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nightowlfandom · 4 years

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Prompto Argentum- Under The Waterfalls

These times may seem dark, but this too shall pass. I hope that I can work extra hard to brighten someone’s day throughout these next few weeks.

Masterlist here

Let’s Begin.

...

"You know what I just noticed?" you asked aimlessly to no one. It was probably one of the hottest days of the year and you and your friends had decided to just load up the car and take a drive somewhere. You didn't know if camping, hunting, chilling at the beach or whatever would come from this trip, but whatever happened was gonna be an adventure.

"What would that be?" Ignis chuckled from from front seat, already knowing what you were gonna say. It was a routine thing that you always did. You always found something about one of the guys you liked on a particular day. "What ever could it be this time?"

"Hold on, I'm thinking." you tapped your chin. "Gladio finally finished that 30 book series he was working on!" you suddenly said, looking over at the taller muscular guy who was nose deep in yet another book you probably didn't know the name of. "Ignis learned five new recipes this week! Noctis caught three rare fish in a row in the same place!" you continued.

"What about me?"

Prompto turned his head to look at you as he had been sitting in the front seat. He narrowed his eyes at you as if assuming you wouldn't have mentioned him in the first place. Call it paranoia, but you weren't too sure Prompto necessarily liked you. Sure he was nice and everything, but there was something about when you would try to talk to him. You didn't know if he just hadn't warmed up to you or secretly wanted you to get run over by a train.

"….Your hair is super floofy today!" you said. You resisted to urge to reach out your hand to touch it. "…and you have a Chocobo feather stuck too." you put a hand over your mouth to resist laughing too loudly.

"Huh?!?" he instantly turned away from you, looking in the side view mirror to see a large neon yellow feather stuck to the top of his hairstyle. "Awh man!" he groaned. "I'll ruin my hair if I try to take it out!"

"Then keep it in! I think it makes you look cool!" you commented!

"Really?" His tone had changed from partially annoyed to curious. "Like it works for me?"

"One hundred percent!" you replied.

"And that concludes thing 576 Y/N noticed today." Noctis joked, nudging your shoulder. "What will it be next week?"

"Now why would I reveal my secrets! That's something between me and well-….me!" you warned.

"Ah I see! A magician never reveals her secrets." Ignis laughed as he pulled the car to a stop.

"Camping…why am I not surprised." you grumbled lowly. There was a waterfall nearby the campsite. The water rushing through the river was crystal-like, clear as the cloudless sky. "At least it's not that disgusting swamp from last time."

"Yeah, I wonder whose idea that was." Gladio glared over at Noctis.

"It was the perfect fishing spot!" he protested.

You could only shake your head as you walked around to the trunk. You were about to grab one of the bags when a pale hand grabbed the hand before you could.

"I got this."

"Oh, Prompto! It's okay, I can carry it-" you tried to say.

" When a man offers you help, take it." was his reply. Without another word, he grabbed the other bag you had reached for then turned away, walking off to set up the tents. "Remember what happened last time." you could hear him mumbling. Of course he was referring to the time you grabbed something really heavy and took an entire ten minutes just to drag it along to the car.

"Right." you tried to laugh it off. You were left to your own devices after a while, the boys never asked you to help with anything. Them and their traditional ways. You tried to carry a cooler by yourself once, the next thing you know Ignis is scolding Noctis for letting you carry it alone. "Thanks for the tip." you mumbled sadly.

Okay, you may or may not have had a thing for Prompto since…well since you met him. You were really good at hiding it … from him. Only him in particular, he just didn't seem to like you much. Not even as an acquaintance. It felt like he only tolerated you because you were part of the team, but other than that. Did he even see you as a friend? Not in your eyes.

(Meanwhile)

"You did it again, idiot." Noctis flicked his best friend in the back of the head. Prompto threw down the bags, turning to face the raven-haired male.

"What are you talking about?"

He motioned towards you who was currently having a chat with Ignis who was setting up the cooking station. It took Prompto a second to register what he was referring too. When he realized it, he wound up kicking something.

"AAH FUCK!" he snapped, realizing he rammed his foot onto a boulder in the process. "Damn it!"

"For someone who threatens us on the daily to stay away from Y/N, you're doing a terrible job of marking your 'territory'." He used finger quotes. You didn't belong to Prompto, not even a little. However, the way he talked about you to the others had them thinking he was living in a fantasy land when he said you were off limits.

He didn't intend to come off and rude and mean but for some reason, he always did when it came to you. He didn't know how to explain it, other than the way he knew best. Stay away from you and there wouldn't be any problems. Ignis however must have decided to ignore such a demand.

He could only watch in fury as you laughed at something Ignis said. It must have been real funny because you were holding your sides.

"That little….four eyed miscreant!

"…Do you even know what miscreant means?"

"Shut up!"

...

By the time night fell, you were far from sleepy. You snuck off from the campsite with a towel and a change of clothes. Alone time! Sweet! That sweet waterfall was just begging to be dived into. You tip toed around the tents and as soon as you were far enough, began jogging towards the lake.

You tilted your head to look up at the waterfall. You could see the moon peeking out from the mist of water that followed the falls down to the clear pool. You set down your stuff at the edge of the lake.

Off came your shoes, then your pants, then the shirt. You turned your head towards the campsite. You could barely make out the tents from afar. "It'll be fine." you unclasped your bra. "Not like they're gonna wake up any time soon." you mumbled, letting it fall to the grass. "Off you go demons." you let your undergarments fall to the ground. Without a second thought, you jumped into the water, making a huge splash. You just prayed none of your stuff got wet.

As you surfaced, you allowed yourself to just float for a moment. You stared up at the night sky, it was clear and cloudless. The stars scattered across the sky and the moon was so close you felt like you could touch it with your fingers. The moonlight shone down on the waters, casting a glow over you and everything around you. You waded over to the waterfall, moving behind it to peek out of the distorted lens. You reached out your hand to touch the falling droplets. You sat yourself on a rock, kicking your legs in the slightly warm water. Nothing could possibly ruin this peaceful moment-

"You should be sleeping."

You turned your head to the left, only to see a half dressed Prompto. Apparently he had found the back entrance to the lake. Both of you were hidden from the open space behind the falls, so it didn't worry you too much, but that didn't explain why he was here.

"HOLY SH-!" you instantly crossed your arms over your chest, covering your breasts. " What are you doing!?"

"Hey! It's only me!" You watched his and he unbuckled his belt. "And keep your voice down! You'll wake everyone up."

"D-don't take off your clothes!" you began freaking out. "I was trying to relax here!." you whined.

"Am I not allowed to relax too?" he pulled down his pants and threw them over a rock.

"Not when I'm practically naked!" you snapped. "Did you follow me?"

"I saw you leaving, I just wanted to make sure you were alright!"

"Why would you do that? " you scoffed, turning your head away from him. "You barely even like me." That also didn't explained why he was currently stripping down to his birthday suit!

"You don't know what I like."

"Well I know how you act towards me. It's enough."

Prompto peeled off what was left of his clothes and got into the water. His ducked his head under the waterfall, drenching his hair. He ran his hands through those blonde locks, washing all his stress away. He seemed to not be phased by the situation at all. "You gonna stare at me all day or what?"

"Please. I wasn't looking at you." you lied through your teeth. Yeah, that was believable. You both were literally two feet away from each other, which was really close now that you really thought about it. You turned your head the other way. Whatever, no way in hell were you leaving.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said after a while.

"Very."

There was an awkward silence between you two. You had never been left alone with Prompto before, and especially not in the nude.

"Been a while since I got to just enjoy a night like this."

"Tell me about it." you replied with a laugh. "Seems like we're always busy with something. Wouldn't be surprised if we had something to do in the morning." you turned your head towards him to find him running his hands through his dripping wet hair.

"Don't jinx it, because it actually might happen." He cracked a smile for the first time since he got there.

"Just stating facts." you slowly turned your head so you were looking straight at him. Your arms were still crossed, forbidding him from seeing anything. "You know how Ignis is with his missions."

"Where the lie in that?" He joked, making you laugh as well. Prompto tried to not let his eyes wander. "Why did you run off anyways?"

"Like I said, this is probably the only time I'll have to myself for a while. I'm taking advantage of it." you shrugged. "Speaking of Ignis, he was talking about you today."

"About what?" He narrowed his eyes into a glare. "What did specs say about me this time?"

"It wasn't anything bad. He was just talking about you liking me or something." you giggled at the thought. "I was laughing because of how unrealistic that thought was. You'd think for such a smart guy, Ignis would make his observations more clear. No way in hell would the be possible, right?"

Prompto stared blankly at you. He went from staring to slowly taking a step, then another then another. It was almost predatory with how he was moving in the water.

"Uh….right?" you nervously laughed again. "P-prompto?" you tightened your arms across your chest to the point where it was starting to ache. You were slowly but surely growing more and more nervous.

"Wrong." were his last words before he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you close to his warm body. He abruptly pressed his lips against yours. It felt kind of weird since he was anchoring his body over your arm, so you lowered them. Your felt your breasts push up against his broad chest as he comfortably tightened his arms around your waist. He was surprised how easily you melted into his touch but happy nonetheless. It took all your strength to not collapse against the rocks. You ran your fingers against his wet hair, gently pulling at each strand. You heart at this point was racing a million miles a minute

When Prompto pulled away, his entire face has flushed a deep pink color. Whether from embarrassment or lust, you couldn't tell. He stared down at you with hooded eyes and an unreadable expression. "You look so-…so damn hot right now."

The way your chest rose and fell so heavily, your innocent expression, those water droplets traveling down your neck, drip down your chest. "W-wait. Don't you have a thing for Cindy?"

"Used to." he corrected. "That changed a long, long time ago. Now all I can think of is you. All I fucking want is you." He began trailing prolonged sloppy kisses on your shoulder. You tilted your head to the side to give him more access to your shivering skin. You absentmindedly wrapped your legs around his waist, giving him permission to go further with his actions. "I can see you feel the same way." he laughed. Only this wasn't his usual happy-go-lucky laugh. His voice was deep, vibrating almost. He almost sounded like he was growling with every word. "My question is…how far are you going to let me take this."

(….Yeah I couldn't finish this or else this would have been longer than a Game Of Thrones book. So what happens next is left to your discretion. See you next post.)

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iblue-kitzune · 5 years

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Of Rising Calamities Beyond the Cosmos: Chapter 1

There was a great storm approaching—one big enough to cover all of the islands that were scattered across the vast deep blue sea.

At least, that’s what the travelers and the wildlife had said not too long ago.

Even within the depths of an eerie dark cave, one that she was currently exploring at the moment, their whispers reached her sensitive ears. She immediately stopped her in her tracks.

And despite being in the middle of discovering something in this mysterious dungeon that was incredibly too damp and filled to the brim with god knows what, aside from the occasional wild animals or monsters that came out of nowhere to attack her—interrupting her search on nearly every floor she went through only to piss her off when one of the bastards got a lucky hit in and ripped a hole through her favorite sleeveless jacket, which earned him a quick ticket to hell, the young woman listened.

She listened to their warnings, their calls of distress that were laced with fear and worry. With a disappointed sigh, the young woman flicked her right hand and made her ruined jacket disappear into one of her many dimensional pockets.

‘I will come back here and try again next time,’ she promised in her mind right before she vanished from the cave in a flash of blue-white light.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chaotic streaks of white lightning danced across the midnight blue sky in waves, bringing along its rumbling call of thunder that spooked those roaming around down below into action, and a downpour rain that soaked them to the bone.

A sudden flash of lightning struck, hitting the boulders on an empty port near a beach covered in coconut trees that stood tall in the very back where the exit was, shattering it into pieces with its powerful force. Unfortunately, this scared off the many critters and birds hiding up in the trees into the forest, heading right for the valley that was connected to this place.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fighting against the sudden force from a gust of wind that came and nearly swept them off their feet, the animals on ground floor ran on —a bit with slight difficulty— while those up in the crackling air flew on and on. Their high-pitched cries, roars, and caws echoed across the valley filled with shimmering huge trees, giant boulders, and stonehenge pillars that glowed lavender underneath direct light, colorful wildflowers that danced from side-to-side in timing with the blowing of the wind, bright blue rivers that sparkled ever so radiantly at night whenever the full moon or stars came out to play, and a mountain with snow covered tops that stretched far and wide over an area where a beautiful silver-blue and white citadel lay in waiting at the bottom near a waterfall.

It was a place that not only held an entire city inside, but it was a city that housed a couple of special schools and academies too—with at least eight of them being well-known throughout the whole world. However, out of those eight, only four of them taught both academics and magic. The type where students can receive their education and learn how to fight all in the same building.

And because of that, these institutions were considered by many to be one of the best. Why, some of the most brilliant people and warriors have graduated from here—some even came back years later and tutored here or taught classes here, after they went on and got their doctorate’s degree out of the way, elsewhere, that is.

