope.” 

“Yeah?” 

He shrugs, playful. “I like the heat.”

She scoffs, still smiling, “Of course, you do. I thought I was going to pass out the first time I came.” He laughs and tallies a point. He called it. E shakes her head, “I had never sweat so much in my life.”  

And it goes like that. 

Right as class starts, a white guy with dreads and his skinny, blond girlfriend settle in the space next to them. The white dude turns to nod in acknowledgment, but his eyes drop down to take the ink at Rio’s throat. He tries to be subtle about it but he and the girl scoot a few inches away. 

And he ain’t even seen all the old bullet wounds yet. 

Rio turns to look at Beth. She’s also staring at the couple, her mouth settled in a thin line. 

Then she meets his gaze. 

One of the instructors starts calling the group in, welcoming them to class, and Elizabeth takes the last opportunity to gently careen into his side, and kiss him deeply. 

Then she's back on her mat, listening attentively to the instructor like she didn’t just start some shit.  

And yeah-- he and Elizabeth are different. They move through space differently, and she has access to things he never will no matter all the gems, rubies and diamonds, Mercedes and stacks he adds to his hoard of wealth, And Rio has wondered, worried, if there will ever be a day when they look at each other and decide they don’t fit anymore. 

But, damn if she don’t make him feel alive like nothing else. 

So as the instructor has them sit back-to-back and leads them through an opening meditation. It’s corny as shit and formal meditation is not really his thing, always having relied on sports (and fights and hits) as a substitute in the past. 

But, he tries to settle here, in this room warm like a blanket, next to Elizabeth.

The class itself is pretty fun. The instructors are hands-on, demonstrating, and walking them through everything. It’s easy enough to pick up with them (and Elizabeth) giving him adjustments, and he likes the excuse to get his hands on her in a different kind of way. 

He helps Elizabeth through some inversions, smirking down at her with this particular view of her cleavage. She gets a few, sneaky passes at him, and he don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling surrounded by a room of people, and a whole team of instructors circling them. 

In one particularly nice sequence, Rio curls down into the mat in the child’s pose, Elizabeth had shown him as she stretches on top of him, her whole weight settling along him like a cocoon. 

Damn, he’s going to make them take another class like this ain’t he? 

The class eventually shifts into what the teachers call aerials.

He lays on his back and lofting E up into the air over him. It takes a little finagling to fully adjust to the distribution of her weight, she’s obviously top-heavy. He stares up at her -- her gorgeous, sweaty face smiling down at him -- and looks over the particular arc of her cleavage. And despite how much time he spends palming at Elizabeth’s tits, he underestimates how much they must hurt her back.

No wonder she needs this shit.  

‘Course that’s when Bryce or Blake comes over to “check on their form” and is this guy really going to try to check out his girl’s ass again? Right, the fuck now? 

Blake/Bryce pushes at Elizabeth’s shoulders trying to adjust her position and she maintains very apologetic eye contact with Rio. Huh. So, she’s aware. 

Then, It all happens real fast. Her balance shifts and her hand, sweaty with the heat, slips across his palm and out of his grasp. 

The realization hits him--  She’s gonna fall.

And for a brief, terrible moment, her face freezes above him skewed with panic and fear, and then, as if in slow motion, she floats closer, down to earth. 

And he knows better. He fucking knows better from all his fucking years of boxing, the previously-mentioned lifetime of playing sports. But he clenches his damn, fucking jaw just as the crown of her head collides with him.

And there’s a sharp, bolt of pain spearing through his chin.

And in this room, this heated blanket, incense-burning, crunchy, granola room… 

He’s knocked the fuck out.  

-----

Well, then it’s a fucking show. 

In the familiarity of Elizabeth walking into the studio, they hadn’t asked him to sign a liability waiver. Someone procures ice, and he cradles it to his chin as Bryce apologizes and asks if he can call an ambulance. 

For a concussion. 

And he’s pissed the fuck off but it’s still kind of funny? Because the only thing that had ever put him in a hospital had actually been this girl standing next to him (tal pesadilla when she put three slugs in his chest). But, he has to stop laughin’ because it hurts his jaw and they’re all looking at him like he’s nuts. 

Elizabeth grips his free hand like a vice, and he’s nursing a hell of a headache, as he has to swear a million times that he ain’t gonna sue anyone. Then, finally, blessedly, they’re allowed to walk out. 

Elizabeth insists on helping him into the car. Tiffany and Cassandra accompany them, helping Elizabeth carry all of their shit. 

They stand at the curb watching, concern etched on their faces as Elizabeth reverses out of the snowbank and drives off. And Elizabeth drives because he most definitely has a concussion. And she drives them straight to the fucking ER. 

They spend half an hour fighting parked in the lot outside. But, he knows concussions and he knows his limits. 

He convinces her to take him home.

----- 

The first twenty-four hours of the concussion are the most important. He’s not supposed to look at screens, not supposed to work. He knows his shit but Elizabeth reads at least ten internet articles on her phone as she lies in bed curled next to him. 

They spend the childless afternoon with the curtains drawn, lying in their bed, not fucking. 

But, the cuddling is good, too. 

Elizabeth strokes up and down his arm and talks to him about little nothings to keep him company. She periodically gets up to grab him glasses of water and more ice. And this sucks, but all things considered, this might be the nicest concussion he’s ever had. 

Eventually, they wander to the kitchen to figure out food. 

Elizabeth pauses staring vacantly at the fridge. Then her shoulders start to shake, and now he’s wondering if she’s okay. But, her hand raises to unpin the flyer from the fridge and he hears the first snicker.

She turns to him, laughter breaking across her face, pointing to that ridiculous picture. He knows enough now to recognize Tiffany lofted in that showy, stupid af aerial pose. 

He chuckles and then cringes as the pain at his chin flairs.

Elizabeth pouts but is still laughing to herself. She ambles over to him, wraps her arms loosely around his middle, and lays the softest kiss on his chin.

“I’m sorry, Christopher.” 

He shakes his head, just a smidge because movement fucking sucks right now. “It ain’t your fault.” 

“It was my idea.”

“It’s okay.” 

She curls into him, deflating, crumbling the flyer into her fist.  He gingerly rests his head on top of hers. 

“I liked it.” He admits. 

“You did?”

“Yeah.” The smell of her lavender-shampoo drifts into his orbit. “Liked you curled all around me. Liked touching you like that. Gave me some ideas.” 

She nods below him, pulling him tighter. “I liked it, too.” 

“You’ve gotten so strong now, Elizabeth.” He kisses her at her temple. “Maybe next time you should do all the lifting.” 

She pinches him at the ribs. Then, “Next time?”

“I’ll tell you what.” He shifts back to make eye contact with her. “We get to do a whole lot of private practice.” He gives her a look to make it clear exactly what he means -- sex. “Then, we’re gonna go back and make sure Bryce is really sorry, ‘kay? Make sure he knows I’m still around.”

And Elizabeth beams that crooked little smile at him. 

“Okay, but the next time you have to give me your hoodie or something.”

He nods, a smidge but still manages to imbue it with sage, territorial wisdom. “That would help.” 

“Well, I meant more for me to...” She looks at him, eyes darting. “Claim you.”  

I mean he is living for that but he frowns at her. “But, everyone there was a couple.”

Oh. Oh yes. Now he remembers. 

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Elizabeth rolls her eyes. “And I don’t share.” 

Her hand drifts low on his back, then lower to curl a firm grip on his ass in the privacy of this home that they share.

Unfortunately, despite all this time, Elizabeth still doesn’t know when to quit when she’s ahead. 

“Though, honestly, I don’t know why they kept staring at your butt.” She murmurs, sassing him while he’s down. “There’s nothing here.” 

Esta pinche mujer. She’s lucky he loves her. 

Fuckin’ adores her, really.

Damn.  

a family and (mis)fortune fic

on ao3

moments growing up in the life of tommy merlyn, part-time wayne foster child. (five)

—————

Gotham was not Starling City.

It was loud, like cities should be, but the noise was different from the background of Tommy’s first nine years and nine months of life, with steam hissing through sidewalk grates and the subways rushing and rumbling and the elevated railways clacking and roaring. Everyone talked like they were in a hurry and the fastest way to get somewhere was to take the least possible time to say anything. Even the accents were weird, clipped but broad.

The days were rainier in Gotham than Starling, and grayer, usually overcast when it wasn’t raining. Every step down the city streets splashed or scraped with that wet grit of sneaker sole on damp pavement. Starling rained plenty, but the showers usually gave way to sunshine, and wet on the streets shone with color and light like the city itself. It was colder here, too, and everyone seemed to expect it would snow before Thanksgiving.

Gotham wasn’t home.

Tommy was trying his best not to hold that against it.

Technically, he knew, he didn’t have a home anymore.

And Dad always used to say that beggars can’t be choosers.

He also used to say no son of his was weak enough to beg. That Merlyns were strong, and that you had to take what you wanted out of life.

Tommy was still a Merlyn, but he felt pretty weak these days. He couldn’t imagine taking anything from life when everything had already been taken from him. He thought he didn’t mind if this made him not his dad’s son. It had felt that way for a long time, so might as well make it official. That is, if being an orphan didn’t do that already.

All these thoughts stewed together in Tommy’s gut like too much soda and bad corndogs, grumbling and cramping. It was hard to keep the scowl off his face as he trailed behind Bruce and Dick down the sidewalk, dirty Gotham rainwater soaking his socks and making his feet squelch in his sneakers, but Tommy didn’t want to be caught looking like a problem. Bruce got that look every time he caught Tommy scowling, or frowning, or even smiling.

Tommy could usually tell who adults wanted him to be or had decided he was. Bruce was frustrating. Nothing seemed to be right. He’d said the day he brought Tommy here that Tommy only needed to be him, and as nice as that had sounded, Tommy couldn’t trust it. Because he wanted to, he knew he shouldn’t.

Nobody wanted Tommy to be himself.

Nobody wanted Tommy.

He was sure Bruce had come in out of nowhere and claimed Tommy for some reason. There was some kind of Tommy that Bruce was looking for him to be. He just hadn’t figured out what it was yet. And he needed to hurry it up, before somebody decided there’d been a mistake and it was time to send Tommy somewhere else.

(If he thought this would get him sent back to Starling to live with the Queens, Tommy would wear out his welcome with Bruce Wayne by the weekend, no doubt. But the Queens didn’t want him, or he wouldn’t be here in the first place.)

Gotham might not be home, but Alfred was nice, and Dick was really cool, and if Bruce decided to keep Tommy, Tommy would still get to spend most of the year in Starling. With Ollie.

At least Ollie wanted him.

For a second, he missed Ollie so fiercely he couldn’t hear, feel, or see anything else—

—and in that second, he tripped right up the stairs leading up to the front doors of Wayne Enterprises.

Tommy cried out in surprise and windmilled his arms, eyes squeezing shut in anticipation of falling flat on his face and losing a whole lot of skin. But instead of the harsh, scraping impact on the cement and hard angles, there was a tight grip around his upper arm and a sharp jerk against the pull of gravity.

Tommy stumbled instead of fell, and the grip on his arm didn’t let go.

“Whoa there, maybe leave the tumbling to the trained professionals, yeah?”

Tommy opened his eyes to see Dick a step and a half above him, upper body twisted around and one arm thrown back as a counterweight to the hand curved around Tommy’s thin arm. Tommy’s eyes went wide and his cheeks burst into flame, but Dick just grinned, those dark blue eyes always laughing—but not at Tommy.

“Thanks,” Tommy mumbled, rubbing his arm as Dick let him go.

“Everything alright?”

Tommy flinched at the mild question, but Dick didn’t even glance back at Bruce, turned towards them on the top step with his hand on the door. Tommy’s eyes darted across Bruce’s stupid unreadable face, heart pounding harder than when he’d been bracing to kiss the pavement.

He waited for the disappointed purse of lips he would’ve seen on Moira. Anticipated the irritable, snapping demand to pay attention Dad would have barked for Tommy’s embarrassing flailing. Even the exasperated impatience the au pair Dad had hired for a while would have huffed with.

Bruce’s brow furrowed just a little and he looked Tommy up and down. Tommy felt every inch the grubby, clumsy brat, too much work, not smart enough, too inconvenient, not quiet or easygoing enough, just too much and not enough from head to toe.

But Bruce just nodded to himself and pushed his mouth into a smile that looked like it was supposed to be reassuring. He pulled open the door and gestured to the boys to head inside with a sweep of his hand.

Tommy hurried through the door on Dick’s heels, doing his best not to hunch his shoulders or duck his head. If he looked too tense, Bruce might try to talk to him. He was even worse at talking than he was at hugs.

(Although, Tommy figured he might deserve at least a little credit for trying. Not everybody bothered.)

Tommy had been in plenty of big-deal office buildings before, but even so, his head tipped back and mouth fell open as he stepped into the lobby of Wayne Enterprises. 

He’d been in the Merlyn Global Group building many times, and in Queen Consolidated often, too. They both looked kind of the same, all flashy colors and sharp lines and things his dad had called “sleek” and “modern.” The biggest difference between them that Tommy could tell was that his dad’s company liked darker colors and Mr. Queen’s company was bright and friendly colors.

Wayne Enterprises didn’t look anything like that. Everything was curves and arches and warm orange-yellow colors and bronze or brass or whichever metal that was. He was pretty sure the style was called “art deco” but not, like, sure sure. He liked art and the way things looked and he always paid more attention during history lessons when they talked about art periods and styles, but it was hard to remember what was called what for longer than it took to take a test about it.

Tommy stood in Wayne Enterprises’s lobby and stared around, and he decided he liked it. Dad’s company made him think it was trying too hard to be cool, and Mr. Queen’s like it was trying too hard to be fun. Bruce’s company made Tommy feel like they had what his mom would call class. It was impressive, like they knew what they were about and so did you and they could just do what they liked without trying too hard to seem impressive.

If he ever ran a business someday like his dad had wanted him to, Tommy thought he might want it to look kind of like this.

“Fancy, right?” Dick asked, the question only just making Tommy realize the older boy was standing beside him.

Tommy cut a quick glance towards Bruce, standing just on the other side of Dick. He shrugged his shoulders in a casual jerk. “It’s really different from Merlyn Global. I guess it’s pretty cool.”

“Thank you,” Bruce said, weirdly serious for a compliment from an almost ten year old. Bruce smiled at him. “I saw you looking at the architecture and design. Call me biased, but I’d say you’ve got a good eye.”

A quick surge of pride leapt bright and warm in Tommy’s chest. He squished it ruthlessly, like a bug. He gave Bruce another shrug, like it didn’t matter.

“My father was very proud of the choices he made in Wayne Enterprises’s aesthetic. It’s needed a little updating from time to time of course, but I’ll give him credit, it’s very classic, difficult to go out of style. And I can speak from experience that style does matter.”

Bruce looked around fondly as he spoke, and Tommy remembered that Bruce’s parents weren’t around anymore either, and hadn’t been for a long time. He wasn’t even that old. Bruce talked about his dad like he still missed him, and Tommy couldn’t help but feel a little jealous, even if it also maybe made him like Bruce a little bit more.

“Your dad had good taste,” he said awkwardly. It sounded like something nice his mom would’ve said, and grownups always talked about “taste” like it was important.

Bruce laughed softly and thanked him again, and Dick gave Tommy a subtle nod like he’d said the right thing. Tommy let out a little bit of breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Come on,” Bruce said, reaching out a hand like he’d rest it on Dick’s or Tommy’s shoulders but not actually touching either of them. “We’re here to give you a tour. It’d be a shame to stop with just the lobby.”

“You’re gonna love the R-and-D department. That’s where all the sick gadgets get made,” Dick enthused with a grin, walking backwards to talk to Tommy as they followed Bruce towards the elevators.

Bruce turned a narrow-eyed, half-amused warning look on Dick as he hit the call button, but Dick just spun on his heel to turn that grin on Bruce in sunny defiance. Bruce shook his head and heaved a sigh, but there was a smile sneaking into the corner of his mouth.

Tommy watched this with interest and wondered if maybe this was what Bruce was looking for. If playing the rascally jokester, cheeky and endearingly feisty, was the way to go to fit here. It would hardly even be an effort. The trouble was, he wouldn’t be as good at it as Dick. Tommy could do the jokes—the worse the better—and he was usually pretty good at being endearing, but Dick was funnier, livelier, and he had the circus thing going for him.

No, imitating Dick could backfire too easy. It might be fun and charming from Dick, but if Tommy piled on the same and made it annoying and obnoxious, one of them might have to go and Tommy already knew it wouldn’t be Dick.

He chewed over ideas on the ride up the elevator, but they slipped away once they started visiting different departments on different floors.

Everyone greeted Bruce. Everyone had always greeted Tommy’s dad at work, too, but this wasn’t like that. At Dad’s work, everyone always seemed nervous and like they were being on their best behavior, which Tommy understood. But Dad only ever paid attention to people in charge, and it seemed like it was mostly to remind them that he was in charge of them.

The people at Wayne Enterprises greeted Bruce like they respected him, but also like they liked him, and even more like they knew him. Bruce stopped to chat with most people, asking them questions about their families or projects or stuff they liked. Which meant he knew all of that. But what Tommy couldn’t figure out was why he knew it. And he didn’t seem fake about it either. He sounded like he cared what the answer was when he asked about them.

Even more, everyone seemed to know Dick, too. Tommy knew Dick had been living with Bruce for two or three years already, but he must have come by Wayne Enterprises a lot in that time. People talked to him. And he talked back, and Bruce didn’t seem to mind. Dad would have clenched his jaw and quietly but sternly reminded Tommy that children were to be seen and not heard. But people here treated Dick like he was just… a person.

It was almost enough to break something in Tommy’s head. Adults didn’t treat kids like they were people. It was like he’d stumbled into some kind of weird Twilight Zone episode.

All of this served to make Tommy unusually shy when Bruce introduced him, and he introduced him to everybody. He hadn’t been prepared for all these people to be looking at him, and worse, paying attention. What were they seeing? Some orphan tagalong? Somebody who didn’t belong?

He got more and more tense with each hand he shook, waiting for all the questions he hated most. Where were his parents. Was he here with family. 

How long would he be staying.

The questions didn’t come.

Any time it would start to come up, or someone looked like they were going to start asking, it got deftly shut down. To Tommy’s growing awe, Bruce and Dick worked like some kind of coordinated act, with Bruce smoothly slipping in a “Tommy’s going to be staying with us from now on” and handing off to Dick to distract with a joke or a question of his own.

It was kind of amazing. It explained enough, was polite, even friendly, but was firm that this was all the information they needed about it. And nobody pushed back or pretended not to get it. Tommy hoped he’d be able to figure out how to do that himself sometime.

The other options were trying not to cry in front of strangers, or angry outbursts, and those were bad options that would get him labeled a problem faster than he could sneeze.

After a while, some three or four floors later and in a department Tommy couldn’t remember, Bruce got pulled a little away to look at something, leaving Tommy and Dick standing around by a short conference table with a bowl of peppermints on it. Dick grabbed a handful and tossed Tommy a couple as well.

Unwrapping one of his mints, Dick nudged Tommy with an elbow and asked quietly, “You doing okay? The whole tour’s kind of a lot, I know.”

“Yeah,” Tommy answered, frowning down at one of his own mints and slowly untwisting the plastic. “I’m good. It’s just. Yeah, it’s a lot. There’s so many people, I didn’t know we were gonna be talking to all these people.”

Dick popped his peppermint into his mouth and leaned against the table, nodding sagely. “It’s a big company, like, really big actually, but this is the home office and Bruce likes to know everybody, kind of acts like it’s just a small family thing.” He smiled, his mint clacking against his teeth. “Actually kinda reminds me of the circus.”

Tommy’s head pulled up sharp, the skeptical scrunch of his face making Dick laugh.

“Okay, there’s a lot less spandex and sequins, sure, but I mean the way everybody is sort of a family. Or, community, whatever. People who can be kind of annoying but care and look out for you.” Dick shrugged.

