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1-imaginary-girl · 2 years

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A Mischievous Love Story - Part 1

Loki x Reader, Thor x Reader (platonic)

Summary: The reader and Loki were madly in love until you found out that he died. Deciding to follow Thor on his adventures, you soon find out the truth about what happened to your boyfriend. This series is a re-telling of Thor: Ragnarök with the reader inserted into the story. Reader uses she/her pronouns.

Warnings: Violence.

Word Count: 2972

Prologue Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

A/N: Here’s the first official part to this series! Ahhhh I’m so excited! As you know, Loki does not appear yet BUT before you get mad, it’s only for this part I promise. For now, I hope you’ll enjoy some action packed Thor x reader (PLATONIC).

Leave a comment if you want to be added to the tag list for any new parts.

Thor has been talking to a skeleton which also happened to be trapped in here with you for God knows how long. The fire in this place is starting to make you crave your water. Thor turns to you and asks, “How much longer do you think we’ll be here?”

You glare at him and are about to rattle off a snarky remark about this being his brilliant plan when you both begin to hear gears turning. Suddenly the bottom of the cage disappears and you scream as you and Thor are dropped until your chains yank you back up, dangling you a few feet above the rocky floor. The sudden pull back from the chains, although it saved you from hitting the floor, gave you quite the headache and almost gave you whiplash.

Your bodies are sideways and while your chains quickly untangled themselves, Thor is left slowly spinning as his chains unravel. Your eyes meet and you shoot him a glare, obviously not happy about being dropped from a great height. He flashes you a hopeful grin that says trust me.

You once again open your mouth but are cut off by the sound of deep chuckling emerging from the darkness. You and Thor glance at each other before turning your heads to see none other than Surtur, the god of this fiery planet. The god sits on a throne made of volcanic rock. His form takes the shape of a charred demonic skeleton. Thor had told you about him before you arrived on the planet and he appears to be even more intimidating in person.

According to Thor, Surtur is the god of fire, war and destruction, lord of the Fire Demons and ruler of Muspelheim. His main mission in life: to destroy Asgard. So naturally Thor thought you should go to him for answers about Asgard’s potential doom. But looking at him now, his eighteen-foot-tall body composed of fire with spiked horns protruding from his skull, you’re now convinced this was the worst plan ever.

“Thor, son of Odin,” the demon says, his voice booming throughout the cave. At this point, you’re used to being overlooked next to the almighty god of thunder. Though this is one of the few times you’re glad.

“Surtur. Son of…a bitch you’re still alive!” You roll your eyes at Thor’s casual tone. As if he had just bumped into this guy at a grocery store for the first time in years. “I thought my father killed you, like, half a million years ago.”

“I cannot die,” the god speaks. “Not until I fulfill my destiny and lay waste to your home.” You roll your eyes. Great, just great.

“You know,” Thor begins. “It’s funny you should mention that because I’ve been having these terrible dreams of late. Asgard in flames, falling to ruins, and you, Surtur, are at the center of all of them.”

You eye Surtur to see what affect this information has on him. He did just find out that his one wish might finally come true. But this guy doesn’t even blink. Wait, can he blink?

“Then you have seen Ragnarök, the fall of Asgard. The great prophecy--”

“Hang on.” The scary demon god is interrupted by Thor who has slowly turned to face the other direction due to his chains. “Hang on.” The chains are turning very slowly and the loud squeak they make is painfully awkward as it hangs in the empty air. “I’ll be back around shortly.” Thor wiggles to try to get them to turn quicker. “I really feel like we were connecting there.”

You would laugh if you weren’t incredibly intimidated by the situation. You also don’t want to draw the attention of the big guy who seems to have eyes only for Thor.

Thor finally faces Surtur once more and says, “Okay, so, Ragnarök. Tell me about that. Walk me through it.”

Surtur continues, trying to ignore what just happened. “My time has come. When my crown is reunited with the Eternal Flame, I shall be restored to my full might.” You do not like the sound of this guy getting any mightier. “I will tower over the mountains and bury my sword deep in Asgard’s--”

“Oh, hang on. Give it a second.” You turn your head to see that Thor has once again gotten himself turned around. He seems to be moving even slower than before. “I swear I’m not even moving, it’s just doing this on its own.” You want to facepalm at your friend’s seeming nonchalance about all of this. He is about to get himself killed if he doesn’t shut up.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, still not fully around. Surtur sighs and you almost feel for the dude. This was his big moment, he probably practiced this speech of his in the mirror, and Thor keeps stepping on his toes.

“Okay, let me get this straight” Thor says, finally back to facing Surtur. “You’re going to put your crown into the Eternal Flame, and then you’ll suddenly grow as big as a house--”

“A mountain,” Surtur and you say at the same time, though he screams it in defense while you just want to be done talking, despite Thor’s plan.

“The Eternal Flame that Odin keeps locked away on Asgard?” It does seem like an impossible feat. Until the fire god grins and says—

“Odin is not on Asgard.” Thor’s expression drops and so does yours. “And your absence has left the throne defenseless.”

You turn to look at Thor but he is too shocked to move, though he does his best to hide it. The last time Thor had spoken to his father was after…after Loki’s death. Ever since Thor has been kept busy and you assumed a few years was nothing to worry about with gods like them. Though Odin’s absence would explain not only Thor’s visions, but the disarray evident throughout the nine realms. With that said, if Odin wasn’t on Asgard, where could he be?

Thor quickly changes the subject as to not give away your concern about this new information. “Okay, so where is it? This crown?”

“This is my crown,” the god says, tapping the horned spikes sitting atop his fiery skull. “The source of my power.”

“Oh, that’s a crown? I thought it was a big eyebrow.” Despite the tension, Thor manages to elicit a laugh from you which is quickly extinguished as Surtur’s scowling face looks at me.

“It’s a crown,” he tells you.

“Anyway, it sounds like all I have to do to stop Ragnarök is rip that thing off your head.” Though Thor’s plan makes sense, it does not deter the giant. In fact, it makes him laugh.

Surtur stands from his throne and approaches the both of you, dragging his sword along the ground as he talks. “But Ragarok has already begun! You cannot stop it.” The sound of his metal sword scrapping the ground unnerves you and you begin to squirm in your chains as the god approaches. But once again, the god’s eyes are locked on Thor. “I am Asgard’s doom, and so are you. All will suffer, all will burn.”

Surtur has reached Thor. He reaches out and grabs the chain above Thor so that the two are now face to face.

“Oh that’s intense,” says Thor. “To be honest, seeing you grow really big and set fire to a planet would be quite the spectacle. But it looks like I’m going to have to go with option B where I bust out of these chains, knock that tiara off your head, and stash it away in Asgard’s vault.”

Again, Thor’s plan sounds reasonable, but Surtur’s confidence makes you doubt that this will work. You cannot stop it. You want to chalk his confidence up to ego, but something about this situation makes you not too sure.

Surtur laughs again, sending chills down your spine. “You cannot stop Ragnarok, even with your mortal.” Great, now you’re acknowledged. And you’re pretty sure he meant that as an insult. “Why fight it?”

Behind his back, you see Thor opening his hand as a sign for Mjolnir to appear. “Because that’s what heroes do.”

There’s an awkward pause where you assume Thor was expecting to find Mjolnir in his hand but it remains empty. He becomes annoyed and you smirk at his frustration, finding the situation humorous in a way.

“Wait, sorry. I didn’t time that right.” There’s a pause where you can hear a pounding sound coming from the right. Apparently Surtur notices it too, because he turns his head just when Thor says, “And, now!”

Suddenly, Mjolnir bursts through the wall and soars through the air towards its owner. Thor breaks free from his chains, grabs his hammer and flies away from you and Surtur.

“You have made a grave mistake, Odinson.”

Thor readjusts himself before saying, “I make grave mistakes all the time.” While Thor has Surtur distracted, he throws Mjolnir at your chains, smashing them and causing you to drop to the ground where you catch yourself. Surtur looks down at you and while you smirk, he laughs.

“Do you think I fear your mortal?” he asks as he returns his attention to Thor. You hate that he keeps calling you that but you have a bigger plan than correcting him. You pull out a water bottle which you stashed in your back pocket knowing this planet is all dried up and that you would have to improvise with your powers. You manipulate the liquid to float up towards the top of Surtur’s head.

“I wouldn’t underestimate mortals,” Thor says as he then makes a point to look above Surtur’s head. Surtur lets out a confused grunt before looking up himself. Just then, you release your hold on the water, causing it to douse the fire giant. He cries out in pain as the fires that littered his body were momentarily settled.

And the fight began. A swarm of fire demons were now visible on the walls of the cave. You unsheathe your blade which was resting on your back – they didn’t care much to search your person before chaining you up – and prepare yourself to face the demons.

Your blade was made from pure ice made specifically to withstand powerful blows. While normally, a thin blade of ice like this might shatter, your blade is sharper and stronger than the average weapon. Tony helped you develop it; as he learned more about your powers, he was able to harness the power into a weapon.

You run up to Thor and you face each other, back-to-back. “How’s the plan coming along?”

“Swimmingly, thanks for asking.”

Just then the first fire demons charge at you. Thor hammers away at some while you slice through others. In a battle between fire and ice, ice always wins.

“Jump!” Thor shouts, and having practiced this, you jump onto a nearby rock before Thor slams Mjolnir onto the ground, sending a wave of fire demons onto their backs.

Surtur now seems to have recovered from your water attack but before he could seek his revenge on you, Thor throws Mjolnir at his face, regaining his attention and sending the two of them into an epic battle. Meanwhile, you do your best to hold off the fire demons from reaching Thor. Of all the planets you had visited, this had to be your least favourite purely because you were out of your element.

Literally.

Without any nearby water sources, your powers were dampened significantly but you were still strong enough in combat to hold the demons off, having been trained both by SHIELD and Natasha Romanoff herself.

One of them managed to scratch your arm which not only left a mark but seared the skin around it. You hissed in pain but kept fighting. You receive a few more hits but you continue to push the hoard away from Thor.

Behind you, Thor manages to bring Surtur to his knees. The thunder god launches himself high into the air and summons a powerful lightning bolt before descending hard onto Surtur. With all of his power, Thor lops off Surtur’s head.

Without his head, Surtur’s body slumps to the floor and collapses into a pile of crispy bones. Thor attaches the skull that once belonged to the fiery god to his back and then calls out, “Y/N!”

You turn and your eyes widen at the defeated demon before running to Thor’s side. With your backs against each other, you notice the Fire Demons seemed to have doubled in size, filling the cave with their bodies. You both knew you were outnumbered and then Thor raises Mjolnir above his head and calls out, “Heimdall. I know it’s been a while, but I could use a fast exit.”

You both wait for something to happen but nothing does. The demons approach you. “Uh, Thor?” you nervously call out.

Thor stands there stumped and looks to the ceiling. “…Heimdall?”

You let out a curse as a fire demon attacks you and you shove your sword through its chest before pushing it off to the side. It managed to land another scratch against your back and you grunt through the pain. “So much for your all-seeing friend,” you say.

Even after your many years through space, you have yet to be introduced to Heimdall. Maybe because you and Thor haven’t returned to Asgard since…you know. Which means you haven’t even since the golden palace, let alone this Heimdall character. Your absence has left the throne defenseless. Surtur’s words still ring in your ears.

Thor huffs. “I swear he’s not normally like this,” he says as he swings at a row of fire demons.

You hear a loud sound coming from one of the walls and you take a glance only to be met with the face of a fire dragon. A dragon that has just broken free from its chains.

“THOR!” you yell and he turns to see the new threat. And you thought you were outnumbered before.

“Hold on!” he yells and wraps an arm around your waist before using Mjolnir to propel you into the air. You quickly grasp at his arm to do as he says. It isn’t the first time you’ve experienced one of these fun flying trips, but you’ve gotta say, this time was your least favourite as you crash through the roof of the cave.

Thor receives most of the blow but your body was still assaulted with rocks. You land ungracefully on the surface as you both fall over onto the rocky terrain.

“So what brilliant plan have you come up with to get us out of this one?” you ask as you roll onto your back before Thor offers you a hand to get back on your feet.

“Working on it,” he says before putting out a fire on his cape. He once again holds up Mjolnir towards the sky, hoping for some sort of result. Nothing.

“Heimdall, come on,” Thor whines as you hold your head in your hands.

“Well, we’re screwed.” Just as you finish speaking, the ground begins to shake. You and Thor both back up as you feel the ground begin to give way around you. You shoot Thor a worried look before the dragon you had seen in the cave bursts from the ground. It lets out a roar before rushing towards you and picking up Thor by its teeth.

“Thor!” you cry out, trying to search around you for anything to help your friend but you come up empty.

The dragon shakes Thor back and forth and opens its jaws to let out a tremendous roar when Thor shoves Mjolnir into its mouth and lets go. The dragon crashes to the ground with Thor landing on his feet beside him.

Thor points at the dragon and says, “Stay.”

“Well that’s one way to do it,” you say. You look uneasily as the dragon begins to thrash around, trying to escape the hammer pinning its jaw to the ground. “That won’t hold it for long.”

Thor looks hopelessly up at the sky and yells, “Heimdall! I’m running short on options.”

With no reply from Heimdall, Thor and you once again find yourselves becoming surrounded by fire demons as they creep out of sinkholes in the ground. You look at Thor and nod. He tightens his arm around you once more and you hold on tight to him before he calls for Mjolnir and takes off across the fiery planet. Behind you, the dragon lets out a nasty screech.

The wind assaults your body as Thor flies at top speed. Unfortunately, it still isn’t fast enough to lose the dragon as you can see it catching up to you. The fire demons toss flaming rocks at you from below, with some of them landing blows to either Thor or yourself but Thor is undeterred.

The dragon begins to open its jaws to swallow you. “Thor?” you yell, a nervous tremble in your voice. Thor quickly glances back and you can see his face turn nervous before regaining his determination. He presses against the wind, desperately trying to gain more speed. The dragon’s teeth are at your heels and you yell, “Thor!” Your eyes widen in fear but the god doesn’t look back. His grip on you tightens.

Suddenly you and Thor are engulfed in a stream of rainbow, the sight blinding you. “What the--” you struggle to understand what’s happening when you see Thor’s lips slide into a small grin. It hits you. You’re entering the Bi-Frost. You bury your head in Thor’s chest, desperate to hang on as you know what happens if one gets lost in the magical portal.

The scene around you begins to fade and just like that, you’re gone.

* * * * *

Tag List: @riribaex @80strashbag

#loki x reader #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki x reader series #loki x you series #loki x y/n series #loki #loki imagine #loki series #loki marvel #marvel loki #loki fanfiction #marvel #mcu #marvel fanfiction #thor x reader (platonic)

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subakuryu · 3 years

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In honor of the canonical birthday for Yark's main villain for Team Prototype - Ezskar (Dec 24), I had drawn the traditional sketch yesterday of my character Nido being briefed on a future project of Ezskar's. And I also felt compelled to write a lil something to accompany the picture, which turned out to go way, WAY further than I had intended. So enjoy this currently untitled brainspew.

Oh... And the digital sketch came way before the pencil sketch that was originally an attempt to work on a grumpy expression... which then became a full body sketch that required full made up context for the annoyed expression. And now it's sorta woven into this crack story that I finished some minutes ago before the 24th ends.

Again... Enjoy the madness below!

____(Start)_____

*Phew-!*

A needlix exhales in relief as he pulls himself up off the floor from beneath a block of pipes, gears and wires galore. Now on his feet, his arms sit akimbo as he assesses his handiwork - a cantankerous engine had landed itself in his corner of the station two days ago, and rightly so with the mileage on Techkanis-9 it had tallied up for well over a decade. Satisfied, he steps up on the front bumper and grabs the hood to lock it down in place.

"Well... I think that's about as much as ya need from me this mornin, eh clunker?" he grins, punctuating with a couple knocks on the hood. "S'bout time you retired, but your owners... Well they're bout as stubborn as I am" he chuckles.

Taking a moment to straighten a slouch and undoing stiffness in his neck with a crunch that'd make a chiropractor blush, he stares up at the clock above his workbench. 11:17.

"Ah... Good timin'" he mused aloud.

Lunchtime! Scanning his workspace, he stoops down to pick up the rest of his tools and proceeds to wipe them down with a towel and put them in their place one by one. He was buffing a wrench when a familiar rhythm came through the garage door.

*Tok Tok t-Tok tok*

His eyebrows sunk, while his pupils came up to meet them in a bonafide scowl. If the wall he was staring at had wallpaper, it'd peel.

"Ah... Good timin'" he repeats coated with equal parts annoyance and resignation.

A nostril whistles as he takes a deep breath and a louder knock returns to fill in that gap of silence.

"Yeah I'll be right there. Gimme a moment," he announces plainly exercising restraint on his grumpiness as he tosses a dirtied rag onto the bench and makes his way to the garage door panel.

A magnetic key hangs attached to the controls as he thumbs the button to raise the sliding door and up it rises with a hum.

Slowly the brighter light of the hall begins to flood in from beneath the metal curtain, and a shadow starts to print onto the workshop floor. Just as the door clears 3 feet, a bulbous, spiky silhouette streaks in from underneath and launches at the needlix - maw open and *hungry*!

"Wha-!" the needlix barely gets out through clenched teeth before his arms reach out to grapple the chitinous assailant as his weight rocked back onto his tail - his legs losing purchase of the floor. His left shoulder and head checked against the wall, his spiny headset dislodged askew.

Eyes wide in shock at all that had transpired in a blink of an eye, the needlix's mind sprinted to catch up with the situation after a few ragged breaths. Familiar gurgling noises arose from the form wriggling in his stranglehold.

"...h-hey, Chompski..." he manages to sputter as he frees one arm to realign his headset.

"rrrRrRRRrRghh~"

"Yeah? Can y'not though?" he pleads with nervous laughter while patting the overgrown mutant clam.

The semi-sentient appendage seems to click apologetically as it begins to withdraw in a rising motion allowing the needlix's boots to reunite with the floor.

With Chompski clearing his line of sight, it unveils a grinning silhouette half-ducked underneath the partially open entry, the emerald green glow of a synthetic swirl-eyed lense making for an easy focal point of attention. Unnervingly so.

"Ezskar," the needlix flatly addressed the imp of an employer.

"As expected of a pro muck warfare player! Impeccable reflexes, Nido!" the shadow sung through his smile as he gave a polite golf clap. "I'd apologize about the 'forced entry' but IT decided to wake up as I got close. I'd blame the fact that it positively reeks of productivity in here. And by productivity, I mean stale coffee" he snickers, gesturing with a hand as if he was whiffing a fine fragrance.

"RrrRrwryyyeargh!" vocalized Chompski as it wriggled in seeming agreement, before all of a sudden it froze in place - its eyeless gaze staring at Nido's right side.

Both Ezskar and Nido pause in anxious silence and in unison traced the line to Nido's right hand, still clutching a newly buffed wrench despite the short altercation.

Marveling at that detail, Nido absentmindedly brings the wrench in front of him to stare at it in disbelief, which Chompski follows with uncanny, locked-on precision. Nido now noticing this, starts slowly waving the wrench around. Still entranced.

Nido blinks, and looks to Ezskar who returns the gaze with a furrowed brow. Nido's tail tip begins to sway, a wicked grin steadily twists onto his cheeks showing rows of sharp crooked teeth, as his eyebrows near float up to the ceiling with diabolical delight.

"N-Ni... Don't you dare," Ezskar's composure flounders. "If you like your pay, you better stay as smart as you usually are" he threatens all the while tugging on his prodigal tether to wrestle it back under his control.

Nido takes another deep breath through what was probably the smuggest his face ever contorted in his lifetime as the metaphorical devil horns receded back into his skull.

"Hahhhh... I guess I do like my pay," he smirks as he tucks his right hand behind his back. "Well? What can I do for ya, Ezskar?"

Ezskar let's go of his tail as he straightens his attire and sweeps back his hair. "Ehem... The new project. The one I left a voicemail about this morning?"

"This morning?" Nido scratches his head as he gazes up at the ceiling for his memories. He ruminates for a moment before realizing he could just check his cell logs. Pulling the unit from his vest, he finds a call from Ezskar... At 3:49AM.

"...Ah. This morning," Nido mutters as he vaguely remembers being interrupted during his morning ritual of downing multiple pots of coffee to function for the rest of the day.

"I missed it. Sorry bout that."

"I'll let it slide," Ezskar dismisses with a wave of his arm producing a tablet in hand which he begins fanning himself with. He strolls up to the inner garage door control panel and restarts opening the door.

"I'm here with a lot more details about it all since I left the message anyway..."

Ezskar turns on the makeshift fan, and takes a moment to peruse the screen, before tossing it at Nido.

"Alleyoop!"

Nido catches it with his left hand and begins taking a look.

Ezskar chuckles as he starts heading out the now gaping garage entrance. "There's a lot to discuss, so let's walk n talk to the mess hall, hmm? It is lunchtime afterall."

Nido doesn't answer but absentmindedly follows Ezskar out. Pulling his inner garage panel key out with his teeth and deftly dropping it into an open vest pocket, he lumbers out into the hall hunched over the plans, his eyes already taking in and considering the logistics of a new large scale multi-layered containment field with lots of bells and whistles. His body on autopilot, he fumbles with his wrench toting right hand to get the garage door closed while he's already planning on how to approach and lead this new project.

"And you want this done... In a month? I may 'reek of productivity,' Ezskar, but I think you've whiffed those fumes too deeply," Nido states with skepticism plastered on his grizzly mug - his lower jaw waggling as if he was discreetly cleaning his teeth.

"I'm willing to haggle, Nido. I got big plans. BIIIG plans! And you're going to help me. That I can assure you..." Ezskar smirked tossing quick glance back before facing forward again. "And...! I'll be sure to pay you very, very well!" Ezskar rubs his fingers together signing the many dollar signs of to be expected.

Nido's chin waggles again for a few moments before he speaks again.

"So you're gonna pay me very well for this new containment project, huh? How much are we talkin?" he says in a very probing manner.

"Hmmmm... I think maybe even triple your current pay? ...yes, triple. If you do as good a job I expect you to do," Ezskar muses aloud.

Nido snorts a bit. "Triple my pay you say?" he inquires louder.

At this point, the two are just now reaching the entrance to the mess hall as Ezskar turns around to address Nido.

"Triple guaranteed! So long as you make this project run on schedule" Ezskar states as he holds a suction-cupped hand out. "Deal?"