Unfortunately, due to the location of this place, considering where it’s situated at and all, the fortress tends to get attacked by the local wildlife and monsters living in the area or get hit with thunderstorms and blizzards every once in a while.

ZZZOWP!

“Caw!” startled cries escaped from a flock of birds when a bright bluish-white light appeared above their heads. Then with wide beady little eyes, they watched the light disappear only for a human woman with long dark brown hair and golden brown-amber eyes to appear out of it and fall past them, heading for one of the high tower bridges of the citadel below them.

“A thunderstorm huh? That’s odd,” she commented once she grabbed a hold of the bridge’s railing and lifted herself up and over it...

Only to get hit by something small and hard.

“Ow!” she looked up with a grimace and paused. “What in the—hail too?! Yeesh! This is just not my day huh?” the young brunette complained, wincing in pain when she felt a few more drops of hail hit her on the head just as she ducked underneath the surface and took cover on the third’s highest floor she was on.

“It’s a good thing I choose this floor and not the damaged one with cracks in it above me...” she mumbled. “Or the top floor where I definitely could’ve gotten more soaked.”

BOOM!

“Caw! Caw!” more birds flew past her vision overhead.

However, she was concerned about other things at the moment.

‘Let’s see...’

The young woman took the time to make sure her clothes didn’t get ruined any further then they did earlier during her scuffles with the monsters.

‘Hmm…it’s not too bad I guess...’ she said, eyeing the tiny creases mixed in with the stains of dried blood —not hers— on her wet tube top. ‘I’ll have Darcy wash it and fix Friday since it will be her turn for laundry day,’ she added and continued her inspection.

Once she was satisfied and found nothing else amiss, the young woman turned and made a beeline towards the nearest pillar that came with a bench.

“Much better,” a relieved sigh left her mouth as she sat down and closed her eyes.

It was quiet for the first two minutes—save for the small occasional boom of thunder and whispers of the wind, but she didn’t mind any of that at all. She was just glad to be out of the weather for now. Well, at least before she had to go back out there again and head—

“Hey Dr. Foster!”

Damn. So much for peace and quiet.

“Jane!”

“There you are!”

She opened her eyes and looked over to see two of her friends and an old familiar face, one that she hasn’t seen in years, heading in her direction.

The first one to stop in front of her sitting form was a semi-tall woman with shoulder-length black hair, heterochromia eyes –with her right one being red while the left one was blue—, and a small scar running across the bridge of her nose. She wore white and black clothing with gold accents, some rider goggles around her neck, which sat over the red jeweled necklace she had on, and was armed from head-to-toe.

Next to the woman, a young man stood tall with spiky faux-hawk like white hair, blue eyes, and a cybernetic arm. He wore a dark blue hooded jacket over a dark crimson red shirt, black pants, and some black military-style combat boots.

Like his friend, he was also armed, but not as much as she was.

And finally in the back, an older man stood there in some kind of purple collared shirt and golden color tie underneath a dark blue business suit with his arms crossed against his chest. He had spiky brown hair, brown eyes, and a small beard forming under his chin.

And unlike the two in front of him, he was not armed at all.

But that didn’t mean anything seeing as not everyone carried some type of weapon or weapons on their person, and if they did, some of them wouldn’t even choose to have them hanging out in plain sight.

This is something that Jane knew all too well.

In fact, she, too, carried a few weapons on her person.

“Lady…” she finally spoke, nodding at the dark haired woman, “Nero…” and white haired man in greeting. “Alvin…” the young woman gave the brown haired man a quick nonchalant glance, ignoring his sudden slouched stance, and turned her attention back on her friends. “You two were looking for me?” she asked curiously.

“Yeah! Lady and I thought you were still out there in that cave you told us about over the phone earlier,” Nero answered. “But seeing as you’re here now, safe and sound from the storm, I guess there’s no point in coming to look for you anymore.”

Jane laughed at the small sheepish look on his face, “No, I guess not.”

“Told you, Nero! I knew she’d be fine,” Lady teased and gave the young man next to her a smug look.

Nero lightly glared at her. “Oh now you’re going to lie, huh, Lady? Admit it! You were worried too! That’s why you wanted to come with me.”

“I—I was not that worried.”

“Yes, you were!”

“No, I wasn’t!”

Jane hid a nostalgic smile behind her hand, silently laughing at the two as a small argument broke out between them. Even if she hadn’t seen these two and the other devil hunters back in Red Grave City in a long while, they were still just like how she remembered them.

Well, at least these two were. She didn’t know how Dante, Vergil, Trish, Kyrie, and Nico were doing or what they were up to these days, aside from slaying demons and all that.

‘Guess it’s time I pay them a visit in the near future. Maybe I’ll even run into Erik while I’m over there too.’

Though speaking of visits...

Jane ignored Lady and Nero’s ongoing friendly argument for the moment and turned her sights on the older man who observed the “fight” in front of him with slight amusement.

It isn’t every day that the so called ex-mercenary –which he told her this in one of their old letters and among other things, such as the friends he made and how his life had finally turned around for him— comes down here to pay her a personal visit unless he had some information on him that he wanted to share with her.

“Alvin.”

The professional tone of her voice drew all of their attention towards her.

“Yo?”

“I know you usually don’t frequent visits to Earth unless you either have something to give to me or doing business down here, so which one is it?” she asked with crossed arms. “Actually, how did you even know where to look for me? I could’ve been back at home in London for all you know, so how?”

Alvin slowly yet nonchalantly corrected his stance and slipped his hands in his pockets. “Well you can thank your bubbly, little lovely lady friend with the sunglasses and the good-looking, eccentric rich guy with a nice beard and an ego the size of Texas for me. I told them I was an old friend of yours and was looking for you, and they so kindly directed me towards this nice little island here!” he chirped with a grinning smile.

Despite the urge to face palm or roll her eyes, the young woman kept her composure.

On the inside, however…

‘Damn it, Darcy! Tony!’

The smirk on Alvin’s face dipped a bit when he caught sight of the change of Jane’s expression on her face. “Hey Jane, what’s wrong—”

“Alvin?” Lady interrupted, immediately catching the man’s attention. “That’s your name, right?”

“Yep! That’s right!”

“Okay, Alvin. For one, you never told us your name when we ran into you earlier. And number two, you never told us that Jane was an old friend of yours other than “she’s someone I know” and “I’m here to see her too”…”

The spiky brown haired blinked. “Ah well…” he paused and gave the young black haired woman a small charming grin. “You never asked,” he stated, casually shrugging his shoulders.

Jane could see the irritation starting to settle in both Nero and Lady’s eyes. So before any of them could blow up on the man even though he probably deserved it for playing his usual games on people that he meets, she decided to jump in and save the poor guy.

‘Just this once,’ she sighed heavily, which ended up attracting all of their attention back on her again.

“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you, Alvin?” Jane gave the man a pointed look, and he just laughed in response. “Oh good grief. I see you haven’t changed that much in that department,” she shook her head, much to the confusion of her two friends who looked so lost and didn’t know what was going on between her and Alvin.

“Jane—”

“Don’t worry about it, Nero…” Jane reassured the white haired devil hunter with a smile when he turned to look at her in question. “Alvin was just messing you and Lady. That’s all,” she clarified for him.

“…O…kay?” poor Nero still looked confused.

And as for Lady, she wasn’t even going to question it.

“Alright, enough of the fun and games you guys. Shouldn’t we discuss the weather situation at hand here?”

BOOM!

All of them suddenly jumped from the loud sound then got startled by the multiple flashes of lightning, which struck a top part of the mountain nearby. And the thought of being way up there, anywhere near that area, made them flinch a bit.

‘That could’ve easily been one of us.’

They were now suddenly thankful for being down here instead, where they would at least be safe and out of striking distance.

Alvin hummed, a somber expression growing on his face as he turned to look at three, although his eyes were more so locked onto Jane’s. “She’s right you know,” he said in a murmur. “And as a matter of fact, I do actually have something for you, Dr. Foster.”

Jane returned his expression.

“Let’s hear it then.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Taking the Tesseract sounded brilliant in his mind at first. When he and the others saw Stark grab his chest in pain and crumble to the ground right in front of them, he immediately became puzzled…and a tiny bit suspicious. The injured god had no idea if this was some sort of trick, but he ignored them as soon as his faux brother and his new band of mortal friends, along with a few others, ran to the Man of Iron’s aid. Instead, he, without turning around, focused a little bit of his attention on one of the mortals behind him and the soldiers, calling out something along the lines of “Help!” and “Can someone get this guy here a medic please!”.

Then, before he could even comprehend what the hel was going on, a bang went off in the background and something flew across the floor and hit his boot, making him look down. And he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the Tesseract! It was just...sitting there! Sitting oh so innocently on the floor and not in that strange metal looking case like it should’ve been earlier.

He couldn’t ignore the temptation, and immediately took action. The God Mischief looked around to make sure that no one was looking at him, and when they weren’t, he bent down to retrieve the glowing cube in his cuffed hands and activated it, immediately blinking out of their existence.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Well that went surprisingly…well, the raven haired god mused in his mind as he traveled through space and time. He thought for sure his little plan would blow up in his face considering that he hastily threw it all together in like, what, a split few seconds. But it didn’t! And, honestly, it shocked him.

Oh well, he wasn’t going to give any more thought to those incompetent fools now that he’s escaped from their hold.

‘Wait a minute...’ and the realization of something else, something incredible, flew through his mind just then.

There was no going back to Asgard now…

No going back to The Other or the Black Order…

And, most definitely, no going back to Thanos and his Chitauri army to deliver the news of his failed mission, which he was sure by now that the Titan knew and will more than likely punish him for it—but still!

He was free!

For once, he was actually happy. And although he couldn’t remember the last time something had gone right for him, the god wasn’t going to let his own pessimistic thoughts or the “what-ifs” –that were currently flowing through his mind right now— ruin the rest of his day.

He could go wherever he pleased and they wouldn’t be able to catch up with him—not without Tesseract though, which was in his possession now. So with that in mind, he willed the powerful glowing blue cube to take him somewhere to safety and slowly closed his eyes.

‘Just a quick rest,’ he thought to himself as the cube glowed in response to his wish and teleported him out of the area.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The raven haired god knew something went wrong the moment he sensed a couple of hostile auras in the area, and so, he opened his tired, weary eyes only to come face-to-face with an army of familiar alien battleships with their weapons aimed directly at him.

Oh for Valhalla’s sake! He knew it was too good to be true! Stupid Loki for believing that sweet, sweet victory and freedom was within his grasps! And damn the Tesseract for dropping him here in the heat of fire instead of somewhere else.

Somewhere that’s safe.

Bah! Trust that blasted cube to betray him now. It’s like the thing wanted to get rid of him or something.

And now these fools demanded that he hand over cube unless he wanted to become space dust? Ha! Do these people really think they could—

“Quit trying our patience, false Asgardian prince! Surrender the Tesseract now or we will fire!”

He sighed. ‘You really are a lot of trouble you know that right?’ the god looked down at the infinity stone in his hands and pondered over this new situation he landed himself in. Even though Loki resented the cube at this present moment and wanted nothing more than to rid himself of it, that didn’t mean he wanted to hand it over to Thanos’ cronies.

There was a reason why he made sure he purposely failed his takeover of Midgard and still made it look like it wasn’t his fault that the mission went south. He knew the Mad Titan wanted the Tesseract, and wanted it badly. He knew that Thanos wanted the other stones too. The guy and his army were still searching for them—and have been for a long time now. Sure, he didn’t know why they were looking for them in the first place, but Loki had a feeling that it wasn’t for anything good at all.

And he trusted that gut feeling of his, so maybe it was sort of a good thing Thanos never told him what his true plans were.

‘Trust...and loyalty... He never had mine to begin with and I never had his. Good. I didn’t need it or wanted it anyway. Only a fool would give either of the two away and expect me, in return, to fully hand over mine, especially over a deal or a promise.’

The god sighed once he finally made up his mind. He just hoped to Gods that he wasn’t going to get killed for this since his seidr was severely low at this point.

He closed his eyes once more and shook his head.

They didn’t seem to like that response as their cannons started glowing with built-up energy, and they demanded through the intercom, for the final time, to give them the Tesseract.

Instead of shaking his head again, Loki opened his green eyes and took a page out of the Midgardians’ hands—something that he’d witnessed before during his time in the void when he was spying on Midgard. He lifted both of his cuffed hands up—while letting the Tesseract go to hover in place before him— and shoved them forward with his middle fingers raised high up in the air.

And to add further insult to injury, the God of Mischief stuck his tongue out at them and waved good-bye before he quickly grabbed the glowing cube and bolted.

When they realized what the god had just done—let alone have the nerve to do it without even speaking to them telepathically, which they knew Loki was quite capable of it, the group chased after him in pure rage.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

‘Oh shit…’ he suddenly and uncharacteristically cursed in his mind when the battleships quickly caught up to him and started rapidly firing at him.