Tommy sure liked the sound of that, but it just… didn’t sound real to him. He thought maybe that was something wrong with him, not the other way around. So instead of saying anything about that, he made his skeptical face scrunchier and, when Dick raised an eyebrow back, asked, “So did you wear a lot of spandex and sequins?”

Dick’s eyes widened slowly as he realized Tommy was poking fun at him. His lips twitched. “Listen,” he said, then, mouth blooming full into a smile, he reached for Tommy. “C’mere, brat.”

Tommy giggled and ducked away, darting around to the other side of the conference table. “Betcha were super cute in tights.”

“I’m gonna get you,” Dick declared, the menace ruined by laughter. “Get back here. Don’t think I won’t come over that table, I’m an acrobat.”

Tommy cackled, shuffling left and right as Dick feinted at coming around one way then the other. “I dunno, can you do that in jeans or do you need the outfit?”

Dick squawked in outrage—and how he did that without choking on his peppermint, Tommy didn’t know—and vaulted, literally, hands smacking on the table and legs going up as he went over.

Squealing, Tommy hurried under the table, the rolling chairs clacking together as he shoved them out of his way to pop out on the other side. He bounced to his feet and turned to see Dick narrowing his eyes at him, looking mildly impressed. It made Tommy grin so hard it almost hurt his cheeks.

“Boys.” Bruce’s exasperated voice brought Tommy’s head whipping around and he went still. Bruce had crossed half the room towards them, arms folded and head shaking.

(For a moment, Tommy felt the whole world tip a little sideways, and the ghost of his father stood there next to Bruce. Instead of loosely crossed arms and a warm glittering in the eye, Malcolm Merlyn stood straight as a sword, chin up to show the height of his disappointment, arms at his sides and hands in discreet fists. For a moment, Tommy couldn’t believe what he’d done, how stupid he’d been to be so embarrassing and poorly behaved in public.)

There was laughter behind Bruce, a man a little older than Bruce sitting at a desk and smiling wide and chuckling openly. “You sure have your hands full now, Mr. Wayne.”

A woman in a suit at the whiteboard on the other side of the room grinned. “Just wait until they start ganging up on you. I’ve got twins around their age and they’ll run circles around you before you can blink.”

Bruce made a rueful, amused sound. “Please don’t give them any ideas.”

“Oh, it’s way too late for that,” Dick announced, leaning across the table and beaming. “I’ve got a partner in crime now.” Bruce made a little face at that, but Dick just looked encouraged, grinning wider. “We’re gonna drive you absolutely batty.”

All this laughter and joking, everyone teasing and having fun.

But Tommy just tried not to breathe too loudly, hands balled up and trembling at his sides.

Don’t make me go don’t make me go don’t make me go

Bruce sighed, and the sound could have been a gunshot in Tommy’s head. He didn’t blink as Bruce closed the distance between them, and it was only because he was frozen that he didn’t flinch when Bruce committed this time, his hand landing light and large between Tommy’s shoulderblades.

“To be honest,” he said softly, looking back and forth between Dick and Tommy, lips curling without force or hiding, “I’m looking forward to it.”

Laughter around them, warm and friendly, and Dick and Bruce smiling, Bruce’s hand on his back.

Slowly, so slowly, Tommy felt his body loosen again, felt his lungs expand in full.

The danger was passed. He was still here. He didn’t know what he’d done right, but he’d work hard to figure it out. Because he was still here.

For now.

—————

@memcjo @klaus-hargreeves-katz @its-a-pygmy-puffle @keabbs @princesssarcastia @obscure-sentimentalist @icannotbelieveiamhere @p0cketw0tch @andyouweremine @storiesofimagination @acheaptrickandacheesyoneline @cronusamporaofficial @batsonthebrain @adeusminhacolombina @relevanttosomeone

Shadows of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 14

Shadows of the Dark Crystal by J. M. Lee because a new challenger approaches.

Last times on book: Naia is on a journey to Ha’rar with Kylan to clear brother Gurjin’s name and warn the All-Maudra about all these dark crystals. Due to bad life choices, Naia and Kylan went through the Dark Woods at night, saw all kinds of spooky nonsense, and then Naia dreamfasted with a tree which unspooked the woods. Then a four-armed figure with a mask burst out of a tree.

Chapter 16

A weirdo four-armed guy called urVa has Naia and Kylan for supper. I’m sorry, I mean to supper.

Why would healing the Dark Wood end in releasing a dangerous monster?

Asking the real questions, Naia.

The four-armed possible purple Gelfling-eating monster moves slightly so Naia immediately hucks a bola at it.

It shot from her hand, on target toward the monster’s narrow-set eyes - but quicker than she could see, the thing’s hand darted forth, snatching the center bola stone before it could make its mark. The counterweights flailed uselessly, spinning in open air, striking nothing.

Wow!

Reflexes!

The creature just kind of chuckles at this and finishes the slight movement, removing the wooden mask from its face. Reveaing whorled skin.

!!! Definitely an urRu, yup.

“Sounds like Gelfling breathings,” it mumbled in a voice that sounded like many tones all at once, speaking the Gelfling tongue with an unfamiliar accent. “That Gelfling urVa sees there? Two? Ah! The one who healed Olyeka-Staba.”

! The Archer! Hey, Naia, its cool. This guy is friend-shaped.

Apparently, urVa had come to the Dark Wood to try to help the Cradle-Tree but “seems the Cradle-Tree could be healed by Gelfling hand, or else by none.”

Hmm. That keeps happening. You have a funny way about you, Thra, making Gelfling the only ones who can clean up the messes the urSkeks leave.

Naia is still suspicious that there’s something vaguely Hunter-ish about this guy. Weird but good insight, Naia.

urVa tells the Gelfling that the wood is dangerous and invites them to come with him, in the most ominous way possible, for some reason.

“Come with urVa, for supper. Been a long time inside that tree... Very hungry.”

Surely you know how you sound, dude?

Naia even goes ‘hey supper sounds great but what d’you suppose are the odds that we’re going in the pot?’ to Kylan. And asks him if he thinks urVa is the Hunter.

The boy gets sassy.

“Since when do you believe the songs?” he asked. Naia felt her cheeks warm, but Kylan went on. “The Hunter is ruthless. He isn’t a trickster. If urVa were the Hunter that took my parents, he wouldn’t have given us a false name... He wouldn’t have spoken with us.”

Good points, Kylan.

Besides, they’re both exhausted by traveling and Naia especially by dreamfasting with a tree.

“Maybe... we should see where he’s going. Just to find out.”

Kylan hugged himself with a shiver.

“Do we have a choice?”

“Yes. Our other choice is to sleep here in the wood and see what other monsters come crawling out of it.”

Well, when you put it that way...

So they hurry after urVa through the Woods Formerly Known as Dark which is already making up lost time by sprouting a whole buncha new green plants. They’re able to catch up to urVa without too much effort because as an urRu he has one travel speed and that’s ‘i’ll get there when i get there’

He takes them to a dirt hovel covered in a curtain of “frothy”? vines in a smal glen that urVa has simply littered with chimes made out of every given thing strung up between all the trees.

He has an Aesthetic and I appreciate that.

The hovel itself was hardly more than a few ancient stones holding up a mound of earth. The dusty rocks that made up the entryway were dream-etched, reminding her of the doorways in Great Smerth, back home. urVa entered without a word, leaving the two Gelfling to follow of their own will.

Naia also sees “a satchel full of thin spears with feathers on the ends, each stick longer than Naia was tall” oh my god! She doesn’t know what arrows are!

Although, in fairness, Gelfling as a whole seemed to have skipped past archery in favor of throwing rocks.

“Hmm... Left the door open too long and time came in, I see. Ha-ha.” He waved a hand, clearing some of the dust but stirring up just as much in the process. “Apologies, little Gelfling, for the time inside. Had I been meant to be found, I would have been more prepared.”

I like urVa. He’s fun.

He busies himself boiling a kettle of water and adding stuff to it and basically making soup. Vegetable soup I guess.

“A Drenchen, aren’t you?” urVa said suddenly. “I remember Sog... yes, ah! And that little sapling, what was it? Smerth. I suppose it’s grown enough now to climb, hmm? Do the younglings dangle from its branches like alfen fruits?”

The thought was nearly comical. Naia said, “Not exactly.”

Little sapling? urVa, how long have you been treestuck??

urVa mentions that the great trees like Smerth-Staba and Olyeka-Staba are supposed to be pillars of the world and protectors of Thra but inevitably the shadows of the crystal (oh! Almost a title drop!) have fallen upon them.

“... but I must stay out of such things. Have for a long time, will for a long time yet...”

Darn urRu passivity.

urVa serves Naia and Kylan some sopu.

“Now, eat, eat, little Gelfling. Gelfling like to eat. Yes.”

Yes, exclusively Gelfling like to eat as a unique trait to them =P

Those powerful urRu brains, amirite.

Since Neech seems relaxed, Naia decides she won’t worry either and she consumes soup.

And the more time they spend hanging with urVa, eating soup, the less worried Naia becomes about the other shoe dropping. Because it would be a really long con for urVa to secretly be sinister at this point, right? I mean, I know he isn’t because show and because urRu but Naia doesn’t but it has to seem like this would be a really long way to go ‘haha foooooled you!’

“Do you live here all alone?” Naia asked. “In the wood?”

“No, no. Plenty of trees and rocks.”

I adore urVa.

Naia couldn’t tell if urVa was being intentionally obtuse, so she clarified: “I mean, are there others like you...”

urVa tilted his head and rubbed his chin with a big hand.

“Yes. But we all went our separate ways... after the separation. Divided, then divided again.”

Huuuuh so I know that the urRu would sometimes come to the Valley of the Mystics because the Wanderer was famous for spending more time wandering widely rather than popping back in. But it sounds like the urRu just all fucked off to do their own things most of the time. And the situation with them living together in the Valley was primarily for Jen’s benefit? To give him a stable upbringing of ten dads and minimize the Skeksis deciding to pop in.

Naia was mostly asking because she doesn’t want to be surprised by another four-armed monster showing up so she’s tentatively satisfied with the vague answer.

Kylan has been staring at the markings on the wall this whole time pops in to ask about a triangular emblem with three concentric circles within.

“It is a time, I suppose?” he asked, as if Naia or Kylan might be able to answer him. “Or a door? A time or a door or an awakening. Yes. Something like that.”

“Those aren’t nearly the same thing,” Kylan muttered under his breath. “Perhaps he’s not the Hunter, but he certainly may be mad.”

“He makes a good pot of stew, even so,” Naia replied with a yawn.

Its a tightrope to write a character who is not only incredibly wise but also kind of lost in their own mind because they’re missing half of it.

I also appreciate the dramatic irony where the readers, if they’re familiar with the movie, understand more or less what urVa is getting at.

I also appreciate Kylan’s annoyance with not getting a solid answer. And Naia’s more practical consideration. Good characterization. Best boy Kylan just wants some solid deets to write down. Naia is soup-somnolent.

She watches Kylan try to puzzle out the symbols while also wondering if she could get seconds.

Whats also interesting is that this symbol isn’t known to the Gelfling apparently. Its a hugely important symbol in the lore but the Skeksis have managed to keep it out of public knowledge.

“The Great Conjunction,” Kylan said, and then he stopped. Naia didn’t know what he was referring to or what the words meant, but she shivered. “When single shine the triple suns.”

“Mm,” urVa agreed, though he added nothing despite Kylan’s querulous expression.

Hah.

Instead urVa points Naia and Kylan to a pile of robes so they can get some sleep.

urVa is a good host because the Gelfling nod off pretty much as soon as they lay down.

HELLO HELLO! long time no see :)

I was going to post about all the new information we got from the Pokemon Sword and Shield expansion video but that's already been done. Instead I've decided to post about something much more dear to my heart. The teaser of the Galarian Slowbro and Slowking! BUT Not only that! This post evolved into basically an appreciation of my favorite Pokemon family. I know some of you may not think Shellder and Cloyster belong in this family but technically Slowpoke couldn’t grow without them. On that note let's get into it.

GALARIAN SLOWKING!

The first Pokemon addressed above is the Galarian Slowking... or Slowqueen?... Based on the information we were shown I think what happens to this iteration of Slowking is the Shellder crown, instead of just sitting on Slowpoke's head, swallows the head almost completely. You can see this in what looks like the Shellder Shell's eye in the left side of the scribbled out head. In doing this the Shellder becomes the pilot in this symbiotic relationship. Not only that but the Poison of Shellder seeps through Slowpoke's body even more than in the original Slowking making this version a Poison/Psychic type! I designed the shell to resemble Cloyster's spikes more than the original look. Another neat aspect could be seeing the powerful Poison/Physic energy flowing through causing a smoky aura to leak out through cracks in the crown as pictured below. As for how it evolves I'm not really sure. Maybe instead of a King's Rock it could be the Queen's Ore that you find in the Crown Tundra!

Some people seem to think Slowking could be a ghost or dark type this time around. With the Shellder possibly breaking, maybe the spirit inhabits or possesses Slowking? I like the idea of the crown breaking so I sketched this up!

GALARIAN SLOWBRO!

Secondly we have the Galarian Slowbro. The first thing to mention about the information we've been given is that this iteration of Slowbro has no Shellder on it's tail! This is odd because originally it was said that in order for Slowbro to even stand it needed the counterweight of the Shellder to lift it. I figured that meant this time around Slowbro is stronger on it's own. Hence the flex pose I gave it :) In the bottom left of the leaked imagery above we even see what looks like Slowpoke possibly learning to stand by itself? We also see a sketch of the Slowpoke fishing so where does the Shellder go? In that leak image, top left, it looks like the tail is possibly flinging the Shellder up. This, combined with the Pokemon website talking about Galarian Slowpoke's body changing through seeds it eats might mean that the Shellder doesn't hold on the same way? Maybe the tail has become bitter and Shellder no longer likes the taste? So Possibly when Shellder is "reeled" in it releases itself BUT lands on the Slowpoke's head instead of staying on the tail. This theory comes from another small glimpse we get in the teaser. A small image of Slowbro's purple head. We don't see Slowbro's ears so I took it upon myself to unwind them. Along with that, I took the purple forehead as more of the Shellder shell than just color. We do also see an image of the trainer Avery with what looks like a royal looking Slowbro complete with a tiny hat/shell and a frilly garment BUUUUT I kind of feel like this is an artsy picture of a Slowpoke dressed up. I could be wrong though so I added the features in the image below. Anyways, with the Shellder on it's head instead of tail, it doesn't change shape the same way. With no delicious tail to munch on the Shellder finds no reason to "evolve" itself. The Shellder's poison begins to seep through Slowbro but not in the same way as Slowking. It pushes poison through Slowbro's body giving him strength to stand as well as making it's hands and tail a purple color. I think this version of Slowbro would also be Psychic/Poison. Who knows how it will evolve. Possibly fishing the same way Slowbro’s lore has always been but as for in game it could be an item or it could be leveling up. We will have to find out in the Isle of Armor.

I don’t really think the frilled chested Slowbro is going to be part of the evolution but some people seem to think it could because of a new Galarian Shellder. I’ll admit when I first saw the image I thought maybe it could be something but the fabric around the neck made me think it was just clothes of some sort. That plus are they really going to also add a Shellder regional variant on top of the three new Slows? BUT for the sake of artistic fun I thought what if a Galarian Shellder had parts that looked like a neck tie? and I’m pretty sure a frilled clam shell is a thing…  So I whipped up the pearl cheeked, smooched lipped Galarian Shellder you see below! I realize that this type of shell is basically what Clampearl is based on and it very well could just be that that helps the evolution. Really, it could be a number of older gen sea dwellers that could contribute. Only time will tell.  

There’s a theory floating around that’s pretty interesting. The same way that I made Galar Slowbro have a Shellder helmet because we can’t see the top of it’s head in the teaser, people are saying because we can’t see it’s left hand maybe something happens to it? One of those somethings could be that Slowpoke fishes out a Shellder with it’s hand instead of it’s tail. This could result in some sort of powerful shell fist? or a rocket arm shell? who knows? When I was drawing this it reminded me of a arm cannon so I added the same “smoke/aura” I used on my Galarian Slowking (or Queen?) 

I’m REALLY hoping on top of all the cool new Slow-ness we also get Gigantamax forms of both these majestic beasts! Maybe something like a Slowpoke surrounded by a giant Shellder coral reef? Maybe because the Corsola of Galar are dying it could look like dying angry coral reef? Here’s a sketch up of the idea I had.

...Well that's about all I have to say about our new Galar Slow family. Seeing as how this has become a Slow Family appreciation post I'll continue with the odd looking Shellders.

Johto Shellder & Johto Cloysters!

Using very old concept art for variations on the Shellder shells attached to Slowbro's tail, I came up with the art for this Shellder trio. Not to mention in the Beta for Pokemon Gold and Silver it was revealed that this Shellder was going to be a stand alone Pokemon! Because of that Beta I'll be referring to them as Johto Shellder and Johto Cloysters.

It's said that when Shellder attaches to Slowpoke not only does it's shape change to become more defensive but also to get as much flavor out of the tail as possible. I thought a neat way to acquire this Johto Shellder would be to "evolve" a Slowbro at a high level holding an item and an open slot in your party I was thinking you could give Slowbro some sort of berry that fills up a Pokemon for a very long time with a single bite. Leveling up a Slowbro holding this berry causes an abundance of nutrients to flow to the Johto Shellder. Being full, it lets go of the tail but retains its form. This leaves the trainer with a Slowpoke in the empty slot and a brand new Johto Shellder in it's place! From Here I figured you could evolve the Johto Shellder in two ways. A higher defense stat would result in the small but thick Johto Cloyster and with a higher attack stat it would evolve into the soft but super spiky Johto Cloyster! woo! I Haven't really decided the typing of these Pokemon yet. 

The Johto Shellders I drew originally came from an older project I was working on. If you want to check out "Capsule Monsters 0 & 1" you can follow this link:

https://funhaversclub.tumblr.com/post/49391556862/just-like-before-with-every-picture-ive-added

Finally we have this Slowpoke with it’s little white belly exposed. This was a sprite used in the Japanese version of Pokemon Gold and Silver before being changed when it was released everywhere else. I thought this could be seen as a rarer type of Slowpoke that is VERY hard to find BUT has much higher stats. Kind of like a unique shiny. That OR it could be the Slowpoke that you get after evolving a Johto Shellder. 

Speaking of Shiny. This entire family of Slows and Shells have some unique shiny forms. We have yet to see Galarian evos Shinys but maybe I'll update this post with an interpretations of what I think they could look like later? for now here are all the shiny versions we currently have!

Since the Galarian Slowpoke has been implemented into Pokemon Sword and Shield we know what the Shiny Galarian Slowpoke looks like. Based on that, I’ve “Shiny-fied” my predictions of the Galarian Slowbro and Slowking.

I can’t wait to see what these guys actually turn out to look like! :)

I've taken some artistic liberties above but for a complete fan fic Slowbro evolution check out this idea on what other shells Slowbro could acquire:

https://funhaversclub.tumblr.com/post/115033630741/a-new-pokemon-fan-trend-going-around-its-drawing

Welp thank you for coming to my Slow Family ted talk. I'll leave you with a picture of a Slowpoke I found down by the beach near my house :) What a cutie.

I said in my previous It post that the book has bad scaffolding but good substance built on it. The below excerpts are about ~11 year old Bill Denbrough talking to his friend about his guilt about his younger brother, who died while racing a paper boat Bill made for him in the rain. Bill’s parents totally fall apart after the murder and start neglecting the child they have left:

In those days his mom and dad had also been bookends on the couch, but he and George had been the books. Bill had tried to be a book between them while they were watching TV since George’s death, but it was cold work. They sent the cold out from both directions and Bill’s defroster was simply not big enough to cope with it. He had to leave because that kind of cold always froze his cheeks and made his eyes water.

