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Hiya, can u do a ahkmenrah x reader request where the reader is ill and ahk is ofc panicking but trying his hardest to help you, thank u <33 n can it be at the museum

notes: thanks for requesting! ive done similar stuff so i decided to change it up a little, still follows the prompt tho. hope you like it!

warnings: cancer. WC: 1.3k

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You hadn't spoken since the news. Voices of doctors and relatives faded out as your vision zeroed onto nothing, willing yourself into an abyss of silence. There were options, of course––they said something about chemical treatments, healing mushrooms to help you along, CBD oil and lotion to soothe the soon-to-come, overbearing pain. And, of course, the reminder that new treatments were coming out every day.

Archivers in museums didn't get paid much; that meant that, unfortunately, you couldn't really afford much more than basic, more dangerous treatments. A pit inside you whispered it was pointless, that death was closer than you thought. Still, you returned to your place of work in the evening, your feet dragging along the floor as you stared blankly forward, automatically unlocking and locking the door without thinking.

Moving like sludge through muscle memory.

You stood in the middle of the room, crowded by people––exhibits, at least––who didn't know your ailment, or the words of the doctor that still rung in your ears…

"Stage 4," he'd said, but you didn't hear the words surrounding that piece of information. Actually, the ongoings of yesterday were lost to you, absorbed by only a few words and blank stares.

"(Y/N)?"

The darkness on the edge of your eyes began to fade.

"(Y/N), are you alright?"

Ahk was standing in front of you, his hand on our shoulder as he attempted to meet your wandering eye.

"Oh, uh, yeah, I'm okay," you mumbled, unable to look at his face.

Despite your words, it was clear to anyone who saw you that you were not in fact alright, and Ahk frowned, wishing you would speak the truth.

"Let's go somewhere quieter," he suggested, and led you up the stairs to the marine exhibits.

Dark blue light rippled around you, the sound of bubbles and swishing water the only accompaniment to your quiet walk. Ahkmenrah stood as always at your side, matching your crawling pace, and pausing with you to stare at the massive tanks.

Still, you didn't speak, and Ahk was forced to coerce you into giving up whatever was bothering you.

"What happened?" He asked, standing in front of you to keep you from walking. You had your arms crossed, and your shoulders pulled up tightly.

"I went to the doctors," you said with clear discomfort.

Ahk nodded––you told him what a doctor was a few months ago by now.

"It's cancer," you said as you sucked in a sharp breath, nodding shakily. "I don't expect you to know what it is, but.. it isn't good."

"You'll be alright though, won't you?" He asked, his brow knotted tight. "You people have so many different medicines than we ever had access to."

"We don't have all the answers," you said softly.

"Then... what will you do?"

He stepped closer to you, sharing his warmth with your dull, ashen skin. But his question––despite its relevance––left you spinning, staring out past his shoulder as your expression fell into further disrepair.

"... nothing," you finally breathed out.

Answers and possible outcomes were swirling around your waking and sleeping consciousness for hours on end, without pause or rest. The price of treatment, the methods, and how you would continue to live after chemotherapy, if you even lived at all. You could kill yourself slowly in two different ways––by cancer and by chemotherapy, or you could die a more natural death with sickness like black ink stretching over your organs just as a spider weaves massive webs.

"Nothing??" He hissed. "You can't do nothing, have you lost your mind?!"

"I can't really afford the treatment, Ahk," you whispered, as tears who had been building for hours finally fell over flushed cheeks. "And if I do get it, I'm never going to be the same after. And that's if I live. Even if I get it, the doctor said it's not likely it'll help in time."

His hands pulled your face in, the bottom of his palms on your jaw and his fingers stretching out behind your neck to pull you in.

"I can't let you die," he said, his voice breaking.

You stared at him with weary eyes, dragged down by the dark circles beneath them. There was little else you could think to say to him, so you leant forward on shaky toes, and pecked his forehead in a kiss that was barely ever there.

"I'll think about it," you mumbled, and left.

For weeks you kept coming to work faithfully, only calling in sick when the chemotherapy side-effects left you bruised and exhausted. Your hair was already falling out, but Ahk insisted he didn't mind, and you believed him––in ancient Egypt, it was customary to shave your head for religions undertakings.

Each evening when you entered the museum, Ahk would come greet you and take you to the pillows and blankets he piled up in the marine exhibits, allowing you the comfort of soft light and whale calls while he prepared a tea for you. He wouldn't tell you what it was, but you could tell it was some sort of ground root you assumed was a healing tactic from ancient Egypt. While you were sipping at the warm concoction, he massaged the aching muscles, and applied an ointment Larry had gotten for his arthritis.

Sometimes he would tell you stories––only if you asked, of course, but you enjoyed the gentle rumble of the Pharaoh's voice, and the magic happenings within his tales. Rueful Gods and Goddesses littered the stories, within vivid imagery he piece together in your failing mind.

"Ahk," you murmured on one of those harder days that, for some reason (Ahk), you returned to the museum.

He stopped mid-story, turning expectantly to you. You raised your arms to him.

"Come here," you said, and he obeyed, gingerly sliding himself down next to you in the makeshift bed.

"Are you feeling alright?" He asked, his nose brushing yours.

"No," you chuckled with a weak smile.

You fell asleep within a minute, passing out in Ahkmenrah's embrace holding you tight to his chest. When your breathing settled into a slower in and out, tears welled in his eyes, falling upon your shared pillow as his shoulders began to shake. His thumb gently rubbed your cheek, relishing in little touches and gestures.

Memorizing. Just in case.

He took care of you, as much as he could within his own death, and continued to warm your tea, make sure you were eating, and comfort you with various medicines and stories. Curled up in the blanket nest, you did your best to smile whenever you met his eye.

And then one day, you didn't come to the museum. Ahk caught McPhee saying something to Larry; something about you, and something along the lines of 'they didn't call in sick'. Larry took a visibly deep breath, speaking in hushed tones Ahk couldn't hear from his distance.

You didn't come the next day, either, nor for the entirety of the week. In attempts to find answers Ahk grilled Larry for what had happened, but he didn't know, as you were an intensely private person who only gave their number to their employer.

But you never came again, and Ahk could feel himself slipping, the image of you in his head already blurry and unclear. He tried to remember your warmth, the softness of your skin, and your breath on his bare chest, and at times he could feel your weight still on him. It only made him yearn all the more, reaching and almost feeling something that no longer existed. Lain on his chest and too far to reach.

He learned that silence is an answer in the most hellish way possible.

I wrote a thing today. It was supposed to be for Valentine’s Day

Title: Holding Space Fandom: Star Trek TNG Pairing: Will Riker/Deanna Troi Rating: PG Notes: set between Season 3 episodes The Bonding and The Booby Trap

Commander Will Riker would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was disappointed Deanna had not yet come to the bridge to report she was back on board. It wasn’t an official protocol, but it was a courtesy that the senior staff generally observed. It was, in fact, out of the ordinary that Deanna didn’t report to the bridge officer on duty.

He told himself he would wait a full half hour past her anticipated arrival time to call down to O’Brien. It would be a very long half hour, and he knew that at least some of the bridge crew were very aware he was antsy. So Will had dutifully read through the various daily reports sent in. And he checked the logs three times to make sure there wasn’t some mental health crisis that would’ve pulled her immediately back into work.

Eventually, he’d taken to the ready room, vacant since the captain was off duty at the moment. Catching up on reports was no help in the distraction department because the only remaining reports they were still working on were the reports over the Mintaka III duck blind. It had been an utter failure in all aspects of First Contact. Not that the Enterprise crew had been able to really help it. It was more an Act of Fate.

Privately, though, Will still felt guilty about the whole thing. Guilty for leaving Deanna behind. He knew, rationally, that there was no help for it. Palmer had needed immediate medical care. There had been no reason to think that Deanna wouldn’t be able to slip quietly away and be beamed back on board.

“You’re beating yourself up over it,” she’d observed one night in Ten Forward, about a week ago. Her fingers played with the glass containing her Sumerian sunrise, idly tracing the bands etched around the cup.

He shifted, elbow on the table to lean against it for support, suddenly uncomfortable with the turn this evening was taking. Rather than answer immediately, he took a slow inventory of the lounge. It was a slow night, and they were relatively isolated. As his gaze swept the bar, Guinan had given him a long look and a subtle nod. He wasn’t even really sure what the nod meant, except that they would be given some space. “We should’ve come up with a better plan. One that had less risk.”

“We had limited intelligence. Given what we knew at the time, the risks seemed minimal. In retrospect, I don’t see what we could’ve done any differently.  And, Will, I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt.”

He shook his head. “You were almost sacrificed to a non-existent deity,” he ground out, one hand lifting to rub his beard in frustration. “Do you know what it’s like to sit in a meeting with the captain and the current expert in Mintakan culture and hear that under these extraordinary circumstances, they might actually kill someone you care about?”

Deanna was leaning in now, arms resting on the table, hands clasped. He envied her level of calm and acceptance about this. “No, I do not. But,” she quickly added, “I do know what it’s like to sit on the bridge or in meetings and hear about missions where the people that I care deeply about may die. To see you and our friends leave on away teams when there are serious risks. To coordinate evacuations and general quarters, especially sauce separations, that leave me with the low-risk group and people I care for very much on the battle bridge.”

The intensity of her words hit him like a phaser blast, and Will was left speechless for long moments. He’d never taken much time to consider what it looked like from her end of things. And given her sympathetic smile, she realized this.

“It’s the life I chose, Will,” she added quietly after giving him some time to absorb her first statements. “We all signed up for Starfleet understanding the risks. Some of us have already lost loved ones in the line of duty…”

It was the line of duty that was the hardest to absorb. That reminder that her own father had died while serving. Amplified days later when Lieutenant Aster died on the archeological dig. It had impacted the crew, shocked them all because this had seemed like such a routine exploration. Worsened because she left behind Jeremy, now parent-less.

And in the last six days since that incident, Deanna had been on duty, more or less continuously caring for the boy. Worf had wanted to accompany both her and Jeremy to Starbase 24, where they would rendezvous with the boy’s aunt and uncle, but the Enterprise couldn’t spare him long enough. As it was, Deanna would barely make the connection back before they needed to jump to high warp in order to make their next mission. If she was delayed, it would be another week or more before a shuttle or transport would cross their path to bring her back.

In the end, it was O’Brien calling. “Transporter Room 3 to Commander Riker.”

“Riker here,” he replied instantly, straightening in his seat on the couch. He never used the desk in the ready room because it felt too much like the captain’s personal space.

“The counselor is back on board. You can take us to warp now.”

“Acknowledged,” Will replied, feeling a bit silly for not realizing sooner that O’Brien would be aware they were waiting for her arrival before moving on. That he would have anticipated the need to notify the bridge so they could go to warp.

Gathering the PADD he had been using, Will made his way back to the bridge. “Counselor Troi is back on board. Warp eight, on to our next coordinates,” he called to the helm before settling into the captain’s chair. He continued to fight his eagerness to see her back on board for himself. With a few commands from his PADD, he finished the plans he’d settled on the night before in anticipation of her return.

She had sent two communiques to him in as many days. They’d spoken only once through subspace, the first night after Jeremy had fallen asleep in one of the bunks on a small thirty passenger supply ship they’d caught a ride with. Deanna had looked very tired, eyes shadowed from lack of sleep that he hadn’t seen from her in a long time. It had been a rough past few months for her-- the psychological torment on Rana IV, nearly being sacrificed on Mintaka III, and the aftermath of Aster’s death. He’d set a hot bath to run in her quarters and left out some real chocolate that he’d managed to obtain on a recent starbase and kept a secret stash for the rough days when hot chocolate from the replicator wasn’t enough. Will had the sense from their subspace call that this would be one of those days.

And yet the bridge held only the scheduled crew members on a very routine shift. Textbook even. He’d rarely been so glad to hand over command to Data when it finally did end. In reality, he should be finding his way to the mess hall or Ten Forward for a meal. But he was determined not to wait any longer.

It didn’t take long to gain her quarters, and he politely pressed the button to notify her that she had a visitor. They came and went freely from each other’s quarters. They were both visitors with full access at any time. Besides that, as First Officer, he had override access to all parts of the ship. But he was a gentleman and would announce himself.

When there was no answer, he paused for a long moment. A glance up and down the hall confirmed that he was alone for now, and he was grateful. Everyone on board knew they were close. It wouldn't have been the first time either of them had been spotted outside the other’s quarters. Besides, their roles on the ship meant they often worked closely together. But he was also acutely aware that the crew knew their relationship was much more complicated than that.

“Computer, location of Counselor Deanna Troi,” he finally decided to consult on this, instead of simply assuming she was in her quarters. It would be easy enough to gain entry, but he hesitated to simply go in. She might be sleeping. Or she might want to be alone. A few dozen less rational explanations for no answer flitted through his mind, but he dismissed the various scenarios as absurd and unlikely.

“Counselor Deanna Troi is in Commander Riker’s quarters.”

Now that was not something he had not considered. With an about-face, he moved just down the corridor and through his own door. His lounge showed no evidence of a visitor, and he frowned to himself as he scanned the room to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. He gained his room and came to a full halt at the doorway.

There was a Betazoid in his bed. Soundly asleep. In the chair in the corner, her maroon uniform was folded neatly and her boots tucked out of the walkway. He was pretty sure he’d left at least a few articles of clothing on the floor, but it had been cleared out, most likely tossed in the laundry.

But what caught his breath was how small and worn out Deanna looked under the silvery Starfleet-issued blanket. The shadows under her eyes were more pronounced in the low light seeping in from the lounge. He wondered if she had even gone to her own quarters at all, and he suspected likely not.

For now, he was too awake to sleep. So he let himself linger for several moments more, absorbing that she was back on board. That she was getting the rest she so clearly needed. There would be time to catch up later. Will finally returned to his lounge and found something in the replicator menu that sounded appetizing and was able to focus enough to wrap up his daily report and close out two older reports before his mind wound down enough that he could think about sleeping, too.

A quick sonic shower relaxed him enough that Will knew meant he could finally get some rest. When he went in search of his usual blue pajamas, he found the top missing but tugged on the trousers and eased in beside Deanna. And he quickly found his missing top, which she had appropriated for her own sleepwear.

That particular realization touched on a mix of new feelings. Attraction. It wouldn't be the first time she had swiped something of his to sleep in. Secretly, he hoped it wouldn’t be the last time, either. And it touched on something tender, which surprised him all the more. That she was tired enough to borrow something, rather than make the effort of going to her own quarters, one room away, for her own things.

“Mmmm,” she murmured now, though Will could tell she remained on the other side of sleep.

“Sssh,” Will soothed, arms banding around her and pulling her closer to him, his body warmer than usual from the sonic shower. She relaxed into the comfort, as he’d hoped she would. “Back to sleep,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss into her hair. “I’m glad you’re back,” he breathed, thumb pressing at the nape of her neck, seeking those pressure points to soothe and relax her. He rubbed small circles until her breath evened out again, familiar and soothing against the crook of his neck and he followed her into deep sleep.

A Drop of Heaven I: Sir(e)  (M)

[Series Masterlist]

Pairing: ot7 x reader // this chapter: Namjoon x reader, some Jimin x reader

Series summary: Seven vampires have secretly been roaming the darks of your world for millennia. Each brother selects a Feed who becomes supernaturally bound to him, whose blood will be fed on until their inevitable mortal death. They have spent their eternity hunting for the exorbitant rarity that is angel blood - the most heavenly of food for vampires that fuel them with desire, lust and satiety. So what happens when they all find you, the first angel-blooded being they’ve encountered in two centuries?

Genre: vampire au, poly au, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (e2l)

Warnings in this chapter: non-consensual blood drinking, mentions of death and abuse, obv blood and gore, very light smut, dry humping, ass grinding, dom!Namjoon is an ass man wbk, almost everyone being a prick, oc and Namjoon hating each other but then get confused

Word count: 9.6k

!Disclaimer!: As I’ve said before, I am not glorifying any type of objectification or abuse, and this has nothing to do with gender at all. This is meant to depict a fictional dynamic between vampire and Feed which obviously does not apply to a non-supernatural context in which case this would be considered abuse and toxic. I really hope this doesn’t offend/trigger anyone!! If you get confused, feel free to ask questions.

[prelude, i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, epilogue]

❦

Death feels…

Alive.

The hum of classical music and hushed low voices permeate your ears as your senses gradually seep back to you. Faint darkness cloaks your vision. Your chest rises and falls in a soft slow rhythm. You’re breathing. Your heart is beating. You feel alleviated from the pain you’re so accustomed to. You feel revitalised.

You feel alive.

So this is the so-called Afterlife philosophers spend decades pondering and debating. How peculiar.

You try to lift your finger and find it moving at your will, the action feeling oddly smooth and effortless. Fabric brushes your skin, and in fact, a silk material envelops your body. Are you on a bed?

When your eyelids begin to flutter in attempt to open, the voices around you silence eerily in unison. You see a red-gold light at first, illuminating the dark room you find yourself in, the ceiling of which void-black. In your periphery, dim candles are flickering on your two sides, the warm glow of which spilling onto the lavish satin bed you lay atop, its size worthy for kings to sleep in.

Then something violently strong snaps within you, a string, a cord, of sorts. The sensation is not physical, it’s beyond that; it feels as though something has tied itself around your soul and is tugging at you towards it. This intensity is overwhelming, eating at your mind and core, urging you to follow this nexus that tightens its hold around you.

You sit up, gasping.

And face seven men.

Each the epitome of beauty in their own right. Each an ethereal glaze washing over them. Each staring at you with the most curious glint in their eyes.

No, not curious. Hungry.

“I…” Your brain is scattered from its sense. Where are you? Who are they? Are you dead or alive or both? “What…?” Coherent thoughts fail to form in your head and at your lips, the question dangles in the air like a weak sigh.

Processing as much as you can, you take a moment to examine the seven standing around the bed in front of you.

The one directly in front of you regards you with crossed arms, dressed in a suit of all black, mousy grey-brown hair swept neatly. When you meet his eyes, a chill shoots down your back for his irises have the faintest crimson glow to them. But what is more terrifying is not the strange hue of his eyes, but the way they are pinned at you as if he could stare into your soul and read your every single secret. There is an air of power and superiority that exudes from his tall stance. You’re beginning to think that this definitely isn’t heaven and he definitely isn’t an angel.

On his left is a pink-haired man, delicate to look at, soft features painting his handsome face. His eyes are kind but unreadable, juxtaposing the harshness of the one beside him. His shoulders are board, though he possesses no intimidation towards you. Something about him is so aesthetically soothing, magical to look at.

On the other side of the stranger in the middle slouches a smaller man, a bored expression worn on his face with his cheek bitten inside his mouth. His spiky head of hair so dark you can almost hear it whisper lullabies of the devil. When he looks at you, you feel him emanate a dangerous fury; it’s an ancient deep-rooted type of evil. Now, a flood of fear finally dawns on you.

Next to him, a dimpled grin greets you. Immediately you sense a rush of security at his warm expression, though you can’t help but think it’s a deceiving facade to lull you into his snare. There is a darkness lurking behind his crescent eyes that you don’t completely trust. He ruffles his hand through his wine red tufts, smile not once faltering in the most uncanny manner.

Standing opposite the bed from him is a devilishly handsome blonde boy, though you’re not sure if ‘boy’ is quite the right word when his lips quirk up at you mysteriously. He’s dressed luxuriously, like he’s some foreign prince, standing tall and proud yet undecipherable. An unknown force draws you to him, his beauty beckoning you like a lasso. When he brushes his thumb under his lip, you shudder.

Another boy approaches you, this one so stunning you jump back at his advance. “How are you feeling? Better?” As he perches on the side of the bed a hand’s reach away from you, you pause to take in this face wholly. Waves of silver sprouting from his head, mesmerisingly angular eyes staring intently into yours, a small button nose and plump red lips. It’s a frightening type of beauty.

Gulping as you find yourself out of air from the overwhelmingly powerful presence in the room, you force yourself to nod. You only realise now that you are changed into a clean cream cotton dress.

In the dark far corner, the last man leans against the wall, observing with a guarded, austere demeanour. You can’t see him well in the shadow, but you see the gloss of his long black curls flowing around his clenched jaw. He does not say anything, does not appear to have the intention of joining the others gathered around you. Just silently watching.

These seven men… No, not men.

Phantasmal unearthly creatures.

Because there is no way that these towering bodies and other-worldly faces are mere mortals.

“Who are you?” Your voice is a croaky whisper courtesy to your chokingly dry throat.

“The answer to that is worth an eternity, love.” The boy sat beside you smirks, brushing his silver locks to one side. “I’m afraid you don’t want to find out.”

Your mind is whizzing, trying to piece together your surroundings, these strangers leering at you almost lasciviously as if you’re some zoo animal. Trying to grasp at your last memories, you remember the scenes in flashes. His fist, her cries, blooming agony, then darkness.

A blood-curdling realisation hits you.

You’re not dead.

You can’t be dead. You’re breathing, blinking, moving. You’re very much alive. And tragically so.

“Where is she?” You make the move to get off this bed but is blocked by the gorgeous blonde. A wolf wearing sheepskin, you wager.

Silence dangles in the air like a man hanging from a noose, the familiar gnaw of fear clenching your chest so tightly you don’t think you’re breathing. Then, “She’s dead.”

Those words are flung at you like a piece of rag but hit you like an arrow through the heart. Spoken by none other than the frowning man in the middle, arms crossed and eyeing you with callous indifference as if he hadn’t just announced the death of your younger sister.

You expect tears to erupt from your eyes but they don’t, you want to scream your devastation and anger at the world but you don’t. Everything goes still, calm, inert. Almost as if you can’t feel anything. The pain in your heart spreads like cracking glass torturously slowly, infecting your every fibre with a bleak shadow.

The mattress dips as Silver clambers closer to you and strokes your cheek gently. His touch ice cold, yet nothing compared to the numbness of your mind, empty, devoid of all feeling.

“I’m sorry, don’t be sad.”

Don’t be sad.

You let out a breath that would’ve been a laugh if you currently had the capacity for emotion.

“Enough of this shit, just cut to the chase and tell her everything she needs to know so we can get on with it, Namjoon.” Impatient and hostile, the one with black hair and a permanent scowl scoffs.

Namjoon, standing out amongst the seven not in looks but in confidence and stature, is their leader, you suppose. When he speaks again, you’re not surprised that he is. His tone is authoritative, articulate, a severe presence that demands attention. Almost enough to make you forget about the grief you’re bottling up for one second.

“What is your name, girl?”

“Y/N.”

“Y/N, listen to me very closely as I won’t repeat myself. We seven brothers hereby are siring you as our Feed, all seven of us. You will now be bound to us until death shows you mercy and lifts your curse that tethers you to us eternally. Forget your past life because you shall reside here in our manor for the rest of your mortal life for us to drink your blood.

“Under normal circumstances, each of us possesses one Feed each, but in your case, we shall distribute you equally amongst ourselves. There are seven days in a week which falls perfectly align with our arrangement. On Monday, you shall be my Feed, Tuesday, Seokjin, Wednesday, Yoongi, Thursday, Hoseok, Friday, Jimin, Saturday, Taehyung and finally Sunday, Jungkook. You shall be completely obedient to your sire of the day and your sire only, and in return we shall feed on you only on the day of which you belong to us. Due to the vigorous frequency at which you are being fed on, we have agreed to feed as lightly as possible to sustain you. If need be, you will be healed with our blood.

“You shall refer to me as Sir and only Sir; the others will decide the dynamic they wish to share with you. Do not for a second forget that you are our subjugate, our inferior and our prey. The magic that yields you to us is powerful, thus you have no choice in this matter. Many before you have tried to defy during their early days as a Feed only to quickly fail and fall to submission as they should. Heed this as your only warning.

“Do you or do you not understand, Y/N?” When he finishes, he juts his chin high at you and sucks in the meat of his cheeks between his jaws.

The fire poker that is his glare sears into you, sizzling its mark into your pit of dread. None of what he just said makes an ounce of sense to you, and it’s definitely not because of your dazed state from your newly-regained consciousness.

Just who does this man think he is? And what in ten Hells is he going on about?

“No. I don’t fucking understand.”

Shock registers in all their eyes when you spit your bitter dispute at Namjoon. You swear there’s a glint of twisted excitement sparking from the redhead.

“I’m afraid you will have to repeat yourself. Sir.” You continue when none of them utters a syllable. “First, you tell me my sister is dead. I believe you. Then you’re spouting some speech about how I’m ‘sired’ to you all and you’re going to drink my blood every day of the week because I belong to you? Is this some sort of cult or is this Hell?” Looking around at them, they all seem taken aback by your outburst, stunned.

“Oh my… This one is going to be fun.” The blonde boy mirths at you, tongue gliding over his row of pearly teeth. It is now that you notice the sharp point of his fangs in place of his canines. You freeze.

“Isn’t she? I’m going to go mad waiting until Thursday. Can I have a bite right now? Just a drop so I know her taste?” He is bouncing on his toes, thrilled by the anticipation.

“Hoseok, hush.” Namjoon silences the boy’s fervour before turning to you. “Y/N, if you insist on defiance, I promise you endless suffering. Let me clear your confusion. We are vampires that rely on blood as our food. You are our chosen victim, our Feed. The supernatural sire bond will eventually click into place between you and each one of us, forcing a mutual loyalty between Vampire and Feed. This will be clearer as the days go on. I suggest you-”

“Right, vampires.” You interrupt before he can continue his nonsense. How did you end up in some vampire-worshipping cult? “If you guys are vampires, then I’m a freaking angel. You are all insane. I’m leaving, goodbye.”

Frantically crawling off the bed, you head in the direction of the door. If your sister is really dead, then what happened to your uncle? You hope he’s dead too. Either way, you have no home to return to, but still you need to escape these men for your own sake. You can’t escape one lunatic only to end up in the lair of seven more.

But before you could even step your bare foot off the bed onto the wooden floor, frozen fingers snake around your wrist like a venomous serpent and lock you in its clasp.

“You are an angel, kind of.” Hoseok chuckles and tugs you back onto the bed, you’re unduly aware of how close he is hovering over you.

“You’re also dumb as fuck if you think you can leave, did you not hear everything he just said?” The sourpuss beside him shoves at your shoulder not at all lightly until you sink onto the mattress on your back. “You couldn’t leave us even if you tried.”

“No need to be so rough on her, Yoongi, she’s confused.” Brows pinched in disapproval, the pink-haired man chastises softly, and to your surprise, this Yoongi just scowls but dips his head.

Pink seems to be kind, the only one here that appeals to your plight apparently, so you scramble on your knees over to his side for your second attempt to escape. But his gentle hand reaches out to stop you, hand raised inches away from your chest, preventing you from moving forward and slipping past him. There’s a guilt in his eyes that you cannot comprehend. Why can’t he let you leave if he is sympathetic towards you?

“She still doesn’t get it, hyung.” The beautiful blonde boy on your other side shakes his head with a pernicious smile. “We need to show her.” His appearance is a trap, you know that with absolute certainty as you look into the renaissance painting that is his face. Yet you cannot help the attraction that sings you towards him as he draws his finger under your chin, guiding you closer into him.

He looks over to Namjoon as if for approval, who only stares at the scene of him luring you into his grasp with an unreadable expression. At the lack of disagreement from others, his finger now traces down to your neck, wandering over your heavy pulse. You gulp.

“Taehyung…” Someone warns, yet the delirious state you’re in at the hands of this boy’s enchantment does not allow you to recognise who.

His eyes are the palest of blues, a cloudless summer day with a soft seaside breeze. Your gaze follows his tongue wetting his lips, then trailing his sharp teeth. How do his fangs look so real? They oddly suit him, painting a wild beastly image of him that is concealed by his soft innocent features until he opens his mouth to flash his whites. You’ve never seen someone as good looking as him. As all of them.

Seductively, Taehyung leans into your neck and buries his nose in your scent. When he sucks in sharply, you sense his craving, his arousal. You’re frozen in his clutch as his hand circles behind you so delicately, unsure of what to do with yourself, unsure of what he’ll do with you. Lips tenderly caressing your jugular, you shut your eyes, intoxicated by his touch.

“Left neck is mine.” He growls, the aggressiveness of which surprises you so much so that the words he speaks don’t manifest its meaning to you at first.

Then a scorching hot pain explodes in your neck, so violent that you shriek out and try to twist away. But something is latched onto you like a hook, two hooks in fact. When your open your eyes, you realise that it’s his teeth that are sunken inch deep into your neck, penetrating a dizzying agony into your whole body. After a still second, you begin to feel a pressure pulling out your blood like a vacuum. A tear trickles out the corner of your eye at the burning sensation.

What the fuck?

He is… drinking your blood.

You try to push him off but a strange force like phantom hands bind your muscles and prevent you from acting on your will.

The magic that yields you to us is powerful, you have no choice in this matter.

Holy shit, Namjoon was completely serious. These people aren’t a brainwashed cult, they’re actually vampires.

Years of abuse, all the wounds you’ve endured, are nothing compared to the agony embedded deep in your neck right now. Absolutely nothing. Streams of scarlet flow down your garment like a spillage of wine, dark and thick and an indulgence to the tongue. You’re helplessly grappling on Taehyung’s shirt, tugging him towards you rather than shoving him away. This supernatural spell, or whatever the fuck it is, is overriding and going against your every intention to escape.

Vision hazy, you vaguely make out the other faces watching you struggle under Taehyung’s fangs. And when you think this nightmare could not get more harrowing, you notice a change in their eyes. By that, you do not mean a shift in expression, a frown or a squint. It is an actual physical transformation: the black of their pupils incrementally diffusing into their irises like a drop of watercolour, then the darkness spills over to the whites of their eyes until they are wholly onyx clouds.

“Taehyung.” Namjoon demands, and a sigh of relief escapes you as the sucking in your vein ceases. But rather than telling him to stop, he simply orders, “Share.”

Share? Share your blood?

Then the rest of the five prowl to gather around you, and despite your vertigo, you will never forget how monstrous they look. Eyes black as void, ivory fangs elongating like unsheathing claws, nostrils flaring at the scent of your blood, their food. Chest heaving as if struggling to hold back from ripping you into strips of meat.

“Bon appetit.” Is that Hoseok who’s leaping at your collarbone?

When his teeth sink in, you no longer have it in you to cry out. And then another on your right neck. Your head feels as if it’ll roll off your neck, only held onto the rest of your body by a ligament and Taehyung’s palm. A strong hand yanks your arm up and places your wrist in his mouth. This one hurts even more than your neck as you feel his fangs scrape carelessly against your bone. A soundless sob leaves your trembling lips. Then someone is gently pushing your legs apart, sniffing up the inside of your thigh. You try to kick him yet instead your leg wraps around his back and draw him closer. His purring resonates into your core as he licks his ravishing mark before piercing your skin once more. Blood seeps out the corner of his mouth and run down your calf like the tears you release in vain.

