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halfgclden · 4 years

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THE BIRDS AND THE (ZOM)BEES | ELI&JORDAN

tw: animal death

Eli scuffed his shoe against the ground and wiped at the tears threatening to spill over one eyelid. He streaked dirt across his face as he did, and breathed in slowly. As someone was suddenly in the space next to him, he gave a start, blinked quickly, and glanced up at the person who was now there. Great. He was sitting on a large rock in the middle of the woods, almost crying, looking like a loser, and now Jordan was standing in front of him, looking confused and almost annoyed that Eli was there with him. As if he had some sort of ownership over this part of the forest, and as if Eli wasn’t there first.

Jordan squinted down at the boy at his feet, staring up at him with a pouty expression. Typical that he would end up at the same camp as Jordan. With his blond mop of hair and long eyelashes, and a sunshine demeanour that only came off as grumpy, even when he was truly angry, he looked more like the statue of a young Greek boy than Jordan ever would. He looked almost akin to a nymph, one whom a butterfly would land on in a painting and turn into a flower in a myth. Jordan shook his head at him. “You lost, boy scout?”

A wave of anger rolled through Eli, and his expression grew hard as he looked up at Jordan, willing his lip to stop wobbling as he frowned at him. “No.” He pitched his voice down, speaking the word in Gene’s voice, apparently surprising enough to make Jordan flinch. “Why don’t you get lost?” This was spoken in Eli’s own voice, much less sure of himself, much more wobbly. He ducked his head, turning his face away from Jordan as he wiped a traitor tear on the shoulder of his shirt and looked down at his cupped hands.

“Oh, sick burn, boy scout, didn’t think you had it in… what the fuck?”

Eli pulled his hands back from Jordan, trying to hide the fact that he was holding something, but moved carefully, so that the something wasn’t jostled around. He gave another start as Jordan was suddenly behind him, and he finally couldn’t hide the fact that he was holding a sparrow, one wing at an awkward angle, breathing shallowly as it looked up at Eli, not yet accepting its fate.

“Fuck, dude, that’s sick.” Jordan made a face. “You wetting your bed? Setting any fires lately?"

“Shut up,” Eli managed to choke out as he looked at the little bird, lifting one hand so that he could stroke its head with one finger softly. “It’s dying.”

“I can help,” The words were spilling out of Jordan before he could process them, and he cursed himself as Eli looked up at him with hope. “Ugh.” He looked away. “Maybe. But we have to wait.”

“We don’t have much time,” Eli, for once, was speaking quietly and seriously. “It’ll die if we wait.”

“That’s what we’re waiting for.”

There were many strange mannerisms that Jordan had that confused Eli, and he couldn’t tell if he was making fun of him or not. “What are you talking about?”

“Just.” Jordan groaned. “Just fucking stay here, alright?” And he was gone, leaving Eli still upset in the middle of the woods, holding a sparrow that came to him for help and was slowly dying in his hands. He didn’t feel the need to hold his tears back once Jordan was gone, and he wept quietly as the bird twitched, fluttered, and took its final breath.

So consumed by his grief, he didn’t even notice Jordan was back until there was a dog trying to climb up onto the rock he was sitting on. He screamed and scrambled back. “What’d you bring that for?” Eli cradled the bird’s body in one hand and wiped tears off of his face with the back of the other. “Are you trying to give it a snack?”

“Jesus Christ,” Jordan muttered, shaking his head. He had a basket in one hand, and was holding a leash in the other. “He’s gonna show us where to go.”

“Where to…” Eli watched as the other boy unclipped the leash and spoke quietly to his dog. He dug around in his basket before finding a bell and attaching it to the dog’s harness, then looked back up at Eli, eyebrows raised. “Where are we going?”

“Look, do you want to see your little bird friend again or not? Come with me and bring the bird.”

Eli scooted closer to the edge of the rock. “Are you bringing it back to life?”

“Dude, you ask a lot of questions.”

“Because you don’t give me any answers!” Eli frowned, the grief from before turning to anger.

“Ugh, fair enough.” Jordan turned to him. “Yeah, we’re gonna try to bring it back to life. Hecate’s the goddess of magic and paths and shit but we have to be expedient. I dunno how long that bird’s gonna be in limbo, and it’s almost dusk now, which is a transitory period and yada yada yada. I could go on and bore you, or I could do some magic on Tweety.”

The dog sniffed the air before walking off, and Jordan turned to follow it, which left Eli to make a quick decision. He hopped down from the rock and jogged to keep up with the other boy, who was rifling through his basket. “Where are we—“

“Sh,” Jordan said sharply, then looked to his dog again. “Crinitus, poof.”

The dog was there, and then it wasn’t, and then there was howling in the distance. “Can you please tell me—“ Eli was cut off by the feeling of Jordan taking his hand and then the feeling of falling, though he was on steady ground. The dog was there again. Or… He looked around. He wasn’t in the same place that he was, and now he felt dizzy and disoriented. “What did you…?”

“Oh, fuck, yeah, teleporting. Just, try not to yak, alright? Breathe and watch the horizon or whatever.” Jordan continued to follow his dog, and Eli after him, until they reached a fork in the road that split off into three paths. “Damn, fucking appropriate, huh? Nobody loves this shit more than Robert Frost and my mother.”

Eli didn’t understand Jordan’s humour at the best of times, and this certainly wasn’t that. He was dazed, staring down at the three paths, and holding a dead bird in one cupped palm as the sun was beginning to set. “Can you please tell me what we’re doing?”

Jordan was taking everything out of his basket and setting it all down on the ground, and didn’t look up from his task as he spoke. “Alright, I’m gonna do some weird magic shit and bring your bird back to life, and you’re gonna help me. Or…” He moved to squat and looked up at Eli before looking back at his materials. “I’m gonna try. And you’ve gotta just do what I say, alright? No, this isn’t a joke or me making fun of you,” Jordan added when Eli opened his mouth, causing him to close it again.