And, when he enters into the monsterhunting & monsterhunted portion proper of his summer, he confesses to his friend that he’s afraid the malevolent entity that’s been haunting him is (in part) his dead brother’s ghost: 

“But you said you were scared. Why would George’s ghost want to scare you, Bill?”

Bill put a hand to his mouth and wiped it. The hand was trembling slightly. “H-He’s probably muh-muh-mad at m-m-me. For g-getting him kih-hilled. It was my fuh-fuh-fault. I s-sent him out with the buh-buh-buh—” He was incapable of getting the word out, so he rocked his hand in the air instead. Richie nodded to show he understood what Bill meant . . . but not to indicate agreement.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “If you stabbed him in the back or shot him, that would be different. Or even if you, like, gave him a loaded gun that belonged to your dad to play with and he shot himself with it. But it wasn’t a gun, it was just a boat. You didn’t want to hurt him; in fact”—Richie raised one finger and waggled it at Bill in a lawyerly way—“you just wanted the kid to have a little fun, right?”

Bill thought back—thought desperately hard. What Richie had just said had made him feel better about George’s death for the first time in months, but there was a part of him which insisted with quiet firmness that he was not supposed to feel better. Of course it was your fault, that part of him insisted; not entirely, maybe, but at least partly.

If not, how come there’s that cold place on the couch between your mother and father? If not, how come no one ever says anything at the supper table anymore? Now it’s just knives and forks rattling until you can’t take it anymore and ask if you can be eh-eh-eh-excused, please.

It was as if he were the ghost, a presence that spoke and moved but was not quite heard or seen, a thing vaguely sensed but still not accepted as real.

He did not like the thought that he was to blame, but the only alternative he could think of to explain their behavior was much worse: that all the love and attention his parents had given him before had somehow been the result of George’s presence, and with George gone there was nothing for him... and all of that had happened at random, for no reason at all. And if you put your ear to that door, you could hear the winds of madness blowing outside.

I love this passage. It’s so – kind, and psychologically astute. Bill’s home situation right now is so shitty! It’s fucked him up in such a meaty, believable way! And the next part, when he figures out and accepts it wasn’t his fault, has this amazing blend of their-particular-culture preteen boy friendship where they’re kind and supportive, but with the counterweight of fear about being vulnerable and emotional, with the overlay of being silly eleven years olds

The boat had killed George, but Richie was right—it hadn’t been like handing George a loaded gun to play with. Bill hadn’t known what was going to happen. No way he could.

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, feeling something like a rock—something he hadn’t even known was there—go rolling off his chest. All at once he felt better, better about everything.

He opened his mouth to tell Richie this and burst into tears instead.

Alarmed, Richie put an arm around Bill’s shoulders (after taking a quick glance around to make sure no one who might mistake them for a couple of fagolas was looking).

“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay, Billy, right? Come on. Turn off the waterworks.”

“I didn’t wuh-wuh-want h-him t-to g-g-get kuh-hilled!” Bill sobbed. “TH-THAT WUH-WUH-WASN’T ON MY M-M-M-MIND AT UH-UH-ALL!”

“Christ, Billy, I know it wasn’t,” Richie said. “If you’d wanted to scrub him, you woulda pushed him downstairs or something.” Richie patted Bill’s shoulder clumsily and gave him a hard little hug before letting go. “Come on, quit bawlin, okay? You sound like a baby.”

Little by little Bill stopped. He still hurt, but this hurt seemed cleaner, as if he had cut himself open and taken out something that was rotting inside him. And that feeling of relief was still there.

“I-I didn’t w-want him to get kuh-kuh-killed,” Bill repeated, “and ih-if y-y-you t-tell anybody I w-was c-cryin, I’ll b-b-bust your n-n-nose.”

“I won’t tell,” Richie said, “don’t worry. He was your brother, for gosh sake. If my brother got killed, I’d cry my fucking head off.”

“Yuh-Yuh-You d-don’t have a buh-brother.”

“Yeah, but if I did.”

“Y-You w-w-would?”

“Course.” Richie paused, fixing Bill with a wary eye, trying to decide if Bill was really over it. He was still wiping his red eyes with his snotrag, but Richie decided he probably was. “All I meant was that I don’t know why George would want to haunt you. So maybe the picture’s god something to do with... well, with that other. The clown.”

“Muh-Muh-Maybe G-G-George d-d-doesn’t nuh-nuh-know. Maybe h-he th-thinks –”

Richie understood what Bill was trying to say and waved it aside. “After you croak you know everything people every thought about you, Big Bill.” He spoke with the indulgent air of a great teacher correcting a country bumpkin’s fatuous ideas. “It’s in the Bible.”

Eel River Inn (4/?)

In the morning, Bucky wakes to the sound of an Underwood typewriter clacking away and the smell of coffee. If it weren’t for the soft bed, he might have thought he fell asleep in the company Clerk’s tent again. But there weren’t gunshots there was only muffled swearing as you banged away. He smiled a little, Ah, the artistic process, he thought. So majestic. You groaned and he heard a soft thud that sounded distinctly like a forehead on a desk. It’s going well, he snorted.

He followed the sound down the hall, running his fingers through his hair and yawning, “Doll?” he said, nudging the door open, “You okay?” Your answering groan makes him chuckle as he leans against the door frame. You’re holding a cup of coffee and looking like you’re about to throw the typewriter out the window. The early sun is shining on your hair like a halo and you’re wearing a t-shirt and panties, a pencil behind your ear and a riotous mane of hair fall past your shoulders. His own grumpy and rebellious angel. You turn and look at him, your lips curling in a soft smile, “Did I wake you?” He crosses the floor to you, looking around your office, “I could have gone back to sleep. Clicking Keys and some swearing won’t keep me awake, I slept through worse in the army.”

You nod and pull him down for a good morning kiss, you taste like coffee and he sighs, “You taste like heaven,” he says huskily, “is there any more coffee?” You nod, “In the kitchen next to the fridge.” Bucky kisses you one last time and brushes hair out of your eyes. You look so beautiful all sleep rumpled and rosy-cheeked. He leaves you to your work and heads downstairs. Your house is cozy. He didn’t spend too long sightseeing last night but now as he sips his coffee, he’s curious. He looks at the framed photos. You with various teams. One where you have a lab coat. One where you’re lighting a cigarette with a torch with grease on your face. You look too young to even be smoking in this century but it suits you somehow. You look half feral. He wonders what you studied. He wonders why pictures seem to be missing, there’s a gap noticeable only by the length of your hair. He wants to know why you’re a writer that doesn’t seem to have spent much time writing before recently. He hears your feet on the stairs and he tried to look nonchalant but you’re smiling and it’s knowing. It makes him blush. 

“You’ll never in a million years guess what I studied in college,” you tease. You smile at him over a fresh cup of coffee and he cocks his head, looking from you to the pictures, “Something with grease,” he guessed? You smile, “Next-gen mechanical engineering.” you tell him. Bucky quirks an eyebrow, “No shit?” You laugh, “Nope,” you say, “Been working on a proper solar sailor out in the barn for the last 5 years... it helps break up the writer’s block.” The look on his face, trying to play it cool but internally screaming makes you giggle. “Gimme a minute to put on pants... and some shoes. I’ll show you.” Bucky doesn’t know what a solar sailor is. He doesn’t really care. But he wants to see it. He wants to put together your puzzle. 

He follows you upstairs, watching as you pull on clothes. Torn jeans and a black t-shirt. Sturdy work boots. He pulls on his own clothes and pulls you into a slow kiss, “I always liked smart girls,” he says smiling. You grin, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, handsome.” You take his hand and lead him to the barn. It’s unassuming. Bucky had thought it was just a storage shed. A place where you kept a lawn mower and maybe some old junk. He didn’t expect what he saw when you rolled the doors open.

It was a fully functional workshop. Nearly on par with Stark’s. You pull levers and counterweights release, lowering the skeleton of your Solar sailor to the work table. It looks like a surfboard with a sail on it. The fabric of the sail glitters with tiny golden sequin looking things and he looks at you in askance. “I really loved the movie treasure planet as a kid,” you say shrugging. Bucky smiles a little, he doesn’t know what that is either but you’re looking at your creation with pride. “What does it do?” he asks. You smile up at him with a look that just screams “trouble”. “It flies,” you say, “Or at least it will. Maybe another 300 odd hours of fabrication.” 

Bucky tilts your chin up and kisses you, “So, this all begs the question... How do you go from Next Gen Mechanics to Young Adult Author.” He’s smiling until he notices a flicker of uncertainty in your face. The woman who spills neuroses and insecurities on paper as characters in a story is hesitating to tell him. He waits patiently. God knows there are things in his past he doesn’t want to tell you. 

“That is a very long story,” you say softly. “I got time, baby,” he says, kissing your forehead. You nod, turning away from him, going to your work table. The soldier pulls up a stool and folds his arms, watching your hands. They’re aimless, seeking distraction. But he waits until you find your voice. “I always loved science,” you say. “I was fascinated by it. By the idea that we put a man on the moon with less technology than I had in my gameboy. That I could make those things if I had the plans... I started with shop classes and shit. Moved on to robotics. Studied everything I could get my hands on.” Bucky smiled a little. He could see that. A cute little girl in a baseball cap covered in grease under a car, gleefully tearing it apart to see how it worked. 

“I skipped a couple grades, and my high school trig teacher slipped me a flyer one day. Something for a bot battle. So I put a crew together, me and a couple dumb asses from my shop class you know? I just needed them to lift shit really. Lift shit and look scary. I was all of 5ft tall and about 100 pounds with a backpack on... And 15. Having some muscle on my team didn’t seem like a bad idea.” That made Bucky chuckle. You were still small but there was about a decade of lean lithe muscle packed onto your frame. He’d felt it when he’d carried you to bed. “So we went. And we won... And we kept winning. Scored me a full ride to MIT. At least in theory.” You reflexively grind your teeth, “My funding got pulled about halfway through but I stayed the course. I pulled out loans. A lot of loans.”

“So when the government think tank offered me a job, I said fuck yeah.” you snort. “First thing they did was pay off my loans. All 150,000 worth. Like that. I should have known better.” You sigh and glance at Bucky, “I was barely 21. They offered me money, good money. More money than I was gonna make anywhere else. More money than I knew what to do with after growing up on welfare and free school lunches.” Bucky wants to wrap his arms around you but he doesn’t. He stays still and waits. The story is about to take a turn, he can feel it. It hurts already and he doesn’t want to know. 

“They wanted results. Weapons. Defense tech. Anything they could get. Anything we could make. It was merciless. Endless. And I couldn’t take it. What they didn’t know... What I didn’t know. Was that the mood shifts I’d been self-medicating with Adderall and nicotine gum weren’t just a personality quirk. It was an unchecked bipolar disorder with a dash of ADHD and generalized anxiety thrown in for fun. When I dropped my basket I didn’t just drop it... I lit that shit on fire and laughed.” You chuckle darkly, “I’d been awake so long I hallucinated a giant purple weasel named Terry... That fucker still owes me $50 for surviving jumping off the catwalk railing.” Bucky tenses, an old instinct to kill rising. They’d trapped you and drove you to insanity. The fucking bastards. 

“Turns out, unbreakable contracts break pretty easy when you lose your mind,” you say shrugging, “And I’m not the only one... I spent two years getting put back together. Some of my team is still locked up.” You swallow hard and take a deep breath. “The books came later. Shit I hallucinated. Shit I wanted to read. Anything to keep my mind occupied when I couldn’t sleep. An old teacher of mine sent some of the stuff I’d written to a publisher after I talked to her about it and here we are.” You smile a little and look up at him uncertain and shy. Scared. “If you want to run, I wouldn’t blame you. My life is a mess.”

Bucky stands slowly and holds his arms out, “Sorry, Doll,” he says, “If you think a mental break down is gonna send me running you got another thing coming.” When you close the distance between you he hugs you to him and kisses the side of his head, “I spent the better part of 70 years a brainwashed assassin,” he murmurs, “There’s nothing hiding in your mind that could possibly scare me more than the things I don’t quite remember.”

Bad Things Happen Bingo: Unwilling Suspension

Word Count: 3k

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Characters: Lance, Hunk, Ezor

Full prompt under the cut, or on AO3.

This jumps off from season 7 episode 3, where I snatched up that interrogation premise and ran cackling stage left.

“Hunk, buddy, please.”

Lance is upset. Why? …oh, maybe because Hunk’s head feels like a watermelon with too many rubber bands around it. Had they been daring each other to raid Coran’s nunvil stash again? He thought they swore never again last time, but hey. You never know what Lance might get bored enough to try. Again. 

“Hunk,” Lance’s voice cracks, fear leaking through. Hm, maybe not nunvil then. What had they been doing? 

The avalanche of memory crashes over him, and Hunk jerks, flailing desperately to the rushing flood of get away get away and fight flee run fly and oh, god, Lance- 

“Hunk, buddy, please.” 

Lance is upset. Why? …oh, maybe because Hunk’s head feels like a watermelon with too many rubber bands around it. Had they been daring each other to raid Coran’s nunvil stash again? He thought they swore never again last time, but hey. You never know what Lance might get bored enough to try. Again. 

“Hunk,” Lance’s voice cracks, fear leaking through. Hm, maybe not nunvil then. What had they been doing? 

The avalanche of memory crashes over him, and Hunk jerks, flailing desperately to the rushing flood of get away get away and fight flee run fly and oh, god, Lance- 

“Hunk- Hun- ng-stop – asere, calm dow-nng – you gotta hold – haaa – still, buddy, basta, por favor, just -mmng-” 

He’s not sure how, but he wrestles his adrenaline under control, breathe in-hold-breathe out and stills his body. His mind may still be whirring in circles like Rover after Pidge fed him some whacked-out code, but Lance stops making those awful, awful gagging noises. 

Okay, take inventory. 

First off, he can’t see. There’s something tight and sticky stretched across his eyes. The galran equivalent of duct-tape, maybe? 

Second: he can’t move much; probably some sort of restraints, given the fragmented violence of his last waking moments. His arms are hoisted up above his head, not so much that he’s hanging by them, but definitely held up against some sort of pole. He’s standing, his back pressed to the same pole and secured by a band across his chest, and his earlier flailing established that his feet are locked down by some sort of fetters around his ankles, most likely attached to the pole also. 

Third: he hurts. Mostly in his head, which is reasonable. The galra guard who knocked him out after he and Lance jumped to Pidge’s defense was way too enthusiastic. 

Fourth: Lance is here – oh god, Lance. Okay, time to get to the bottom of their situation right-freaking-now, because he doesn’t want to hear Lance make those noises ever again, and he has a sneaking, horrible suspicion that if he moves he will cause exactly that. 

“You with me, asere?” Lance asks softly, a gentle rasp to his voice that has Hunk’s chest twisting guilt and fear up into his throat. 

He wrestles it down. “I’m with you, man. What’s going on? Are you okay? Where are we?” 

“We’re still on Zethrid and Ezor’s battlecruiser,” Lance says. “En una - in a different cell. They’ve- we’re kind of… atado? Um. Tied up.” 

Hunk listens to the way Lance can’t quite keep his voice steady, hears the stress in the way his English is slipping. 

“Okay, okay, we’re okay,” Hunk nods a little to himself. “We are okay, right Lance? Are you hurt?” He didn’t miss the way Lance avoided the question the first time he asked. 

“All good over here, buddy,” Lance says tightly. “Just hanging out in a galra cell, no biggie.” 

“Lance.” But Hunk doesn’t get the chance to pry further because the door bangs open and both he and Lance yelp a little into the cacophony of metal and booted footsteps entering their cell. 

“Hi, paladins!” says someone much too pleased with themselves. “I’m so glad you both finally woke up! How do you like your new cell?” 

“Oh, it’s peachy, Ezor,” Lance snarks. “But I’m disappointed with the level of service; I mean, who doesn’t leave a mint on the torture device? I give it two stars, max.” 

They need to get out of here, like, yesterday. He wiggles a little bit, confirming that yes, their armor has been removed and he’s just in the undersuit. So much for accessing his bayard. But Coran’s still out there somewhere (hopefully). He’ll get the others free, and then they can all come charging to the rescue. He and Lance just have to hold out until then. Right? Right. Oh, god. 

“Let’s play a game,” Ezor chirps, oblivious to Hunk’s inner monologue. “I’ll ask you questions, and if you answer nicely, I’ll loosen your restraints. If you don’t answer, or if you’re rude, I’ll tighten them. Ready?” 

Hunk can’t see if Lance answers without words, but his best friend has gone suspiciously silent. Unsure if this is a cue to pick up the slack but figuring it’s probably best to have Lance’s back by following along, he holds his tongue too. 

Fortunately, Ezor doesn’t seem to take their silence as breaking the rules of the game yet, because Hunk doesn’t feel any movement from his restraints, and Lance’s breathing hasn’t changed pitch or pace. 

“Alright,” Ezor says after a moment. “Question one for you, Red Paladin. Where is Lotor?” 

Usually this would be where Lance snarks something at their captor, but he has been suspiciously silent since Ezor explained the rules of whatever twisted game this is, and he continues to keep silent now, ratcheting Hunk’s anxiety up another notch or two. What does he see, that is succeeding in keeping his usual bravado at bay? 

After a long moment, Ezor sighs. “I thought you were the annoying one,” she says disappointedly. “I was looking forward to some proper banter for once. Your concern for your friend is so boring, and so useless.” 

Something clanks, then clanks again, and Lance grunts softly. Is Hunk imagining it, or is his breathing a little strained? He holds very still, feeling fear crawl sick and clinging up his spine. 

“Your turn, Yellow Paladin!” Ezor announces right next to his ear, and Hunk jumps a little, flinching away from the too-bright voice. Ezor snickers. 

“How did you get out of the quintessence field, hm?” 

Hunk shakes his head mutely, following Lance’s lead for now. 

“Aww,” Ezor pouts. “No fun either.” 

Another, slightly different clank, and the floor drops about an inch or so under Hunk’s feet. He lurches down the pole, which yanks his arms a little higher over his head. 

Lance gags, and Hunk knows. 

“You bitch,” Hunk hisses, turning his head blindly towards the last place he heard Ezor. “You psychopath, cut him down!” 

“Ooh, he’s clever!” Ezor squeals. “Just for that, I’ll give you a reward.” 

The sticky strip is ripped abruptly off of his face, taking with it several eyelashes and a good portion of one eyebrow. Hunk squints past the reflexive tears, desperate to see, confirm that it’s not as bad as he thinks- 

It is. It’s worse. 

Just like he thought, his wrists are tethered to a rope that reaches up, through some tackle, and down again to the other side of the cell, ending around Lance’s neck. Every time the floor under Hunk’s feet drops, or Hunk pulls his arms down, Lance will be pulled a little higher by the noose around his neck. He’s already on his tiptoes. 

But Lance – Hunk can’t hold back the groan of distress. His best friend has his back to a pole, just like Hunk, but his arms are spread to either side of him, attached at the wrists and elbows to slim boards rigged up to yet more tackle so that they can tilt down if Lance lowers his arms. From the end of the boards dangle two lead weights. The boards keep Lance’s arms straight, but he’s holding them up, and it takes Hunk a minute of following complicated ropes and weights and counterweights to figure it out, but when he does the sick churning in his gut intensifies even further. They are so screwed. Lance’s arms are connected to a frankly huge spear, and if he lowers them, it’ll stab Hunk right through the ribs. 

“What do you think?” Ezor coos, rocking back and forth from her tiptoes to the backs of her heels. “Zethrid set this up just for you two! She’s so smart, isn’t she?” 

Hunk runs his gaze across the setup one more time, and can’t help nodding miserably. “Yep. Yep, pretty smart,” he agrees morosely. This setup would have taken some seriously advanced spatial reasoning to even envision, and then engineering chops to rival his own to execute properly. If they weren’t, you know, evil and bent on torturing and killing all of them, he’d be tempted to ask Lotor’s former generals to join their team. 