“Oh Hell, I haven’t tasted angel blood in centuries. I’ve forgotten how irreplaceably magnificent this is.” Someone throws their head back for a breath, sighing their satisfaction at your opulence.

No matter how much you thrash against the force that holds you in their submission, nothing budges. Like skyscraping obsidian walls surrounding your every side. Shadow scions twisting around your limbs into a lock.

Y/N, if you insist on defiance, I promise you endless suffering.

His voice echoes in the rubble of your brain like a bell, clanging its nauseating truth into you. Your consciousness is sand falling between your fingers, you try to hold on but the grains are ungraspable.

Then finally, the one with pink hair comes near you. A pitiful expression worn that makes you wonder how absolute the evil that lurks in them actually is, or whether it’s tainted with humanity.

He stops, brushes your tear away. “Sorry.” Trickery of your ears would not be surprising, considering the irony of his apology as he hesitantly lifts your other wrist to his fangs.

You last one second after his bite before fainting, body going slump but held upright by the six vampires feeding on you. Your last thought being: how terrifying the devils of Hell live in such beautiful deceiving skins.

And also that you hope you fucking die this time.

In the dim corner of the room, the last vampire watches, taciturn, as his brothers devour every last drop of crimson liquid that misses their tongues. Eyes narrowing at their wolfish hunger and your fainted state. Then slips away without as much as a word.

.

You wake up painless. Skin unmarred and unbroken. In the same room, on the same bed. Yet your red stained night dress tells you that it wasn’t a nightmare. It was all real.

Everything is silent though the clockwork in your head ticks loud. You try to process how you’ve been captured by a brotherhood of vampires, blood-sucking vampires, who have chosen you to be their personal blood bag. Their ‘Feed’. And you’re now magically bound to them, a force locking you in place and unable to resist every time you try.

What the actual fuck?

How has your life thrown you from torture to torture?

None of this seems possible. Vampires are a mythical creature, a fable. You have to be going insane. Or perhaps you actually are dead and this is your personal Hell designed to torment you for the rest of your afterlife. Not that you know what you did to deserve all this.

But it had felt so real.

You touch the spot on your neck where you were bitten, goosebumps raising when you recall Taehyung’s fangs first puncturing through you as if you were no more than a peach. That pain, that shock, bathes in its immortality in your memory.

Namjoon, their leader. His dictation of the rules that they are enforcing on you, his vexingly arrogant tone, the way his eyes squint down at you. What is wrong with him?

Then there is your sister. Her death. The initial heartbreak launched into you like a missile, but then somehow fizzled away into a bittersweetness that sours your throat. You won’t cry. Death was a mercy for her, it’s surely better than your predicament right now. She was innocent, she was sinless, she was pure. She deserves death when living was a worse fate.

There’s no point grieving her loss, right?

There’s no point, you convince yourself. And so you lock her sugar sweet scent and toothy smile away in your heart-shaped box and toss the key into the ocean of your emotions.

You wonder how your uncle fares. The cause of your misery and suffering all these years. The one who showed you that you’re capable of the ugly emotion that is hate. You don’t want to think about him, your fists already clenching in anger at the reminder of his alcohol-ridden breath. You hope he’s somewhere captured in this place too, experiencing worse than what he put you and her through.

If you ever see him, you would kill him yourself. Not a single doubt about that.

All this misfortune in you and your sister’s lives stemmed from one accident that resulted in the death of your parents. Your life before, a distant reverie. You had been happy once, scarless and untraumatized. Now you’re damaged.

About to be even more damaged.

Your coping mechanism has always fluctuated between two polarities. Either you are a shell of a living being, detached and numb to all the blows, merely rotting to your expiration, or some days you are so full of anger at the unfairness of this universe, so much resentment at yourself, your uncle, and even your parents for leaving you behind.

Right now, you’re the former. Hit by a wave of anaesthesia, and you’re grateful for it because you know the alternative is the manic loss of your sanity.

Sitting up, you regard this room. It is dark and sleek in nature, use of deep metal and glass for surfaces rather than the wood you’re used to at home. No, not home. That wasn’t your home. The palette is monochrome, primarily blacks and greys, devoid of any colour, reflecting the bleakness of your mental state. The room is lit by candles beside the bed, though a multi-bulbed light hangs from the middle of the ceiling, switched off. Curtains drawn shut, you have no idea what time of day it currently is, nor the passage of time. Furniture is lacking, only a marble chest of drawers, a cushion-barren loveseat, a pot of fern which you presume is fake because what plant can grow in such dull setting, and a double shelf of books.

There are three doors, one agape that opens up to what looks like an ensuite bathroom, the other two in adjacent corners, ominously calling for you to explore. Whatever lurks behind them, you can sense it won’t be the Garden of Eden. Either way, you need to find a way out of this place.

You’re about to leave the bed and scuttle to listen at the walls when you hear two soft knocks before the closer of the two doors opens. To reveal an angelic face that you now know is nothing more than a lie, his silver hair glinting from the candle flames.

“Can I come in?” His voice is smooth, saccharine, higher pitched than you expected. Though this is your second encounter with him, you don’t remember your first too well due to the overwhelm.

Clearing your throat, you reply, “yes.” Why has he even asked for permission when he didn’t need it? It’s not like you have a choice in the matter, or any matter in here apparently.

The way he strolls in exudes a swaggering confidence, a charm that you would buy into if you hadn’t witness him transform into a black-eyed demon and feel his fangs enter your flesh. When he sits on the bed, crinkling the satin covers, you fight the urge to recoil away from his proximity. He is dressed in a royal blue velvet suit that flaunts his collarbones, and tied around his neck is a red choker, the colour of which flashes a reminder of your own choker of your own blood sewn around your neck.

“Forgive me for not introducing myself before, I’m Jimin.” At his outreached hand, you blink. So these creatures are capable of etiquette and decency.

Hesitantly, like a cat sniffing a stranger’s inquiring finger, you place your hand atop his. Almost jumping at its iciness. When he lifts it up to plant a dry delicate kiss, you yelp and withdraw harshly, not caring that your knuckles hit his nose.

“You’re a shy one.” Jimin chuckles at your reaction to hide his hurt.

“No, not shy. Just not easy and willing like you want me to be.” The venom is harbouring in your chest now, melting away your numbness into an acidic puddle.

“You have a bite to you.” He muses, more to himself than you.

“So do you.” All your hatred, for your uncle, for your life, for these vampires, you’re channeling towards him at this moment. You know it might not be completely justified, he’s not the worst one out of them. But do you need a reason not to be sour towards your captor?

His face softens, though it was soft to begin with. He doesn’t look at you like his prey, and it confuses you because that’s what you are to him. “I… am sorry. I hope you understand that I didn’t choose to be like this.”

It dawns on you right now, as you for the first time consider his point of view. He didn’t choose to be like this. He really didn’t… You have no choice but to be bound to them. But they also have no choice but to need to feed on you. A lion does not choose to be cruel to the zebra, it simply has to in order to survive.

A tiny fragment of your firepit of anger smokes into nothing.

When you don’t say anything, a hint of worry appears in his eyes. “How are you feeling though?”

Alright, you almost say. Because that’s everyone’s default answer to this question even when they don’t mean in, even when they’re on the brink of a mental breakdown bubbling beneath their skin.

“Weird. Confused.”

“That’s usual for every Feed at first. But trust me, you’ll get used to it.” His hand is smoothing the soft sheets and you can’t help the feeling that they’re longing to touch you.

“Every Feed… How many have there been before me?” The thought is chilling, to think that this is some cycle of ritual.

“Y/N, you have to understand, we are ancient beings, we have been around for millennia…” Jimin glances at you fleetingly, as if worried about your reaction.

Millennia…

You don’t know what you expected, but certainly not this. That truth is truly horrifying. Vampires have plagued this very earth you inhabit for not decades, not centuries, but millennia.

“I don’t want to confuse you with more information, I think this much is enough so I’ll leave our story for another time perhaps.” His consideration is jarring. How can he act this caring right now as if he hadn’t just fed off your blood? And may do so any second now?

“Okay.”

A silence follows your reply that you intended to be the end of the conversation. There isn’t much one can respond to okay.

You’re keenly aware of how his eyes explore you, searching your face as if it were a map to the treasure he has exhausted himself with hunting for. His desire, a thing that scares you, radiates despite him not doing much. Doubt is planted in your head, you’re unsure of how to feel as you toy with the lining of the bedding. Namjoon was so blunt, so disrespectful with his superiority complex, insisting you to submit to him. But Jimin acts as though he wishes to befriend you.

Or maybe it’s to instill a false sense of security in you, so easier to lure you into his den.

“We’ve never done this before.” Jimin speaks again. “Sharing a Feed. All of us at least. Taehyung and I have shared before, but this… I don’t know how it will work.” He scratches his temple.

“Namjoon said only one of you would feed on me a day but then…” The feeling of six pairs of fangs biting into you gives you goosebumps. You hate the weak whisper that is your voice. You sound pathetic. But when you see his guilt and pity-stricken eyes, you feel an odd satisfaction.

“Sorry… I think we all just got too excited. We haven’t tasted angel blood in almost two centuries.” When he notices your alarm, he quickly explains, “Right, you don’t know you have angel blood. Humans that possess the sacred touch of those celestials are extraordinarily rare, every creature of the night wishes to vanquish them for the fortune they bring. To us vampires, your blood is like… like ambrosia - food of the gods. The taste so euphoric that it drives us to the edge of madness with desire and greed with just one drop.”

Angel blood.

A girl as mundane and peasant as you has fucking angel blood coursing through her system.

You want to laugh. What good does this stupid ‘sacred touch of the celestials’ if it not once protected you from the evil and adversities in your life? ‘Brings good fortune?’ Where the fuck has your good fortune been hiding then?

“I think I’m the one being driven to the brink of madness here,” is what you say instead of lashing out at him. “There’s no way. Why didn’t you get my uncle then? If I have angel blood then so should he.”

Your uncle with angel blood? The biggest joke this universe has played on you yet.

“No, it doesn’t work like that. The angels choose the selected few, born with a holy purity that makes them weep.” There’s a mockery in his tone when he describes those beings, as if they’re his archnemesis. “It requires the Heaven’s approval to imbue angel blood into an earthly being.”

You force a swallow. If the angels really chose you to carry their essence, where had they been when you needed them the most? What use is the angels’ good faith when they’re not there to guard you? You have so many questions, but you don’t know whether to trust his answers.

“Where are the other people with angel blood?” Why does it have to be you, you mean. Why always you?

“We’ve sought your kind our whole existence. You have to understand that your blood is like a drug to us, it’s a compulsion drawing us to find you. In our lifetime, we have sired a lot of the angel-blooded, probably hunted you so much that the angels are angry and decided to gradually relinquish this rite. We thought you were extinct, actually. Until we picked up on your scent and found you.”

Jimin finally gives into his inhibitions and holds your hand in his. This time you don’t flinch away, yet you’re unsure why. When his thumb caresses your knuckles, something in you jolts. His touch is so gentle, so unlike what you’re used to, and so unlike how he dug into your veins. You kind of want to cry. Because it’s been so long since anyone has shown this tenderness towards you.

Clearing your throat, you say, “And now I’m yours forever.” Until you suck me dry.

He senses the bitterness in your tone, your reluctance to belong to them. He seems hurt. It sends you down a whirlpool of confusion because he shouldn’t care.

“Y/N, I just want you to know that…” At the sincerity of Jimin’s voice, you lock eyes with him. “I can’t speak for my brothers, but me personally, I will never intentionally cause you unnecessary harm. My Feeds… mean a lot to me, I view you as more than food. I value and respect you, and though you may not for a long time, I wish for you to value and respect me too, one day.”

Resentment is a tiring emotion, it is a poison to your soul more than anyone else’s. You don’t want to hate him, or any of them. His words move you in a way that makes you almost believe that he isn’t a monster. Maybe he isn’t. It’s not their fault they were born like this.

And so you take your first step towards acceptance. Perhaps this is your future now. You hate everything about it, the pain, the submission, the restraint. But what other life have you got? There is nothing for you to go back to.

All of a sudden, Jimin twists his head to the side and freezes. You study his stunning profile, how he seems to be listening intently at what sounds like silence to your ears. Then the third door to the room swings open. Namjoon’s entrance is one like a villain’s in a horror film, with church organs playing in the background and a sinister flash of lighting. He looks taken aback at the sight of Jimin but recovers quickly as he frowns in disapproval.

You take the chance while his attention isn’t on you to assess him entirely. He’s dressed in the same all-black suit, albeit shed the blazer, and you wonder why they are all dressed like they’re ready for a banquet in their own home. Or maybe this isn’t their home and you’ve just made an assumption. His hair is less neat than before, spiking up on the sides as if he has been running his hands through it in exasperation. Stern expression seeming to be permanently worn on his face, he enters the room without asking. The discrepancy of him and Jimin does not surprise you.

“What are you doing here?” Namjoon demands. So it appears that his rigid tone is used not only on you, but also his brother. It’s insufferable. You almost take a step back to square one, forgetting Jimin’s offering of peace.

When his eyes narrow at your hand in Jimin’s, the smaller male quickly release you. “Hyung, I was just checking up on her. No need to get so possessive already.” Jimin is pouting almost exaggeratedly, his previous sincerity towards you quickly dissipating into a rather comical persona. You wonder which one is a facade, which one is really him.

“Possessive?” Namjoon scoffs and stops in front of him, his height towering over the both of you. “You’re the one to talk when you have to worst temper out of all of us. If roles were reversed, and I was visiting our Feed on your day, I think you’d come for my throat.”

Jimin glances over at you at Namjoon’s exposing words. After your exchange, you can’t really imagine him with a temper at all, let alone the worst one. But these vampires have shown to be masters of disguise afterall, why should it shock you? You feel a part of the bridge Jimin was building between you crumble away. You shouldn’t have trusted him so quickly.

“I’ll leave then.” He doesn’t argue, which you guess proves that Namjoon’s point rings true. Jimin spares you one last weighty look, trying to convey to you that he had meant what he said, before leaving you alone in this dark room with the tall vampire.

Namjoon is quiet, assessing you with that dagger-like stare of his as if you’re a child who’s just doodled all over the wall with your crayons. It almost makes you shrink away, but your defiance grows bold with him, more than anyone else. You meet his eye with the same harshness he doles.

“It’s Monday today.” He says. It’s an ordinary sentence otherwise, but now it holds a meaning. You’re his Feed today.

You don’t know who out of these vampires you prefer, but it is definitely not Namjoon. He doesn’t have to say it, but you can tell by the disdain in his eyes that he does not see you as more than his next meal. Even if Jimin was pretending, at least he spoke to you with decency.

“For future reference, I would rather you not associate with anybody else but me on the days where you are mine.” The way he articulate certain words accentuates his snobbish attitude that you want to punch out of him.

And I would rather you not suck my blood or magically link my life to you until my death, you want to say. Your rage is returning at an accelerating rate.

“It wasn’t my fault he came into my room.” His brows draw at your snark.

“He won’t be doing so again. Also, refrain from using that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

You’re being especially difficult, and you pride in the way his mouth twitches in annoyance. A man of his character is easy to tick off. He moves his hand towards you and you flinch abruptly, the memory of your uncle’s raised fist fresh in your mind, in an instant reducing you to the scared girl you have been for so long. His hand ceases its motion midair.

When you meet his eyes, they are wide in alarm, as if he hadn’t expected such a reaction from you.

“I- wasn’t going to hit you.” His voice low, he lets his arm drop to his side.

His words perplex you, his softer tone even more. If you didn’t know better, you would say he looks slightly abashed. Guilty even.

Namjoon clears his throat at your silence, glare hardening once again.

“You have a sharp tongue, girl.” Tutting, he walks over to the bookshelves with his hands held behind his back like some professor.

“You have sharper teeth.”

His head whips back at your retort, then in a blinding speed you thought not humanly possible, he closes the distance he had walked from you, appearing a finger-length away in front of you. You stagger back on the bed.

“Don’t make your life difficult for yourself. As I’ve said, address me by Sir when you speak to me, and speak to me with respect, as you would to authority. Those are simple rule to abide, but if you knowingly continue to choose to break them, I have the capability to make your stay with us a living nightmare.” There is not the slightest humour in his eyes.

His threat would instill fear in anyone, except you have heard it all before and so it brushes past you like an autumn breeze. Brazen, you stand up on the mattress, the leverage allowing your height to surpass his as you look down at him.

“My life already is a living nightmare, Namjoon. It has been for a while now so your threat means nothing to me. You want me to speak to you with respect, but why the fuck should I? Your brother Jimin at least looks at me like I’m a human being. You talk to me like I’m no more than your dinner served in a dress. You want to hurt me? Go fucking ahead. Kick me, slap me, strangle me, burn me. I’ve had it all before.” Words tumble out of your mouth on their own accord, driven furious by his contempt. “You think you can command me to be your little bitch? Think again, because I will never,” you take one step closer to him, “ever respect a self-important cunt like you as long as you look down on me like that.”

The fury in his crimson irises brews quietly. Namjoon’s jaw is clenched so tightly his cheeks hollow inwards.

At the back of your mind, a small ounce of regret and fright registers. You have just yelled your wrath at the face of a millenia-old vampire, one who’s supernatural abilities you have not a single clue about yet. He could kill you right now, but you know he won’t. Many things are worse than death. He needs you alive, but only barely, enough to be his blood bag.

Still, you don’t cower as he pulls you by the wrist towards him, so hard that your foot missteps and you fall onto him as your knee gives way, inherently grabbing onto his shoulder for balance. Your faces are inches apart, closer than you would ever want to get to this monster. But what terrifies you more than your ill fate is how handsome he looks this close. His strong features carve into your core and you hate it. His musk fills your nose; he smells clean like cotton.

Your upheavance seems to have unleashed a cold storm from him. His silence is more frightening than when he speaks. But now that you are set on this path of defiance against Namjoon, you must commit to it. Can’t back down right now.

Then he brings your wrist to his mouth, grip not painful but tight enough, his eyes never leaving yours just as yours are locked on his, in a quiet battle between his dominance and your rebellion. If you look away, you let him win, you let him know that he has a hold on you.

So you watch as his sinks his sharp teeth into your pulsing vein without so much of a blink. The agony is a motherfucker, so intense your head dizzies immediately and your hand clenches spastically. Yet still, your eyes remain on him, even when your throat is itching to whimper at the pain. Does it hurt less the second time around? You would have hoped so but it doesn’t. If anything, because of the anticipation, it hurts more.

Namjoon doesn’t feed for long though. He doesn’t need to, this is no more than a show of his power. When he releases your wrist, blood oozes out of the two holes down your arm, dripping off your elbow onto the sheets.

You notice that his chest is rising particularly hard. He is trying hard to control his thirst. From Jimin’s description earlier, you gather that it isn’t easy for vampires when it comes to angel blood. It must be driving him insane right now. You don’t know how to feel. Perhaps empowered, but also afraid.

The black of his pupils is beginning to spread like the had done when they had all transformed earlier. He quickly turns away and take several steps back. Faced with his back, you slump down onto your knees in the mattress, trying to stop your bleeding wrist in your clutch.

“Fuck you.” You spit, though it comes out less harsh than inteded as a hesitancy holding you back. Provoking him is not a good idea right now.

His shoulders are rising and falling heavily as his breathing deepens. The sound of blood splattering from his chin onto the wooden floor fills the air. Right now you’re filled with uncertainty, of what is going to happen and what you should do. Is he vulnerable right now? Or is he more powerful after feeding on you? Do you make a run for it? Or do you keep your mouth shut and stay here?

“When will you listen, girl.” The deepness of his grumble stirs a wild hot sensation in you that you don’t understand. He is still facing away from you, heaving. You watch his closed fists clench tighter.

“I told you. Never.”

“How can you expect me not to lose my head when you oppose every single word I say?” His head hangs low, shoulder blades poking out at his black shirt.

“How can you expect me to willingly let you drink my blood for the rest of my life? Especially when you talk to me like that?” You train your voice to be more reasonable, less attacking, because you feel the danger lurking beneath his skin that he is trying to control.

“Just obey. Make it easier for yourself.” Watching your blood continuously flow out of your fresh wound makes your head light. You will bleed to your death if he doesn’t heal you, however he does that.

Still, you consider his suggestion. You could just obey, accept this as your life now - a Feed for seven vampires to take their turn with you. You thought your uncle had beaten all the self love out of you, but maybe after all, you still value your own worth. Submission has a disgusting taste. Or maybe it’s just that you want to anger one of them so much that they in the heat of the moment kill you, so you can finally meet your long-awaited death.

“I won’t.”

Everything is still for an ominous pause following your refusal. Cautious, you watch his strong back, unsure of his next response. Though there are no open windows or doors to the room, you feel a gust of cold air breeze past you, sending a flare of chills on the sides of your neck.

When Namjoon slowly turns to face you again, black wholly consuming his eyes, fangs protruding from his gaping mouth, still dripping with the red you paint, you know to be scared. You don’t have time to scuffle away when he whizzes to you with that impossible speed of his again. And in a blink of an eye, he is before you, knees hitting the edge of the bed. Panting, growling, yanking your throbbing arm up.

Namjoon before shifting is an insufferable prick. Namjoon after shifting is an unrecognisable beast. Well-spoken manner, pristine appearance, air of arrogance, all gone.

As he bites into your wrist again, you can’t hold in your shriek this time, not when the wounds he had pierced are still burning and bleeding profusely. You almost cry for help in your desperation, but remember that there’s no one to help you here. In this house are seven vampires, and you.

But then something feels different.

There’s a tingling in your chest, not quite enjoyable but also not unpleasant. Before you can grow accustomed to it, it accelerates like the heart-lurching pull of gravity, and squeeze your whole body into a tight compression. You feel as though you’re racing through space, yet your body is unmoving, slouched against his form.

Then, tug.

Something is pulling you. Someone is pulling you.

You look around through your half shut lids from exhaustion but see no one except the two of you.

Another tug. And you realise it’s not physical. There is a knot tying in your chest right now, and you faintly recall an uncannily similar experience when you had first woken up here. Like a cord, a rope violently pulling on your soul.

Is this… the so-called Sire Bond they spoke of that permanently fixes you to a vampire?

Glancing up gives you the answer you seek. Though his eyes are pitch dark, there is an indecipherable difference in them, something so minute yet so significant in the way he is staring back at you.

Namjoon stops feeding.

And inhales.

Exhales.

You tremble because you feel the animal that is his desire embrace you like a mist. During your encounter with him, both times when he had fed on you before, not once did he express desire even remotely unlike his brothers. Yet now…

His fingers around your wrist suddenly feel gentler. Stunned, you glare at each other, studying the other’s response at the tether binding your souls. Both your angers seem to fritter away into smoke.

Why do you feel… a hunger? A yearning for his touch?

Without realising what you’re doing, you wipe the back of your hand across his wet chin, your blood smearing into sangria stains. He lets you. You study his face, he studies yours. He is so infuriatingly handsome, you notice. You almost want to…

No, you do want to.

But why? What is wrong with you? Why are you wondering how his lips feel when they are red with your blood that he’s forcefully drinking?

You shudder because you see him glancing down at your lips too. You see the turmoil in his brain, the confusion from the twitch of his brow.

Then he firmly places his hand on your waist and bring your body to his. Though his touch is ice through the fabric of your garment, your skin feels warm. Scathing, in fact. This time when he sucks on your bleeding wrist again, it feels less aggressive. More… Intimate. You watch Namjoon’s eyes shut slowly in a state of euphoria, entranced by your taste. It doesn’t really hurt anymore; the sting is ever present, but now it is accompanied by a pulsating pleasure entering up your arm and running into your every fibre. His hand snakes around your back until you’re completely pressed onto his chest. Your own hand reaches his sternum to create space between you out of instinct but you find it stopping at his pectoral, your fingers curling over the firm muscle.

He leans into your touch, and you grapple onto his chest because your head is spinning, both from the supernatural bond coiling around you and the continuous loss of your blood.

After one last gulp, he releases your wrist from his mouth, but doesn’t let it fall to your side, instead carefully guiding it to his shoulder, urging you to circle your arm around him. Though his eyes are still obsidian and he’s still in his shifted beastly state, vulnerability is splattered across his face. This isn’t Namjoon from before. This is an entirely different being whom you don’t recognise.

Lifting his arm to his teeth, he rips into his own wrist, the puncture of his skin almost like a crunch of an apple. Your gasp is muffled when he places it against your lips, offering his blood for you to drink. To heal you.

The metallic taste you expect is absent. In its place is the juice of a fruit so fresh its sweetness cures your thirst and ailments. You don’t hesitate to swallow the fluid pouring onto your tongue. So now you know how you must taste to them.

Simply divine. Like drops of Heaven.

Though it must be magnified by miles for them. You are not even a vampire.

You watch him watch you drink his blood like it is some erotic ribald scene, the intensity of his glare shooting a flame to your core. And when your tongue licks at his skin to lap up the spilled droplets, he lets out a grunt and leans into the crown of your head. With his fangs still extended, his nose roams your hair, breathing in your scent that he is craving, but in a different way from thirst.

As Namjoon removes his arm from you, depriving you of his blood once more, you feel your bite wounds itch ferociously. When you look down at them, you see that your skin is sewing itself back together. Until it is once more porcelain-smooth. Not a single mark save for the crusts of your drying blood.

Unbelievable.

You are too shocked to even make a sound.

But that is quickly overruled by a different sensation - Namjoon’s lips brushing the tip of your ear. Your sharp inhale arouses him, you feel it stiffening at your hip. Holding your jaw firmly, he pulls away to look at you. And what an unholy sight you are: an angel-anointed girl with the blood of a vampire slathered across her snout.

There is a carnal glint in his onyx pools, you catch it the very moment before he kisses you. Hard and fast. Full of a desperation that has the bond between you winding you closer to him. You taste your own blood in his mouth, and it is bland and regular compared to his, but somehow the idea of your bloods mixing on each other’s tongues excite you. There is a hint of a voice in your head screaming at you to stop but you banish it. You have never felt a stronger desire than right now, in the arms of a man you hate.

Falling back onto the bed with his frame hovering over you, you allow him to guide your lips, wield you, mould you. When your hand reaches to cradle his cheek, he grips both your wrists and pins them above your head, holding them in place with a single hand big enough to encircle them both. Even in this monstrous inhuman state, his need for dominance eclipses the rest of his character.

You feel beside yourself under his kiss. So sensual, driven by lust. This isn’t you, but you don’t care. You don’t care about anything other than how much you crave Namjoon this very moment. When he grabs onto the flesh of your ass, you forget how much you had wanted to hurt him just minutes ago. And when you feel the tip of his fangs scrape gently against your tongue, you forget yourself altogether.

With a growl, he pulls away from the kiss and flips you over onto your front as if you weigh no more than a feather. Swiping your hair to one side, he grazes his teeth along your neck. It tickles more with the thrill of knowing that the could bite down anytime. You think you want him to. His hands ride up the flimsy material of your dress, it’s bumpy calluses exciting you. Then he puts his weight onto your ass, grinding his hard member into your crack with only mere layers of fabric separating you from his meat.

“Sir...” The word tumbles out at the peak of your moan mindlessly. You are truly not yourself.

At that, you feel his hefty cock pulse on your rear. Namjoon’s body falls onto you in defeat at your name for him as if that one syllable alone had slain him. His fingers wrap around your wrists again as he continues to grind furiously into you. The strap of your dress has slipped off your shoulder, and he takes your skin between his lips, brushed by his hot velvet tongue.

A familiar warm slick is pouring out of your cunt, wetting your panties and the crotch of his trousers. You need him so badly you want to sob. Your core is twisting and throbbing for him, aching to be stretched out. This isn’t enough. His cock sliding between the cheeks of your ass isn’t enough. You need him thrusting into you like this from behind.

“Fuck me, please!” You know his self control is ebbing away into oblivion like yours. You can’t wait any longer.

But then he sits up, so abruptly that the bed creaks loudly. Your whole back feels barren without his contact. You quickly twist to look at him, in time to see the black of his eyes slowly retreating to reveal white, then waning back to their normal crimson-tinted irises in a blink.

Instantly they are enshrouded in confusion. Disbelief.

Namjoon has shifted back to himself in an instant. No longer the demonic desire-driven vampire who was just pushing his stiff member between your ass.

“I-” He chokes.

Your high gradually rides down its hill as well as clarity begins to fill your cup once again, clearing away the fog of your vertigo. Your senses, your own self creeps back into your body as you register what was going on. Breathing heavily the both of you, for a dreaded second, all you do is look at each other.

Then without another word, he speeds out of the room like lightning, the echo of the door slamming shut after him startling you.

You blink and he is gone.

Leaving you wondering what the fuck had just happened.

And what the fuck had you done to each other.

❦

@serendipity-secrets @killcomet @askingtheimportantthingshere@blackpanther4550 @comingjimin @unatempesta-dipensieri @dapppphhhhh

❦

03/10/2019

© Copyright 2019

➴➵Pacta Sunt Servanda➴➵

Summary: 

Word count: 4,022

Pairing: Mandalorian x Ex-Mandalorian OC 

Warnings: Injured Mando, blood, death mention, 

A/N: I’m sorry I didn’t post right away I wrote myself into a hole . Also Mando will be getting a bigger part I just want to make sure I’ve fleshed Kinsei out enough first. Any questions comments, or concerns I’ll happily answer in my ask I hope you enjoy!

Masterlist:

part one

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴

Kinsei awoke the next day feeling as if her head were full of rocks she rubbed her eyes feeling her arm was weighed down it was in a cast still in its sling. She winced feeling the swollen tenderness of her ribs, she imagined the bruising to be pretty bad judging by how much they throbbed. 

She looked around realizing she was no longer in the home made OR she was in a bedroom and by the locks of it belonged to Echo, the soft lighting of the sunset illuminated through the beige muslin curtains. They moved gently letting in a cool autumn breeze. She raised the soft down comforter she wore a loose fitting olive nightdress again borrowed from Echo. Kinsei was thankful to still see her leg, there were three metal rings around her knee extending to her lower leg supported by metal beams some of which were inside of her skin supporting the bone. 

She swung her legs over the bed grabbing onto an IV stand for leverage when Chaska walked past only doubling back upon realizing seeing Kinsei was awake. "Don't try walking just yet we put a lot of work into saving it. With all the screws and pins in it you might wanna consider yourself part droid." She said while helping her settle back into bed Chaska propped her leg up onto a pillow and tucking her back in. 

"You must be hungry I'll whip you up something real quick." She left as quickly as she came in she could hear Echo's voice coming down the hall in passing she couldn't understand what the two were saying it was too muffled in her current state.