“Okay? Um, what do I have to do?”

“Alright, me and you are going to draw a big circle in the ground here, and then you’re gonna put the bird in the middle. And then I’ll do my thing, and I might ask you to help or do something, cool?”

“Um.” Eli didn’t think any of this was cool, but he nodded. “Okay.”

And they began. Jordan picked up a stick to start tracing a large circle into the dirt, and Eli did the same, then set down the bird, as asked. “Crinitus,” Eli held his breath as Jordan addressed his dog, who seemed to be watching something out in the distance. “Septentrio.” The dog moved and sat, keeping guard in a different direction.

“Alright, that’s north.” Jordan picked up a plastic water bottle and poured some onto his hands. “This is salt water. Wash your hands with it while I cast this circle.”

Eli did as he was told and watched as Jordan stood next to the bird, facing the north. “Fodere.” As he spoke, the dog began to dig. “I invite the element of earth to join this circle.” He turned, careful not to step on the bird. “Arrêtez.” The dog stopped digging and sat still as Jordan crouched, poured water out of a bottle into a bowl, and set it on the side of the circle. “I invite the element of water to join this circle.” He turned again and picked up a torch, then held it out to Eli. “Stand there and hold this.” Jordan pointed and Eli followed, watching as he lit the torch and repeated his phrase, using fire this time. He turned once more, took out two sticks of incense, and dipped them into Eli’s flame as he invoked the element of air, letting the smoke curl for a moment before he set the sticks down, then crouched before the bird, looking up. “As above.” He looked back down at the sparrow and touched the ground next to it. “So below. This circle is cast.”

The air grew eerily still. Eli hadn’t realized that there was a small breeze until it wasn’t there anymore, and all Eli could hear was his own breathing as he watched Jordan continue to work on the ground. He drew a line on one side of the bird with his finger. “I invoke Hekate Chthonia. The earth on which we walk.” He drew another line connected with the first. “And Hekate Hegemonen, who guides us on our path.” He drew a third line. “Hekate Empylios, gate keeper, guarding the entrances of the worlds.” He drew a last line, forming a square around the bird. “Hekate Pammetor. The creator of all. You who comes in darkness, you who shows us the way.” Jordan tilted his head back and pulled out a key. “Death now touches a creation, and we beg of you to return it to the path. Oh gate keeper.” Crinitus was salivating, dripping pools of black onto the ground as his eyes grew darker. “Let us open the door and return it to the land of the living.” Jordan stuck his key into the ground and turned it, and nothing happened.

Then, the lines that Jordan had drawn turned purple, glowing faintly, and Eli took a step back. Jordan turned to him quickly, eyes frantic now. “What’s its name? Quick.”

“Stout Beak.” The words felt like they left Eli without him even speaking them, and the purple light grew brighter.

“Harken these words, hear my cry, I call to you spirit from the other side.” The bird twitched on the ground, and Eli’s stomach lurched. “I call to you, Stout Beak. Ab intra, ab extra, ab mortem.” The glowing grew so bright Eli had to look away, noticing for the first time that the flame he was holding had also turned purple. There was a great feeling of dread somewhere deep in him, and he took another step back before the flame returned to its normal colour, and Jordan rose slowly to his feet, stepping on the incense. “I release the element of air from this circle,” he sounded somewhat weary as he spoke this time, then turned to Eli so he could put out the flame, let Crinitus drink the water, and scooped the dirt back into the ground. As he released the circle, the breeze returned, and Eli felt comfortable enough to drop back down onto the ground, checking to see how the sparrow was doing.

“Its wing is still broken.” Eli scooped up the bird again and stuck out his lower lip at Jordan, who took a heavy seat on the ground before he started to gather everything up.

“I’m not a healer. Bring it to the Apollo cabin for that.” He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm before looking back at the bird in Eli’s hands. “Is it better than before?”

“Um, it seems calmer? I think its breathing is better?”

“Hm, but broken wing.” Jordan frowned, pulled out a leather-bound notebook, and wrote a few things down. He called his dog back to him and scratched his head. “Alright, yeah, just take it to the Apollo cabin, I guess. And, uh, maybe keep an eye on it? Lemme know if it survives a few days?”

“I’m not gonna… keep it. It’s a wild bird.”

“Alright, whatever.” Jordan sighed and shook his head. “And can you not mention this to anyone? Like, not even Dev. It’s weird shit here, I don’t want it getting out.”

Eli made a face. Now that he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, he wanted to more. If Jordan didn’t want people knowing about it, he probably shouldn’t be showing off the fact that he could do it. Nevertheless, he nodded, not sure if he was going to be able to keep his promise for long, but willing to give it a try. “Um, can you get us back now?” He looked around. “It’s getting dark out.”

“Dude, I just brought something back from the dead. I don’t really have the energy to be your fucking Uber.” Jordan stood slowly and looked around, starting back in the direction they’d come from. “We’re getting our ten thousand in today, unless you have some shit you’re like to pull out now, Snow White.”

Eli shook his head and sighed, moving the bird to sit on his shoulder, where it perched, now whistling a tune. He moved to follow after Jordan and his dog, whistling along with the bird, their song a less sinister way of welcoming the night that was growing around them on their walk back to camp.

#c: eli #c: elijordan #c: jordan #c: jordaneli #para #the birds and the (zom)bees

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moonlightreal · 4 years

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Winx Club Season 8/13

In which we see some new and old faces.

13 Valtor’s Shadow

Our heroine is stuck between a rock and a hard place! What will become of her?

We’re right back with Bloom and Valtor. He repeats his deal for people who missed the last episode. And taunts Bloom. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to be the hero?”

Bloom asks how he came back after they “beat” him before. I coulda sworn he was dead as a doorknob after season 3 but let’s go flashback! Flashback Valtor screams and is blown up by pink lightning, reduced to nothing.