Nido locks eyes with Ezskar for a moment as he hands over the tablet into the open palm, but not letting go of the unit.

"Deal," Nido says with an overly warm, beaming smile.

An inexplicable chill runs down Ezskar's spine about that answer. "Wonderful," he utters cautiously. "You can let go of the tablet now, Nido."

"Oh! I will, but before I do..."

Ezskar's brow furrows as he reiterates what was said, "Before you do...?"

Nido's grin grows wider - reminiscent of a grin Ezskar saw back at the workshop. Nido leans closer to Ezskar's height looking past Ezskar's right shoulder.

Ezskar for a moment is about to push the question stepping back to look at Nido's face when his eyes catch a gleam past Nido's leaning right shoulder.

Behind his back... a wrench waves threateningly and Ezskar's eyes widen in sheer terror.

"N-no. NO. NIDO DON'T Y--"

"Chompskiii!" Nido calls as he let's go of the tablet and winds up for a pitch...

Chompski at full attention locks-on already yanking Ezskar around at the wild flailing motions...

"NIDO. NIDO STOP. I WILL F..."

"FETCH!!!" Nido bellows with a wild look in his eye

And in a blur, Nido's right hand is empty while a flash of pink streaks into the mess hall as a commotion erupts.

For a moment, Nido takes in the chaos that has begun past the swinging doors, before giving a satisfied huff as he starts strolling back to his workshop, blueprints and schematics in mind.

"Down payment received! The month starts now!"

---(END)----

Now... Barring the smiling betrayal at the mess hall which all started because the wrench and Chompski wanted to stay relevant for story continuity sake, I feel like I'm satisfied with the characterization I've got goin for Nido. I'm also wondering if this version of Ezskar that my brain produced feels on brand with him being a proper villain.

Bless his mutant, quasisentient tail!

#subakuryu #needlix #nido #suba #Ezskar #TeamPrototypeOC #RIPYark #Chompski #nidoguan

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p-r-i-c-e-r · 5 years

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FO76 Character Description

Name: Jolyne Orpheus

Age: 25

Alignment: Chaotic/True Neutral

Preferred Factions: Free States, Cult of the Mothman

Canon Weapons: Cultist Dagger, The Fixer, Flare Gun

Actual Weapons: Deathclaw Gauntlet, The Fixer (can’t find a good 3 star modded dagger currently, and rifle was better than revolver, will update)

Gear: Binoculars (Pearly Peepers), ProSnap Deluxe Camera, Backpack, Nuka T-51 Power Armor (dangerous missions/radiation)

Chems/Food: Salted Brahmin Meat, Pemmican, Purified Water, Toxic Goo, Stimpaks, Radaway, Radshield, Vintage Nukashine, Phantom Devices

(i actually use ribeye steaks for food most of the time but i hc it as like salted/preserved meat)

Outfit: Surveyor’s Outfit, Black-Rim Glasses

Cultist Outfit: Ritual Outfit, Imposter Sheepsquatch Helmet, Wasteland Trapper Mask

Backstory: One of the first children born in the Vault, her parents passed away from radiation poisoning while repairing the Vault's generators. She grew up isolated from most other Vault Dwellers except a rare few. Her parents were high ranking members in society, having ties to major corporations such as RobCo and Dunwich Borers. She never took pride in her family's richness and denounced the values of capitalism that she was taught by them, but still loved them nonetheless. Upon going through her parents belongings, she came across many cryptically worded files and notes, strange symbols and talk of things that were supernatural. A note about a coming flood and the need to go to an abandoned mine for survival, Lucky Hole Mine specifically. After going through a half written note written by her mother, she found out the reason that her parent's chose to come to the Vault, they found out they were pregnant with her. Determined to find out who the people who knew her parents were and what their goals were on that day, she left Vault 76, learned and joined all the remnants of the factions of the Wasteland, all in hopes that it could lead her to the long forgotten mine.

Story: Along the way, she learned of a group, no, a cult, that worshipped the mothman, and even came to see it face to face after hearing a radio transmission about summoning it. She had only assumed it to be myth, as it had been pre-war, but as it landed with a thunderous thud she approached it, dumbfounded. There was no clear way of telling where the creature looked, but Jolyne knew that it was looking at her and acknowledging her. She pressed her forehead to its own, and it flew back off the ground, hovering briefly. Jolyne experienced a splitting headache which stunned her, and open recovery the creature was gone, but a message was left in her head. A way to the mine. She trekked across the region, through the forest, the savage divide, and finally into the cranberry bog, she felt a pull, something bringing her to her destination, an unseen force that was overwhelming to no end. And she finally found the entrance to the mine, but not before a scorchbeast could find her. Exhausted from her journey, she knew this was a fight she could not win and rushed into the mine.

Entering Lucky Hole Mine: Upon entering there was a chill in there, vastly different than that of the outside temperature. All throughout the mine there were effigies, skulls, horns, and gas masks mounted upon twisted branches, and mole miners patrolling and grunting, almost guarding the area. After some rest and refreshment, she proceeded into the mine, silently killing as many miners as she could, until shotgun shrapnel pierced her side. She quickly drew here revolver and killed the miner, holding her side. She was bleeding out, but trudged on, jamming a stimpak into herself to at least hold back some of the damage. She found what looked almost like a church, pews, a stand for a preacher, and a coffin, with the remains of someone still lying inside. Her heart was racing but she had to know what this place was. Eventually she found multiple notes and holotapes, combined with those she had found while exploring Appalachia, she was given the knowledge of what happened here, the remnants of a cult, having been told by the mothman supposedly of the great war, had come here to survive. A man spoke of how he lead them here, and how he had not truly been told by the mothman, but a higher power still. Jolyne could only wonder what her parents were into before the war, but not long into this thought did she feel faint, the stimpak had helped mildly, but not enough to truly stop the wound, she would have to find a place to operate and remove it. She slowly searched for a safe spot, and while using the wall as support, nearly fell as she entered a strange passageway, hidden by vines. As she proceeded, she found a near complete chem lab built into a secret chamber of the cave. With her water reserves empty, she had no choice but to gather water that was dripping into a nearby puddle. It seemed clear enough she thought, as she proceeded to remove her clothing and armor, and reached into her backpack to remove her surgery tools. Her training with the responders was finally paying for itself. She removed each piece of shrapnel, numbing the pain with a syringe of med-x left on the chemistry bench nearby, as she washed away the dirt and blood with the water, she watched in surprise as the wound seemingly started to heal faster. Was it one of her mutations, or something more? After patching everything up and re-equipping her armor and clothing, she proceeded deeper into the mine, hand to the wall, just in case another passage was there. And to her surprise, there was. She proceeded deeper, a gut wrenching feeling growing inside her, she drew her gun. She finally found it. Whatever it was.

Meeting the Interloper: A large.. tree lying on the ground, but not truly. As she looked more and more, it was almost human like, it had legs, appeared to have the torso of a malnourished human, strange arm-like appendeges on its back, and its head... an open maw, shooting out what looked like tentacles. To either side of the creature were a number of statue heads, similar to many she'd seen at corporate headquarters in her travels, and on the other, a tall effigy, with rotting and decayed corpses around it. Out of curiousity, and a need to know more, she approached the creature slowly. As soon as she was within range of the tentacles, they proceeded to shake and wiggle, startling her enough to misfire her gun at the creatures leg, which caused a spurt of strange liquid to come out. The creature grew still. She then ran up to where she'd shot, the creature's skin was like bark, but the interior was fleshy, she slowly pulled the bullet from its leg causing its tentacles to writhe. She suddenly had a thought. She ran back to the previous chamber and collected the pooled water that had been dripping, and came back, slowly putting it over the wound she had inflicted. To her joy, the wound started to heal, and the tentacles stopped moving. She approached the head of the creature slowly. She spoke to it. She said "My parents.. they never came here, they were part of a cult before the bombs... they didn't come because of me." She paused. "They would have died here like everything else, but they died in the vault instead, because they wanted me to live. I don't know what I wanted to find here. Answers I guess. but all I have is more questions." One of the shorter tentacles slowly approached her hand, and wrapped around it. Everything was quiet... until her hand began to burn. The tentacle crawled up around her arm, and she felt a pain like being dipped in powerful acid or intense radiation burns, she tried to escape, she screamed, but its grip only became tighter. Her whole body felt pain, it grew and grew until she passed out. Once she awoke, she was lying away from the creature in the entranceway to its chamber, out of its reach, she gathered her strength and ran out, but tripped on a branch on her way out of the chamber. In front of her lied a set of clothing, and a mask, made of a human skull, twigs, and other materials. She looked back at the creature. It's tentacles moved gently. She looked back at the clothes. It wanted her. "What do you want?" she choked out, she didnt notice she was almost crying until now. She got the headache again, but less painful. She couldnt understand the words she was hearing in her mind, but she felt their meaning. It wanted her to serve it. In return it would keep her alive. She looked back at the creature, The Interloper. She remembered the man from the holotape had called it that. She nodded, and its tentacles moved one last time. She turned around, looked into the eyes of the skull mask, and grabbed the outfit on her way out of the mine.

What Comes Next: Jolyne embraced the lifestyle of the cult and learned all she could of it. She occasionally summons the mothman for it’s wisdom, or any messages that the interloper may have for her that need to be conveyed if she is unable to make the pilgrimage to it’s cave. She will occasionally visit the interloper and rest with it. She does reconnaissance on wastelanders actions, and only intervene if they are going to die. She usually keeps a distant eye with her binoculars, and stays atop roofs to avoid much interaction with those she watches. She holds meetings in her mini-church, to provide other followers of the interloper and mothman with information and spread word to those who do not yet worship. Plus the occasional sacrifice or two ;)

Plans: Going to join cultist/communist factions. Probably gonna side with raiders, but it depends on the loot.

Fun Facts: Nuka-Cola Dark is her drink of choice. She can play the banjo. She’s bi! She got annoyed by her Collectron so she ripped out its voice module. She also tried to do this to the Grafton Mayor, but to no avail.

Most Recent Edits: 10/15/2019

#fallout #fallout 76 #cult of the mothman #feel free to ask questions!#oc talk #games #long post #writing

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unsettlingshortstories · 3 years

Text

Black Man With a Horn

T.E.D. Klein (1980)

The Black [words obscured by postmark] was fascinating - I must get a snap shot of him.

H. P. LOVECRAFT, rOSTC~,RO TO r. HOFFMANN PRICE, 7/23/1934

There is something inherently comforting about the first-person past tense. It conjures up visions of some deskbound narrator puffing contemplatively upon a pipe amid the safety of his study, lost in tranquil recollection, seasoned but essentially unscathed by whatever experience he's about to relate.

It's a tense that says, 'I am here to tell the tale. I lived through it.'

The description, in my own case, is perfectly accurate - as far as it goes. I am indeed seated in a kind of study: a small den, actually, but lined with bookshelves on one side, below a view of Manhattan painted many years ago, from memory, by my sister. My desk is a folding bridge table that once belonged to her. Before me the electric typewriter, though somewhat precariously supperted, hums soothingly, and from the window behind me comes the familiar drone of the old air conditioner, waging its lonely battle against the tropic night. Beyond it, in the darkness outside, the small night-noises are doubtless just as reassuring; wind in the palm trees, the mindless chant of crickets, the muffled chatter of a neighbour's TV, an occasional car bound for the highway, shifting gears as it speeds past the house...

House, in truth, may be too grand a word; the place is a green stucco bungalow just a single story tall, third in a row of nine set several hundred yards from the highway. Its only distinguishing features are the sundial in the front yard, brought here from my sister's former home, and the jagged little picket fence, now rather overgrown with weeds, which she had erected despite the protests of neighbours.

It's hardly the most romantic of settings, but under normal circumstances it might make an adequate background for meditations in the past tense. 'I'm still here,' the writer says, adjusting to the tone. (I've even stuck the requisite pipe in mouth, stuffed with a plug of latakia.) 'It's over now,'

he says. 'I lived through it.'

A comforting premise, perhapsú Only, in this case, it doesn't happen to be true. Whether the experience is really 'over now' no one can say; and if, as I suspect, the final chapter has yet to be enacted, then the notion of my 'living through it' will seem a pathetic conceit.

Yet ! can't say I find the thought of my own death particularly disturbing. I get so tired, sometimes, of this little room, with its cheap wicker furniture, the dull outdated books, the night pressing in from outside ú.. And of that sundial out there in the yard, with its idiotic message. 'Grow old along with me...'

I have done so, and my life seems hardly to have mattered in the scheme of things. Surely its end cannot matter much either.

Ah, Howard, you would have understood.

That, boy, was what I call a travel-experience! – H.P LOVECRAFT, 3/12/1930

If, while I set it down, this tale acquires an ending, it promises to be an unhappy one. But the beginning is nothing of the kind; you may find it rather humorous, in fact - full of comic pratfalls, wet trouser cuffs, and a dropped vomit-bag.

'I steeled myself to endure it,' the old lady to my right was saying. 'I don't mind telling you I was exceedingly frightened. I held on to the arms of the seat and just gritted my teeth. And then, you know, right after the captain warned us about that turbulence, when the tail lifted and fell, flip-flop, flip-flop, well -' she flashed her dentures at me and patted my wrist, ' - I don't mind telling you, there was simply nothing for it but to heave.'

Where had the old girl picked up such expressions? And was she trying to pick me up as well?

Her hand clamped wetly round my wrist. 'I do hope you'll let me pay for the dry cleaning.'

'Madam,' I said, 'think nothing of it. The suit was already stained.'

'Such a nice man!' She cocked her head coyly at me, still gripping my wrist. Though their whites had long since turned the colour of old piano keys, her eyes were not unattractive. But her breath repelled me. Slipping my paperback into a pocket, I rang for the stewardess.

The earlier mishap had occurred several hours before. In clambering aboard the plane at Heathrow, surrounded by what appeared to be an aboriginal rugby club (all dressed alike, navy blazers with bone buttons), I'd been shoved from behind and had stumbled against a black cardboard hatbox in which some Chinaman was storing his dinner; it was jutting into the aisle near the first-class seats. Something inside sloshed over my ankles - duck sauce, soup perhaps and left a sticky yellow puddle on the floor. I turned in time to see a tall, beefy Caucasian with an Air Malay bag and a beard so thick and black he looked like some heavy from the silent era. His manner was equally suited to the role, for after shouldering me aside (with shoulders broad as my valises), he pushed his way down the crowded passage, head bobbing near the ceiling like a gas balloon, and suddenly disappeared from sight at the rear of the plane. In his wake I caught the smell of treacle, and was instantly reminded of my childhood: birthday hats, Callard and Bowser gift packs, and after-dinner bellyaches.

'So very sorry.' A bloated little Charlie Chan looked fearfully at this departing apparition, then doubled over to scoop his dinner beneath the seat, fiddling with the ribbon.

'Think nothing of it,' I said.

I was feeling kindly towards everyone that day. Flying was still a novelty. My friend Howard, of course (as I'd reminded audiences earlier in the week), used to say he'd 'hate to see a~roplanes come into common commercial use, since they merely add to the goddam useless speeding up of an already overspeeded life.' He had dismissed them as 'devices for the amusement of a gentleman'-

but then, he'd only been up once, in the twenties, and for only as long as $3.50 would bring. What could he have known of whistling engines, the wicked joys of dining at thirty thousand feet, the chance to look out a window and find that the earth is, after all, quite round? All this he had missed; he was dead and therefore to be pitied.

Yet even in de. ath he had triumphed over me...

It gave me something to think about as the stewardess helped me to my feet, clucking in professional concern at the mess on my lap - though more likely she was thinking of the wiping up that awaited her once I'd vacated the seat. 'Why do they make those bags so slippery?' my elderly neighbour asked plaintively. 'And all over this nice man's suit. You really should do something about it.' The plane dropped and settled; she rolled her yellowing eyes. 'It could happen again.'

The stewardess steered me down the aisle towards a restroom at the middle of the plane. To my left a cadaverous young woman wrinkled her nose and smiled at the man next to her. I attempted to disguise my defeat by looking bitter - 'Someone else has done this deed!' - but doubt I succeeded.

The stewardess's arm supporting mine was superfluous but comfortable; I leaned on her more heavily with each step. There are, as I'd long suspected, precious few advantages in being seventy-six and looking it - yet among them is this: though one is excused from the frustration of flirting with a stewardess, one gets to lean on her arm. I turned toward her to say something funny, but paused; her face was blank as a clock's.

'I'll wait out here for you,' she said, and pulled open the smooth white door.

q~hat will hardly be necessary.' I straightened up. 'But could you - do you think you might find me another seat? I have nothing against that lady, you understand, but I don't want to see any more of her lunch.'

Inside the restroom the whine of the engines seemed louder, as if the pink plastic walls were all that separated me from the jet stream and its arctic winds. Occasionally the air we passed through must have grown choppy, for the plane rattled and heaved like a sled over rough ice. If I opened the john I half expected to see the earth miles below us, a frozen grey Atlantic fanged with icebergs.

England was already a thousand miles away.

With one hand on the door handle for support, I wiped off my trousers with a perfumed paper towel from a foil envelope, and stuffed several more into my pocket. My cuffs still bore a residue of Chinese goo. This, it seemed, was the source of the treacle smell; I dabbed ineffectually at it.

Surveying myself in the mirror - a bald, harmless-looking old baggage with stooped shoulders and a damp suit (so different from the self-confident young fellow in the photo captioned 'HPL and disciple') - I slid open the bolt and emerged, a medley of scents. The stewardess had found an empty seat for me at the back of the plane.

It was only as I made to sit down that I noticed who occupied the adjoining seat: he was leaning away from me, asleep with his head resting against the window, but I recognized the beard.

'Uh, stewardess - ?' I turned, but saw only her uniformed back retreating up the aisle. After a moment's uncertainty I inched myself into the seat, making as little noise as possible. I had, I reminded myself, every right to be here.

Adjusting the recliner position (to the annoyance of the black behind me), I settled back and reached for the paperback in my pocket. They'd finally got round to reprinting one of my earlier tales, and already I'd found four typos. But then, what could one expect? The front cover, with its crude cartoon skull, said it all: 'Goosepimples: Thirteen Cosmic Chillers in the Lovecraft Tradition.'

So this is what I was reduced to - a lifetime's work shrugged off by some blurb-writer as 'worthy of the Master himself,' the creations of my brain dismissed as mere pastiche. And the tales themselves, once singled out for such elaborate praise, were now simply - as if this were commendation enough - 'Lovecraftian.' Ah, Howard, your triumph was complete the moment your name became an adjective.

I'd suspected it for years, of course, but only with the past week's conference had I been forced to acknowledge the fact: that what mattered to the present generation was not my own body of work, but rather my association with Lovecraft. And even this was demeaned: after years of friendship and support, to be labelled - simply because I'd been younger - a mere 'disciple.' It seemed too cruel a joke.

Every joke must have a punchline. This one's was still in my pocket, printed in italics on the folded yellow conference schedule. I didn't need to look at it again: there I was, characterized for all time as 'a member of the Lovecraft circle, New York educator, and author of the celebrated collection Beyond the Garve.'

That was it, the crowning indignity: to be immortalized by a misprint! You'd have appreciated this, Howard. I can almost hear you chuckling from - where else? - beyond the garve...

Meanwhile, from the seat next to me came the rasping sounds of a constricted throat; my neighbour must have been caught in a dream. I put down my book and studied him. He looked older than he had at first - perhaps sixty or more. His hands were roughened, powerful looking; on one of them was a ring with a curious silver cross. The glistening black beard that covered the lower half of his face was so thick as to be nearly opaque; its very darkness seemed unnatural, for above it the hair was streaked with grey.

I looked more closely, to where beard joined face. Was that a bit of gauze I saw, below the hair?

My heart gave a little jump. Leaning forward for a closer look, I peered at the skin to the side of his nose; though burned from long exposure to the sun, it had an odd pallor. My gaze continued upward, along the weathered cheeks towards the dark hollow of his eyes. They opened.

For a moment they stared into mine without apparent comprehension, glassy and bloodshot. In the next instant they were bulging from his head and quivering like hooked fish. His lips opened, and a tiny voice croaked, 'Not here.'

We sat in silence, neither of us moving. I was too surprised, too embarrassed, to answer. In the window beyond his head the sky looked bright and clear, but I could feel the plane buffeted by unseen blasts, its wingtips bouncing furiously.

'Don't do it to me here,' he whispered at last, shrinking back into his seat.

Was the man a lunatic? Dangerous, perhaps? Somewhat in my future I saw spinning headlines:

'Jetliner Terrorized ... Retired NYC Teacher Victim ...' My uncertainty must have shown, for I saw him lick his lips and glance past my head. Hope, and a trace of cunning, swept his face. He grinned up at me. 'Sorry, nothing to worry about. Whew! Must have been having a nightmare.' Like an athlete after a particularly tough race he shook his massive head, already regaining command of the situation. His voice had a hint of Tennessee drawl. 'Boy' - he gave what should have been a hearty laugh - 'I'd better lay off the Kickapoo juice!'

I smiled to put him at his ease, though there was nothing about him to suggest that he'd been drinking. 'That's an expression I haven't heard in years.'

'Oh, yeah?' he said, with little interest. 'Well, I've been away.' His fingers drummed nervously impatiently? - on the arm of his chair.

'Malaya?'

He sat up, and the colour left his face. 'How did you know?'

I nodded towards the green flight-bag at his feet. 'I saw you carrying that when you came aboard.

You, uh - you seemed to be in a little bit of a hurry, to say the least. In fact, I'm afraid you almost knocked me down.'

'Hey.' His voice was controlled now, his gaze level and assured. 'Hey, I'm really sorry about that, old fella. The fact is, I thought someone might be following me.'

Oddly enough, I believed him; he looked sincere - or as sincere as anyone can be behind a phony black beard. 'You're in disguise, aren't you?' I asked.

'You mean the whiskers? They're just something I picked up in Singapore. Shucks, I knew they wouldn't fool anyone for long, at least not a friend. But an enemy, well ... maybe.' He made no move to take them off.

'You're - let me guess - you're in the service, right?' The foreign service, I meant; frankly, I took him for an ageing spy.

'In the service?' He looked significantly to the left and right, then dropped his voice. 'Well, yeah, you might say that. In H/s service.' He pointed towards the roof of the plane.'You mean - ?'