"You're awake how you feeling?" Beamed Echo from the doorway Kinsei smiled back still feeling a little groggy she leaned over from the bed to reach for her coat that hung off of a chair beside the bed. From the inside left pocket she pulled out a photo her thumbs carefully running over the corners of the picture. It was a family picture taken in a meadow on Yavin 4. She was eight in the photo dressed in her black Mandalorian armor. 

Standing behind her were Endric, Rham, and Ca'tra also dressed in black armor. Each of them wore a Beskar signet of a snake swallowing its tail on the left side of their chest plate armor. It matched the tattoo on her left inner forearm, she hoped the surgery hadn't left it scarred. She couldn't remember who had taken the photo but she remembered it being another smuggling run for the rebels. 

"I really miss my dads." She admitted in a somber tone she wanted them to comfort them during her recovery but there was no way of her finding Rham and Endric. She wiped away a tear before it had a chance to fall, she cleared her throat to pass the thick feeling that had begun to rumble in her chest. Echo pulled out the chair at her bedside to be closer to the young pilot. Echo leaned over looking at the photo with her eyes marvelling at the Mandalorian armor never having seen anything like it in her life.

"Are they still on Mandalore? We can try sending a message out there if you'd like!" Her enthusiasm warmed Kinsei's heart Echo seemed so willing to go above and beyond to make her feel at home. With genocide of the Mandalorian warriors on the night she was born her parents had vowed never to return. It always hurt knowing she'd never know Mandalore the same way her parents had. Shosa must have been way deep within the Outer Rim for them not to have heard of the Empire's occupation of Mandalore. 

"They travel a lot for work especially now that we're in war." She shrugged her shoulders propping up the photo against a lamp. Kinsei wondered if they missed her or if they thought of her as a selfish coward. Echo leaned over tucking a stray hair behind Kinsei's ear.

"We'll be your family until you find yours again." said Chaska from the doorway holding a wooden bowl, Kinsei felt overwhelmed it wouldn't be the first time she found herself a family that wasn't blood. She hoped they would be safe especially now that the war was reaching further into the Outer Rim. 

➵

Kinsei found the bedrest unbearable on top of the radiating pain from her leg. She felt as if she were going to fuse to the bed. It had only been three days but it felt like a week. She was so used to chasing after her squadron making sure their X-wings were up to par. She found herself staring out the open window gazing at the mountain ridge where she had landed, it was a sick joke. 

Echo came into the room with a deck of cards and a bright smile, it annoyed her how cheery she seemed when all she could feel was pain. All this misplaced anger had been boiling under the surface Echo had seen it time and time again in patients with severe injuries she didn't take Kinsei's anger personally. "You seem more wound up than usual, today do you wanna talk about?" Echo asked taking a seat by the bed as she shuffled the cards in her hands.

"What is there to talk about? How I can barely hear you from that side or how I have to listen to stupid fucking sheep all day on the other side?"  Despite one of her eyes being swollen shut she still managed to give Echo a harsh look. Echo's smile didn't falter. She began to deal cards humming quietly she paused looking up for a second, Kinsei had been crying, "I wish I died."

Echo set the cards down reaching for Kinsei's right hand she looked at her in the eye her voice soft, "I don't know you very well but I know you're a fighter, you hear me Miss. Tsokara? You're gonna get better and kick ass at physical therapy and you're gonna look back at this moment and realize you didn't mean what you just said." Kinsei's face tensed up as the rest of her sobs rattled her chest they ached her broken ribs making her cry harder.

Two weeks had passed since Kinsei was allowed to be taken off of bed rest, she found walking with her external fixator it was awkward and it throbbed if she stood too long while she fed the chickens or tended to the sheep.  She accepted small jobs around the village they took a little longer than expected as she only could use one of her hands. This new life was foreign instead of fixing up starships she began fixing anything she could to get her free hands of the dull ache of her boredom. 

That meant repairing the toaster, the tractor, and rewiring the speeders. Echo was right when she said nothing happens on Shosa. The most action she saw was Chaska chasing after the sheep after the fence had collapsed. A fence she later volunteered to help repair despite having no carpentry skills she needed to repay them for all of their efforts to save her.

Kinsei was in the kitchen doing her best to peel carrots, she leaned over the counter using her cast as leverage to pin the carrots down as she scraped the peeler along the carrots. She found herself staring out the open window at the clouds as they crossed by the blue sky. When she saw Echo sprinting through the treeline her normally soft face hardened by something that troubled her. Her peach colored summer dress had blood on it too much blood Kinsei limped over to the front door whipping it open.

"What happened!?" She asked as Echo rushed in their shoulders clipping as she ran into the house down the hall in the back in the room with Kinsei had surgery. She dragged her leg behind her as she rushed after Echo her heart thudding against her ribs. She hadn't been able to run just yet and it frustrated her she just wanted to be useful.

"We found somebody in the mountains! He's injured I need your blood we might not have enough on hand!" Echo pulled her into the room sitting her on a chair as she inserted a butterfly needle into her arm laying the collection bag on the countertop. Echo dashed back to the front door hearing her mother yell after her for help. 

Kinsei ducked her head around the door. She felt the air leave her lungs as she watched Chaska and Echo half drag a man down the hall. He wore full Mandalorian armor, his helmet made of Beskar her stomach lurched watching as Echo shoved a pair of fingers into his side to stop the bleeding from at least two of his wounds at his side. The Mandalorian let out a groan he nearly fell to his feet Echo hugged him around the middle pulling him back up right. Kinsei put a hand to her mouth she wasn’t sure if she was going to curse or get sick. 

"Don't you dare get sick on me! We need that room sterile!" Reprimanded Chaska who could see the color drain from Kinsei's face when they nearly dropped him. She backed away as they turned came through the doorway leading him onto the table. Echo's hands reached for his helmet Kinsei put her hand over Echo's, her eyes hardened protective of the Mandalorian Creed.

"The helmet stays on." The look in her eyes sent a chill down Echo's spine she had never seen her look so intense for the first time she felt intimidated by her. She took her hands away from out under Kinsei's grip working on a wound on his side. "We gotta take off your armor to see how bad things are. You're in great hands you're gonna be fine." She said in Mando'a, her native tongue almost felt foreign to her lips she hadn't spoken it in so long. 

The Mandalorian's helmet tilted toward her almost when he nodded she hooked her fingers underneath his shoulder pauldrons, his vambraces, and then finally his damaged chest plate. His chest rose fast as he fought through the pain he felt as if his body were on fire. The added weight of the Beskar had been crushing his broken ribs.

Claw marks had cut through the faded red durasteel he was lucky to be alive. The room spun for a moment as she moved quickly nearly fainting where she had been standing. Kinsei looked back to see the blood bag attached to her was nearly full. Echo motioned for her back to into a chair it wasn't up for debate. Kinsei dragged the chair to the Mandalorian's bedside grabbing his hand with hers she squeezed once to let him know she wasn't going anywhere. 

Chaska cut through the shirt he wore the Mandalorian was battered underneath his skin mauled by something large, he had a set of bite marks from a large predator on his side. On the other side were four jagged claw marks extending from his armpit to his lower abdomen with blood running to the surface. She wondered how much he had left. He let out a crackled groan feeling both Chaska and Echo prod him with their tools. He squeezed Kinsei's hand back then his grip went limp. Her eyes met Echo's, "His body couldn't handle the pain he's going to be fine. This almost could have been you we have pretty big cats in the mountains." She said while continuing the stitch work along the claw marks her eyes focused as she raced to close the wounds.

"Do you know him?" Asked Chaska as she came around the table removing the needle from Kinsei's arm the scrappy mechanic looked up at her while applying gauze to the puncture wound she shook her head no. She didn't have to know him to want to make sure he was okay, it was a part of The Creed to care for one another.

"He's a Mandalorian there aren't many of them left. I need to make sure he's okay." She kept her eyes on him as Chaska hung up a few pints of blood Echo was still working on small intricate stitch work. She noticed more claw marks on his upper left arm the flesh torn and separated she could see the white of his bone. She didn't think anything on Shosa could be capable of something so gruesome. 

"Them? You're a Mandalorian too!" Said Echo the young medic had always been curious about Kinsei's life but never got around to asking Kinsei always seemed tense when she tried to ask. "He can't take his helmet off so why did you?" Echo asked feeling curious about her new friend. Kinsei raked her hand through her hair as she tried to find some way to leave the but she was still light headed. 

She sighed feeling defeated it was about time she told them something about herself after all they did save her life, "It's a part of The Creed if you take off your helmet you can never put it back on. This is the way." Her voice sounded as far away as her gaze like she was swimming in memories of the past. The kind of memories that grabbed you and held you down at the bottom until you couldn't breathe.

"I was staying with a small Mandalorian clan on Tatooine after I left home, things were good at first and then the Imperials came. They murdered all of them for the little Beskar armor they owned and let their bodies rot in the sun." She paused to wipe away her tears with the sling not once letting go of the Mandalorian's gloved hand his fingers twitched under the weight of her shaking hand. She hung her head in shame and was never able to forgive herself. 

"I decided I'd much rather be a coward and live than to die. So no I'm not a Mandalorian. " Kinsei had always blamed herself for not being able to help defend against the damned Imperials. For years she felt selfish she hadn't been able to stop and help because she had been making repairs on a moisture farm generator for credits instead of being at the homestead defending the clan.

"Oh stars, I'm sorry I didn't mean to ask you something so personal." Echo apologized, keeping her head low as her mother gave her a hard look, she had been curious about Kinsei but the pilot made herself hard to know. Chaska and Echo finished in silence both of them cleaning around Kinsei who hadn't moved in her pensive gaze her grip still tight on the Mandalorian's hand.  

"You need to be more careful how you talk to people." Said Chaska while disposing of soiled gauze Echo made a face like she was holding back tears of her own a few slipped Kinsei looked away for a few moments pretending not to notice to give the young medic privacy. 

"It's okay, don't be so hard on yourself you didn't know." said Kinsei while looking up at Echo she decided she would try to be more open with Echo to build a friendship with the young woman especially if she was going to be on Shosa for while.

"Kinsei you need to eat something before you pass out on us two pints is a lot of blood missy. Your friend will be fine." Whispered Chaska as she rubbed Kinsei's back until the young pilot opened her eyes slowly standing up right black dots appeared before her eyes as she steadied herself finally letting go of the Mandalorian's hand. 

She opened the closet by the window grabbing a wool blanket and draped it over him, she wanted to make sure he was comfortable. Her fingers ran over his armor which sat in a pile on a side table, she missed her armor which was probably at the bottom of a sand dune by now. Buried deep with all of those memories she tried to repress. 

"Is there somewhere I can get this fixed?" She asked holding up his durasteel chest plate her fingers tracing the deep claw marks. Chaska pursed her lips together taking it from her then putting it back on the table.

"I'll tell you after you eat." There was an authoritative tone in her voice like a mother scolding her child Kinsei arched an eyebrow following her out of the room. She paused for a moment in the doorway looking back at the Mandalorian. Chaska continued to the kitchen finishing up Kinsei's prep work.

"How long have you been dragging your leg like that?" Asked Echo while she set up an IV into his arm she hung the bag onto the hook she then set up a second IV, Kinsei tried not to make a face as needles had always made her nauseous. 

"It's fine I can still put weight on it, see?" Kinsei stood on one leg and for a moment a quick flash of pain shot up through her back. Her face faltered Echo finished up with the Mandalorian's IV then bent down to look at Kinsei's leg. She touched it with the back of her hand checking for the tell tale warmth of infection, she then examined where the pins punctured her skin to set the bone. 

"It looks okay just try to take it easy you've been doing too much too soon." Echo had the same stern look as her mother however Echo's features made her soft, her brows drew together watching Kinsei lean up against the wall taking her weight off the leg. There was a bit of sweat building on her brow. She looked exhausted, "If it ever hurts too much let us know we can help you.” Echo put a comforting hand on Kinsei’s shoulder she nodded knowing she'd never admit to she had a feeling she'd lose it if she did.

"Tell me about the thing that hurt him. Should we be worried about them coming down from the mountain?" Kinsei quickly changed the subject walking alongside side Echo trying to keep at a normal pace. She took a seat on a stool across from Chaska who was standing at the kitchen island she had made quick work of the carrots Kinsei had left behind. 

"We have pretty big mountain lions out here probably just as big as your X-wing. It's one of the reasons why we check the mountains looking for injured people." Judging by the look she had on her face Kinsei was certain she had lost someone close out there, "Mr. Mando over there is lucky to be alive. He managed to take down two that's unheard of around here." She excused herself to clean herself off her words where curt Kinsei could tell she was uncomfortable. 

Echo was wearing a good amount of his blood. It was staind deep along her hands crusting underneath her nails there was the taste of bile rising in her mouth as she watched Echo sprint off into the fresher.

"Try not to think too hard about him. He'll be sore as hell but he'll live. Worry about something else like how shit your knife work is." Quipped Chaska with a raised brow it brought a chuckle to Kinsei's lips. She watched as Chaska meticulously planking through  the carrots in nice even lines. 

➵

Dinner came and went but sleep never came for Kinsei, she felt restless in the guest room her mind just couldn’t settle down. So much had happened in such a short amount of time seeing the injured Mandalorian left her rattled. It was around three in the morning when she finally got up. Wrapping a blanket around herself she walked down the hall into where the Mandalorian had been sleeping. She took a seat on the floor crossing her legs as she looked up at him. He seemed at peace but she knew from experience it wasn't always so peaceful. While she was under anesthesia her mind kept replaying her crash landing in an endless loop until she managed to regain her consciousness. 

"Not wearing your armor doesn't make you any less of a warrior." Even through the modulator his voice sounded week as if he were whispering he had responded in Mando'a she stood up taking a seat at his bedside. She smiled sadly while shaking her head in disagreement. "People like us are always fighting." Added the Mandalorian with a groan as he frisked his side exploring his injuries. 

"I'll always be dar'manda nothing more than a hut’tuun. I'm just a pilot and I can't even land right." She grit her teeth feeling frustrated as a quick current of pain shot it's way through her body. She felt like she deserved all the pain she was going through for losing her heritage it was a big disgrace amongst the Mandalorian Creed. It was a heavy weight on her chest, one that seemed to always rear its ugly head when she was feeling most vulnerable. 

"It was a difficult choice after the great purge many went into hiding whether it's in plain sight it's all the same. Our people will always need people like you. You protected my honor and for that I thank you." She wished he couldn't see the look on her face, she put a hand to mask the ugly cry she was failing to swallow down. 

"Does it hurt?" She asked looking him over he shook his helmet no but she could tell judging by his short breaths he was just as stubborn as she was. She drew back the blankets noticing he had bled through his bandages she turned around to look for the supplies she'd need to redress his wounds.

Kinsei gathered the bandage and the gauze using the soft moonlight to guide her as she groped through drawers. “Can I ask you something?” She muttered as the Mandalorian sat up peeling away his own bandages, a soft hiss escaping his helmet it looked like it wasn’t the first time he had to do this. 

The Beskar of his helmet caught the shine of the moon as he tilted his head while cutting through medical tape aligning it on to his tanned chest, she sat slumped forward her arms on her knees as she looked up to him. “On your travels have you seen a pair of Mandalorians with a signet of a snake on their chestplate?” Her voice soft scared of what his answer might be she looked away watching his fingers graze over what used to be a puncture wound on his side.

"There aren't that many of us out there. The people you're looking for may have gone into hiding." It wasn't the answer she wanted to hear but she knew it would have been too easy. He struggled with removing the bandage on his arm. She peeled away the medical tape gathering the dirty bandages disposing of them before returning to the spot beside him. Holding the bandage down with her fingers as the Mandalorian handed her tape.

The silence between them didn't bother her Kinsei was in her own head trying to process his words. Knowing her fathers' the were smart and resourceful they would be safe she was certain of it.

"Thank you for listening to me,  I'm sorry for disturbing you." She whispered reapplying the last piece of medical tape before heading back to the guest room. With each step past the main bedrooms she let out a small whimper she nearly fell through the door of the guest bedroom as she held onto her left leg. The other arm kept her held up against the wall her vision blurred she hopped into bed panting as the pain continued she felt as if her nerves were pulling and stretching. She pulled a pillow over her face  to muffle the sounds of her crying.

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶

Mando’a key:

Dar’manda:  a state of not being Mandalorian - not an outsider, but one who has lost his heritage, and so his identity and his soul - regarded with absolute dread by most traditionall-minded Mando'ade

Hut’tuun:  coward (worst possible insult)

THE QUIRK DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED !

incoming information on vigilante, selene.

get to know them !

faceclaim: jeon jeongguk

name: min jiho

vigilante name: selene

gender & pronouns: cis male, he/him

age: 22

reputation: selene - a name borrowed from the goddess of the moon, the vigilante is never seen under the sun. wearing a black mask to conceal his identity, not much is known about him. selene operates by his own devices, his affiliation a mystery. he spends his nights on the hunt for information on buried civilian incidents, from villains to heroes, no target of selene’s is ruled out. rumor has it, selene is the vigilante seoul needs, protecting the ignored of society. others insist that selene is the failed byproduct of the pro hero system, another unregulated danger to seoul.

the quirk !

quirk name: lunar cycle

quirk description: able to use moon energy by the phases of the moon.

abilities: 

lunar energy blasts - jiho is able to create balls of lunar energy, manifesting in pale, grey light - that he can use to launch, as part of a melee attack, or as a way of transportation.

lunar bolts - bolts similar to lightning emit from his hands, stronger near the full moon.

light manipulation - jiho can manipulate light from the moon, with a range of uses from lighting a path to temporarily blinding an opponent.

by the water - jiho is most in tune with his quirk near the full moon, especially so if he is near a body of water. he is able to manipulate water during the time of the full moon, an ability that greatly drains his energy when used.

weaknesses: 

burn out - if jiho utilizes his abilities past the bandwidth that the current phase of the moon allows, he experiences an intense burn out from the inside out. when this happens, jiho is bedridden for a day or two.

nighttime - jiho can only activate his quirk at nighttime, when the moon is out in the sky. during the daytime, jiho cannot utilize his quirk at all.

phases of the moon - his quirk allows full bandwidth of power near a full moon, while being incredibly weak around a new moon.

fatigue - after using his quirk, jiho is in desperate need of rest, especially when using his quirk for a long period of time. in the day after using his quirk, time is often reserved for conserving his energy.

the history !

triggers: death

i. min jiho had always been afraid of the dark.

the day he was born, the moon had been full. the brightest it had ever been, his mother always said.

his mother called him a child of the night. the moon’s son.

his mother knew she would always raise her son with gentle words and tender touches, a woman with legend and spirits coursing through her. rather than practicality, she rested her fate upon the universe. a single mother, with stars in her eyes and no plan for the future, min jiho was brought into a world without regulations.

his mother adored giving life to entities, as she puts it, the owner of a quaint little flower shop on the corner of one of seoul’s bustling districts. jiho’s very first memory of her is fuzzy, but he can make out watching her sing to her audience of flowers. he found out later, that was his mother’s quirk, a woman with the healing voice to nurture plants. jiho always thought it was the coolest thing.

his mother was his very best friend. she made sure nothing would ever come to harm him.

he only ever felt scared in the dark.

ii. jiho always felt safer under the moonlight.

at five years, he woke his mother up, right in the middle of the night, insisting they go outside and look at the sky. a night of watching the clouds roll by quickly morphed to his mother laughing in delight at the pale, grey lights dancing on his palms.

“jiho, you’ve been blessed by the moon!”

from then on, his childhood was characterized by getting to know his quirk. every day, he and his mother would tend to the flower shop. they would paint, sing, dance. and each night, they would chip away at the curiosities of the moon.

iii. they never spoke about jiho’s father.

the man was a goddamn mystery to jiho. when it clicked for him, watching kids on his block run home to their fathers, he asked his mother.

“where’s my dad? is he lost?”

“no, petal,” she replied easily, a somberness young jiho could have never picked up on. “he’s done great things. you should be proud of him.”

iv. great things meant he died saving others.

his father was a hero, he learned at twelve. a hero with the undeniable power to move mountains, one that selflessly pioneered for the public safety of seoul. his strength was unmatched, until he pushed it too far.

jiho learned from an old newspaper in the school library that his father died in a building fire. he saved a family, but passed away before reinforcements could arrive.

jiho vows then, that he would do good. he would do what his father did and save people.

he wanted to be a hero.

v. thirteen meant jiho fully handled the money in their family of two.

his mother hated it. pieces of paper that dictated whether she could eat or not. naturally, jiho had to be the sensible one. when his mother began to skip meals in favor of keeping their flower shop open, jiho took on odd jobs after school to afford it all.

he told her he was out playing with friends. she knew he was lying.

vi. his very first u.y blazer was his pride and joy.

he was going to be a hero! there’s only so much classes could do for a student whose quirk only comes alive at night, but jiho was determined.

he had stars in his eyes watching pro heroes, entranced with the thought of being someone people can lean on.

the blazer eventually grew too small for him. he cried on the walk home at the prospect of having to scrape enough cash for a new one. by the time he arrived home, he wore a big smile and spoke about the imagined highlights of his day.

instead of being teased by his classmates, he told her he was praised for his diligence.

it was just easier.

vii. he should have picked up the cake on his eighteenth birthday.

things had been going relatively well. the flower shop had been flourishing, his mother’s light never ceased to dim and he was nearly finished with school. everything was going well.

jiho insisted he didn’t need a cake, just another thing to eat up at their expenses. his mother refused with every bit of stubbornness.

“today is your day, my love, and we’re celebrating it.”

viii. his mother never did return.

after the first thirty minutes, jiho assumed the bakery was backed up. it happened, from time to time, although his mother left far after peak hours.

an hour passed. jiho began to console himself. things were fine. everything was fine. perhaps the busses were slow? that had to be it.

two hours. panic drove him to hastily close up the shop, panic encouraged him to run through the streets. panic began to suffocate him upon hearing the wails of distant sirens.

ix. brain dead upon impact.

the doctors told him, this happened, rarely, from time to time. in the scuffle of a pro hero reacting to a crime, unfortunately civilians could easily get hurt. his mother was simply at the wrong place, at the horrifically wrong time. the details of the attack were brushed away, just another terribly sad occurrence.

his mother wasn’t the first to fall victim to an accident at the hands of a hero. maybe if he was there, he could have stopped it. he could have saved her. 

he was numb.

her body is here,  but she’s gone.

x. all jiho had left was himself.

the flower shop fell into his hands, the never ending flow of hospital bills weighed upon his shoulders. school wasn’t something he cared enough for. he dropped out of u.y a week after the accident.

resentment was a funny thing. it flourished in empty hearts.

twenty two now, the new routine has long been cemented. during the day, jiho runs the flower shop with a warm smile. selene came to be in the nightfall. selene wanted answers. for his mother. for those who fell for heros to rise.

selene isn’t scared of the dark. 

selene craves the taste of revenge.

selene fights for the forgotten. 

the personality !

jiho tends to be more soft spoken than most, one to listen and observe rather than run his mouth. jiho is much more comfortable in places where he can collect his thoughts on his own time.

jiho has built wall upon wall to outside eyes, wanting to be perceived as the typical flower shop keeper. nothing more, nothing less. he sees no reason for trusting anybody, having learned that no one is exactly who they say they are.

he keeps the few he loves incredibly close, often overprotective to a certain degree, which can be attributed to the unexpected loss he’s experienced in his past. once he adores someone, a rare happening, he would sacrifice anything for their safety and well being.

he has an affinity for astrology, finding solace in the stars when nothing makes sense in real life.

behind his carefully crafted persona, jiho is quite tender hearted. empathetic to a fault and endlessly ambitious, jiho has elaborate dreams of the future that he wouldn’t dare share with anyone else.

quietly cunning, jiho sports a sharp tongue reserved for loved ones for during the day, and for his enemies when night falls. selene, quite literally his alter ego, is confidence personified. slick, sly, cocky, selene is a silent threat to his targets, with no concept of good or evil.

Mileven post-S2 fanfiction recommendation list: PART V

For past rec lists please see instalments I, II, III, and IV. If your fanfic isn’t featured, apologies. Message me and we’ll amend that grievance in the next rec list instalment. 

* marks the ongoing stories. 

canon: 

for laughs, for luck, for the unknown by ArtemisRae: “Mike goes away to college. El goes with him. Within a year she gains a new set of grandparents, a pet, a job, and enforces party rules.” 

+ its sequel the monkey in the wrench by ArtemisRae: “Mike ends up in the hospital, El has to face her insecurities, and they turn the corner with Mike’s parents.” [ArtemisRae’s works are so beautiful, I can’t breathe.] 

a wonderful awful idea by ArtemisRae: “Mike wants to recapture the Christmas magic of his childhood, but mostly he accidentally makes his girlfriend cry.” 

the last picture show by ArtemisRae: “Hopper catches Mike and El at the local drive in after being led to think that they were at the Hawk with their friends.” 

six weeks* by bananannabeth: “There are six weeks between the night El comes home and the night of the Snow Ball, which leaves not a lot of time to deal with a whole lot of shit. Somehow, she and Mike ride it out.” 

can’t argue with that by bananannabeth: “Karen is well aware of how stubborn her only son can be, but as much as he tries to pretend he has to do everything on his own, Mike isn’t alone anymore. So if he’s insisting on running to El’s rescue at the cabin in the middle of the woods at two in the morning, you can bet his mom is not letting him go alone.” 

+ its prequel with background Mileven: alone by bananannabeth: “Karen left Joyce alone when she so obviously needed support, and now she’s trying to make amends. Casserole and coffee seems as good a place as any to start.” God, I love bananannabeth’s You Can Talk To Me (aka. Karen Wheeler is a Good Mom™) series so, so much. 

just another sleepy sunday by suchastart: “Game night, a few years into the future.” 

promises by blacktreeswhitesky: “For Jane Ives, it’s always been like this. She was always searching for something, for someone.” [I’M NOT CRYING. YOU ARE CRYING.] 

how we sleep by zombiecupcake: “The gate is closed, and the gang finds themselves getting the much deserved rest they all needed.” 

love you like that* by ohanae: “Snippets out of Mike and El’s life after she closed the gate to the Upside Down. They learn things together, go to school together, grow up together.” 

operation christmas for el* by Booklover1217: “When the party discovers that El has never experienced a Christmas before they are horrified. That is until Mike comes up with the plan to give El the most amazing first Christmas imaginable and so Operation Christmas for El is born. The next days that follow are filled with gingerbread, mistletoe, snow, and the magic of Christmas which just may change El’s life forever.” 

home by lesbeatlesbunch: “Mike gets his license.” 

pretty by hma1313: “Sometimes he thinks he sees her standing at the end of the street in that ratty dress of his sister’s, the fabric torn and stained, but he’ll blink and then she’s gone and he’s half convinced he imagined it all.” 

scrap my knees, whatever; i’m gonna let them bleed by ceruleanstorm: “How many compliments can Mike and El yell at each other over a card game?” 

close the door by g00denough: “Because we are just waiting for when someone walks in on El and Mike kissing.” 

things you said* by Brown Eyes Parker: “a collection of one-shots revolving around Mike & Eleven and things they say to each other.” 

+ its sort of sequel, sort of outtakes things you said, alternate stories* by Brown Eyes Parker: “Original and alternate or continuations of stories in my “things you said” series.” 

heartbeats in the quiet by screamingintosilence: “It was usually just a cold, but this felt like the flu.” 

perfect summer day by AR357: “It was a sunny summer day in 1984. Mike had been looking forward to this day for a while. With each breath of crisp summer air, he felt more and more invigorated. With each hill he crested, he felt his heart thumping away. But then again, maybe he was just thinking about what the day’s events would hold.” 

flutterby, butterfly* by foreverinthe_eighties: “What would happen if, years after the events that took place in 1984, Kali seeks Eleven out herself. And gives her the opportunity to change her mind.” 

the name game by Strange_Archivist: “El and Mike have their first real fight, and it’s a doozy.” 

eleven things* by Socalledfriend: “Eleven returns, but things don’t just go back to the way they were. It’s not clear how she managed to get home, and meanwhile Will’s sickness is only getting worse. Some things never change though, and while she’s back, Mike manages to teach her at least eleven things about the outside world.”

raspberry breeze by urdearestmom: “Sometimes she stays up with him, and she calls him ridiculous. How don't you fall over when you get up in the morning? She asks. Pfft, I don’t need sleep! Who do you think I am? He says, but then he smiles and her heart melts, she's never been able to be angry at this boy for more than a few minutes.”

promises* by Vontar: “Sometimes, it’s the little things in life that matter. Scenes of life from Eleven and Mike, as they face the future together.”

stranger things holiday extravaganza* by Commernator: “Mike, Hopper, and the rest of the party help Eleven experience holidays for the first time.” 

alternative universe: 

the boy with freckles like constellations in the night sky* by got credits (Poly_Grumps): “It had been a quiet night in the town of Hawkins Indiana when Will Byers disappeared seemingly out of thin air. Jane Ellie Ives could still recall her last moments with him, the last words she had spoken with him before she watched him bike off into the night. It had started like any other day in fact, with the curly-haired girl and her gang of friends all sitting around in her basement gathered around a rather intense game of dungeons and dragons!” Reverse AU. [guys, guys, guys. I’m screaming. It’s so good.] 

(all i wanna be is) somebody to you* by sinclairsmax: “Elle Hopper never thought that she’d win American Idol. Then again, she also never thought Mike Wheeler would fall in love with her. Behind the cameras, everything is turned upside down.” YouTube AU. [this is everything I didn’t know I wanted.] 

we could be heroes* by ValBirch: “A series of connected vignettes about our favourite characters—but with superpowers.” Superhuman AU. I repeat, SUPERHUMAN AU. [Plus, the author has a whole set of moodboards/aesthetics for characters and I’m dying.] 

the artist & the dancer* by JavaCat26: “Her warm honey-brown eyes were fixated on him. Emotion washed over him like warm bath water. He wouldn’t let her down. Ever. He took a deep breath, steadied his hand, and pressed his pencil to the canvas. “I can do this…”” College AU. 

upside down and back again* by Crataeis: “When a new threat begins to emerge from the ashes of the Upside Down, an unlikely group of four of our six main protagonists band together to try and stop it.” Alternative Reality? Time Travel AU? I can’t quite tell, but although this fic is in its early stages, it’s really good and worth a look. 

a rose by any other name by serendipitous_rambles: “The Montague and Capulet high schools never got along. There was bitter rivalry between the two schools, nothing good could come from associating with each other. But what happens when two fall in love?” Romeo & Juliet-style High-School AU. 