Ezor cackles. “You’re cute! Too bad we’re going to break you in itty bitty pieces.” She abruptly prances across the room to flit around behind Lance. “So, Red Paladin, ready to tell me how your team got out of the quintessence field? Or where Lotor is? I bet your arms are getting tired.” 

“Nope, I could do this all day,” Lance shoots back immediately, despite the way his breath rasps against the noose around his neck. His gaze doesn’t leave the spear, even as Ezor dances in and out of his peripherals. If she keeps going with this, and Hunk ends up skewered, he can tell Lance will never forgive himself, even if blaming him would never, never cross Hunk’s mind. 

Ezor giggles, leaning over on one foot to reach another pair of weights. “Me too, honey. Me too.” She slips the weights onto the ropes around Lance’s arms. The clank as they drop to the bottom of the setup mirrors the lead settling in Hunk’s gut. Lance sucks in a labored breath, his eyes finding Hunk’s in terrified, silent apology. Hunk can see his arms shaking from across the room. 

“It’s okay, Lance,” he manages, and it’s taking everything he has not to look at the spear, to keep his focus on Lance, but he does it for his friend. His brother. “We’re gonna be okay, man. I promise.” 

“You two are so sweet,” Ezor interrupts. She leans on the lever, sending Hunk ratcheting down another notch. “It makes me wanna barf. Where is Lotor?” 

Hunk’s starting to feel the stretch in his shoulders, now. He’s up on tiptoes, almost dangling, and he’s watching Lance choke and struggle not to drop the weights on his arms, and Hunk is starting to get angry. 

“We told you already!” he snarls at Ezor. “We don’t know how we got out! Lotor is stuck in the quintessence field. He’s probably dead! That’s all, that’s it, now cut him down!” 

“That’s not good enough!” Ezor screeches, darting forward to grab him by the throat. Up close, Hunk can see the fear lurking in her eyes. She’s terrified, he realizes. Terrified that if they got out, Lotor will too. That he’ll come for her and Zethrid. “You have to know! Is there a hole? A portal? A door? How did you get out?” 

Behind her, there’s a new clank, followed by a broken sound from Lance. Ezor whirls around. The spear lurches closer as Lance tries to yank his arms back up, but the setup is rigged so that once he lets his arms drop even a little, he can’t bring them back up again. Lance’s sob, dry and choked, and the clank of machinery are the only sounds in the cell for an interminable span of ticks until the spear slowly, finally, halts its forward journey. The tip brushes up against Hunk’s chest; he takes an experimental breath and feels cold metal poke through the fabric of his shirt. 

“Ezor,” Lance whispers. “Ezor, we don’t know how we got out, please, let Hunk go,” 

“You know! You do! You got out somehow, tell me how!” Ezor interrupts. Her cheerful, cutesy facade has crumbled, leaving something desperate and feral in its aftermath. She slams the lever by Hunk, and the floor drops out from under him. He plummets to the end of his restraints, snapping taut with a jerk that yanks his shoulder out of its socket. It hurts, and he screams, throwing his head back against the pole, but against the pain, against the fire in his ligaments and tendons, he wrenches his eyes open, needing to see, to know- 

Lance dangles, suspended by the cruel noose digging into his neck. His feet twitch spasmodically, in terrible, disjointed counterpoint to his desperate, ineffective wheezing for air which will not come. The spear inches closer as his arms, starved of the oxygen necessary for their operation, drag downwards. Its trajectory is unchanged despite Hunk’s new position, and instead of his heart the tip digs into the space where his shoulder is dislocated, slow and cold but then hot, too hot. Hunk’s nerves scream - no, that’s his voice, he’s screaming again - and Lance is watching it all, helpless, unable to keep his arms aloft anymore even as he hangs. Somewhere, Ezor is yelling, still trying to wring information from them. Hunk wishes he could reassure his friend, tell Lance that none of this is his fault, but the pain and the screaming - oh, that’s why his throat is rough, he’s still screaming - kind of make speaking an impossibility. 

There’s a sudden lurch, and the tip of the spear pierces the other side of his shoulder to lodge in the wood behind his back. He can feel the wide edges grating against the bone of his shoulder socket and the ball of the joint, sending screeling tines of fire up his arm and into his neck and down his spine. He blinks the tears away, looking for Lance - he’s gone still, dangling passively by his neck, a limp and boneless ornament upon Zethrid’s macabre device. 

Stillness and quiet have never become Lance. 

Beyond the torture, beyond the pain, it’s this, somehow, that drives Hunk over the edge. He grabs the pole behind his wrists, taking the pressure off the ropes binding him, and tears the thick strands apart. He yanks the spear out of his shoulder with his good arm as he drops to the floor, zeroing in on Ezor. She stumbles back, her jaw dropping even as she reaches for the daggers in her boots. Hunk doesn’t give her a chance to find her footing. He charges, bellowing wordlessly in rage and in pain, and bats aside her first attack. She flips around, dodging and ducking, but Hunk is relentless and fueled by an anger which is all the more potent for how rarely it takes him over. The heavy haft of the spear cracks across her forearm, numbing the limb and sending one of her daggers skating across the floor. Ezor kicks out at him, driving him back a step and gaining the space to run up the wall and flip over his head to land behind him. Hunk is already whirled around to face him by the time she lands, waiting with the spear braced firmly. Ezor twists midair and manages a graceless landing, clutching the deep gash in her side that almost disemboweled her. Hunk growls, readjusting his grip on the spear. So close. He’s never been taken over by anger, by bloodlust, like this, but it’s empowering. He could do anything, he thinks. Anything that he wants is within his grasp, and all he wants is Ezor’s death. 

Ezor sees it. Without another word she flees, trailing blood and fear. The door slams behind her, just in time to block the spear Hunk hurls after her. It clatters to the floor, leaving silence in its wake. 

Hunk shudders as he stumbles, caught in the receding tide of adrenaline. He follows it, uses it to get across the room to Lance. With half the device no longer functional, it’s the work of moments to get Lance down, but that’s just the beginning. The noose has dug into his neck, still strangling him even after the pressure of Lance’s weight is removed. Hunk grabs Ezor’s abandoned dagger and cuts it loose, wincing in sympathy as he peels the coarse fibers out of the bleeding grooves they’ve cut into Lance’s flesh. 

“Lance,” he croaks. “Lance, my man, wake up. C’mon, open your eyes for me.” He leans over Lance’s head in his lap, listening for any hint of breathing. For a long moment, stretched thin by despair and hope in equal measure, Lance is utterly unmoving. 

“Lance,” Hunk’s voice cracks. “Lance, please, man, you gotta wake up!” 

He rubs Lance’s sternum vigorously with the knuckles of his good hand, wishing he could manage CPR. But his shoulder is still out of its socket, hanging limp and leaking blood sluggishly from the hole the spear left in him, and he has never felt more useless. 

Lance breathes. 

And chokes, coughing and gagging against his damaged throat. Hunk sobs and eases him onto his side, shifting to rub Lance’s back. 

“Oh, man, Lance,” he cries. “Oh, man, you had me really scared there for a minute. Never do that again, okay? No more dying on me!” 

Lance shudders. “Hnnk…” His hand creeps upward, fingers scrabbling toward Hunk’s shoulder. “Yr… rrm…” 

“I’m okay,” Hunk says. He’s really not, but that’s not what Lance needs to hear. “We’ve got the pod in Black. We’re both gonna be okay, man.” 

“’m srry,” Lance whispers. 

“Stop it,” Hunk squashes that right away. “Stop it, Lance, it wasn’t your fault. It was Ezor and Zethrid.” He tangles Lance’s seeking hand in his own, bringing them down to rest on Lance’s chest. “Just breathe, man. We’re gonna be fine.” 

“Kay,” Lance rasps. 

After a few minutes, he shifts, gathering his legs under him, and Hunk eases him up. Lance squinches his eyes shut against what’s probably a fierce headache, but stands up, leaning on the wall. Hunk pushes himself to his feet and cracks a smile for Lance. 

“Ready to get out of here?” he asks. 

Lance nods, then winces. 

There’s a clatter in the corridor, and the rest of the paladins spill into the room in a rush of sound and frenzy. The rest of their escape is a blur, but Hunk remembers the bright, soundless flares of the explosions across Zethrid and Ezor’s ship as they flee, and he remembers the hot satisfaction that comes with the sight. It warms him through his cold stint in the cryopod, and through the wait as Lance takes his turn. And later, when he sleeps and the dreams come to torment him with what if, it's enough to bolster his waking, until he can open a channel to Lance's lion and drive out the memories and the dreams with the steady, even rhythm of Lance, alive. 

Where should I start listening to Friends at the Table?

A short novella by me

Friends at the Table is one of the best actual play podcasts out there and you should listen to it because they tell amazing stories with both diverse characters and a diverse cast (the GM is a queer black man and almost everyone at the table is some flavor of queer). They put character development and good storytelling at the forefront while creating incredible and complex worlds to play in. They make you laugh, cry, and laugh so hard you cry (and also give you chills on occasion) and I genuinely cannot recommend them highly enough. Whether you like a good story, characters to fall in love with, learning new ttrpg mechanics, or listening to friends have a good time together, FatT is for you.

FatT also has an enormous backlog that can make it hard to dive in so here is a handy guide for when you want to listen don’t know where tf to begin.

The Friends have provided some resources for this: there is a flowchart that gives you the quick and dirty deets (though it hasn’t been updated to reflect their current season) and also Austin made a 20 minute ep of him explaining the show and stuff and put it at the beginning of the podcast feed which could also be helpful (which I haven’t actually listened to bc they put it out after I was already deep into the show)...but this is my over detailed take.

There are currently 4 seasons of FatT. In order: Autumn in Hieron, Counter/Weight, Marielda/Winter in Hieron, and Twilight Mirage. Marielda is a mini season that takes place in the Hieron universe but before the Hieron seasons; Counterweight and Twilight Mirage are both standalone but do take place in the same universe, tens or hundreds of thousands of years apart. 

Twilight Mirage is approaching its endpoint and will be followed by Spring in Hieron which should be the last Hieron season. There are pros and cons for starting with any of these seasons so depending on your taste and preferences you can take your pick!

(Also, each new season begins with an Episode 00 which is just the friends discussing the setting and pitching characters. It’s not required listening and they’re pretty long so you can skip them if you want but for people like me who live for worldbuilding and behind the scenes, they’re great prefaces to each season!)

Autumn in Hieron: The very beginning! This is where I started because I’m a hardcore chronological completionist. There is definitely something very fun and satisfying about watching them develop over the past 4 years, in confidence and skill and in production quality! They’ve been amazing since the beginning but it only gets better. 

However, because it’s early, the audio quality is not great, so if that’s an issue for you, this probably isn’t your best starting point. Some extremely good shit goes down in this game and I highly recommend listening to it if you can parse the bad audio. Also, starting at episode 5, they split into two smaller groups and the audio improves, so if you want to start here but find the sound unbearable at the start, you can try skipping to here to see if it works better for you! The first few episodes are just a mini quest and it’s definitely fun but not deeply plot relevant so you’ll be fine to skip it. This is also a season potentially worth returning to even if you don’t start here because as I said, it’s good, and the bad audio might be more listenable once you know the players’ voices better. But if you absolutely can’t, no worries! They recap this season at the beginning of Winter in Hieron so if you don’t listen to it you won’t be lost as the story continues!

Hieron is a high fantasy setting in what Austin describes as the post-post-apocalypse. It’s been long enough that they’re past just surviving and have rebuilt tons but it’s still a wild world out there, and no one alive really remembers what apocalyptic event happened, but they all know something bad went down. Over the two (and a half, counting Marielda) seasons they’ve done they have really built out the world. It explores a lot about the concepts of divinity and entropy and so much more. I think Hieron is a great place to start because fantasy is the usual setting for actual play podcasts so it’s a familiar touchstone. And also just, really fucking good.

Counter/Weight: Welcome to SPACE. The second season of FatT is a good starting point because it’s self contained--it’s longer than the Hieron seasons but when you reach the finale, you’ve gotten the whole story. It starts off a little slow as they adjust to a new system and new characters for the first time...but there are some hilarious bits in those first couple of missions that I love. Then they switch systems again to something that fits more what they are doing and things pick up from there. 

The “ground” game (the majority of the episodes with characters going on adventures as usual) is interspersed with the “faction” game--Austin and two other players not in the other half of the game zoom out and use mechanics and roleplaying to decide what the big factions/corporations/etc are doing around the sector, and eventually we see these events trickle down to effect the player characters in the other half of the game. These are a bit slow, especially when they first start, but I recommend listening to them because it’s cool to see how things are moving around on a more macro scale than one little crew of fixers, and it really informs the world they’re operating in. It’s not strictly necessary if you really find these episodes untenable, but you’ll definitely be able to follow along better if you’ve heard them. Also, around the 3rd or so faction game session, they cut down the number of factions significantly so it goes a lot smoother. I’ll also put in here that Counterweight is probably my favorite season of the show at least thus far even though I wasn’t sure I would like it at all when I first started it, for what that’s worth.

Counter/Weight is a cyberpunk/scifi setting somewhere in the Milky Way. It is set less than a decade after a war in which two rival powers united in an uneasy alliance to drive back an Empire. They succeeded, but now things have settled into a good old fashioned cold war. There are lots of robots and mechs and they use the cyberpunk genre to explore labor and capitalism and feeling small and helpless in the face of such massive, powerful corruption. Or, sadness and robots in space. (Also, literally none of the PCs ended up being cishet.)

Marielda: Marielda is a mini season they did right before Winter in Hieron. Set in Hieron before the events of the other seasons, it provides some context to the world. It’s also fucking delightful. This is probably the most recommended starting point for FatT because it’s short, has high production quality, and some of their best work. It really encapsulates what this show is so if you’re unsure if this is the podcast for you, this is a great starting point. 

Since it takes place long before Autumn in Hieron, you don’t need to have listened to it to follow along; but I do find it somewhat helpful because there are callbacks to the events of that season as they show how some of the things they encountered then came to be in the first place. Marielda (and Winter in Hieron) were made with new listeners in mind, so Autumn definitely isn’t required.

Marielda is of course also high fantasy, but it has a tinge of steampunk too because this island has more technology for....reasons that will be revealed as you listen. The only train in Hieron is there, and the crew stages a heist on it, and it’s amazing. Marielda has two parts--the first couple episodes are some of the players playing The Quiet Year, a collaborative mapdrawing game, to build this city. Then the other players played a few missions in Blades in the Dark as scoundrels who steal information to sell to the highest bidder. Their shenanigans are hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking and I’ve relistened to it so many times.

Winter in Hieron: Hieron season two of three! Winter begins with two episodes recapping the events of Autumn in Hieron, so if you skipped Autumn you can listen to them and be good to go, and if you didn’t...you can skip the recaps! (Unless maybe you listened to Counterweight in between and you need a refresher). There are two new PCs in Winter because Andi and Janine joined between Autumn and this season, and they only make Hieron better.

This season is a little heavier than Autumn because it’s Winter and...Winter is usually darker than Autumn. I’m in the middle of relistening to it now, though, and it’s still incredible the second time through and a great starting point. I would not recommend starting with Winter without listening to Marielda first, partly because Marielda is so good, but also because Marielda informs so much of what happens in Winter. 

Since Twilight Mirage is getting close to finishing up (as of writing this, anyway) if being Current In The Fandom is something that’s important to you, I’d start with Hieron (whether that be Autumn or Marielda/Winter). After Twilight Mirage wraps up, they are reportedly planning to return to Hieron for its final season--Spring, so if you start catching up now you can be ready! I don’t know for sure yet but so much has happened at this point that I find it hard to imagine that they’ll do a recap before Spring that lets you jump in there very easily. I could be proven wrong but even if I am....I don’t recommend it. You’ll miss too much Seasons of Hieron is a joy to listen to.

Twilight Mirage: The current season! Usually I say to start here if you find the backlog intimidating--it’s current and you can jump in to what’s happening now and get to the rest when you feel ready. And that’s still somewhat true, but Twilight Mirage has gotten pretty long so it’s potentially still intimidating? And they have said they’re nearing the endgame, but I have no idea if that means weeks or months. But regardless, it’s still less to get through than starting further back, and it is a standalone season so it’s a great starting place!

Twilight Mirage is another game in space. It is set in the same universe as Counterweight, and there are some callbacks to it, but it’s set far in the future from the events of that season and was intentionally made so that people who hadn’t heard Counterweight could listen fine. It’s more like easter eggs than important backstory.

The premise is a dying utopia: a massive fleet that has slowly been whittled down, still home to millions of people, but they’re starting to look for somewhere to hopefully colonize. This game does a great job of questioning what a utopia would look like--what does prison look like in a utopia? how do we treat synthetic beings?--and exploring the themes of self/identity and colonization and so much more. It’s the most philosophical FatT season to date but the narrative is also great and stands on its own--you can engage at whatever level you want. (I, for instance, don’t get a lot of the philosophy referenced, but I’m still deeply enjoying it because it’s a great story and I love all the characters!) So much shit happens to alter the original premise and it’s fascinating to see the characters have to adapt to all these evolving circumstances and question their values as they themselves also change. Also, lots of robots and mechs and aliens and shit. One of the PCs is just a cat person. One of the PCs is a downloadable hitman who is losing their memory every time they die and get downloaded into a new body. It’s A Good Season, they friends are extra af (more than usual, even) and it’s a Delight.

And that’s my answer to the age old question, where do I start listening to Friends at the Table?, answered in more detail than anyone ever wanted. If you have any questions or anything feel free to shoot me an ask or a message, I’m literally always here to talk about FatT!

the dragons on the map: i

Rating: M Summary:  After the Lifeboat is nearly destroyed, the Time Team ends up stranded in their strangest and most unfamiliar destination yet: 1195 France. With Rittenhouse to stop, medieval adventures to be had, and a pair of rival kings at war, it'll truly be a miracle if they ever get home. (Garcy/Lyatt/pre-Garcyatt, Flogan, Rufus Is Judging, general Time Team relationships and bonding. Guest appearances from the Plantagenets, for reasons.) Available: AO3

Lucy returns to consciousness first, slowly. There’s a slamming pain in her head, bright lights flashing behind her eyes in a way that seems bad, and she is vaguely aware that she is lying on her side, still strapped into her seat. The acrid scent of shot electrical wiring pervades her nose, harsh as smelling salts, and she coughs, trying to get enough air into her flattened lungs to think about normal operation again. The immediately preceding moments are a blur, but she does recall that they were taking a lot of fire on the attempted return jump, Rufus frantically slamming keys as Rittenhouse was unloading a damn grenade launcher behind them. The last thing Lucy remembers him saying, just before everything vanished in a roar, was, “Oh fuck.” Which is not usually a good sign, but especially not when the person saying it is piloting a time machine. They’re somewhere else, they got out, the Lifeboat isn’t completely blown up, but – are they home? Something about it makes her wonder.

Lucy jerks her eyes open, and takes in her surroundings. She’s staring at the inside of the Lifeboat, which has a fist-sized hole punched through the metal hide, admitting a thin spear of indeterminate daylight. Holes are definitely bad. The control panel is steaming, half the lights blinking red, which looks worse. The boys are all still strapped into their seats, Wyatt on the ceiling and Flynn crunched to one side, Rufus face-down on the console, in a way that means they definitely did not land in the correct direction. Oh God, they are just unconscious, aren’t they? Nobody is moving, and there is a trickle of red running down Wyatt’s face. The shell-shocked interior of the Lifeboat is deathly silent, except for Lucy’s wheezes and gulping. Her wind doesn’t feel like it’s planning on coming back.

She panics, fumbles at her seatbelt, and manages to loosen it, scrambling on hands and knees into the blinded eyeball of a definitely-very-broken time machine. It shifts underfoot as she moves, throwing her off balance, and rolls to one side like a gyro, rearranging the boys again and making Lucy tumble backwards into Flynn. He groans, but doesn’t quite come around.

That’s fine. A groan is good. She can work with a groan. Trying not to shift the Lifeboat again, or roll them off some convenient cliff that could be right behind them, she puts a hand on his face and taps his cheek. “Flynn?” She taps a little harder. “Garcia?”