Despite his weakened appearance, Loki managed to dodge all of the blasts and with the little bit of seidr he had left, willed his body to change.

In a flash of green light, he transformed himself into a griffin and transferred his hold on the Tesseract over to his tail and flew off. ‘What the—’ the god narrowed his eyes in deep annoyance when he realized that the blasted contraption attached to his beak was still on. He thought for sure the muzzle would break under the force of pressure due to his body changing, but it didn’t.

In his exhaustion and rage, he completely forgot to dodge the next set of beams and got bombarded from all sides.

BOOM!

Before the battleships could proceed forward, a bright blue light exploded from within the smoke cloud and blinded everyone.

ZZZZZPPT!

When the light in the huge receding smoke cloud died down and the Black Order along with the Chitauri inside opened their eyes and looked out the window of their ships, they found the Tesseract and Loki Laufeyson, who they’d once thought was dead, no longer there.

They were gone now.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

‘Where…a…are…y…ou…ta…taking me?’

The cube was silent.

‘Fine…whatever…’ he truly wasn’t in the mood to try and argue with an inanimate object that held some form of sentience and a lot of power.

With his energy completely spent and his body slightly numb from the waist down, he couldn’t move.

He couldn’t do anything!

Then his vision blurred, and Loki found himself falling for a second time.

Why was he not surprised by this? He thought he would be. But then he remembered something, something so minuscule that really shouldn’t matter at all. Why should it?

But still...it was something so important that it should never, ever, be forgotten.

The Norns hated him. They always did. And that will never change. He was sure of it.

So in conclusion, this must be their doing. They must want him to fail and perish.

……….

.....

Well then, if he died during the fall—or after, this time around, so be it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“—So it’s like that in other parts of the world other than here, on Snow Lunar Island, and London huh?”

“Yeah, pretty much, Kid.”

“That’s a bit concerning to hear then...”

Jane stayed quiet as her two friends spoke up after Alvin just got done explaining the news he had for them. She had to agree with Lady though. It was one thing for the island to experience frequent thunderstorms such as this, but for places such as Puente Antiguo, New York City, Stuttgart, Sokovia, Wakanda, Norway, and many others to experience this same kind of storm, and mimic its intensity at the same time too, was —she wasn’t going to lie— a little alarming.

It was practically unheard...

And to make matters worse, if she recalled correctly, it stormed the day she got here. Hard. Really hard. And sure, she was a couple of days late because of delays and all, but at least she and the other passengers on the ship made it to Snow Lunar Island, safe and sound.

That happened about six months ago, and since then, it has stormed over a total of four times already—with this one being the fifth, Jane realized with a start.

It just now dawned on her that the storms never really went away. At best, they lasted for about a couple of days before they died down, only to pick right back up where they left off again, a few weeks later.

It was an ongoing chaotic cycle. Rinse and repeat until...

‘Today...’ she said, looking uneasily at the sparks of white-blue lightning running along the thick dark clouds in the rainy sky, mixed in with the hail that fell through the cracks within.

“I don’t know if Mother Nature’s been PMS-ing lately or whatever, but this, THIS, I can guarantee you is not normal! All of the animals and other creatures I’ve come across lately have been going stir crazy! Hell, even the demons that Lady, I, and everyone else have slayed on our past missions gone bonkers! More so than usual in fact! It’s more than a little nerving I will admit, but I shit you not, the last mission I went, the Old Man, Pops, and I witnessed a fucking Blitz —which is an elite demon in terms of being the strongest of ranks mind you— running around in circles like a damn headless chicken. And you wanna know what it did next? It fucking kamikazed itself with us right there! And while I’m sure it definitely noticed our presence there, it didn’t care enough to turn around and attack us!” Nero’s shouting broke the young woman out of her thoughts.

Lady was shocked, “That’s...”

Nero continued, “Let me tell you...that was undeniably one of the most bizarre-st of things I have ever witnessed in my entire career of demon hunting. Seriously, you know something’s gone wrong when even the blind one ignores the Sons and the Grandson of Sparda in favor of something else and decides to off itself.”

“You know...I think I remember witnessing something similar a while back like that out here...except, it was a behemoth arctic dragon and not a demon. The poor thing looked so scared too. I literally witnessed the dragon throw itself off a cliff and into a pool of hot lava in the other cave I was exploring not too far away from here. It was awful,” Jane threw her own two cents in.

Nero and the other two turned to her, horrified.

“Yeah! See what I mean guys?!”

“Okay, that is disturbing...” Alvin and Lady said in unison. “I can’t even begin to imagine...” they trailed off, unable to finish their thoughts.

Jane nodded solemnly, and turned away. In a way, she supposed it was a good thing that neither one of them weren’t there to see and hear the reptilian monster’s shrieks of agony as it was burned alive...

Or experience the horror and helplessness she felt after when its body finally melted and sunk under the lava, cooling its boiling surface as a fog of mist rolled up and covered the area.

...That image gave her plenty of nightmares. And still does to this day, but not as much, thankfully.

“Every monster, animal, and creature out there, except for the majority of us “humans”, knows what’s up. They sense...something. I think it’s about time we should do the same because I don’t think this weather is going to get better anytime soon. At the rate this storm’s going...if it continues to get worse...worse than what’s happening right now, then I’m afraid we’ll all be in real big trouble,” Nero finished.

Alvin and Lady nodded.

“There’s also the issue with increased activity of anomalies happening up there that we need to worry about too,” Jane pointed out.

Nero looked and blinked at her, “You mean up in space?”

Jane nodded.

“You’ve been keeping track of them, haven’t you? I thought you were supposed to be on break?” Lady gave her an exasperated look. “Wait...? Are you even on vacation or...”

The young brunette frowned, “Of course I’m on vacation. But that’s not going to completely stop me from doing work or making new exciting discoveries out here!”

The men shook their heads with a sweat drop while the devil huntress put hers down with a sigh.

“Oh Jane, what are we ever gonna do with you...”

Before the young scientist could come up with some kind of sarcastic response or retort, her body tensed up.

And so did Nero’s.

‘What in the world...’ their eyes went wide in shock when they felt an overwhelming amount of energy appear on their radar, and it nearly crippled them to their knees not only because of how raw and powerful it was, but because of how darn close it was too. Like it was heading towards—

Lady narrowed her eyes and placed a hand on the shoulder strap holding up her Kalina Ann —that was placed on her back— when she saw Jane and Nero turn their attention to the sky.

“You two sense something?” she asked, following their lead with her own eyes.

Without looking away or say anything, the two nodded.

“What the hell is that?!” Alvin blurted out, pointing a finger at the changing colors of the dark sky.

“Is that an aurora borealis forming?”

“I believe so.”

They couldn’t believe their eyes. Right before them, the rainy sky glowed once, then twice, and thrice. And suddenly, one by one, a stream of blue, green, yellow, purple, and white lights appeared.

This, combined with the crazy weather that was still going on in the background, made the whole image look so...surreal. Like something straight out of a fantasy visual novel or videogame. It was hard to believe that something like this was happening right now.

“Whoa!”

“Hey look at that you guys!”

“It’s so pretty!”

And from the commotion they could hear a few floors down, it seems like the people shared their thoughts as well as they all came out and formed a single long line along the railing of the tower bridges below theirs to watch the strange phenomenon from their own respective floors.

‘Brother is coming...?’ the faint whisper of a long, dormant feminine voice, one that Jane hasn’t heard in a long time, spoke up. ‘But something’s off... He feels...different...this time.’

‘Huh?!’ she uttered in complete surprise and confusion.

‘Brother should’ve been gone like the others...except for Mind and Time...but...’

Before the young woman could even begin to question the remnants of the Aether, she heard the sound of incoming footsteps.

“Auntie Jane!”

Jane and her friends turned to the side to see two people with black hair and brown eyes —one being in his early twenties while the other one was in her late twenties— running toward them.

“Hey Kagome... Hey Sota,” she said when the two stopped in front of her friends. “Aren’t you two supposed to be in class by now?” Jane looked at the siblings with furrowed brows, and crossed her arms.

“Yeah...” Kagome said. “But we got an email earlier from all of our professors saying that classes are cancelled for the rest of day. Power outage and all of that,” she explained with a small shrug.

“And you two thought it was a bright idea to come out here where it’s pouring like cats and dogs, and risk catching a cold or getting struck by lightning, instead of going back to your dorm rooms where it’s warm and cozy inside?”

The two flinched at that.

“Well, when you put it like that...” Sota trailed off when he saw the dark look on the older woman’s face. “Nevermind! It was a stupid idea,” he quickly bowed his head in apology, his eyes filled deep shame.

“Yeah, we’re sorry, Auntie...” Kagome quietly said, fiddling with the end of her shirt’s sleeves.

Jane sighed, “Just don’t...don’t ever do something so reckless like that ever again, okay?”

Sota nodded, silently, while Kagome looked at the woman, worriedly.

“You’re not going to tell Dad are you?” she asked with slight hesitance in her voice.

Jane uncrossed her arms and closed her eyes with a heavy sigh, “I should, but I’m not going to...” then opened them back up and looked away. “Not this time at least,” she mumbled that last part like it was an afterthought.

The two black haired siblings looked a little relieved at.

“Umm...what is that?”

Everyone looked in the direction where Alvin was pointing at and saw what looked like a meteor falling from the sky.

“Is that a meteor?”

“It looks like it—”

BOOM!

The loud rumble of thunder startled everyone standing within their own respective tower bridge floors so badly that some fell back on their butts while a few almost went over the railings if it hadn’t been for those nearby who pulled them back up.

BOOM!

Seconds later, a sudden giant flash of lightning appeared, nearly way too close for comfort, and light up the whole sky, blinding the crowd who let out surprised screams and covered their eyes. Because of this, they missed the second flash of lightning, and this time, it struck something.

KABOOM!

The crowd opened their eyes and looked up just in time to see the ball of fire get knocked off its course, and instead of getting destroyed upon contact like they thought would happen, the meteor flew to the side.

And much to their surprise, it was now hurtling itself straight towards the ground at an alarming speed.

‘Oh no…’

Before anyone could shout out a warning, the meteor flew out of sight behind the trees and landed somewhere in the valley with an explosive crash, sending out a massive shock wave of energy that rippled through the earth along with a bright blue light that engulfed them and the area whole.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Pain…so much pain…

Deep and agonizing…

He could feel it in his tail…

His legs…

His groin area…

His chest…

His arms and shoulders…

And finally, along the wings on his throbbing back, which felt like they were on fire.

No matter which way he turned, or even if he moved just less than a centimeter, his body roared in protest. And he bit back a whine, nearly biting his own tongue off in this process, as he flopped back to the ground, which smelled like burnt grass, and the strong stench of it nearly made him gag behind the muzzle that was still somehow attached to his beak.

It, along with the pain, brought him to tears. A surge of anger and frustration burned through him as they leaked from his eyes and ran down his furry cheeks and over his bleeding cuts, stinging the hell out of him.

As the defeated god continued to lay there on the wet ground, broken and bleeding in a pool of his own blood, only one thought ran through his aching mind as his muted green eyes surveyed the lightning flashing so ominously —almost mockingly at him it seems— in the dark rainy sky before they slowly shut closed.

Why…? Why was he still alive?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nothing but silence filled the air. Questions flew through the minds of everyone standing or sitting completely still in their spots, eyes shut closed behind arms that came up to cover their heads from the blast that occurred a minute ago.

Right as the people were beginning to give up hope, wondering if they were still alive or not, their ears picked up a new sound.

“Oh my god...!” Sota whispered in awe.

Slowly, everyone’s eyes fluttered open and they looked up to see Dr. Foster along with Stark’s Eldest Daughter hovering in the air a few feet away from the citadel, with their arms stretched out, behind a dome of swirling energy that hummed and glowed bluish-white.

Alvin along with everyone else gasped in realization at what the two ladies had just done.

“It’s a barrier,” Lady confirmed.

Whispers broke out amongst the people as Jane Valerie Foster and Kagome Higurashi Stark lowered their arms and lifted the barrier up.

“I think a small group of us should go check out what crashed down there.”

Alvin along with Sota and Lady frowned at Kagome’s suggestion.

“Uhh, Little lady, I don’t think—” the ex-mercenary trailed off in shock as an explosive burst of mana in the shape of bright purple and white flames erupted from the young scientist’s body and engulfed her whole. “What the...!” then within mere seconds, a newly transformed Jane broke free from the veil of mana-like fire.

No longer was there a human hovering in front of them all, but a canine-vulpine spirit with flowing waist length orange hair and yellow-red highlights, large fire colored wolf ears, and four fire colored fox tails with black tips at the ends.

“She’s right, you know…” Jane looked over her shoulder at the crowd, her purple eyes encased in the black sclera staring intently into their own orbs. “Someone’s gotta go down there and make sure it’s just that, a meteor.”