+ bonus: wherein The Party is featured prominently…again: 

in a dream where the air is soft by a simple space nerd: “El has hair slicked back behind her ears, darkly ringed eyes, and somewhat bedraggled clothes, and Max would normally steer clear of people looking like her, but she’s heard so much about El, and God, why is this group of friends so unlike everyone else Max has ever met? Max never used to care about what random people thought of her. “Curse you, stalker,” she mutters half-heartedly.” [I love Mike and Max in this one. This has to be my favourite interpretation of both characters, hands down. This fic is so in tune with characterisation, it can be considered canon.] 

more than one best friend by topangamatthews: “El’s first best friend is Mike, but he’s not her last.” 

after the gate closed* by insomniacwriter17: “Just one shots about all the little head canons I have.” 

el’s word book* by Noth_lit_9: “El is frustrated that her vocabulary lags behind those of her friends, so Hopper wants to provide her with a way to see her growth.” 

it’s okay to not be okay by talesfromthesnogbox: “Jim Hopper knew it was a real emergency when he was woken in the night by a phone call from his son-in-law Mike from the hospital. All was not well, but Jim reminds Mike that sometimes it’s okay to not be okay.” 

teenage girls by EvieSmallwood: “El & Max hang out at the arcade. They talk about the present and the future.” 

a is for alphabet* by urdearestmom: “Each chapter is a letter of the alphabet, lots of fluff and laughs ensue.” 

so i could kill them for you by valancysnaith: “Max deserves so much better. The party is there for her.” 

.

.

okay, so I had a lot more, but my Cloud messed the fuck up and deleted half of the bookmarks I made. now, I gotta go and track down the fics I lost…

UPDATE: part VI is out.

teinawon

hey here’s a really rough draft of some of my favorite headcanons combined! Memori week day six: fluff

It’s on a night when the sky is a sated, dimming green that John first mentions the sky rite of marriage. (full story under cut) 

teinawon

i. It’s on a night when the sky is a sated, dimming green that John first mentions the sky rite of marriage. They’ve returned to New Arkadia, which they do every now and then after returning from the trading circuit, and now they’ve settled down in their own small cabin, listening to the festivities of their friends outside. Emori enjoys seeing some of their friends for moderate increments of time. She always speaks with Raven about whatever project she’s working on (“Shop talk,” John teases them) and Bellamy about history (she’s not done learning) and Niylah and Octavia about inter-clan diplomacy. She still isn’t welcome in every clan circle, but she’s formed a kind of attachment to the two women, especially Niylah, with whom she used to trade and still occasionally does. (Though she no longer slips small items away from the other woman’s shop, which she is in the process of re-establishing.) But her favorite part of the day is, and will always be the silence of sunset. She breathes a sigh of relief upon entering whatever space she and John have for the night, removing her coat and hand wrap and settling into bed with him, even if that bed is a pile of furs and coats, even if it is a patch of grass or sand or stone. Sometimes they make love (which they have down to an intense familiarity-- something she’s always willing to challenge) and sometimes they just speak. As long as it has been that they’ve been together, two separate people are always changing and growing, and one of her favorite parts of their togetherness is watching that change, seeing the person John is and has been and will become. Someone undeniably hers. When he mentions it, they’ve just finished the one and have embarked on the other. “So where are all the married grounders?” is how he brings it up. She half laughs while pulling a thin cotton blanket over her bare knees. He barely uses the generalized term for people of the ground anymore. “Married?” she asks. “Yeah, married. Two people joined for life, that kind of thing.” He props himself up on his elbow and runs a finger over a scar on her hip. “I’ve heard the word,” she says, amused. “I just didn’t think it happened anymore.” He chuckles. “Yeah, maybe not.” This has been a good day, a successful trade season. The past year of being back on the ground has brought its fair amount of hardship, but they get by. They always get by. She smiles under his gaze, never fully used to how sharply blue his eyes are. “Sangedakru has a ritual called teinawon,” she says after a moment. “It isn’t like… marriage, not really.” “What is it, then?” His hand moves to her midriff, his fingers running over her naval. He has nights where his appetite never diminishes. This might be one. “A vow of loyalty and protection between two or three people,” she says, trying to remember what little knowledge she has of the can she was cast out of as a child. “Sometimes between partners like us, sometimes between a parent and a child. Sometimes clan leaders do this to prevent infighting.” Like any rite of the culture she was born into, it’s something she is legally exempt from. “Hmm,” John says, and leans down to kiss her on the mouth. She responds hungrily, eager to forget what can be forgotten about how the world used to be.

 ii. “Reyes, how much did Finn teach you about jewelry-making?” Murphy figures Raven can help him with this. But maybe he should have considered possibly not bringing up her dead ex-boyfriend. She seems to take it in stride though, merely pauses from the engine she’s working on and glares over at him, a hand on her hip. “What do you want, Murphy?” “Well, I’m going to ask Emori to marry me.” He waits for the reaction. “About freaking time. Go on.” How anticlimactic. But he explains his idea and she says she’ll see what she can do. On his way out from her work tent, he sees Clarke across the square, leaning down and speaking with a band of three kids-- they’re small and dirty and one of them has a scrape across her cheek. The oldest looks no more than seven and has only one eye, overlarge and dark on the side of her face. Where the other eye would be is a patch of puckered skin. He approaches Clarke as soon as Harper leads them away. “Who are the street urchins?” he asks and she looks up at him with that mixture of annoyance and familiarity he knows so well. “A group of nightblood children is coming here from the south,” she tells him. “We didn’t know about them. They’re the first few to arrive.” “Are you sending them to Octavia?” Ever since re-integrating the thirteen clans to the ground, Clarke, Octavia and Niylah have been working on finding homes for her band of nightbloods. The children are passionate about not fighting in a conclave, and Niylah’s first chosen commitment in her role as ambassador is to prevent that situation from arising in their new society. “We’ve spoken about them already.” She bites her lip. “We might have to put the oldest, Axis, with a skaikru family.” “Why is that?” he asks, but he already knows. iii. It’s starting to get colder, and Emori knows she and John need to be packing up soon, traveling to warmer places, to the outskirts of various clans with goods from New Arkadia. A few weeks before leaving, they sit around a fire with Raven, Harper, and Nathan. A strange thing about they way they’ve all transitioned out of youth; they’re quick to laugh at nearly anything. Nights like this are filled with laughter. John is glancing over her shoulder and she turns around to see Niylah with five or six children from various clans. “Those are the nightbloods I told you about,” he says, and she remembers the conversation from the night previous. “See that taller one, with the dark hair?” She is taken aback. She hadn’t believed it. “And she’s a nightblood,” she says softly. Imagine that. She looks up and stares at Emori with her one eye, cautious. It must be strange, Emori thinks, to be both celebrated and hated for your blood. She waves with her left hand, making sure the child can see it. Hesitantly, a grin breaks the girl’s face. iv. Murphy is pacing the next morning. Raven had given it to him the night before, while Emori was off talking to Axis, and it was heavy in his pocket. Literally. Now is the time to do it, isn’t it? Emori is still sleeping in the bed, one foot sticking out from under the blankets. Her hair will be thick with knots, and she’ll yawn herself awake soon and ask him if he’s making her breakfast. He hears her stir. Still staring out the window, he takes a deep breath and dives in. “When my people get married, they wear rings. On the second finger of their left hand.” He can feel her watching him. Go on, the silence seems to say. “I’ve been planning-- well. I didn’t want to give you a ring for your right hand. So I got you this.” He pulls it out of his pocket. Emori slips out of bed and takes it from him, her dark eyes clouded in fascination and maybe some sleep still. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes. Raven did a good job on it, and Emori is known for appreciating decent craftsmanship. The bracelet is thick pewter, engraved with patterns of leaves and flowers, and delicate chains lead to two smaller bracelets that can be clasped around her fused fingers. “John,” she says, looking up at him, eyes brimming with something. “So I guess I’m asking you to marry me. Or to teinawon with me,” he says, and the words are all a rush and she’s kissing them away, anyway. “That’s not how you use that word,” she says when they part, and he laughs. v. After a month of marriage, Emori notices that she has stopped wearing her hand wrap. It only makes sense. The band she now wears across that hand deserves to be seen, to be appreciated for its beauty and meaning. John even has a similar one, a bracelet connected to a smaller wedding band, and her heart aches whenever she looks at it. She would have never thought she would have this. Not in a million lifetimes. They stop back at New Arkadia after another month of travelling, and she sees Axis hiding under a table in Raven’s workroom. “I see you have an apprentice,” Emori says and Raven sighs. “She’s actually not bad at this stuff,” she tells her, “but I’m crap with kids. Hey. Get out from there,” she says sternly, and Axis only giggles, not budging an inch. Raven goes back to wiring the radio she’s working on and Emori crouches down. “Is this where you live now?” Emori asks very seriously. “Yes,” Axis says. “How would…” Emori pauses and wonders if this was how John felt those few months ago. “Would you like a new home, Axis?” “With you and Mopey?” she asks, because that’s what the nightblood kids have taken to calling John. “Yes.” She and John had talked about this decision at length over the past few months. Neither of them felt particularly good at taking care of children, or taking care of anything really, but something about Axis fit. She hadn’t been allowed to be a person, as a child. She’d been born after praimfaya and had been intermittently revered for her blood and reviled for her deformity. Sometimes, Emori wondered how her life would have turned out if every day hadn’t been a struggle to get to the next. The journey had taken her to John and she wouldn’t take back even a split-second of it, but she still wondered. Living with John, befriending his people, this had all lead her to reevaluate what a child’s life is supposed to be. Even in this new society, a frikdriena doesn’t have the same opportunities as other children, even one with dark blood. Axis crawls out from under the table and dusts off her scabby knees. She shrugs, putting up a shield Emori is all too familiar with. “I guess,” she says. “You guess?” Emori says, amused. The girl grins a little, and Emori suddenly remembers what she had told John about the rite of teinawon. How it can bind together a couple, or a family. “Okay,” she says. “Okay,” Emori repeats.

My weekend with pet

During my week with karla, i noticed (because it was pretty obvious) that i couldnt stop talking to petrina. We were like teenagers, messaging back and forth all day, day dreaming of one another and sharing everything under the sun. I was madly in love, like fall on your face in love with this girl and a plethora of bizzare things were circling our relationship (all of them super cosmic and hard to explain) that just gave me more reasons highting the importance of this relationship at this time. After intense and hilarious conversations, a thought popped in my head, maybe id buy a flight down to KL to see her for a few days? We chatted about it, but i was still feeling hesitations, i was afraid to let go and indulge in this realtionship. My entire life, im trying to find balance, and i was afraid that i was falling too deep into desire. BUT, after some conversations, i surrendered and jumped into the pool of love and bought my flight. A few days later, after pai, i was driving to the airport in chiang mai, hopping on the plane, and arriving in KL. I couldnt fucking wait! So i arrived, and we eased gently into one another, this was the first time we’d really spent time alone together, without any other stimulation to entertain us. But we eased smoothly the first night, as we laughed and talked and eventually fell asleep. The next morning we had planned to trip together. We had spoken about stepping a bit further out into the universe and taking a tab and a half each, and then adding some mushrooms on top. So we went and got some breakfast, made some food, set some intentions, and took the dive together. I lead the death meditation for her, and it felt like a  really lovely start to our trip. And there we went, our rocket ship left the atmosphere and the next ten hours were an intense explosion of connectedness, realizations and honoring the intriguing relationship that fell upon us. There were times that we held eachother so tight, that it was like we were a meteor flying through space, inpenatrable on the outside, but safe and gentle on the inside. It was as if i had lived multiple complete lives with petrina. Each life, a completely seperate reality, similar to mr. nobody. In one life, we were two kids that met each other and were full of lust. In another, we were partners with a child, all of us covered in with shalls and warming up by a fire in the winter of northern thailand. Another life, petrina was my daughter and i was letting her know how much her mother (petrina) and i loved her. 

The trip was incredibly powerful and intense, and near the end, we became slightly more sexual. Neither of us spoke, and i noticed that i wasnt sure what she was wanting from me. There were definitly signs that she desired pleasure, but at the same time it felt like a very surface feeling. I noticed that she wasnt recipricating touch, and that although we were being sexual, there seemed to be a slight distance making its way between us. Near the end of the trip, i started thinking about some of the things i had said earlier on, and that perhaps some of the things i had said earlier, may have caused a feeling of her needing to distance herself. I tried to open up and share and process the trip, but i could see that she was holding back a bit. I told her whenever she was ready to share, id love to hear. We fell asleep and the next morning she went to shower, closing the door and i could feel a continuance of the distance. It dawned on me that only a few days before, i was wearing the mask she was wearing of distance, and now it was my turn to feel the other side. I realized then, that neither of these roles were mine to play, and that mine was a secure one, and that i wanted to continue handling the situation from a place of truth and compassion, and not from anxiety and insecurity. So i meditated a few minutes as she showered, and when she came out, i asked if could share with her. She agreed and listened intently as i explained that i had noticed my mind finding insecurities, and only weeks ago i was on the other side of the coin. I realized that while i wanted to give her love, i never want to hold her back from anything, and that i really just wanted to make the most of our short time together. I wanted to end our beautiful weekend on a note that would send us into the world feeling good, and not one of regret and feeling foolish. I wanted to face my feelings, and confront them. I told her i was sorry, cause she expressed that she wasnt great with confrontation, but if we were gonna have a relationship of any kind, this is how we gotta do it. 

Pet was incredibly receptive and opened up a great deal about how she was feeling the night before. She opened up and we talked about the lust we were feeling the night before, and how it didnt feel great, that i wanted to give her love, but it felt cheapened by lust. I pointed out that i noticed she hadnt even touched me, and while that was ok, it just felt as if i was giving and she was receiving, instead of us mutually sharing love. The day continued on and our relationship truly blossomed. I learned the importance of communicating from a secure place, of not attacking, and not trying to pin my feelings on external events occuring, rather just to express my feelings and intentions. It was truly a game changer. We had a fucking blast the rest of the day, laying together in bed, getting coldstone ice cream, and going to see the new spiderman movie. 

Spiderman was hilarious, as we didnt realize that it was a cartoon. We arrived at the theater a few minutes late, and couldnt figure out what was going on. We left the theater and asked someone if we had made a mistake but the employee assured us that we had entered the correct theater. After reentering, we did some quick google searching and concluded, that we had in fact chosen to go see an animated spiderman, but since we were already there, we might as well enjoy it. And we did. It was a fucking awesome movie. I realized that night, that it didnt really matter what we were doing, as long as we were hanging out together, i was happy. 

A beautiful weekend of celebrating ourselves, with the lovely petrina

Things i learned from my acid trip with petrina.

There was this feeling in the depth of my being, that a large chapter of my life was coming to a close, and that this next chapter was about to commence. I could feel this third of my life, the third where i was making decisions for me and only me, was ending, and i was entering a realm where i would truly feel comfortable to make desicions that considered not only myself, but also others around me. Thats not to say that that hasnt happened in the past stage, but this would be the predominant work of this stage. A stage of giving back. As if the early ears of my life were focused on taking and utilizing resources from my parents and the world around me, and then i left for israel and i started thinking about caring for myself and taking less from those around me. I focused on learning and diving into the things that were interesting to me, and filtering a many great things that were interesing and letting those core healing practices emerge organically. I now feel like im arriving a stage, where i can truly allow for opportunites to come, that will help me dive to the depths of some of these realms that ive started digging in. Whether its a 21 day meditation course, or a month long ayuhasca retreat, im reading to get deeper. In addition, my relationshpi with petrina highlighted a desire that i had for a family, one of these days, a most unconventional family, and i believe that in this chapter of life, i will start to arrive to a place of emotional stability and groundedness.

In addition, i had an interesting experience, as i was showering during the trip. I could feel, very clearly, how much energy i had been storing in my dreads. This was stale energy that id been carrying around with me, weighing down on me for weeks, through pai and chiang mai. It was a profound experience, washing away all of this old, stale energy that was no longer serving me. I cant even explain how much lighter i felt after the shower, after coming to the understanding of just how much we carry with us and within us from the past and if we dont take time to cleans and wash, it really does build up.  it was awesome (like actually awe-some)

Another huge take away, was was omni present during the entire trip, was the idea of depth. I think for my entire life, ive been searching for depth, in almost everything that i do. Ive been trying to find tools to allow myself to experience the world in a more subtle and deeper way. During the trip, i feel like a door was opened that allowed me to see just how deep things can be in relation to how deep i have been living. It was truly humbling to see just how much of the mountain i had left to climb, but to see that there was a direction and deeper conciuosness (ironically, weeks later i would start my ayurvedic yoga/bodywork therapist trainging, where i would be consistantly practicing going to the depth of myself and of the world around me.)

Indulgance vs. discipline vs. balance

Lastly, something that petrina brought to my life, was this question between when its right to let go and indulge, when its right to hold back and be disciplined and how to find the balance between them. Obviously if you are always disciplined, you lose out on letting go, and living in the moment to some degree. On the other hand, if you are always indulging, it may be harder to reach a more sublte reality, or a deeper path.

An example of this would be, if i ate the entire cake by myself, i would miss out on a much deeper experience of sharing with others (a more eudonomic happiness vs. just sensual pleasure), or i would be trading sensual pleasure for pain and discomfort in my body later on. Or very simply, giving into sensual pleasures constantly, will be atempting to fill a void, that will just grow and grow (as both max and zen buddhism teach)

Having said that, if im constantly holding myself back, i may deprive myself of the simple and beautiful pleasures of life. In my attempt to get deeper, i will miss a very important lesson, in letting go and being present with what is, in flowing with the environment vs. trying to control everything. 

It’s been a very interesting idea to play with and observe in myself

Phoenix Rising - Chapter 10 (Eric X OC)

Rating: M (violence/swearing/smut :p)

Genre: General/Drama/Angst

Thanks everyone for the re-blogs and support!!! IT IS SO AWESOME!!!  

@emmysrandomthoughts @beautifulramblingbrains @iammarylastar @tigpooh67 @bookwarm85 @frecklefaceb @mom2reesie @elaacreditava @badassbaker @captstefanbrandt @jaihardy @treeleaf @pathybo @beltz2016 @lilu46 @equalstrashflavoredtrash​

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Just a bit o’ fluff to start the day....

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Eric bit back a ragged groan. The nurse's prediction had become agonizingly true, and Eric was in pain, laying immobile on his bed. He'd wanted Fox to sleep beside him but she'd refused, stating that she slept restlessly now, moving every time one of the babies kicked and that she'd just keep Eric awake all night. He wished he'd insisted, at least having Fox against him, even if she was restless, would be preferable to this slow torture.

He couldn't even call it real pain, at least not any pain Eric was used to experiencing; this was deeper, more visceral. His nerves were alive and on fire, racing drunkenly through his body, flaring hot in his arm then subsiding before tingling intensely in his leg. After their first 'physio' session, after Fox had cleaned the both of them and redressed; she'd unlocked the door and climbed carefully in bed beside Eric, pulling his leaden arms around her and snuggling up under his chin. At Eric's quiet request, Fox had rubbed Eric's hand in gentle circles over her swollen belly, stopping with a grin as one of the twins responded, pushing back. Eric had spoken lowly to them and both babies had started moving, obviously excited to hear their father's voice again. It was easy to ignore the strange pain then, while Fox was beside him and his babies were moving, and Eric had pushed the sensations away. Now that Fox was in her own cot, and only the dark hospital walls surrounded him, the tingling and twinges had returned with a vengeance and Eric had given up on sleep, was concentrating now only on staying quiet for Fox. She’d had such dark bags under her eyes when Eric had first woken up today, and although the sparkle was back in her beautiful Tiger’s eye gaze; Eric could see that she’d slept poorly this last week, if at all; and had suffered far more than she was willing to tell him yet.

The door to his room opened, and the same nurse from this afternoon, the one that Fox had spoken to regarding ‘physio’ strode silently in. She glanced over at Fox before leaning slightly over Eric. When she’d checked on him an hour ago, Eric had foolishly refused pain medication, and he’d been regretting it ever since. Only pride had kept him from hitting the call button. Stupid fucking Dauntless pride.....you moron.

“How are you feeling?” The nurse asked, her trained eye immediately seeing that Eric was struggling. “Will you take something now?”

Eric nodded, biting back another groan.

The nurse nodded. “I’ll be right back, hon.”

She returned a few minutes later with a syringe, the liquid inside looking slightly blue. Leaning back over Eric she whispered. “This is specifically for nerve pain, it will dull and slow your pain receptors; but it will also dull and slow you, you’ll experience lethargy and drowsiness, but you should be able to sleep for a few hours. In the morning we can try something else, it won’t work as well but you won’t be so lethargic for your physiotherapy.” She waited and Eric nodded, he was willing to try.

The nurse began slowly injecting the syringe into Eric’s IV, as she did she continued to whisper. “Your wife stayed here the whole time, and she never left your side when we had to wake you from your coma for the tests. You’re very lucky to have her.”

Eric nodded, a corner of his mouth pulling up in a grin, the pain medication was already starting to work, and Eric’s tongue loosened. “I know, she’s my everything....we’re expecting twins soon, you know?”

The nurse smiled faintly as Eric’s eyes slightly unfocused. The pain medication was beginning to kick in already, the poor man might actually get a few hours rest. She leaned back down. “I know, now go to sleep.” Fuck, if I was twenty years younger and you were single, she thought with a small smile.

Eric blinked heavily at her and the nurse gently guided his head back to the pillow, rearranging his blankets over his muscular chest. She waited until Eric’s eyes drifted slowly closed before leaving. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fox was awake first, the twins having had mercy on her for once and she’d managed a few unbroken hours of rest. Immediately she raised her head to look over at Eric, he was asleep, breathing heavy and regular and Fox wondered if he’d finally broken down and accepted some type of painkillers. Stupid Dauntless pride. My stupid, prideful, stupid man....if I didn’t love you so fucking much, I’d have to smack you.

Fox recognized that part of the reason she’s slept so well, beyond the twins, was the fact that not only was Eric awake and looking like he was going to recover, but they’d been able to connect again in that visceral, primal way that they enjoyed so much; their bodies becoming one again. Fox knew that she and Eric were so bonded, so tied together that they literally recharged when they were connected, that they needed each other in that animal way to fully function when apart. Fox couldn’t imagine being with anyone else, Eric had been her first, and he would be her only.

“Good morning babies,” she murmured, smiling when she received an answering kick. One of the babies, Twin A, was the more active of the two, and was always the first to kick or respond in some way. Fox imagined he was a miniature Eric, and would probably be born already sharpening a knife; an arrogant sneer on his face and his hair already slicked back.

Eric moaned quietly in his sleep, pulling Fox out of her musing. She stood and shuffled over to him, rubbing slowly at her lower back. He remained asleep, so Fox studied his face fondly. She’d told him more about his injuries last night, about his two broken legs; the right snapped at the femur, the left shattered below the knee. She’d told Eric about all the lacerations and bruising he’d had, the road rash, the eerie way he’s lain there so silently, not responding to anything or anybody, his skin cold and slack. But Fox hadn’t told him about the doctor’s first phone call to her, when no one had even known if Eric was going to survive, the way Fox had literally witnessed Eric starting to crash and the nurses bringing him back, or the look in his eyes when he'd struggled against the restraints, silently begging Fox to help him; those were too painful yet.

Fox held herself back from touching Eric, not wanting to cause him more pain. Although he'd tried to hide it, Fox had caught him wincing more than once yesterday, and had awakened briefly during the night to hear him groaning quietly, a ragged sound, but exhaustion had pulled Fox back under before she could wake fully. Turning, she hurried to the bathroom, cursing her pregnant bladder. When she emerged again, Eric was awake, blinking sluggishly. Fox leaned over him and smiled.

"Good morning baby." She purred.

Eric focused slowly on her, his eyelids not fully in tandem as he blinked again. He'd finally given in and asked for painkillers, Fox realized. She doubted he'd do it again, he hated being vulnerable like this, especially around strangers.

"Hey," Eric replied, his voice unhurried. A goofy grin pulled slowly at his mouth and Fox couldn't stop a giggle.

"Feeling okay?"

"Oh....yeah, feels great...." Eric trailed off, focusing on something past the bed, after a minute he looked slowly back up at Fox. "Did you see the unicorn too?"

Fox couldn't hold it in anymore. To see the fearless Dauntless leader Eric, who didn't even act like this when he was drunk, was too funny right now; Fox had needed to laugh like this for awhile and she let go, stumbling over and collapsing onto the chair, howling. Eric watched her mildly, his forehead creasing in minor confusion. The creases deepened as he tried to sit up, and Fox found the laughter dying in her throat. She stood again and moved back to Eric's side. His puzzled face turned up to her.

"Why can't I move?" He mumbled.

Part of Fox wanted to continue laughing, but another part fell silent. Would Eric be able to move again? Had they gone through all this shit just to have Eric stuck in a hospital bed forever? No, stop that. Fox made herself smile, in all likelihood Eric wouldn't even remember he'd asked this again in a few minutes.

"Not right now, you hurt your back but we're helping you get back together."

"I'm broken?" Eric mumbled back, looking down at himself.

Fox smiled wider, it was like talking to a toddler right now, she could probably convince him that she really had 'got your nose' too.

"Not permanently," Fox replied, sitting back down. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sweat dripped down Eric's face and his arms trembled. Fox had moved a few paces away and watched reluctantly.

"Mr. Coulter," the physiotherapist explained again, "I must ask you to stop pushing yourself too hard, you are going to re-injure yourself."

Eric curled his lip at him but kept his head lowered to hide it. His whole fucking body was on fire, it felt like each nerve had been doused in lighter fluid and set ablaze. Teeth-gritting pins and needles flared wherever there was extra pressure, right now at the bottoms of his feet as Eric stood and in his hands as he held the railings on either side of him for support. Eric had forced himself to stand already, ignoring the physiotherapist's instructions to 'take it easy'; but you couldn't say he was walking already. So far, he'd only managed to stand and Eric was exhausted, it felt like he'd run a marathon, the muscles in his arms and legs quivered with effort and only his famous stubbornness, pigheadedness Fox would call it, keeping him from collapsing to the floor.

Secretly, Eric was impressed that he'd managed this. He'd been trying for days, well, since that goddamn shit wore off and he could think straight again, to move his feet, his toes, something. He'd managed a spasmodic twitch in his right big toe that first morning, and now, three days later, he was standing. Fox was watching him with a mixture of pride and anxiety on her beautiful face, absently caressing her abdomen. The dark bags under her eyes had lightened and she didn't seem so worn down anymore, the light was back in her eyes. Eric raised his head to look over at her, the pain fading slightly when she smiled at him. Not surprisingly, Eric's legs finally gave out, but the therapist was ready, pushing the wheelchair forward so Eric collapsed into it instead of the floor. He gave Eric a stern look.

"That's enough for today."

Eric grumbled in return, hating this. He gritted his teeth as the therapist set his feet on the foot rests and started pushing him back to his room. The doctor had moved them to a private suite, with a kitchenette and private bathroom for Fox. The bed was larger, allowing for more of their 'physio' sessions and also for Fox to simply lay with him without worrying about being too restless in a smaller bed. Since refusing more of that 'blue shit that knocked me loopy', Eric relied instead on Fox to help his pain, her body warm against his, her breath on his face as she stroked his cheek, or rested her forehead to his, her hand trailing lightly along his chest, was a far more effective painkiller than anything else. With the new, albeit slightly jerky, control of his hands, Eric flicked at a bit of lint on his sweatpants. That was another vast improvement, wearing his own clothes again. Those fucking gowns they'd made him wear weren't designed for someone with a muscular Dauntless body, and Eric had flashed his ass to the gaggle of giggling but appreciative  Erudite nurses more than he cared to think about. Fox walked quietly at his side and Eric worked to raise his hand to her, he managed to rest it on the arm of the wheelchair and Fox intertwined her fingers with his, her touch almost like a soothing balm, relaxing the volatile nerves scratching through his arm.

Reaching their room, the therapist helped Eric back onto his bed and warned him balefully yet again to 'take it easy' before leaving. "You stood today," Fox smiled, leaning over the bed-rail. "Are you tired?"

Eric nodded, Fox had gotten right in his face two days ago, demanding that he drop the tough guy act around her and be honest about how his body felt. Eric had relented, not yet able to defend himself from a pissed-off pregnant woman.

"Do you want me to lay with you?"

Eric grinned. Fox didn't even need to ask, the answer was always yes. "Of course baby."

Fox crawled carefully in beside Eric, settling against him and helping his arms wrap around her. Eric huffed in contentment, already feeling the pain in his body lessen. He managed to move his hand down to her expanding belly, growing more every day, and rested his hand there. One of the twins pushed faintly back and Eric smiled. Exhaustion quickly began to overwhelm him as Fox stroked his forehead gently, humming some old song quietly.

"Fox-" he murmured as his eyes drifted closed, sleep overtaking him.

I am the anon who asked about nexplanon. I thought it could trigger you, that's why I didn't go into details. I wanted to know if it stops your period or if you are still bleeding? Hope I've been more clear.

Gonna write out a fuckton of details, putting the important things in bold…and then put a completely bolded TL;DR at the end:

I really appreciate the not wanting to trigger me. I thought maybe that was why you didn’t go into detail. That is really respectful and I really appreciate it, but for future reference for you and anyone: If it is medical, scientific, or for educational purposes and does not reference my parts sexually or treat me or my parts as sexual objects and I still remain male in the eyes of whomever is asking me questions, I don’t mind explicit detail.

I really appreciate that, though.

As for the answer….It’s a little complicated.

This is my replacement nexplanon. I had one for three years prior to this one. I got my replacement one put in on 11/22/2017.

With my FIRST nexplanon…the first three years I had it…I didn’t bleed at all. The one and ONLY time I spotted (did not get a full period and did not get ANY associated symptoms…just simply spotted) was when living with my ex-girlfriend and her husband. My ex had VERY alpha-essque hormones. I spotted tiny, tiny bit when living with Chelle but it was so unnoticeable that I didn’t even have to use a pad.

It is completely normal for anyone with female parts that has nexplanon to actually get a full period (even with all the associated symptoms) for the first few months after insertion… And, IF I UNDERSTOOD MY NURSE RIGHT…..(I may not have, coz I’ve been in a total daze this past week+), it’s even possible for people with the appropriate female parts to have full periods with associated symptoms every month on time for the entirety of their time with nexplanon. But every single person I’ve talked to who has nexplanon said that’s really not a thing and their periods, if they got them AT ALL, went away almost immediately after the first few months.