“After you defeated me, my remaining life force drifted across the magic universe. That’s when someone unhappy with his life, blinded by rage, called to me.” we see Valtor’s cloudy evil remains drift down, and then a shadow on the ground. Who could it be? “he managed to channel my energy, and with the power of the stars he returned me to my body.” Mysterious figure does magic, Valtor reforms and looks stunned! “In return, I granted him my dark magics. Therefor he became known as Obscurum! I was very weak at first, I needed to drain the stars’ light to regain my strength. So, I offered him a deal. If he helped me I’d make him king of Lumenia!”

Bloom is slightly distracted from her predicament, “So who is Obscurum really? Why did he do all this?”

Valtor: ‘Think carefully. Who would want Dorana’s throne so much?”

Finally Badass Valtor is so great! We’re about to cut to Obscurum on Lumenia, so let’s look at Valtor’s story. So basically, when the Winx killed him they didn’t finish the job and he drifted as a cloud of evil. Just like his mothers the Three Ancestors, who could’ve taught him the trick. And it would explain why he keeps Obscurum around, the guy saved his life even if valtor doesn’t seem to appreciate it much. I still like my “it’s not the same Valtor” theory better.

Ok, on to Obscurum, approaching the palace on Lumenia, I guess figuring now is a good time to claim that throne. He portals in a bunch of staryums that go after the core again. Lumens panic.

Dorana floats from her throne, troubled. Her home is under attack, and earth’s sun’s gone out. Things are lookin’ pretty dire and Dorana doesn’t know what she can do.

She turns back and there’s Obscurum on her throne! Dorana is shocked! She says she won’t let Obscurum harm the lumens or destroy her home. Go Dorana!

“This is my home too, sister!”

He’s Dorana’s brother! He was tired of always being in his sister’s shadow, ‘So I made shadow my strength and joined forces with Valtor!”

Dorana does the, ‘you’re still my brother!” thing and Obscurum zaps her.

Cut to Orion’s ship where he and Twinkle are making new star cores. Orion’s having a great time. Tecna calls and tells them they’re in trouble. There’s no new core ready, but they can have the mini core. Twinkle offers to deliver it.

Down on the beach the Owl arrives to a scene of stargoyles chasing everybody. The Specialists leap into action with their flying suits! Sky protects Bloom’s parents, a nice touch. Soon the beach is saved!

The dark giants may be more of a problem.

In the sun it’s Winx versus megachomop. The girls manage to get it to break apart into normal chomps.

Tecna: “Achievement unlocked.”

Heh.

The starchomps flee through portals and the Winx frantically collect the dust that’s left from the star core.

Specialists ship versus giants! Their blasts have no effect! The giants reach the drilling rigs that are still there from season five, and stomp them as the crews flee. The boys drop a life raft to them. Giants continue tromping towards beach.

The girls can’t hold the core dust together much longer. Why don’t you just use a morfix bubble? Well I guess morfix is translucent so light would escape.

We’re back with Bloom and Valtor now. He’s taunting her and Bloom… just gives up. Well, holds her head in an agony of indecision and then gives up. Even Valtor looks surprised, then says she made the right choice.

Bloom holds out her hands and summons a ball of glittering stardust and Valtor takes it—but when he tries to absorb it the light kinda… eats him. He lights up and screams and his face contorts horribly and then the starlight just sort of erases him. Two blasts of light fly at Bloom and hit her in the chest and she screams and lights up and then appears back in normal space. She explains for us, “The Cosmix power rejected Valtor on its own, it stayed with me!”

Implying that transformations have some free will and can choose who gets them.

Twinkle flies past with the mini star core and Bloom sends her on to Earth to find the Specialists while she goes to help the rest of the Winx in the sun. She joins them trying to contain the sun’s core dust.

Musa asks about what’s happening on earth and Bloom mentions the dark giants.

Stella: ‘Dark giants? Nevermind. I don’t want to know.”

Heh.

The boys in the ship are still blasting the giants. Riven wonders why Brandon keeps trying when the weapons don’t do anything. Timmy points out that without a sun it doesn’t really matter what the giants do.

On the ship Brandon breaks out the ‘photon detonators’ and he and Nex give those a try. No dice. The giants blast the flying specialists with beams from their eyes.

Then Twinkle shows up with the mini core. Sky flies up and sticks the thing inside a giant, where it explodes with light and blows the giant apart. But that was their only mini core! Nothing can stop the other giant!

The winx are still straining to keep the sun going when Orion gets there in the nick of time with a new core. The Winx fill it with light and the sun is restored!

On the beach a giant reaches for Mike and Vanessa—and the sun returns and blasts the giant apart. Riven cracks a joke. Vanessa thanks the guys and says they made her birthday memorable. Guess that’s so!

We’ve had a lot in this episode, but we still need to return to Lumenia. Obscurum is gloating, he’s got Dorana trapped in a bubble. She says she didn’t know how he felt and says he can be co-ruler of lumenia. That’s not good enough for Obscurum, and he’s done with being a brother!

Lumens show up to say the staryummies were defeated, and they’re shocked to find their queen trapped. Dorana does the, ‘Please don’t hurt them!” and then the, ‘There’s still good in you!” And she lights up and busts out of the bubble. She hugs Obscurum and he turns back into Argen.

And he’s adooooooorable!

The lumens are inspired! They go off to hug some staryummies! The staryums are still eating the core, they don’t look very defeated, but the three lumens get glomping and pretty soon restored lumens are popping up right and left. Not just yellow ones either, all the kinds of lumens we’ve seen so far. Pretty soon there’s a whole cloud of colorful lumens flying around.

Dorana welcomes her brother back. He apologizes for all the trouble and she’s sorry for not understanding his feelings. They’ll both rule Lumenia together!

Back on earth the line of cars is coming back into Gardenia now that the danger is over. The Winx and specialists meet on the beach. Bloom and Sky finally get a moment.

Then the Winx give a concert because of course. Bloom dedicates a song to Sky since she felt his support even though they didn’t get to be together.