He’s definitely alive, so while his presumably just-as-scrambled brain is sorting out what it wants to do with that information, Lucy stands on her tiptoes and anxiously turns Wyatt’s slack head, searching for the source of the blood. There’s a gash on his temple that does not look fun, but she puts two fingers to his neck and finds a faintly bumping pulse. It’s fast and shallow, and they’ll need to patch up that cut soon, but she still has one more member of her team to look after, and wades through the twisted hull to Rufus, pulling him off the console. His nose is bloody and his eyes are closed, but he twitches under Lucy’s hands, jerks, then turns off to the side and retches. She can see a crack under his eyelashes as he slowly turns his head up toward her. “L… Lucy?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me.” Lucy coughs. “Where – when – are we?”

“I have no idea.” Rufus shakily pushes himself upright, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It was all going nuts right as I launched. They hit something, I couldn’t steer. We were pulling something like six G’s, I blacked out before I could be sure, but I tried to – ”

“You’re fine. You did great. We’re here, we’re not, I don’t know, crushed into space dust or floating as disembodied eyeballs outside the time stream. We’re somewhere, we can work with this.” Lucy tries to make her voice as encouraging as she can, even though she and Rufus can both see that cheery thoughts alone are not getting them out of this. “We have some spare parts, don’t we? To avoid a repeat of the 1754 incident? We can mend this.”

Rufus flicks his gaze around at the chaos. “I’m not sure we can just slap a spare tire on this.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Lucy repeats, as bracingly as she can. “You need to help me with Flynn and Wyatt. I think they took the worst of it.”

Rufus is clearly still distracted over the damage to his baby, but he manages to undo his webbing and help Lucy wrestle Flynn and Wyatt out of theirs. Wyatt falls straight down directly onto Flynn, which he might have enjoyed more in other circumstances, and Rufus grabs him under the arms while Lucy takes his feet. They have to climb halfway up the wall to the door, which Rufus wrestles open while swearing, and more sunlight spills in when he opens it. They hoist Wyatt up over the edge like a side of beef, manage to give him a more or less soft landing on the grass below, then really have to work at it with Flynn. Lucy is a small woman, Rufus is not a American Ninja Warrior contestant, and Flynn is… well, he’s large. They’re both sweating heavily by the time they, along with their barely-conscious compatriots, have recollected outside. The Lifeboat is lying on its side, tipped and skidded in a spinning muddy furrow, in some grassy field. It’s very quiet. Hopefully at least nobody saw them bomb out of the sky like a meteor.

As he kneels next to Wyatt, trying to fashion a bandage out of his cravat (they were in 1799, trying to stop Rittenhouse from interfering at the death of George Washington), Rufus looks around, shielding his eyes. “When do you think we are?”

“I don’t know.” The countryside is broad and green and old-world in a way that makes Lucy think of Europe. Did they just detour sideways rather than forward? At least if they’re somewhat close to the Industrial Revolution, there has to be a steelworks around. Or at least a forge. Maybe France? The Founding Fathers had extensive links with France, after all; Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine might be the counterweight that pulled them. It could be Normandy. Lucy took a trip to visit the D-day beaches as a high school senior. “I think Europe.”

Rufus gives her a look, but carries on trying to revive Wyatt, as Lucy gets a little water from a nearby rivulet and splashes it on Flynn. He snorts, jerks, then his eyes fly open and he tries to leap to his feet all at once, only to stagger and get no further than his knees before falling heavily. Then he swears. “What the hell just – ?”

“Morning to you too,” Lucy says wryly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You need to take it easy, you’ve been out. We – we landed pretty hard.”

Flynn’s eyes flick past her to the slain carcass of the Lifeboat. It’s apparent at once that this is a considerable understatement, and he grimaces, putting a hand to his side. “Feels like I broke a damn rib.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.” Lucy can feel him jonesing to get up again, and pushes hard on his shoulder until he grudgingly abandons the idea. Seeing that he’s once more online and bad-tempered, she goes over to help Rufus with Wyatt, the only one who hasn’t shown any signs of stirring. It’s bad if you’re out for more than five minutes, no matter what the movies say about getting knocked on the head and waking up hours later with only a bump. “Come on,” she says, half under her breath. “Come on, Wyatt, wake up.”

Flynn glances at them, at Rufus with the wet cravat and Lucy trying to make sure his airway is clear. Then he sighs, crawls over on hands and knees as if to make it pointedly clear that he is obeying orders not to stand up, and pushes them both out of the way. Braces his hands on Wyatt’s chest and gives him a few bone-crackingly hard compressions – well, if you’re doing them right, they’re supposed to be violent, but Lucy can’t look. She can hear Wyatt’s limbs flop as Flynn repeats them to no effect, then looks at the sky as if of course it would finish off the day by making him do this. He opens Wyatt’s mouth, and starts CPR.

After a few agonizing moments, Lucy and Rufus reaching out to grab each other’s hands, there’s a faint sputter from Wyatt, a gurgle, and a muffled sound of protest. Flynn lets go and sits back on his heels with a satisfied expression, as Wyatt coughs up a lung, Lucy puts a hand under his head and turns him on his side, and Wyatt finally goes slack, breathing hard. “Okay,” he croaks. “Anyone want to tell me why I woke up kissing Flynn?”

“I did just save your life.” Flynn wipes his mouth. “So we could start with thank you.”

“Thanks.” It’s still a little grudging, but Wyatt can clearly tell that he’s had a close shave, and he doesn’t hate Flynn quite so much as to be completely ungrateful. Lucy gets him some more water, which Wyatt drinks, then glances at the Lifeboat. “I was going to ask if we made it back, but kinda looks like negative on that.”

“Yeah.” Rufus stands up. “I’ll go see if I can get anything running, any kind of readout. Can anyone see if there’s a road or a village or something like that? We’re probably going to have to spend the night. And we should get Wyatt’s head looked at.”

“I agree,” Flynn remarks. Wyatt glares at him.

Lucy gives him a chastening look, and gets to her feet, nodding to him. Since Rufus needs to look at the Lifeboat, and Wyatt is alive but not feeling fresh as a daisy, it’s clearly Lucy and Flynn’s job to run the scouting trip. They are still in their 1799 clothes, which hopefully are not too out of place, chronologically speaking, but with scuff and soot and bloodstains and other evidence of their recent misadventures, they definitely look alarming. The sun is fairly well down the western horizon. It won’t kill them if they have to spend the night in the crashed Lifeboat, but with not knowing anything about where they are, they’d prefer not to.

They’ve walked for about twenty minutes until they finally come on a road, narrow and muddy and deeply grooved with wheel ruts, and Lucy hopes that this is validation of her theory that they just got knocked sideways, rather than forward. She is increasingly sure that this is in fact France, though she can’t say why. Could also be England, with the green downs. Start of the nineteenth century, before the major rise of the factories? The countryside would still be largely rural. Maybe the Napoleonic Wars? Or –

Flynn cocks his head. “Do you hear bells?”

Lucy frowns. Now that he mentions it, she does, and they walk a few dozen more yards, then reach an overlook down into a river valley, framed with steep-sided chalk bluffs. There’s a city built on one side of the bank, but if Lucy was thinking Napoleonic Wars, she’s off by. . . a lot. It’s ringed in a low stone wall with a gate opening onto the bridge, and buildings of stone and straw and timber, woven together in a jumble of narrow lanes and steep streets. There’s a ton of church spires, something that looks like a monastery, and a half-built cathedral enclosed in wooden scaffolding, as well as a round stone tower in the style that Lucy vaguely recalls is called a donjon. What’s most alarming, however, is that she recognizes the city. It’s Rouen, the provincial capital of Normandy, in France (she takes a moment to be proud of guessing Normandy), which she visited during her trip. Wandered around hitting up patisseries and bakeries and enjoying the medieval old town, including the huge and spectacular cathedral. But according to the little info-brochure she picked up, the building was finished in the sixteenth century, notwithstanding various rounds of damage and repair. Cathedrals could often take hundreds of years to complete for obvious reasons, but this one isn’t much more than a large church with half a tower and a few extra flourishes. This is way before the sixteenth century. This is –

Lucy swivels, aghast, to stare at Flynn, who is regarding the city with a calculating expression and looking a lot more calm about this than she feels. “Thirteenth century,” he says, after a long pause. “Maybe? Early. Could be late twelfth. There’s no Gothic work on that cathedral, it’s High Romanesque. The castle’s not a motte and bailey, but it’s too early for anything before the fourteenth. Yes. My final guess is late twelfth, unless you think otherwise?”

Lucy blinks and stares at him, reminding herself that she knew he was pretty good with the history – has at least done research on the various places in the journal – and this is no time to get suckered by a competent display of it, especially given the circumstances. “We’re – wait. We’re in the twelfth century? That’s – that’s far further back than we’ve ever gone. There isn’t going to be anything to fix the Lifeboat here. We didn’t go sideways, we – we got caught in some kind of backwash, we were just thrown about – what, six hundred years off course? This is not good, this is not good. I don’t know this, I work on American history, I took a few European history courses as an undergrad for distribution requirements, but – ”

Flynn has been standing there with his arms folded and an expectant look on his face, obnoxiously not freaking out nearly as much as Lucy feels this situation deserves. She glares at him. “You seem weirdly happy about this.”

Flynn shrugs. “I’ve wanted to visit the medieval era for a while.”

“Visiting would be one thing, but if we’re stranded – ”

“Rufus will figure something out.” Flynn waves a hand. He’s still staring at the city with a kid-in-the-candy-store expression. It’s the first time Lucy has ever seen him in the past without the immediate job of shooting Rittenhouse agents and causing mayhem to preoccupy him, in one of the historical eras he apparently loves, and it's… well, oddly adorable, if you can forget that they’re screwed. “Besides, I know all about medieval Europe. I read books and books on it as a kid. I pretended to be a knight as much as a cowboy.”

Lucy glances at him. She supposes that yes, as the resident European, Flynn probably is more conversant with this than the rest of their American “anything over two hundred and fifty years is Old” asses. And he did just expertly history the shit out of the architecture, he definitely knows more than that, but she still isn’t convinced that, fulfillment of Flynn’s childhood dreams aside, this is in any way a good thing. They’ve only traveled within American history, or at least places mostly connected to it – since Rittenhouse is, obviously, American in the worst sense of the word. That means they’ve had the luxury of visiting modern or mostly-modern places, speaking English, knowing the drill, and more or less able to blend in, albeit with a few hiccups. None of that applies here. They’re in France, but Lucy’s French is likely to be completely unintelligible to them. Are medieval people going to be very happy about these odd, conspicuous strangers rolling on up? They have a lot of experience at improvising, but nobody is going to buy them as authentic late-twelfth-century (time) travelers just passing through. Even if Rittenhouse isn’t here, there are other dangers. Everyone knows the litany of “plague, war, and death.” Is it just going to be some grim charnel house? Lucy doesn’t think so (can hear Dr. Renshaw, her colleague in the history department, going off on another long rant about this) but still. They have no frame of reference, no sure way of getting home, and no idea what to do next.

“They’ll close the gates at nightfall, won’t they?” she says, after a long pause spent reminding herself that they’ve gotten out of worse scrapes. “If we’re planning to stay the night in the city, we need to hurry back and get Wyatt and Rufus.”

Flynn glances at them in their turn-of-the-nineteenth-century getups. To say the least, they are about half a millennium ahead of the fashion curve, and Wyatt is hurt, which will be still more noticeable. Then he nods down at the Seine. “Someone might be doing their washing by the river. We should go steal some clothes first.”

Lucy supposes this is sensible, even as she thinks they only have a limited amount of time and maybe wardrobe alterations should wait. But there is something to be said for trying to reduce the amount of sticking-out they’re already going to be doing, and they climb carefully down the steep, wooded bluffs, skidding and slipping until they find a trail. The sun is well behind them by the time they make it to the bottom and Lucy’s pretty sure they can’t find clothes, hike back for the boys, and make it to the city again by sunset. She hugs herself, shivering, as they forage along the bank, looking at Rouen on the opposite side. It fits like a familiar but badly altered negative into the memory in her mind, a smaller, tighter, messier, smellier version of itself – it’s not stink, exactly, but it definitely smells more pungent, earthy and dense, a city without modern sanitation or sewage facilities, without running water or daily baths or chemical treatment. Wyatt and Rufus, who love their modern comforts and technology, are not going to be thrilled. Lucy doesn’t expect it to be the Hilton, but she tells herself it can’t be that bad, that different. People are people everywhere. They can do this.

It takes them a while, but they finally find some clothes spread on the bank, anchored down with rocks to dry, and a woman just returning to collect them with a basket under her arm. She sees these two outlandish individuals in their strange garb and stares. Then, given as Flynn is just gathering up the whole lot, she points at him and angrily informs him (Lucy can’t understand her words, but it doesn’t need translation) that hey, those are hers, time for him to drop them sharpish. Lucy thinks she catches a word close to “reeve,” which means law enforcement, which is Not Good. Penalties for thieves are often harsh, especially in town. It keeps crime down, but it’s really inconvenient when you’re stranded time travelers trying to lift some new digs. She looks at Flynn – first test, he’s up. What is he going to do?

Flynn, to everyone (well, Lucy’s) astonishment, does not solve the problem just by hitting the woman on the head and running away. He says something about “vuel de le roy,” which Lucy also doesn’t understand. He then repeats it several times, since she’s not sure he speaks Old French either. Whatever it is, however, it makes the woman change her tune. She is clearly unhappy, but finally backs away. With a resentful look at them over her shoulder, she says, “Deu pais, m’seignor,” and hurries out of sight.

“What did you – ?” Lucy blinks. “What did you tell her?”

“I said I was taking the clothes by the wish of the king,” Flynn says. “Or at least the last part. Technically, agents of prise sent by the king in times of war can take anything they deem necessary – food, fodder, livestock, supplies – for the effort. I’m lucky she didn’t ask to see a seal or a warrant, but most people wouldn’t. So now her family doesn’t have clothes anymore, but she’s not in trouble with the authorities.” He shrugs. “We’ll make it up later.”

Lucy knows this probably won’t happen, and she shoots a brief, troubled look over her shoulder, but the woman is gone. “How did you know the king would be at war, though?”

“Twelfth-century France?” Flynn smiles grimly. “They’re always at war.”

With that, they slog back up the steep bluffs and start on the trek back to break the news to Wyatt and Rufus. It’s clear they aren’t making it into Rouen tonight, which might be for the best – shifty strangers dressed in stolen clothes, turning up at nightfall, would definitely catch someone’s attention. Maybe they can just shuffle in with the morning business tomorrow and look as ordinary as possible. Or maybe, magically, Rufus has fixed the Lifeboat while they were gone, and this is all a moot point.

Rufus has, in fact, not fixed the Lifeboat, and he is sitting outside, next to Wyatt, by the time they finally get back. On their approach, however, he jumps to his feet. “What the hell? What took so long? I thought you were going to scout!”

“We did scout,” Lucy says heavily. “It’s bad.”

With that, she explains the conundrum that they have found themselves stuck in, as Wyatt and Rufus exchange grim looks. “So,” Rufus says, rubbing his hands over his face. “Is this like a Robin Hood: Men in Tights situation, or like a Black Death situation?”

Flynn makes an impatient noise. “The plague doesn’t reach Europe for another hundred and fifty years, Rufus. Christ.”

“Yes, wow, that’s really comforting, Flynn, thank you. I’m so glad to know I can definitely cross plague off the list of all the ways we’re likely to die out here. I thought wiping my butt with leaves in 1754 was bad, well – this. This is much worse.”

“But you know about it, right?” Wyatt pushes himself upright and looks at Lucy. “I know you do American history, but you have to know some of this, don’t you?”

“A… a little.” Lucy twists her dirty hem between her fingers. “Just major dates and events, though. The crusades, the Black Death, the Hundred Years’ War, a little about knights and chivalry, that kind of thing. But really not that much. Flynn had to do most of it back there. He knows a lot more than me.”

“So we’re stuck in the Dark Ages with a broken Lifeboat, and we have to rely on Flynn to history us out of it?” Wyatt blows out a frustrated breath. “This day just keeps getting better.”

“The Dark Ages is a bullshit term,” Flynn says mildly. “And if you don’t want to get home, you’re welcome to keep on ignoring me.”

Wyatt opens his mouth, then shuts it with a visible grimace. “Okay,” he says, with a clear effort at politeness. “Did you figure out the actual year yet?”

“I figured out the century,” Flynn says. “Isn’t that enough?”

“All right, all right.” Lucy can sense that much like kindergartners without snacktime, the boys (especially when also not fed, facing an uncertain future, still aching from the crash, and not sure when or if they’re getting out of here) are liable to turn into sharks smelling blood in the water if allowed to continue unimpeded. “That’s enough. We’ll go into Rouen tomorrow and see if – ”

“See if what?” Rufus interrupts. “If anyone has some spare time machine parts lying around? I looked through everything that survived the crash, and I don’t have enough to patch the damn hole in the hull, much less the main computer. What are they gonna give us, a sundial? I’m sure that’ll be really useful. We could not have possibly landed in a worse spot, technology-wise. And if Rittenhouse has free rein to do whatever they want since we can’t get out of here and stop them….we might as well just go down to ye olde embassy and apply for permanent residency. Not like there’d be much of a future worth going back to.”

The team exchanges worried looks. They can’t say that Rufus is wrong, because he’s not. Finally Wyatt says, “I don’t agree we just have to settle down in some hut and learn how to farm, or whatever. There’s gotta be a way out.”

“They do more things than farm, you know.” Flynn’s resolve to hold his tongue has clearly run short. “Don’t any of you know anything about medieval history?”

“Not really a hot topic in American public schools, you know,” Rufus snaps. “So – ”

“You went to MIT, Rufus. Lucy went to Stanford. She knows something, you should. We’ll make an exception for the Texas high-school dropout.”

A muscle goes in Wyatt’s cheek. He looks about to decide that the hut might be okay if he gets to bash Flynn to death with a shovel first, but Lucy glares at both of them again, and they once more shut their mouths. “Not helping,” she says coldly. “Not helping, Flynn. We’ve established that we’re going to need to lean on you as the historian in this, but also that we don’t know. You can’t just sneer at us, all right? You’re going to have to teach us.”

Flynn sighs, looking both annoyed and ashamed. At last he says, “Fine. This place is dangerous and complicated, and it won’t be like anything you’re used to. But if you’re thinking it’s full of some weird rustic shit-smeared cavemen who are backward religious zealots and just want to burn you at the stake, you’re wrong. You’ve been in the past long enough, you’ve met enough people, you know that they’re the same, even across place and time. You also know it’s usually not what you think. If we’re going to pull this off, you have to think of this as somewhere just a little bit more afield than usual. Not some nightmare dystopia planet of endless filth and disease and war. All right?”

A pause, and then Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus nod, some of them more reluctantly than others. Wyatt says, “But we have guns, right? At least until we run out of ammo. If some Rittenhouse goons did follow us here, or if we hit trouble, we’ve got the advantage.”

Flynn grins, without much humor. “We run into some mounted knights, you’re going to be rethinking that in a hurry. And we have, as you say, low ammo and will draw a lot of attention if we ever had to use them. We’ll have to find swords, but peasants – ” he glares at their stolen clothes – “aren’t going to be wearing swords.”

“One problem at a time,” Lucy says. “How about the clothes, then?”

They sort through them, and discover a shift, dress, and surcote (a kind of close-fitted, half-sleeved jacket) for Lucy, though they’re a little too big and have to be knotted in. They’re woven of some hand-spun wool and flax, heavier than she’s used to with light machine-made fabrics, but your clothes lasting around here is important. There’s a long belt that she uses as a girdle, and she looks at Flynn. “Would I be covering my hair?”