I have a bleeding/clotting disorder that especially affects my periods (and is also something I have to alert tattoo artists to which is why a lot of my tats come out unfinished). When I got my first period at the age of…maybe 13? I was hospitalized because I clotted so badly and I almost bled out entirely. They suggested I take my uterus out immediately because this wasn’t something that was going to go away and I would need to be on a VERY STRONG BC for the rest of my life that either eliminated bleeding/clotting altogether or made it to where I bled/clotted like a normal person’s period, which would still be awful. ALSO, my periods last approximately 2 weeks, give or take a couple days each time. This is normal for my entire family on my mother’s side…it would put my mom and her mom and their mom before that and all my mom’s sisters out of work and out of school and stuff the entire time every month of their period. They didn’t have it as severe as me because they didn’t have the bleeding/clotting disorder to worry about. But they did have as severe cramping as I had that was as bad, if not worse, than labour pains (spoken from women in my family who have been through it, some multiple times). They DIDN’T have something that I didn’t get until my late teens, early 20′s…and on… until I got my nexplanon. The psychological effects of the period. Every single time I got my period, I would wind up in a hospital the day before I actually got it because of the most extreme and impulsive suicide attempts you can imagine. I have NEVER felt such extreme psychological instability as I have when on my period. It’s like…every single disorder I have gets amplified by a million and they all clash and I’m unable to control anything and suddenly my body and mind act on their own and I’m no longer in control and I black out and wake up in a hospital or while being dragged, kicking and screaming, down the hall by orderlies to the floor with a ward on it. The hallucinations, the BPD symptoms, the other schizo symptoms, the homicidal and suicidal symptoms usually being taken over by suicidal, the self harm urges, the inability to make decisions for myself, the panic attacks while all of this is happening, flashbacks to rapes and being in wards and being trapped and sex training and all sorts of different things that i cant remember, …the list goes on and on. ALL AT ONCE. I just wake up and get FLOODED with all of these things all at once and Killian shuts down and idk what or who takes over but whatever does instantly goes for the most dramatic, impulsive, instantaneous, shocking, grandiose, suicidal gesture you could ever imagine that always seems to be in public (lets break a glass mirror in public with your brass knuckles and slit our wrists and throat open with a huge shard where everyone can see, why don’t we!?) so I mean, you can only imagine how many times I’ve been thrown right on the ground by a cop and cuffed and taken in. This is usually the day BEFORE my period. Also, I starve on my period. I starve naturally coz I’m anorexic…but it takes willpower to starve during non-period times and times when I’m sober..During my period…I can’t eat anything coz I always feel nauseated, my two lower quadrants are always in such intense throbbing or stabbing pain that I’m writhing and screaming despite heating pads and normally a dilaudid or fentanyl drip at the hospital, the thought, smell, and visual effect of food makes me feel….full? Idk how to describe… It’s not nauseated. But it makes me feel so full that I couldn’t force myself to eat even if I wanted to. And since my period lasts a MINIMUM of two weeks, give or take a couple days, I usually end up on IV nutrients, too.

I’m explaining all of this because I’m needing to explain WHY it is so important that I chose nexplanon over…say…The Pill or an IUD or something. I’ve heard that the Depo Provera shot works for people who can’t handle nexplanon and vice versa. Well, when I tried the Depo Provera shot, I wound up having the effects of an anti-depressant on me…in other words, it made me so insatiably suicidal that I ended up in a ward within a couple hours of getting the shot. Depo worked HORRIBLY on me…I didn’t even get to see if it worked for any of my period symptoms coz it had to be flushed from my system entirely coz of the EXTREME psych effects it had on me.

But Nexplanon….Nexplanon was my saving grace.

Coz not only did I literally NEED the bleeding/clotting to stop….But I NEEDED ALMOST ALL of the associated symptoms to stop. I think the only things that weren’t either life threatening or debilitating were mild acne that happened very rarely each period (never really had to deal with acne in my life) and the bloating/water retention. Very specific, certain mood swings associated with periods were something not life threatening or debilitating either. Just…annoying and a total bitch to everyone around me hahahaha. I slayed with my words and popped off on anyone…Yikes. But it wasn’t like my BPD mood swings where 0 to 100 in less than a second on being euphoric and suicidal almost simultaneously.

I explained all of that because I need everyone to realize I chose nexplanon and not anything else because almost everything about my period (the bleeding/clotting AND almost ALL associated symptoms) were life threatening AND debilitating and had almost killed me so many times, it was terrifying. Since my parents obviously did not agree to get my uterus taken out and since I haven’t had the money to get mine surgically removed and donated to a wonderful transgirl (got three of you lovely ladies in mind! you all know who you are!)…I needed a BC medication that was going to stop EVERYTHING. Not just “the period”. But the ENTIRE period. The bleeding/clotting and ALL associated symptoms.

That BC was either Depo Provera shot or Nexplanon. One works, the other doesn’t…it seems to be that way with everyone. I tried Nexplanon first. That worked well. I forget why I tried Depo inbetween but you just read how nearly fatal that was for me…

ANYWAYS…

So this is my second time on it. As I said, It was put in on 11/22/2017. 

The removal and replacement went smoothly and it’s been going smoothly……..until this month.

What I am experiencing is normal for a NORMAL PERSON. A NORMAL PERSON with a NORMAL PERIOD would be okay with these symptoms. Problem being….Idk what symptoms are associated with what because:a) I’m switching my migraine medication to something that causes certain side effects until it levels out in my systemb) I’m having what a normal person would consider a full periodc) Optical and chronic migraines are happening simultaneously and they are debilitating to the point of making me bed-ridden if I don’t take my old migraine med along with this new one (which I’m not supposed to be doing)d) I’m getting a rheumatoid diagnosis and seeing a rheymatologist soon (they’re gonna probably schedule me tomorrow for a week to a month out…month at the longest) for either a lupus or fibro diagnosis, but they’re also going to check for hyperalgesia presenting in the kicked puppy/”flinching disorder” way and there are a FUCKTON of new symptoms I’m experiencing because of whatever this auto-immune disorder or rheumatoid virus (or both) is and my period actually could be happening BECAUSE of all of thise) I added a new exercise regime in when I really haven’t exercised every day and night consistently since I got diagnosed with chronic costochondritis for fear of cardiac arrest, which I fear even more now that I’m on a med that makes it to where I can’t sweat, BUT….exercise is good for joint/muscle disease/virus/pain/etc etc etc…f) I’m under a LOT of stress and pressure regarding so many things but right now it’s primarily school…getting into a pre-med tailored general biology major and a good university to switch to a medical major and pass the MCAT and do a FUCKTON of things simultaneously in order to get into medical school (trust me, you have NO idea how many non-scholastic things you HAVE to do to even be considered an applicant at p much every med uni)… I mean, I’m enrolled in three different colleges right now and I’m taking 6 vet tech related medical classes right now and will be taking 2 general ed classes on campus 45 minutes from here to finish a different degree…so I will have two associates band a bachelors by the time I’m moving on to my doctorate (coz med majors don’t get their masters, we just move from bachelors to doctorate for some reason)g) FAFSA is another time constraint stress that is KILLING ME and scholarships and such….h) Getting into the “back to work” program with disability, trying to find a job, trying to find internships, keeping up with seminars, paperwork stacked a mile high that is all deadline, deadline, DEADLINE…I’m going to a bazillion, million doctors who are all 3+ hours away and a lot of them are turning me away at the end of the visit because they “just don’t know what to do” and “this is above [my] pay-grade” so specialists refer me to other specialists who just refer me RIGHT BACK to those other specialists and then it’s an argument on whose specialty it is because the symptoms are literally from head to foot in me and no one knows what the fuck to do to help until I see a rheumatologist so it’s MORE THAN STRESSFUL driving 6+ hours almost every day of the week to go through extensive medical exams and testing only to be told they can’t help me/don’t know what to do/recommend…….and refer me someplace else….. and also all the hospital visits I’m ending up having to endure… alone… because my roommates are an “every man for themselves” type of roommate situation….i) Being put on a new medication I’ve never tried before, Lyrica, and playing around with the dosage myself and pushing it up to 600mg a day sometimes when I’m prescribed 200mg a day (100/100 day/night) and the max legal dose for my issues is 300mg/day…not to mention I’m not being consistent with it at all…and I was supposed to titrate up from 25mg to 75mg because it can affect my psych issues the first month but I just started on 200mg per day anyways coz I’m an idiot and have a self-medication problem (hence why tons of psychs have discharged me…rightfully so)j) moving in general and getting adjusted to new roommates and a new state and a new city and a new environment in general….k) getting used to a new style of support that I WANT AND NEED OVERALL but can’t handle and don’t need specifically right now when I’m just now getting diagnosed and transitioning through all these things…L) my HRT doc finally cleared me for T after working with her and the HRT board with PPH because it was dangerous with my psych issues….and then all of a sudden all of these physical issues popped up, forcing me not only to change my entire moving plans, living plans, schooling plans, autonomy timeline, Echo timeline, screwed with my financial stability I had going on MAJORLY, a TON of other things….and then ONCE AGAIN…barred me from being eligible for HRT because it isn’t safe anymore and until I get a full, complete workup and diagnosis, as well as find out what medications I’m going to be on and the dosage and they level out in my system and we all see how they’re going to affect me…….HRT is not an option….so I have to wait EVEN LONGER….to transition….M) relations with my parents became more strained than ever lately which is odd because normally being away and being unable to be physically abused makes things better and healthier between us…but suddenly, I’VE become the abusive one…. I’m fucking lashing out at my mother every chance I get and that’s normal for chronic illness diagnosis and stuff but blacking out due to anger is not… and idk where the anger black outs are coming from…and there are other black outs…N) Shit going on with my grandparents that SHOULDN’T be going on as well as with my father that SHOULDNT be going on and only people who truly know my father and me and what has gone on between us and who he really is can comment on this (which those people I can count on one hand), but I hope to god he dies before I can get to him…Jesus fucking christO) ……I can’t go on with specifics anymore, I’m bad with list but SUFFICE IT TO SAY…..

I HAVE A FUCKTON OF STUFF GOING ON SIMULTANEOUSLY AND I’M DOING ABOVE A NEUROTYPICAL LEVEL OF ADULTING EVERY SINGLE DAY. Like….WAY above. Above an able-bodied level of adulting, too! Above a neurotypical, able-bodied person’s adulting workload every day…. Which is scary.

I’m mentioning all that because all of that is apparently stress related. Apparently if there is enough stress in your body, it can release certain hormones. And those hormones, if powerful enough…like…if the stress is powerful enough…can cause a period in people. For people who aren’t on BC, it can cause them to have it at irregular times (ie; having it right after having finally stopped it… having it twice in one month…having it once in 3 months….etc etc etc).

That list is the major things I can think of off the very top of my head that are going on with me at this very moment… It is POSSIBLE that all of that is the cause of me having a normal person’s flow and all associated symptom’s at a normal person’s level.

WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY NORMAL PERSON: I mean… A normal flow as in… +NOT going through over one of the biggest maxi pads available every half hour/using a singular biggest maxi pad available maybe every 6-8 hours, +NOT being bed-ridden due to cramps/being able to stand up and walk and walk up and down stairs on my own when I have cramps and be out and about if I NEED to and stand the duration of a shower with cramps, being able to eat if I need to, +having zofran or phenergen work when nauseated, +having actual acne that I clawed to shreds with my nails so it’s very noticeable (I’ve had acne less than 10 times in my entire life so it’s a little distressing to see it on my face coz idk how to deal with it, but I had to claw at it until the convex forms turned concave and started gushing blood…so now it looks like two, big, perfectly round, bright red, blood-coloured spots on my face that I claw open every morning till they bleed and claw at during the day and smother in neosporin during the night), +the clotting is about half the size of my fits and comes out only when I pee/sit on the toilet (normally, the clots are the size of my fits or bigger, which is why a D&C surgery is necessary if it were happening again, but my hands are very small…VERY small…probably smaller than President Tiny Hands…so half the size is not that bad),+Bloating/water retention to where my pants/shirts don’t even fit but my weight hasn’t gone up…but, man, it hurts my soul and my mind so badly that it makes me want to hurt myself for self loathing purposes which I haven’t wanted to do in a long time and kill myself for being obese and hideous despite the fact I know this is temporary.+Mild headaches/NOT MIGRAINES OR HEADACHES THAT HAVE ANY SORT OR LIGHT OR SOUND SENSITIVITY,+NORMAL mood swings that are not akin to BPD or bipolar disorder at all and aren’t bad enough to cause any fights, either with others or with myself,+NO Suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideation…No instantaneous suicide attempts…no insatiable self harm urges,+This may be specific to me, but cravings for weird things like the feel of blood or the smell of the ocean,+Either an entire lack of appetite or a voracious appetite+Putting off adult responsibilities with a NORMAL amount of guilty conscious applied to it and not a “Jesus fucking christ, you’re absolutely useless, ON TOP of being obese and ugly, you really DO need to kill yourself RIGHT NOW because look at all the things you need to do and you’re not, you lazy piece of shit child” but more of a “You’re being lazy lol, but it’s okay…tomorrow is a new day. Fuck it. Fuck being an adult. I am NOT adulting today!”+INTENSE craving for chocolate…ALL the time… Like, not cheap chocolate, either. Like… mandarin orange infused godiva chocolate… All day, every day. Fuck.+Breasts swelling to almost a whole new cup size. Been having a hard time using the normal sized chest binder I use because my breasts swelled or retained water/milk/whatever so much. I don’t think they hit C’s, but my smaller B-cup bras which is what I normally wear to bed didn’t fit. Regular sized B-cups are normally WAY too loose on me to wear to bed and my girls will slip out during the night so I always have to find the tight, little girls training B-cups instead of, like…the ladies. I can fit into an A, but it’s just slightly too tight and a little too uncomfortable, unfortunately. I was an A my whole life until I got on antipsychotics. Hopefully T will bring them down to the smallest A possible and I can go down in my binder size.+Heightened sensitivity to pain and heat

Here’s a lack of symptoms I have entirely despite the fact I have my period that normally accompany MY period which also make this a “normal” person’s period:+No homicidal thoughts/desires/actions (thoughts past the normal)!+No suicidal thoughts/desires/actions (thoughts past the normal)!+No impulse spending to the point of spending the entirety of your money.+No sudden development of bipolar disorder but only for the duration of your period (a psych has confirmed this with me and gone over it with me and why I am bipolar on my period and not BPD and how this can be and how it is similar to a drug induced mental disorder, ie; drug induced schizophrenia, so I’m not just like…pulling this out of the blue, I swear lololol)+An ability to remain calm and level headed during arguments or fights if there even are any and turn things into a debate or a joke/satirical conversation instead of an argument like I normally do+No sudden surge of a loss of interest in things I love (which was hard to do to begin with since I lost everything I loved to depression over the years so this feeling of losing my passions during my periods was very soul crushing)+No getting triggered by noise, like… Being mentally overloaded by noise everywhere. I know there’s a word for this and it’s normally associated with autistic people but I’m blanking coz I’m not autistic and I don’t usually experience this and a cacophony of noise actually soothes me usually, tbh…lol.+No being overly sensitive to other people’s words and actions and no reading into and over-analyzing everything everyone says and does+No extreme panic attacks that are actually mental based and not physically based (I have panic disorder, which means I don’t get any sort of mental symptoms with my panic attacks because panic disorder does not have any association with anxiety or anxiety attacks or panic attacks that are caused by mental stuff… so my panic attacks are always purely physical…during my period, they can be started mentally…which is impossible for me otherwise)+No odd fears popping up that I overcame a long time ago (ie; phone phobia making me have a panic attack if someone calls me and making me unable to answer the phone or call anyone I need to, balloon phobia, needle phobia…actually, you know, I’m still not quite over balloons yet…I thought I overcame it about like…4 or 5 years ago but then my coworkers tied balloons to my car doors as a prank and I had a panic attack and broke down crying and had to have one of them come cut them off for me lolololol…so idk about that one, but you get my examples, right?)+No losing the conscience I have built up over the years and maintained so that I can force myself to stay away from being abusive and neglectful to people I love (ie; gaslighting, manipulation, coercion, pressure, charm, using my unique charisma for evil, threats, homicidal actions, conditioning, etc etc etc…) which comes with being BPD since I cannot feel empathy or sympathy and cannot “put myself in someone else’s shoes” due to ANOTHER disorder so I have made my own conscience and I lose it during my period because it’s made up and I have to be very self aware to keep it in place coz I don’t have a conscience naturally like most people do.+No hallucinations, auditory and/or visual+No catatonic moments+No psychosis, temporary/intermittent or permanent enough to need intervention+No purposefully making a dramatic scene in public in order to elicit a response from professionals and the crowd around me to come try to take me away to a ward so I can fight them+No lying without even realizing I’m doing it or meaning to about REALLY weird things to get attention (The things I lie about without realizing I’m doing it until after I’ve already done it while I’m on my period are INSANE!!!! It can range from something as innocent and benign as like… lying about the weather to a long distance friend…”Yeah, it’s raining outside. So nice.” When it’s fucking sunny as hell and making me miserable??? To something as big and severe as “I have a gun pointed at my head right now. I’m ready to do it. I have nothing left to lose.” Bitch, I can count the number of times I’ve held a gun to my head on one hand and it’s a VERY low number because it’s always been my dad’s gun and I’ve only been honest about holding a gun to my head to like… my ex girlfriend and one of my friends. That’s it. Yet, I have said this line so many times on my period without even realizing it until after I’ve said it and when it’s already been said it’s kind of a *shrug* “Welp…oh well…I guess…Too late to correct it…” sorta thing…So I go with it and just put on a whole act and it feels totally normal when I’m on my period??? My period turns me into a really fucking crazy, manipulative, evil little boy…)+Trying to steal the spotlight from others irl to get attention on me (ie; I can’t think of a real example, so I’m making up one: A coworker blacks out during a shift so they have to call 911…when the paramedics arrive, I go start unloading boxes, using one of those retractable blade thingies to open the boxes, while everyone is watching our pale, actually in distress coworker be loaded onto a gurney… I would go as far as to literally stab myself or slice a VERY deep wound in my hand or even chop the front part pad of a finger off (which I really have done before) just so I can scream (for real coz it hurts and it makes me yelp in surprise) so that everyone will turn their attention onto me and one of the paramedics will grab me and take me with them in the ambulance and I will go to the hospital with them and get all the “Omg are you okay? What happened? Did [x] really happen? Were you really in the hospital? Omg blah blah blah ATTENTION blah blah” as soon as I get back and it will rip ALL the attention away from the coworker who actually deserved it and actually needed…that’s not an actual example, I made that up, but I would not be surprised in the least if I did something like that while on my period if I were working rn and this happened)+Impulse stealing from corporate stores just for the adrenaline rush and to shove it to “the man”+Majority of my life, it was Cry and sob and cry and sob and writhe and pull my hair out and claw at myself and sob with full body shakes because of how much mental pain I was in because suicidal feelings definitely overpowered homicidal, but now and before my original nexplanon was put in 4 years ago…like…the very very very last period I had…Going out and looking for a fight with strangers…a physical fight…that I damn well know I will lose coz I’m a 5′2″ obese boy with absolutely NO muscle… SIMPLY TO GET MY ASS BEAT AND FEEL THOSE ENDORPHINS RUSH AND FEEL THE ADRENALINE PUMP AND THEN DIE OUT (similar to cutting)… Or just go to a bar and get in the most gruesome bar fight ever… Or find a human-like substance… and stab it over and over with a knife and beat it in with brass knuckles… Threaten people with knives… Etc etc etc …. Basically a bunch of homicidal stuff that I experienced the first two days of my period but now it’s gone coz the homicidal definitely overpowers the suicidal now+Such extreme apathy AND lethargy that I could lose whatever job I have at the time, go from a solid 4.0 to failing all my classes, and lose placement and lose progress in absolutely EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING I’m attending/working towards/doing/etc+The extreme apathy and lethargy bleeds into self care, too. No showering, no brushing your teeth, no washing your hands, etc etc etc…

I can’t think of anything else, but there’s probably more…Idk. But Anyways…EVERYTHING ABOVE IS SUPPOSED TO BE MASKED MY NEXPLANON COMPLETELY!

What I am CURRENTLY experiencing…is the first list. The one prior to the one right above this one. Normal bleeding/clotting and a normal level of psychological and other physical symptoms.

However…this has never happened to me before…

During my first three years with my first nexplanon, it took less than the first month for ALL of my symptoms to go away and I didn’t even spot the first month. That’s kinda what it was like up until JUST NOW with the nexplanon. No spotting or associated symptoms or ANYTHING until….literally just a few days ago…Maybe even a week ago now. The bleeding has slowed to the point where I don’t need anything other than a thin pad now. The cramping has slowed to where I don’t need a heating pad all the time. The mood swings are gone… I’ll admit, the first two days I got my period, I wanted to kill myself so badly and I most certainly did self harm. I slit the fuck outta my wrists and was SO CLOSE to going for the 20-minute-kill-zone. But I didn’t. Thank GOD I didn’t do it…Also, the first two days were abnormal for me in the fact that I wanted to eat EVERYTHING. NONSTOP. I was SO HUNGRY. Normally my period makes me so nauseated and makes me want to stay away from food so adamantly that I can’t even force myself to eat to stay alive so, like I said, I usually end up on IV nutrients in the hospital during the second week… My hunger returned to normal level on the third day and then has gone to the forcing myself to eat to stay alive bit now because I’m never hungry and I’m looking at food either makes me feel full or nauseated. Smelling food definitely makes me feel nauseated unless it’s chocolate. Lmaoooo! I am prescribed both phenergen and zofran for different reasons, though, so I just pop some zofran and it normally takes care of it to where I can force myself to eat something to stay alive or to not have a hypoglycemic attack. Coz now if I don’t eat something (even if it’s just a fucking spoonful of peanut butter or a cup of orange juice or a bar of chocolate—listing those 3 things coz they’re the top three best things to bring someone out of hypoglycemic shock) within 24 hours, I will notice my blood sugar bottom out and I will go into hypoglycemic shock and if I don’t immediately take care of it, I need to be hospitalized. Which is why I ALWAYS have chocolate on hand and ALWAYS have orange juice in the house. Don’t always have peanut butter on hand…but I should. I also have chronically low blood pressure and for some reason that affects my blood sugar and how easily it can crash and such? I’m not quit sure how (med student here and I have no idea the physiology of this stuff lol….wow) but I have to pay SUPER SPECIAL ATTENTION to BOTH of those things (blood sugar and blood pressure) during my period…because if my BP bottoms out and I don’t get help, I go into a coma. God forbid it fucking happens while I’m sleeping which…since I take metropolol (migraine med which drops my BP coz it’s a BP med) before bed and go to sleep with ambien which lowers my BP double (ambien and sleeping lowers your BP) AND IF I’M ON MY PERIOD ON TOP OF THAT….my BP will just plummet…and if I’m sleeping, there’s no chance at getting help or found or anything… I’ll just go straight to a coma. Same with hypoglycemia. Which is why I make sure ESPECIALLY ON MY PERIOD to eat something chocolate or peanut butter or both…and drink a bit of orange juice before bed…just in case. Coz being in hypoglycemic shock is scary af…the few times I have been…being TOTALLY helpless like that…totally disoriented… totally at the mercy of whomever finds you…feeling yourself slipping away…. unable to call or move for help…that’s TERRIFYING. Lemme tell you…and MY PERIOD CAN MAKE THAT 20x WORSE. JFC.

So….

Tl;Dr: Yes, I’m bleeding this month… 3 months after getting it put in. I’m having what would be considered a “normal person’s” period with a “normal person’s” symptoms…nothing I’ve ever experienced myself with my own period. So this is a fucking miracle period, but it still sucks and is still terrifying.I chose Nexplanon because no other BC (other than I’ve heard Depo does this for some people?) not only stops the bleeding/clotting COMPLETELY, but also stops ALL associated symptoms, both physical and mental/emotional/psychological. Which…almost ALL (I can’t stress ALL enough; there’s barely any that ARE NOT) symptoms associated with a period have the potential to be fatal to me, including the mental/emotional/psychological ones. So a BC that stopped them all entirely is what I needed since my parents wouldn’t consent to taking my uterus out via surgery which is what doctors recommended over and over and over again and when I became an adult, it was too costly and is STILL too costly. So Nexplanon + the T I’m going to be getting on are a beautiful combination for stopping EVERYTHING.Apparently, it is NORMAL to have a period the first few months on Nexplanon, albeit I did not experience this with my first nexplanon and only experienced true spotting ONCE with my first nexplanon the first 3+ years I had it in when my hormonal alpha female ex-gf got her fullblown period and I was living with her and her husband and sleeping in the same bed as her. I only got spotting. No associated symptoms, physical or psychological.This time around, I am having what would be considered a normal period for a neurotypical person with no uterine problems or vaginal problems or bleeding disorders (I have vaginismus, too, so that factors in somewhere).The bleeding seems to have stopped entirely today, making it last around maybe 5-6 days, which I think is the “normal” time for a “normal” person. 

Most associated symptoms have left. The ones that remain are: Bloating, Breast swelling, Aching/Sore body (but that could be associated with the lupus/fibro/hyperalgesia diagnoses going on with me because the joints are the worst with sore-ness and aching),Mild, spontaneous headaches,Extreme heat sensitivity,Acne (but that could be because I literally clawed both spots open with my nails until they started gushing blood and now I keep clawing them open every morning and all the time throughout the day….so I mean..??? I’ve never dealt with acne. Idk how to deal with it. I’m just putting neosporin on at night.)

I am expecting these things to go away… The headaches, aching/soreness, and heat sensitivity could be associated with other illnesses going on with me that I’ve never dealt with before and don’t know what to expect. But I know damn well the bloating and breast swelling is from this…and I know the acne is from this, as that was confirmed by a doctor (coz I was scared about it being from something else) but I think it just hasn’t gone away because I keep clawing at it and making it bleed. If they don’t go away in a week, I’m gonna let my gyno know and see what she can do/recommends.

The first two days of this were ALMOST as rough, psychologically, as my normal period and the cramps and clotting put me in the hospital and warranted a high dosage morphine shot, 800mg of ibuprofen (and a script for it) and a hydro (and a script for it). 

The ONLY thing I’m worried about recurring other than the cramps and clotting and psychological symptoms is that… I don’t know if the physical black outs are related to my period or if they are related to my auto-immune disorder (lupus/fibro/hyperalgesia) because when I first got diagnosed with a joint-related virus, where they took x-rays that showed a virus of some sort was physically eating away my joints…I was literally blacking out for a couple seconds every 5-15 minutes. That was about a month ago. Now I have almost a full solid diagnosis, but I’ve thrown two new medications into the mix (Lyrica, which I’ve never been on before, and Topamax, which this is my 6th or 7th time being on) and a lot of new things/stressors/lifestyle changes in general… but the other day. ..maybe 3 days ago now? 2? It happened again. Blacking out for very short amounts of time…approximately 10 seconds every 5-15 minutes…but towards the end of the day, I blacked out so badly that I was out for a solid 20 minutes, give or take, and since I blacked out in the kitchen, my head either hit the tile floor or a counter when I went down and since I have a bleeding disorder AND it was head wound, even though it was barely even a surface scratch at all (it’s practically healed now, 2-3 days later), it bled badly enough in those 20 minutes or so that when my roommates came home and found me blacked out in the kitchen, there was a small pool of blood around my forehead. One of them was panicking and had me in his arms and was shouting LEON! LEON! WAKE UP! LEON! OMG ARE YOU OKAY!? WHAT HAPPENED!? CAN YOU HEAR ME!? LEON!!! Meanwhile, he turns to his boyfriend while I’m slowly coming to as he’s shaking me and shouting one of my many nickname’s at me…and he tells his bf to call 911…which is when I snapped out of it (sort of) and used a Scully catchphrase and pushed myself off of my friend and held up an accusatory finger to his boyfriend and was like …quoting that artwork of Scully in the jacket that I love, saying in a very slurred voice “Stand aside! I’m a medical doctor!” Which…lmao. I started giggling. They didn’t get the reference coz they’re not Philes… But I managed to make them understand to please not call 911… That was the last time I blacked out that day…but it was for a solid 20 minutes and I had been blacking out and throwing up all day that day…experiencing both chronic AND optical migraines simultaneously… the clots were bigger than ever and I could feel the flesh being ripped from my uterine wall and slowly oozing out of my vagina. It was the worst feeling. They were almost as big as my fist at this point. And I was so lightheaded and experiencing so much vertigo…but I have been experiencing constant vertigo and lightheadedness since this virus hit me and since we started researching into it and looking into lupus and such.

SO I DO NOT KNOW IF THE BLACKING OUT IS ASSOCIATED AT ALL WITH THE PERIOD….OR IF THE PERIOD IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE LUPUS AND SUCH WHICH IS WHAT THE BLACKING OUT IS ASSOCIATED WITH…OR IF BLACKING OUT IS JUST SEPARATE….

And Idk if this period is a one time thing…or if I’m going to get it again…because, although it is nice to experience a “normal person” version of a period, it’s STILL HELL ON EARTH. It’s nice to know my life is not in danger from a normal body function…it’s still awful and my life is in danger via my psyche and how it affects me psychologically very close to the same as my normal period the first day or two days… Idk if I can overcome it and JUST hurt myself the next time I have it.

But it seems to have…stopped…now? Today?

If it happens again next month at the same level, I’m going in to my gyno to talk about other options or to see if there’s a way to get medicaid or the state to pay to get my uterus surgically removed. The state would have paid when I was 13…sigh. Idk if they will now…

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

To answer your question simply? Nexplanon is supposed to stop your period and ALL associated symptoms COMPLETELY. However, as you know, every person is different and everyone will react differently. I was bleeding and did get a “normal” level period for about 5-6 days that is not entirely gone, but the bleeding has stopped now. This did not happen the first 3+ years I had my first Nexplanon. But this could be attributed to a fuckton of things going on with me (that I explained above for this reason exactly), personally, and may not have anything to do with the Nexplanon itself. 

I hope that answers everything….Coz I put some thorough af work into all of that. Lmao. But if you (or anyone) needs clarification on anything or has any other questions, Nexplanon is kinda one of my maxed out skill trees that I know a whole bunch about, having had it for over 4 years already and am on my second one now. Lol. Feel free to shoot me an ask!

[edmdma.tumblr.com/ask]

Gonna attempt to tag for triggers coz this was sorta graphic if you’re not really into medical things. Tell if you’d like these kinda posts tagged with something specific.