He nodded. 'I'm a missionary. Or was until yesterday.'

Missionaries are infernal nuisances who ought to be kept at home. – H.P LOVECRAFT, 9/12/1925

Have you ever seen a man in fear of his life? I had, though not since my early twenties. After a summer of idleness I'd at last found temporary employment in the office of what turned out to be a rather shady businessman - I suppose today you'd call him a small-time racketeer - who, having somehow offended 'the mob,' was convinced he'd be dead by Christmas. He had been wrong, though; he'd been able to enjoy that and many other Christmases with his family, and it wasn't till years later that he was found in his bathtub, face down in six inches of water. I don't remember much about him, except how hard it had been to engage him in conversation; he never seemed to be listening.

Yet talking with the man who sat next to me on the plane was all too easy; he had nothing of the other's distracted air, the vague replies and preoccupied gaze. On the contrary, he was alert and highly interested in all that was said to him. Except for his initial panic, in fact, there was little to suggest he was a hunted man.

Yet so he claimed to be. Later events would, of course, settle all such questions, but at the time I had no way to judge if he was telling the truth, or if his story was phony as his beard.

If I believed him, it was almost entirely due to his manner, not the substance of what he said. No, he didn't claim to have made off with the Eye of Klesh; he was more original than that. Nor had he violated some witch doctor's only daughter. But some of the things he told me about the region in which he'd worked - a state called Negri Sembilan, south of Kuala Lumpur seemed frankly incredible: houses invaded by trees, government-built roads that simply disappeared, a nearby colleague returning from a ten-day vacation to find his lawn overgrown with ropy things they'd had to burn twice to destroy. He claimed there were tiny red spiders that jumped as high as a man's shoulder 'there was a girl in the village gone half-deaf because one of the nasty little things crawled in her ear and swelled so big it plugged up the hole' - and places where mosquitoes were so thick they suffocated cattle. He described a land of steaming mangrove swamps and rubber plantations as large as feudal kingdoms, a land so humid that wallpaper bubbled on the hot nights and bibles sprouted mildew.

As we sat together on the plane, sealed within an air-cooled world of plastic and pastel, none of these things seemed possible; with the frozen blue of the sky just beyond my reach, the stewardesses walking briskly past me in their blue-and-gold uniforms, the passengers to my left sipping Cokes or sleeping or leating through In-Flite, I found myself believing less than half of what he said, attributing the rest to sheer exaggeration and a Southern regard for tall tales. Only when I'd been home a week and paid a visit to my niece in Brooklyn did I revise my estimate upward, for glancing through her son's geography test I came upon this passage: 'Along the

[Malayan] peninsula, insects swarm in abundance; probably more varieties exist here than anywhere else on earth. There is some good hardwood timber, and camphor and ebony trees are found in profusion. Many orchid varieties thrive, some of extraordinary size.' The book alluded to the area's 'rich mixture of races and languages,' its 'extreme humidity' and 'colourful native fauna,'

and added: 'Its jungles are so impenetrable that even the wild beasts must keep to well-worn paths.'

But perhaps the strangest aspect of this region was that, despite its dangers and discomforts, my companion claimed to have loved it. 'They've got a mountain in the centre of the peninsula - ' He mentioned an unpronounceable name and shook his head. 'Most beautiful thing you ever saw. And there's some really pretty country down along the coast, you'd swear it was some kind of South Sea island. Comfortable, too. Oh, it's damp all right, especially in the interior where the new mission was supposed to be - but the temperature never even hits a hundred. Try saying that for New York City.'

I nodded. 'Remarkable.'

'And the people,' he went on, 'why, I believe they're just the friendliest people on earth. You know, I'd heard a lot of bad things about the Moslems - that's what most of them are, part of the Sunni sect - but I'm telling you, they treated us with real neighbourliness ú.. just so long as we made the teachings available, so to speak, and didn't interfere with their affairs. And we didn't. We didn't have to. What we provided, you see, was a hospital - well, a clinic, at least, two RNs and a doctor who came twice a month - and a small library with books and films. And not just theology, either.

All subjects. We were right outside the village, they'd have to pass us on their way to the river, and when they thought none of the lontoks were looking

they'd just come in and look around.''None of the what?'

'Priests, sort of. There were a lot of them. But they didn't interfere with us, we didn't interfere with them. ! don't know that we made all that many converts, actually, but I've got nothing bad to say about those people.'

He paused, rubbing his eyes; he suddenly looked his age. 'Things were going fine,' he said. 'And then they told me to establish a second mission, further in the interior.'

He stopped once more, as if weighing whether to continue. A squat little Chinese woman was plodding slowly up the aisle, holding on to the chairs on each side for balance. I felt her hand brush past my ear as she went by. My companion watched her with a certain unease, waiting till she'd passed. When he spoke again his voice had thickened noticeably.

'I've been all over the world - a lot of places Americans can't even go to these days - and I've always felt that, wherever I was, God was surely watching. But once I started getting up into those hills, well...' He shook his head. 'I was pretty much on my own, you see. They were going to send most of the staff out later, after I'd got set up. All I had with me was one of our grounds keepers, two bearers, and a guide who doubled as interpreter. Locals, all of them.' He frowned. 'The grounds keeper, at least, was a Christian.''You needed an interpreter?'

The question seemed to distract him. 'For the new mission, yes. My Malay stood me well enough in the lowlands, but in the interior they used dozens of local dialects. I would have been lost up there. Where I was going they spoke something which our people back in the village called agon di-gatuan - "the Old Language." I never really got to understand much of it.' He stared down at his hands. 'I wasn't there long enough.'

Trouble with the natives, I suppose.'

He didn't answer right away. Finally he nodded. 'I truly believe they must be the nastiest people who ever lived,' he said with great deliberation. 'I sometimes wonder how God could have created them.' He stared out the window, at the hills of cloud below us. ~hey called themselves the Chauchas, near as I could make out. Some French colonial influence, maybe, but they looked Asiatic to me, with just a touch of black. Little people. Harmless looking.' He gave a small shudder.

'But they were nothing like what they seemed. You couldn't get to the bottom of them. They'd been living way up in those hills I don't know how many centuries, and whatever it is they were doing, they weren't going to let a stranger in on it. They called themselves Moslems, just like the lowlanders, but I'm sure there must have been a few bush-gods mixed in. I thought they were primitive, at first, I mean, some of their rituals - you wouldn't believe it. But now ! think they weren't primitive at all. They just kept those rituals because they enjoyed them!' He tried to smile; it just accentuated the lines of his face.

'Oh, they seemed friendly enough in the beginning,' he said. 'You could approach them, do a bit of trading, watch them breed their animals. You could even talk to them about Salvation. And they'd just keep smiling, smiling all the time. As if they really liked you.'

I could hear the disappointment in his voice, and something else.

'You know,' he confided, suddenly leaning closer, 'down in the lowlands, in the pastures, there's an animal, a kind of snail, the Malays kill on sight. A little yellow thing, but it scares them silly: they believe that if it passes over the shadow of their cattle, it'll suck out the cattle's life-force. They used to call it a

"Chaucha snail." Now I know why.''Why?' I asked.

He looked around the plane, and seemed to sigh. 'You understand, at this stage we were still living in tents. We had yet to build anything. Well, the weather got bad, the mosquitoes got worse, and after the grounds keeper disappeared the others took off. I think the guide persuaded them to go. Of course, this let me-'

Wait. You say your grounds keeper disappeared?'

'Yes, before the first week was out. It was late afternoon. We'd been pacing out one of the fields less than a hundred yards from the tents, and I was pushing through the long grass thinking he was behind me, and I turned around and he wasn't.'

He was speaking all in a rush now. I had visions out of 1940s movies, frightened natives sneaking off with the supplies, and I wondered how much of this was true.

'So with the others gone, too,' he said, 'I had no way of communicating with the Chauchas, except through a kind of pidgin language, a mixture of Malay and their tongue. But I knew what was going on. All that week they kept laughing about something. Openly. And I got the impression that they were somehow responsible. I mean, for the man's disappearance. You understand? He'd been the one I trusted.' His expression was pained. 'A week later, when they showed him to me, he was still alive. But he couldn't speak. I think they wanted it that way. You see, they'd - they'd grown something in him.' He shuddered.

Just as that moment, from directly behind us came an inhumanly high-pitched caterwauling that pierced the air like a siren, rising above the whine of the engines. It came with heart-stopping suddenness, and we both went rigid. I saw my companion's mouth gape as if to echo the scream. So much for the past; we'd become two old men gone all white and clutching at themselves. It was really quite comical. A full minute must have passed before I could bring myself to turn around.

By this time the stewardess had arrived and was dabbing at the place where the man behind me, dozing, had dropped his cigarette on his lap. The surrounding passengers, whites especially, were casting angry glances at him, and I thought I smelled burnt flesh. He was at last helped to his feet by the stewardess and one of his teammates, the latter chuckling uneasily.

Minor as it was, the accident had derailed our conversation and unnerved my companion; it was as if he'd retreated into his beard. He would talk no further, except to ask me ordinary and rather trivial questions about food prices and accommodations. He said he was bound for Florida, looking forward to a summer of, as he put it, 'R and R,' apparently financed by his sect. I asked him, a bit forlornly, what had happened in the end to the grounds keeper; he said that he had died. Drinks were served; the North American continent swung towards us from the south, first a finger of ice, soon a jagged line of green. I found myself giving the man my sister's address - Indian Creek was just outside Miami, where he'd be staying - and immediately regretted doing so. What did I know of him, after all? He told me his name was Ambrose Mortimer. 'It means "Dead Sea,"' he said. 'From the Crusades.'

When I persisted in bringing up the subject of the mission, he waved me off. 'I can't call myself a missionary anymore,' he said. 'Yesterday, when I left the country, I gave up that right.' He attempted a smile. 'Honest, I'm just a civilian now.'

'What makes you think they're after you?' I asked. The smile vanished. 'I'm not so sure they are,' he said, not very convincingly. 'I may just be getting paranoid in my old age. But I could swear that in New Delhi, and again at Heathrow, I heard someone singing - singing a certain song. Once it was in the men's room, on the other side of a partition; once it was behind me on line. And it was a song I recognized. It's in the Old Language.' He shrugged. 'I don't even know what the words mean.'

'Why would anyone be singing? I mean, if they were following you?'

'That's just it. I don't know.' He shook his head. 'But

I think - I think it's part of the ritual.''What sort of ritual?'

'I don't know,' he said again. He looked quite pained, and I resolved to bring this inquisition to an end. The ventilators had not yet dissipated the smell of charred cloth and flesh.

'But you'd heard the song before,' I said. 'You told me you recognized it.'

'Yeah.' He turned away and stared at the approaching clouds. We were passing over Maine.

Suddenly the earth seemed a very small place. 'I'd heard some of the Chaucha women singing it,' he said at last. 'It was a sort of farming song. It's supposed to make things grow.'

Ahead of us loomed the saffron yellow smog that covers Manhattan like a dome. The 'No Smoking' light winked silently on the console above us.

'I was hoping I wouldn't have to change planes,' my companion said presently. 'But the Miami flight doesn't leave for an hour and a half. I guess I'll get off and walk around a bit, stretch my legs.

I wonder how long customs'11 take.' He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. Once more I regretted my impulsiveness in giving him Maude's address. I was half tempted to make up some contagious disease for her, or a jealous husband. But then, quite likely he'd never call on her anyway; he hadn't even bothered to write down the name. And if he did pay a call - well, I told myself, perhaps he'd unwind when he realized he was safe among friends. He might even turn out to be good company; after all, he and my sister were practically the same age.

As the plane gave up the struggle and sank deeper into the warm encircling air, passengers shut books and magazines, organized their belongings, made last hurried forays to the bathroom to pat cold water on their faces. I wiped my spectacles and smoothed back what remained of my hair. My companion was staring out the window, the green Air Malay bag in his lap, his hands folded on it as if in prayer. We were already becoming strangers.

'Please return seat backs to the upright position,' ordered a disembodied voice. Out beyond the window, past the head now turned completely away from me, the ground rose to meet us and we bumped along the pavement, jets roaring in reverse. Already stewardesses were rushing up and down the aisles pulling coats and jackets from the overhead bins; executive types, ignoring instructions, were scrambling to their feet and thrashing into raincoats. Outside I could see uniformed figures moving back and forth in what promised to be a warm grey drizzle. 'Well,' I said lamely, 'we made it.' I got to my feet.

He turned and flashed me a sickly grin. 'Good-bye,' he said. 'This really has been a pleasure.' He reached for my hand.

'And do try to relax and enjoy yourself in Miami,' I said, looking for a break in the crowd that shuffled past me down the aisle. 'That's the important thing just to relax.'

'I know that.' He nodded gravely. 'I know that. God bless you.' I found my slot and slipped into line. From behind me he added, 'And I won't forget to look up your sister.' My heart sank, but as I moved towards the door I turned to shout a last farewell. The old lady with the eyes was two people in front of me, but she didn't so much as smile.

One trouble with last farewells is that they occasionally prove redundant. Some forty minutes later, having passed like a morsel of food through a series of white plastic tubes, corridors, and customs lines, ! found myself in one of the airport gift shops, whiling away the hour till my niece came to collect me; and there, once again, I saw the missionary.

He did not see me. He was standing before one of the racks of paperbacks - the so-called

'Classics' section, haunt of the public domain - and with a preoccupied air he was glancing up and down the rows, barely pausing long enough to read the titles. Like me, he was obviously just killing time.

For some reason - call it embarrassment, a certain reluctance to spoil what had been a successful goodbye - I refrained from hailing him. Instead, stepping back into the rear aisle, I took refuge behind a rack of gothics, which ! pretended to study while in fact studying him.

Moments later he looked up from the books and ambled over to a bin of cellophane-wrapped records, idly pressing the beard back into place below his right sideburn. Without warning he turned and surveyed the store; I ducked my head towards the gothics and enjoyed a vision normally reserved for the multifaceted eyes of an insect: women, dozens of them, fleeing an equal number of tiny mansions.

At last, with a shrug of his huge shoulders, he began flipping through the albums in the bin, snapping each one forward in an impatient staccato. Soon, the assortment scanned, he moved to the bin on the left and started on that.

Suddenly he gave a little cry, and I saw him shrink back. He stood immobile for a moment, staring down at something in the bin; then he whirled and walked quickly from the store, pushing past a family about to enter.

'Late for his plane,' I said to the astonished salesgirl, and strolled over to the albums. One of them lay faceup in the pile - a jazz record featuring John Coltrane on saxophone. Confused, I turned to look for my erstwhile companion, but he had vanished in the crowd hurrying past the doorway.

Something about the album had apparently set him off; I studied it more carefully. Coltrane stood silhouetted against a tropical sunset, his features obscured, head tilted back, saxophone blaring silently beneath the crimson sky. The pose was dramatic but trite, and I could see in it no special significance: it looked like any other black man with a horn.

New York eclipses all other cities in the spontaneous cordiality and generosity of its inhabitants - at least, such inhabitants as I have encountered. – H.P LOVECRAFT, 9/29/1922

How quickly you changed your mind! You arrived to find a gold Dunsanian city of arches and domes and fantastic spires... or so you told us. Yet when you fled two years later you could see only

'alien hordes.'

What was it that so spoiled the dream? Was it that impossible marriage? Those foreign faces on the subway? Or was it merely the theft of your new summer suit? I believed then, Howard, and I believe it still, that the nightmare was all your own; though you returned to New England like a man re-emerging into sunlight, there was, I assure you, a very good life to be found amid the shade. I remained - and survived.

I almost wish I were back there now, instead of in this ugly little bungalow, with its air conditioner and its rotting wicker furniture and the humid night dripping down its windows.

I almost wish I were back on the steps of the natural history museum where, that momentous August afternoon, I stood perspiring in the shadow of Teddy Roosevelt's horse, watching matrons stroll past Central Park with dogs or children in tow and fanning myself ineffectually with the postcard I'd just received from Maude. I was waiting for my niece to drive by and leave off her son, whom I planned to take round the museum; he'd wanted to see the life-size mockup of the blue whale and, just upstairs, the dinosaurs...

I remember that Ellen and her boy were more than twenty minutes late. I remember too, Howard, that I was thinking of you that afternoon, and with some amusement: much as you disliked New York in the twenties, you'd have reeled in horror at what it's become today. Even from the steps of the museum I could see a curb piled high with refuse and a park whose length you might have walked without once hearing English spoken; dark skins crowded out the white, and mambo music echoed from across the street.

I remember all these things because, as it turned out, this was a special day: the day I saw, for the second time, the black man and his baleful horn.

My niece arrived late, as usual; she had for me the usual apology and the usual argument. 'How can you still live over here?' she asked, depositing Terry on the sidewalk. 'I mean, just look at those people.' She nodded towards a park bench around which blacks and Latins congregated like figures in a group portrait.

'Brooklyn is so much better?' I countered, as tradition dictated. 'Of course,' she said. 'In the Heights, anyway, I don't understand it - why this pathological hatred of moving? You might at least try the East Side. You can certainly afford it.' Terry watched us impassively, lounging against the fender. ! think he sided with me over his mother, but he was too wise to show it.

'Ellen,' I said, 'let's face it. I'm just too old to start hanging around single bars. Over on the East Side they read nothing but best-sellers, and they hate anyone past sixty. I'm better off where I grew up - at least I know where the cheap restaurants are.' It was, in fact, a thorny problem: forced to choose between whites whom I despised and blacks whom I feared, I somehow preferred the fear.

To mollify Ellen I read aloud her mother's postcard. It was the prestamped kind that bore no picture. 'I'm still getting used to the cane,' Maude had written, her penmanship as flawless as when she'd won the school medallion. 'Livia has gone back to Vermont for the summer, so the card games are suspended & I'm hard into Pearl Buck. Your friend Rev. Mortimer dropped by & we had a nice chat. What amusing stories! Thanks again for the subscription to McCall's; I'll send Ellen my old copies. Look forward to seeing you all after the hurricane season.'

Terry was eager to confront the dinosaurs; he was, in fact, getting a little old for me to superintend, and was halfway up the steps before I'd arranged with Ellen where to meet us afterward. With school out the museum was almost as crowded as on weekends, the halls' echo turning shouts and laughter into animal cries. We oriented ourselves on the floor plan in the main lobby - •ov ARE HERE read a large green dot, below which someone had scrawled 'Too bad for you' and trooped towards the Hall of Reptiles, Terry impatiently leading the way. 'I saw that in school.' He pointed towards a redwood diorama. ~hat too' - the Grand Canyon. He was, I believe, about to enter seventh grade, and until now had been little given to talk; he looked younger than the other children.

We passed toucans and marmosets and the new Urban Ecology wing ('concrete and cockroaches,'

sneered Terry), and duly stood before the brontosaurus, something of a disappointment: 'I forgot it was just the skeleton,' he said. Behind us a group of black boys giggled and moved towards us; I hurried' my nephew past the assembled bones and through the most crowded doorway, dedicated, ironically, to Man in Africa. ørhis is the boring part,' said Terry, unmoved by masks and spears. The pace was beginning to tire me. We passed through another doorway - Man in Asia - and moved quickly past the Chinese statuary. 'I saw that in school.' He nodded at a stumpy figure in a glass case, wrapped in ceremonial robos. Something about it was familiar to me, too; I paused to stare at it. The outer robe, slightly tattered, was spun of some shiny green material and displayed tall, twisted-looking trees on one side, a kind of stylized river on the other. Across the front ran five yellow-brown shapes in loincloth and headdress, presumably fleeing towards the robo's frayed edges; behind them stood a larger one, all black. In its mouth was a pendulous horn. The figure was crudely woven - little more than a stick figure, in fact - but it bore an unsettling resemblance, in both pose and proportion, to the one on the album cover.

Terry returned to my side, curious to see what I'd found. ~ribal garment,' he read, peering at the white plastic notice below the case. 'Malay Peninsula, Federation of Malaysia, early nineteenth century.' He fell silent.

'Is that all it says?'

'Yep. They don't even have which tribe it's from.' He reflected a moment. 'Not that I really care.'

'Well, I do,' I said. 'I wonder who'd know.' Obviously I'd have to seek advice at the information counter in the main lobby downstairs. Terry ran on ahead, while I followed even more slowly than before; the thought of a mystery evidently appealed to him, even one so tenuous and unexciting as this.

A bored-looking young college girl listened to the beginning of my query and handed me a pamphlet from below the counter. 'You can't see anyone till September,' she said, already beginning to turn away. ~hey're all on vacation.'

I squinted at the tiny print on the first page: 'Asia, our largest continent, has justly been called the cradle of civilization, but it may also be a birthplace of man himself.' Obviously the pamphlet had been written before the current campaigns against sexism. I checked the date on the back: 'Winter 1958.' This would be of no help. Yet on page four my eye fell on the reference I sought: The model next to it wears a green silk ceremonial robe from Negri Sembilan, most rugged of the Malayan provinces. Note central motif of native man blowing ceremonial horn, and the graceful curve of his instrument; the figure is believed to be a representation of 'Death's Herald,' possibly warning villagers of approaching calamityú Gift of an anonymous donor, the robe is probably Tcho-tcho in origin, and dates from the early 19th century.

'What's the matter, uncle? Are you sick?' Terry gripped my shoulder and stared up at me, looking worried; my behaviour had obviously confirmed his worst fears about old people. 'What's it say in there?'

I gave him the pamphlet and staggered to a bench near the wall. I wanted time to think. The Tcho-Tcho People, I knew, had figured in a number of tales by Lovecraft and his disciples - Howard himself had called them 'the wholly abominable Tcho-Tchos' - but I couldn't remember much about them except that they were said to worship one of his imaginary deities. For some reason I associated them with Burma...

But whatever their attributes, I'd been certain of one thing: the Tcho-Tchos were completely fictitious.

Obviously I'd been wrong. Barring the unlikely possibility that the pamphlet itself was a hoax, I was forced to conclude that the malign beings of the stories were in fact based upon an actual race inhabiting the Southeast Asian subcontinent - a race whose name the missionary had mistranslated as 'the Chauchas.'

It was a rather troublesome discovery. I had hoped to turn some of Mortimer's recollections, authentic or not, into fiction; he'd unwittingly given me the material for three or four good plots.

Yet I'd now discovered that my friend Howard had beaten me to it, and that I was put in the uncomfortable position of living out another man's horror stories.