“If you were married,” Flynn says. “And a woman your age likely would be, so…”

Lucy can sense half a look exchanged between Wyatt and Flynn, silently disagreeing over who gets to volunteer as her husband. She pretends not to notice and takes out a linen cloth stuffed in the sleeve of the shift, awkwardly tying it over her head. Nobody’s going to notice her shoes or her underwear, so she plans on keeping those. Straightforward enough.

Dressing the boys proves more difficult. There are two tunics, one green and one brown, that fit Wyatt and Rufus well enough, but the third one is clearly a child’s and is not going to get over Flynn’s head, much less the rest of him. There are likewise three pairs of tied-on pseudo-breeches-trousers that Flynn says are called braies, and hose called chausses, which are knotted up with leather cords to keep your shoes on (they don’t have the shoes, so Wyatt and Rufus likewise keep theirs). Working men would wear some kind of cap or hood, but they also don’t have those (couldn’t the poor woman doing her laundry have conveniently brought all her family’s clothes? Never mind). They also don’t have cloaks, though they can possibly acquire those somewhere else. It’s not winter, so they shouldn’t freeze, but it also isn’t balmy. Lucy struggles to remember a hazy memory of medieval clothing laws that dictated who could wear what. Have those started yet?

The end result is that Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus have gotten dressed more or less like working people of fairly humble status, but Flynn is still stuck in his 1799 jacket, cravat, waistcoat, and breeches, since none of this stuff is going to fit him, not even if they traded. With that and his height, he is completely and jarringly out of place, and everyone stares at him, trying to think of an explanation. Finally Rufus volunteers, “You’re from… I don’t know. Foreign? Also, what’s the black people situation around here? There’s a lot of people who are all, wooo medieval Europe was super white, so…? Yes? No?”

“They’re idiots,” Flynn says. “I think we’ll have to be from Spain. At least two of us speak Spanish, and besides, it’s had Muslims and Jews living in it for four hundred years, it’s very diverse. Multiple arrivals of the Moors from Northern Africa and regional kingdoms. The Reconquista has been running for a hundred years, but it’s not complete yet, it won’t be until 1492. Rufus would be a free man of respectable status there.”

Rufus blinks. “Wow. Who would have thought it would take going back to the medieval era for me not to have to play a second-class citizen or a slave?”

“As I said.” Flynn shrugs. “I’m a traveling merchant from Spain, hopefully that explains the eccentricities. Lucy is my wife, Rufus is my business partner, and Wyatt is my servant.”

Wyatt splutters. “Excuse me, why do I have to be your – ”

“Dude,” Rufus says. “I’ve played that role on literally most of our missions to date. Just… suck it up and take it for the team, all right? Please? Maybe we can steal some nicer clothes and it’ll be a moot point, but yeah. You never have to. So just once?”

Wyatt opens his mouth, stops, then nods, looking at Rufus. “Okay, buddy,” he says. “Only for you, though. I’m your servant, or Lucy’s. Not Flynn’s.”

“Fine.” Flynn looks as if since he came out of this with Lucy as his wife, he’s willing to let the chance to order Wyatt around slide (he’ll probably do it anyway). “We should find somewhere to hide the Lifeboat.”

“Like we can pick it up and move it anywhere?” Rufus raises an eyebrow. “Maybe we can dig up some pieces of turf and try to camouflage it, but otherwise, it’s staying here.”

This is an obvious logistical problem, and they try to puzzle out a workaround. It’s entirely possible that anyone who finds the damn thing will be too alarmed to go anywhere near it, but it’s a useful source of metal. They could just shrug and strip off parts, which is obviously to be avoided. Finally, the team starts cutting peat with the very rudimentary tools they have, which is hard, dirty, and exhausting work. It barely covers the Lifeboat but at least makes it stick out less, they have no food, and everyone is in a bad mood when they’re done. “Great,” Wyatt says, wiping his hands on his tunic. “Glad we’re getting our first taste of authentic peasant life. There isn’t even some orchard or anything nearby where we could steal fruit?”

“Any orchard would be covered by someone’s forest laws,” Flynn warns him. “You can’t hunt in the woods without permission, you can’t take as much as a squirrel. They’re reserved for the noblemen.”

“Oh?” Wyatt says moodily. “Only if you got caught. These guys don’t have infrared, electric fences, whatever – how are they gonna know if we sneak in? You and I could probably handle some punk, if anyone was even awake to check.”

“I had to resuscitate you from a non-responsive state earlier,” Flynn counters. “Now you think you’re ready to start throwing punches? I’m not getting us all caught and thrown into some dungeon just because you can’t go one night without – ”

Lucy herself thinks some dungeon time sounds like a great plan for them, maybe chained to the same wall so they can’t get away, but she also isn’t going to spend this entire trip babysitting them. She just clears her throat, and they break off at once, which is a somewhat enjoyable response. They harrumph, shuffle their feet, and make themselves useful finding a semi-soft spot for everyone to lie down. Without cloaks, it’s a little too cold, and they don’t have an obvious way of starting a fire. They remain there stubbornly for a while as it gets colder and later, until Lucy lets out a little huff of exasperation, snuggles up against Wyatt’s back, and beckons Flynn with her chin to move up against hers. Since Rufus is not spooning Flynn even if his life literally depends on it, he rolls up by Wyatt, and with this impromptu arrangement in place, they are able to share a little warmth. Never speak of it again, no doubt, which is a shame. They’re going to need to lean on each other like never before.

The ground is hard and Lucy still isn’t very comfortable, but at least squashed between Wyatt and Flynn, she is safe and mostly warm, and she manages to drop under. When she opens her eyes, the downs are awash in thin grey morning light, and everyone is stirring and squinting and grimacing, as all their bumps and bruises from the crash have had ample time to stiffen up overnight. There is a lot of swearing and wincing as they get to their feet and brush themselves off, then find themselves oddly struggling to walk away from the Lifeboat. They don’t know if they’re coming back here, if they can find anything to fix it, and this is the last slender connection to their lives and homes and everything else. Rufus sucks in an unsteady breath and reaches out to pat it like an old dog about to be led into the vet to be put to sleep. “So long, buddy,” he says. “We’ll – we’ll see you later, okay?”

Everyone (except perhaps Flynn) finds themselves a little choked up as well, and nod solemnly, mourners at the funeral. Then they take one more breath, turn their backs, and start to walk.

It’s turning into a nice morning as they trek toward Rouen, wispy clouds here and there but the sky otherwise a pale blue, and Lucy wonders what time of the year it is. It feels like spring, rather than fall, since it’s not winter and it’s not warm enough to be summer. Well, maybe they can get to the city and find some answers. If any of them can make themselves understood.

They reach the path down the bluffs, Wyatt and Rufus get their first load of the city, and there is a definite gulp-hard, gut-check moment as they start down. By day, with the gate open, the bells of the countless churches ringing out for various services (they have no clocks, they’re going to have to learn to tell time by the canonical hours), gulls wheeling in updrafts off the Seine, ox-carts clattering across the bridge, and the usual raucous daily commerce in the streets, the city is alive and noisy in a way that it wasn’t last night, when it seemed haunted and dreamy and remote. They join the queue of people waiting to enter the city, whereupon they are asked (so far as Lucy can tell) for a toll, since they’re not citizens. They don’t have any twelfth-century money, so this is a problem. Finally, Flynn takes the silver buckles off his colonial shoes, watched by the confused porter, and manages to trade them as collateral for their entrance. With that, they are now in the lion’s mouth.

Lucy glances around, eager to immerse herself in a new time period that she knows less about, feeling a bit of that same awe and delight that she did in arriving in 1937 New Jersey for the first time. She has to pay attention where she’s going and not gawk, but she keeps turning her head to look anyway. It’s admittedly a bit tidier than she expected, though she shouldn’t be surprised. Flynn has explained that medieval people associate filth and bad smells (not entirely wrongly) with disease; even without an understanding of modern germ theory, they’re no more keen to muck around in their own shit than any other sane person. Stoops are swept, walls whitewashed, and though it definitely smells stronger than a modern city center, it isn’t entirely unpleasant. The scent of cooking food drifts from shop stalls and tavern doors, underlaid with a rich, earthy human reek, as well as whiffs of the perfumes and spices that people use to smell sweet in the absence of daily showers. But as almost everyone washes faces, hands, feet, and other extremities on a regular basis, what she can actually see of them is relatively clean. A crowd of urchins comes speeding up, clearly offering some sort of amazing bargain, and Flynn shoos them cursorily away. “Look out for those,” he informs the others. “Pick you clean if they think they can get away with it.”

“I thought thieves got their hands chopped off.” Rufus glances around the city square, eyes drawn by a swinging sign with a loaf painted on. “And that’s not just a theoretical question, because if we can’t figure out how to get some money, I’m just gonna Valjean it and steal some bread. Even if Medieval Javert immediately comes after us.”

Everyone agrees that while they don’t want the latter, the former is a matter of urgency, and finally by some very careful sleight of hand and old hustler tricks (Wyatt bumps into a well-off-looking-dude and distracts him, Flynn relieves him expertly of his purse) they get their hands on some things that are apparently coins. They’re silver and roughly circular, but have been struck on a forge individually rather than mass-produced by machinery in a mint, leading to a certain variation in their size and shape. Edges are clipped off, meaning that some are worth less than others; you literally make change with bits of the physical coin. They’re too tarnished and worn smooth for Flynn to tell whose image is on them. He can make out D.G.R, which he informs them stands for Dei Gratia Rex; or, by the grace of God, King, part of the monogram on the monarch’s coinage. If it’s when he thinks it is, Normandy is still under English control and ruled by the English king, who is also the duke of Normandy. It’s one of the Plantagenets, probably, but he can’t be sure.

They manage to buy breakfast without being rumbled for thieves, though they think it’s better to be out of the marketplace before the rich man realizes that his belt is much lighter. The food is hot, flaky, and spicy, some kind of sausage and mince baked in pastry, and they’re hungry enough to scarf it down without complaint. Finally Rufus, still licking his fingers, says, “So, the date?”

Flynn glances around at the chattering citizens passing on their morning errands. They (especially Flynn) have gotten some odd looks, but nobody has outright apprehended them. However, they have not been able to understand a word of the surrounding conversations; the breakfast transaction was conducted mostly in sign language, since that’s easy enough. Here and there Lucy can catch something that sounds familiar to her from modern French, but the times she and Flynn have tried to speak it, they get blank stares. If they are going to ask anyone for substantive information, they need a lingua franca. Latin? Lucy reads bits and pieces of it, but speaking is out. This is going to be harder than she thought.

At last, they overhear a scrap of Spanish, or something that is recognizably close enough to it, and Flynn and Wyatt, the Spanish-speaking members of the gang, chase up the speaker. They better hope it’s Castilian that he speaks, the forerunner of modern Spanish, as Leonese, Catalan, Aragonese, Basque, Galician, Occitan, and the other languages of the scattered Spanish kingdoms aren’t likely to be very helpful. Finally, however, they get some rudimentary communication established. The Spanish merchant is clearly very confused why these yahoos are demanding to know what year it is, but answers. Flynn asks him for clarification in a few points, resulting in more squinting. But at last, he gives him a coin for his trouble, and the merchant hurries away, clearly reminding himself not to do business with these guys if they reappear in future. Still.

“Well?” Rufus asks. “What did he say?”

“He said it was 1233? I think?” Wyatt frowns, glancing at Flynn. “Does that sound right to you?”

“That’s what he said, but it’s not right.” Flynn scowls, as if he can’t believe the random citizen they accosted on the street for information is a total idiot. “If it was 1233, this would be French territory again, solidly reclaimed by the French crown after the conquest of 1204. And that – ” he points at the banner over the castle that they can now see, two golden lions on a field of red – “is proof that it’s still English.”

“What about the rest of what he said?” Wyatt asks. “Monday after Octave Day? At least I think that was what it was?”

“It means the Monday after the Sunday after Easter,” Flynn translates. “We’re lucky we didn’t end up in the middle of Lent, that would have been grim. So. . . April sometime. Early, most likely. You’re going to have to learn how to tell time in reference to various saint and feast days and differing – ” He stops. “Oh, yes.”

“What?”

“It’s not 1233,” Flynn says. “It’s 1195. He was Castilian, he was giving us the Spanish Era date. It’s thirty-eight years ahead of the Julian calendar, it’s used until the end of the fourteenth century. You don’t have a regularized standard of time for Europe until the Gregorian calendar in 1582. Even the miles can be different lengths.”

“Wow.” Rufus shakes his head. “I work with advanced theoretical physics for a living, and I think that’s confusing.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Flynn is clearly doing some calculations in his head. “Yes. 1195. Normandy is still English, at least for another nine years. Richard the Lionheart is king, he got back from being held prisoner on his return from crusade just a year ago, and is – ”

“Richard the Lionheart?” Wyatt brightens with the kind of nerd-glow moment he had around Wendell Scott. “Oh yeah, that’s my boy. What?” he adds, at Lucy’s surprised look. “I told you, I know my military history.”

Flynn raises an eyebrow as if it’s still news to him that Wyatt knows anything. Choosing charitably (for him) not to comment on it, he goes on, “Anyway. Richard and Philip II of France are at war for most of the rest of Richard’s reign, until he dies in 1199. John becomes king, fucks things up, and loses most of France.”

“And there’s just. . . no reason we’d end up here?” Rufus asks. “I mean, I know the Lifeboat was malfunctioning, I was just trying to launch before we blow up, but there was a last-second blip before I lost control. I can’t be sure, and of course the systems are dead so I can’t boot it up and check, but there’s a chance that Rittenhouse could be here too. What could they possibly want with 1195 France? How could that remotely be useful to them in the future? Really wanted more Renaissance Faires in their evil dystopia?”

“Wait, what?” Wyatt looks startled. “If Rittenhouse is here, that means we could find the Mothership. We don’t have to repair the Lifeboat if we can get the Mothership – and we can get it away from them, we can end all this, we – ”

“Yeah.” Lucy beckons for him to keep his voice down, even though no one can understand him. (Unless there’s some Rittenhouse agent in the crowd – but that is probably too paranoid. Hopefully too paranoid, at least.) “But – why would they come here? Some insanely risky gambit trying to strand us, hope the Lifeboat would blow – it’s never gone this far afield before, maybe they thought it was too far of a jump, but – ”

She stops. Then she and Flynn look at each other and say in unison, “Magna Carta.”

“Magma?” Wyatt says. “What, lava?”

“No, Magna. Magna Carta. What Flynn said earlier about King John fucking things up, that’s what made me think of it. John’s the villain in all the Robin Hood stories, Bad King John, all that. Anyway, in 1215, he agrees to the Magna Carta, the Great Charter, forced on him by his exasperated barons. It’s the foundation for representative government and parliamentary democracy, it’s the forerunner of the English common law and then later the entire American system. It’s not necessarily the triumph of the republic, but you can’t overstate its importance in curbing the power of the king and setting up a more egalitarian rule of law.”

The boys exchange looks. “So,” Rufus says. “If Rittenhouse stops the Magna Carta, they make it so that America is invented according to an entirely new system. Which, wild guess, is a lot more creepy and smells like cult teen spirit.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Lucy’s insides clench. “They would change America, they would change Europe, they would change all of Western democratic law – everything about the legal institutions and foundation of our government. Like you said, maybe the power of the king never gets checked, or only after a long war, or centuries later. Maybe England has an absolute monarchy like the French one. Rittenhouse could do almost anything they wanted, in that scenario. This – this is bad. This is very bad.”

“I agree,” Wyatt says, putting a hand on her arm, a small comforting gesture. “I’m sure you’re right about what they want with that. But if that’s the case – that happens in 1215, we’re twenty years too early if they just want to bomb in and object like a wedding crasher. Why 1195?”

Lucy glances at Flynn. He frowns. Then he says, “John is Richard’s younger brother. Richard and his wife never have any children, so there’s no son to inherit the throne after he dies; it passes to his brother instead. In 1195, he was reconciled with his wife after a long estrangement – right around now, in April, actually. But as I said, they don’t have children. If Rittenhouse suggests to him that he remarries, or they’ve brought some sort of, I don’t know, damn mobile fertility clinic, or anything to get him to have a legitimate son, then John never becomes king. Well, he still could. He was rumored to have murdered his own nephew to be sure he succeeded, he could do that with this one. But he might find his job a lot harder if Rittenhouse was protecting them. Anyway – ”

“So – what?” Rufus says. “We have to make sure they don’t remarry Richard off to, like, Emma? So they can bang and have Rittenhouse Joffrey, who will then proceed to become king instead? Wow, that is a mental image I did not need.”

“I don’t know. They could.” Flynn swivels to stare at the banners over the castle. “Rouen. April 1195. Richard’s supposed to be here right now. But if he’s not, that could mean the reconciliation isn’t happening. Rittenhouse could be days or weeks ahead of us, they could have persuaded him to look for a new wife rather than make up with his old one. If he isn’t here, then – ”

“Then,” Lucy completes, with a slightly sick feeling in her stomach. “History’s changed, and we might already be too late.”

COCK AGE: THE MEASURING

Some friends of mine were asking how big certain characters were as I’ve seen my fair share of dicks. Big, small, long, thin, bendy, straight, floppy, stumpy, girthy, micro and oversized, and all soft and hard.  I’ve seen a lot of dicks.

So I give you my personal headcanons of the range of length for each character. I based it on their country of origin in comparison to the real world counterparts’ average dick size. I also took into consideration certain habits and behaviors that stereotypically indicate either a smaller or a bigger package.  

Disclaimers:  These are what I extrapolated based on my OWN experiences. Not canon. These guesses are purely my own fanon. 

COCK AGE: ORIGIN OF THE WEEN

Unfortunately I cannot even remotely guess any of the measurements for Alistair, Sten, or Oghren as they used default models DAO with no special outfits per character.  I even investigated King Alistair in Inquisition, but unfortunately, crotch flap prevented me from looking too closely.

ZEVRAN: 6 to 7 inches / 13-17 cm

Reasoning: This is based on my experience with men who were above average, knew it, and were kind enough to offer massages to help relax certain muscles. But that is personal preference.  And given Zevran grew up in a brothel...

Plus: average Penis length for Spanish men is 5.5 inches/13.97 cm.  And for Italian men it’s  6.2 inches/15.748 cm.  

Lay Review: 9.5/10 would recommend. Really great at sex, he was raised in a brothel of course he will be! But also really great at foreplay.  Just be careful as he was hired to kill you. (Unless you’re kinky and like that, then 10/10!)

COCK AGE: TWICE AS THICK

ANDERS: 5.5 - ? inches / 13.97 - ? cm

Reasoning: He wears a freaking Mage robe half the time. He’s known for his electricity fingers from the Pearl in Denerim, which means he knows his way in the bedroom better than most of us.  You can basically say he has any size you want and it works.

Lay Review: 9/10 Would recommend - Sorry you can incorporate SEX MAGIC into foreplay? Uhh yes please!  But be careful of his nosey asshole roommate who likes to pop in unannounced.

CARVER: No.  Okay by popular demand here is Carver’s dick size. -sighs-

5.5 to 9 inches / 13.97-22.86 cm

Reasoning: The average penis length for people in the UK is 5.5 inches. And I personally headcanon, that much like being bigger than Hawke, I think Carver is bigger in other areas as well. It’s why he gets to be so cocky and such a shit to Hawke because he knows he has at least something over his brother. 

Lay Review:  10/10 Listen, the man had a favorite whore in the Blooming Rose that even Isabela knew it and could catch him.  And he flirts easily with Isabela. He’s cocky but he’s not insufferable about it. 

SEBASTIAN:  6 - 6.5 inches / 15.24 - 16.51 cm

Reasoning: The average penis length for people in the UK is 5.5 inches, but the UK did their own review and said with “stretching” it was closer to 6 and up. I say that’s cheating, but whatever, we’ll give it to them. They do say that the Scotsmen are bigger than average - with stretching. 

Given Sebastian spent his youth chasing after the skirts of all the noble ladies, and many of them gossiped that he might take interest in them, I’m willing to bet he has above average length but also knows how to bloody well use it.