Mario William Vitale’s Poetry

Bio Of Mario William Vitale The language and images of Mario Vitale's poetry are so closely bound to the natural cycles of seasons, of generations, of the body's functioning, that is surprising to realize how many of his poems deal with uprootedness. But this poetry is not sentimental celebration of the goodness of nature, and harmony with the world is never assumed. The way he captures the tenuousness of this faith, the balance that must be found between the ugliness, the harshness of his history- both natural annd social- and its intense beauty, is what distinguishes Vitale's poetry, gives it its depth and dimension: Mario William Vitale Biography I was born in 1970 Bristol hospital. A young nurse took me in her arms and said that I would one day become a success, As the years would pass I was heavy in the arts used to sing and act. Was an altar boy at St. Pius Church. In time I would act in my senior class play, "The Mystery Of Edwin Drood" Where I had the lead role as the Narrator, I touched many hearts with that performance in 1989, Was hospitalized with mono that same year for two weeks long, Also that same year I became prom king of my class Wolcott High School, After the break up with my first grilfriend in 1989 I wrote the poem entitled, "Remembrance of a loved one" where I had it published on poetry.com Attempted plays: Tartuffe, Miracle Of St. Anthony and Balm in Gieade, (His poetic aspirations had derived at 18 in 1989 from submitting his first poem entitled, "Remembrance Of A Loved One"- (Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum) Attended Central Connecticut State University For Creative Writing: 1997 Next from 1989-1997 (Wrote primarily for Poetry.com and The International Library Of Poetry) , * Received editors choice award in 1997 for poem, " A Beacon Of Light ", (1998)Sent poetic manuscript to N.Y. Time Magazine and Chief Editor " John Hyland". Back with rave reviews! * (From 1999-2008: Had adapted a real keen sense of style for writing poetry: (1999- Sent Editorial to: New Man Magazine for the Passion of Christ Movie; Sent followup letter to company with poetry platform information attached, * 2000-2007: Magazine: (Catholic)Maries Rose Ferron Magazine submitted poem" Beacon Of Light", which had excellent editorial reviews as the outset! 2008- Wrote poem entitled: (The Heavy Cross)to Poetry.com* Achieved Poetry status of work of Excellence in writing from the Academy Of American Poetry in which still having received rank and status as a member of Academy; (The Connecticut Poetry Society) * Short story submitted entitled, "China Dog Ray" submitted to Virginia Writers Quarterly, West Virginia, Also having member status on their board of Poetry. Attribute Poetry to an ever increasing love of God and his unconditional love that he has for us in return, Thankfulness toward family and friends.(To our past ancestors who fought to uphold freedom that far too many of us take for granted? My contemporary artists include that of Ellan Bryant Voight, Kay Ryan and Carl Phillips.Which all three are Participants in the Academy Of American Poetry Having been a member since 2006, My work reflects the likes of past poets such as C.S.Lewis, Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe. Most of my work reflects with the values of religious beliefs intact In my personal view it is essential in demonstrating a real heart of creative passion! The reader I believe will benefit by my artistic style of development in a very positive light.) After experiencing a life transformation encounter.I had realized that poetry is my unique way to convey myself my work speaks from the heart with pure sentiments of though intact, As the years passed I would write over 4,000 poems and 5 short stories toward my platform, My poetry is based on the free verse style of writing, Was published in 10 venues such as Writerscafe, Neopoet, Hello poetry, Poem Hunter, Booksie, Poetryvibe, Poetrysoup, Starlifecafe.com, Poets Know It & poetry.com... I was saved by God at the tender age of nine in Charlotte Carolina where I came to know the Lord that was in 1979, Today I continue to write poetry was published on Spillwords, High On Poetry, Tuck Magazine & Setu Magazine. My main emphasis in writing poetry is to share with the mass populace touching many hearts. Hope you can read my poetry. Sea Stacks skipped rocks through a stream today the opening of a brand new day its frame is in minor decay the bleached wood massed in bone piles, we pulled it from dark beach and built fire in a fenced clearing the posts' blunt stubs sank down the circled and were roofed by milled lumber dragged at one time to the coast We slept there Each morning the minus tide- weeds flowed it like hair swimming The starfish gripped rock, pastel, rough. Fish bones lay in sun Each noon the milk fog sank from cloud cover, came in our clothes and held them tighter on us. Sea stacks stood and disappeared They came back when the sun scrubbed out the inlet Life Force through the flame cover me in silent sound dignity for with what one is willing to achieve valiantly feel the breeze nestled through the trees shaped through your dreams a piercing of the skin new hearts to begin again Choices Many have a hard time understanding They live for self and that of society They are the walking dead yet they don't even know it Eyes with blackened spots having holes Viscous fangs with blood dripping off the side You share with them the truth They choose to run away & hide Yet deep inside they may still question Why am i here ? They can't even help you Cause they won't help themselves They are the scum of the land Much too afraid to stand among the son of man A bitter taste Do they want salt or sugar coated messages Positive reinforcement strengthens the heart Negativity kills it Each of us has been given a choice We must lend a helping hand with a voice All of us have been given a choice Now which pathway will you choose ? Emerald City There’ll be no unemployment in heaven. No worry about the next meal. There’ll be no bills to harass us, and thieves will not break in and steal. In heaven, we’ll have no need for money; Everything up there will be free. We’ll enjoy God’s unsearchable riches, and have unending security. I’m looking forward to heaven, that land that is fairer than day. Where all will be joy and gladness, and sorrow and care will flee away. Up there, no mean words will be spoken. Each heart will be filled with pure love. We’ll never be hurt or rejected, in the beautiful city above. There will be no disappointment or heartache. God will wipe all the tears from our eyes. No one will ever be lonely, and there’ll be no anguished good-byes. Up there, the love we have for each other, by each heart will be shared equally. And we’ll have all the things that we’ve longed for, and at last we will really be free Little Angel Hope springs a new On a cloud in heaven Stand a heavenly angel With mere beauty of crystalized light Golden emblems encrusted their frame Sweet songs drifting to a very faint whisper Eyes, hands & face A real message sent down to earth To care for those lonely souls all alone There beauty is a surprise to encounter Slipping through locked doors to appear Many have shed a tear to numb the inner pain Causing accidents not to happen They appear in the form of brightened miracles We see them with a heart all a glow Come to the birth of a new born baby Come to servicemen who just joined the navy You will see them at a graveyard setting Even among gamblers who do there betting There all around us you see For all of life is but a mystery These Flames I Live turn back the tear drop pillow I'm sick to my stomach suffering alone and hard piercing cavity of viscious fangs that bite illusive impulsive the rant These flames I live my right to forgive undercover beyond the means living in a land of mean barren sea a shot in the dark to light the spark many are left in rebellion what an incredible talent Vitale is he is the poet of all poets the moment you met him perfect ten a chick lying with her hens a quest... flaws and failures yes he wears Depends a trip to the zoo nothing new Laughter Laughter fills the scented air through days exposed the timeless hour of a loathsome mast expounded upon the cavity of debris develop a grateful heart that one may impart look close through a pillar of glass a vergence sea out beyond the interpass a halo with a song to help you get along the sight of a fawn on the lawn greed and materialism will crush out the light in your life penetration by the holy spirit a heart change has to happen one must be open to the message care for your brother help for your pale sister one ear on the floor a cause for more through fetters got it made to even out the score Unending Brigade I ask myself politely what resistance flowers here against love treaded lightly or losing lovingness dear? give cadence to the simple, for I gave ammunition to the laughter we should we ever falter the timeless whisper of happening golden nuggets of thought & inspiration braids my hair with a great deal of wear through the conclaves of love's fastened grip shadows block the vortex to aid its message The Dream Police they come to my head at the side of my bed they are enforcing my sleep give cadence to a treat a far from ports unknown like a dog without a bone giving tickets to be enforced every time I have a dream forces scream Of Time & Dreams Father's gold pocket watch measured heartbeats, times for surgery and the slow drip of an IV all else in his life was overture to main events, like birth and death of those the family never knew Steps from my childhood dreams to his were counted in places where treasure were wet pebbles and the pulse of life was seen in raindrops on the lake now the watch is mine, and i yearn to throw it like a pebble into the past, to see it skip and yield to places we never shared, like blue-green eddies near the shore and grasses curled by the win Yet, warming in my palm, the measurer of his days seems to sing the music of turning points where drying dreams meet others born anew, emerging through images of caring to rhythms more than metrical that i've yet to understand The Land Of Dreams When you fall asleep at night, your mind goes into an eerie flight You can open the gate with the key of thought, and don't have to do what you've been taught You sing, and dance, and prance all day and you act so happy and also gay You run in circles and run into the trees, and cut your elbows and scrape your knees But sometimes you open the wrong gate, and find yourself facing a terrible fate There are monsters, ghouls and also grouches, and then you wish you were on confortable couches And when you're done and almost through, your mind knows exactly what to do you go back through that eerie flight it may be day it may be night And when your mind comes back to you, you may wake up and have the flu You could leave for school very late, and find out that it's the wrong date And you could play outside in the streams but you will know that you entered "The Land Of Dreams." Old Crow Old crow Tired and lazy' against the day Dark skies Lost in blacks and whites and grays Howling north wind Sure takes a man's fight away Wastelands, A dreamer's home on his best day Hard rain Drops the leaves and makes the colors fade And talks cheap, But for the words of time they'll ave the last say Oh the words of time, they'll have the last say And the harvest is in, it wasn't much May I have enough to get by The baskets were light, not a muscle ached And somehow I feel I'm going to die The winter is coming and the signs say hard I've never seen such a haunting sky For on the mountains, frost in the wind And somehow I feel I'm going to die Full moon Lonely above the old oak tree line Old crow Hanging empty in the black sky And a nighthawk Circles her in silence as she flies Old crow, all alone she flies Pheonix the blazing glory of a loving night Disappears in the sun's bright morning light All efforts to recall that glorious pain Fade in the dawn to be sought in vain but the memory clings of precious glory that will not become an old, dull story instead that memory promises anew that love will spring forth and again renew with every joining of two loving souls again will emerge from the fading coals a love renewed by the glowing embers so that this night, too, will be remembered. Soul Search When I look into your eyes I see the sunshine and rain, The deeper I look and also see Various kinds of pain; I can see the kind, warm love that filters thru, To surface at the top when you’re not blue, I have seen and know your hopes and fears The good and bad times you have thru years, You have seen and felt so much I’m glad our lives did touch Look deep into my eyes and you will find The heartaches and happiness that were also mine Come With Me Come with me and be my friend Lets create a fantasy just you & me lets linger through the wind and feel free lets run through the sand and make time stand still so we can treasure this moment Only until The mystical ocean touches our souls and fills our hearts with love come with me and I'll show you What I have to give come with and I'll describe The life I dreamed we'd live come with and hold me gently and watch the retiring sun slowly set Shower me with all your love pretending we just met Whenever you need me I'll be there To help lift your spirits and I want to care About you come with and be my love no longer a fantasy just you & me This time only A reality... Mario William Vitale. has been featured on Hubpages.com, Starlitecafe.com & Poetry soup. Vitale lives with his elderly mother Ann Soulier in Wolcott, Ct. Currently has written well over 1,000 poems & 2 short story's toward credit platform. Vitale has taken the poetic world by storm being featured on Google, Yahoo & MSN. Looks up to contemporaries in the poetry industry such as John Ashbery & Major Jackson. Has been a favorite featured poet reader at Barnes & Noble in Waterbury, Ct. Also featured on such sites as Poetry soup, Writer's café & Neo Poet Personifications Of Oceanic Thoughts whispers sun lit morn the surf hits the turf smells of salt air through the moment savor each moment as the memory lasts bask in the vast expanse between time & space sounds of children playing seaweed next to the rocks along the cobblestone walkway solace torn up in the derision of peace with solidarity we were made for moments such as these seagulls flock overhead remember me in thoughts as these whisk through the breeze capture one's inner sense alas with angelic fervor permeates a flame of life's torn reality a new to face the day Follow Your Heart Magic breathes life in our hearts Destiny resides in our souls Our path now shimmers unshadowed by the night With one embrace partnered by a tender kiss, the bounds of time and distance crumble through fingers like drifting grains of sand Dream time is the place where I am alive Green eyes ripple into lipid pools where miracles draw me to your heart I am free to swim by your side until the sun sets and rises with you again Life is my dream I love you Cynthia When at night I close my eyes, to think all the days gone by, to feel again those passions past, and feeble joy that never lasts, I'm always drawn to thoughts of you, my only love my Cynthia I think I found you in a dream then we celebrate, the night I pressed beyond the seam, where fantasy and reality meet in summer mist so soft and sweet, But you were all I ever felt, my deepest love, my Cynthia But dreams just last within the night, when morning came, Her soul took flight I awake to find Her never there She passes like the misty air To leave me longing and alone, my painful love, my Cynthia Enigma love you swell the heart, to crush the same when lovers part But whether love and joy you bring or bitter pain and Death's cold sting I plead you come to me again, my final love, My Cynthia For My Precious Son You're standing in the doorway. Your workday is all done. He waits to see you everyday, this boy that is your son. He hopes you will go fishing. He hopes you'll shoot the gun. He just wants to be with you, this boy that is your son. He is your spitting image. To him you are ''The One''. He hopes to be just like you, this boy that is your son. You show him what a man is. You teach as you have fun. You are admired as well as loved by this boy that is your son. You've got a friend forever. Until the world is done. Then, still you will be holding this man that is your son. I'm Just A Poetical Lyricist I’m just having fun, but no doubt someone will take this serious I’m about to take you on a lyrical experience I’m having fun with words, like when a baby first starts reading books Saying I’m good at rhyming, Is like saying Mike Tyson packs a decent punch I best mention the Kardashians other wise you’ll have trouble keeping up Me with a pen is more dangerous than Michael Myers on Halloween when he starts slashing with the knife Telling me I can’t rhyme, is the biggest mistake you’ve made since you let your ex Back in to your life Speaking of exes, will someone please date mine I promise she’ll give you a great time I’ll pay for the date, its all on me All I ask, is please be good enough to get her to stop calling me I love Hip Hop, and yeah I know I’m white Please be creative and tell me how I’m the new Vanilla ice Or how I should walk right back across 8 mile I could have thrown this into my waste pile But I just wanted to write some joke lines and have some fun Sick of hearing rappers talk about drugs and how they pack a gun “yeah I’m Bad. I’ll make this Uzi Squirt” You don’t know who Nas is, And think the greatest rapper is Lil Uzi Vert Or some other mumble rapper with lame rhymes You deserve to have Biggie and Big Pun sit on you at the same time Some guy called Young Thug is wearing dresses That’s not something I have a problem with My problem is There’s so much going on in the world and these rappers are scared to address it What happened to Hip-Hop when rappers would share a message? Nas, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, I could name so many more Now its a bunch of dudes who sound the same with empty thoughts I’d pretend to be from the hood and blast guns but I’d fail I’d rather be the real me, and I’m far too cute to go to Jail I just love Hip Hop and the way it used to be You always get the truth from me someone tell Rihanna I’m ready to give her the best 30 seconds of her life Tell her she’ll only regret it if I become a legend when I die Knowing she could of had me This is my last piece of paper, I’m now pad free I was watching rap battles on YouTube, So took you on this lyrical experience I’m just a poetical lyricist Rapula back in the day where hustlers stayed there were those very afraid he was born in the gutter his momma was a vamp selling her junk in the trunk of a car up all night slept all day he was blown from the frey viscious fangs that bite two turn tables with a mic insisted on a fight sucking the innocent patrons for blood right in the hood like you knew he would Rapula the man, the myth & the legend could very often see him in the back of a seven eleven drinking red slurpees took folks block by block like giving him a heart attack just to fit his mold no one came against him until that day in the crib Rapula lost his lobster bib very often you will see him at the 8th Street Station spinning his records there will never be another blood sucking brother so move over he's taking cover Rapula wore a high hat tip on his temple driving a white Benz looking like Baretta I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me Supernatural but it's so true the world ha

In aftermath of Ukraine crisis, a climate of mistrust and threats

By Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe | Published December 25 at 11:27 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 25, 2019 |

The new Russia adviser at the White House — the third in just six months — has no meaningful background on the subject. The only expert on Ukraine has never spoken with President Trump, only been mocked by him publicly.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will soon be without its highest-ranking diplomat for the second time in a year, as another ambassador departs after being undermined by the U.S. president and his personal attorney.

The CIA analyst who triggered the impeachment inquiry continues to work on issues relating to Russia and Ukraine, but when threats against him spike — often seemingly spurred by presidential tweets — he is driven to and from work by armed security officers.

Having been impeached by the House, Trump faces trial in the Senate on charges that he abused the power of his office and sought to obstruct Congress. But the jarring developments over the past three months have also exposed the extent to which the national security establishment, and the values that have traditionally guided American foreign policy, are facing an extraordinary trial of their own under Trump’s presidency.

An entire roster of public servants has been disparaged, bullied and in some cases banished for standing in Trump’s path as he sought to pressure Ukraine for political favors, or for testifying about his conduct afterward.

Many who came forward were convinced that Trump’s actions were a violation of American principles, if not the law, and they clung to a misplaced faith that matters of national security would transcend partisan politics. Instead, the impeachment saga has hardened political divisions and cast doubt on the United States’ commitment to ideals it has long professed.

This story is based on interviews with more than 20 current and former officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their role in the administration or the impeachment inquiry.

Trump was the catalyst of his own impeachment, withholding military aid and a White House meeting from the leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he was pressuring to pursue investigations designed to politically wound former vice president Joe Biden.

But the fallout of the impeachment battle extends far beyond Trump’s political survival in a Senate trial. Tensions, exposed by impeachment, have fed Trump’s belief that he is surrounded by disloyal subordinates and have fueled animosity among congressional Republicans toward the supposed “deep state.” Today, the idea that a cadre of nonpartisan civil servants can loyally serve presidents of either party in pursuit of shared national interests — a bedrock principle of the country’s approach to foreign policy since World War II — is under attack.

Some of the responsibility for the mounting collateral damage falls on career officials and political appointees who took jobs in the administration despite deep objections to the president’s view. These officials hoped they could steer the unconventional president, who has an affinity for autocrats and an aversion to traditional allies, toward more-conventional views and policies.

Others came to see themselves as doing damage control, taking advantage of Trump’s short attention span to advance their preferred objectives and counter what they regarded as his destructive impulses.

Their actions have fed the view among some Republicans that impeachment is not just an isolated fight about Trump’s actions toward Ukraine, but also is an extension of a broader, unfinished conflict.

“We’re fighting for the country here,” said Stephen K. Bannon, who called for the “deconstruction of the administrative state” while advising Trump in the early months of his presidency. “This all started in the transition,” Bannon said in an interview, adding that the attacks on those who “actively worked against [Trump’s] policies on Ukraine” or defied his wishes on Ukraine should serve as “a warning that if you go against the president, there is going to be a price to be paid.”

ENEMIES LIST

The impeachment-related damage is extensive.

The acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., returned to Kyiv after his Nov. 14 testimony only to watch Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, arrive weeks later to resume his quest for dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Giuliani’s sojourn while filming a documentary for a right-wing television network made clear to officials in Ukraine that Taylor and the U.S. Embassy had no standing with the U.S. president.

Taylor has since announced that he will step down by Jan. 2, clearing out of the Ukrainian capital on an accelerated schedule in part to spare Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — scheduled to visit Kyiv next month — from having to appear in pictures alongside a diplomat Trump branded as disloyal.

The ambassador had taken the job only after Pompeo promised him that U.S. policy would remain firmly grounded in fighting Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, an assurance that now seems uncertain at best.

Veterans of the Foreign Service are bewildered. “These attacks — I’ve not seen anything like this since I joined the Foreign Service,” said John Heffern, a former senior State Department official who entered the department when Ronald Reagan was president. “Our work is promoting international universal values — freedom of the press and rule of law. Considering what’s happened in the United States, it undermines our ability to project that message to our foreign counterparts.”

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top adviser on Ukraine at the National Security Council, has continued to work at the White House since testifying that he was so disturbed by Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky that he reported his concerns to White House lawyers.

But Vindman — who was born in Ukraine, moved to the United States with his family at age 3 and earned a Purple Heart in the war in Iraq — has been taunted by Trump, cast as disloyal by the president’s allies and falsely accused of plotting with the whistleblower to undermine the president.

“Vindictive Vindman is the ‘whistleblower’s’ handler,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said in a Nov. 22 tweet. The baseless charge was a sign of how Trump has influenced his party’s tactics and illustrated the intense pressure on Republicans to back the president.

In 2017, Blackburn chastised Trump for his fixation on score-settling and petty insults, writing on Facebook that “civility in all our interactions — both personal and digital — is not only proper but fundamental to a respectful and prosperous society.”

Fiona Hill, the former top Russia adviser at the White House, has endured obscene phone calls to her home phone, according to people familiar with the matter, and vicious assaults from far-right media. Alex Jones, the conspiracy monger who operates the Infowars website, devoted much of his Nov. 22 broadcast to smears against Hill. “I want her ass indicted,” Jones said. “I want her indicted for perjury. Today. Indict that whore.”

For Hill, the attacks were a continuation of an astonishing level of hostility she witnessed during the two years she served in the White House. Trump loyalists drafted internal “enemies” lists, co-workers were purged, and NSC security teams logged hundreds of external threats against Hill and other officials, all fueled by a steady stream of far-right smears.

Hill, a former U.S. intelligence official and co-author of a biography of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, was little known outside foreign policy circles when she joined the White House. Within weeks of joining the administration, she faced a wave of internal and external efforts to discredit or neutralize her.

A former Republican congressman, Connie Mack IV of Florida, approached aides of Vice President Pence’s, warning that Hill was tainted by her prior work for an organization funded by George Soros. A billionaire financier and Holocaust survivor, Soros has used his fortune to fight the spread of authoritarianism and bigotry. He has also become associated with a “globalist” agenda opposed by many on the right, and his name is frequently invoked in anti-Semitic slurs.

At the time, Mack was working as a paid lobbyist for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an autocratic leader seeking to shut down a Soros-funded international university in Hungary. Orban was concerned that Hill might use her position at the White House to object.

In an interview, Mack insisted that he was merely trying to call officials’ attention to what he believed was a conflict of interest for Hill, not instigate her removal or incite right-wing attacks. But the attacks came anyway.

“My entire first year of my tenure at the National Security Council was filled with hateful calls, conspiracy theories, which has started again” amid impeachment, she testified in October. For months, Hill arrived at work nearly each day to find venomous messages left on her work phone by a caller from Florida. The same woman called Hill at home several times, frightening her young daughter, according to two people familiar with the matter.

For Hill, ever the Russia analyst, the ruthless nature of the harassment harked back to the Bolshevik purges of revolutionary Russia. Bannon has all but touted this connection, comparing his destructive agenda to that of Vladi­mir Lenin’s.

In 2017, Bannon and his allies compiled a list of about 50 people they wanted exiled from the National Security Council. Most of their targets drew suspicion because they had worked as civil servants in the Obama White House. Bannon’s team also scoured the targets’ social media profiles for signs of disloyalty to the Trump administration.

Officials involved in the effort said they were driven by a missionary zeal to rid the administration of any of the foreign policy elite they blamed for miring the country in costly wars and locking it into burdensome alliances that undermined Trump’s “America First” agenda.

NOTHING WRONG

Key players in those 2017 purges, and several of their targets, have resurfaced in the impeachment fight.

Among the first to confront Hill when she joined the White House that year was Derek Harvey, who went to the NSC after working for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on the House Intelligence Committee. On one of Hill’s first days on the job, Harvey told her he could not understand why Trump had allowed her into the fold, according to officials who witnessed the exchange.

Harvey, who was active in generating the enemies list, returned to Nunes’s staff after being ousted by then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster in July 2017. When Hill testified behind closed doors before the committee, Harvey could be seen passing notes to members, officials said. He also approached Hill at one point, telling her that the “trolls are out again.” The gesture, intended to communicate sympathy, ignored the fact that Hill and others viewed him as contributing to the poisonous climate.

Harvey declined to comment for this story.

Bannon said the whistleblower was at the top of the list he and his allies created in 2017. Former White House officials said it also included a State Department official now serving as a top aide to Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Another early target of Trump loyalists was Stephanie Holmes, a career State Department employee assigned to the NSC who was falsely accused of leaking details of Trump’s Oval Office conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Holmes came under such intense internal pressure that she hired a lawyer, former colleagues said. She subsequently left her NSC job to take a post that seemingly should have shielded her from the bloodletting, moving with her husband, David, also a diplomat, to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

It was only because the Holmes were in Kyiv that David Holmes was in position to witness Trump’s phone call with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland at an outdoor cafe. Holmes testified last month that he could overhear Trump asking about the investigations he wanted Ukraine to conduct into the Bidens, and that Sondland confided to Holmes afterward that the president did not “give a shit” about Ukraine.

Trump has intentionally fostered internal friction, sowing tension among subordinates as a management tactic, current and former White House officials said. But he also inadvertently hired advisers who are repelled by his crude behavior and isolationist instincts.

McMaster, former chief of staff John F. Kelly, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and others all fought Trump on major aspects of his foreign policy — his disdain for the NATO alliance, his desire on a moment’s notice to pull U.S. troops out of war zones, and his aversion to imposing sanctions on Russia. They, in turn, often hired subordinates who were similarly scornful of Trump’s positions.

The impeachment hearings exposed how these officials coped with Trump, and at times sought to counter his agenda, if only in the context of Ukraine.

The most senior officials, such as Pompeo, and John Bolton when he was national security adviser, often relied on underlings to sound alarms or subvert Trump’s efforts to pressure Zelensky, without putting their own standing with the president at risk. Taylor, Hill and Vindman repeatedly raised objections to aspects of the shadow policy they perceived but had no meaningful power to stop it.

Former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker walked a treacherous tightrope, working to secure a commitment from Ukraine to pursue the investigations to clear impediments to what he regarded as the real policy: bolstering Ukraine in its war with Russian-backed separatists.

He hid his alarm at Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2016 election and the president’s loathing for the Ukrainians. Volker saw himself as facing a choice: He could accept Trump’s view of Ukraine or try to fix it.

“I tried to fix it,” he testified. Volker’s career was derailed as a result. He resigned from his diplomatic post after his role in the Ukraine episode was exposed. He was also forced to step down as executive director of the McCain Institute, a think tank whose stated mission is to advance “character-driven leadership.”

Career diplomats and civil servants routinely suppress private views to execute policies set by presidents. The impeachment hearings forced a parade of witnesses to reveal their feelings about Trump on a stage with an international audience.

“People were forced to testify about things they believe . . . how they felt about what the president was doing,” one of the impeachment witnesses said in an interview. The stark airing of these differences “caused the president to think they are biased against him,” the official said.

Trump responded by railing against witnesses he dismissed as “Never Trumpers,” a reference to the hundreds of national security experts who came out publicaly against Trump in 2016.

In reality, none of those who testified had ever publicly opposed Trump, and many had made conscious decisions — despite misgivings — to return to government to work for him.

Some did so at considerable personal or professional cost. Hill was cautioned by friends and colleagues in the close-knit foreign policy community to reject the NSC job. One long-standing peer has refused to speak with her since learning she had gone to work for Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Three years into Trump’s presidency, the list of perceived enemies continues to expand, and now is composed of officials Trump or his own subordinates hired. The hostility they face comes not only from Trump loyalists — whether inside the administration or launching attacks from right-wing media sites — but a substantial swath of the Republican Party.

For decades, the GOP cast itself as the champion of the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and other national security institutions. But over the past three years, Republicans have repeatedly turned on those agencies when necessary to protect Trump’s presidency.

In their final report on the impeachment hearings, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee focused on “unelected bureaucrats” as the true villains of the impeachment scandal. These officials made “accusations and assumptions” about the president, were “discomforted at Trump’s call,” and they “chafed at the president’s outside the beltway approach to diplomacy.”

Ultimately, they were to blame.

In the recent interview, Bannon marveled at how rapidly GOP lawmakers have lined up behind Trump against impeachment. Early in the scandal, Bannon said, it would have been difficult to find more than a few GOP members willing to back Trump’s assertion that his call with Zelensky was “perfect.” Though the core facts have never been in question, Bannon said that “because of the information put forth by the president and his advocates,” it was impossible to find a GOP member prepared to dispute Trump’s depiction.

“Today, look at House Judiciary, a hundred percent say it is a perfect call,” Bannon said. “A hundred percent say there’s nothing wrong.”

⛄🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄⛄

U.S. CyberCom contemplates information warfare to counter Russian interference in the 2020 election

By Ellen Nakashima | Published Dec. 25 at 3:54 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 25, 2019|

Military cyber officials are developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord, according to current and former U.S. officials.

One option being explored by U.S. Cyber Command would target senior leadership and Russian elites, though likely not President Vladimir Putin, which would be considered too provocative, said the current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. The idea would be to show that the target’s sensitive, personal data could be hit if the interference did not stop, though officials declined to be more specific.

“When the Russians put implants into an electric grid, it means they’re making a credible showing that they have the ability to hurt you if things escalate,” said Bobby Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “What may be contemplated here is an individualized version of that, not unlike individually targeted economic sanctions. It’s sending credible signals to key decision-makers that they are vulnerable if they take certain adversarial actions.”

Cyber Command and officials at the Pentagon declined to comment.

The military has long used psychological operations — dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets in Iraq, for instance, to persuade Iraqi soldiers to surrender to the U.S.-led coalition during the Gulf War. But the Internet, social media and smartphones have vastly extended the reach and precision of such tactics.

The development comes as numerous agencies within the Trump administration seek to ensure the United States is shielded against foreign efforts to disrupt the 2020 elections, even as President Trump himself has cast doubt on or belittled his own intelligence community’s finding of Russian interference in 2016.

The intelligence community last month issued a classified update — a “national intelligence estimate” — assessing that Russia’s main goal in the 2020 campaign continues to be to sow discord. “It’s always been about exacerbating fault lines in our society,” said one senior U.S. official.

In the past year, Congress and the Trump administration have eased restraints on the military’s use of cyber-operations to thwart foreign adversaries. The push is part of a move by military officials such as Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads both CyberCom and the National Security Agency, the government’s powerful electronic surveillance arm, to weave cyber-offensive capabilities into military operations.

The 10-year-old command’s foray into influence operations reflects an evolution in thinking. “It’s a really big deal because we have not done a good job in the past of integrating traditional information warfare with cyber-operations,” Chesney said. “But as Russia has demonstrated, these two are increasingly inseparable in practice.”

While other military organizations, such as Joint Special Operations Command, also have cyber and information warfare capabilities, CyberCom is the first to turn such powers toward combating election interference.

“In 332 days, our nation is going to elect a president,” Nakasone told a defense forum earlier this month. “We can’t let up. This is something we cannot be episodic about. The defense of our nation, the defense of our elections, is something that will be every single day for as long as I can see into the future.”

The options being considered build on an operation CyberCom undertook last fall in the run-up to the midterm elections. Beginning in October 2018, CyberCom used emails, pop-ups and texts to target Russian Internet “trolls” who were seeding disinformation on U.S. social media platforms. The trolls worked for the Internet Research Agency, a private entity controlled by a Russian oligarch close to Putin. CyberCom also messaged hackers working for Russian military intelligence, indicating their identities were known and could be publicized. Although the command did not sign its messages, the Americans knew there would be no mistaking who had sent them, officials said at the time.