Song: Time of my Life. It’s livelier than some. Then Bloom and Sky run off to the ocean to kiss.

But wait! What about Valtor? Where did getting eaten by Cosmix power send him? A roundish room with brick walls, three bricked up archways, and a Celtic pattern on the floor. Valtor is on his knees on the pattern, knocked for a loop by all the getting zapped that just happened to him. He used up all his magic trying to absorb the Cosmix power and “defeat the Winx once and for all.” Too bad Valtor, Cosmix power and your dark magic just don’t mix.

Valtor’s still keen on catching the Wishing Star. He needs something more compatible with starlight, He needs, “Someone with power like the Winx, power from the same source, to take the star for me.” Valtor gets an idea, maybe from seeing the three archways. He summons his last remaining magic and three celtic-knot patterns glow in the archways.

Valtor: “Come forth, my old friends.”

It’s the Trix. Of course it’s the Trix.

It’s the Season ONE Trix, in their original clothes. I guess their shapeshifting witch forms were just too cool to remain. It’s just tragic, I loved their half-beast forms so so much. The episode ends before the Trix speak, so we don’t know if their first words will be, “What happened to our powers?!” but I bet their later forms are just lost to the Season 8 Timeslide.

The next episode intro explains that Valtor was blasted into “limbo” and “freed the Trix from their space-time prison.”

I wonder if the Celtic patterns were like summoning sigils, like the demon circles in the ye olde grimoires. If I draw one, can I summon my own Trix?

#winx season 8 #winx club

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wristic · 7 years

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The Late Hour of Dawn (Part 3)

Pairing: Bellamy x Reader

Word Count: 2000

Warnings: None

-Part 1- -Part 2- -Part 3-

~~~

Naturally not everything can go smoothly when you move into Bellamy’s tent. Your reputation was difficult enough to deal with but now you have to manage his as well. Things escalate when someone takes away your only security of ever seeing your parents again.

~~~

“You know he’s just doing it because he feels bad for you.”

You huffed, glowering at the girl standing beside you while you both harvested seeds from the center of a strange flower. Its red petals made for an excellent dye as you both were finding out from it staining your hands every time they ripped and bled from your harvesting. Repercussions from moving into the tent with Bellamy were inevitable, but damn were they already exhausting.

“Once his stuff starts going missing he’s going to kick you out of the compound, for good.” Ah jealousy was a terrible thing. You could relate to being the girl watching but never acting, you couldn’t relate to taking it with so little grace. That however didn't stop you from taking her lip with little grace.

“And then you’ll have him all to yourself, right? Once he realizes his mistake he’ll come running, what a fool I’ve been, I should have taken all of our no interactions as a sign of true love!” you smirked, “That about what you're imagining?”

A handful of petals squashed in your face and when you opened your eyes she was already halfway across the encampment. You pulled thick velvety pads from your face, probably smearing even more red from your fingers. Some people gave you curious glances but ultimately ignored the scene.

Groaning you left for the tent to make sure you properly wiped it all off, having moved a mirror in there just the other day. As you neared the tent, pulling the last few petals from your forehead and cheek Bellamy exited, eyes jumping at you.

“What the hell happened? Are you alright?” He rushing, putting his hands on either side of your face to examine for a cut. The closeness, the touching, overwhelmed you. Not used to people that were anyone but your parents being comfortable enough to approach you so closely.

You choked awkwardly, pushing his hands away as you admitted. “It's not blood, just pissed off a fellow seed picker.” Bellamy's jaw clenched, looking around at the camp like he might find the assailant and ban them. You chuckled at the sight, feeling bashful at his protectiveness. “It's nothing Bellamy.” He didn't seem convinced, his eyes far off with thought, regret you assumed. You playfully smacked his chest. “I’ve been pissing off people long before landing on this rock. It's nothing I can't handle.” He shifted still unsure. You gripped his wrist. “It's nothing.”

As he finally looked at you, the world felt like it had faded away. The goings on nothing but white noise and the scenery just a green blur. Bellamy's hand rose in yours, his finger gripping them, giving a smile to reassuring you he’d forget the transgression simply because you asked. You smiled back but it wasn't in thanks, you were dizzy, your stomach light with butterflies as your heart squeezed in wonder of a kiss, a real kiss, more than a peck on the cheek.

Gulping hard you helped to break the sudden trance, dipping your head shyly and giving his hand a squeeze like it might rewind you two back into ‘only friends’ status. “I was gonna go clean up-”

“Yeah, sure.” Bellamy took a sizable step to the side for you. It was hard to not look back, your senses telling you he was watching you go, yet your head telling you that was impossible.

Safe inside you sighed out all the tension he welled up in you. It was the move you told yourself, living alone with him was a trope as old as time, but damn if it didn't make your mind run wild.

Your early morning chats now started in the night while you two were supposed to be sleeping, laughing and philosophizing by the lantern, beds so close they might as well be pushed as one. Somehow going out to watch the sunrise wasn’t so appealing anymore. You felt safe in here, with him, just talking and pushing away day dreams of having more between you two. It of course didn't go by you he wasn't bringing in girls like he used to, like he could be.

You wanted to reason it all away, too afraid to hope you’d caught the attention of someone so out of your league. Yet even thinking he was 'out of your league’ didn't fit at all. You two got along like a puzzle, opposite looking pieces just dropping into place. If it wasn't for everyone else reminding you you shouldn’t be in there with him, you’d consider the tent Heaven on Earth it was so peaceful to be alone with him.