Epistolary expression is with me largely replacing conversation. – H.P LOVECRAFT, 12/23/1917

I hadn't expected my second encounter with the black horn-player. A month later I got an even bigger surprise: I saw the missionary again.

Or at any rate, his picture. It was in a clipping my sister had sent me from the Miami Herald, over which she had written in ballpoint pen, 'Just saw this in the paper- how awfull'

I didn't recognize the face; the photo was obviously an old one, the reproduction poor, and the man was clean-shaven. But the words below it told me it was him.

CLERGYMAN MISSING IN STORM

(Wed.) The Rev. Ambrose B. Mortimer, 56, a lay pastor of the Church of Christ, Knoxville, Tenn., has been reported missing in the wake of Monday's hurricane. Spokesmen for the order say Mortimer had recently retired after serving nineteen years as a missionary, most recently in Malaysia. After moving to Miami in July, he had been a resident of 311 Pompano Canal Road.

Here the piece ended, with an abruptness that seemed all too appropriate to its subject. Whether Ambrose Mortimer still lived I didn't know, but I felt certain now that, having fled one peninsula, he had strayed on to another just as dangerous, a finger thrust into the void. And the void had swallowed him up.

So, anyway, ran my thoughts. I have often been prey to depressions of a similar nature, and subscribe to a fatalistic philosophy I'd shared with my friend Howard: a philosophy one of his less sympathetic biographers has dubbed 'futilitarianism.'

Yet pessimistic as I was, I was not about to let the matter rest. Mortimer may well have been lost in the storm; he may even have set off somewhere on his own. But if, in fact, some lunatic religious sect had done away with him for having pried too closely into its affairs, there were things I could do about it. I wrote to the Miami police that very day.

'Gentlemen,' I began. 'Having learned of the recent disappearance of the Reverend Ambrose Mortimer, I think I can provide information which may prove of use to investigators.'

There is no need to quote the rest of the letter here. Suffice it to say that I recounted my conversation with the missing man, emphasizing the fears he'd expressed for his life: pursuit and

'ritual murder' at the hands of a Malayan tribe called the Tcho-Tcho. The letter was, in short, a rather elaborate way of crying 'foul play.' I sent it care of my sister, asking that she forward it to the correct address.

The police department's reply came with unexpected speed. As with all such correspondence, it was more curt then courteous. 'Dear Sir,' wrote a Detective Sergeant A. Linahan; 'In the matter of Rev. Mortimer we had already been apprised of the threats on his life. To date a preliminary search of the Pompano Canal has produced no findings, but dredging operations are expected to continue as part of our routine investigation. Thanking you for your concern -'

Below his signature, however, the sergeant had added a short postscript in his own hand. Its tone was somewhat more personal; perhaps typewriters intimidated him. 'You may be interested to know,' it said, 'that we've recently learned a man carrying a Malaysian passport occupied rooms at a North Miami hotel for most of the summer, but checked out two weeks before your friend disappeared. I'm not at liberty to say more, but please be assured we are tracking down several leads at the moment. Our investigators are working full-time on the matter, and we hope to bring it to a speedy conclusion.'

Linahan's letter arrived on September twenty-first. Before the week was out I had one from my sister, along with another clipping from the Herald; and since, like some old Victorian novel, this chapter seems to have taken an epistolary form, I will end it with extracts from these two items.

The newspaper story was headed WANTED FOR QUEST~ON~NG. Like the Mortimer piece, it was little more than a photo with an extended caption:

(Thurs.) A Malaysian citizen is being sought for questioning in connection with the disappearance of an American clergyman, Miami police say. Records indicate that the Malaysian, Mr D. A. Djaktu-tchow, had occupied furnished rooms at the Barkleigh Hotella, 2401 Culebra Ave., possibly with an unnamed companion. He is believed still in the greater Miami area, but since August 22 his movements cannot be traced. State Dept. officials report Djaktu-tchow's visa expired August 31; charges are pending.

The clergyman, Rev. Ambrose B. Mortimer, has been missing since September 6.

The photo above the article was evidently a recent one, no doubt reproduced from the visa in question. I recognized the smiling moon-wide face, although it took me a moment to place him as the man whose dinner I'd stumbled over on the plane. Without the moustache, he looked less like Charlie Chan.

The accompanying letter filled in a few details. 'I called up the Herald,' my sister wrote, 'but they couldn't tell me any more than was in the article. Just the same, finding that out took me half an hour, since the stupid woman at the switchboard kept putting me through to the wrong person. I guess you're right anything that prints colour pictures on page one shouldn't call itself a newspaper.

'This afternoon I called up the police department, but they weren't very helpful either. I suppose you just can't expect to find out much over the phone, though I still rely on it. Finally I got an Officer Linahan, who told me he's just replied to that letter of yours. Have you heard from him yet?

The man was very evasive. He was trying to be nice, but I could tell he was impatient to get off. He did give me the full name of the man they're looking for - Djaktu Abdul Djaktutchow, isn't that marvellous? - and he told me they have some more material on him which they can't release right now. I argued and pleaded (you know how persuasive I can be!) and finally, because I claimed I'd been a close friend of Rev. Mortimer's, I wheedled something out of him which he swore he'd deny if I told anyone but you. Apparently the poor man must have been deathly ill, maybe even tubercular - I intended to get a patch test next week, just to play safe, and I recommend that you get one too - because it seems that, in the reverend's bedroom, they found something very odd: pieces of lung tissue. Human lung tissue.'

I, too, was a detective in youth. – H.P LOVECRAFT, 2/17/1931

Do amateur detectives still exist? I mean, outside the novels? I doubt it. Who, af~er all, has the time for such games today? Not I, unfortunately; though for more than a decade I'd been nominally retired, my days were quite full with the unromantic activities that occupy everyone this side of the paperbacks: letters, luncheon dates, visits to my niece and to my doctor; books (not enough) and television (too much) and perhaps a Golden Agers' matinee (though I have largely stopped going to films, finding myself increasingly out of sympathy with their heroes). I also spent Halloween week in Atlantic City, and most of another attempting to interest a rather overpolite young publisher in reprinting some of my early work.

All this, of course, is intended as a sort of apologia for my having put off further inquiries into poor Mortimer's case till mid-November. The truth is, the matter almost slipped my mind; only in novels do people not have better things to do.

It was Maude who reawakened my interest. She had been avidly scanning the papers - in vain -

for further reports on the man's disappearance; I believe she had even phoned Sergeant Linahan a second time, but had learned nothing new. Now she wrote me with a tiny fragment of information, heard at thirdhand: one of her bridge partners had had it on the authority of 'a friend in the police force' that the search for Mr Djaktu was being widened to include his presumed companion - 'a Negro child,' or so my sister reported. Although there was every possibility that this information was false, or that it concerned an entirely different case, I could tell she regarded it as very sinister indeed.

Perhaps that was why the following afternoon found me struggling once more up the steps of the natural history museum - as much to satisfy Maude as myself. Her allusion to a Negro, coming after the curious discovery in Mortimer's bedroom, had recalled to mind the figure on the Malayan robe, and I had been troubled all night by the fantasy of a black man - a man much like the beggar I'd just seen huddled against Roosevelt's statue - coughing his lungs out into a sort of twisted horn.

I had encountered few other people on the streets that afternoon, as it was unseasonably cold for a city that's often mild till January; I wore a muffler, and my grey tweed overcoat flapped round my heels. Inside, however, the place like all American buildings was overheated; I was soon the same as I made my way up the demoralizingly long staircase to the second floor.

The corridors were silent and empty, but for the morose figure of a guard seated before one of the alcoves, head down as if in mourning, and, from above me, the hiss of the steam radiators near the marble ceiling. Slowly, and rather enjoying the sense of privilege that comes from having a museum to oneself, I retraced my earlier route past the immense skeletons of dinosaurs (These great creatures once trod the earth where you now walk') and down to the Hall of Primitive Man, where two Puerto Rican youths, obviously playing hooky, stood by the African wing gazing worshipfully at a Masai warrior in full battle gear. In the section devoted to Asia I paused to get my bearings, looking in vain for the squat figure in the robe. The glass case was empty. Over its plaque was taped a printed notice: 'Temporarily removed for restoration.'

This was no doubt the first time in forty years that the display had been taken down, and of course I'd picked just this occasion to look for it. So much for luck. I headed for the nearest staircase, at the far end of the wing. From behind me the clank of metal echoed down the hall, followed by the angry voice of the guard. Perhaps that Masai spear had proved too great a temptation.

In the main lobby I was issued a written pass to enter the north wing, where the staff offices were located. 'You want the workrooms on basement level,' said the woman at the information counter; the summer's bored coed had become a friendly old lady who eyed me with some interest. 'Just ask the guard at the bottom of the stairs, past the cafeteria. I do hope you find what you're looking for.'

Carefully keeping the pink slip she'd handed me visible for anyone who might demand it, I descended. As I turned on to the stairwell I was confronted with a kind of vision: a blonde, Scandinavian-looking family were coming up the stairs towards me, the four upturned faces almost interchangeable, parents and two little girls with the pursed lips and timidly hopeful eyes of the tourist, while just behind them, apparently unheard, capered a grinning black youth, practically walking on the father's heels. In my present state of mind the scene appeared particularly disturbing -

the boy's expression was certainly one of mockery - and I wondered if the guard who stood before the cafeteria had noticed. If he had, however, he gave no sign; he glanced without curiosity at my pass and pointed towards a fire door at the end of the hall.

The offices in the lower level were surprisingly shabby - the walls here were not marble but faded green plaster - and the entire corridor had a ~uried' feeling to it, no doubt because the only outside light came from ground-level window gratings high overhead. I had been told to ask for one of the research associates, a Mr Richmond; his office was part of a suite broken up by pegboard dividers. The door was open, and he got up from his desk as soon as I entered; I suspect that, in view of my age and grey tweed overcoat, he may have taken me for someone important.

A plump young man with sandy-coloured beard, he looked like an out-of-shape surfer, but his sunniness dissolved when I mentioned my interest in the green silk robe. 'And I suppose you're the man who complained about it upstairs, am I right?'I assured him that I was not.

'Well, someone sure did,' he said, still eyeing me resentfully; on the wall behind him an Indian warmask did the same. 'Some damn tourist, maybe, in town for a day and out to make trouble.

Threatened to call the Malaysian Embassy. If you put up a fuss those people upstairs get scared it'll wind up in the Times.'

I understood his allusion; the previous year the museum had gained considerable notoriety for having conducted some really appalling- and, to my mind, quite pointless - experiments on cats.

Most of the public had, until then, been unaware that the building housed several working laboratories.

'Anyway,' he continued, 'the robe's down in the shop, and we're stuck with patching up the damn thing. It'll probably be down there for the next six months before we get to it. We're so understaffed right now it isn't funny.' He glanced at his watch. 'Come on, I'll show you. Then I've got to go upstairs.'

I followed him down a narrow corridor that branched off to either side. At one point he said, 'On your right, the infamous zoology lab.' I kept my eyes straight ahead. As we passed the next doorway I smelled a familiar odour. 'It makes me think of treacle,' I said.

'You're not so far wrong.' He spoke without looking back. The stuff's mostly molasses. Pure nutrient. They use it for growing microorganisms.'

I hurried to keep up with him. 'And for other things?' He shrugged. 'I don't know, mister. It's not my field.' We came to a door barred by a black wire grille. 'Here's one of the shops,' he said, fitting a key into the lock. The door swung open on a long unlit room smelling of wood shavings and glue.

'You sit down over here,' he said, leading me to a small anteroom and switching on the light. 'I'll be back in a second.' I stared at the object closest to me, a large ebony chest, ornately carved. Its hinges had been removed. Richmond returned with the robe draped over his arm. 'See?' he said, dangling it before me. 'It's really not in such bad condition, is it?' I realized he still thought of me as the man who'd complained.

On the field of rippling green fled the small brown shapes, still pursued by some unseen doom. In the centre stood the black man, black horn to his lips, man and horn a single line of unbroken black.

'Are the Tcho-Tchos a superstitious people?' I asked. 'They were,' he said pointedly. 'Superstitious and not very pleasant. They're extinct as dinosaurs now. Supposedly wiped out by the Japanese or something.'

'That's rather odd,' I said. 'A friend of mine claims to have met up with them earlier this year.'

Richmond was smoothing out the robe; the branches of the snake-trees snapped futilely at the brown shapes. 'I suppose it's possible,' he said, after a pause. 'But I haven't read anything about them since grad school. They're certainly not listed in the textbooks anymore. I've looked, and there's nothing on them. This robe's over a hundred years old.'

I pointed to the figure in the centre. 'What can you tell me about this fellow?'

'Death's Herald,' he said, as if it were a quiz. 'At least that's what the literature says. Supposed to warn of some approaching calamity.'

I nodded without looking up; he was merely repeating what I'd read in the pamphlet. 'But isn't it strange,' I said, 'that these others are in such a panic? See? They aren't even waiting around to listen.'

'Would you?' He snorted impatiently.

'But if the black one's just a messenger of some sort, why's he so much bigger than the others?'

Richmond began folding the cloth. 'Look, mister,' he said, '! don't pretend to be an expert on every tribe in Asia. But if a character's important, they'd sometimes make him larger. Anyway, that's what the Mayans did. But listen, I've really got to get this put away now. I've got a meeting to go to.'

While he was gone I sat thinking about what I'd just seen. The small brown shapes, crude as they were, had expressed a terror no mere messenger could inspire. And that great black figure standing triumphant in the centre, horn twisting from its mouth - that was no messenger either, I was sure of it. That was no Death's Herald. That was Death itself.

I returned to my apartment just in time to hear the telephone ringing, but by the time I'd let myself in it had stopped. I sat down in the living room with a mug of coffee and a book which had lain untouched on the shelf for the last thirty years: Jungle Ways, by that old humbug, William Seabrook. I'd met him back in the twenties and had found him likable enough, if rather untrustworthy. His book described dozens of unlikely characters, including 'a cannibal chief who had got himself jailed and famous because he had eaten his young wife, a handsome, lazy wench called Blito, along with a dozen of her girl friends,' but I discovered no mention of a black horn-player.

I had just finished my coffee when the phone rang again. It was my sister.

'I just wanted to let you know that there's another man missing,' she said breathlessly; I couldn't tell if she was frightened or merely excited. 'A busboy at the San Marino. Remember? I took you there.'

The San Marino was an inexpensive little luncheonette on Indian Creek, several blocks from my sister's house. She and her friends ate there several times a week.

'It happened last night,' she went on. 'I just heard about it at my card game. They say he went outside with a bucket of fish heads to dump in the creek, and he never came back.'

That's very interesting, but ...' I thought for a moment; it was highly unusual for her to call me like this. 'But really, Maude, couldn't he have simply run off? I mean, what makes you think there's any connection -'

'Because I took Ambrose there, too!' she cried. Three or four times. That was where we used to meet.'

Apparently Maude had been considerably better acquainted with the Reverend Mortimer than her letters would have led one to believe. But I wasn't interested in pursuing that line right now. 'This busboy,' I asked, 'was he someone you knew?'

'Of course,' she said. 'I know everyone in there. His name was Carlos. A quiet boy, very courteous. I'm sure he must have waited on us dozens of times.'

I had seldom heard my sister so upset, but for the present there seemed no way of calming her fears. Before hanging up she made me promise to move up the month's visit I'd expected to pay her over Christmas; I assured her I would try to make it down for Thanksgiving, then only a week away, if I could find a flight that wasn't filled.

'Do try,' she said - and, were this a tale from the old pulps, she would have added: 'If anyone can get to the bottom of this, you can.' In truth, however, both Maude and I were aware that I had just celebrated my seventy-seventh birthday and that, of the two of us, I was by far the more timid; so that what she actually said was, 'Looking after you will help take my mind off things.'

I couldn't live a week without a private library. – H.P LOVECRAFT, 2/25/1929

That's what ! thought, too, until recently. After a lifetime of collecting I'd acquired thousands upon thousands of volumes, never parting with a one; it was this cumbersome private library, in fact, that helped keep me anchored to the same West Side apartment for nearly half a century.

Yet here I sit, with no company save a few gardening manuals and a shelf of antiquated best-sellers - nothing to dream on, nothing I'd want to hold in my hand. Still, I've survived here a week, a month, almost a season. The truth is, Howard, you'd be surprised what you can live without. As for the books I've left in Manhattan, I just hope someone takes care of them when I'm gone.

But I was by no means so resigned that November when, having successfully reserved seats on an earlier flight, I found myself with less than a week in New York. I spent all my remaining time in the library the public one on Forty-second Street, with the lions in front and with no book of mine on its shelves. Its two reading rooms were the haunt of men my age and older, retired men with days to fill, poor men just warming their bones; some leafed through newspapers, other dozed in their seats. None of them, I'm sure, shared my sense of urgency: there were things I hoped to find out before I left, things for which Miami would be useless.

I was no stranger to this building. Long ago, during one of Howard's visits, I had undertaken some genealogical researches here in the hope of finding ancestors more impressive than his, and as a young man I had occasionally attempted to support myself, like the denizens of Gissing's New Grub Street, by writing articles compiled from the work of others. But by now I was out of practice: how, after all, does one find references Go an obscure Southeast Asian tribal myth without reading everything published on that part of the world?

Initially that's exactly what I tried; I looked through every book I could find with 'Malaya' in its title. I read about rainbow gods and phallic altars and something called 'the tatai,' a sort of unwanted companion; I came across wedding rites and The Death of Thorns and a certain cave inhabited by millions of snails. But I found no mention of the Tcho-Tcho, and nothing on their gods.

This in itself was surprising. We are living in a day when there are no more secrets, when my twelve-yearold nephew can buy his own grimoire and books with titles like The Encyclopaedia of Ancient and Forbidden Knowledge are remaindered at every discount store. Though my friends from the twenties would have hated to admit it, the notion of stumbling across some mouldering old q)lack book' in the attic of a deserted house - some lexicon of spells and chants and hidden lore - is merely a quaint fantasy. If the Necronomicon actually existed, it would be out in Bantam paperback with a preface by Lin Carter.

It's appropriate, then, that when I finally came upon a reference to what I sought, it was in that most unromantic of forms, a mimeographed film-script.

øPranscript' would perhaps be closer to the truth, for it was based upon a film shot in 1937 and that was now presumably crumbling in some forgotten vault. I discovered the item inside one of those brown cardbeard packets, held together with ribbons, which libraries use to protect books whose bindings have worn away. The book itself, Malay Memories, by a Reverend Morton, had proved a disappointment despite the author's rather suggestive name. The transcript lay beneath it, apparently slipped there by mistake, but though it appeared unpromising - only ninety-six pages long, badly typed, and held together by a single rusty staple - it more than repaid the reading. There was no title page, nor do I think there'd ever been one; the first page simply identified the film as

'Documentary - Malaya Today,' and noted that it had been financed, in part, by a US government grant. The filmmaker or makers were not listed.

I soon saw why the government may have been willing to lend the venture some support, for there were a great many scenes in which the proprietors of rubber plantations expressed the sort of opinions Americans might want to hear. To an unidentified interviewer's query, 'What other signs of prosperity do you see around you?' a planter named Mr Pierce had obligingly replied, 'Why, look at the living standard better schools for the natives and a new lorry for me. It's from Detroit, you know. May even have my own rubber in it.'

INT: PIERCE:

And how about the Japanese? Are they one of today's better markets?

Oh, see, they buy our crop all right, but we don't really trust 'em, understand? (Smiles) We don't like

'em half so much as the Yanks.

The final section of the transcript was considerably more interesting, however; it recorded a number of brief scenes that must never have appeared in the finished film. I quote one of them in its entirety:

PLAYROOM, CHURCH SCHOOL - LATE AFTERNOON

(DELETED)

INT: This Malay youth has sketched a picture of a demon he calls Shoo Goron. (To Boy) I wonder if you can tell me something about the instrument he's blowing out of. It looks like the Jewish BOY:

INT:

BOY:

shofar, or ram's horn. (Again to Boy) That's all right. No need to be frightened.

He no blow out. Blow in.

I see - he draws air in through the horn, is that right?

No horn. Is no horn. (Weeps) Is him.

Miami did not produce much of an impression... – H.P LOVECRAFT, 7/19/1931

Waiting in the airport lounge with Ellen and her boy, my bags already checked and my seat number assigned, I fell prey to the sort of anxiety that had made me miserable in youth: it was a sense that time was running out; and what caused it now, I think, was the hour that remained before my flight was due to leave. It was too long a time to sit making small talk with Terry, whose mind was patently on other things; yet it was too short to accomplish the task which I'd suddenly realized had been left undone.

But perhaps my nephew would serve. Terry,' I said, 'how'd you like to do me a favour?' He looked up eagerly; I suppose children his age love to be of use. 'Remember the building we passed on the way here?

The International Arrivals building?''Sure,' he said. 'Right next door.'

'Yes, but it's a lot farther away than it looks. Do you think you'd be able to get there and back in the next hour and find something out for me?'

'Sure.' He was already out of his seat.

'It just occurs to me that there's an Air Malay reservations desk in that building, and I wonder if you could ask someone there -'

My niece interrupted me. 'Oh, no he won't,' she said firmly. 'First of all, I won't have him running across that highway on some silly errand - ' she ignored her son's protests, ' - and secondly, I don't want him involved in this game you've got going with Mother.'

The upshot of it was that Ellen went herself, leaving Terry and me to our small talk. She took with her a slip of paper upon which I'd written 'Shoo Goron,' a name she regarded with sour scepticism. I wasn't sure she would return before my departure (Terry, I could see, was growing increasingly uneasy), but she was back before the second boarding call.

'She says you spelled it wrong,' Ellen announced. 'Who's she?'

'Just one of the flight attendants,' said Ellen. 'A young girl, in her early twenties. None of the others were Malayan. At first she didn't recognize the name, until she read it out loud a few times.

Apparently it's some kind of fish, am I right? Like a suckerfish, only bigger. Anyway, that's what she said. Her mother used to scare her with it when she was bad.'

Obviously Ellen - or, more likely, the other woman had misunderstood. 'Sort of a bogeyman figure?' I asked. 'Well, I suppose that's possible. But a fish, you say?'

Ellen nodded. 'I don't think she knew that much about it, though. She acted a little embarrassed, in fact. Like I'd asked her something dirty.' From across the room a loudspeaker issued the final call for passengers. Ellen helped me to my feet, still talking. 'She said she was just a Malay, from somewhere on the coast - Malacca? I forget - and that it's a shame i didn't drop by three or four months ago, because her summer replacement was part Chocha - Chocha? something like that.'