When the trolls persisted, CyberCom, beginning on Election Day and for at least two days afterward, knocked their servers offline, The Washington Post previously reported. The Americans also sent messages aimed at spreading confusion and discord among IRA operatives, including computer system administrators. Some personnel were so perturbed that they launched an internal investigation to root out what they thought were insiders leaking personnel information, according to U.S. officials.

The new options contemplate targeting key leaders in the security services and the military and potentially some oligarchs. The messaging would be accompanied by a limited cyber-operation that demonstrates the Americans’ access to a particular system or account and the capability to inflict a cost, said individuals familiar with the matter. The message would implicitly warn the target that if the election interference did not cease, there would be consequences.

The options do not envision any attempt to influence Russian society at large, which officials saw as having limited success given Putin’s control of the country, including much of the media.

Some see the new options as potentially effective at altering a key official’s decision-making calculus without being hugely escalatory because they do not seek to foment a popular uprising, which is Putin’s big fear, analysts note.

Another possibility involves disinformation aimed at exploiting rivalries within the Russian government and power elites. In 2016, National Security Council aides in the Obama administration developed cyber options against Russia similar to those being contemplated by CyberCom now, but “no one had an appetite for it,” a former senior official said.

“There is a night-and-day difference between 2016 and this,” said a second former U.S. official, who said that CyberCom’s thinking several years ago was much more limited and conventional.

Any operation would be reviewed by other agencies, including the State Department and CIA, and require the defense secretary’s approval. It would be aligned with other potential U.S. efforts, such as sanctions or indictments, officials said.

Cyber-operations alone are usually not sufficient to transform an adversary’s behavior. “It can serve a useful message of ‘We’re watching and be careful not to go further,’ ” said Michael Carpenter, a former senior defense policy official in the Obama administration. But generally, he said, it is likely to be more effective when used with other tools such as sanctions — especially those also backed by allies.

Cyber Command got a boost in August 2018 when Congress clarified that cyber actions that fall below the use of force — what practitioners call “the gray zone” — can be conducted as “traditional military activities” as distinct from covert action. That was a key change that meant that clandestine operations such as the IRA takedown last fall, for instance, would not get delayed by disputes about whether they were covert operations.

Also enhancing CyberCom’s flexibility was Trump’s signing the following month of a national security presidential memorandum that revised the process by which cyber-operations are vetted and approved, leaving the final decision with the defense secretary even if other agencies object.

No single office within the Defense Department oversees cyber, electronic warfare and psychological operations. So this month, Congress created a Senate-confirmed position of principal information operations adviser to coordinate strategy and policy in this area across the Pentagon and with other agencies.

Other former U.S. officials are wary of CyberCom’s move into information operations. “I’m not a big fan of the Department of Defense doing messaging operations,” said Richard Stengel, a former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy in the Obama administration. “I’m even skeptical of the State Department doing messaging operations. . . . I just don’t think that’s something we’re good at.”

Meanwhile the Marine Corps has created a position of deputy commandant for information to build information warfare capability. Army Cyber Command has integrated cyber, electronic warfare and information operations into its mission. The 16th Air Force cyber unit is doing the same.

Among the things that cyber officials are discussing are operations that expose adversaries’ malign behavior.

The United States already has experimented with such disclosures, in 2014 releasing satellite images and other sensitive intelligence that showed Moscow had trained and equipped pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine responsible for shooting down a Malaysian airliner, killing 298 civilians. Such efforts could be expanded, officials say, to educate a broader audience about the actions of adversaries.

“Basically, it’s a war of strategic narrative,” said Sean McFate, a foreign policy expert and author of “The New Rules of War.” “We need to get into that domain.”

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Russian-backed Syrian offensive kills dozens, displaces tens of thousands

By Kareem Fahim and Sarah Dadouch | Published Dec. 25 at 4:36 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Dec 25, 2019

ISTANBUL — A crushing military offensive by the Syrian government and its Russian allies in northern Syria has killed dozens of civilians and displaced more than 100,000 people in less than 10 days, humanitarian aid groups and medical officials there say.

The assault in Syria’s Idlib province is part of a push by President Bashar al-Assad to regain control of strategic highways, and ultimately the country’s last major rebel-held area. Clashes, government shelling and Russian airstrikes this month have sparked a panicked exodus that aid workers warn could lead to one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of Syria’s eight-year civil war.

Homes in Maarat al-Numan, the largest city in Idlib’s southern countryside and the main target of the escalation, have steadily emptied as a parade of cars streams out, residents say. People are struggling to find medical care and shelter as the number fleeing airstrikes swells.

“People, I swear by God, are sleeping in open air under trees and the temperature at night is near freezing,” Shaker al-Humeido, a doctor who worked in Maarat al-Numan, said in a text message. The hospital where he worked had been emptied as fighting approached and he and his family fled north.

“I am shocked at the size of the tragedy,” he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned last week that “massacres” in the province had sent more than 80,000 people fleeing toward Syria’s border with Turkey, which already hosts about 4 million Syrian war refugees. But his government, which maintains military outposts in Idlib and enjoys warm relations with Russia, has failed so far to blunt the offensive.

The violence is the latest miserable trial for Idlib, a wellspring of opposition to Assad’s government that hosts hundreds of thousands of people displaced by war from other parts of Syria.

The province, with 3 million people, has borne the brunt of a Russian and Syrian air campaign that has struck hospitals and leveled homes and markets, human rights groups say. The province and surrounding areas are largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an extremist Islamist group that began as al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and has tried to rebrand itself several times during the war.

Fighting over the past year has taken a disproportionate toll on children, according to UNICEF, which said in a statement Tuesday that more than 500 children were injured or killed in the first nine months of 2019. At least 65 children have been killed or injured in December alone, the group said.

Dareen Khalifa, a Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group, said Assad’s short-term goal has been to encircle and control Maarat al-Numan and the town of Saraqib, about 15 miles northeast. Then, she said, the Syrian army would push west to retake a highway linking Latakia and Aleppo as it attempted to capture Idlib in chunks.

“The problem is, the regime offensive that started in April hasn’t been very successful,” Khalifa said. “So now they are overcompensating by using devastating levels of air force. The casualties and displacement levels are catastrophic.

“If the regime continues and if the rebels don’t surrender, this will mean the worst humanitarian disaster we’ve seen in Syria.”

Naji Mustafa, a spokesman for the Turkish-backed rebel Syrian Liberation Front, said the government’s escalation “clearly aims at displacing people.

“They are targeting marketplaces, hospitals, schools; they want the entire population of Maarat al-Numan, 80,000 people, to become displaced at the borders with Turkey. This has already started to happen.

“The clashes are severe,” he said. “We have lost some areas in the past few days, but we are pushing back to recapture them. This is how it has been.”

The previous offensive, launched in April, displaced 500,000 people in Idlib, according to aid groups.

“An additional half a million people could be displaced over the coming weeks if the violence continues to escalate,” said Kelly Razzouk, the U.N. director of the International Rescue Committee. “This would be the largest displacement seen since the war started eight years ago.”

Razzouk called reports of children living under olive trees in 30-degree weather “extremely distressing.”

“We are very concerned about the rates of malnutrition,” she said. “Eleven percent of children attending health clinics that we support are suffering from acute malnutrition, and food is being rationed. Nursing mothers are having to feed their infants herbal tea because they are malnourished and can’t feed their infants.”

Syrians activists have protested the offensive outside of Russian missions around the world, including in Istanbul. There has also been growing criticism of Turkey’s government.

Mustafa Sejari, a senior official in the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army, published an open letter to Erdogan last week that highlighted the frustration.

“We understand the amount of internal and external pressure that you are under, but we, our people, our children, are getting killed,” Sejari wrote on Twitter. He asked Erdogan to take a “historic stand” by opening Turkey’s closed borders to women and children, and resuming military support to rebel forces.

Russian and Turkish officials discussed Idlib during a meeting Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. But Syrian activists say they’ve seen no visible improvements to the situation on the ground.

“A detailed exchange of views took place,” the Russians said.

Relief organizations warn they could soon be hampered in their ability to supply aid to Syrian civilians. China and Russia last week vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have renewed authorization for aid shipments across Turkey and Iraq’s borders for 12 months. The authorization expires Jan. 10.

“Given the scale of the needs in northern Syria, now is not the time to scale back,” said Razzouk, of the International Rescue Committee.

Families in the countryside around Maarat al-Numan have been fleeing their homes every night, said Tarek Mustafa, a physician at the city’s central hospital. The exodus from the city continues around the clock.

Medical staff have received injured front-line fighters and civilians, but also people who had been in car accidents because they drove at night with their lights off, to avoid detection by warplanes.

His hospital was the last one functioning in the area, he said. On Sunday, it was strafed by gunfire from a helicopter, and by Monday, it had closed.

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Awen

I have begun experimenting with digital audio ritual aids this week. It comes out of necessity. I have been experiencing some cascading prosperity sigil effects from back when I first started doing sigils properly around a year and a half ago. The, maybe, side effects, of these prosperity sigils have been a steep increase to the amount of responsibility and intellectually taxing projects at work. 

Now, I used to live in a different world. As I was putting myself through college at night I worked as a boiler operator and a facility engineer. This was a much different pace to working in a professional architecture office as an information professional. From what I have been able to discern, architects are by and large workaholics and put in obscene amounts of hours. I bit I have held on to the tightest from my past life is the skilled tradesman’s attitude towards the amount of hours put in during a week. If there were more than forty (this is in the US, where forty is the standard) then you were compensated extra for your time. Your time was valued. Now, as a Schwa-vian Office Drone when you put in more hours than you are paid for, you effectively devalue yourself. Any bulldada about how you are furthering your career by bringing more value to the company, even the best company (and the one I work for is pretty OK) is just so much fertilizer in the 21st c. Thusly, I don’t do it. Which, in the wake of this extra work generated by my prosperity sigils (I mean, the jump in responsibility and intensity from what I was doing before is so improbable, it can only be the result of magic) maintaining my personal constraints on working on work outside of the office has been difficult. Even when off my mind tends to wander to these intellectual challenges and off of what is important, like family and magic and writing for y’all. Hence this newest experiment.

I get up between 4 and 4:30 AM every morning and normally I would listen to a podcast for coffee and then commit sometime to daily magic. That time in the morning has been cut short and I’ve been finding myself in the office earlier (because arriving before all the humans and focusing on these projects in the early morning is infinitely more palatable to me) which cuts into the passive occult podcast learning and actual practice. That is where the experiment comes in. 

I am trying to combine the hour or so that I normally listen to podcasts with magical practice. I have started recording my dawn invocations of planetary spirits (mostly from the PGM and Clavicula) and then instead of the occult podcast, I pop in the airpods and focus on my own invocations (backed with some looped ambience from Naturespace [an excellent iOS app]. I found that I was able to carry with me a sense of ritual into the day, as well. This past Thursday and Friday I kept up the looping invocation as I was driving to work and then while I was at work as long as I was doing something mind-numbing. I also used the same for preparing to enter the Dreamlands at night before bed. The effect of this constant brain-feed of invocations dedicated to the day’s spirits has been pretty powerful. I am able to really focus and deconstruct what the invocation is saying to the Celestial Spirit, what I am saying to the Spirit. Bits of them have started to lodge in my memory and my imagination has been better able to build visualizations around them (like Hermes’ as the Ethiopian Dog-Faced Baboon). 

Friday night, after dosing with 1 mg of melatonin (for the first time since my kids were born, really) I feel into sleep with the invocation playing in my ears and had the first fairly intense and memorable dream I’ve had in months. When I awoke however, around 1:30 AM, with the recording still playing, I could tell things were off. There was a shadowy hulk in the corner of the room and my own voice whispering in my ear was being interpreted by my brain as decidedly threatening and terrifying. That isn’t a deterrent for me, at least where magic is concerned. Rather, being on the borders of an initiatory space (initiation by nightmare) only encourages me to keep up the experiment. 

As mentioned, I have been pulling my daily invocations, when I can, from the PGM. This takes a bit of research, but it can be done. There are two that I am baking into the experiment discussed above that are particularly relevant to the theme of this week’s Lovecraft tale, archetypes of the Divine Feminine. They are PGM IV. 2785-2890, the Prayer to Selene for any spell (mapped to Monday and the moon as the celestial sphere for that day) and PGM IV. 2891-2942 the Offering to the Star of Aphrodite (which maps to Friday, the day for Venus). Let’s take a look at these in turn, beginning with Selene:

“PGM IV. 2785-2890

Prayer to Selene for any spell

‘Come to me, O beloved mistress, three-faced Selene; kindly hear my sacred chants; Night’s ornament, young, bringing light to mortals, O child of morn who ride upon fierce bulls, O queen who drive your car on equal course with Helios, who with the triple form Of triple Graces dance in revel with the stars. You are justice and the Moira’s threads: Klotho and Lachesis and Atropos. Three-headed, you’re Persephone, Megaira, Allekto, many-formed, who arm your hands with dreaded, murky lamps, who shake your locks of fearful serpents on your brow, who sound the roar of bulls out from your mouths, whose womb is decked out with the scales of creeping things, with pois’nous rows of serpents down the back, bound down your backs with horrifying chains. 

Night-crier, bull-faced, loving solitude, bull-headed, you have eyes of bulls, the voice of dogs; you hide your forms in shanks of lions [Note: This is Cybele], Your ankle is wolf-shaped, fierce dogs are dear to you, wherefore they call you Hekate, many-named, Mene, cleaving air just like Dart-shooter Artemis, Persephone, Shooter of deer, night shining, triple-sounding, triple-headed, triple-voiced Selene. Triple-pointed, triple-faced, triple-necked, and goddess of the triple ways, who hold untiring flaming fire in triple baskets, and you who oft frequent the triple way and rule the triple decades, unto me whom’m calling you be gracious and with kindness give heed, you who protect the spacious world at night, before whom daimons quake in fear and gods immortal tremble, goddess who exalt men, you of many names, who bear fair offspring, bull-eyed, horned, mother of gods and men, and nature, mother of all thing, for you frequent Olympos, and the broad and boundless chasm you traverse. Beginning and end are you, and you alone rule all. For all things are from you, and in you do all things, eternal one, come to their end.

As everlasting band around your temples you wear great Kronos’ chains, unbreakable and unremovable, and you hold in your hands a golden scepter. Letters ‘round your scepter, Kronos wrote himself and gave to you to wear that all things stay steadfast: Subduer and subdued, mankind’s subduer, and force-subduer; Chaos, too, you rule.

ARARACHARARA EPHTHISIKERE

Hail, goddess, and attend your epithets, I burn for you this spice, O child of Zeus, Dart-shooter, heavn’ly one, goddess of harbors, who roam the mountains, goddess of crossroads, o nether and nocturnal, and infernal, goddess of dark quiet and frightful one, O you who have your meal amid the graves, Night, Darkness, broad Chaos: Necessity, hard to escape are you, you’re Moira and Erinys, torment, Justice and Destroyer, and you keep Kerberos in chains, with scales of serpents are you dark, O you with hair of serpents, serpent-girded, who drink blood, who bring death and destruction, and who feast on hearts, flesh eater, who devour those dead untimely, and you who make grief resound and spread madness, come to my sacrifices, and now for me do you fulfill this matter!

Offer myrrh, sage, frankincense, the pit of a stone fruit for doing good. For doing harm, offer the hair of a dog or a goat.’

To protect oneself against Selene: Take a lodestone and carve a three-faced image of Hekate, the middle face be a maiden with horns, the left face a dog, and the right face a goat. Clean with sea salt and water, and make a food offering, saying the same spell above.”

My digital invocatory programming experiment has, after just two days, honed my attention to the words being spoken in these invocations to a order of magnitude higher than it was previous to the experiment. It isn’t only the imagery, such as the bull and the three headed goddess, but the correspondences offered here in this PGM spell. What does it mean when Selene’s form is layers on top of Persephone’s and Artemis’? Or that she wears Kronos’ chain about her head like a laurel. How is she related to the spirit that rules over Saturday? How do the two daily invocations tunnel between each other? What of this image: ‘whose womb is decked out with the scales of creeping things, with pois’nous rows of serpents down the back, bound down your back with horrifying chains.’ To me, this is at once an layering of the Gorgon Medusa and imagery straight out of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser films (the first and second one, you know, the one’s that were actually terrifying and beautiful).

This powerful and alien mix of imagery is one of the primary reasons that I prefer the PGM over, say, the Clavicula or the Hygromantiea’s daily invocations. These are based on the power of words and have had the imaginal stripped out of them to some extent. 

Friday’s invocation is a bit less on the alien imagery and, truth be told, I’ve adapted it slightly for a more universal feel, taking out some of the love spell language. I believe this is a valid move, especially now after exploring Saint Hildegard’s philosophy towards the greening of language and last week’s theorizing on the book as spirit-form. Let’s take a look at the invocation as I have adapted it:

“PGM IV. 2891-2942

Offering to the star of Aphrodite [Venus]

Wormwood and Myrrh burnt on coals. Also useful is a tooth from a donkey or heifer tied to one’s left arm.

Invocation:

‘But, if as goddess you in slowness act, you will not see Adonis rise from Hades, straightway I’ll run and bind him with steel chains; as guard, I’ll bind on him another wheel of Ixion, no longer will he come to light, and he’ll be chastised and subdued. 

Wherefore, O Lady, act, I beg. Come with rapid step to my door, me, NN, whom NN bore, and to the bed of love, driven by frenzy, In anguish from the forceful goads today, at once, quickly, for I adjure you Kythere!

NOUMILLON BIOMBILLON AKTIOPHI ERESCHIGAL NEBOUTOSOUALETH PHROUREXIA THERMIDOCHE BAREO NE

O foam-born Kythereia, mother of both gods and men, etherial and chthonic, all-Mother Nature, goddess unsubdued, who hold together things, who cause the great fire to revolve, who keep the ever-moving BARZA in her unbroken course; and you accomplish everything, from head to toes, and by your will is holy water mixed, when by your hands you’ll move RHOUZO amid the stars, the world’s midpoint which you control. You move boldy desire into the souls of men and move women to man, and you render woman desirable to man.

Through all the days to come, our Goddess Queen, come to these chants, Mistress

ARRORIPHRASI GOTHETINI Cyprus-born, SOUI ES THNOBOCHOU THORITHE STHENEPIO, Lady SERTHENEBEEI!’

So that for me, NN, whom NN bore, [Insert demand], blessed RHOUZO, grant this to me, NN: Just as into your chorus mid the stars a man unwilling you attracted to your bed, and once he was attracted, he at once began to turn great BARZA, nor did he cease turning, and while moving in his circuits, he’s aroused, Cyrpus-born goddess, do you now fully fulfill this chant.

Perform at night under an open sky and look up at this point, searching for a steadily shining star lengthened like a length of a flame. If you see this phenomenon, your will is done”

Right away there are two bits on this Friday invocation that I love, the first ‘O foam-born Kythereia, mother of both gods and men, etherial and chthonic…’ fits Venus into the Lovecraftian Magical aesthetic so well in a way that her invocations from 15th - 17th c. grimoires just can’t muster. Anytime Lovecraft places his tales near the sea there is discussion of the sea foam. Also, her name here, Kythereia and how it gives her dominion of the cthonic, adds richness to what I’ve always seen as a fairly two-dimensional celestial archetype whose job was only to ‘stir the heart.’ The second bit I really like is where it states ‘by your will is holy water mixed…’ for I have always, at a deep level, syncretized the Blessed Virgin Mary with Venus. This fragment of her invocation makes that intuitive connective concrete.

Let us then, see how Lovecraft engages with the divine feminine in his tale, The Moon-Bog. Now, I have heard and read in countless places how Lovecraft does not ‘do’ women well and that when he writes them they are disempowered, outcasts, monsters even. The Moon-Bog is definitive proof that Lovecraft not only recognized how terribly powerful woman is, but The Moon-Bog is in its entirety an invocation of that power in narrative form. We begin our tale in Kilderry, Ireland in the familiar aesthetic of an old castle graced with an overlooking tower. The protagonist, an American by the name of Denys Barry, after striking it rich has decides to spend his twilight years in the home and on the property of his ancestral line.

The buying back of the ancestral home and property is a definite theme in Lovecraft’s oeuvre and likely an excellent target for Lovecraftian Magic, either targeting actual property or repossessing it in the imaginal. I can identify well with this theme myself, as I have largely lost access to the family farm I grew up on. Access could be targeted, in this case, as actual property, or in that space in my mind where my childhood exists — the later probably being the more powerful, enriching, and obtainable. This theme can extend to anyone that is from a diasporic culture or ancestry where reclaiming of ones ancestral land by an individual is even more remote a probability.

This tale is not just an invocation to the divine feminine, as we see in the next quote:

“The peasants had gone from Kilderry because Denys Barry was to drain the great bog. For all his love of Ireland, America had not left him untouched, and he hated the beautiful wasted space where peat might be cut and land opened up. The legends and superstitions of Kilderry did not move him, and he laughed when the peasants first refused to help…”

It is also a story of the genius loci, feminine spirits of place. 

The tale is narrated by a close friend of Barry’s, a familiar narrative device of Lovecraft’s that has the effect of, in a way, inspiriting the narrator’s role with the reader. The theme of spirits-of-place is deepened as the narrator recalls the following:

“When I heard the fears which had driven the people from Kilderry I laughed as loudly as my friend had laughed… They had to do with some preposterous legend of the bog, and of a grim guardian spirit that dwelt in the strange old ruin on the far islet I had seen in the sunset. There were tales of dancing light in the dark of the moon, and of chill winds when the night was warm; of wraiths in white hovering over the waters, and of an imagined city of stone deep down below the swampy surface. But foremost among the weird fancies… was that of the curse awaiting him who should dare to touch or drain the [bog]…”

This tale again shows Lovecraft’s sophisticated grasp of the types of magic perpetrated by us and our ancestors. His mythos is not ‘made-up,’ but rather, an extension of very real magic that can be practiced today. Guardian spirits, spirits of place, are keenly felt by both the mage and the muggle alike

We are then given a new tome for our Lovecraftian Magical Library, the first mention in this research, the Book of Invaders:

“In the Book of Invaders it is told that these sons of the Greeks were all buried at Tallaght, but old men in Kilderry said that one city was overlooked save by its patron moon-goddess; so that only the wooded hills buried it when the men of Nemed swept down from Scythia in their thirty ships.”

The Moon-Bog is connected to Ceridwen, a new addition to our growing list of Lovecraftian Spirit-Forms. Her story can first be found in the Black Book of Carmarthen, the earliest manuscript written entirely in Welsh. Her name either means Crooked Woman [Crone] or Blessed Woman. The last portion of her name, ‘Wen,’ is often affixed to the names of female saints. She is the mother of Morfran, a hideous and powerful warrior under King Arthur, and Taliesin, the poet who authored the Book of Taliesin. Ceridwen is, one could wager, not only the goddess of rebirth, the archetype of the moon, but also a goddess of literature, a patroness of the imaginal book. She is also a quintessential witch, known for her magic cauldron, a non-human person by the name of Awen.

After having the predictable derision-laden conversation of local legends between two materialists, one hopeless, the other on-the-fence, as we’ve seen in so many other story structures during this project, our inspirited narrator carries us to bed:

“After Barry had told me these things I was very drowsy, for the travels of the day had been wearying and my host had talked late into the night. A manservant shewed me to my room, which was in a remote tower overlooking the village… and the bog… Just as I dropped to sleep I fancied I heard faint sounds from the distance; sounds that were wild and half musical, and stirred me with a weird excitement which coloured my dreams… my mind had in slumber hovered around a stately city in a green valley, where marble streets and statues, villas and temples, carvings and inscriptions, all spoke in certain tones the glory that was Greece.”  

We haven’t encountered a Tower for awhile, but here is the primary Lovecraftian aesthetic playing host again to vivid dreams, journeying and contact events. The tale’s narrator muses on his vision throughout the next day, and then the very next night in the tower, the tone changes:

“that night my dreams of piping flutes and marble peristyles came to a sudden and disquieting end; for upon the city in the valley I saw a pestilence descend, and then a frightful avalanche of wooded slopes that covered the dead bodies in the streets and left unburied only the temple of Artemis on the high peak, where the aged moon-priestess Cleis lay cold and silent with a crown of ivory on her silver head.”

Adding two more new additions to the Lovecraftian pantheon. Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo and the goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and the wilderness. Artemis is as old as 4th century Babylonia and is related to the mother Goddess, in an archetypal sense, Cybele, whom we have discussed expands through time to assume the role of Saint Barbara and is deeply related to the archetype of the Tower, where our narrator is having his visions.

According to the article Artemis of Ephesus on livius.org, Artemis was:

“originally, before her cult was taken over by the Greeks, called "Artimus", and her temple - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - received gifts from the Lydian king Croesus (c.560-c.547). She is related to other Anatolian mother goddesses, like Cybele. The Ephesians believed that Artemis was born in Ephesus (and not on Delos, as was commonly assumed), and accepted the shrine as an asylum.note. Later, the Persians patronized the cult; the high priest was called the "Megabyxus", a Persian name that means "the one set free for the cult of the divinity". The original cult statue was made of wood, but was probably lost after the great fire of 356 BCE.”

I couldn’t find much literature on Cleis, the child of the poet Sappho, save this document entitled Beloved Cleis that examines the fragments of Sappho’s poetry. Cleis might also be Sappho’s mother, the wife of the river spirit Scamander, in which case the maternal Cleis would likely have been a river nymph. Both are equally ephemeral (at least to this researcher, I invite any expert to point out new information) and are again a testament to Lovecraft’s deep grasp of pagan mythos.

It is at this point that the narrator’s dreams in the Tower become flesh:

“I have said that I awaked suddenly and in alarm. For some time I could not tell whether I was waking or sleeping, for the sound of flutes still range shrilly in my ears; but when I saw on the floor the icy moonbeams and the outlines of a latticed Gothic window I decided I must awake and in the castle at Kilderry… Yet still there came that monotonous piping from afar; wild, weird airs that made me think of some dance of fauns on distant Maenalus…”

Maenalus is a reference to the Mainalo mountain range in Arcadia, Greece, and with the inclusion of the forested peak we have another connection to Cybele and the ancient mother goddess as an archetype. Maenalus, the mountains namesake, was a son of the Arcadian king Lycaon. Lycaon sought to test Zues’ omniscience by killing, cooking, and serving one of his children to the King of Gods. As punishment, Lycaon was turned into a wolf along with the rest of his sons, thus creating the race of the magical beings known as the werewolf. 

Our narrator, once awakened in his tower of black dreams, is drawn to look out over the early twentieth century Irish landscape:

“Only by chance did I go to the north window and look out… I had no wish to gaze abroad, for I wanted to sleep; but the flutes tormented me… How could I have suspected the thing I was to behold? There in the moonlight that flooded the [bog]… To the sound of reedy pipes… there glided silently… a mixed throng of swaying figures, reeling through such a revel as the Sicilians may have danced to Demeter… under the harvest moon beside the Cyane… the shadowy moving forms… produced an effect which almost paralysed me… half of these tireless, mechanical dancers were the labourers whom I had thought asleep, whilst the other half were strange airy beings in white… wistful naiads from the haunted fountains of the bog.”

The mention of Demeter in Sicily, like the mention of Ceridwen and Sappho before them, are what mark this as a tale as definitively populated with the power and mystery of the goddess. That Lovecraft is using he bog as the metaphor, or the landscape through which the metaphor of the feminine is expressed, is highly sophisticated. The word bog fades back to the PIE root *bheug-, which means to bend, to be pliable, or to be curved. It is also related to the Old English term ‘baeg,’ the word for ring. The ring is the opposite of the phallus, a symbolic gateway to power, just as the Moon-Bog in this tale is proving to be.

This is as much a tale of the terrible power of the divine feminine as it is an allegory of the male materialist agenda to drain away that power and enslave the feminine for its own purposes.

Our narrator, shaken by the past night’s events, wants to confront his friend but is not given the opportunity due to his own latent fear of being ridiculed. The narrator, if it is Lovecraft or if it is a inspirited shell through which we experience this invocation as fiction, represents the liminal space between Materialism and Animism, the uncertainty, fear and confusion inherent in the transition or imbrication between the two. Denys Barry is the blind materialist perspective, unshaken in his convictions. We know now that this archetype in Lovecraft’s tales never meets a happy end. 

We return to the tower for one final night:

“Whether the events of that night were of reality or illusion I shall never ascertain… I retired early and full of dread, and for a long time could not sleep in the uncanny silence of the tower… But before my fears cold crystallise… I had fallen asleep… Probably it was the shrill piping that awakened me… I crept to the east window and looked out whilst the maddening, incessant piping whined and reverberated through the castle and over all the village. Over the bot was a deluge of flaring light, scarlet and sinister, and pouring from the strange olden ruin on the far islet… it seemed to rise majestic and undecayed, splendid and column-cinctured, the flame-reflecting marble of its entablature piercing the sky… Trembling with a terror mixed with ecstasy I crossed the circular room to the north window from which I could see the village and the plain at the edge of the bog… on the ghastly red-litten plain was moving a procession of beings… the white-clad bog wraiths were slowly retreating toward the still waters… guided by the… piping of those unseen flutes, beckoned in uncanny rhythm to a throng of lurching laborers… I heard again the beating of the drums [on the island ruin]. Then silently and graceful the naiads reached the water and melted… into the ancient bog; while the line of followers… splashed awkwardly after them and vanished amidst a tiny vortex of unwholesome bubbles… leaving the village of doom lone and desolate in the wan beams of the new-risen moon… My condition was… one of indescribable chaos… I believe I did a ridiculous thing such as offering prayers to Artemis, Latona, Demeter, Persephone, and Plouton…”

And so once again the materialist is fully converted to paganism, animism, the magical life, what-have-you. Another nail in the coffin of the Pop Lovecraftian critique that HPL was an atheist and promoted an atheist world view. His fiction, which I would argue is significantly more important and impactful then his body of personal correspondence, clearly paints an animist landscape where the unknown forces of the universe (the Cthulhu Mythos) co-exist with the terrestrial deities of Greek, Roman, and Celtic cultures. The Moon-Bog being a significant contribution for it adds in one concentrated dose the terrific power of the crone, mother, and maiden across these pantheons into one potent and iconic feature.

Our tarot card match for The Moon-Bog is the Ace of Batons.

Etteilla offers us two keywords, ‘Chute’ or ‘fall’ as in descent or plunge and ‘Naissance’ or ‘birth’. Immediately we can see how feminine a card this is. The Fall of Man begins at the hands of women, but what is the subtext? The woman derives the knowledge of the universe, she collects for herself divine power with the aid of the fallen angel Lucifer, forever her partner afterwards for having such a primary role in creating the earthly kingdom over which he reigns. And with her knowledge of the ebbs and flows of the universe she is also born with the ability to create life, meaning we are all of us indebted to the divine feminine in a way that we can never repay.