The frown on Lady’s face deepened.

“And if it’s a threat?” she asked, crossing her arms.

It was at this point Nero knew what he wanted to do, so he made his first move. He stretched and placed a hand on the devil huntress’ shoulder, making her look up at him in surprise. “Then we will get rid of it,” the spiky faux haired devil hunter said as he gave Lady a reassuring look and a single pat, released her shoulder, and walked past her. “It’s just as simple as that,” he grabbed a hold of the railing and leaped over it.

“Nero…” Lady watched the young quarter demon transform in a flash of blue light with a gleam of worry in her heterochromia eyes.

“Don’t worry, Lady! We’ll be fine,” Nero threw a confident smirk over his shoulder, his voice a bit gruff and demonic due to him being in his Devil Trigger form, as he joined Jane and Kagome in the sky.

“You better, Nero!” Lady gave him warning as she and others waved at them. “And you too, Jane! Kagome!”

The transformed devil hunter chuckled in response while the two ladies smiled. “Okay...” Jane looked between her friend and niece figure and motioned the two to move closer to her. “Ready?” she asked when they both grabbed her hands.

“I am.”

“You betcha.”

“Alrighty then.”

In a flash of bluish-white light, all three of them disappeared.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

While he waited for the inevitable—or for something to happen, Loki dreamed.

He dreamed he was in a grassy field surrounded by darkness and filled with a lot of white noise. There was chit chatter flowing all around him. It took up the majority of his attention, and he wanted to know what it was all about.

So he concentrated, and listened, blocking everything out of his mind such as the downpour of rain and some kind of balls of ice hitting him —not that he could feel them of course, but he can definitely hear them make contact with his body— and the sensation of...something...entering his numbed body. He focused on the words and not their meanings.

He heard three voices. One male and two females. The god didn’t have a clue on what their identities or origins were, although one of them did sound slightly familiar to him.

How strange...

“—Can’t believe this one griffin caused all of this damage here.”

“Well, thankfully he didn’t crash into the ocean; otherwise, he would’ve drowned. And I’m sure something like that would’ve made it into the news on TV too.”

“Yeah...”

“Still, it’s incredible that he not only survived the fall, but survived getting struck by lightning too. Tough little guy he is.”

“Mhmm... When’s Nero coming back?”

“Hopefully soon. That powerful surge he and I felt earlier...I hope he finds it and recovers it before anyone else does. A power like that should not be left unattended. It would be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands if anyone with...questionable intentions were to get a hold of it.”

Shit... They were talking about the Tesseract. How did he not realize he’d drop it?!

“You...you have an idea of what it was, Auntie?”

“Sort of...” the female voice —the one that sounded vaguely familiar to him and had a slight melodic tone to it— paused. “It had the feel of an Infinity Stone, I think. Not sure which one just yet.”

“Unless Nero finds it and brings it back, right?”

“Right.”

Oh that’s just fantastic now. He was on this dreadful backwater planet. On freaking Midgard. Where? He didn’t know and didn’t care. But still, it made sense that he would get found by some Midgardians sooner or later. The only thing that confused him though was how in all of Yggdrasil do they know about the Infinity Stones?

“You can take over from here, Auntie. My ki energy is getting pretty low...” the other female panted in a low voice.

Suddenly, that sensation he felt earlier—and promptly ignored, which he didn’t know why he did it in the first place— changed. It felt much warmer than the first one now. More powerful. And much more different, but still felt soothing all the same.

Almost like—

Loki’s eyes snapped wide open, and he wildly looked around the area, completely ignoring the tired black haired Midgardian woman sitting off to the side, for the one who—

“Stop! You’ll hurt yourself more if you continue doing that!”

Small yet warm delicate hands —that were dark blue in color. Odd?— held his face still and a wave of some unknown energy that felt almost like magic washed over him, clearing both his mind and emotions. Calming him down even.

In fact...his fear was now gone, much to his shock.

How...? How did she even manage to...

“Better now?”

Despite his vision being somewhat blurry, Loki slowly looked up and paused at the sight. He blinked in...surprise? Awe? Confusion? He truly didn’t know.

Shiny purple eyes, which glowed like amethyst gemstones from the bright greenish-yellow and white light coming off her hands, surrounded in a pool of black stared back into his green ones.

And that hair...it reminded him the colors of an evening sunset, which complimented the fire colored ears on top of her head quite nicely—huh?

What...was that?

Something in his peripheral vision moved, and one quick glance down with his eyes told him exactly what it was.

Four beautiful long fire colored tails with black tips—that looked so fluffy and so soft that if he even remotely had the ability to move right now, he would touch them and test them to see if they were as soft as they truly looked, sat curled around the woman’s waist and ran along the length of his body from each side.

And wait a minute... Was he...? Actually, what was he sitting on? He could’ve sworn he saw...

His eyes darted back down again and...oh. He froze in shock at the sight of himself lying on his back in the woman's lap. How in the world did he get there?!

And more importantly, why did it take him this long to realize this sort of thing?!

“There! You should be fine for now.”

He blinked when the glowing light from her hands disappeared. And somehow, he felt better.

Not completely better...

But a little bit better than he did a few minutes ago.

This was definitely one of the weirdest dreams he’s ever had in a long time.

“Jane! Kagome! I found the source of the power!” a young Midgardian man with shocking white hair, to his complete astonishment, ran in holding a familiar glowing object in a transparent case of some sorts. “This is what we felt earlier, Jane!” he held it up for them to see.

“Nero! You’re back!” the woman with black hair, called Kagome, spoke.

“It’s the Tesseract...” the strange sunset haired woman, the one called Jane, uttered in shock.

Jane...

That name...

Why did that name sound so familiar to him? Could it be possible that he heard that name before from somewhere? There were so, so many questions he had flowing through his mind like crazy now...

Damn...if only his head didn’t hurt so much right now...if only he didn’t feel so bloody tired...

Or dizzy at the moment—

“Oh hey! The little guy's awake,” the Nero guy said and stared at him. “He actually looks ready to pass out at any second now.”

The two women looked at him, and sure enough, he could hear the darkness calling out to him.

“Oh no...”

“Hey little guy!”

“C’mon! Stay awake, Little one!”

Their expression of concern was the last thing he saw before his whole world went black.

And because of this, the God of Mischief missed the chance to see Nero storing the case away in one of his dimensional pockets and transforming back into his DT form, missed the way Jane and Kagome picked him up and held him in their arms, and he definitely missed the way the three gathered around him in a circle, holding onto each other and him, before all four of them teleported out of the area.

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phoenixgirlreviews-blog · 5 years

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A Blessing In Disguise Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here

Theresa was hanging onto a huge boulder on top of a waterfall, looking up at a small group of people crowding around above her, with one young blonde-haired woman with bright blue eyes reaching out towards her.

“Hang on, Theresa!” she yelled. “Just hang on!”

“I’m trying!” Theresa yelled as she nearly lost her grip on the boulder and she tightened her grip even more, determined to not let go.

She looked down to see a much older stern-looking woman with dark black hair and blue eyes and an elderly man clinging to her legs. Theresa then mustered all of her strength to pull herself up to safety, but to no avail.

“I can’t! They’re too heavy!”

“Don’t worry, Theresa! Everything’s going to be just fine! Just focus and don’t let go!” a brown-haired man with a scruffy face and an average build bellowed as he also reached out to help her.

Theresa then looked into his eyes and felt herself freeze in astonishment. For some reason she wasn’t feeling particularly scared, worried or frightened. She actually felt… safe.

Safe?

How could she possibly be safe around this man? She doesn’t even know him, much less his name.

But before Theresa could entertain any more questions in her head, her fingers suddenly slipped and she was tumbling down rapidly towards the rushing and crashing water, screaming and flailing for her life along with her companions.

“Theresa!”

Theresa screamed out with pure and blood-chilling terror as she fell faster and faster to her doom.

Then before she knew it, everything went black.

Theresa shot up in her bed, panting and hyper-ventilating with her heart racing and throttling wildly in her chest and her body covered in sweat. She took a couple of deep, calming breaths and she briefly glanced over at her alarm clock.

2 a.m.

Theresa ran her hands through her face, exhaling sharply and massaging her temples. This was the third time this week that she had been having this nightmare, and she wasn’t exactly sure why.

At first Theresa rationalized that maybe it was just because she was mentally adjusting to her new surroundings and her anxiety was somehow manifesting into these weird and bizarrely vivid dreams. But now she wasn’t so sure anymore.

As far as she could tell, Tate seemed to be adjusting rather well to his new home, as well as any normal 2-year-old would be. Sure sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night, crying and begging for Maggie and Victor and sometimes for his dad, which was perfectly normal considering how close he had been to all of them, especially his dad.

After all, it was Brady who had first suspected that Tate was his son, even before Theresa did, although she had nagging suspicions for a long time beforehand that something was horribly wrong after Kristen had her goons kidnap her and also arranged to have her baby stolen from her womb.

Theresa shook her thoughts out of her mind. Now was not the time to think about that. She had a whole new chapter in her life to build. Kristen DiMera was dead and she and Brady are responsible and mature parents now, and most importantly – sober. No one was going to take away the greatest joy of their entire lives from them, not even a deranged psychopath like her.

Theresa then fell onto her back again and closed her eyes, begging and praying for sleep to overtake her again.

The very next day, Theresa walked into General Hospital with Tate in the stroller as she sat down in the waiting room, waiting to be called up for her appointment.

While she was leafing through a local tabloid magazine, a young and attractive dark-haired woman appearing to be in her early to mid 30s and wearing a purple nurse’s outfit passed by her and then noticed her sitting there.

“Oh hey there, haven’t seen you around before. Are you visiting a relative here?”

“Actually no; I just moved here a couple of days ago,” Theresa answered, glancing up from her magazine.

“Oh really?” the woman smiled earnestly and then held out her hand. “I’m Elizabeth Webber. But everyone around here calls me Liz.”

“Theresa. Theresa Donovan,” Theresa replied, smiling and accepting her handshake. “I’m from Salem, Illinois. I’ve lived there for about 4 years before coming up here. But before that I was living in L.A.”

“Oh wow, sounds really amazing!” Liz exclaimed in astonishment. “Seems like that would’ve been a very cool place to live.”

“Yeah, it was… for a while anyway,” Theresa bit her lip, averting her gaze hesitantly. “My stepdad worked with a lot of famous and well known producers in Hollywood and some of them would even come over to my house sometimes for dinner. But that was a long time ago.”

“Oh…” Liz frowned, noticing Theresa’s reticence. “Sounds like you aren’t very comfortable talking about your childhood.”

“It wasn’t exactly the easiest or the happiest,” Theresa explained with a sigh, narrowing her eyes sullenly. “My parents split up right after I was born and I never got to see my dad very much because he was away working all the time.”

“My mom was also too preoccupied with her work as a child psychiatrist to take care of me and my brother Andrew properly and as a result we were left alone with Philip a lot. Suffice to say he wasn’t exactly the nicest or most pleasant person to be around.”

“Well, what happened with him?” Liz asked.

“He was a tyrant and a total asshole; he would often take out his rage on me when Mom wasn’t looking and blame me for a lot of crap that wasn’t even my fault. I was also angry at my mom for basically driving my dad away and for a long time I hated her for not only ignoring me and neglecting me but for also devoting so much time and attention towards Andrew. He was like the kid that could do absolutely no wrong in my parents’ eyes. It was pretty obvious as far as I was concerned who the real favorite was.”

Theresa paused, breathing deeply to keep herself from shaking from the painful memories flashing in her head.

“But it’s okay. It’s not like he’s my real dad anyway. It’s old news and I’m not interested in hashing out all that old family drama again. And I’m just so glad that my parents are finally back together after all this time.”

“And the best part is that ever since I had my son Tate, our relationship has improved tenfold and we got even closer when I had my bout with breast cancer last year.”

“Well, congratulations, Theresa,” Liz beamed and she bent down to look at Tate with a disarming and sweet smile. “And he is such a cutie. You and your husband must be so proud.”

“Oh, well actually I’m not married,” Theresa flashed a sheepish grin at the comment. “Well, not anymore anyway. It’s… kind of a long story. You see, I had a very turbulent and complicated relationship with the father of my child and we were super knee deep into drugs and alcohol back then.”

“We were so screwed up mentally and psychologically that we even went to Vegas and got married on a whim. The day that we finally got our marriage annulled, we actually had one last romp in the sack and then… well you know the rest.”

Theresa then laughed nervously with a slow face-palm, gazing up at the ceiling with pure disbelief and incredulity.

“God, I was so selfish and narcissistic back then, thinking that I was so entitled to his love and money. We weren’t exactly good for each other, but at the same time, Tate was the absolute best thing that ever happened to us. When he came along, we had no choice but to clean up and get sober for our little boy. I always say to everybody that kid represents the very best part of us. My brains and his heart.”