The line was growing shorter now. I wished the two of them a safe Thanksgiving and shuffled towards the plane.

Below me the clouds had formed a landscape of rolling hills. I could see every ridge, every washed-out shrub, and in the darker places, the eyes of animals.

Some of the valleys were split by jagged black lines that looked like rivers seen on a map. The water, at least, was real enough: here the cloudbank had cracked and parted, revealing the dark sea beneath.

Throughout the ride I'd been conscious of lost opportunity, a sense that my destination offered a kind of final chance. With Howard gone these forty years I still lived out my life in his shadow; certainly his tales had overshadowed my own. Now I found myself trapped within one of them.

Here, miles above the earth, I felt great gods warring; below, the war was already lost.

The very passengers around me seemed participants in a masque: the oily little steward who smelled of something odd; the child who stared and wouldn't look away; the man asleep beside me, mouth slack, who'd chuckled and handed me a page ripped from his 'inflight' magazine: NOVEMBER PUZZLE PAGE, with an eye staring in astonishment from a swarm of dots. 'Connect the dots and see what you'll be least thankful for this Thanksgiving!' Below it, half buried amid

'B'nai B'rith to Host Song Fest' and advertisements for beach clubs, a bit of local colour found me in a susceptible mood:

Have Fins, Will Travel

(Courtesy Miami Herald) If your hubby comes home and swears he's just seen a school of fish walk across the yard, don't sniff his breath for booze. He may be telling the truth! According to U.

of Miami zoologists, catfish will be migrating in record numbers this fall and South Florida residents can expect to see hundreds of the whiskered critters crawling overland, miles from water.

Though usually no bigger than your pussycat, most breeds can survive without...

Here the piece came to a ragged end where my companion had torn it from the magazine. He stirred in his sleep, lips moving; I turned and put my head against the window, where the limb of Florida was swinging into view, veined with dozens of canals. The plane shuddered and slid towards it.

Maude was already at the gate, a black porter beside her with an empty cart. While we waited by a hatchway in the basement for my luggage to be disgorged, she told me the sequel to the San Marino incident: the boy's body found washed up on a distant beach, lungs in mouth and throat. 'Inside out,'

she said. 'Can you imagine? It's been on the radio all morning. With tapes of some ghastly doctor talking about smoker's cough and the way people drown. I couldn't even listen after a while.' The porter heaved my bags on to the cart and we followed him to the taxi stand, Maude using her cane to gesticulate. If I hadn't seen how aged she'd become I'd have thought the excitement was agreeing with her.

We had the driver make a detour westward along Pompano Canal Road, where we paused at number 311, one of nine shabby green cabins that formed a court round a small and very dirty wading pool; in a cement pot beside the pool dropped a solitary half-dead palm, as if in some travesty of an oasis. This, then, had been Ambrose Mortimer's final home. My sister was very silent, and I believed her when she said she'd never been here before. Across the street glistened the oily waters of the canal.

The taxi turned east. We passed interminable rows of hotels, motels, condominiums, shopping centres as big as Central Park, souvenir shops with billboards bigger than themselves, baskets of seashells and wriggly plastic auto toys out front. Men and women our age and younger sat on canvas beach chairs in their yards, blinking at the traffic. The sexes had merged; some of the older women were nearly as bald as I was, and men wore clothes the colour of coral, lime, and peach.

They walked very slowly as they crossed the street or moved along the sidewalk; cars moved almost as slowly, and it was forty minutes before we reached Maude's house, with its pastel orange shutters and the retired druggist and his wife living upstairs. Here, too, a kind of languor was upon the block, one into which I knew, with just a memory of regret, I would soon be settling. Life was slowing to a halt, and once the taxi had roared away the only things that stirred were the geraniums in Maude's window box, trembling slightly in a breeze I couldn't even feel.

A dry spell. Mornings in my sister's air-conditioned parlour, luncheons with her friends in air-conditioned coffee shops. Inadvertent afternoon naps, from which I'd waken with headaches.

Evening walks, to watch the sunsets, the fireflies, the TV screens flashing behind neighbours'

blinds. By night, a few faint cloudy stars; by day, tiny lizards skittering over the hot pavement, or boldly sunning themselves on the flagstones. The smell of oil paints in my sister's closet, and the insistent buzz of mosquitoes in her garden. Her sundial, a gift from Ellen, with Terry's message painted on the rim. Lunch at the San Marino and a brief, halfhearted look at the dock in back, now something of a tourist attraction. An afternoon at a branch library in Hialeah, searching through its shelves of travel books, an old man dozing at the table across from me, a child laboriously copying her school report from the encyclopedia. Thanksgiving dinner, with its half-hour's phone call to Ellen and the boy and the prospect of turkey for the rest of the week. More friends to visit, and another day at the library.

Later, driven by boredom and the ghost of an impulse, I phoned the Barkleigh Hotella in North Miami and booked a room there for two nights. I don't remember the days I settled for, because that sort of thing no longer had much meaning, but I know it was for midweek; ~ve're deep in the season,' the proprietress informed me, and the hotel would be filled each weekend till long past New Year's.

My sister refused to accompany me out to Culebra Avenue; she saw no attraction in visiting the place once occupied by a fugitive MalaysJan, nor did she share my pulp-novel fantasy that, by actually living there myself, I might uncover some clue unknown to police. ('Thanks to the celebrated author of Beyond the Garve...') I went alone, by cab, taking with me half a dozen volumes from the branch library. Beyond the reading, I had no other plans.

The Barkleigh was a pink adobe building two stories tall, surmounted by an ancient neon sign on which the dust lay thick in the early afternoon sunlight. Similar establishments lined the block on both sides, each more depressing than the last. There was no elevator here and, as ! learned to my disappointment, no rooms available on the first floor, the staircase looked like it was going to be an effort.

In the office downstairs I inquired, as casually as I could, which room the notorious Mr Djaktu had occupied; I'd hoped, in fact, to be assigned it, or one nearby. But I was doomed to disappointment. The preoccupied little Cuban behind the counter had been hired only six weeks before and claimed to know nothing of the matter; in halting English he explained that the proprietress, a Mrs Zimmerman, had just left for New Jersey to visit relatives and would not be back till Christmas. Obviously I could forget about gossip.

By this point ! was half tempted to cancel my visit, and I confess that what kept me there was not so much a sense of honour as the desire for two days' separation from Maude, who, having been on her own for nearly a decade, was rather difficult to live with.

I followed the Cuban upstairs, watching my suitcase bump rhythmically against his legs, and was led down the hall to a room facing the rear. The place smelled vaguely of salt air and hair oil; the sagging bed had served many a desperate holiday. A small cement terrace overlooked the yard and a vacant lot behind it, the latter so overgrown with weeds and the grass in the yard so long unmown that it was difficult to tell where one began and the other ended. A clump of palms rose somewhere in the middle of this no-man'sland, impossibly tall and thin, with only a few stiflened leaves to grace the tops. On the ground below them lay several rotting coconuts.

This was my view the first night when I returned after dining at a nearby restaurant. I felt unusually tired and soon went inside to sleep. The night being cool, there was no need for the air conditioner; as I lay in the huge bed I could hear people stirring in the adjoining room, the hiss of a bus moving down the avenue, and the rustle of palm leaves in the wind.

I spent part of the next morning composing a letter to Mrs Zimmerman, to be held for her return.

After the long walk to a coffee shop for lunch, I napped. After dinner I did the same. With the TV

turned on for company, a garrulous blur at the other side of the room, I went through the pile of books on my night table, final cullings from the bottom of the travel shelf; most of them hadn't been taken out since the thirties. I found nothing of interest in any of them, at least upon first inspection, but before turning out the light I noticed that one, the reminiscences of a Colonel E. G. Paterson, was provided with an index. Though I looked in vain for the demon Shoo Goro~n, I found reference to it under a variant spelling.

The author, no doubt long deceased, had spent most of his life in the Orient. His interest in Southeast Asia was slight, and the passage in question consequently brief:

... Despite the richness and variety of their folklore, however, they have nothing akin to the Malay shugoran, a kind of bogey-man used to frighten naughty children. The traveller hears many conflicting descriptions of it, some bordering on the obscene. (Oran, of course, is Malay for "man,"

while shug, which here connotes "sniffing" or "questing," means literally, "elephant's trunk.") I well recall the hide which hung over the bar at the Traders' Club in Singapore, and which, according to tradition, represented the infant of this fabulous creature; its wings were black, like the skin of a Hottentot. Shortly after the War a regimental surgeon was passing through on his way back to Gibraltar and, after due examination, pronounced it the dried-out skin of a rather large catfish. He was never asked back.

I kept my light on until I was ready to fall asleep, listening to the wind rattle the palm leaves and whine up and down the row of terraces. As I switched off the light I half expected to see a shadowy shape at the window, but I saw, as the poet says, nothing but the night.

The next morning ! packed my bag and left, aware that my stay in the hotel had proved fruitless. I returned to my sister's house to find her in agitated conversation with the druggist from upstairs; she was in a terrible state and said she'd been trying to reach me all morning. She had awakened to find the flower box by her bedroom window overturned and the shrubbery beneath it trampled. Down the side of the house ran two immense slash marks several yards apart, starting at the roof and continuing straight to the ground.

My gawd, how the years fly. Stolidly middle-aged - when only yesterday I was young and eager and awed by the mystery of an unfolding world. – H.P LOVECRAFT, 8/20/1926

There is little more to report. Here the tale degenerates into an unsifted collection of items which may or may not be related: pieces of a puzzle for those who fancy themselves puzzle fans, a random swarm of dots, and in the centre, a wide unwinking eye.

Of course, my sister left the house on Indian Creek that very day and took rooms for herself in a downtown Miami hotel. Subsequently she moved inland to live with a friend in a green stucco bungalow several miles from the Everglades, third in a row of nine just off the main highway. I am seated in its den as I write this. After the friend died my sister lived on here alone, making the forty-mile bus trip to Miami only on special occasions: theatre with a group of friends, one or two shopping trips a year. She had everything else she needed right here in town.

I returned to New York, caught a chill, and finished out the winter in a hospital bed, visited rather less often than I might have wished by my niece and her boy. Of course, the drive in from Brooklyn is nothing to scoff at.

One recovers far more slowly when one has reached my age; it's a painful truth we all learn if we live long enough. Howard's life was short, but in the end I think he understood. At thirty-five he could deride as madness a friend's 'hankering after youth,' yet ten years later he'd learned to mourn the loss of his own. 'The years tell on one!' he'd written. 'You young fellows don't know how lucky you are!'

Age is indeed the great mystery. How else could Terry have emblazoned his grandmother's sundial with that saccharine nonsense?

Grow old along with me; The best is yet to be.

True, the motto is traditional to sundials - but that young fool hadn't even kept to the rhyme. With diabolical imprecision he had written, 'The best is yet to come' - a line to make me gnash my teeth, if I had any left to gnash.

! spent most of the spring indoors cooking myself wretched little meals and working ineffectually on a literary project that had occupied my thoughts. It was discouraging to find that I wrote so slowly now, and changed so much. My sister only reinforced the mood when, sending me a rather salacious story she'd found in the Enquirer - about the 'thing like a vacuum cleaner' 'that snaked through a Swedish sailor's porthole and 'made his face all purple' - she wrote at the top, 'See? Right out of Lovecraft.'

It was not long after this that I received, to my surprise, a letter from Mrs Zimmerman, bearing profuse apologies for having misplaced my enquiry until it turned up again during 'spring cleaning.'

(It is hard to imagine any sort of cleaning at the Barkleigh Hotella, spring or otherwise, but even this late reply was welcome.) 'I am sorry that the minister who disappeared was a friend of yours,'

she wrote. 'I'm sure he must have been a fine gentleman.

'You asked me for "the particulars," but from your note you seem to know the whole story. There is really nothing I can tell you that I did not tell the police, though I do not think they ever released all of it to the papers. Our records show that our guest Mr Djaktu arrived here nearly a year ago, at the end of June, and ]eft the last week of August owing me a week's rent plus various damages which I no longer have much hope of recovering, though I have written the Malaysian Embassy about it.

'In other respects he was a proper boarder, paid regularly, and in fact hardly ever left his room except to walk in the back yard from time to time, or stop at the grocer's. (We have found it impossible to discourage eating in rooms.) My only complaint is that in the middle of the summer he may have had a small coloured child living with him without our knowledge, until one of the maids heard him singing to it as she passed his room. She did not recognize the language, but said she thought it might be Hebrew. (The poor woman, now sadly taken from us, was barely able to read.) When she next made up the room, she told me that Dr Djaktu claimed the child was '~is," and that she left because she caught a glimpse of it watching her from the bathroom. She said it was naked. I did not speak of this at the time, as I do not feel it is my place to pass judgement on the morals of my guests. Anyway, we never saw the child again, and we made sure the room was completely sanitary for our next guests. Believe me, we have received nothing but good comments on our facilities. We think they are excellent and hope you agree, and I also hope you will be our guest again the next time you come to Florida.'

Unfortunately, the next time I came to Florida was for my sister's funeral late that winter. I know now, as I did not know then, that she had been in ill health for most of the previous year, but I cannot help thinking that the so-called 'incidents' - the senseless acts of vandalism directed against lone women in the South Florida area, culminating in several reported attacks by an unidentified prowler - may have hastened her death.

When I arrived here with Ellen to take care of my sister's affairs and arrange for the funeral, I intended to remain a week or two at most, seeing to the transfer of the property. Yet somehow I lingered, long after Ellen had gone. Perhaps it was the thought of that New York winter, grown harsher with each passing year; I just couldn't find the strength to go back. Nor, in the end, could I bring myself to sell this house; if I am trapped here, it's a trap I'm resigned to. Besides, moving has never much agreed with me; when I grow tired of this little room - and I do - I can think of nowhere else to go. I've seen all the world I want to see. This simple place is now my home - and I feel certain it will be my last. The calender on the wall tells me it's been almost three months since I moved in. I know that somewhere in its remaining pages you will find the date of my death.

The past week has seen a new outbreak of the 'incidents.' Last night's was the most dramatic by far. I can recite it almost word for word from the morning news. Shortly before midnight Mrs Florence Cavanaugh, a housewife living at 24 Alyssum Terrace, South Princeten, was about to close the curtains in her front room when she saw, peering through the window at her, what she described as 'a large Negro man wearing a gas mask or scuba outfit.' Mrs Cavanaugh, who was dressed only in her nightgown, fell back from the window and screamed for her husband, asleep in the next room, but by the time he arrived the Negro had made good his escape.

Local police favour the 'scuba' theory, since near the window they've discovered footprints that may have been made by a heavy man in swim fins. But they haven't been able to explain why anyone would wear underwater gear so many miles from water.

The report usually concludes with the news that 'Mr and Mrs Cavanaugh could not be reached for comment.'

The reason I have taken such an interest in the case - sufficient, anyway, to memorize the above details is that I know the Cavanaughs rather well. They are my next-door neighbours.

Call it an ageing writer's ego, if you like, but somehow I can't help thinking that last evening's visit was meant for me. These little green bungalows all look alike in the dark.

Well, there's still a little night left outside - time enough to rectify the error. I'm not going anywhere.

I think, in fact, it will be a rather appropriate end for a man of my pursuits - to be absorbed into the denouement of another man's tale.

Grow old along with me; The best is yet to come.

Tell me, Howard: how long before it's my turn to see the black face pressed to my window?

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forestwater87 · 7 years

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Chapter 3: Headbutts & Catnaps

Camper-counselor bonding happens in some pretty unique ways.

CW: use of the r-word in the beginning of the second section

"Sorry, nerd! Actually, I'm not sorry, and my sarcastic apology is meant to further annoy you. It's a quick and effective way to get attention."

Gwen sighed. "Nurf, get over here. And run."

She'd discovered after a few weeks that their resident bully tended to keep to himself when he had something to do. It was a combination of lack of attention, boredom, and pent-up aggression that seemed to cause the most trouble, and while David wasn't a huge fan of the solution she'd come up with —

The boy broke into a trot, lowering his head as he thundered past the other campers. Gwen crouched down and braced herself, closing her eyes.

"Grahh!" He collided into her with enough force to send her back a few feet, their heels kicking up a massive cloud of dust. She tossed her head, shaking him off, and they backed up without taking their eyes off each other.

— he had to admit it worked.

When she'd first tried this, it had taken nearly half an hour of head-butting to work out all of Nurf's energy to a point where he could pay attention and not bother the other campers; they'd worn deep grooves in the dirt with their heels, and David had been about to call her off when the kid had shrugged and returned to his station, keeping to himself for the rest of the day. Now it only took a few runs before he was calmer, and once he slowed down, his tail no longer flicking with agitation, she straightened and held up her hands in truce.

"Better?" she asked. He grunted and she shoved him toward where David was setting up for Scuba Camp. "Good. Back to it." Rubbing the base of her horns (it didn't hurt, but it gave her a strange jittery feeling) with one hand, she followed at a slower pace and joined David on the dock.

"He seems calmer," David hummed, glancing over at where Nurf was letting Preston lecture him about how to properly wear scuba gear without a single insult or threat. "Do you feel all right?"

"Yeah, yeah. It's what we do." She rapped her knuckles on her forehead. "Thick skulls, remember? We're not all delicate fluffy kitties like you. Speaking of —" She groaned, bending down and picking up another set of scuba gear, "I really can't talk you into doing this instead of me, huh?"

He swallowed, glancing from her face to the gear, then out to the lake. "I-I mean, I suppose I could . . ."

"Nah, I wouldn't do that to you." Cats and water, Jesus. "Just watch the kids, okay?" Neil and Max were the only two water-phobic kids, so David had planned an activity that would keep them dry while the rest of them tried not to drown in Lake Lilac.

"Can do!"

He was about to return to shore when she put a hand on his shoulder and added, "Don't try too hard, okay? You know it'll backfire."

"I know, Gwen," he said with a sigh, his shoulders drooping. "It's just so exciting . . ."

"Yeah, I know it is." David had been hoping for years to have another cat at the camp, so when Max's name and breed had first appeared on the camper applications he'd been ecstatic. Unfortunately, Max was . . . well, Max, and after two years of back-and-forth there were no signs of either his animosity or David's hopefulness letting up anytime soon. "But if he scratches you, I'm the one who has to deal with it, so think of me before you do something stupid."

"I will!" He leaned in to peck her on the cheek before freezing, his eyes widening. He quickly pulled back, dusting imaginary dirt off her shoulder with the fakest nonchalance she'd ever seen. "Take care, everyone!"

She ushered the kids to the end of the dock. "Come on, guys. Let's get this over with."

Gwen had never really considered herself the kind of person to have strong feelings about animals, pro or con. She'd never had pets, but she freaked out over an adorable panda video just like anyone else. Fairly neutral when it came to animals, full or hybrid.

The more time she spent at this camp, though, the more she started to think she was really not a cat person.

"The fuck is he?" she muttered to herself, shaking silly string out of her wool and pounding on her touchscreen. The phone rang a couple times, then an obnoxiously sunny voice rang out, "Campe diem! You've reached David Greenwood. I can't take your call right now . . ."

She was going to kill him.

Especially since . . . oh, fuck. "Where's Max?" she demanded, counting the campers again as though he might materialize if she tried hard enough.

Despite it being their first summer, Neil and Nikki had been here long enough to realize they were basically Max's keepers. It wasn't like he'd willingly spent time with anyone else at camp. Neil ruffled his feathers anxiously, glancing around like his friend might suddenly appear out of nowhere, and Nikki beamed at Gwen with teeth way too large and sharp for her age.

"Not trying to escape, that's for sure!"

Gwen immediately didn't believe that, but Neil jumped in: "Really, though. We haven't seen him since breakfast." He scratched at the ground with his talons. "I — think he said something about trying to learn David's secret?"

Nikki jumped in, her tail wagging. "That's right! He wants to figure out what makes him so happy all the time!" Dropping to the ground and scratching behind her ear, she added thoughtfully, "He said either there's something he's repressing or he's just retarded." She turned to Neil. "Hey, what's 'retarded' mean, anyway?"

He shook his head affectionately, patting her on the top of the head with one wing. "Nothing you need to worry about, Nik."

Well, that at least sounded vaguely plausible. And it'd kill two birds with one stone (no offense to Neil) if they were together. "Think you can sniff him out?"

"On it!" Nikki immediately took off, her nose to the ground, with Neil fluttering anxiously behind her.

"All right, guys. Keep . . . uh, doing whatever you're doing." She turned to the Quartermaster, who was hardly at his best during the day but better than nothing. "Can you make sure they don't kill anyone, QM?" The old man grunted, not opening his eyes. His wings were folded protectively around him, but at least he was upright; if she came back and he was hanging upside-down, they'd have a problem, but she figured he could probably stay awake for five minutes.

She turned and followed Neil and Nikki away from the activities field, half-expecting the trail to lead them into the woods or to where QM's bus was parked or something, but surprisingly they wove around to the area behind the camper's tents, a little grassy field where the kids sometimes spent their free hours. David was sprawled out snoring in a patch of sunlight on the road that curved around the field, one arm flung over his eyes and his ears twitching with the breeze. This was annoying but not entirely unexpected, and part of her was relieved to have confirmation that he slept at all.

The surprise was that Max was curled up in a tiny ball on David's chest, his head tucked under the counselor's chin. His tail flicked restlessly, but neither of them stirred as Nikki froze in a point about ten feet away.

Gwen rubbed her head as she passed, going up to the sleeping cats and crouching by David's shoulder. "Hey, chief?"

He stirred, rubbing his face and blinking up at her blearily. "Gwen?" He started to sit up on his elbows and went still, eyes widening as he realized Max was still asleep on him. "Oh my golly," he whispered, breaking into the brightest grin she'd seen all summer (which was saying something).

"Wanna actually help me run Stunting Camp, or should I just hope enough of the kids live that we'll have even teams for tomorrow's dodgeball game?"

David's eyes flicked from hers to the fluffy black ears twitching in his face. "Gwen, are you seeing this?" His voice was too awestruck to be sarcastic.

“I do. And if he wakes up and sees this he’ll probably kill you. Or himself. Or everyone in the camp so there are no witnesses.” He shot her a reproving look but carefully shifted the camper off his chest, settling him on the ground and springing to Gwen’s side with the reflexes she envied (and thought were totally wasted on someone that inherently awkward). “What happened?”