But surely it was all in your head you told yourself, even as he came back with a wet rag to help you, taking it upon himself to clean off what you could easily do in the mirror.

~~~

In the early morning you rushed out of the tent, searching high and low for Clarke. When you found her sleeping in the old hanger you pounced on her. In your hands was the white steel bracelet, a corner of it scratched to hell by someone who snuck in the night and broke it. This bracelet that connected you to the Ark, to your family.

“Fix it!” You shouted at her, not caring about the others trying to sleep. “Fix it! You have to fix it!”

Trying to blink herself awake, Clarke took it from you, barely giving it a once over before handing it back. “I can't, once it unlatches-”

“It's just broken-it's dead!? That's stupid! There has to be a way to fix it! It's your mom's tech, fix it!”

Perhaps Clarke wasn't a morning person but she snapped at you. “I’m not my mother. Even if she was here that's not her department to fix.”

Feeling a crushing hopelessness your eyes began to heat and water. The look of loss filled your face, cooling Clarke's temper immediately. “I-I’m sorry, it's just-”

“They can't think I’m dead.” You croaked, your hands began to shake as they clutched on the band. “Fix it please! You have to fix it!” You sobbed shoving it to her again. Clarke swallowed thickly as she looked into your desperate and tear stricken face.

Her head jumped up and you followed, Bellamy was standing behind you, his brow knitting when he saw the bracelet pried open.

“My parents,” you choked a sob, looking to him like you were pleading for him, for anyone to help you. It was the futility of it all that had you so broken. You kept looking at the bracelet in your hands like it was your parents themselves broken and dead in your lap. “They can't think I’m dead, they’re supposed to find me.”

Bellamy nodded, speaking gently to you as he bent down, “I know, I know. Let's go back to the tent okay.” He wasn't going to worry you with the pressures of social constructs, trying to hold himself back from looking at everyone else as you sobbed into the heels of your palms, refusing to let the bracelet go. He helped you up on weak legs, taking you back to the minimum privacy of the tent.

Inside he sat you down on your bed, him kneeling down in front of you and not sure what to say. He took the bracelet, slipping from your fingers easily now. Turning it over, it unnerved him to see someone had clearly wormed their way under the lock and pinched it open while they slept.

“What am I gonna do? No one's going to contact them, when the Ark comes down they… ” you shook your head, curling into yourself. “They can't think I’m dead.” You choked up again. “I promised I wouldn't be floated, I promised they’d see me again. If they think I’m dead, if they don't know...”

Bellamy tossed the opened band aside like the scrap it was now. Both his hands fell on your shoulders, leaning so close his forehead nearly touched yours. “When they come to the ground the first thing they’ll do is get into contact with us, and you can tell them yourself you're still alive.”

You hiccuped, the panic threatening to pick up again, “But what if the council tells them I’m-”

“The council won't say anything about this until they’re down here.” It didn’t seem to calm like it should. “If your parents were down here, and you were up there, would you give up on them just because some piece of tech said they were dead?” It didn't take you long to shake your head. No, you would never think they were dead, not until you saw it for yourself. “Then they wouldn't give up on you.”

His hands came up, wiping away the tears down your face, letting you take deep breaths, calming yourself as you repeated the words over and over, they wouldn't give up on you.

Sniffling, you let out a slow shaking breath. “I think you're better at the whole advice thing than me.”

You broke into a chuckle but he only smiled, running a thumb along your burning cheek. It was a nice feeling, a safe one. You couldn't remember if you’d ever been touched like that before and it had you closing your eyes, subtly nuzzling into his hand. It was a shame but you never realized until you met him how little people really touched you, how many never stuck around, how much you comforted yourself.

You slumped forward into his chest, wrapping your arms around him and burying your face. Taking a deep breath in, every little worried knot in your chest unraveled. Tears still fell thinking of your parents up there. Not sure where their daughter was, stuck in a limbo of knowing and doubting if you were still alive.

Bellamy sat back, pulling you closer, holding you tight.

“Thank you for saying that.” You sniffled, lifting your now bare wrist. Two lines and two punctures on your wrist now visible. It would take awhile to get used to, your heart threatening to panic again just at the sight.

His head dipped like he was going to say something, but he took it back, stroking your back instead. But it seemed he couldn’t shake the tension, nearly starting to rock you back and forth. Your brow furrowed, lifting your head to him. “Are you alright?”

His mouth opened again, ready to defend himself. Instead as he looked into your eyes, a sardonic sigh came, a half smile taking him. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“I’m serious Bellamy. What’s wrong?”

It seemed he already decided he wasn’t going to tell you. Both his hands came up and cupped your face, only a breath away. His words steady and confident. “I’m going to get you back to your parents. I promise.”

There was pain in him, some secret that was tormenting Bellamy despite his desperate attempt to show you his conscience was clear. You wondered if it had anything to do with his newly acquired leadership position. That like with Charlotte, mistakes had been made. These mistakes just weren’t as public.

You placed a hand over his chest, wanting to beg him not to carry the weight alone. That you could handle it if only he trusted you to walk with a burden. You supposed that was just something you would have to prove, as he wanted to prove he could give you your one wish.

His eyes hadn’t left you for a single moment, holding you, taking in every feature. His thumb trailed on your cheek, warming you to the bones with the tender touch. As you leaned forward, he held still, his brow furrowing deeper. Bellamy’s confliction was crystal clear this close. Yet he couldn’t take his hands from you, couldn’t speak anymore. You closed the distance and pressed your lips softly to his.

He shuddered, hands tensing and pressing you harder to him. A bloom of warmth started in your chest and tickled all along your skin. You melted into him, the last bits of your panic fluttering away with the steady thudding of your heart. When you lazily broke away, he stole one more kiss, a small grin taking you both.

You glanced down at your wrist again, still feeling naked without the bracelet. His hand came and rubbed at the lines. “I’m sorry.” He whispered.

“I guess I’ll need to just focus on being alive from now on. Maybe invent an alarm for our tent door.”

It made Bellamy chuckle before pulling down on your bed, you both shifting to get comfortable and finish out your last hour of rest. Yet neither of you could fall back asleep.