“That is so sweet,” Liz replied and then breathed deeply while running her hand through her hair. “Well, I’m not exactly the best role model when it comes to healthy and long term relationships either. I have three boys with three different guys.”

“The father of my eldest son Cameron got killed in a horrible shoot-out with the police and the father of my youngest son Aiden just… ran off and disappeared one day. I haven’t really heard from him since and sometimes I don’t even know if he’s even alive anymore. At least you know where Tate’s dad is.”

“Well… I can do a hell lot worse,” Theresa shrugged. “I could’ve ended up with a total psycho for a dad like Cal Winters and I also could’ve ended up with an assassin for a dad who kills people for a living.”

“Well… my middle son Jake has a dad who is in a um… very similar profession,” Liz forced a nervous and uncomfortable smile as she says this.

Theresa let out a loud exhale with a small chuckle.

“Welp… Brady may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s one of the nicest and most compassionate and wonderful guys you’ll ever meet.”

“Great, so can I have his number?” Liz quipped.

Theresa laughed with a knowing glare. “I don’t think so, girlfriend. Brady is already spoken for.”

Liz then stepped back, holding up her hands defensively.

“Okay, chill. I was just asking.”

“Theresa Donovan?” an innocent and doe-eyed woman with a slender build, long, dark brown hair and wearing a doctor’s outfit appeared out of her office as she approached the two women.

“Oh hey,” Theresa greeted her as she stood up and shook her hand. “Dr. Kim Nero, right?”

“That’s right,” Kim nodded with a warm smile. “You must be Theresa Donovan. Welcome to Port Charles.”

“Oh thank you,” Theresa replied as she grabbed her stroller and turned to face Liz.

“It was really nice meeting you. Maybe we can set up a play date with our boys and hang out sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Liz nodded as she walked away. “I’ll leave you to it. Gotta get back to work.”

“Alright, bye,” Theresa grinned as she watched Liz disappear into a corner.

“Well, well, well, looks like you made a brand new friend,” Kim smiled as Theresa whipped around to face her. “You must be pretty popular.”

“Well, maybe a lot more now than when I was a kid,” Theresa shrugged.

“Come on into my office then,” Kim beckoned her as Theresa followed her into the examination room.

As soon as the two women entered the room, Theresa took a seat on a metal chair right near the door while Kim sauntered over to the counter and looked over her clipboard, examining its contents carefully.

Theresa glanced over at Kim with a thin line, looking very puzzled and befuddled. Kim then sensed that Theresa was watching her and turned around to face her.

“What is it?”

Theresa then let out a small, sheepish laugh, grinning bashfully.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I could almost swear that you look a lot like someone that used to be in Salem.”

“Really? Who?” Kim asked.

Theresa grabbed the handlebar of the stroller, rocking it slowly back and forth with her right hand as Tate slept.

“My uncle Steve used to be involved with a woman named Ava Vitale a long time ago. She was really obsessed with him and she tried to break up his relationship with my aunt Kayla numerous times. They actually met during a period where everyone thought that Uncle Steve was dead and he didn’t even know who he was.”

“Wow, sounds insane,” Kim’s eyes widened in astonishment.

“Yep,” Theresa nodded. “You seem a lot nicer though.”

“I’m sure a lot of my friends and family can attest to that,” Kim chuckled as she turned back to her clipboard.

“Now then… your son’s name is Tate Donovan Black, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“And his birth date?”

Theresa flinched nervously. She and Brady were never really sure when exactly Tate was born, seeing as he was with Kristen in Italy at the time, but then they went to a doctor to try to determine how old he actually was. He then determined that Tate was anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks old, so his parents concluded that he was probably born sometime in mid to late March.

“March 30th, 2015.”

“Okay, so he’s 2 years old,” Kim nodded. “What about his medical history?”

“Well…” Theresa frowned, tapping on her face thoughtfully. “He did have a congenital illness that required a bone marrow transplant. But other than that, he’s been perfectly fine. He’s been putting on weight and he’s hitting all his milestones like he’s supposed to.”

“Excellent!” Kim beamed as she then looked up right at Theresa. “I also see that his immunizations are all up to date and he’s due for another one very soon. Let me take a look at him.”

“Come on, kiddo,” Theresa urged as she unbuckled Tate from his stroller and handed him off to Kim.

Kim then brought him over to the examination table and checked out his ears and eyes first.

“Okay, now say aw,” Kim instructed and Tate opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue.

Kim then examined his throat with a light and studied it carefully, nodding with great interest.

“Uh huh… Uh huh…”

Kim then pivoted around to face Theresa with a solemn expression.

“He may be developing a little bit of a sore throat. You might want to get that taken care of as soon as possible.”

“Okay, sure,” Theresa nodded, a bit concerned and nervous.

Damn it, I’m such an idiot! Why the hell didn’t I notice that?!

Kim then listened to his heart for a few minutes and moved on to check his lungs.

“Okay, Tate, now I want you to breathe in and out deeply a couple of times.”

Tate nodded and did as he was told.

Kim then turned back towards Theresa with a satisfied smile.

“Well, his lungs and heart are both fine. It’s just that sore throat you need to worry about. I’ll write out a prescription for some medication just in case so we can nip this problem right in the bud. You can pick it up when you get to the pharmacy.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Theresa nodded gratefully as she went to pick up Tate from the examination table and placed him back into the stroller.

“Oh, and Theresa?” Kim interjected.

“Yeah?” Theresa raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

Kim smiled warmly with a compassionate and understanding gleam in her eyes.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I know how difficult it can be raising a kid all by yourself sometimes.”

“Wait, you have a kid too?” Theresa questioned her suspiciously.

Kim averted her gaze with a wistful expression.

“Well, he’s not so little anymore. His name is Oscar and he’s in high school now. His father Drew came to town a while ago and now we’re both trying to do the absolute best we can with him.”

“Just like me and Brady,” Theresa murmured pensively.

She then glanced up at Kim again.

“So what’s Oscar like?”

“He is the most loving and sweetest boy that you’ll ever meet. He is also extremely thoughtful and intelligent and he does very well in school. I couldn’t ask for a better son.”

“I couldn’t ask for a more wonderful and amazing boy like my Tater Tot either,” Theresa gushed excitedly, overjoyed and thrilled that she got to brag about her offspring with a fellow single mom.

Kim then broke out into a short laugh, amused.

“That’s your nickname for Tate? That’s so adorable.”

“Yeah, I just started calling him that when I first brought him home and it has stuck ever since,” Theresa explained with a shrug. “I’m pretty sure that by the time he goes to high school though that he’s going to start hating me for that nickname but until then I’ll just be more than happy to keep using it without any shame or embarrassment.”

“All right then,” Kim nodded as Theresa got up and started heading out the door. “See you in six months?”

“Yeah,” Theresa replied and just as she was about to leave, a lanky and gawky brown-haired teenage boy walked right through the door.

“Oh, hey Mom,” the boy greeted Kim in a friendly and earnest voice.

“Hey, Oscar,” Kim beamed as she walked over to him and hugged him. “How was school?”

“Good,” Oscar nodded and then he stopped the moment he met eyes with Theresa. “Um, Mom, who is that?”

“Oh, this is one of my patients, Theresa Donovan,” Kim answered as she gestured over to her. “Theresa, this is my son Oscar.”

“Hey, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Theresa said.

“Likewise,” Oscar nodded.

He then turned to his mother. “Mom, I’m going over to Josslyn’s house to study with her. Is that okay?”

“Sure thing, honey,” Kim answered.

“Cool, thanks Mom!” Oscar grinned as he rushed out the door again.

Kim chuckled while shaking her head. “Aw, teenagers. Just wait till Tate becomes one, Theresa. Then you’re going to wish that he was a cute little munchkin again.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Theresa retorted in a sardonic and wry voice and she also headed out of the room. “See ya, Dr. Nero.”

“See ya,” Kim waved goodbye as she watched Theresa leave.

As Theresa was walking through the lobby of the hospital, she was full of smiles as she was mentally relieving her meetings with both Liz and Kim.

Wow, I never would’ve imagined that everyone would be so nice here. I honestly thought this town would be filled with nothing but assholes and creeps. Maybe Port Charles isn’t nearly as bad as New York City itself. I think I’m really gonna like it here-

But then Theresa was abruptly jolted out of her thoughts the minute she felt the stroller crash something and she nearly fell onto the handlebar. She glanced down just in time to see a much older woman bending down and frantically picking up a clipboard and a couple of loose papers. When the woman finally rose to her feet with her things, Theresa froze in horror and fear the minute she got a very good look at her.

She was very stern and severe looking with a long nose and sharp, intense blue eyes and her long, black hair was tied neatly into a bun. She was also wearing a white doctor’s outfit and had on a pair of black boots.

“You stupid girl, watch where you’re going!” the woman snarled in German with a curt sneer on her lips as Theresa suddenly stepped back with pure dread and terror in her eyes, clutching tightly onto her stroller. Tate began to whimper and sniffle with fearful tears seeping out of his eyes.

“Mommy!”

“Hey, Doctor!” a deep, brassy, female voice bellowed as a large, portly, middle-aged black woman charged right into the area and stared the other woman down fearlessly. “Leave that poor girl alone!”

The elderly German woman growled and stormed off, not wanting to have a confrontation right in the middle of the lobby.

Theresa then let out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding and sighed in relief.

“Thank you so much, ma’am,” she informed the older black woman. “I got so scared; I didn’t know what to do. That strange lady literally came out of nowhere and just started raving and yelling at me in this really weird language…”

“Think nothing of it, child,” the older black woman waved her hand dismissively with a reassuring, disarming smile. “That was Dr. Obrecht. Don’t pay any mind to her.”

She then noticed that Tate was still shaking and crying and she bent down to pick him up and cradle him in her arms.

“Awww, you poor baby. Did that mean old lady scare you?” she cooed softly.

Tate nodded as he kept on sniffling and whimpering. The older black woman then pulled him into a hug and comforted him.

“It’s all right, little one. Auntie Epiphany is here. Nobody is gonna hurt you or your momma when she’s around.”

Tate then gradually began to calm down and relax as he buried his face on the crook of her shoulder, still trembling.

“Hey, I never got to ask you what your name is,” Theresa interjected.

“Just call me Epiphany. I’m an old friend of Liz’s,” Epiphany explained as she rubbed soothing circles on Tate’s back. “Any friend of hers is a friend of mine.”

“Theresa,” Theresa said with a confident yet self-restrained smile. “I’m Theresa Donovan.”

“Yeah, I know who you are,” Epiphany smirked. “Liz told me all about you.”

“She did?” Theresa quipped with a curious eyebrow.

“Yeah, she sure liked you enough,” Epiphany replied. “Listen, if you ever need anything or you just want somebody to talk to, you can come to me.”

She then handed Tate back to Theresa as she put him back into the stroller.

“Um, thanks, Epiphany. I’ll hold you to it.”

Theresa then rushed off with the stroller as she quickly made a mad dash out of the hospital.

“See ya!”

Later that evening, Theresa hired a babysitter to look after Tate while she went out to Charlie’s to unwind and have fun. She was sitting alone at a table, slowly sipping on a pink strawberry martini.

She saw a couple of people file into the bar and got their drinks as they sat down together and had a good laugh. Theresa nodded dumbly and just ignored them, continuing to sip on her drink.

Just then, a couple of young blonde women appearing to be in their early to mid 30s came over to Theresa’s table and sat down with her.

“Hey, what are you doing sitting here alone?” the younger of the two asked her.

Theresa shrugged weakly, not exactly in the mood to engage in any sort of conversation.

“Just chilling.”

“Just chilling?” the older of the two blonde women reiterated incredulously, narrowing her blue eyes and glancing briefly at her companion. “Don’t be silly. Lulu and I are not letting you sit here all by yourself.”

Theresa took another sip of her drink and pointed at them.

“So one of you is Lulu?”

“Yeah,” the latter nodded. “I’m Lulu and this is my best friend Maxie.”

Maxie grinned enthusiastically.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Theresa offered a weak smile. “I’m Theresa. My son and I just moved here.”

“So where is he?” Maxie asked.

“He’s with the babysitter,” Theresa mumbled, making a sudden and odd wave of the hand. “His name is Tate.”

“So are you married?” Lulu inquired.

“Lulu!” Maxie hissed, elbowing her sharply.

“You wish,” Theresa smirked sarcastically, taking more sips out of her martini.

Lulu then studied her intently, narrowing her eyes.

“Um, no offense, but you seriously look like hell.”

“Is it that obvious?” Theresa giggled, rolling her eyes. “Well, that’s because I’ve had a hell of a day. My son may be coming down with a sore throat, I’ve been having recurring and vivid nightmares for the last couple of days and I almost ran over an old German lady with my own son’s stroller.”