He shrugged, his cheeks flushing pink. “I went to make sure all the campers were awake, and it was so nice and warm I just had to sit down for a second, and . . . well . . .” He looked away self-consciously, bringing his fist to his mouth and running his tongue along his knuckles.

Gwen knocked the dirt off the back of his uniform and shook a leaf out of his hair. “You didn’t have to lay in the road,” she pointed out with a smirk. “There’s grass literally right there.”

David continued licking the back of his hand, still not meeting her eyes. “It’s not sunny over there.”

They were interrupted by Nikki, who’d apparently decided they weren’t going to wake Max soon enough and had jumped on him, sending up a cloud of dust that Neil and the counselors quickly stepped back from. “MORNING, SUNSHINE!”

“WHAT THE FUCK, NIKKI?! YOU COULDA KILLED ME!”

She groaned, rubbing her forehead. “He’s up,” she grumbled. “Energetic little shithead, huh?”

“That nap must’ve really been good for him!” David managed to keep the manic glee out of his voice, but it was a close thing.

“This is the best day of your life, isn’t it?”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, his smile twitching. “Almost.”

The kids were still fighting; somehow a very-displeased Neil had been dragged into the fray and was trying to disentangle himself as fast as possible.

“Get off me!”

“But come onnnnn, we’re gonna do stunts today! Up n’ at ‘em and campe diem, Max!”

Gwen sighed. No one ever said dumb motto except occasionally Space Kid -- and, apparently now, Nikki.

David leaned in a bit, still watching the kids. “Okay, this is a pretty good day,” he admitted.

“No kidding.”

“Better than my 4th birthday.” When she looked at him questioningly, he chuckled and said, “My parents hired a clown. It was very exciting.”

She gave a small snort of disgust. “Of course you like clowns.”

“They’re so happy!” As the three kids collapsed in the grass, their energy suddenly spent in that little-kid way that reminded her of a battery suddenly dying, David raised his voice and called, “Come on, kiddos! We’re running a little late this morning, so we need to get a move on if we wanna have time for all of today’s activities!”

Max rolled his eyes, climbing to his feet and shuffling toward them with his hands in his inexplicably pristine hoodie. “Like any of us gives a shit about the activities.”

Nikki bounded after them, dragging a disheveled and squawking Neil behind her. “Betcha’d rather just take a nap with Daaaavid, huh?” she teased, elbowing him in the side.

“The fuck are you talking about? I was following him, and then . . .” He trailed off and his face turned red, visible even with his complexion. “Oh, fuck no.”

“Oh fuck yes!” Nikki crowed, scampering out of the way in case he tried to swipe at her. “You were sleeping on him like a baby kangaroo!”

Max seemed distracted by his dawning horror. “I . . . it was warm,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “I wasn’t tired, but then . . . I was?”

David put a hand on the camper’s shoulder comfortingly. “It’s okay, Max! Cats need to rest a lot during the day, and it’s perfectly natural for kittens to cuddle up with their mother, so --”

“You're not my mother!” He jerked away, fluttering his arms like David was an annoying fly.

Gwen tried and failed to keep her face blank. “I mean, you’re the only cats around here for miles. And we have legal custody over you while you're at camp. So I guess for the summer he kinda is your mommy.”

“I hate all of you.” Grabbing Nikki by the wrist and snagging a handful of Neil’s wingfeathers, he dragged them ahead to the rest of the campers, growling threats about them not telling anyone about this.

She expected David to scold her for teasing Max, but when she looked over at him he was watching the kids walk away with his hands clasped at his chest and tears in his eyes. “Did you hear that, Gwen? He thinks of me as a mother!”

“You’re a guy, David.”

His expression didn’t change, and neither did the choked-up joy in his voice. “I don’t care!”

“Now is it the best day of your life?”

David paused, turning back to her. His expression softened, and he blinked away the mistiness in his eyes, taking advantage of their temporary solitude to kiss her on the nose. “Second-best.”

#campcamp #cc david #cc gwen #cc max #dadvid #gwenvid #momgwen #cc nurf #cc neil #cc nikki #this is dumb but i think it's cute #i can't help it #gwenvid are so smooth at hiding their relationship #it's so impressive

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dynoguard · 6 years

Text

NaNoWriMo: Return of the DinoKnights (Day 14)

Day 1 & 2 text is here.

Day 3 is here.

Day 4 is here.

Day 5 is here.

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 is here.

Day 8 is here.

Day 9 is here.

Day 10 is here.

Day 11 is here.

Day 12 is here.

Day 13 is here.

The mechanism turned, wheels within wheels, a half dozen nozzles spinning and weaving an arm into existence.

KYle stared at his new limb. The datatape in the medical kit held the designs for dozens of medical devices, prosthetics included. A few quick measurements and a questionnaire later and a sonic field held a fragment of gear in place as the fabricator wove a new elbow into existence.

“I think I’m starting to feel better.” Kyle said.

“You don’t have to watch every micron.” Brach said. “Take a nap, your new arm will be here when you wake up.”

“If we were home, I’d be growing, not building, the replacement.” Kyle said. “I wouldn’t be missing it in the first place.”

“No. You’d be paste.” Brach replied.

“What?”

“I saw the feed. I saw what was coming.” Brach said. “This isn’t a choice between comfortable home life and weird alien future. It’s weird alien future or killed by evil meteorite. Weird alien future wins.”

“Even if its ruled by mammals?” Zara said. She was sitting on one of the storage crates that held material-cartridges for the printer.

“Weird right?” Brach chuckled. “My money was always on the insects to take over when we blew ourselves up. They always seemed to want it more, you know?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” Zara huffed.

“Only the stuff that’s funny.” Brach replied. “And the stuff that really, really isn’t.”

“They don’t seem so bad.” Kyle said.

“Really? With their flat faces, and tiny gnawing teeth and the oily string on their heads?”

“I didn’t say they weren’t ugly.” Kyle replied. “But they don’t seem hostile to me.”

“I-” Zara paused, then spoke. “Is it alright that I’m not alright?”

Both Brach and Ktle stopped, and looked back to her.

“I don’t think any of us are alright, Zara.” Brach said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Zara paced, her wide feet padding on the floor of the fabrication lab. “I wasn’t the only one that saw the eye, right?”

Kyle exhaled long and slow. “I saw it. Not how I wanted to meet alien life for the first time.”

“Did it-” Zara hesitated, wondering if she should say it out loud. “-talk to you?”

Brach and Kyle both turned to her. “Talk to you?”

“Not in words.” Zara said. “But when I looked into the screen it felt like it was looking at me, right at me. And I could feel, it made me feel its plan. It wasn’t words, it didn’t even feel like thoughts do.”

Brach walked over to her and took a knee to better match her height. He put a massive right hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright. Take your time.”

“I didn’t see it, or hear it, but I experienced that thing smashing into the ground and a wave of fire and force just smashing cities to the ground. The sky turned black and fire was falling from the sky. Things were coming off it. Horrible things. And where people tried to hide or fly away the things hunted them.”

“Fly?” Kyle asked.

Zara stopped. She blinked and went over the events in her head again. “I said fly, didn’t I? I got the impression the people were flying, being snatched out of the air.”

Kyle scratched his chin. “It could be a form of telepathy. There’s been, I want to say nine, recorded instances of mental gifts since the database started. Were you ever tested?”

“I don’t want to be a Dinoknight so I didn’t bother.” Zara replied. “And I wasn’t wearing an Aegis so even if I have a rare gift I couldn’t use it.”

“Creature that size probably has a massive brain, even without the dinobond it might be enough for you to pick up on the electrical activity, even through the walls and atmosphere.”

“Might seems like a strong word.” Brach said.

“So I don’t have a background in mentology. All we have are wild hypotheses at the moment.” kyle clicked his teeth. “Maybe it was telepathic, in a way that let it broadcast, or maybe her translator picked up on some kind of subtle communication in the broadcast, like how sometimes you can tell if an octopus is hungry by watching its skin change.”

“Or it could be I had a mental breakdown. A stress hallucination.” Zara replied.”We have to keep that possibility on the table.”

“I believe you.” Brach said.

“So do I.” Kyle added in. “Not just because even if the experience was entirely in your head it was still something you experienced, but because of the flying people.”

“Explain.” Zara replied.

“The Dactyloid civilization. Lets say you did communicate with the thing for a moment. We have a massive, space-faring life form heading toward this planet specifically. Maybe when it started heading this way the Dactyoids were still here, and that’s what it was expecting.”

“Or it wasn’t his first visit and you saw its memory of the last time it was here.” Brach replied.

“The big-brain flappers disappeared in a mass extinction event. “ Zara spoke, her tone shifted from one of the excitement of discovery to palpable dread. “Just like we did.”

A sharp ‘ding’ sound rang out.

“Neat, my arm is done!”

---

“This is so clawsome!” Linn was all but running through the lab. She and Jason were surrounded by work stations, tables and engineering equipment, all of which was strewn with armor in varying stages of assembly. The suits were made of metal, plastic and composite materials that Jason couldn’t identify by sight or touch.

The tables and stools were all adjustable. Like everything in the building the lab was designed for beings of wildly different size. Linn used this to her full advantage, adjusting the cables as she went to suit her own human-like height. Jason recognized a few of the tools by obvious function, screwdrivers, wrenches, and rotary cutters were obvious no matter how large they were or how oddly shaped the grips were.

“What are these?” Jason said, turning a massive breastplate twice as wide as himself around on one of the tables. A panel was missing from the interior of the plate and could see mechanisms that looked like motors and wires running throughout, several gaps matched parts laid out on the table.

“Aegis Armor.” Linn said. “Powered exoskeletons Dinoknights wear.”

“What’s a Dinoknight?”

“They’re the dinos with all the coolest jobs. Like my mom.” She said, idly slipping her forearm into a bracer to test the fit. “Some are the military, some do police work, some fight fires, some are astrosaurs.”

“We kind of gave up on knights in armor when gunpowder was discovered.” Jason replied.

“What fun is that?”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Jason said. “I don’t make those decisions.”

“The cool part is I don’t know any of these designs.” Linn said, looking around. She pointed to a yellow and black mass of treads and pistons that looked like a junk sculpture of an ape made from an earth mover. “That looks like a really heavily modified Dreadlifter 4, that might be part of a Claws of Life A-series. But these are all brand new designs, otherwise,

“You said this was classified. Is it military stuff?” Jason asked. He was looking into a display case built into the wall. The interior of the case was made of a milky-white ceramic or glass divided into seven square alcoves, each about six inches wide. Three of the alcoves were empty, but the other four each contained a perfectly spherical polished stone. Each had a chasm running through the foreward surface that revealed an interior of blue-green crystals which matched veins running through the unbroken stone.

“Maybe.” Linn replied, her attention taken up by a the drawer of circuit-nubs and interlinks she was rifling through.

“LINNORIX DEWCLAW NYCOR HORNE!”

Linn bolted upright, sending the machine parts in her hands scattering across the floor. “Mom!”

“That’s sheriff mom to you, young lady!” Cora pushed her way through the door, Sagan and Gloria following behind. Jason took in his first look at a Dinoknight in armor. She was twice as tall as his father, her sleek build still apparent under the shining blue and white armor that covered her from tail-to-neck. Her scales were tan, her eyes large and blue, her mouth beaked at the front and her head was crowned with rows of small white horns that grew into a crown of spikes that swept backward from the back of her skull. Unlike Linn she had no feathers. “You put down whatever it is you were touching and get over here this instant!”

“Hey mom, we were just looking for Kyle to help him with his arm and-”

“And you assumed he would be in the room marked classified.”

Jason was, at this moment, being squeezed by a hug from his father, his feet lifted off the ground. “Hey dad. We got lost.”

“You are in so much trouble.” Sagan said. “But I’m glad you’re okay.”

“What’s the big deal?” Linn asked. “We went exploring, we found important stuff, stuff we’ll need, like, the Mister Bite still works, so we won’t starve as long as its stocked. And this has to be useful right?”

Cora took a knee to better look her daughter in the eye. “You left Kyle alone, and you let a human you don’t know see you and-”

“Kyle was working on calculations and said I was distracting him.” Linn said. “And, I got carried away after I made a new friend. I’m sorry, mom.”

“That’s not the point.” Cora sighed. “This isn’t home anymore. This place is dangerous. I saw... I touched a specter.”

“You said specters aren’t real.” Linn replied. “Also, so does science.”

“I was wrong about that.” Cora tapped a small button on her chest-plate. A rectangular cartridge, the size of a pack of cards, slipped out. It was black, with a clear top panel that revealed two spools of glowing, hot pink tape. She inserted it into the nearest interocitor work station.

The screen came to life with the sheriff’s battle with the specter in the Science Tower One parking bay, as seen through her own eyes. “This is why I don’t want any of us wandering off alone.”

“Mom... you’re the first to capture a specter on tape.” Linn said.

“By our rules” Gloria spoke up. “You get to name the species. Can you translators do Latin?”

“I don’t know. Maybe if you hum a bit of it.” Horne chuckled at her own joke so someone would. “It’s a specter, why not just call it a specter.”

“Linguistic precision mostly.” Gloria replied. “We might encounter a slightly different kind of specter later, and we’ll need specific names so we know which one we’re talking about.”

“Like, tyrannosaurus rex or dracorex hogwartsi or triceratops horridus” Jason interjected.

“Dracorex Hogwarsi!” Gloria exclaimed to Cora. “That’s what you remind me of! It’s been on the tip of my brain since we met!”

“The Dragon King of - Some nonsense word?” Cora replied, puzzling through the translator’s explanation of the term. “What’s a dragon?”

“A grand, mythological beast that breaths fire.” Sagan said.

“That’s funny.” Cora replied. “So what do we call this then?”

“Spectersaurus hornensi?” Sagan suggested. “Horne’s ghost-lizard.”

"That’s fun and all but-” Cora retrieved her datacart and reinserted in her armor.. “-we’re still just standing around in a top secret lab that none of us have clearance to be in. I’m not comfortable with throwing those rules out just because no one is around to penalize us. It’s a matter of principle and safety and-”

There was an electronic click. Everyone’s heads turned toward the sound, their eyes falling on Gloria Anning, who was holding her phone at eye level. She tapped the screen, and there was another click as she took a picture.

“What?”

#dinoknights #return of the dinoknights #dinosaur #dracorex #linn #nanowrimo #sheriff horne #brach #kyle stowne

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a-d-n-d-journal · 4 years

Text

Game Session #4

Characters:

Bakunawa, dragonborn paladin; copper scales, chainmail, a longsword and shield

Zastu Qqs, dragonborn rogue; white scales almost completely covered in a hooded cape and mask, leather armor, short bow and shortsword + dagger

Rysiel, half-elf druid; simple clothing and leather armor, scimitar

Teir Maccailleach, tiefling warlock; vibrant gold skin and black hair w/silver highlights, horns, hooves, expensive-looking clothes and leather armor, carries a crossbow and a hand-axe but tries not to use them

Guest starring...

Xolkin Alassandar, half-elf bandit leader; rougishly handsome, vibrant green winged snake on his shoulder, leather armor, scimitar and dagger

Kella Darkhope, human probably-not-actually-a-monk; blonde, weilds a crossbow

I had a friend help me out with the NPCs, and it worked out well. We'll probably do the same again later. For this game, I was at Bakunawa's player's place, while the others were remote.

The party wakes to the sound of a rooster crowing in their barracks. After a few seconds of disorientation, Teir shoots it with Eldrith Blast, spraying rooster guts and blood all over the nearest bunk (which is thankfully empty). Zastu tries to run away from the guts and blood, but runs directly into a guard coming to wake them. A group of people has entered the village! The adventurers rush outside into the brightening gloom (the sun has barely risen) to see if they can make out anything. Unfortunately, the walls of the village are in the way and they hear the crank of the drawbridge being raised. Teir sends his spectral raven into the village to scout, but the newcomers are too far away for him to see through his raven's eyes. The raven returns with vague information--its not very good at human things--counting eight peoples and seven horses, with one of the peoples being the same blonde one from the inn. The adventurers retract the ladder and go back inside to deliberate, though Zastu stays outside to keep watch. Inside the fort's study and lounge, Teir convinces Rysiel to check out the skulls mounted on the space the landing creates between the first and second floors. Rysiel, being a half-elf, is the only one of the part who lacks horns, and wouldn't it be great if he tried one on? Only the dragon-skull fits though, and it looks pretty cool! It works well as a helmet, seeming to fit his head just right, and he has the sense that he feels more protected (but he's not sure how) Bakunawa doesn't try to hide his disgust, and Rysiel tries to remove the skull... But it just slides around his head a bit. It doesn't get stuck on his ears or anything, but... He can't take it off. The half-elf lets out a half-hearted curse. They got back to discussing what to do. Time passes. They can't stay holed up in the fort forever (though there is food available). The people on the other side... Maybe they're nice? And they're going to figure out the ladder trick if they wait long enough... A rooster crows. Rysiel points at Teir accusingly. "Don't kill this one!" Teir puts up his hands. "Fine! But make it stop!" A rooster crows again. And again. And again, before Rysiel finds it behind a chair and picks it up. A rooster stops crowing. "I shall name him Jest," he declares.

Eventually they go back outside (leaving Jest behind) and Teir sends his raven out again. The sun is brightening the sky now. The newcomers are looting the village, going in and out of the trading post and the inn, checking out the stable, and gathering up the weapons the goblins had (shortbows, arrows, scimitars). Zastu reports the dying screams of a couple goblins. The adventurers place the ladder back on the gap in the bridge and cross to the other side. They cross into the village, and a shadow moves off to the side. Within a few seconds, they are met by a rougishly handsome half-elf, standing with Kella and six other ruffian-looking people. The leader looks them up and down, his eyes lingering on the paladin. Teir tries to greet them, but is interrupted. "What are you doing in my town?" The leader sneers at the Tiefling in noble's clothing. The rest of the conversation goes downhill from there. The leader introduces himself as Xolkin, and claims Nightstone for the "Black Network". The gears turn in Bakunawa's head. He knows of the Black Network through his mercenary connections. He tries to claim the town for the "Red Network", but Xolkin calls his bluff. Two of the bandits disappear and reappear to their sides, flanking them. Teir decides it's a good idea to send a 'warning' blast near one of them. But the others ready their crossbows, and they outnumber our adventurers, so eventually they negotiate an exit.

The bandits escort them to the two towers flanking the drawbridge, and let it down... But the adventurers are just over halfway across when they hear a faint rumbling coming from the north and the forest in the distance. They wait as the sound becomes louder. Suddenly, a small horde of orcs burst from the treeline! The adventurers stare at them dumbly for a moment as they run toward them. "Do they look mad?" Teir asks. "They look mad," Zastu replies. "Yeah, but are they running toward us, or away from something?" Teir insists. "At this point, I don't think that matters, let's get back inside," Rysiel says. They run back inside and burst into the watchtowers to raise the drawbridge. Startled, the bandits don't resist. Xolkin demands to know the meaning of this, but his face hardens at the mention of orcs. He orders his people up the ladders in the towers and onto the roofs. The orcs very quickly arrive at the end of the road near where the drawbridge had rested briefly. Those atop the towers can hear the rough orcish being spoken as two of the orcs, dressed in war and ceremonial gear the others lack, shout and point at the bridge and towers. One of them is quite huge, and many arrows pierce his flesh and armor. They don't seem to bother him much.

The disbelief of the bandits and adventurers causes them to hesitate. By the time they realize they should be raining arrows and bolts on the orcs, the small horde starts to fan out and explore the bank of the lake/moat. As the orcs slowly surround the village, the bandit group disperses to keep an eye on them. After about ten minutes, the orcs are spotted swimming across the moat to the broken bridge between Village and Fort. The boulder that took out the bridge has also taken out many of the protections to prevent stuff like this, so the orcs start climbing. The bandits take up a formation inside the village with orders to shoot on sight, but there isn't much cover. The adventurers hang out on the bridge, raining down a few attacks before retreating. Rysiel casts Ice Knife, killing one orc outright and knocking it off the scaffolding, while injuring two others. Seconds later two more heads pop up over the edge of the bridge and get an Eldritch Blast and an arrow to the face. They keep coming.

On the fort-side of the bridge, the guards have retracted the ladder and start shooting their own crossbows at the orcs. The seconds pass slowly. For a moment, the adventurers are able to kill the orcs as they come up in twos and threes. Then one makes it past the edge of the bridge into the village and is struck down by a bolt from one of Xolkin's bandits. A second orc follows, moving at an incredible speed (orcs have 'Aggressive' as a bonus action, allowing them to move at-speed toward an enemy they can see; that means, if they don't attack, they have Move action for 30ft, Dash action in lieu of Attack for another 30ft, AND Aggressive for 30ft, making a 90ft DASH IN ONE ROUND) The orcs start to pour in.

The guards aren't doing a very good job of shooting them in the back, either. They're just poor peons... Then they spot a strange-looking orc rest against the embankment on the far side, squinting at them with one eye. The embankment is too steep to climb, but he manages to prop himself up and is weaving his hands in rough gestures. Suddenly! A glowing spear appears in mid-air next to one of the guards! And attacks! The guards try to fight back, but the spear seems impervious, so they start shooting at the orc spellcaster.