#bellamy blake #bellamy blake imagine #bellamy blake x reader #the 100 imagine #my stuff #FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT #...#FIX IT FIX IT #The Late Hour of Dawn

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leftwriteb · 7 years

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Industry Trend: Open Worlds & Empty Spaces

With the recent release of both Horizon: Zero Dawn and the impending UK launch of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the WiiU/Switch in the next few minutes, the gaming community is going to be treated to two incredible sprawling universes with little but a handful of days between them. Even if that wasn't enough, a new endeavour into the galactic expanses of Mass Effect: Andromeda could easily be another title to add to the growing list of open world games that have reigned supreme on the "next gen" (or now much rather current) console generation. As someone who plans to get all three of these games, as well as the disc copy of Telltales TWD Season 3, March is going to be an expensive and time consuming month for many.

With the latest generation of consoles having been around for a few years now, we are starting so see games and developers use the tools at their disposal in new and exciting ways. Uncharted 4 showed us that games are prettier than ever. Forza Horizon 3 showed us games are smoother than ever. Games like Limbo and The Witness showed us that older concepts and genres could be reborn and reimagined. Games like Star Wars: Battlefront showed us that you can make stupid amounts of money selling half a game... again.. Oh, and let's not forget that The Witcher 3 showed us games were bigger than ever. That too.

But, that being said, I can’t say I ever completed the Witcher 3. Not even close. And a large part of that was because the game gave me something I had never experienced before: a world that was just too big. That’s not to say the game was bad of course, but I found myself less and less interested in the map and what was held within it because there was no real drive for me to explore and investigate every corner as I often do when playing games. While I absolutely adored the time I spent with the game, in a landmass as vast as it was, much of that space was empty and void of the kind of mystery or intrigue that would usually have its hooks in me.

In all honesty, this is something far too common in this generations lifespan. When I look at the the games I’ve spent the most time with over the past few years, it’s sadly all too clear that they are also the games that haven’t stuck with me. Unlike games before them, they don’t have locations I vividly remember, or locales I could map out from memory. To this day, I could still build a shockingly acccurate model of Outset Island from Wind Waker if asked to. I can still tell you how where the best vantage point is in Armadillo, the first town you come across in Red Dead Redemption, and describe in detail the layout around it. I could even take you on a worryingly precise tour of most of Pandora given the time spent in the Borderlands games.

But when I look at more recent games, feats like that are far more difficult. I couldn’t tell you the name of one location from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, despite the game being my first Platinum Trophy and one of my favourite titles on the Playstation 4 so far. I can’t recall anywhere particularly memorable from the many hours I spent within Far Cry 4. Even having spent hundreds of hours (and £) on Fallout 4, I remember far less of the map than that of it’s predecessor. It’s a problem sometimes referred to as “open world fatigue”. Far too often we see games having open worlds for open world sake, and in an attempt to create more for the player to do, the surroundings these tasks are situated in are dull, repetitive or both.

Having played a good number of hours of Horizon, and around 30 minutes of Breath of the Wild at the Switch event in London a few weeks ago, it does thankfully look like this trend in the industry is about to get a big fat slap in the face.

Let’s start with Zelda, given this is the game that releases around now in the UK (at the time of posting) and is the game I’ve spent less time with of the two. In just the short time I had with the game, it can’t be stated enough how refreshing the game felt, not just as a Zelda title, but within our beloved medium as a whole. Every corner I chose to explore had something waiting for me. While there were plenty of open grassland areas, looming forests and aged rock formations to create the vast stretches of this reimagined Hyrule, they were generously peppered with things of interest too.

The buried remains of an ancient Guardian sat in a cluster of moss and dirt, frozen in mid-animation. Lakes and rivers would cut through the terrain to add some visual variety and to add some complexity to navigating. Goblin camps would often be positioned along commonly used pathways and would be home to a whole host of enemies and loot, should you defeat them.

What’s more, these details within the greenery provided new ways to interact with the world around you. At one camp, I found some large boulders on a hilltop to the west. Pushing these boulders down the slopes meant I squashed two of the three enemies waiting for me, allowing for an easier victory and an even easier path to the wooden chest the blighters had been guarding. The world felt more alive than any iteration I had played before it, and this wasn’t just limited to the environment; characters and enemies feel more alive than ever too! While traversing a canyon during exploration, I found myself within a narrow bottleneck. Atop of solitary rock stood a goblin wielding a wooden torch. After knocking him to the ground with an arrow or two, his lit torch set the grass around us alight and we both scurried backwards away from the flames, waiting for them to die out, before we charged at each other once more ready to settle our little ember-filled spat. What made me fall in love with the game was how this clearly huge space before me felt like it had purpose. It felt lived in. It felt like it had a history. The things I saw felt like they were there for a reason, instead of just to fill a void.

It’s been a long time coming but I can tell you that I am incredibly excited to play what Zelda has waiting for me, and I honestly think you should be too.

On a more Sony oriented note, Horizon: Zero Dawn is also proving to be another highlight in the catalogue for Playstation 4. While the comparisons between Horizon and Zelda will undoubtedly surface, it’s important to keep in mind that while they do a few things similarly, they are two very different behemoths. While Breath of the Wild brings a much-needed freshness to an established series, Horizon aims to build a solid base for a completely new IP and, make no mistake, it succeeds.

Horizon is a game of two tales and it’s one that manages to provide a playground filled with things you’re already familiar with. Scaling a Tallneck reveals the expanse on your map as you’ve seen in many Ubisoft titles. You can traverse the map via your mount which you can summon to you, akin to the Witcher 3′s Roach, though perhaps not as comical as Geralt’s almighty steed. You’ve got heavy attacks, light attacks, special tools and a weapon wheel just as you’d expect. What the game does, it does incredibly well and with a great deal of polish. But on top of this all is a new universe to become complete infatuated with too.