“Yeah that ‘old German lady’ is my mother-in-law,” Maxie retorted while exchanging weird and befuddled glances with Lulu.

Theresa nearly choked on her vodka as she coughed and gasped violently, pounding on her chest. After taking a couple of minute to catch her breath, she gawked at Maxie.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, her name is Liesl Obrecht. She’s one of the many doctors that work at GH,” Maxie explained.

“Oh my God…” Theresa groaned as she sank into her chair while slowly running her hand on her face. “I cannot fucking believe this.”

“What?” Lulu asked.

“Your mother-in-law scared the living daylights out of my son and she nearly ripped me to shreds!” Theresa yelled angrily, clutching her drink tightly. “She probably would have had me for lunch if Epiphany hadn’t stepped in!”

“Wow, I’m really sorry to hear that, Theresa,” Maxie frowned sympathetically. “But please don’t blame yourself. Liesl isn’t exactly the easiest person to live with, trust me. Just don’t take it too personally.”

“Well, all right then,” Theresa averted her eyes with a sullen glare. “I suppose you’re right.”

Just then a group of young people sauntered into the bar and sat down at another table. Theresa then looked up to see a dashing young man with boyishly good looks and short, cropped, dark black hair.

“Wow, who is that?” Theresa gawked in amazement upon noticing the young man sitting several feet away from her.

“Well um… That’s Michael Corinthos, Sonny and Carly’s son,” Maxie replied, glancing over to see him.

“Really?” Theresa smirked, her face suddenly brightening up and her posture straightening up dramatically. “Well, I better say hi to this gorgeous, sexy hunk then!”

She then bolted out of the table and confidentially sashayed over to where Michael was sitting.

Lulu and Maxie grimaced anxiously together with worried looks.

“You didn’t tell her that he already has a girlfriend, did you?”

“Nope.”

Michael was sitting around with his friends laughing and drinking beers when one of them noticed Theresa approaching their table with a huge bounce in her step.

“Hey, who is that girl?” Brad asked.

“I have no idea,” Lucas shrugged.

“Beats me,” Dante interjected.

Nathan just took a swig of his beer, smirking with pure amusement.

Once Theresa reached the table, she tapped Michael on the shoulder. Michael then stopped what he was doing and turned around to see her gushing and beaming at him with entranced eyes.

“Oh, hey, miss. What is your name?”

“My name is Theresa. What’s yours, sexy face?”

Dante then coughed to hold back a laugh with his fist covering his mouth. Lucas and Brad snickered and gave themselves a high five.

Michael just smiled politely, tickled pink that the new girl in town was taking such blatant interest in him.

“My name is Michael Corinthos III. But you call me Michael.”

“What brings you here then, Michael?” Theresa asked.

“Just hanging out with my buddies,” Michael replied, turning back to face the other men.

“Cool! Me too,” Theresa squealed, feeling extremely excited and giddy at getting the chance to speak with her new crush.

“You friends with Lulu and Maxie?” Lucas queried, beckoning over towards Maxie and Lulu.

Theresa glanced back at the two women and nodded.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, why don’t you come and sit with us?” Nathan offered, pulling up another seat. “We’d really love to get to know you better.”

“Really?” Theresa’s eyes gleamed as she glanced back at Maxie and Lulu for reassurance and Maxie nodded.

Theresa then nodded and was about to join the men when suddenly Nelle came gliding through the door and flew over to Michael, swooping her arms around him.

“Hey, babe,” she said as she and Michael shared a kiss.

Theresa’s face then suddenly drained of color and she suddenly felt faint and dizzy, horrified and appalled that her latest chance at love had officially been shot to hell. Brad then noticed that Theresa was shivering and trembling with her eyes filled with sheer dismay and disbelief.

“Um, are you okay, Theresa?” Brad inquired concernedly.

“I uh… I gotta go!” Theresa exclaimed as she was now suddenly scrambling to exit out of Charlie’s.

But just when things couldn’t possibly get any worse, Obrecht walked right through the door and stopped right in her path, baffled and aghast that their paths have crossed again for the second time that day.

Theresa stopped and stared silently at the older German woman for a moment, not moving or reacting. But then within a matter of minutes her face quickly changed into an ugly and vicious snarl, her eyes flashing with a furious and evil gleam.

“You…”

Obrecht growled back, her fists clenching tightly.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded in a thick accent.

Theresa then let out an arrogant laugh. “So you actually do speak English.”

“You watch your tongue, you insolent little girl!” Obrecht snapped back.

“Little?!” Theresa shrieked, now showing up her fists and taking a step forward with a menacing stance. “I’ll show you little, you ugly old hag!”

“Ugly, old hag?!” Obrecht spat with a contemptuous glare. “You stupid kids have no respect and appreciation for your elders! I’ll show you respect!”

She then delivered a swift backhand to Theresa’s face, sending her reeling to the ground. Theresa then got up to her feet, still feeling the stinging impact of the blow on her face. After taking a couple of minutes to collect her bearings, she then charged right at Obrecht with a scream and gave her a swift kick to the face. Obrecht nearly recoiled from the blow as she held up her nose, which began to bleed profusely.

She removed her hand and saw that there was blood pooling in the palm of her hand. Everyone gasped with horror as they all realized that the fight was about to take a very ugly turn.

Obrecht then pounced her to the ground and began to assail her with several punches and uppercuts to the face and jaw. Theresa did her best to fend off the blows as she punched and slapped her repeatedly in the face. She then delivered another swift kick to the chin, forcing Obrecht to roll off her.

Just then, Julian, Dante and Nathan rushed over to the two women and Nathan and Dante helped Obrecht get up on her feet.

“Easy, Mother. You’re badly hurt,” Nathan shushed her gently as Obrecht whined in pain, her eyes black and blue and her nose all a bloody mess. Julian then grabbed Theresa and helped her up too.

“All right, you ladies out,” he ordered as the three men helped the women out of the bar.

It was over an hour later and Theresa was lying in a hospital bed fully bandaged up, as was Obrecht. The two women were now recuperating in separate rooms as Nathan and Maxie were staying with Obrecht and Lulu, Dante, Michael, Nelle, Brad, and Lucas were staying with Theresa.

Theresa groaned and sobbed in bed, lying weakly on her back.

“Mother, what the hell were you thinking?” Nathan demanded.

“She disrespected me,” Obrecht growled in exasperation and anger, wincing and grimacing. “And I needed to teach her a lesson.”

“Well that doesn’t mean that you get to beat up a defenseless, tiny girl in the middle of a frickin’ bar!” Maxie chastised her.

“She started it! And she broke my nose!” Obrecht protested.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Liesl,” Maxie crossed her arms sternly.

“Just get some rest, Mother. We’ll see you in the morning,” Nathan instructed her as he and Maxie left.

“Nathan…” Obrecht pouted as she turned to glare at Theresa.

“This is all your fault. If you only have kept your mouth shut…”

“Well maybe you should stop acting like a psychotic maniac and then perhaps you might have more friends around here,” Theresa snapped.

“I don’t need any friends. All I need is Nathan, Maxie, Nina and Franco,” Obrecht insisted.

“Okay, suit yourself,” Theresa rolled her eyes and closed her eyes to sleep.

Obrecht then rolled her eyes and also went to sleep.

When Theresa finally got discharged from the hospital, she spent the next several days recuperating at home. She was also banned from going to Charlie’s for at least a month for the bar fight with Obrecht.

As a matter of courtesy, Theresa called Maxie up to personally apologize to her for picking a fight with Obrecht in the first place. Maxie accepted the apology, but Obrecht still refused to forgive or even acknowledge her.

Then the day finally arrived for Theresa’s big interview with Crimson. She put on her best work clothes and makeup, hired a babysitter to watch Tate again, and drove off to meet with her prospective new boss.

Once Theresa arrived at the lobby of the Aurora Media building, she came across a beautiful and attractive brunette woman with a slender and thin build, accompanied by a muscular built man with dark brown hair and a scruffy face.

“Oh hey! I’m here for the Crimson interview. Do you know where it is?” Theresa asked.

“Yeah, it’s right upstairs,” the woman answered, gesturing towards the elevator.

She then offered a hand.

“By the way, I’m Sam McCall. This is my husband Drew McCain.”

“Hey,” Theresa beamed as she shook both of their hands.

“Hey, if you’re here for Nina, you can just wait in the office. She’ll be here soon,” Drew explained.

“Okay, thanks,” Theresa replied as she quickly raced for the elevator.

Just as she got there, another tall and lanky woman with long, blondish brown hair and an athletic build caught up to her as they both entered the elevator. Once the doors closed, they soon ascended up the floors as they were heading for their destination.

Theresa then glanced over to see who was standing right next to her and gave a polite smile.

“Hey, are you working for Crimson too? Because I’m heading there right now for an interview.”

“I’m Nina,” the woman announced, looking over at her.

Theresa jumped in surprise, not having expecting to run into her like this.

“Um… wow…” she stammered as she gave her a once over. “I wasn’t really expecting you to um…”

Theresa collapsed on the back of the elevator, feeling particularly overwhelmed and embarrassed.

“Jesus, I honestly thought you were going to be some old lady or something…”

Nina chuckled with a playful smirk. “Nope, I’m not quite there yet.”

“Okay,” Theresa laughed.

“So you’re Theresa, right?” Nina raised an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah,” Theresa nodded.

Nina then studied her carefully, eyeing her recent injuries.

“That a black eye you got there?”

“Yeah… that was from a bar fight from a couple of days ago,” Theresa answered nervously, feeling very uncomfortable.

“I’m guessing that was over a guy, right?” Nina quipped emphatically.

“Yeah…” Theresa’s eyes darted to and fro, feeling even more apprehensive. “Something like that.”

The elevator doors opened and Nina and Theresa stepped out as they headed for the Crimson office. Upon entering, Nina advanced towards her desk and took a seat. Theresa also sat down right in front of her, her resume in hand.

“All right then. Let’s get started,” Nina announced as she grabbed her resume and looked it over.

“Huh, interesting. Seems like you have quite the work history.”

“Yeah, I only have a high school education,” Theresa frowned. “I don’t even have a college degree to speak of. But I was able to hold down my job at human resources at the hospital back in Salem and I did build a brand new fashion house with my former partner Nicole Walker from the ground up.”

“Well, for someone with a high school education and with a history of drug addiction, that is extremely impressive,” Nina mused, continuing to read over her resume. “Not to mention that you were on parole for roughly two years too while you were in Salem.”

“Yeah, I had to get my act together,” Theresa shrugged. “I needed that good ol’ kick in the butt to straighten myself out. Although sometimes I kind of slip back into some pretty bad habits.”

“Like that bar fight with my Aunt Liesl?” Nina questioned her suspiciously.

“What?!” Theresa gawked with a start. “How in the blazes did you know about that?”

“Maxie told me,” Nina answered coolly. “She also works here, in case you didn’t know.”

“Oh…” Theresa inhaled sharply, feeling suddenly awkward and humiliated. “Well, she did tell me that she was her mother-in-law.”

“Yeah, well that’s because Nathan is also my brother,” Nina replied. “And he’s a cop.”

“Okay…” Theresa scratched the back of her head. “That would explain why he helped those other officers drag us out of Charlie’s the other night. But you see… that was totally not entirely my fault. Liesl was the one that came snapping at me unprovoked. I didn’t even do anything. I only just accidentally bumped into her with my stroller.”

“Wait, you have a kid?” Nina asked.

“Yeah,” Theresa answered. “A son – Tate. He’s 2-years-old. I’m currently sharing joint custody with his dad Brady, which coincidentally was also my ex-husband, and if you were to ask around any of my old friends and associates back in Salem, that was a relationship that probably shouldn’t even have happened in the first place.”

“And if I were to ask around your associates back in Salem about you, would they also tell me about your constant habit of getting into bar fights with little old ladies?” Nina queried, tapping on her finger on her desk.

“N-No!” Theresa shook her head with a sheepish smile. “N-Not usually.”

Nina then pursed her lips, gazing right at Theresa.

“Okay, your history of drug addiction and alcohol is extremely concerning and therefore I’m going to have to subject you to random drug tests every so often. Also as long as your activities outside of work don’t adversely interfere with Crimson business, your ability to work here won’t be affected. Your uncanny talent for creating all kinds of fashion-wear for all sizes and ages would be a great asset to this company and I am willing to utilize it to the fullest extent possible. So come to work on time, give your 110% effort and make some amazing fashion lines and you will have a bright future here. Congratulations.”

Theresa let out an excited cheer and threw her arms around her in a hug.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise you that you won’t regret it!”

“And Theresa?” Nina added.

“What?” Theresa frowned.

“Please do me a favor and do not antagonize my aunt anymore. I don’t want you to keep showing up with bruises and black eyes. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Theresa nodded and saluted.

Nina chuckled. “We’re going to get along just fine, kid.”