The bandits fall back, shooting their crossbows. The adventurers also fall back, leaning on their strengths: Zastu climbs the hill on which the windmill sits, and shoots her shortbow. Nearby, Teir has retreated between a house and a field further back, shooting Eldritch Blasts. Bakunawa casts Shield of Faith and tanks 3 and 4 orcs at a time as they reach him. Rysiel disappears behind a house, and appears on the roof as a Panther with a dragon skull still on his head, growling in defiance. The orcs pour in. There must be about ten of them now... A dozen... And a hulking form comes through the break in the wall, charging at Xolkin and the bandits. Gurrash is full of arrows, and he doesn't care. He shouts in a roar that rivals the panther, and the orcs are bolstered. Then he swings his greataxe and cuts a bandit in half. Other orcs crash and overwhelm the humans, but they're still dying. Some of the bandits turn and run. Another one is cut to bloody pieces. A bright green line of acid splashes through the line of orcs from atop the hill. Zastu wipes her mouth, embarassed, and disappears into the windmill. Xolkin quaffs a thick, viscous liquid and steps forward with scimitar and dagger. Two orcs fall to his blades in seconds. Bakunawa draws a few of the orcs into another field, lightening the pressure on Xolkin's forces. Rice-panther leaps and pounces, ripping into Bakunawa's foes, the two of them working together for the advantage. Another bandit dies, but so do three more orcs. Four take their place. Zastu reappears from a window within the windmill, and starts shooting arrows (stepping around the two goblin corpses inside). Teir manages to take out another orc from an incredible distance, and a bandit pops out from the same house Rysiel disappeared behind--and fires his own crossbow. Another of Xolkin's bandits drops, and another runs, shooting behind him. Xolkin himself goes toe-to-toe with Gurrash, nimbly avoiding most of the big orc's attacks, and dealing his own. The two of them exchange blows at a faster rate than the others, and the orc's blows could cut a man in two without trying. Bakunawa and Rysiel are suddenly free, and the paladin moves into position. A long gout of fire bursts from his mouth, hitting five orcs in a line. None of them fall right away, but the bolts of Xolkin's remaining bandits find them and put them down. Rysiel pounces in and out, taking out another before Bakunawa is swarmed--Xolkin and the others starting to fall back again.

Meanwhile, at the bridge, the one-eyed orc spell caster has stayed behind the others, directing his spectral weapon to attack the guards. The guards retaliate, shooting bolt after bolt into him, but he just laughs. The guard, Sydiri, lines up a shot, betting if she could just shoot out his other eye... The bolt flies, and she succeeds. The floating spectral spear disappers as the orc screams in pain. The other guards shoot a couple more bolts, but half of them miss as the orc totters back and forth over the bridge. Then he takes one wrong step... And falls from the bridge, hitting the rocks beneath the surface of the water. He thrashes for a moment, and disappears. The guards cheer, and rush to put the ladder back in place, so they can go help. Torem crosses and Alara stumbles a bit on the rungs, not falling, but slowing their progress.

The orc forces are dwindling. There are eight of them left, including Gurrash. Two bandits are drastically wounded, and try to retreat while a third ducks in and out from behind a house, still uninjured. At some point, Kella appeared, shooting her own crossbow into the mess. Xolkin is bleeding, but he seems fine, protected by the magic of his potion. Four of the remaining orcs surround him. Gurrash looks about ready to fall apart, but his anger has shifted to the paladin and the panther who had just taken out so many seconds before, and he can still swing his waraxe. Three orcs are in front of the boss, but the paladin's armor aborbs their hits, then Gurrash pushes them aside to get at him, taking a chunk out of his hide. But Gurrash is on his last legs--Bakunawa's sword swings, and the big orc stumbles back--but he's still standing. Teir--somehow--blasts one of the orcs around Bakunawa and Rysiel, and Zastu's arrows continue to soar their way. In a flurry of bladework, Xolkin stabs and slashes at the orcs surrounding him, dropping three of them in two seconds. Only one left.

---At this point, it was after 11pm, and people had to sleep, so we wrapped up with 5 orcs still standing, including Gurrash--

Spells cast:

Rysiel: Ice Knife, Druidcraft Teir: Eldritch Blast (lots) Bakunawa: Shield of Faith Orc spellcaster: Spiritual Weapon

Killcount:

I kinda lost count of who-killed-what... 3 goblins died from the bandits, before the adventurers arrived--two in the windmill, and one in a tower 16 orcs died from the adventurers, guards, and bandits

Treasure looted:

Shortbows, arrows, and scimitars from the goblin corpses

One cursed/magical dragon skull

Left behind:

Who knows???

#5e #D&D #A Great Upheaval #Storm King's Thunder #A Party Most Queer #session

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lily-the-skele · 7 years

Text

First Date pt. 3

Part 3 of @underopenskies and my rp

[pt 1] [pt 2] [pt 4]

He reached up with his thumb to gently trace the line of saliva away from her chin, and rumbled a soft sound to her.

“Ha, y-yeah.�� He wasn’t as breathless- but that also wasn’t his first make-out session. The cowboy cradled her gently as she recovered, and stroked her cheekbones gently. “M’ sorry i didn’t ask y’ permission first, sweetheart. Did… y’ like it?”

“Th-that’s okay. I was actually thinking about k-kissing you, but I was too nervous.” Lily glanced away bashfully. “I really liked it. That was my first kiss.” She placed her hand on the back of Adam’s as she hid her face against it. “I didn’t know kissing could be so intense.” “

Ha- Th’ intensity was partly my fault. I kinda got carried away.” He stroked her cheeks all the same, even as her little hand settled on the back of his. She was so small, so fragile… “Haa… Well, ya first kiss? Goodness- I didn’t know tha’ or I’d ‘ve tried t’ make it a lil’ more romantic than out here on th’ way t’ the horse barn.” He gave her a sheepish grin.

Lily quickly shook her head. “N-no it was better than I ever dreamed of!” She exclaimed, eye lights sparkling. “And I–uh… wouldn’t mind doing it again sometime…” She gave him a bashful smile. “S-so does this mean we’re b-boyfriend and girlfriend now?” She gave him a hopeful expression.

“If you’d like t’ be, sweetheart.” He grinned at her warmly, eyes half-lidded with a warm tinge to his cheeks. “I certainly wouldn’t mind bein’ y’ boyfriend, if you’d like me t’ be. Would mean we’d get t’ kiss as much as we’d like.”

Lily’s blush deepened and she tugged at her borrowed shirt. “I-I’d really like that. Kissing you is a-a lot of fun.” She leaned up and gave Adam a small kiss. She giggled softly. “Oh boy, Gigi is gonna be ecstatic when I tell her the news.”

He leaned into her small kiss with a gentle rumble, and nuzzled her with a soft affectionate sound. “I really enjoy kissin’ you, sweetheart.” And lots of fun- he’d need to be careful though- too much kissin, and her little noises and touches would rouse something else. “Ha- I bet she’s gonna be real excited. Ma’s gonna be excited too.”

He hadn’t had a girlfriend since he’d been in high school- and he’d been out of school for a couple years now.

Lily giggled nervously. “Let’s just hope Gigi doesn’t start going on and on about marriage. She always gets overzealous about that kinda stuff.” She rubbed the back of her skull. “S-so how about we go see those horses now?”

“Ha- yeah. Jus’ be sure t’ tell her tha’ ‘s too soon t’ be thinkin’ o that jus’ yet, sweetheart.” He pressed one more kiss to her forehead- just because he could- and then straightened, gingerly making sure she was balanced on her own two feet before letting her go. “Yeah! Let’s go see m’. We were gon’ go see ‘f we could find a mare t’ fit well with ya n’ see about teachin’ ya t’ ride.”

Lily nodded and giggled at the kiss to her forehead. She could indeed stand on her own two feet but she still took a hold of Adam’s hand. That had been a nice distraction but she was looking forward to learning how to ride. “How many horses do you own?” She looked up at Adam curiously.

He looped his fingers easily with hers, and resumed guiding her towards the barn.

Bo tossed her head at them from the doorway, and seemed to snort slightly.

“Well, we’ve got a lot of horses. All o’ us have several- I’ve got… four counting Bo. We don’t keep stallions though. For uh, personal reasons. Anyways, we also breed n’ sell horses n’ stuff.”

Lily listened intently to Adam as he led her to the barn. “Do you think you’ll have a horse small enough for me?” She asked hopefully. The last thing she wanted was to fall and hurt herself.

“I do, yeah.” He nods. The barn itself was tall, and the musky smell of horses was strong. “Mm… Thoroughbred might be a lil’ big for you… Got a lil’ Paint. mare. She’s about fifteen hands, which is about average sized. Ya should be alright t’ ride her, miss Lily.”

The stalls were tall and long, and there were many of them. Bo seemed to have padded into one of the open ones, and was drinking from a watering trough inside. Adam guided her down to another stall, where a brown and white mare poked her head out of. A soft white nose was leaned up towards Adam’s hat, and she lipped at his hat affectionately.

He laughed, and lightly nudged her away before she could steal his hat. “Nana, stop that. Lily, this ‘s Nana. She’s about seven. She’s pretty young- a lil’ wily. But she’s really gentle- she might steal ya’ bow though, if ya ain’t careful.”

Lily blinked at Adam, tilting her head to the side with a puzzled expression. “Fifteen hands? That’s a strange way to measure things,” she commented.

She looked around in amazement at all the different horses. “Wowie look at them all!” She had never seen so many horses in one place. Lily giggled when one of them tried to take Adam’s hat. “Well, hello there Nana, it’s nice to meet you! You’re a silly one aren’t you? I can tell we’re going to get along just perfectly!”

“It is- it’s not actual hands though. I think th’ measurement is like… Every hand is four inches? N’ ‘s only up t’ the withers- which is th’ shoulders. Fifteen hands ‘s average size. It’s considered a pony if it’s under twelve hands. Bo’s about seventeen hands, i think- she’s a big girl, but Shire’s n’ mixed breeds often are.”

Nana leaned down to sniff at Lily when she failed to get Adam’s hat, and her soft little lips reached out to try and steal the purple bow on top of the little skeleton’s head.

Lily blinked at Adam, only murmuring a small “oh” when he was done explaining. She returned her attention back to Nana who was busy trying to steal her bow. She let out a surprised squeak before grabbing onto her bow and taking a step back. She laughed and jokingly chided the mare, “Nana, you silly thing! Don’t steal my bow! Maybe you’re just jealous you don’t have your own.”

The mare wiggled her lip at her, before sticking her tongue out, and sliding it between her lips, making a moderately rude “plllbbbbbtttt” noise at Lily for taking away her fun.

Adam snorted on a laugh, and leaned down to kiss the top of Lily’s head. “She might jus’ be. I could see y’ braidin’ ribbons int’ her mane n’ her tail. She’s young, n’ she’s wily, but she’s a good girl. Y’ wanna try ridin’ her? She behaves better with a saddle n’ bridle on, I promise.”

Lily let out a small gasp before giving a raspberry back. “Two can play at that game!” Lily giggled, already in love with Nana by this point. “Heehee, Nana would you like that? I’ll make you look so pretty!” She beamed up at Adam and nodded excitedly. “I’m ready to ride!”

Nana snorted in and tossed her head, giving a bemused sound before stepping back as Adam tapped the gate. “Alright, Lily.” Adam chuckled. “I’m gonna bring her out then. If you’re gonna ride her, you’re gonna help t’ saddle her up.”

He opened the gates, and guided the paint mare out by putting a hand on her halter. She behaved as he took a hold on of it, and fetched her lead rope off the stall, before hooking her up to it, and then carefully tying her up outside the stall.

He motioned for Lily to follow, before striding for the tack room. “This way, sweetheart! Gotta see which saddle best fits your backside! We’ve got lots o’ different sized ones.”

Lily nodded. “Okay.” When Adam was done tying Nana up, she followed him towards the tack room. She listened quietly as they walked and she gave a small giggle at the mention of backside. Real mature, Lily.

He laughed as he heard her giggle. How adorable.

Inside the tack room was a variety of saddles- all of them were in good shape, if a little dusty from lack of use. He ran his hands over one of them, humming gently in consideration. “Hm… Well, based on y’ size… Probably need one o’ th’ ones we used when we were younger…”

He padded down the row of gear, and ran his fingers thoughtfully over the saddles. As he went, the seats got smaller and smaller and smaller. He pulled one of the smaller ones off, and brought it over to a low resting hay bale, and set it down carefully, before swiftly removing the dust. The seat was a couple of his hand widths wide. “Here, Lily- try this one.”

Lily watched as Adam searched through the different saddles. She noticed how the sizes kept getting smaller the further he went. Her skull turned a light shade of pink when she realized she’d be using a kiddie saddle. She watched as he set down a saddle for her to try out. “Okay.” She straddled it and sat down and wiggled her backside as she got comfy. “It feels good.”

As she got seated, he stepped closer, and reached behind her. Given the size differences, he simply slid her flush to the saddle horn, and then checked the distance between the back of her tailbone and the back of the seat.

“Hm… Three fingers space,” he mused, “Should be about a fist for th’ rider, but should be decent size space for you.” He hummed. “I think this’ll do… You sure ‘t feels good, sweetheart?”

Lily blinked up at Adam as he adjusted her. She was beginning to second guess herself. She didn’t know anything about saddle sizes. She began to fidget slightly under his gaze. “It feels good to me?” She gave him a small shrug, feeling a little self conscious.

“Then tha’s what matters.” he nods. He adjusts the stirrups while she’s sitting in it, and manages to get them up high enough for her feet to settle in. He settles her feet in, adjusts a few more things, and then grins. “Ya look adorable.” He compliments. “N’ th’ saddle looks like it fits. ‘S just been a while since I’ve fitted someone for a saddle, n’ i wanted t’ be sure i got it right.” “Y’ can go ahead n’ hop off- we’ll go grab a bridle, n’ then go saddle up Nana.”

Lily blushed at the compliment. Despite just having become boyfriend and girlfriend and making out, she still felt shy around the large skeleton. “Th-thanks.” She clumsily got off the saddle, her foot almost getting caught in the stirrup. She smiled up at Adam, hoping he hadn’t noticed, and waited for him to lead the way.

“Ya blush ‘s cute too.” All of her was. He noticed her nearly tripping, but didn’t comment. Instead, he hefted the saddle up, and went to collect the girdle, snagging Nana’s bridle as he went.

The mare was still standing where they had left her, and she perked when they came back out, nickering eagerly to them.

Lily’s blush grew even brighter and she hid her face. She reached up to cling to the hem of Adam’s shirt as they went back to where they had left Nana.

“Hey, Nana, we’re back!” She announced, walking up to the mare and petting her. “You happy to see us?”

Adam didn’t mind her holding onto the back of his shirt. He simply smiled wider, and guided her along.

The mare put her head down as Lily came over to her, black and white fur rippling as she leaned out to lick Lily’s hand.

Adam chuckled, and slid the saddle,and blanket, up onto the mare’s back “I think she’s very happy t’ see ya. Just make sure she’s not cosyin’ up t’ steal ya bow.” He chuckles.

Lily giggled, Nana’s tongue tickling her hand. She felt like she was really making a connection with the mare. She smiled wide at Adam. “Don’t worry, I’m keeping a watchful eye on her. She won’t be able to pull a fast one on me! And once I make her mane all pretty, she won’t want to steal anymore hats or bows.”

The mare nuzzled into Lily’s hand, and gave her a pleased nicker for the attention she was being given.

“Tha’s very true. Once she’s all prettied up, she should be all good n’ content t’ stop stealin’ stuff from others.” He chuckled. He began to work on getting the saddle set up, and got it cinched so it wouldn’t slide and dump Lily off. He’d show Lily how to put one on and take one off later- she was getting a lot of information today, and too much information probably wouldn’t stick.

Then, he stepped around to carefully ease the bit into Nana’s mouth. The horse, as per the norm, wasn’t particularly thrilled with her attention being taken from Lily, and with having the metal bar being out into her mouth, so her teeth nipped Adam’s fingers as he slid the bar home, and got the straps done up behind her ears. “You little turd,” He hums fondly to her, “Ya nipped me. Heh. She doesn’t like when th’ bit is put in initially- No horse is. Tha’s about th’ only time she might ever nip ya.” He rubbed his bitten fingers lightly on his jeans, and petted her nose.

Lily giggled as she continued to pet Nana, while also watching Adam as he set up the saddle. “Hmm, I wonder what Nana would like best,” she pondered outloud to herself. Lily took a step back when Adam placed the bit into Nana’s mouth, the mare looking none too pleased. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” She asked, a look of concern on her face when Adam was nipped.

“Ah- a little bit, but it’s alright. I’ve been bitten harder before durin’ play fights with my brothers.” He gives her a sheepish grin, and rubs Nana’s nose to let her know he wasn’t upset. “I jus’ got my fingers a lil’ too close t’ her teeth. S’ alright- see?” He held out his fingers- other than a faint scuff on the bone, he seemed alright.

Lily let out a small gasp. “Your brothers bit you?? Play fighting or not, you shouldn’t bite people. That’s not playing fair.” She shook her head, her cheeks puffed out. She took a close look at this fingers before reaching up and taking his hand in hers and placing a small kiss against each one. She smiled brightly up at him. “There, all better.”

He couldn’t stop the soft blush that flitted over his cheeks as she kissed his fingers, or the affectionate look he gave her. Lily was literally the sweetest- he hadn’t had someone do that since he was a kid. “They feel better already.” He smiled to her sincerely, and twisted his hand gently in hers so he could rub one of his fingers gently down her cheek. He leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead in return. “Thank ya, sweetheart- ya kisses made m’ fingers feel much better.”

As he straightened again, adjusting his hat, Adam chuckled softly to her. “Sweetheart, I’m a big fella. Thomas is my older brother- but he’s a lot smaller. He’s only a couple inches taller than m’ mother- so he had t’ play dirty whenever we’d wrestle. N’ he’s got teeth like me- so his bites could hurt. Only one who’s bites didn’t hurt is Greg- but Greg’s got flat teeth, like normal folks.” He checked over a few more things on the saddle, and then carefully unhooked Nana’s stall halter, and slipped it off of her, leaving her freestanding in just her riding gear. The mare behaved, chewing lightly on her bit as she awaited her rider. “Now- ya ready t’ mount up, sweetheart? I’m gonna stay on th’ ground for now, at least until ya comfortable enough on ya own in th’ saddle.”

Lily giggled and nuzzled against Adam’s hand. “You’re welcome! I’ll always kiss your boo boos better.” She made a small happy noise when he kissed her forehead.

She looked a little uncertain at Adam’s reassurances but she chose to take his word for it. “Okay, if you say so.”

Lily hopped up and down. “Yep, I’m ready!” She chirped, as she reached up her arms for Adam to pick her up. She made grabby hands at him bouncing in place.

Her little bouncing was adorable, and he couldn’t keep the little smile off his face as he leaned down to gently lift her. He carefully swung her up into the saddle, not even bothered by her slight weight, and then tucked her feet carefully into the stirrups. She was, sadly, too short to actually mount up on her own, but he didn’t mind helping her. “Go ahead n’ get comfortable, sweetheart, n’ I’ll lead ya out o’ th’ barn, so we can get t’ teachin’ ya t’ ride. Hold onto the reins for now, sweetheart, but don’ pull jus’ yet, alright?”

Once she was stable in the saddle, with both of her feet firmly in the stirrups and her hands on the reins, Adam hooked his finger gently in the edge of Nana’s bridle, and guided the mare outside. In the saddle, Lily was actually a little taller than Adam was, and he grinned up at her lightly.

The rocking motion of the horse was something Lily would have to get used to on her own- particularly since she had no pants, or Adam’s lap to cradle her behind. Thankfully, his shirt was long enough to protect her thighs from chaffing.

Once outside, he glanced up to her and smiled slightly, releasing the reins. “Alright. Nana’s trained t’ be lead by what we call neck reining. Meaning, if ya want her t’ turn, ya gotta rest th’ reins on her neck. Like this.” He took the loose loop of the reins, and rested it against one side of her neck. Nana shifted in the direction that the reins were pointing. “Ya c’n click ya tongue t’ make her move, or tap her sides with ya heels. But be real gentle. When ya want her t’ stop, pull back on the reins real slow like- don’t yank too hard, or y’ can hurt her mouth.”

Once Lily was in the saddle, she got herself comfortable. She listened intently to Adam’s instructions, nodding every now and then to show she was paying attention. She was a tad nervous, but with Adam’s guidance Lily knew she would be fine.

She grinned when she realized she was actually taller than Adam while sitting on Nana. It felt kind of empowering to be this high up. “Okay, I think I got it. You’ll stay by my side, right?”

“O’ course!” He nods. He pats Nana’s shoulder gently, and releases the reins. “I’ll stay near ya- jus’ go slow, n’ you’ll be alright, sweetheart. Nana’s a good girl- she’ll take care o’ ya, ‘f ya take care o’ her.”

Lily nodded and smiled brightly at Adam. Taking in a deep breath, she gently nudged Nana with her heels and the mare began to slowly walk forward. She wondered which way to go as she surveyed her surroundings. She could see a lot from this vantage point. Her grip on the reigns tightened a fraction with each jostle she felt and she looked over to make sure Adam was still walking next to her.

Adam, true to word, stayed right next to the mare. Well, near enough- he didn’t feel like getting his feet stepped on by accident. He glanced up at her and gave her an encouraging smile. “Y’ doin’ fine, sweetheart.”

There was a lot of open space around them, along with massive barns. The house loomed between the barns, with an orchard on the other side.

Lily decided to try steering Nana and she shifted the reins causing the mare to turn right. Her smile grew, as did her confidence. She really was getting the hang of this. “Wowie, I’m really riding a horse all on my own! Does this make me a cowgirl now?”

He kept a hand on her shoulder, and let the mare’s motion guide his steps. He laughed softly, and smiled up at her. “Ya doin’ real good, sweetheart. Heh- maybe not yet. But, I imagine with a lil’ bit o’ practice, ya gonna make a great cowgirl.”

Lily let out a small gasp and said in an excited whisper, “Will you teach me how to lasso things?” She looked at Adam with sparkling eye lights. “That would be so much fun.” She had a far off look on her face as she began to fantasize about it in her mind.

“Sure thing!” He laughed softly. He eased off a little bit as she seemed to get more comfortable in the saddle, and carefully took in her reaction as he began to ease off. “Usin’ a lasso ‘s not very easy, but we can practice th’ next time y’ come t’ visit. How’s tha’ sound?”

Lily nodded and smiled. “Okay, it’s a deal!” She reached out a hand for Adam to shake. Even if she didn’t manage to lasso anything, it was just more time spent with Adam.

“Let’s head back, I’m getting kinda hungry,” she murmured sheepishly. Her stomach made a small rumbling noise as if on cue. She shifted the reins so they were headed back towards the horse stables. Plus her rear was starting to get sore, but she didn’t want to say that out loud.

He shook her hand gently, and then laughed softly at her sheepish murmur. “Alright, sweetheart. Let’s go get Nana put away then, an’ we c’n go back t’ th’ house, n’ go find somethin’ t’ eat.” He wasn’t very hungry himself, but he was a large man- the extra calories wouldn’t go amiss.

They weren’t far from the stables, thankfully, and so he gave her a cheery look as they headed back towards them.