The strange mashup of sci-fi robotics and engineering with more traditional tribal influences creates a kind of harmony in artistic direction you wouldn't expect to see with such juxtaposition. Locales are a cocktail of twisted metal and blossoming vegetation and everywhere you go has a reason to exist and a visual storytelling that ignites your imagination as you try to piece together your own logic for how or why this ruin is where it is.

While there is plenty of familiarity to keep you grounded in the world Horizon offers, there’s so much more depth in what it brings newly to the table. The open spaces are ones you’ll want to envelope yourself in and already, in the limited hours I have spent with the game so far, I have discovered locations and beauty in the environments that will stick with me forever in my gaming endeavours. This world isn’t just beautiful; it’s actually interesting and exciting too.

While there have been plenty of open worlds and empty spaces in videogames in recent memory, we are at a point in time where things are really changing and open worlds are coming into their own. They feel, as they should, more like established worlds than just open ones. With Horizon and Zelda, we are treated to some of the most brilliantly realised worlds we have ever seen in this medium and I think we can all agree that that’s a trend we hope continues.

#horizon #horizonzerodawn #zelda #breatheofthewild #legend of zelda #link #playstation #wiiu #switch #nintendo #gaming #videogames #games #openworld #triforce #ganon #aloy

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fangirlmomentsandmytwocents · 7 years

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Ascenders Saga by CL Gaber Sale Blitz

Title: Ascenders Saga

Author: C.L. Gaber

Genre: YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Hosted by: Lady Amber's Reviews & PR

Blurb: Walker Callaghan doesn't know what happened to her. One minute she was living her teenage life in suburban Chicago...and the next minute, she was in a strange place and in a brand new school with absolutely no homework, no rules, and no consequences. Walker Callaghan, 17, is dead. She doesn't go to heaven or hell. She lands at The Academy, a middle realm where teenagers have one thing in common: They were the morning announcement at their high schools because they died young.

These high school kids are now caught in a strange “in-between” zone where life hasn’t changed very much. In fact, this special teen limbo looks a lot like life in a quaint Michigan town complete with jocks, popular girls and cliques. "There are even cheerleaders in death," Walker observes. It's not a coincidence that the music teacher is a guy named Kurt who "used to have this band." The drama teacher, Heath, is crush worthy because back in his life, he starred in some superhero movie.

Principal King explains the rules -- there are none. Why? You can't die twice.

There is no homework. No tests. No SATS. You're just there to learn because the human brain isn't fully formed until you're 24.

By the way, you can't get hurt physically, so race your Harley off that hillside. But falling in love is the most dangerous thing you can do ...because no one knows how long you'll stay in this realm or what's next.

"Losing someone you love would be like dying twice," Walker says.

* * * * * * Walker Callaghan has just arrived at the Academy after a tragic car accident. “Is this heaven or is this high school?” she asks.

She finds out her new life is a bit of both as she falls in love with tat-covered, bad boy Daniel Reid who is about to break the only sacred rule of this place. He's looking for a portal to return back to the living realm.

He needs just one hour to retrieve his younger brother who strangely never arrived at The Academy. Bobby is an Earth Bound Spirit, stuck at a plane crash site that took both of their lives as their rich father piloted his private jet nose-first into a cornfield on Christmas Eve.

Walker loves Daniel and risks it all to go with him.

Have they learned enough to outsmart dangerous forces while transporting a young child with them? Can their love survive the fragmented evil parts of themselves that are now hunting them down as they try to find a way back to the middle?

At the Academy, you learn the lessons of an after-lifetime.

youtube

Blurb: In the Midst—a place for those who die young—there are no rules except one.

And Walker Callaghan, dead at seventeen, just broke it. She briefly revisited her earthly life . . . and the punishment is eternal. Longing for her rebel love interest, Daniel Reid, Walker finds an ally in Cass, whose attraction to her is as alive as he is. “Life is short,” he tells her. “I’m banking on eternity. With you.”

In the second book of the Ascenders Saga, a realm-jumping journey takes Walker and Daniel back to life again when they search for something buried in history. They team with students from several other schools in the middle realm including a place for teens born with oddities. It’s home to the Claires . . . beautiful, ruthless, and quite dead seventeen-year-old quads who each have a different clairvoyant gift.

Can Walker survive another adventure of an afterlife-time—or will she find herself on the downside of eternity?

CL GABER is the author of ASCENDERS, the first book in the ASCENDERS saga. She's also the co-author of the YA book JEX MALONE and the sequel due in 2016. Muggletnet.com, the world's largest Harry Potter site, did a rare review of a non-Potter book and called Ascenders, "a book we wish we could read over and over again." Book 2 in the Ascenders Saga will be published in spring, 2015. A trailer for the book series contains original music by Roger O'Donnell of the iconic rock band The Cure and was produced by Orian Williams ("Control," "Shadow of a Vampire.").

As Cindy Pearlman (her maiden name), Cindy is a well known senior entertainment journalist for the New York Times Syndicate, with stories appearing worldwide, and the Chicago Sun Times. A pop culture expert, her work has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, People, TV Guide, Elle and National Geographic, and many other publications. Cindy has co-written over 40 books for actors, musicians, athletes and wellness experts including several New York Times best sellers. She is the author of her own film anthology book "You Gotta See This." A native of Chicago, Cindy lives outside of Las Vegas. Author Links: Amazon: http://amzn.to/1KgEUkH Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorclgaber Twitter: https://twitter.com/CLGaber Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7854535.C_L_Gaber Website: http://ascenderssaga.com/ Buy Links: Ascenders - http://amzn.to/2iSgzAj Paperback - http://amzn.to/2k5Ibi6 SkyPunch - http://amzn.to/2jOhotd Paperback - http://amzn.to/2je7T5C

Excerpt from Ascenders:

INTRODUCTION

I was there. And then I was gone. My mother gave me no notice that we were relocating.