#days of our lives #general hospital #alternate universe #crossover

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vex-bittys · 6 years

Text

How (Not) to Date: An Underswap Story

Congratulations to first place raffle winner undertale-writing-challenges who requested a swapcest first date (and maybe a kiss). When it comes to expressing his feelings for his brother, Blueberry is a bit less than magnificent...

Contains: SFW, fontcest/swapcest (kissing, nonsexual), a very awkward Blueberry, a pun-loving Papy

“I really like you, Papy,” Blue whispered in an uncharacteristically quiet and solemn tone. His bony brow furrowed in concentration, and he stared at the toes of his boots, breathing in shallow little gasps. Why were the words so hard to say out loud? He’d been thinking them for years!

“I really like you, Papy,” the Echo Flower repeated. The other Echo Flowers took up the phrase, and soon an army of glowing blue blossoms declared their almost-love for Blue’s little brother. The words hadn’t come out right when he said them; hearing the endless repetition of the Echo Flowers only confirmed it.

Eventually the whispered confessions faded away.. Blue cleared his proverbial throat nervously and tried again. “I like you, Papy, but not as a brother. I mean, I like you as a brother too, but also not as a brother… CHEESE AND CRACKERS! WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT?”

“CHEESE AND CRACKERS!” mocked the Echo Flowers.

Blue’s cheeks puffed in frustration. He knew it made him look childish, but he couldn’t help himself. Listening to the Echo Flowers whisper his botched lines endlessly through this small cave in Waterfall only made him more determined to find the exact right words. The Magnificent Sans never gave up!

Though he spent several more hours in the softly lit, peaceful surroundings uttering one heartfelt declaration after another, Blue never found the perfect words. With a sigh of defeat, the would-be Royal Guard trudged back home to spend another evening with the object of his affections, who was totally oblivious to his romantic attraction. Maybe if Papy wasn’t so busy being impossibly lazy, he’d realize that his brother had fallen in love with him. It would make everything so much easier.

Blue opened the door of their house in Snowdin to find Papy sprawled out on the sofa in his shorts and a black tank top, a honey bear tipped onto its side dripping the sticky substance onto the fabric of his shirt. He still had his shoes on, resting on the arm of the sofa! Unbelievable! Blue crept over to his brother’s side stealthily. Papyrus had fallen asleep mid-snack. How typical of the lazybones!

Blue couldn’t hold back an indulgent smile. Sometimes Papyrus suffered from insomnia due to nightmares, but when he slept serenely like this he resembled a handsome angel. Blue used his thumb and forefinger to gingerly pluck the sticky honey bottle from his brother’s evenly rising and falling chest. He carried it into the kitchen to rinse off the grimy residue coating the bottle.

Once the honey bear had had its bath and been placed back on the table where Papy could easily find it again, Blue began to make dinner. The smell of freshly cooked food finally roused the lanky skeleton from his slumber, and he stumbled into the kitchen to greet his hard-working brother by placing a chaste kiss on the top of the shorter skeleton’s skull. Blue hoped Papy didn’t notice the blush blazing on his cheekbones from the simple, carefree act.

“aww, honey, it was sweet of you to wash Mr. Bear for me,” drawled Papyrus, taking a seat at the table and immediately lifting the bottle of sticky sweetness to his mouth. Blue supposed the honey was an improvement over his brother's usual cigarette habit, and the horrible puns made it easy to suppress the squeal of joy from being referred to as honey.

“I MADE MY FAMOUS TACOS FOR DINNER!” Blue proclaimed proudly, placing two plates of tacos onto the table before settling himself into the chair across from his brother. His socket twitched as he watched the taller skeleton squirt honey liberally onto the savory meal.

Papyrus took huge bites of the crunchy tacos, chewing loudly with a charming smile on his face. Chopped (by punching, as Alphys had taught him!) toppings and honey-soaked taco shell fragments flew everywhere. No wonder Papyrus was so slim, even for a skeleton- none of the food stayed in his mouth! Blue almost choked on a bite of his own taco while trying not to giggle at the spectacle of his brother eating dinner.

“taco bout delicious,” Papyrus joked, swallowing his last bite and licking the remaining morsels from around his mouth. “thanks for dinner, lil bro.” The tall skeleton winked.

“LIL BRO?” shouted an indignant Blue, throwing his arms up in the air dramatically. “I’M OLDER THAN YOU, AND YOU KNOW IT!” Sometimes Blue (correctly) suspected that Papyrus said things just to see him (over)react. If confronted, Blue might’ve even admitted to putting on a bit of a show anytime his brother teased him.

“no need to be short-tempered, Sans,” Papy said with a grin. Blue screeched. “you may be older, but that doesn’t mean you’re not little.” With those words, Papy picked him up, just lifted him easily out of his chair as if he were a babybones, and spun him around.

“PUT ME DOWN!” demanded Blue with a yelp, playfully battering at Papy’s ribcage with his undeniably small fists.

“never,” Papyrus laughed.

“THE MAGNIFICENT SANS WILL NOT STAND FOR SUCH INFANTILE BEHAVIOR!”

“it’s a good thing i’m carrying you then.”

“PA-PY-RUS!”

How could his brother manage to be so infuriating yet so endearing at the same time?

The Magnificent Sans prided himself on his strategic prowess, especially when it came to complex puzzles, but every great puzzle solver knows that two heads are better than one when it comes to searching for an elusive solution to a particularly difficult problem. Alphys and Undyne were dating; maybe he could ask Alphys to give him some pointers on breaking the ice!

Blue soon discovered that battle training wasn’t exactly the best place to be distracted by thoughts of potential future romance because Alphys’s heavy tail had just whacked him soundly in the ribs for the third time in a row. He grunted at the bruising impact, and Alphys immediately became apologetic.

“Sans, I’m so sorry! I thought for sure you’d block that time! Are you alright?” she sounded worried. Alphys always avoided hard hits during their training due to Blue’s single HP. She wanted to train him for combat, not dust him!

“I’M FINE!” Sans wheezed cheerfully.

“You’re daydreaming,” accused Alphys gently. Blue ducked his head sheepishly.

“CAN I ASK YOU FOR SOME DATING ADVICE, ALPHYS?” Blue blurted out.

“Finally gonna make a move on Papyrus, eh?” Alphys replied with a grin.

“IS IT THAT OBVIOUS?” Blue groaned.

“To everyone but him,” laughed Alphys before sobering again. She leveled a steady gaze at her student. “What do you need to know?”

“HOW?”

Alphys waited a moment before prodding him for more information. “How…?”

“JUST HOW! HOW DO YOU DATE?” Blue hated how desperate he sounded.

“Dating is like fighting! You have to be assertive! Sweep that punk off his feet and tell him how you feel! Crush him with romance!” Alphys got a bit carried away and suplexed a large boulder into gravel to demonstrate. Blue got swept up in her passionate (and somewhat aggressive) energy.

“I’M THE MAGNIFICENT SANS, AND I’M GOING TO CAPTURE MY BROTHER’S HEART!”

Capturing anything, much less the elusive love of your unsuspecting sibling, required preparation, so that night, Blue had called and made a reservation at the NTT resort’s upscale bistro. The date was set, giving Blue a hard deadline for confessing his true intentions. Unfortunately, the courage Blue needed to force the simple words out of his mouth had never manifested. Instead, Blue now stood outside the NTT resort with Papyrus, planning to have a nice sit-down dinner… for no particular reason.

“we can sit down at home, or better yet, at Muffet’s,” Papy had unhelpfully pointed out.

“MUFFET’S FOOD IS GREASY! I WANT TO GO SOMEWHERE NICE! BESIDES, I MADE RESERVATIONS,” protested Blue.

“and i’m sure it has nothing to do with your crush on a certain robot DJ,” Papy teased.

“I DON’T HAVE A CRUSH ON NAPSTATON, PAPY!” Blue huffed before quietly adding, “I like someone else.” Papyrus quirked a brow, but he let the subject drop.

“y’know, Blue, i know a shortcut for-”

“NO, PAPY. WE’RE WALKING IN THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR LIKE RESPECTABLE MONSTERS. NO SHORTCUTS!”

Blue grabbed Papyrus’ hand to lead him into the restaurant and instantly regretted it. What if Papy thought holding hands was weird? He couldn’t just let go of his brother’s hand though; that would be too suspicious! How long could you comfortably hold hands with your brother before it turned from normal to awkward? Could Papyrus feel his metacarpals sweating? Blue was blowing the date already, and he hadn’t even told Papy it was a date yet!

The lanky skeleton didn’t pull his hand away from his brother’s as they entered the bistro, and Blue didn’t want to be rude by letting go first. They ended up strolling to their table hand-in-hand and standing next next to it for just a few seconds too long before they both simultaneously released their grips, allowing their hands to drop limply to their sides. Blue sank gratefully into his seat. Food! Food would help ease the tension!

With a nervous giggle, Blue scanned the menu. For a short, disorienting moment, he thought the words were written in some strange language until Papy took the laminated page from him and turned it right side up. Blue flushed brightly in embarrassment. In an attempt to evade his brother’s concerned gaze, Blue swept the room with a hasty glance only to realize that he and Papy were severely underdressed for the atmosphere.

The Magnificent Sans had taken a proverbial page from his brother’s book for once and dressed casually for the date-that-only-he-was-aware-of. He’d worn sneakers in lieu of his usual boots, paired with basketball shorts and a top that said “Cool Dude” and had shoulder pads in the shape of soccer balls. His brother wore his (probably dirty) orange hoodie and cargo pants that hadn’t made the last round of laundry. Everyone else in the establishment sported dress clothes in fashionable cuts and colors. He groaned in agony over his socially unacceptable attire.

“something wrong?” Papyrus asked innocently.

“WE’RE UNDERDRESSED!” complained Blue.

“coulda sworn i put on pants before we left.” Papyrus chuckled, making a show of checking his clothing for any missing articles. “yup, all here!”

Blue could feel hot tears welling in his sockets as the date careened past the point of being salvageable. Papy tried to laugh it off at first, but the night just got worse as it progressed. Blue dropped his silverware onto the floor, knocked over the glass of fancy wine he’d ordered, and even spilled dessert all over his shirt. Papyrus watched the disaster unfold without even making another joke about it.

The most anticipated part of the foray into how not to date was paying the bill and leaving, but even that didn’t go as planned. Blue had forgotten to grab his wallet from his usual outfit, and Papyrus ended up paying for the expensive food that Blue had insisted they order.

Once they were outside, Blue began to apologize in earnest. He’d ruined everything! Papy deserved a better boyfriend than the not-so-Magnificent Sans. Tears streamed down his round cheeks as he babbled.

“I’M SO SORRY PAPYRUS. THIS WAS SUCH A STUPID IDEA-”

“nah. it was a great first date.”

“WHAT?”

“i’m not as oblivious as you think i am,” Papyrus said with a wink.

“HOW DID YOU KNOW I-” Blue never got to finish his question because the taller skeleton leaned in quickly and clacked their mouths together. He didn’t pull away afterwards though. He lingered, letting their breath mingle. Blue grabbed his brother’s hoodie and pulled him into a deeper kiss.

How didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was Papy’s mouth pressed against his and the honey-sweet taste of his brother’s tongue.

INDEX

#vexy writes #underswap #sfw swapcest #swapcest #underswap sans #underswap papyrus #us!sans #us!papyrus #first date #a comedy of errors #poor blue #but everything turned out in the end #sfw

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iamnotthedog · 6 years

Text

YOSEMITE: JUNE 22, 2001

Chloe and I awoke before sunrise the next morning and made it down to Yosemite Valley just in time for her to change her clothes, throw some water on her face, and hop in a white van full of stoned and hungover twenty-somethings to drive the steep, winding road up the south wall of the valley to Glacier Point. I dropped my pack in her tent cabin and walked to the Coffee Corner in Curry Village where I knew I could get hooked up with a biscuit and a cup of coffee, then I took a roundabout walk back to the employee camp as the sun finally came over the edge of the cliffs to the east and began to burn off the fog that stretched over the Curry Village Meadow like wet cotton.

I faced a rather unpleasant task that morning: I had to find my good friend and travel companion John and tell him that I got myself fired, and that I was planning on leaving the park. Just two months previous, I had left my parents’ house in Morrison and had driven the Olds down to St. Louis to pick up John, and we had spent three days driving across the wide-open south—rolling through green Missouri, the golden hills of Oklahoma, wide-open Texas, with its tumbleweed and oil rigs and roadside diners, and New Mexico, where John said he’d live in his next life, keeping all of his belongings on a horse and riding through the desert for all of eternity. In Flagstaff, Arizona, we almost convinced ourselves to make the quick jog north to the Grand Canyon, but we pressed on—reaching Las Vegas in the morning of our third day on the road, seeing the world-famous strip in the glaring sunlight, smelling of hot garbage, all of its ugliness and desperation exposed—and we reached the pristine and dew-glistened Sierra Nevada and Yosemite as the sun came up on day three of our trip.