The etymology of the word ‘fall’ connects deeply to the spell-as-fiction of The Moon Bog, stemming from the Proto-Germanic *falliz, which means ‘a sinking down,’ and the Old English ‘fealle,’ which means a ‘a snare or trap.’ This perfectly encapsulates the plot of our tale as the laborers set by the materialist archetype to exploit the Green Mother are snared by the flutes and sink to their doom. Birth has had its modern meaning since Proto-Germanic and is related to the PIE root *bher-, which means the same and is the hypothetical source for the Sanskrit ‘bharati,’ which means ‘to carry’. The second meaning of *bher- in PIE is ‘bright,’ or ‘brown’ and is connected both to the animal and polished wooden objects, which at this point in time depth are manifested as animist fetishes of the animal spirits our ancestors co-existed with.

In this second version of *bher- we can also expand into the future embodying the hypothetical source for the Greek word phryos, or ‘toad.’ The final incarnation of all those that challenged the guardian spirits-of-place of the Kilderry Bog with their materialist agenda and capitalist motivations.

My secret hideaway: foreign correspondents reveal all

Foreign correspondents know how to get under the skin of a country. But where do they go when they want to get away from it all? Here, well-travelled journalists reveal their ultimate holiday escapes

Afua Hirsch on São Tomé e Principe, Africa

At first I felt critical of the many Africans I spoke to who had never heard of São Tomé e Principe. It is after all an African country, albeit one of the smallest (population 194,000) and remotest an archipelago of tiny islands nestled in the watery armpit of west and central Africa, deep in the Atlantic, with Gabon to the east and Nigeria to the north.

Then I realised how difficult it was to get there. Back then, in 2002, there was one flight a week from Gabon, and one from Lisbon which ferried the children of Portuguese aristocrats to secretive resorts in pristine bays at the foot of volcanos carpeted in the countrys endless virgin rainforest.

I had graduated from university just months before and in my shiny new NGO job chose São Tomé as the location for an international conference I was organising. But getting hundreds of dignitaries there meant chartering planes, training hotel staff and even having new phone cables laid. I arrived exhausted. My VIP guests were in a strop, not because the plane Id chartered looked ripe for the scrap heap, but because it had no business class seats. I was not in the mood to fall in love.

But I did. Id never seen volcanoes so alive with forest or the Atlantic such a seductive, sleepy blue. Ive never felt so close to a history I thought much older no African language is spoken in São Tomé, but, rather a creole version of Portuguese. The inhabitants are all descended from slaves, Portuguese outcasts and Jewish children dumped on the islands hundreds of years ago.

People lived in the ruins of decayed colonial palaces as if the plantation had collapsed the day before. It felt separated at birth from another part of the world the Caribbean or South America with its palatial palms and crumbling façades, ridgeback mountains and Portuguese towns.

But its Africa all right. Billions of barrels of oil have achieved what natural beauty and human charm never did and placed it firmly on the map. The oil workers have been streaming in since São Tomé and I had our first encounter: I hope people seeking Africas greatest beauty will, too.

Fly to São Tomé e Principe from London via Lisbon with TAP Portugal from £457 (flytap.com). Stay at Omali Lodge, doubles from £106 (omalilodge.com) Afua Hirsch is the former West Africa correspondent for the Guardian

Lyse Doucet on New Brunswick, Canada

Good old times: the Acadian historic village of Caraquet in New Brunswick, Canada. Photograph: Philippe Renault/Hemis/Corbis

Ive heard it time and time again. New Brunswick? Oh, I drove through it to get to Nova Scotia. Acadians? Hmm Cajuns? Oh Cajun cooking Music Louisiana!

But New Brunswick in eastern Canada is much more than a place to drive through. And its northeastern coast will not just delight but enlighten you about a people who survived a British colonial expulsion from here in 1755 and returned to establish a vibrant culture and proud sense of self.

The Acadians are the descendants of the French who colonised the region from the 17th century, and if you visit on 15 August, Acadian national day, youll be loudly reminded of that by the tintamarre. At 17.55, on the dot, people dance in the streets, beating pans and blowing horns, to make as much noise as possible to let the world know theyre still here. A dark day in imperial history, when thousands were forced to flee south including to Louisiana, where the term Acadian became Cajun is now a vibrant celebration of survival.

A drive along the winding shore takes you through a picturesque landscape of simple cottages hugging the coastline and rambling farmhouses set back on rolling green fields (except in the freezing depths of winter, when all is snowy white).

Lobster traps and the Acadian flag are ubiquitous a tricolour to honour French ancestry, with a bright yellow star, representing the Stella Maris, the star of the sea, that guides sailors in storms.

To know even more about this charming corner on the sea, visit the Acadian village, a functioning replica of life through the late 18th to the mid-20th centuries. Inside the original wooden houses of the first Acadian families they are carrying on with daily chores, but are never too busy to warmly welcome visitors.

History comes alive in the evening at the elegant LHôtel Château Albert, where you can tuck into an old- fashioned meal while being entertained by a trio of traditional fiddlers. On my last visit there, a female fiddler recounted how she had to practise in secret as a young girl. Fiddling was only for men then.

And do drop by the Doucet farm in the historical village, where you may find them baking bread.

Fly to Moncton from London via Toronto or Montreal with Air Canada from £532 (aircanada.com). Stay at LHôtel Château Albert, doubles from £70 (villagehistoriqueacadien.com) Lyse Doucet is the BBCs chief international correspondent

Ed Vulliamy on Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania

Rowing home: fisherman on the Danube. Photograph: Alamy

The Sfântu Gheorghe arm of the Danube Delta is gratifyingly hard to reach: by ferry from the river port of Mahmudia, which departs between two and five hours late, laden with essential goods that folk in Sfântu Gheorghe on the Black Sea shore cannot buy in their village shop. The boat navigates bends in Europes mightiest river, past oxbow lakes and through newly dug channels. A small crowd makes its way through the mud to the jetty with donkeys to collect the shopping.

There are two cars in Sfântu Gheorghe: one belongs to the policeman, the other to the government environmental officer. During my first visit in 1995, they had crashed and were being repaired.

I frequent Sfântu Gheorghe thanks to an ornithologist friend from Bucharest. His metier along with caviar from local sturgeon is the ostensible reason to be there: a wonder of eagles, egrets, vultures, cranes, ibises, cormorants and pelicans. Fishermen weigh their wares on iron scales in a market that has not changed for centuries. They say that when the sea howls it means a life lost in revenge for mans abuse of the oceans. Sure enough, last time it howled, the bodies of a father and son washed ashore.

One day the ornithologist took me out on the river in his little boat. And there it was: the howl, a heart-stopping scream, and the river heaved. The ornithologists jovial face was suddenly terrified and intense as he gripped the outboard motor to carve a way through the current and driving rain. After 50 minutes of thinking that any of them could be my last, we made it to the bank.

On the night they return, the fishermen gather, after a brief visit home, at the only bar in town: a window cut into a brickwork house. Outside which they sit to drink vodka that comes in bottles the size of a standard beer thats the unit per round, and I confess its tough going.

In keeping with the vulgarisation and invasion by tourism of anything authentic in Romania (as everywhere else), there is now a Green Village Resort in Sfântu Gheorghe: some people on TripAdvisor seem to have had horrendous experiences there, which can only be a good thing.

On one final night in Sfântu Gheorghe, the ornithologist and I were supposed to have gone to bed early, to catch the dawn boat back to Mahmudia, but the captain was dancing on the table, drinking vodka, so there didnt seem to be much hurry.

When the ferry did leave, I was as ever sad to leave with it, into the quickening eastern sky and the brave dawn of newly capitalist, tourist-friendly Romania.

Fly to Bucharest from London with Ryanair from £22.99 (ryanair.com). Mahmudia port is roughly four hours drive, then take the ferry to Sfântu Gheorghe. Stay at the Green Village, doubles from £40 (greenvillage.ro) Ed Vulliamy is a writer for the Guardian and Observer and was was New York correspondent for the Observer and Rome correspondent for the Guardian

Kate Connolly on Hiddensee, Germany

Artists escape: a lighthouse at the Dornbusch on Hiddensee island. Photograph: Heinz Wohner/Getty Images

As a hideaway it could hardly be better named. The island of Hiddensee sits on Germanys north-eastern tip and is one of the countrys sunniest, windiest locations. Despite being just under 11 miles long and, at its broadest point, only two miles wide, even in the height of summer it is surprisingly easy to find a spot in the dunes or in its expansive heathland to escape the daytrippers who arrive en masse from neighbouring Rügen. While to English ears at least its name sounds like a clever reference to its remoteness, it is in fact a nod to the legendary Norwegian king, Hedin, who is believed to have fought here. Whether for a love interest or for gold, opinions are divided, but in any case Hedins Oe or Hedins Island as it was named while under Danish rule has more or less stuck.

In the 1920s the Baltic island was a magnet for intellects and artists. The families of writers Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Günter Grass (whose wife was a Hiddenseer), sculptor Käthe Kollwitz and the Freuds were among the regulars, as was Danish film star Asta Nielsen, who had a playful circular holiday home, the karusel. The Freud connection endures to this day thanks to Esther Freuds 2003 novel The Sea House, which recalls the holidays her great-grandfather Sigmund and his family enjoyed on the island before they and many Hiddensee residents were banned by the Nazis. The family found some sort of solace in the village of Walberswick on the Suffolk coast which, with its grassy sand dunes, large skies and a home they called Hidden House, reminded them of the beloved Baltic island they were forced to forsake.

Ive been coming here regularly for more than a decade, and it has never lost its appeal as an ideal place for escape. It is car-free, with no golf courses and, at around six hours by train and ferry from Berlin, close enough for a long weekend. Aside from swimming, walking and biking, there are three bookshops, a theatre, some pubs and a tent cinema. Otherwise theres little more to do than ask locals to teach you how to fish for pieces of amber after a storm, or literally milk the bright-orange buckthorn berries for their vitamin C-rich juice.

It continues to be a draw for writers and artists, too. Lutz Seilers 2014 novel Kruso, which won the German Book Prize (out in English this year), is set in Hiddensee during the heady days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its a poetic tribute to the island as well as offering an insight into life here during the East German dictatorship for those wanting to flee to the west (Denmark is hardly more than an energetic swim away) as well as those who simply sought internal exile amid the wind and the waves from the every day strains of the GDR. Hiddensee has never lost its appeal as an ideal place for escape.

Fly to Berlin from London with EasyJet from £29.49 (easyjet.com). Regular trains are 44 from Berlin (bahn.com) to Stralsund, from there take a ferry to Hiddensee (reederei-hiddensee.de). Stay at Hotel Godewind, doubles from £92 (hotelgodewind.de) Kate Connolly is the Guardian and Observers Berlin correspondent

Peter Beaumont on Hosh Jasmin, West Bank

A table with a view: the patio at Hosh Jasmin overlooking the hills. Photograph: Luke Pyenson

The hills just beyond the outskirts of the Palestinian town of Beit Jala Bethlehems other half, though never say that to a native are a special place. Ancient limestone terraces descend towards Battir and the cool valley of Wadi Refaim, with its fig trees and gazelles. Small apricot orchards hem in the old stone farms that dot the slopes. Just outside the town is where you find Hosh Jasmin, an organic farm and restaurant opened in 2012 by filmmaker, sculptor and restaurateur Mazen Saadeh.

Fifteen minutes drive from the western edge of Jerusalem, Hosh Jasmin is both circumscribed by and defies Israels continuing occupation of the West Bank. Located in Area C, under Israeli security and administrative control, it is reached for us at least through the Walajah checkpoint, passing the Israeli settlement of Har Gilo. The Israeli separation wall is visible from Hosh Jasmin in the distance, a snaking line of grey concrete.

Despite the reminders, it is a place to escape for a while from the continuing violence and tensions, popular with Palestinians from the neighbouring town, Jerusalemites and internationals. Visiting on a blue moon last year, a group of musicians had been assembled. The waiters, encouraging us to stay, suggested if everyone was drunk enough a midnight walk would be initiated. Named for the Syrian-style hosh compounds, tables are set on rough-hewn wooden platforms under the trees, areas designed for sprawling on cushions, although there is a small indoor area for when it rains and a fire pit for the winter chill of the Jerusalem hills. Elsewhere there are hammocks and swing seats.

Below is Saadehs farm, including olives that Hosh Jasmin presses for oil, fruit trees, hives and rabbit runs and the restaurants arak distillery. Its location is a double-edged sword. The lack of building permits for Palestinians in Area C has preserved the areas rustic feel, and it also means that the accommodation Saadeh provides for those who stay beyond when the fire burns down is a treehouse and several tents.

This Christmas those of us in the press corps celebrated lunch outdoors with turkey and Palestinian starters and Taybeh, the Palestinian beer. On other days the food is dictated by the seasons, although there are no actual menus. Specialities include rabbit zarb, a tagine-like dish cooked in an underground oven, Palestinian dumplings and chicken musakhan with flatbread in its rich sauce of onions and sumac served on a flat bread.

For me, the best time is the late afternoon and evening, watching the hills bruise purple into night as the fire starts. Then, Hosh Jasmin is a place to forget for a while at least all of the areas troubles.

Fly to Tel Aviv from London with British Airways from £304 return (ba.com). Eat and camp at Hosh Jasmin organic farm (facebook.com/HoshJas; +972(0)599 868 914), which can be reached from Jerusalem by taxi or hire car (europcar.co.uk). You will need your passport to cross the Walajah checkpoint Peter Beaumont is the Guardians Jerusalem correspondent

Emma Graham-Harrison on the Jalori Pass, India

Touching the sky: a distant view of the mountains from the Jalori Pass near Kullu. Photograph: Getty Images

The sound of cymbals, drums and song followed us the whole morning, across hillsides of wild iris and through deodar forests, the musicians hidden and the music sometimes thinning to silence but always returning again when mountain paths brought us and the mysterious band back within earshot.

We met them at last outside a tea shack on the Jalori Pass, more than 3,000m high, villagers escorting a goddess swathed in gold and scarlet to the Dussehra festival in Kullu town, two days walk away.

She would be jostled and photographed there by thousands of tourists, but we met her almost alone, our paths crossing at just the right moment.

It seemed like serendipity but our guide, Prem Singh Bodh, had known more or less when the group would arrive, after decades hiking trails in this corner of north India.

Friends got to know him while living in Delhi, and had invited me to join them on a 10-day trip to an area that is little visited by tourists, but full of life and natural beauty.

We met pilgrims at ruined hilltop forts that have become windswept temples. Kids raced up to one campsite from the nearest village and convinced us to lose a game of cricket on an impossible slope.

Their teacher was a postgraduate with a taste for Victorian literature Thackeray, Kipling, Dickens who grew up the other side of a nearby peak. We asked why he turned down the chance of a more lucrative city life after graduating. I missed these mountains, he said simply.

Between those meetings, we had the forests, fields and temples to ourselves for hours at a time. We slept in tents on high meadows beside a woodland lake and spent a couple of nights in spartan but charming lodges built for colonial administrators more than a century ago.

We were camping, but it felt luxurious, with air mattresses, ponies to carry gear so we travelled with just a small day pack, and even a cook.

A few bars of coverage would occasionally appear on the phones of people trying to keep in touch with home. But most of us were happy to be out of contact and suspended in time.

It was often surprising, always beautiful and entirely special, and because we arranged the trip directly with Bodhs company, Zingaro, it was a relatively affordable £50 per person per day including tents and lodges, food and guides. We spent nothing else because there was nothing we needed and nothing to buy. Zingaro also arranges trips to higher altitude areas, for those seeking an even more remote getaway.

Fly to Dharamsala (aka Kangra or Gaggal) from London via Delhi with Air India from £495 (airindia.in). Zingaro treks can organise treks across northern India (zingarotreks.com). Ask Zingaro for advice, but they will usually meet you with a 4×4 or minibus at the edge of the mountains Emma Graham-Harrison is international affairs correspondent for the Guardian and Observer and was Afghanistan bureau chief for Thomson Reuters

Matilda Temperley on Kaokoland, Namibia

Under African skies: a young Himba woman. Photograph: Matilda Temperley

Five hundred miles north-east of Windhoek, the dusty town of Opuwo is nestled into the edge of Kaokolands arid hills. The local inhabitants are bare-breasted, clad in goatskin and covered in ochre. These are the Himba. They live alongside Herero women wearing dresses reminiscent of 19th-century German colonialists with hats shaped to resemble cow horns. Unusual characters arrive in this small trading hub to replenish their supplies at the areas only garage and supermarket before disappearing back into the surrounding desert.

Opuwo is the entrance to the remarkable Kaokoland that lies to the east. This is an area so empty and vast you can drive for days without seeing another soul. I picked up a local guide in Opuwo and set off in the 4×4 (complete with camping gear and roof tents) I had rented in Windhoek. Within an hour, a sandy riverbed stalled our progress and throughout the day the roads became ever more dubious. It doesnt take long until you are obliged to stop being precious about your vehicle and surrender to the inevitable punctures, scrapes and scratches and the hundreds of kilometres of unknown terrain that stretch before you. As you drive, red rocks give way to white deserts, plains become mountains and colours evolve with the day.

After two days of driving, we came across the first sign of human habitation and were surprised to see a rusty petrol drum on a rocky outcrop with signs advertising cold drinks and fuel. It turned out the attendant Himba women had nothing to sell and were rather hoping we could give them some food. It was undoubtedly the oddest petrol station Ive ever seen. The occasional villages we then passed were welcoming, perhaps because the Himbas ancestral land rights and autonomy are well recognised and the increasing cultural tourism in the area is largely on their terms.

When I visited last February, the villages were mainly populated with women and children as the men were with the herds looking for pasture. The villages were full of laughter, most of which was at my expense. The fact that I was childless at 33 never failed to cause mirth. In the first village I camped in, I was given a live chicken that they insisted I leave with. At the next village, I was made to dance out stories. There was something magical in being innocently teased in this matriarchal society.

Kaokoland stretches for many hundreds of kilometres from the Hoanib river north to the Kunene river, which is the border with Angola, and one of the least-populated places on earth. In Kaokoland, you cannot fail to marvel at your insignificance. Kaokoland stole my heart on my first foray and I have been looking for an excuse to return ever since.

Fly to Windhoek from London with South African Airways from £615 (flysaa.com). Car rentals from Camping Car Hire (camping-carhire.com). A 4×4 with full camping equipment is available from £45 a day Matilda Temperley is a photographer and writer

Helena Smith on Koufonisia, Greece

Open water: an empty beach on the islands of Koufonisia. Photograph: Alamy

Greece has always been about the light. The shadows lie in its luminosity. For years I have tried to swim into the sun, a days fading rays made sweeter still by waters brush. The quest for light can take you places that you might otherwise never know; beaches you might never see. In the summer of 1984, on a whim propelled by adventure, I holidayed on Naxos, crossed it by bike and got into a little cargo ship that took me to a place that at the time seemed so ethereal, so elemental, so remote, it has remained with me ever since.

That place was Koufonisia, an isle made up of parts upper Koufonisi and lower Koufonisi and over the course of a spring and summer I would come to know both. Before the internet, before mass travel, before Greeks got fat on EU funds, upper Koufonisi had a smattering of white, flat-roofed houses, one fish tavern, one meat tavern, one tourist (a French painter), one road and a girdle of virgin beaches, ornamented by turquoise sea. In the spring its was carpeted with poppies just as Naxos to its west and Amorgos to its east; and in summer covered by herbs carried on a breeze. But although perfect, it was to be trumped by the discovery of lower Koufonisi: uninhabited (bar the odd shepherd), with even bluer seas, better shorelines and a pure light that I swam into with the passing of each day.

Several years later I returned to upper Koufonisi, this time making my home a rented villa looking out to sea on the isles southern extremity. The water was aquamarine, as seductively translucent as it had been all those summers ago, but it was a world away a world discovered by Greeks who had built second homes, Italians who went for the tourist season and beach bars that served cocktails to the dulcet tones of Icelandic composers.

Lower Koufonisi had changed, too: its cave no more (thanks to a landslide), its beaches the preserve of the droves who descended from fishing boats now busily crossing the 200m channel that separated the isle from upper Koufonisi. But the light was still there, the sky and sea co-joined by a brilliance that was unbeatable and blue. And, as I had done all those years before, I swam into the sun at the end of the day, backstroking through the flat blue, eyes fixed on the brilliant skies and the rocks they framed, knowing I had arrived where I had begun, in the magic of Greece.

Fly to Athens from London with British Airways from £104 (ba.com). Blue Star Ferries on the (Athens) Piraeus Amorgos route stop at Koufonisia three times a week (euroferries.com). Sea jets also makes the trip in summer (seajets.gr). Travellers passing through Athens can also book tickets through Grecian travel (grecian.gr) Helena Smith is the Guardians correspondent in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus

Stephen Gibbs on Playa Bacunayagua, Cuba

Crossing the divide: the Puente de Bacunayagua, completed in 1959, takes you to the beaches of Bacunayagua. Photograph: Buena Vista Images/Getty Images

Go to that bar that serves the piña coladas, cross the bridge, then the road to Bacunayagua is on the left. Those were typical driving directions in Cuba in the early 2000s. Then, it was a country without road signs. The reason was never clear. One theory was that every time a sign was put up it was stolen so that its metal could be turned into car parts. Another was that Fidel Castro, determined that the nation remain on a constant military footing, was convinced that road signage would help invaders. It made travelling a challenge. And arriving especially rewarding.

The directions were good enough the first time I went to Bacunayagua in 2005. There were three of us: two Cuban friends, one of whom was a scuba dive instructor, and me. The piña colada stop was memorable. Alongside the road Marco, in a crisp white guayabera shirt, prepared cocktails for thirsty motorists from palm-fresh coconuts, cream and pineapple. He agreed, reluctantly, to go easy on the rum.

After that we crossed the spectacular Puente de Bacunayagua, the tallest bridge in Cuba, completed in 1959. A couple of kilometres later, almost hidden by trees, there on the left was an unmarked, steep concrete road. It dived through a forest towards the sea, bringing us to a complex of run-down 1970s bungalows. In front was the clearest water, framed by an elegant peninsula, and a perfect little hidden beach.

This particular stretch of coastline was also a notorious pick-up point for the cigarette boats that come from Florida and smuggle Cubans back to the US. A few bored young soldiers were there on watch; they were surprised to see us. The offer of a cold drink turned their frowns into smiles. They kept an eye on the car while we explored the pristine waters below.

I returned to Bacunayagua a few weeks ago. A gleaming blue sign now clearly marks that turnoff to the bay. It is as beautiful as ever, but a little noisier. A Cuban family, complete with relatives from Miami, had rented the house the military once occupied. Silence has been replaced by reggaeton.

On the way back to Havana, I stopped at the roadside bar. Marco was still there. Estás perdido, he said to me. That delightful Cuban greeting perhaps best translated as: Where have you been?, offered with equal feeling whether someone hasnt been seen for a few days or a few years. Cuba may be changing, but it still moves at its own pace.

Fly to Havana from London with Virgin Atlantic from £559 (virginatlantic.com). Hire a car using the concierge at one of the bigger hotels, or contact Cuba Diving Now (cubadivingnow.com) to be guided Stephen Gibbs covers Venezuela for Chinese TV and The Economist

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/my-secret-hideaway-foreign-correspondents-reveal-all/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/173213707402

Giving Newborns medicine is a dangerous guessing game. Can we make it safer?

By Megan Scudellari BOSTON -- Two rows of plastic cocoons line the walls of the neonatal intensive care unit, sheltering babies so tiny, their little hands can't wrap around their parents' index fingers. Many have been treated with multiple medications in their short lives: antibiotics, anesthetics, narcotics, diuretics.

And most of the drugs coursing through their fragile bodies have not been approved for use in newborns.

That's not just the case here at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center. It's a global problem. Pharma companies are afraid to test drugs on babies because they're so vulnerable, and because the risk of liability is so high. Parents and doctors say they're wary of enlisting newborns as "guinea pigs" in clinical trials.

The result: An estimated 90 percent of medications administered to newborns are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in children so young. That means neonates -- premature and full-term infants less than 28 days old -- are routinely treated with drugs that are not adequately tested for safety, dosing, or effectiveness.

Despite this gaping hole in medical knowledge, infants admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit may receive up to 60 medications in their first month of life, said Dr. Jonathan Davis, chief of newborn medicine here at Tufts Medical Center.

Davis, a soft-spoken, baby-faced man with a smile for every child and parent, is a fierce advocate when it comes to changing all this. He's conducting several clinical trials with the newborns in his NICU. And he's helping other doctors around the world do the same.

In 2015, an FDA-funded nonprofit launched two global efforts to spur clinical trials in infants. Davis directs one of those initiatives, the International Neonatal Consortium, known as INC. In November, INC published its initial contribution to the field -- a guide to clinical trials in neonates, including information on trial design and data collection for investigators and study sponsors, and advice for drug regulators.

"We've got to do something," said Davis, who has spent more than 35 years studying medications in infants and has published over 150 papers.

Without drug data for newborns, he said, "we can't be certain which drugs, in which doses, to use when."

Davis argues that the current system -- doctors making decisions based on little more than anecdotes and intuition -- essentially treats each sick newborn as an uncontrolled, unapproved study of one. The baby may or may not do well on the drug; either way, no data is collected and the result does not inform treatment of other infants around the world.

"Children are protected through research," said Dr. Raphaël Rousseau, director of pediatric oncology drug development at Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche.

It's technically more challenging to study drugs in neonates than older children, he acknowledged. But still, he said, "there is no real excuse not to do drug development in neonates."

When mistakes are fatal

Some of the babies in the Tufts NICU are swathed in blue light to treat jaundice; others are draped with colorful knit blankets made by local volunteers. Behind a curtain in alcove number 18, first-time mother Aubrey Baptista nurses 2-week-old Elijah.

Elijah was born Oct. 28 with a heart defect requiring surgery. When doctors discovered his condition, Elijah was immediately put on an IV drip of a drug to help keep his heart valve open. During surgery, he received anesthesia and morphine. Post-surgery, doctors administered nitrous oxide, oxygen, and antibiotics.

At least, those are the drugs Baptista remembers being told about.

What she was not told, at any point, was that the FDA hadn't reviewed the safety or efficacy of those drugs, in those doses, for babies like Elijah. Doctors simply told her, "This is what we're doing."

"There wasn't much choice," she told STAT.

Over the last 25 years, the FDA has approved only two drugs that significantly improved neonatal survival: surfactant and nitric oxide for respiratory conditions.

Most neonatologists do not tell parents about the lack of medical evidence for the drugs they use, said neonatologist Dr. Matthew Laughon of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They just prescribe.

Because there is little alternative.

"When you're sitting there at the bedside, and you're looking the parents in the eyes, and the baby is dying or really sick, to just stand there and say, 'We don't have anything to do because it hasn't been proven' --well, that's challenging," said Laughon. "If we never gave drugs because they were off-label, we wouldn't have any drugs."

Physicians often make treatment decisions by scaling down from how medications are used in adults. "We take it right out of the vial of an adult drug, dilute it down, and give it to the babies," said Davis.

In multiple cases, that technique has led to disaster. "There have been some big, big, big mistakes in neonatology through the years when it comes to drugs," said Laughon.

Those include the sudden deaths of preemies due to too-large doses of the antibiotic chloramphenicol in the 1950s; the fatal poisoning of infants from large amounts of benzyl alcohol, a preservative used to flush catheters, in the 1980s; and deaths from a preservative, propylene glycol, in a multivitamin given orally to premature infants in a dose intended for adults.

Infants are not tiny adults and should not be given drugs as if they were, said Catherine Sherwin, division chief of pediatric clinical pharmacology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, who studies pharmacology in neonates.

Newborns absorb, metabolize, and excrete drugs differently than adults. "Yet we haven't done the studies to know exactly what those differences are," Sherwin said. "We just know they're different."

Lackluster laws and shoddy trials

There have been two large legislative efforts to encourage pharmaceutical companies to increase the number of pediatric drug studies: the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act of 2002 and the Pediatric Research Equity Act of 2003. Both were made into permanent law in 2012 with the passage of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act.

Overall, the incentives and requirements within that legislation -- carrots and sticks -- worked. As of Oct. 31,  651 drugs in the US have new or revised labeling for pediatric patients.

But the laws did not work for newborns.

Just 24 of the 406 labeling changes made as a result of that legislation affected neonates -- and those were primarily on drugs that are used rarely, if at all, in NICUs in the United States, according to a 2015 analysis.

Even worse, the few labels that were changed for neonates didn't add any beneficial new drugs to the NICU arsenal. "The most frequent drug labeling changes were [to state] that a drug was not effective or there was a safety concern," said Laughon, who coauthored the study.

The most positive neonatal label changes have come from a National Institutes of Health initiative that put $25 million per year toward studying off-patent, older drugs in children -- but that program's funding runs out this year.

Pharmaceutical companies and institutional review boards continue to shy away from studying infants because they are fragile, cannot spare many blood samples, and are vulnerable to permanent injuries -- injuries that, in the past, have been awarded large malpractice verdicts.

It's also a small market, so pharmaceutical companies aren't likely to make money by getting drugs approved for neonate use, Rousseau said. And few drug makers have dedicated pediatric teams.

"Any study that I've ever done that could potentially be sponsored by Big Pharma, but is in neonates, sends them running," Sherwin said. "It's hard to do, and it's hard to get money to do it."  

The majority of studies that have been done in neonates in recent years "were not able to establish efficacy," wrote Dr. Susan McCune, deputy director of the Office of Translational Sciences at the FDA, who communicated with STAT via an emailed statement reviewed by the FDA's press office.

It remains unclear whether that lack of success is due to the drugs themselves or trial design issues, she added. The latter is a major problem for the field. For example, many studies group all infants born two or more months before their due date into a single category, yet a 4-week-old infant born at 24 weeks gestation is not the same as a 1-day-old born at 28 weeks.

Last year, Davis and colleagues analyzed 25 proposed neonatal trial designs submitted by pediatric clinical trial groups and individual researchers, and found that six had fatal flaws -- like requiring six EKGs on babies in the first day of life -- that made it unlikely the trials would ever be successfully completed.

Davis hopes the new INC guidance will change that. At Tufts, he conducts about 10 neonatal trials at any one time. Among them: A clinical trial he's been running for the past three years to test whether morphine or methadone, the two most common medications used in infants suffering from neonatal abstinence syndrome, is more effective.

Despite widespread use of both medications, doctors simply don't know.

As Davis walks through the NICU, talking to nurses about new arrivals, Aubrey Baptista cradles Elijah, still with an IV port buried in his tiny hand for another round of antibiotics. Would she have enrolled her newborn son in a clinical trial if asked?

Baptista hesitates. "Because it's life or death ... I don't know. It's scary enough as it is."

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