Lay Review:  5/10 would recommend, because you’re going to catch SOMETHING from this manwhore but you’ll have a damn good time of it. If you can pull him away to break his vows of celibacy that is.

FENRIS: 5 - 6 inches 

Reasoning: He’s from Tevinter, and which has some inspirations from Central and Western Asian influences with Roman cultures.  But he is also an elf and was a slave that was likely well fed as he was the “favorite.”  His armor is fairly form fitting so he’s not overly big as to be noticeable. Heck, he probably has a crotch armor for protection, but nothing too constricting as he needs to move.  

Lay Review: 1/10 - Would not recommend because you’re sleeping with someone who is starting to remember and has not yet recovered from being a sexual abuse victim to the point even touch triggers painful memories. (0/10 if you’re a male mage, because that would likely be triggering for Fenris as a Male Mage was his abuser)

COCK AGE: INQUISIT ME

VARRIC: 4 - 4.5 inches / 10.16 - 11.43 cm

Reasoning: Look he’s a dwarf. They are smaller, but they are also denser and thicker. So Varric’s got a big girthy thick cock even if it is under average

Lay Review: 7/10 would recommend, you’re gonna feel some pain having to stretch for him, but what he can’t reach for in length, he can make up for with his wicked tongue.  Don’t under estimate a good “bed” time story. He may also accidentally call out Bianca’s name. 

SOLAS: 4.5 - 5.5 inches / 11.43 - 13.97 cm

Reasoning: Hobo Apostate Solas, his crotch area is baggy, much like Cullen’s.  Almost lumpy in some areas but usually smooth.  No excessive bulge anywhere or any sort of presenting.  However in Trespasser, his bulge is front and center, like it’s on display.  A nice packaged bulb right there. And I know what you’re think, BIG DICK-  saaadly no.  The men who have the neat bulge like that have basically fluffed themselves up to appear like they are packing some sweet long heat. Also, the Greek standard of beauty for cocks was with smaller lengths. And given Solas’s vanity, seriously look at him in Trespasser, I think he PRIDES himself on being quite gorgeous. 

Lay Review:  10/10 actually, even though I can’t stand him.  But all the fun in the fade, no actual touching in the physical world. He’s the safest one to have sex with, No STDs.  CAN’T GET PREGNANT IN THE FADE.  For women, we basically get to experience the female equivalent of the male wet dream. In the Fade, his dick can be any size - heck it could be vibrating (or a wolf dick that knots for all you furries).  He’s really wise so he knows ALL the tricks. Seriously, he’s probably the reverse of the Demolition Man. 

BLACKWALL: 4 - 7 inches / 10.16-17.78 cm 

Reasoning:  Average Penis size for UK men is 5.5 inches/13.97 cm 

Blackwall boosts that his sword is not compensation, but a counterweight.  Guys that usually brag, don’t have the equipment they boast.  (Sorry Bae!)  But if he DOES have a big dick, then that is his one trick pony.  He has the equipment but is shite at using it and probably jams it in with no foreplay.  Which given his romance scene....

In that case, Blackwall really needs to listen to Sera’s advice.Just the fact Sera even felt PROMPTED to give him advice, says something.  All the other sex talks he’s fine but it’s THIS one he felt uncomfortable: 

Sera: I'll show you. I just need a peach. A ripe one, because if you do it right? Ripe! Down there. 

Blackwall: Please, no peaches, ripe or otherwise. 

Sera: Well I can't teach you bananas! That would be like showing you swords! Oh! Remember, do not use it like a sword. 

Blackwall: How do I make this stop?

Lay Review:  6/10 Would recommend only if you don’t mind digging hay out of your asscrack. Or taking the time to teach him how to fuck.

DORIAN:  5 to 8 inches / 16.51-20.32 cm

Reasoning: Average Penis size for Pakistani men is 6 inches. 

The scene where Dorian approaches you in the chambers, if you look, he has a noticeable gap between his thighs, almost like he’s intentionally making sure nothing erm... rubs. And Dorian is no skinny mage, he’s well muscled and thick enough for his thighs to press together. Therefore, he’s tucked.  However a man can tuck and still walk fairly comfortably.  It’s only when they are a little bigger do they have to make adjustments. 

Lay Review:  7.5/10 would recommend (if I was masculine presenting).  Dorian likes to be served (Inquisit me) by you, but damn if his orgasms aren’t fantastic. Make sure to have a water spell on hand, or... take down the curtains before hand ;) you exhibitionist you. 

THE IRON BULL: 8.5 to 10 inches / 21.59 - 25.4 cm

Reasoning: Bull sounds overly cocky but NOT in his dick size, rather in foreplay. In my experience in alternative lifestyles, these men are amazing. They knew how to use what they had - and usually it wasn’t much. Barely average or even under. Now, you’ll note the size is still above average. Some of you might even be going ow!  But that range I gave is average, maybe even UNDER average, for qunari.  Add to the fact the size of Bull’s “black box” was appropriately sized for a big dick for HUMANS. Yeah... The Iron Bull is definitely average for Qunari. But he knows how to work it. 

Lay Review: 8/10 Would recommend. I mean... who turns down to ride the bull?  You WILL be sore, because... OW.  But eh, for the experience right? Plus all us alternate lifestyle folks would get along REAL well with him.

CULLEN: 6.5 to 7 inches / 16.51-17.78 cm

Reasoning: Average Penis size for men from the Netherlands is 6.248 inches.

Cullen’s crotch appears quite um... lumpy, if you can view him without the flap.  It’s not tight, but definitely snug and to the side a bit. He could be wearing some protective covering under that or nothing at all.  But it’s clearly that he’s got some huge schlong there.

Lay Review: 9/10 would recommend. He’s packing, is shy in public, but once behind doors... the man can pin you to his OWN desk and rail you and then carry you UP A LADDER?  Shit... sign me the fuck up. I mean you’re gonna be sore and worn out having used muscles you hadn’t thought you even had, but fuck what a lay right? Lets just hope he offers to massage your lower back.  Desks do not make for comfy surfaces to rut on top of.  Especially wobbly ones (thanks Sera).  

Why The Flash Still Needs Sue Dearbon (Even Without Ralph Dibny)

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The following The Flash article contains spoilers through Season 7, Episode 14.

The Flash Season 7 Episode 14

The long-anticipated arrival of DC Comics fan favorite Sue Dearbon was a high point of The Flash Season 6, and Natalie Dreyfuss’ instantly charming version of the character did not disappoint. This was a Sue with her own agenda and point of view, a woman who was clearly destined to do more than just fall in love and die violently to serve a man’s story.

A former cat burglar and petty criminal, she was introduced as a smart and sassy heroine who drops quips as easily as she throws a punch. It feels safe to say that almost everyone loved her character pretty much instantly, something that certainly isn’t guaranteed in the world of a show like this.

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But when Dreyfuss’ co-star Hartley Sawyer was abruptly fired from the show during the mid-season hiatus, Sue’s onscreen status was immediately thrown into limbo. After all, her character had originally been brought on to The Flash as one-half of an iconic comics romance opposite Sawyer’s Ralph Dibny, a couple that fans had been waiting literal years to see come to life onscreen. And while there’s certainly every chance that the show will recast Ralph at some point, there’s no guarantee that will happen any time soon.

So the question becomes: Is there still a place for Sue Dearbon on a The Flash that no longer has Ralph? If her brief Season 7 return is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes.

Though her sudden return to Central City may initially seem out of the blue, Sue’s arrival nevertheless feels like a breath of fresh air. And once the initial throwaway lines establish that Ralph’s busy somewhere offscreen, we honestly don’t miss him that much. Her bright, bold personality is as charming as ever, and there’s something honestly refreshing about introducing another character to Team Flash who doesn’t have metahuman powers but can still easily hold her own in a fight. (Or slink through laser grids Mission Impossible-style. Whatever.)

Technically, “Rayo de Luz” is an Allegra episode, a story that’s meant to illustrate both her difficult relationship with her assassin cousin Esperanza and her struggle to decide what kind of hero she wants to be. It’s not a particularly groundbreaking hour and it doesn’t really show us anything we haven’t seen done better a dozen times before over the course of the series’ run with other, more interesting characters.

The Flash has struggled to figure out what to do with Allegra ever since it originally introduced her as the object of Nash Wells’ obsession, and this episode doesn’t do much toward solving those problems. Though the part where her heart literally starts glowing Care Bear stare-style to indicate that she’s fully come into her powers at last is…certainly an upgrade, it’s hardly likely to make us care more about her or feel more invested in her journey.

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But the hour also allows Sue to step forward as a leader in her own right, giving her several badass fight sequences, and making a pretty strong case that she’s still got plenty of story to tell even in a Central City that doesn’t have Ralph in it. Your mileage may vary, of course, on whether you think we still need some version Elongated Man back on the canvas after everything that went down with Sawyer’s exit, but this episode certainly proves that Sue can exist quite happily on the show’s canvas without him.

From her ongoing hunt for Black Hole operatives to her attempt to reconnect with the parents who were damaged by their time with the dark organization, Sue’s got plenty of problems of her own to solve, and she doesn’t need a love interest to fully dive into those stories. And in just two episodes flying solo she’s more than proven her worth as at least a tangential part of Team Flash, saving the day with both her butt-kicking fighting skills and her obvious talent for breaking and entering.

Props to Danielle Panabaker, who directed “Rayo de Luz”, for the extended fight sequence in which Sue faces off against a dozen faceless goons and holds her own effortlessly. It was tons of fun to watch – not to mention gave me serious Catwoman vibes. (Hey, if we can’t have Selina Kyle in the Arrowverse, I’ll take what I can get.) But what makes Sue such an intriguing addition to Team Flash isn’t her hand-to-hand combat skills, although those are definitely a nice bonus. It’s the fact that she provides a much-needed reality check on some of the group’s more idealistic tendencies.

Season 7 of The Flash has really leaned into the idea that all problems can be solved and all bad guys thwarted with little more than a simple speech about feelings and the power of love. And to be fair, this makes some degree of sense: This has always been the Arrowverse series with the biggest and most obvious heart. But now we’ve somehow reached the point where everyone seems to think that if you can just talk to someone long enough they’ll come around to the side of light, no matter how violent or murderous they’ve been in the past.

Sue’s obvious cynicism and undiluted snark provides a very necessary counterweight to this perspective and her blunt leadership style helps temper some of the show’s saccharine bluster. Even though she ultimately shows up when it matters to help Allegra fight to save her cousin, this is still the first time in a long time that someone actually pushed back against the season’s worst emotional tendencies. It seems safe to assume that providing such contrast would and should be a key part of Sue’s role within the world of the show, even as her own journey toward finding some sort of peace in the wake of her experience with Black Hole unfolds.

The Flash has occasionally struggled to do right by its female characters, from its slow-walking of Iris’ long-promised journalism arc to its struggle to figure out who Caitlin and Frost are in relation to each other and its tendency to leave women like Allegra and Cecile languishing on the backburner until their powers are required to advance a specific plot. The show has a chance to do the right thing for and by Sue, a legacy character who deserves her moment in the small screen spotlight with or without her male love interest. Here’s hoping this season (and maybe beyond) she gets the chance to seize it.

The post Why The Flash Still Needs Sue Dearbon (Even Without Ralph Dibny) appeared first on Den of Geek.

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The Man in the Hat - RL

(According to family folklore, when us kids were small, and before we moved into town to start school, I sometimes mentioned a man in a hat - which nobody but me ever saw. I don't know if I saw him a lot or just a time or two ... but the image has always stuck in my mind.)

Charlie and Sarah burst through the back screen door, the tight spring slamming it back shut with a single bounce.

"Where have you kids been? I was calling you five minutes ago, but you were nowhere to be found."

"We were back down by the creek – throwing sticks into the water and watching them sail down."

"Well, you need to pay attention and listen for me when I call. What if it was an emergency?"

"Uh-huh."

"Anyway, come in now and have your lunch. Bologna sandwiches, milk and carrots.

"Okay. But can we go back out after lunch? We’re just going to wade across to the Mr. Parker’s shed and play house in it."

"Wade, Charlie? How deep is the water today?"

"It’s only like this high" Sarah said, making a gap of about three inches between her hands.

"Well … alright … but don’t get your shoes or socks wet and dirty. Roll up your pants, and if it doesn’t look safe …" she wondered if she needed to check out the creek and shed herself.

"We saw Mr. Parker over there earlier. We asked him and he said it was safe and we could come over if we wanted."

Still – as much as she trusted their neighbor, there might be anything out in that shed – spiders, snakes, scorpions …

"Mr. Parker said it was safe?"

"We saw him over there and called to him if we could play there. He said we could, and that there wasn’t nothing to hurt us."

Sarah stared right into her mom’s eyes. She was good. Angela knew she could sell snow to eskimos, but if she thought it was safe for both of them, it very likely was. What she didn’t know is that she had made up half that conversation with Mr. Parker. They saw him, sure, and they all waved back and forth. She hollered to him about playing in the shed and he said come on over, something something fun. She didn’t see his face, but who else would it be, out in the country like they were?

They swallowed their lunches in what seemed like three bites. Even with Charlie refilling both their milks, they were done in no time at all then ran to wash their faces. In the middle of scrubbing her cheeks, Sarah erupted into a nose-bleed.

Angela made her go into the living room and lean back on the couch, holding her nose to staunch the bleeding. Charlie ran in and out of the back door, checking on her every few minutes.

"Charlie! Don’t go far! I don’t want you out in that shed by yourself!"

"No, mama, I won’t." he would call out from the far side of the door, then vanish from her line of sight.

He’d pop in after another few minutes, then back out again.

On his next trip in, he grabbed two pieces of bread.

"Charlie!? What do you need with bread? Did you not eat enough lunch?"

"No, mama, I did. This is for … it’s a secret …"

"Secret? Charlie, you tell me now or stay inside."

"It’s for the man with the hat."

Oh, Lord, Angela said under her breath. She thought Charlie was done with his imaginary "man with the hat" stories. It had been, what … six months since he’d mentioned him last. He was the perfect excuse for anything Charlie wanted to get away with, and that was a lot of things. Eventually, they got tired and lazy and decided that as long as it wasn’t unsafe, he could do what he wanted with his invisible "man with the hat."

She skewered him with her eyes and he didn’t flinch. He was, at least, committed to the story.

She sighed. Things could be worse. "Does the man with the hat need a soda to wash that bread down?"

Charlie brightened. "Can he have one!?"

"Don’t let him walk off with the empty bottle. It's worth a nickel."

"Oh, he won’t."

I know he won’t, she thought, not unless you lose it.

She pinched Sarah’s nose herself. Whatever Sarah was doing wasn’t getting the job done.

Angela glanced down at her watch. If Charlie was true to form, he’d be back in within minutes to ask for something more – a snack to go with the drink, maybe a piece of fruit … and her waiting wasn’t in vain.

Charlie raced in, out of breath, and just stood there panting for a moment.

"What does the man with the hat want now, Charlie?"

"Nothing. I’m just coming in to check on Sarah. He’s gone into the shed for a nap, so I wanted to see if she was still not feeling good."

"You probably ought to count her out for a while, Charlie. You and the man with the hat will have to get by without her for a bit." It rankled her a little to acknowledge this "man with a hat" but it was easier than arguing the storyline at every turn.

"Uh-huh, okay …."

This time he paused at the back door.

"Can we play games in the storm cellar when he wakes up?"

"What kind of … yes, Charlie, you can play games."

With that, he trotted out the door and down the back steps.

Her eyes followed him. He skipped across the yard, making up his own sing-song yell, "Come one, come on, she said it’s okay, we can play down there today!"

Curiosity got the better of her, and she stretched to keep him in sight without letting go of Sarah’s nose. She could see twenty yards around him and there was nobody else there. No body and no thing in all that space, but for Charlie and the cellar.

She looked back to Sarah. The blood was finally begrudgingly, starting to clot, which was good, because her fingers were starting to get stiff.

She heard the counterweight for the cellar door spin the flywheel once, and then again as the door re-closed. Even if she didn’t see him clearly, she heard everything just fine – aside from the sound of the flywheel and weight, there was only one set of feet heading down the cellar steps.

Things were settling once again – Sarah was laying back on the couch reading, the book propped in front of her and kleenexes under her nose "just in case." Charlie was playing peacefully, off by himself in the cellar. All was good in Angela's world for a few minutes. She made a big glass of iced tea and flipped through her magazine at the kitchen table.

"Mama, I think Charlie is being bad in the cellar." Sarah sounded like she might drop off for a nap at any moment. Angela didn’t mind. Any time you can get a ten year old to take a nap is golden time. At least both kids were being calm and quiet. Charlie was eight. For him to be quiet for half an hour, much less take a nap, was especially rare.

"He’s fine, Sarah. He’s just playing by himself. Another ten minutes and you can probably go join him."

"You should check on him."

"He’s fine, Sarah. Just leave him be. There’s nothing in the cellar he can get in trouble with."

"You’d be surprised."

"Then I’ll be surprised.

Angela had another ten minutes of peace and quiet, just long enough to finish the two articles she was interested in. She flattened the creases back out of the magazine and laid it on the done stack in her reading basket.

"Cookies, Sarah?"

"Yes, ma’am."

"Chocolate chip or Oreos."

"Mmmm… can I have some of both?"

"Uh-huh."

"Milk or lemonade?"

"Milk, silly! How can I dunk my cookies in lemonade?" Sarah stumbled in from the living room with a sleepy giggle and threw herself into a chair at the table. She was still looking pretty pale, which was unusual from a nose bleed. Maybe they’d exerted themselves down at the creek more than she’d thought.

Angela got Sarah’s snack ready, and the same for Charlie, but on a Dixie cup and paper plate. The one thing she didn't need in the cellar was a broken plate or cup.

Sarah saw the other plate and got quiet.

"Is Charlie coming back up?"

"I thought I’d take his snack down."

Sarah just nodded and looked out the window.

"This would be a good time, mama. Please."

The wind almost flipped the plate of cookies when Angela shuffled things to hold plate and cup as well as open the cellar door.

She hoisted the door, and before it could drop down again, propped it with the rake for her quick trip down and back up.

There were no lights on in the cellar.

"That Charlie … silly …" Angela thought.

"Charlie! What are you doing sitting down here in the dark? You could trip over something. She got to the bottom of the stairs and flipped the light switch, and the little forty watt bulb buzzed itself awake.

Charlie was seated in his old school desk, turned away from the door, staring right at the big canning shelves filled with dill pickles, tomatoes, asparagus, and a half dozen other things they’d put up early in the year.

"Charlie, baby, stop being silly and leave the light on. I brought you some cookies and milk.

She rounded the desk and stopped in surprise. He had been drawing on some construction paper, just some daisy-like flowers, but they were pretty good for being done in the dark. Maybe he’d only just turned the light off. She squatted down to talk for a moment and to put his plate and cup on the desk.

After surprise came alarm.

"Charlie! How long since your nose started bleeding! You should have called me, honey, or come back in, and we’d have taken care of it." She started dabbing at his nose and squeezing the bridge like she did with Sarah. He was a little cold, which was unusual, since the cellar wasn’t.

Her eyes adjusted and she realized he was pale, too – even more pale than Sarah.

"Ohhh, Charlie … let’s get you upstairs. You don’t look good at all."

She cupped his chin to get a better look, and he turned away, his red-rimmed eyes going back to the snack, his nose dripping red onto the plate.

"Did she already have hers?"

"What, baby?"

"Her snack."

"She just started, Charlie, why?"

"The man in the hat was just telling me this morning about how it would be funny if I put some mouse food in our snacks, then let her have some first. He said it would make her dizzy and silly and it would be fun. Then I could have some once I saw how much fun it was. I wasn’t sure but he said it would be okay."

"Charlie … where is the man in the hat?"

"He was right here, mama. He was whispering in my ear again right when you opened the cellar door."

She listened. She didn’t even have to look. The cellar wasn’t big enough to need to look around. All you have to do is listen to know if someone was there, and they weren’t. Not a man, not a man in a hat, not even a hat. J ust Charlie and her.