I had met John at Webster University, where I had gone to school for two semesters in the fall of 1999 and the spring of 2000 before dropping out and heading west for the first time. In driving back to St. Louis to take John west with me, I liked to think that I helped to rescue him from the beaten path of alcoholism and physical and mental torment that all kinds of young people are put through when they are pressured into slogging their way through college far too quickly in their young adult lives. John wasn’t involved with a fraternity or anything—he was too much of a hippie for that—but what he was doing before I convinced him to drop out of Webster was almost worse. He had grown up in St. Louis, so when he enrolled at Webster, he had allowed himself not the slightest degree of separation from his past. He hadn’t given himself any room to grow, or to figure out what exactly he wanted out of life. He went from living in his parents house and going out to smoke weed and play music with the same few guys every night, to living at Webster and going out to smoke weed and play music with the same few guys every night. Then in a span of only a few months there was a big drug raid in the dorms—campus security and blue-shirted policemen everywhere—and John and all his buddies were kicked out of the dorms and started living together, so they didn’t need to actually “go out” to do anything. They were all slowly losing interest in everything but smoking weed and playing music. Then they had started losing interest in the weed, as well, so they moved on—they moved on to pills, opium, heroine. Then they got into uppers. Cocaine. Methamphetamines. Then they started losing interest in playing music, so all they were doing was getting high. And those guys were all smart people—great people, really. And if I had to bet on it, I’d say that they all probably got their shit together, and they’re probably doing fine now. But back then, back when I visited John in St. Louis in the spring of 2001, what was happening to all of them was happening right in front of me, and I couldn’t handle it. So I got John excited in the idea of California—the idea of something he had never seen, or imagined seeing—and I stole him away.

That morning in Curry Village, I walked around a bit before finding John back behind his tent cabin, up in the area the Yosemite employees call the Terrace.1 He was sitting up on a seven-foot tall boulder, barefoot, shirtless, and cross-legged, smoking a joint as big as his head. His long brown hair was parted down the middle, and flowed down over his beard past his shoulders and over his hairy chest. He was really an ape of a man. He looked Neolithic, up there on his rock, surveying the land.

I waved, and walked towards him over the gnarled tree roots and pinecones.

“Dan!” he yelled. He was always yelling my name when he saw me. He flashed a big open-mouthed smile and stood up on his boulder. “What are you doing? Get up here and smoke this joint with me.”

“I just got back from Indian Rock with Chloe,” I said, stepping up onto the thick green moss on the shaded side of the boulder. I slipped a bit, then scrambled up on all fours to sit on the rock.

“How are things going with her?” John handed me the joint.

“You know I don’t want a girl right now.”

“Well, she’s as good as you’re going to find.”

“I know.” I hit the joint and coughed a bit. “I just...”

“You don’t need to explain anything to me,” John said. He jumped up and flung his arms around. “You’re a free man! Free to roam. Spread your seed and whatnot.”

“It’s not spreading my seed that I’m interested in,” I said. “It’s just letting it all go. No more relationships. I want freedom from all that.”

I hit the joint again.

“You told me yourself on the way out here that being free isn’t just about giving shit up,” John said, reaching for the joint. I handed it to him. “It’s about freeing your MIND.” He smiled.

“Well, yeah. That’s the most important part. But it’s a lot easier to do that with fewer distractions. Fewer attachments. And I have the opportunity right now to do whatever the fuck I want to. I can go live in a cave.”

John sucked in another mouthful of smoke. He was one of those dramatic weed smokers—every hit was a really big deal, with his eyes stretched wide or clenched shut, and his hairy chest all puffed out. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he said. He was talking funny because he was holding in the hit. “You’ve got to work, don’t you?”

I looked down at my legs. Dirty jeans, almost worn all the way through on the knees. Below them, my once-grey socks were black with dust—almost as black as my sneakers. I hadn’t done any laundry in a while. “I got fired,” I mumbled.

Smoke streamed from John’s nostrils, encircling his head. “Say what?”

“Four or five days ago. I was nabbed taking some groceries from the store.”

He coughed and smiled a goofy smile. “Fuck, man.”

“Yep.” I watched him close his eyes, pinch the joint in the corner of his mouth, take another drag. “I think I’m going to leave the park,” I said.

John opened his eyes, exhaled, and handed me the joint. It was just a little nub by that point, and it burnt my fingers. I put it out on the rock.

We both stared up into the pines for a few minutes.

“You want to go on a hike?” I finally asked, breaking the silence. “I haven’t had enough. I want to get up out of the valley again.” I stood up. “Let's do the Mist Trail.”2

“So many fuckin’ people on that trail,” John said. He lay back onto the pine needles and green moss. “But yeah,” he continued, “let’s do it. It’s supposed to be hot as hell today.”

Three hours later, John and I were sunning ourselves at the top of Nevada Falls. I leaned against a gnarled old pine and ate some almonds, looking off down the canyon. A few fat squirrels and Steller’s jays surrounded me, hoping I’d throw ‘em a nut or two. I stomped my feet and yelled at them, but they didn’t budge. They hopped and scurried around, staring up at me with their beady, possessed eyes until their determination finally started freaking me out, and I stood up and walked over to where John sat under a rainbow at the edge of a swirling, blue-green pool, right by the top of Nevada Falls, where the water surged in huge white bellows over the edge of the cliff. John had his t-shirt, socks, and shoes off, drying in the sun next to him, and he was rolling another joint.

“These squirrels are insane,” I said. “You’d think that once you got away from the valley, they wouldn’t be such fat little panhandling pieces of shit.”

“People feed ‘em up here, just like they feed ‘em in the valley,” John said, lighting the joint. “Look at those fuckers over there.” Across the wide, cascading river, just on the other side of a narrow wooden bridge, a couple in matching neon green rain coats and cargo shorts sat under a short pine, dwarfed by the massive peak of Liberty Cap, and threw bright orange Cheez-Its to a pack of frenzied squirrels. The squirrels were going crazy, and their mad little huddle looked even more chaotic because of all the birds swooping in to get the little crackers the squirrels didn’t scoop up right away.

“Assholes,” John said.

We smoked the joint in silence, cupping it in our hands to protect it from the occasional gusts of mist from the top of the falls. I wanted to say something about leaving the park—to ask John what he thought about the whole thing—but I wasn’t entirely sure how to bring it up. I figured that since he didn’t mention it, he must have been okay with it. He probably just figured I’d come back, which I probably would. How likely was it that I’d find anything out there in the entire United State of America that was any better than what I had right there, at that moment, at the top of a waterfall, smoking a joint under a goddamned rainbow?

When John finally did speak, he didn’t say anything about me, or my decision to leave. He said, “I wrote something today.” He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “It’s a whole sprawling essay thing about living in Yosemite, but I think this one paragraph is pretty good.” He cleared his throat. “‘The most amazing thing about living out here is that you—YOU, as a human being—no longer find yourself separated from nature. You are a part of it just as the squirrels and the birds and the bears and the trees and everything else are a part of it, and so it’s your responsibility as a part of the whole life cycle to keep the thing rolling, rather than try to govern it somehow.’”

I lay back on the granite. “That’s a nice thought.”

John crumpled the paper and shoved it back in his pocket. “But I don’t think the first people who came here felt that way,” he continued. I looked over at him. He looked serious. Stoned, sure, but also a bit sad. “I’m not talking about the Ahwhaneechee—they just got completely fucked, driven out of their homeland. I’m talking about the first white people. Did they have any good intentions when they started building trails into the heart of this place, and taking their photos and drawings of it into the cities? Did they really want people to experience what they were experiencing when they first came here—did they want to share that joy, that ecstasy—or did they just want to make money?”

“It’s a different story for each of them,” I said. “I think Galen Clark and John Muir had good intentions all along. But guys like James Hutchings...I don’t know, man. Hutchings loved Yosemite, sure. But he also wanted to make his money.”3

“See, and that’s the thing,” John said. “I like those guys. Those big-bearded mountain men motherfuckers in their suits, coming through here on horses before there were any decent trails. I enjoy reading their writings, learning about their lives. But when it all comes down to it, they’re all the same, and none of them are the Ahwahneechee, so no matter what their intentions, they’re all the bad guys. I mean, John Muir saved this place from the hunters and poachers and loggers and thieves. So I’ll let him off the hook. Galen Clark, too. But think about all the others. Think about the Mariposa Battalion. Those brutal savages, killing the natives and then writing about how they ‘discovered’ Yosemite. Think about all the journalists and photographers that were the first down into the valley. They all came into someone else’s house, brought attention to the astonishing shit going on in that house, and now that house is fucked. Its walls are blown down. It’s sitting out here, wide open and vulnerable to any old asshole who wants to roll on in in their giant goddamned camper and spread out their AstroTurf over the ground and feed high fructose corn syrup to the wildlife.”

I laughed. “You’re high, buddy,” I said.

“I am,” John said. “But I’ve got a point. We’re ALL here now, so we’re ALL at fault, to a point. All of us, walking these man-made trails through this prehistoric wilderness, laying eyes on these marvels of nature—this is not a good thing. It’s selfish. But WE—you and I and most of our friends down there in the valley—WE know that. At least WE do our best to respect the land. To learn about it. To leave it as we found it. I just hope that years from now, when I’m sucking down a can of beer and telling a trailer home full of grandkids about my time out here, and when you’re broke and syphilitic and alone and writing about all of this in your next great American novel or whatever—I hope it is clear to everyone that WE,” he patted me on the leg, then pointed to the couple across the river, now yelling and flapping their arms in an attempt to scare off the squirrels they had been feeding for twenty minutes. “WE are not THEM.”

As of June 2012, the Terrace is no longer: The area—comprised of the several canvas and wooden cabins in Curry Village that sat closest to the base of the wall below Glacier Point—was always prone to rock slides, and one in 2008 crushed seventeen of those cabins and sent several park employees, along with busloads of school children and their chaperones, running for their lives. No one was injured in the 2008 slide, it was large enough that it prompted a new geological study in 2012 which used laser mapping to analyze the rock formations in the cliffs surrounding the valley with the intent of identifying rocks most likely to fall. After looking at those maps, researchers decided that no cabins should be located within 180 feet of any of the cliff walls. Hence, the Terrace cabins would not be rebuilt, but swept away. ↩︎

The Mist Trail is one of the most popular hikes in Yosemite Valley: a moderate eight-mile round trip jaunt to the top of both the 317-foot Vernal Fall, and the 594-foot Nevada Fall. After hiking pretty much straight up for almost a mile—oak trees growing in the cracks of the steep cliffs on your left, the Merced River rushing below you on your right—and after passing a cliff-edge aerie affording great views of the 370-foot Illilouette Falls, Glacier Point, and Yosemite Falls and Yosemite Valley, and after crossing the cascading Merced River on a large wooden bridge full of people from all over the world, their camera shutters clicking away, you then hike back into the woods for another mile and climb up a wet, slippery, stone staircase right up alongside Vernal Falls. Unlike the thin, creek-fed falls in Yosemite Valley, Vernal Falls is fed by the rushing Merced River, and when it’s at its fullest in the spring and early summer, it is a thick, 100-foot wide curtain of white water. Taking cautious steps alongside it for a half of a mile or so, you get soaked to the bone in the mist. ↩︎

Clark, Muir, and Hutchings are all very important figures in the history of Yosemite National Park. John Muir is the best known of the three—the current face of Yosemite and one of the patron saints of environmental activism, Muir was a wandering minstrel, nature scribe, adventurer, and seward of the planet who was personally responsible for convincing President Theodore Roosevelt to recognize Yosemite as a National Park in 1906. Galen Clark was the first official Guardian of Yosemite when Yosemite Valley was first designated as a state park forty-two years earlier, in 1864. Clark was a troubled and sick thirty-nine year-old Dubliner who first discovered the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia trees on the south side of what is now the park. He ran a moderately priced hotel in Yosemite for years while protecting the Mariposa Grove, and went deeply in debt doing so. Clark frequently feuded with James Hutchings, a wealthy publisher and relentless promoter of the “wonders of Yosemite.” Hutchings led one of the first tourist parties into Yosemite in 1855, and later opened an inn in the park. Clark and Hutchings’ feud was brought about for the fact that after Yosemite Valley was designated as a state park and Clark became the park’s guardian, Hutchings began a decade-long fight with the state, suing for 160 acres of land in the park that he called rightfully his, and also suing to retain the right to build more hotels in the park if he desired. Ironically, when Clark’s guardianship came to a close in 1880, Hutchings became the park’s next guardian. ↩︎

#yosemite #glacierpoint #curryvillage #indianrock #college #squirrels #wildlife #misttrail #nevadafalls #galenclark #johnmuir #jameshutchings #theodoreroosevelt #weedsmoking #ahwahneechee

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