Suddenly, we had just moved without all that annoying planning and packing. Somehow my clothes were thrown into boxes with shoes that were missing mates. Someone had packed my books and CDs, and had even reached under my bed into that secret hiding place I counted on to protect my treasures; like the iPod loaded with the best and worst of everything from Nirvana to the Stones, plus my lucky green rabbit’s foot—because you just never knew when you would need a little extra luck.

My mother must have remembered the family photo album because there it was on our brand-new living room coffee table that I passed on the way to my very own bedroom and a bed I had never slept in a day in my life.

It was strange because we could barely afford to pay the rent each month, let alone buy something as nice as a hand-carved oak table imported from someplace far, far away. When I had looked, the tag didn’t say from where. It was just imported.

It was one of those times when you go from A to Z so fast that you hardly remember any of the in-between. Or as I—Walker Callaghan—senior at Kennedy High School in suburban Chicago and news editor of the school paper the Charger liked to say, “Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.”

Flopping onto my new, handsome, four-poster bed with lovely little tulips carved into the wood, I thought it was so unlike my mother, the master planner, to do something this off-the-cuff. My mother was a woman who made a battle plan to go to the local 7-Eleven for almost-expiration-date milk. Even weirder was the fact that we had moved farther away than anyone imagined. A lot farther.

“So run this by me one more time, Mom,” I shouted. “I must have been heavily medicated or feeling really sorry for myself. We moved? You pulled the trigger. Bang-bang—relocation?”

I didn’t give her time to answer.

“A new school in my senior year of high school?” I called out to her on a murky, cold winter morning on Burning Tree Court.

Even though I was letting the heat escape and Mom had always said we didn’t live to “support Commonwealth Edison,” our old electric company, I still opened my bedroom window wide and found that the air drifting in was stun-your-senses Arctic cold. It smelled green and fresh outside and those dense marshmallow patches of white fluff in the sky could only mean serious snow because they were roasted dark on the bottom.

I tried to shiver, but couldn’t. I was perfectly warm despite the window and the fact that I was wearing faded jeans and a well- washed blue cotton tank that read: Normal People Scare Me.

In true dramatic fashion, I couldn’t resist needling the one 12

person responsible for our fate, our new house, and everything in it that was unknown and strange. “Mom, new school. Senior year. I’ll have no friends here. Are you trying to kill me?”

Without knowing how or why, I was now enrolled in this elite- sounding new school called the Academy, which sounded quite upscale and serious to a girl whose educational pursuits consisted of a generic public-school education outside of a big melting-pot city, where you were either rich (if you were lucky) or you were normal (if you were like everybody else). Our family worked hard at being desperately normal.

“Great, it will be a bunch of rich, stuck-up snobs who will hate me—and cheerleaders. There are always cheerleaders. They’re like cockroaches. You can’t get rid of them,” I concluded, yelling from my new room to hers, which was somewhere down a hallway that I had never really navigated before.

“I hear it’s quite fancy,” Mom called from her room. “A Callaghan going to a private school. Imagine.”

I didn’t have to imagine it as I was living it. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but when I had asked that question, Madeleine Callaghan, my mom, the mover and shaker in my life, had cringed and then cried hard into a brand-new washcloth she didn’t recognize—the thick kind we could never afford. The weeper was the one who had given me the odd-for-a-girl first name, which was her maiden name before she married my father, steel worker Sam Callaghan. We weren’t just blue-collar, but faded blue-collar from clothes that had far too many seasons of washings. In our family, the rule was “Don’t throw it out unless it’s dead-dead.”

Running my finger along the smooth wood of my expensive new dresser with the intoxicating just-cut-tree smell, I ducked down on the ground to read the label on the bottom. Imported from R-19877. Really? Did we win the lottery? And what was with the secret spy code?

“Honey, please, I’m begging you,” Mom answered after appearing in my doorway. “For once, let’s not do the Diane Sawyer investigation act. I can’t do twenty rounds of questions. Not today.” Her voice sounded thick like she had a cold, so I closed the window.

“There is no need to insult Diane who probably doesn’t even have a dresser this nice,” I replied.

“Walker, let me make you some breakfast,” Mom said. “Everything is always better after a little oatmeal and orange juice. You’ll see.”

Back home in suburban Chicago, Principal Amanda Stevens was toying with the loudspeaker at Kennedy High School. It was time to make an announcement that drifted across her desk once or twice a year (every year)—and it always pulled her heart right out of her chest. She couldn’t dwell on herself, but had to think of her students. Many of them knew this girl from her work on the school newspaper. What would she say about her? Principal Stevens went through the usual lines in her head: It was a terrible shame. A waste. A tragedy. It was all those sentiments that meant nothing really because they were just words.

a This was a heart ripper—dead at seventeen. Good night, Irene.

Ms. S knew that she better just do it. So she clicked the on button on the PA system, took a deep breath, and said what needed to be said. Nothing more. Nothing less.

“I regret to tell the student body that we lost one of our own last night. Walker Callaghan, a well-respected senior and news editor of the Charger, has died.”

She released the on button and grabbed for a bottle of extra- strength aspirin, wishing there was something stronger. Then she clicked the PA back on again. “Of course, counselors are available,” she added.

FGMAMTC

Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents

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#sale #C. L. Gaber #blitz

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fangirlmomentsandmytwocents · 7 years

Text

Ascenders Saga by CL Gaber Sale Blitz

Title: Ascenders Saga

Author: C.L. Gaber

Genre: YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Hosted by: Lady Amber's Reviews & PR

Principal King explains the rules -- there are none. Why? You can't die twice.

There is no homework. No tests. No SATS. You're just there to learn because the human brain isn't fully formed until you're 24.

"Losing someone you love would be like dying twice," Walker says.

* * * * * * Walker Callaghan has just arrived at the Academy after a tragic car accident. “Is this heaven or is this high school?” she asks.

Walker loves Daniel and risks it all to go with him.

At the Academy, you learn the lessons of an after-lifetime.

youtube

Blurb: In the Midst—a place for those who die young—there are no rules except one.

Can Walker survive another adventure of an afterlife-time—or will she find herself on the downside of eternity?