"Oh … honey …." She knew she had to move. She had to grab Charlie and run up the stairs to Sarah, but her legs didn’t seem to have any power.

"Mama .. ?"

"Charlie …?"

"I didn’t want to wait. I just put a little in the milk for our lunch, then I had more with the soda I brought down. I wanted to run up and surprise you and Sarah. Then I got real tired. I wanted to run up, but the man said you’d be down in a while for me and I could just wait here."

Charlie coughed and sneezed at the same time, and the trickle became a stream down his face.

She knocked the cookies and milk off the desk trying to pick him up, his body like a big cold noodle. The cup rolled over to the shelves and stopped right next to an opened box of rat poison, a little drawing of a mouse in a fedora and trench coat on the front.

Mouse food.

The man in the hat.

She hoisted him from the desk like a man grappling an exhausted marlin & turned toward the steps.

The wind shook the door and the rake tumbled down the stairs.

The light narrowed and everything was black.

1, 2, 4, 14 fr the writing asks??

1. tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

i mean my first priority right now is catching up on the stuff from my writing slump - i have one more commission to wrap up, i got a couple charity commissions, i have a bunch of ask meme prompts that i never got to. things like that that i want to make sure get finished.

HOWEVER. at the moment my big project is outlining something for the d20 big bang. i have read a couple of mystery/thriller novels recently, which is not a genre i normally read, and i LOVE it. so now i’m trying to outline a mystery for the big bang. i’m hoping i can get a good, finished outline before signups so that i can prove To Myself that i can do this.

2. tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

i don’t actually know right now! like i said i am INCREDIBLY excited to try my hand at a mystery, but i’m not sure what’s up beyond that. i’m starting classes in like six weeks and i don’t know how that’s going to impact my writing. but i have a couple of drafts that i’d like to come back to, and also a couple of original anthology ideas that i always come back to whenever i just need Something to tool around with (i don’t know if anything will ever come of it, but it’s fun)

4. share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

oh man actually the second chapter of embodiment, the tma/counterweight fusion, has a lot of lines that i am SUPER happy with. i had a really hard time with that chapter because it took me forever to find the right voice - i went for a very tma-style serious voice for the first draft, and it wasn’t until the end of the draft that i threw in a joke and that unlocked everything. i rewrote the whole thing in 45 minutes flat with more character to it. anyways i like this line:

An earthquake is a disaster. But an earthquake under a reservoir? An earthquake underneath ground that’s eroded away, an earthquake that causes a flood? That’s a cataclysm. That’s a world washed clean. With any luck I’ll be remembered as the flood, but when have I ever been lucky?

because i think that, first of all, i found a good balance between austin walker and jonny sims, which is the Real challenge in writing this. and second of all, the erosion/earthquake metaphor was something i was happy with, but in my first draft i kept getting stuck on “sokrates isn’t either of those things, they’re what comes after” and i am not a terribly metaphorical person but i think this ended up being good

honorary mention: the “maybe i’m the impulse, maybe i’m the hand” line is something i’m really really happy with because i think it fits in with the web and the idea of manipulation/control

14. at what point in writing do you come up with a title?

there are two answers to this. i always have a title when i start; that is almost never the title that i publish with. a lot of the time it’s something that’s sort of tangentially related, normally a line from a song or a movie - my naddpod fic that ended up being five celebrations was originally “four weddings and a funeral,” because that was the right vibe. at some point, normally about 2/3 through a draft, i start thinking about titles, which nine times out of ten involves me just listing out song lyrics. normally i get a list of lyrics and then i narrow it down from there; if i’m really lost there’s a LOT of googling involved

Libra Quotes

Official Website: Libra Quotes

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• A libra is skilled enough to be one step ahead, but make you believe they are one step behind. – Anonymous. • Confrontation is not written in Libra’s dictionary. – Unknown • Libra will travel with you and leave everything behind. – Unknown • A Libra is the right blend of beauty and brains to make the ideal lover. – Unknown • A Libra is usually generous, provided you don’t take advantage of that. – Unknown • A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but its persistence. – Jim Watkins • Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory. – George S. Patton • After the worst fight, Libra can always forgive you. – Unknown • All Libras’ speak at least five languages: english, love, sarcasm, truth, and justice. – Unknown • Although they are not always willing to talk, they always know how to listen. – Unknown • Any Libra hates being exposed to others. – Unknown • As a Libra you win people over with your charm. – Anonymous

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Wishing you a very happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Don’t ask Libra the end of a story; they’ll tell you everything. – Unknown • Don’t misact a Libra’s compassion for stupidity because they can see through all the bullshit. – Unknown • Don’t trust a Libra to look like they’re not getting it. – Unknown • Even though Libra is all goodness, they also know how to leave you speechless. • Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. – Og Mandino • For Libra, things aren’t always white or black. – Unknown • Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. – Mahatma Gandhi • I always wanted a gossipy friend and finally I got you and you are a Libra. . – Unknown • I am a Libra so I have to balance things. – Mark Viduka • I cannot keep calm because it is my Libra friend’s Birthday. . – Unknown • I think even great writers only write two books that you might like. When I think of my touchstone writers like Saul Bellow, I think of ‘Henderson the Rain King.’ With Don DeLillo, I think of ‘Libra.’ – Ethan Canin • If Libra doesn’t like you, they may be the most distant person on Earth. – Unknown • If Libra doesn’t say something, their face does all the work. – Unknown • If you love a Libra, you must accept them as they are. – Unknown • If you’ve pissed off a Libra, it’s because you’ve really tried. – Unknown • I’m a libra, I always have two sides of everything. – India Arie • I’m a Libra. If someone compliments me, I’ll say something nice to them. I like to give out compliments.- Amber Rose • I’m a Libra. I’m happy to be an air sign, but I do think I have a little too much air in my chart as a whole – some more water would be useful, especially in my personal life, as an emotional counterweight to all that abstraction. – Eleanor Catton • I’m a Libra. That means that I can make a decision, but only after much thought. – P. J. Harvey • I’m Libra and to mess with a libra will leave you nowhere. – YA Chhora • I’m pretty good at thinking about everything – all of my consequences – before I make a decision, and I think about everything that’s going to happen because of that decision. I’m a Libra, and I’m very strategic. – Hilary Duff • I’m the crazy Libra everyone warned you about! – Unknownn • I’m too much of a Libra. I too often see the other person’s point of view and capitulate, even though I have strong political convictions. It’s just my liability. Maybe I’m too empathetic. That’s the actor in me. – John Lithgow • In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can. – Nikos Kazantzakis • It’s really okay to not be a diplomat most of the time… not all can be a Libra, you know. – Unknown • Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground. – Theodore Roosevelt • Libra always like balance in every matter. And your balancing nature has helped a lot to continue our friendship when the time was so hard. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libra always maintains a balance between accountability and lighthearted nature. I am here to wish you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra always prefer to know each fact of the matter before reaching the final decision of any problem. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libra are known for even-tempered and gregarious. I am extremely lucky to have a Libra friend in my life. – Unknown • Libra are super sensitive and that is not your fault it is only because you were born Libra. – Unknown • Libra can be attracted by nice dressing and when they are treated best. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libra doesn’t say much, but if you listen carefully you’ll get to know them. – Unknown • Libra hates people who try to pretend. – Unknown • Libra hates routine and likes to do different things. – Unknown • Libra have a balance that is not always still. – Unknown • Libra have a big heart,and are the least selfish sign of the Zodiac. – Unknown • Libra is not allowed to hate, because it means to unbalance them. – Unknown • Libra is sanity, but with doses of madness in small amounts. – Unknown • Libra knows how to make others comfortable when they are in your company. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra may change their mind overnight. – Unknown • Libra want other to have fun and they are the finest people to get debilitated with. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra wants and can’t, Libra can and won’t. – Unknown • Libra wants to fly always high, but at the same time is dependent of others. – Unknown • Libra, pleasure can lead you to commit excesses. – Unknown • Libra: probably the most civilized sign of the zodiac. – Unknown • Libras are experts in conflict mediation, but not theirs. – Unknown • Libras are graceful, inventive, and understanding above all. Wishing my Libra friend a very happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libras are great listeners. They are sweet until you cross them. Happy Birthday my dear Libra Friend. . – Unknown • Libras are great therapists to others, but not to themselves. – Unknown • Libras are known for their devoted, thoughtful, effectuate, corporeal, appealing, influential, dependable and peaceful nature. Wishing my Libra Friend very Happy birthday. – Unknown • Libras are known for: DERISION, ADORE, REALITY and PROFANITY. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. May you live long and prosper. – Unknown • Libras are much more stronger and smarter than their appearance. Wishing you a very happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libras are not weak but they cannot please everyone. Wishing my sweet nature friend a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra’s are rarely wrong and they are usually right. So, arguing with them is pointless. – Unknown • Libras are stubborn but mostly when they are being mistreated. Wishing my stubborn friend a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra’s attraction to beauty goes beyond the physical. – Unknown • Libras enjoy small things, and the happiness of others. – Unknown • Libras hate to see others hurthing, but when you irritate them their temper can be destructive. – Anonymous • Libras like to be seductive, although they must learn to control themselves. – Unknown • Libras like to take risks! – Cardi B • Libra’s opinions don’t last long. – Unknown • Libras really love to stay free and this is the most important thing they need in any relationship. May you get the life partner who can understand your point of view about freedom. Wishing you a very happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libras receive great pleasure by pleasing and helping others. – Anonymous • My dear friend Libra..!! May your this birthday brings so many good bombshells, enjoyment, contentment and amusing. . – Unknown • Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • No need to give Libra orders. They won’t obey them anyway. – Anonymous • People who are born as Libra have family oriented mindset, energetic and have positive mindset. Wishing my dear Libra friend a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Pissa a libra off enough and you become invisible to them. – Unknown • Sometimes Libra’s sense of justice leads them to meddle in other people’s affairs. – Unknown • The elegance is as physical, as moral quality that has nothing common with the clothing. You can see a countrywoman more elegant than one so called elegant woman. – Karl Lagerfeld • The pleasure of arguing is not one of Libra’s natural attributes. – Unknown • The secret to getting ahead is getting started. – Mark Twain • The sense of justice is one of Libra’s greatest virtues, and also a flaw. – Unknown • The story of ‘Libra Scale,’ the storyline was created first, and then the music was created around the story line. – Ne-Yo • They’re not always sure of themselves, but they’re always sure of others. – Unknown • Though intelligent, Libras can stumble several times on the same stone. – Unknown • To know what a Libra is like in love, let yourself be seduced by them. – Unknown • When a Libra Loves you,they love you with their entire soul.They will always accommodate to make sure that happiness comes first, – Unknown • When Libra are upset, all calm is gone. – Unknown • When Libra is in a conflict, they always look for the middle ground. – Unknown • When Libras are left without any solid reason by their beloved ones then they are surely going to fight with them for their right. Wishing my fighter Libra friend a very Happy Birthday. • Why Libra personality is a warrior personality? – Sai Thanmae • You always wanted everyone to stay happy and that is the real you. I Happy that I have a Libra friend in my life. I am here to wish you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. – C.S. Lewis • You are so good at tolerating criticism. This is only because you were born Libra. – Unknown • You have always been undecided in each matter but I do not have any issue with that. I am always going to stay on your side because I have chosen you as my lifetime friend. I am happy that I have a Libra friend in my life. – Unknown • You never fail until you stop trying. – Albert Einstein • You won’t realize that a Libra is suffering until they tell you. – Unknown • Your over bearing nature put you in trouble and you need to change yourself in this concern. . – Unknown

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Libra Quotes

Official Website: Libra Quotes

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• A libra is skilled enough to be one step ahead, but make you believe they are one step behind. – Anonymous. • Confrontation is not written in Libra’s dictionary. – Unknown • Libra will travel with you and leave everything behind. – Unknown • A Libra is the right blend of beauty and brains to make the ideal lover. – Unknown • A Libra is usually generous, provided you don’t take advantage of that. – Unknown • A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but its persistence. – Jim Watkins • Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory. – George S. Patton • After the worst fight, Libra can always forgive you. – Unknown • All Libras’ speak at least five languages: english, love, sarcasm, truth, and justice. – Unknown • Although they are not always willing to talk, they always know how to listen. – Unknown • Any Libra hates being exposed to others. – Unknown • As a Libra you win people over with your charm. – Anonymous

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Libra', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_libra').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_libra img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Beauty and harmony are two indispensable attributes for Libra. – Unknown • Being a Libra, You don’t like to take decisions because you are mot good on that. – Unknown • Blaze all way to the Libra back to the cheater. – Anonymous • Do you the reason that why you have such a good taste. It is only because you were born Libra. Wishing you a very happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Don’t ask Libra the end of a story; they’ll tell you everything. – Unknown • Don’t misact a Libra’s compassion for stupidity because they can see through all the bullshit. – Unknown • Don’t trust a Libra to look like they’re not getting it. – Unknown • Even though Libra is all goodness, they also know how to leave you speechless. • Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. – Og Mandino • For Libra, things aren’t always white or black. – Unknown • Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. – Mahatma Gandhi • I always wanted a gossipy friend and finally I got you and you are a Libra. . – Unknown • I am a Libra so I have to balance things. – Mark Viduka • I cannot keep calm because it is my Libra friend’s Birthday. . – Unknown • I think even great writers only write two books that you might like. When I think of my touchstone writers like Saul Bellow, I think of ‘Henderson the Rain King.’ With Don DeLillo, I think of ‘Libra.’ – Ethan Canin • If Libra doesn’t like you, they may be the most distant person on Earth. – Unknown • If Libra doesn’t say something, their face does all the work. – Unknown • If you love a Libra, you must accept them as they are. – Unknown • If you’ve pissed off a Libra, it’s because you’ve really tried. – Unknown • I’m a libra, I always have two sides of everything. – India Arie • I’m a Libra. If someone compliments me, I’ll say something nice to them. I like to give out compliments.- Amber Rose • I’m a Libra. I’m happy to be an air sign, but I do think I have a little too much air in my chart as a whole – some more water would be useful, especially in my personal life, as an emotional counterweight to all that abstraction. – Eleanor Catton • I’m a Libra. That means that I can make a decision, but only after much thought. – P. J. Harvey • I’m Libra and to mess with a libra will leave you nowhere. – YA Chhora • I’m pretty good at thinking about everything – all of my consequences – before I make a decision, and I think about everything that’s going to happen because of that decision. I’m a Libra, and I’m very strategic. – Hilary Duff • I’m the crazy Libra everyone warned you about! – Unknownn • I’m too much of a Libra. I too often see the other person’s point of view and capitulate, even though I have strong political convictions. It’s just my liability. Maybe I’m too empathetic. That’s the actor in me. – John Lithgow • In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can. – Nikos Kazantzakis • It’s really okay to not be a diplomat most of the time… not all can be a Libra, you know. – Unknown • Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground. – Theodore Roosevelt • Libra always like balance in every matter. And your balancing nature has helped a lot to continue our friendship when the time was so hard. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libra always maintains a balance between accountability and lighthearted nature. I am here to wish you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra always prefer to know each fact of the matter before reaching the final decision of any problem. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libra are known for even-tempered and gregarious. I am extremely lucky to have a Libra friend in my life. – Unknown • Libra are super sensitive and that is not your fault it is only because you were born Libra. – Unknown • Libra can be attracted by nice dressing and when they are treated best. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libra doesn’t say much, but if you listen carefully you’ll get to know them. – Unknown • Libra hates people who try to pretend. – Unknown • Libra hates routine and likes to do different things. – Unknown • Libra have a balance that is not always still. – Unknown • Libra have a big heart,and are the least selfish sign of the Zodiac. – Unknown • Libra is not allowed to hate, because it means to unbalance them. – Unknown • Libra is sanity, but with doses of madness in small amounts. – Unknown • Libra knows how to make others comfortable when they are in your company. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra may change their mind overnight. – Unknown • Libra want other to have fun and they are the finest people to get debilitated with. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra wants and can’t, Libra can and won’t. – Unknown • Libra wants to fly always high, but at the same time is dependent of others. – Unknown • Libra, pleasure can lead you to commit excesses. – Unknown • Libra: probably the most civilized sign of the zodiac. – Unknown • Libras are experts in conflict mediation, but not theirs. – Unknown • Libras are graceful, inventive, and understanding above all. Wishing my Libra friend a very happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libras are great listeners. They are sweet until you cross them. Happy Birthday my dear Libra Friend. . – Unknown • Libras are great therapists to others, but not to themselves. – Unknown • Libras are known for their devoted, thoughtful, effectuate, corporeal, appealing, influential, dependable and peaceful nature. Wishing my Libra Friend very Happy birthday. – Unknown • Libras are known for: DERISION, ADORE, REALITY and PROFANITY. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. May you live long and prosper. – Unknown • Libras are much more stronger and smarter than their appearance. Wishing you a very happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libras are not weak but they cannot please everyone. Wishing my sweet nature friend a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra’s are rarely wrong and they are usually right. So, arguing with them is pointless. – Unknown • Libras are stubborn but mostly when they are being mistreated. Wishing my stubborn friend a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Libra’s attraction to beauty goes beyond the physical. – Unknown • Libras enjoy small things, and the happiness of others. – Unknown • Libras hate to see others hurthing, but when you irritate them their temper can be destructive. – Anonymous • Libras like to be seductive, although they must learn to control themselves. – Unknown • Libras like to take risks! – Cardi B • Libra’s opinions don’t last long. – Unknown • Libras really love to stay free and this is the most important thing they need in any relationship. May you get the life partner who can understand your point of view about freedom. Wishing you a very happy Birthday. . – Unknown • Libras receive great pleasure by pleasing and helping others. – Anonymous • My dear friend Libra..!! May your this birthday brings so many good bombshells, enjoyment, contentment and amusing. . – Unknown • Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • No need to give Libra orders. They won’t obey them anyway. – Anonymous • People who are born as Libra have family oriented mindset, energetic and have positive mindset. Wishing my dear Libra friend a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • Pissa a libra off enough and you become invisible to them. – Unknown • Sometimes Libra’s sense of justice leads them to meddle in other people’s affairs. – Unknown • The elegance is as physical, as moral quality that has nothing common with the clothing. You can see a countrywoman more elegant than one so called elegant woman. – Karl Lagerfeld • The pleasure of arguing is not one of Libra’s natural attributes. – Unknown • The secret to getting ahead is getting started. – Mark Twain • The sense of justice is one of Libra’s greatest virtues, and also a flaw. – Unknown • The story of ‘Libra Scale,’ the storyline was created first, and then the music was created around the story line. – Ne-Yo • They’re not always sure of themselves, but they’re always sure of others. – Unknown • Though intelligent, Libras can stumble several times on the same stone. – Unknown • To know what a Libra is like in love, let yourself be seduced by them. – Unknown • When a Libra Loves you,they love you with their entire soul.They will always accommodate to make sure that happiness comes first, – Unknown • When Libra are upset, all calm is gone. – Unknown • When Libra is in a conflict, they always look for the middle ground. – Unknown • When Libras are left without any solid reason by their beloved ones then they are surely going to fight with them for their right. Wishing my fighter Libra friend a very Happy Birthday. • Why Libra personality is a warrior personality? – Sai Thanmae • You always wanted everyone to stay happy and that is the real you. I Happy that I have a Libra friend in my life. I am here to wish you a very Happy Birthday. – Unknown • You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. – C.S. Lewis • You are so good at tolerating criticism. This is only because you were born Libra. – Unknown • You have always been undecided in each matter but I do not have any issue with that. I am always going to stay on your side because I have chosen you as my lifetime friend. I am happy that I have a Libra friend in my life. – Unknown • You never fail until you stop trying. – Albert Einstein • You won’t realize that a Libra is suffering until they tell you. – Unknown • Your over bearing nature put you in trouble and you need to change yourself in this concern. . – Unknown

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