Lily was looking forward to seeing what Adam’s house looked like on the inside. She also secretly hoped she could see his room. Not to do anything lewd of course! She was just curious. Yeah. The rest of the ride back to the stables went by in comfortable silence. Lily pulled gently on the reins, bringing Nana to a stop. She pat the mare affectionately. “Thank you for the ride, Nana.”

The mare snorted lightly, and shifted on her hooves patiently.

Adam smiled softly, and gently helped her dismount. He settled her onto her feet, and got Nana’s halter back on, before swiftly beginning to remove Nana’s tack. “Nana enjoyed getting her legs stretched out.” He chuckled gently.

Lily placed her hands on Adam’s shoulders as he helped her down from Nana. Even when she was on her feet she still held onto him as she watched him tend to Nana. She smiled brightly up at the mare. “I’ll ride you again next time I visit,” she promised. “And I’ll bring some ribbons and flowers to braid in your mane, too!”

Adam gave her a grin once he finished getting all of the tack off of Nana. Once the mare was bare, he guided her back into the stall, and then carefully closed the door behind her.

Nana shoved her nose back over the edge of the gate, and leaned down to nose Lily appreciatively.

Adam chuckled. “I think she’s lookin’ forward t’ th’ ribbons, Lily.” Once everything was tucked up and out of the way, he offered his hand down to Lily and smiled to her.

Lily giggled and nuzzled Nana back before placing a small kiss on the mare’s nose. “I’ll see you later, Nana.” She gave Nana one last pat before skipping over to Adam and taking his hand. “Okay, let’s go.”

On their way back to the house Lily asked, “When do you think I’ll meet your siblings?” She watched as a frog hopped past them and she resisted the urge to chase it. She chewed on her thumb absentmindedly.

“Yup! All o’ my siblings are home right now- so you’ll be able t’ meet them all, sweetheart.” He guided her with easy steps towards the house, and then made his way up the stairs. As they reached the front door, he opened it for her, and motioned her inside. “After you, sweetheart.”

Just inside the main part of the house was a taller skeleton woman, with a large set of horns curling up from her skull. She was shorter than Adam by a lot, and seemed to be built a lot more dainty than he was.

“Looks like he’s finally bringin’ ya in t’ say hi t’ the rest o’ us. Hi, sugar. I’m Skylar- ‘m Adam’s big sister.”

Lily’s face brightened in excitement. “That’s great! I can’t wait to meet them!” She hummed happily to herself as they approached the house. She took the stairs two steps at a time. She giggled and curtsied to Adam when he opened the door. “Why thank you.”

When she walked inside, she stopped short, eye lights growing large in her sockets. Standing in front of her was the prettiest skeleton she had ever seen. “W-wowie…” She blushed when she realized she was staring and stuttered out, “L-ily… i-it’s nice to meet you. Um I r-really like your horns.” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt nervously.

Adam stepped in behind Lily, and shunted off his boots and hat, taking a moment to make sure he wasn’t tracking in anything from the barn.

Skylar, on the other hand, smiled wide at the compliment to her horns. One hand drifted up, brushing past the right one, and the scar that curled around it, before drifting back down to tuck into her pocket. “Aww, thank ya, sugar. Tha’s real kind o’ ya. I like your eyes, Lily. Heh- the both o’ ya are just in time for lunch. Well- i gotta go start it, but y’know.”

“Should you be cookin’ n’ stuff? Y’know… with your, uh…”

“You really don’ know much about pregnant women, do ya, Adam? I’ll be fine. Anyways- M’ gonna make lunch. Greg took Hamish out for a bit while you two were out havin’ fun in th’ barn- so ‘s jus’ gonna be you, me, n’ Thomas. And Ma o’ course.”

Lily’s blush grew and she glanced away shyly before murmuring a small, “Th-thank you.” She perked up at the mention of lunch and she chirped, “C-can I help you? What are you making?” She smiled brightly. “Adam and I had a lot of fun. I really worked up an appetite.”

“I’m not gonna turn down th’ help ‘f ya wanna help me in th’ kitchen, sugar.” Skylar motions for Adam to go wash up in the bathroom, and then steps towards the kitchen once the tall man gets to scooting where she directed him to. “Was just thinkin’ some peanut butter n’ jelly sandwiches. Real easy t’ make, n’ taste pretty good too.”

“I’m sure th’ both o’ ya did, sugar.” She lifted a brow playfully, and laughed softly, shuffling her way into the kitchen. Once Adam was out of earshot, Skylar turned a curious sounding hum to Lily. “So,” she said, “Are you ‘n Adam datin’? Or jus’ friends?”

“Oh pb&j my favorite! It was the first thing I learned to make as a baby bones,” Lily chirped happily as she followed Skyler into the kitchen. She stopped short, looking up at the counters. “Oh um, do you have a stool I can stand on?” She looked sheepishly up at the taller woman.

Lily blinked at Skyler, momentarily puzzled, until she caught onto what had amused the other. “O-oh not like that! It was all wholesome fun!” She exclaimed, before clearing her non-existent throat. She played with the hem of her shirt, blushing. “We um… actually just became a couple. It happened while he was showing me around.”

“Ma’s a lil’ lady- so ya, we got stools.” The tall skeleton hooks her foot on one and scoots it out from under one of the counters, sliding it out for Lily to grab. The kitchen was designed in mind with a monster much larger than even Skylar or Adam. But, all of the stuff was set on the lower shelves, so Skylar didn’t have an issue as she reached into the cupboard, tugging out a loaf of bread, and the jar of peanut butter. She settled it on the counter, before fetching plates, and then scooting off to the fridge to get the jelly.

Lily’s flustered response simply made her grin and lift her brow. “All wholesome fun, huh?” She chuckled. “Tha’s good though, that th’ both o’ ya are t’gether. Jus’ make sure ya’ treat him right, or you n’ I will be havin’ a different sort o’ conversation. Likewise, ‘f my lil’ bro ain’t treatin’ you good, you lemme know n’ I’ll set him straight. Hm… What sort o’ jelly ya want, sugar? Got strawberry, grape, raspberry, n’ i think apricot?”

“Thank you Miss Skyler,” Lily said as she climbed onto the stool. She papped the counter with her hands as she looked around the kitchen. “Wowie, everything seems so big. Did a giant live here?” she asked in slight wonder.

Lily chuckled bashfully. “D-don’t worry, I’d never do anything to hurt Adam. He’s the first person to ever treat me like a real lady. H-he makes me feel special.” She placed her hands on her cheeks. “He… makes me feel like a princess. I know that sounds silly.”

She was brought out of her reverie by Skyler’s question and she replied, “Oh strawberry jam for me, please. I can spread the peanut butter while you take care of the jelly?”

“My Da and his best friend built th’ house for my Ma when they got married. My Da was eight feet n’ four inches tall- n’ Doc Tene is even taller than he was, so they made it sized for folks their size. We smaller folks get around easily enough though. So i suppose a giant could live here.” She collects a couple knives for spreading the peanut butter and jellies, and then carefully balances the jars and the knives as she returns back to Lily.

“Ya don’t seem like th’ type t’ hurt him, but he is m’ baby brother, n’ m’ obligated t’ take offense when he gets hurt. M’ glad he’s treatin’ ya well though. Ma and I raised my brothers t’ respect th’ folks they’d be seeing- so ‘s good t’ see that he’s keepin’ with his teachin’s. He is still pretty young, after all.”

Skylar slides the peanut butter over to her wordlessly, along with one of the knives. She splits the loaf of bread- extra sandwiches wouldn’t go amiss- and then slides half of it to Lily. They were feeding a lot of skeletons, after all. “Sure, sugar. I’m gonna do a variety o’ jellies, so we’ve got choices t’ choose from.”

“W-wowie! They really are giants!” Lily exclaimed. She let out a giggle. “You’d get vertigo just from sitting on their shoulders!” Lily smiled warmly at Skyler. “You and your mom did a great job raising him then.”

Lily nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.” She opened the jar before picking up the knife and spreading the peanut butter on a slice of bread. “By the way, I hope you don’t mind me asking but, how far along are you, Miss Skyler?”

“Yep! S’ why m’ so tall, n’ why Adam’s so tall.” She gave the smaller woman a smile, and laughed gently. “Thanks, sugar. We tried- it wasn’t easy, but we managed. I was jus’ a teen myself helpin’ my Ma raise my brothers, but we did it.”

Skylar started in with the jelly, and began to prepare slices to be put with Lily’s peanut buttered bits. “I don’t mind ya askin’ at all. M’ about five weeks along, i do believe. M’ not very far yet- Adam worries though, n’ he knows next t’ nothing about women havin’ babies.”

“It must be nice having siblings,” Lily said, a hint of melancholy in her voice. She placed a finished slice on top of one of Skyler’s and started on another one. “It was just me and Gigi growing up. Don’t get me wrong, I love her with all my soul, but I always wondered what it would be like to have a brother or sister to play with.”

Lily giggled. “Yeah, boys can be pretty clueless about stuff like that. So, are you excited Miss Skyler? Who’s the father? Is he a cowboy too?” She gave Skyler an eager smile. “I think it would be nice to have a little baby bones in the future.” She blushed and mumbled softy, “If Adam and I ever got married…”

#rp #underopenskies #Adam #Lily #First Date

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whenhelbreaksloose · 4 years

Text

Quite some time before the earth began to shake…

Phil was still not that popular with the ladies. Why he thought things would be different in Germany, he didn't know why. Apparently half animal-human beings were not that widespread this far north and the humans fell into two categories: the disgusted ones and the very curious ones. Not many young and pretty women fell into the latter category. The closest he came, was with an old witch hawking wooden bear carvings but that was only because she thought he was part bear.

The old goat did manage to find the one tavern where he could get a drink and hear some local boasts. One thing the Nordic barbarians knew how to do was to have a jolly good time. Although the music was loud, it was not enough to completely eclipse the conversation that was taking place further down the bar.

At the other end of the bar was a rather short girl whose dark hair was tied into two large buns and wore a furry stole that just barely covered the revealing cut in her drindle. She had a cute round face that was full of strained smiles with sparkling eyes that darted towards all of the exits. She had reason to smile so nervously for she had large barbarian men on either side of her trying to garner her attention.

"Honey, what were you doing in that well?" Said a large bearded man who was certain his overly sweet nicknames were the way to a woman's heart.

'Well I've always been a bit of a clumsy kid. I'm just soooo glad that you were there to help me." The young woman cooed and twirled a loose hair.

One of the men, covered in fur both animal and his own leaned in and murmured, "You know if you need anyone's arms to fall into, you always have mine." Another, although shorter man, who very well could be part bear winked at her.

The woman whose name happened to be Ganglat crinkled her nose and tried to suppress a gag at the corny line and counted down until life threw in some kind of distraction. Even Phil thought that line was bad, and he was king of cheap pick-up lines.

The short woman jumped down from the stool and announced, "You guys are really sweet! But I must be off! I have a festival to enjoy!"

"No wait! I got to tell you about the time we snuck into Fafnir's den and-"

"Like I said… I really need to not be in here, and I should be out there, but thank you for the- "She was cut off as her wrist was grabbed not too tightly to cause her to protest.

Phil knew this was just another classic D.I.D., and if he played things just right, he might just have a plan to get those men to leave her alone… So he can mercilessly hit on her. He stepped outside before he could even be noticed, waited a couple of seconds and then kicked the door in. "ALE BRAWL IN THE CENTER OF TOWN!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. The sentence made absolutely no sense. The context even less. But he knew that all he needed were for the tiny lizard brains in those thick skulls to grasp at just a few key words in order to get into gear.

You could hear a pin drop in the tavern as all eyes fell upon the little goat man. For a second Phil wondered if maybe he jumped the crossbow on this one, but the sudden clamber of bodies from the bar towards the door was the best answer he was going to get. The old Satyr tried to swim to the top of the crowd but he was not the young kid for quite a very long time.

Meanwhile Ganglat… Poor sweet Ganglat… Was dragged into the mob until she was able to wrench her wrist free. She bounced around in the stampede for a few seconds before attempting to swim to the top of the crowd as well. She bounced around at top like some party beach ball, before she was finally tossed onto the floor behind the counter as the crowd thinned out. The fall was enough to break her shift, revealing not a short and attractive woman, but a short and semi attractive Mare.

After the mob abandoned the tavern, Phil was no longer left with a sea of people to surf on and well, he was left to wipe out.

Ganglat in her true form is what some may call a Mare*. The very being that gives us the base word for Nightmare today. The lilac skinned Mare rubbed her hind quarters that extended out into short yet delicate horse like hooves, the appearance of which made her gasp. She even had a long fluffy horse like tail, but the rest of her was fairly human like despite being covered in light fur and sporting a singular stubby horn on her forehead. If it wasn't for her tiny pointed teeth, bat-like wings and cat like pupils, she would almost be something imagined by a five year old girl. She tugged at her horse like ears and groaned in frustration. Why do humans have to be so infuriating? The clopping of hooves turning around the corner of the bar alerted Ganglat that someone or something was coming. In an instant she transformed back into her human like form just in time for Phil to step around the corner.

"Well that's one way to clear the room…" Phil reaching for a couple of wooden wine cups and polishing them with a cloth. He smiled at the short woman, "But now that we're alone..."

Before he could even get into relentlessly hitting on her, the Mare-in-Disguise got up to her feet and smiled awkwardly at the goatman. It was the kind of smile a woman gives a man that has decided to help her with a small task that she didn't even ask for, insisted upon it and has ulterior motives for offering. "Gee thanks… I was thinking I needed a few more bruises and footprints on my skirt but I wasn't entirely sure how I would get that accomplished today…" Gangalt stood up and pushed by Phil making him drop the cups.

"Hey! I was just only trying to help, I thought you wanted to get away from those guys!" He protested while following after her.

"I did!" Ganglat turned and huffed, "I just didn't want to be trampled on, or stepped on, or followed by some ... Some… Just what the Hel are you anyways?"

Phil growled, feeling his forehead heat up from anger. "I'm a Satyr, Haven't you people ever heard of a Satyr?"

"Nope. Is that like a Finnish thing?" Ganglat shrugged her shoulders.

Phil slapped his forehead, "It's Greek!"

The woman stared at him for a few uncomfortable minutes. Ganglat seriously had not even heard of that land before. "Is that like very far away?" Ganglat had few opportunities to explore outside of the Nordic lands, and had been tied to her work. However, she knew this Satyr thing could be of some valuable information. A couple of gears began to turn in her head.

The old Satyr would have gotten annoyed but her confused state just made her all that more innocent and less intimidating. "Why yes!" He hopped towards her, balancing on one hoof. "It's a land far to the south, with beaches! And exotics!"

Before Ganglat could even escape, he had her swept back into his arm, 'Land of wine, honey, poetry… Amore..."

Ganglat's eyebrows furrowed all the while her smile strained to stay in place. It struggled to stay there. It was truly an Olympian feat. "Oh. I see, that sounds… Interesting…" She inhaled deeply trying to compose herself. I am a manipulative and beautiful Mare, I'm a beautiful and manipulative Mare. This guy is a chump. After she exhaled and opened her eyes, her smile and the twinkle in her eyes were the kind that could win awards.

"Oh that sounds wonderful… I just… I need to run a few errands, but why don't you tell me more about it!'

Phil brushed his greying hair back and bowed to the short woman, "Lead the way."

_________________________________________________

On the other side of town, Icarus had not even noticed the sudden absence of his best friend. He was far too busy stockpiling up on as many trinkets and festival gear, from horribly inaccurate horned helmets to footwear that for some reason as being used as drinking vessels. "I see, it's to get that proper fermented taste..." He mused while peeking one eye down into the boot. The shop keeper, nodded with a wide grin while shuffling his entire broken stock of clay vessels out of site.

"But will it be good enough for Dadalus?" Icarus held the boot away from his face and squinted his eyes at it. It didn't even take a split second before shoving it under a free arm, "Aw who am I kidding!? I'll take it!"

Now that he was satisfied with his socially required purchase he handed the boot to the space where Herc should have been. "Hey Herc, do you mind carrying this for me?" He wiggled the boot midair, expecting it to be taken. And waited. And waited some more. "Well if you don't want to just say so!"

Icarus whirled around to the empty spot. "Oh! You won't carry it 'cause you're not here!" His smile immediately turned into a frown as it dawned on him that he was in the middle of a foreign country during a festival completely alone. Normally a person in that position may react in the following order 1) looking around and yelling for a lost comrade 2) getting a little panicky but not succumbing to it too soon, 3) approach someone and try to petition someone for help, 4) find the nearest authority figure to help locate their party.

Why would you expect Icarus to do any of these things that made sense?

The meltdown was the first and most obvious choice to make. Followed by calling out for the names of his friends, then more screaming, then of course attempting to climb to the highest location that he could find and locate them that way. You know, as you do. When that didn't work, he tried running all over town calling out his friends names. When he got no response, he did the next logical thing. Breaking down in despair and crying.

"Oh now what is this?" The grown man heard an older, grandfatherly voice say.

"I- I Lost my friends and I can't find them anywhere!" Icarus sniffed pathetically and answered the very short and stubby legged, stubby armed beard. Yes, a Beard. It was like this short man was all beard stuffed into layers of leather, armor and had two arms and two legs stuck on as an afterthought.

"Aw there, there, I'll help you find them. What's your name little man?" The beard asked him all the while looking up.

"Icarus." He replied, "My friends are named Hercules and Philitetes but he goes by Phil."

"Well it's nice to meet you, I'm Ivaldi. Just hold my hand and I'll take you to my cart and we can wait there while we have your friends paged. How does that sound?"

"Mmmhmm." Icarus nodded, and took the dwarf's hand as he was led away to Ivaldi's cart.

The cart was a huge assemblage of wood but mostly metal, but one hundred percent moving parts. Icarus had seen many inventions in his life and even helped out with them, and this sort of thing was only surprising in how..."Oh Hey! This looks like some of the things my Dad makes!" The eternal child in a man's body yelled.

"Oh is that so?" Ivaldi laughed running a hand through his gray beard, "I don't think I ever heard of humans making steam machines."

"Oh yeah, we've made a solar powered one too."

"Solar powered?" Ivaldi blinked his teensy black eyes from the area where his eyes should be. It's hard to tell when a dwarf's beard blends into his eyebrows. He never even though of using the sun as energy source before. Ivaldi pulled on a lever that stuck out of his cart causing it to slowly and somewhat smoothly transition from a small humble yet very weird steam powered cart to a larger booth with chairs to sit on and cupboards that opened up to reveal… Cuckoo clocks.

"That's pretty interesting actually… Although where I'm from, we don't have much sun." Ivaldi climbed up onto his seat and reached into his pocket and pulled out some hard candies to offer to Icarus.

Icarus took a piece and sat down in a seat. "Oh is that cause of winter? Don't worry, you always got summer."

"Something like that." Ivaldi said as he cleared a pulled down a long series of pipes that lead to the top of his cart and ended in a funnel shape. Perfect for making announcements. "You really aren't familiar with dwarves are you? Do they not have any where you're from?"

Icarus shoved the candy into his mouth and waved the old dwarf off, "Oh, they prefer to be called little people..."

"No not smaller humans, dwarves." Ivaldi chuckled, "You know, us short human like beings, long beards, thick accents and live underground? No? Bah! Don't worry about it. Now what were your friend's names?"

Icarus stared at him in confusion, but it only lasted a second, "Woah you live underground? Doesn't that get a bit dangerous? They're named Phil, short for Philitetes and Herc, short for Hercules."

The old dwarf shook his head "Not that dangerous... Well It is, but it's gotten a lot better from when I was a wee Lad." Ivaldi shrugged and cleared his voice to announce through the pipe, "Philitetes and Hercules we have a very special buddy who is waiting for you. Please meet your party at the Steam Wagon. Please meet your party at the steam wagon."

He put the phone down and swiveled his seat towards Icarus. "We'll wait a bit and do another announcement. In the meantime, I got business to do." Ivaldi pulled out a large heavy trunk from under his desk sat it on his workspace with a loud thud. Icarus leaned over Ivaldi's shoulder and watched obnoxiously close as the dwarf pulled out tiny tweezers, gears and metal. There was already a partially put together thinga-ma-jig. "So, uh, what's ya working on?" Icarus asked while breathing down Ivaldi's hairy neck.

"I call it a clock. It's like a sundial that doesn't use solar power. This old one has just stopped working so I need to take it apart and see what's wrong. I suspect it might be something to do with the wind up function. I really do need to figure some other way to power it."

The clock was a very intricate although tiny thing about the size of a small jewelry box. The hands on the golden clock were motionless but would have circled around a center dial and at each number were smaller spheres each depicting different scenes.

"Oh right, because of the whole underground thing." Icarus reached for the tools beside Ivaldi, one of which being a little magnifying glass that he held in his eye.

Ivaldi smirked, noticing the curiosity in his eyes, "This clock depicts the nine worlds…" He pointed to a sphere with a pair of tweezers depicting humans tending to a farm, "We are here in Midgard. And here," He pointed to another sphere depicting two stalagmites standing parallel to each other, towards the bottom, "is where I live. Nidvallir or also called Svaltalfheim if you're an elf."

"What are those other ones?" Icarus asked now fiddling with a few gears himself, putting things into place.

"The one in fire is Muspelheim, home of the fire giants, this one is Nifleheim, it was home of the frost giants, here is Asgard, realm of the gods… Hey! You're pretty good at that! Look at you, just picking up on it so quick, I could have you help me with this."

"Ooh! That's probably where Herc is!" Icarus nearly knocked all of Ivaldi's things over as he pointed towards the small Asgard sphere.

"What!? I am so sorry! I thought we were looking for living friends!"

"No, no, Herc's alive, he just got an invite by Odin..."

Ivaldi cupped a hand to his forehead and ran it through his white hair in disbelief. "And you're worried about the underground being dangerous."

"What?"

Before Ivaldi could clarify himself he was interrupted by none other than Phil who was walking with his arm around a very uncomfortable looking short woman as he made his way towards the cart.

"Geez! I can't go anywhere with you guys! Hey, where's Herc?"

Ivaldi blinked at Phil, took off his glasses, polished them and placed them back on. It wasn't the strangest creature he has seen, but it was pretty up there. "Are you Phil and Herc?"

What? No! I mean, I am Phil and this..." He took Ganglat's hand and kissed it. She attempted to not make a face,

"Astrid." She said, her eyes landing on Ivaldi and then widening. What was he doing here? He was not supposed to be here!

"Oh, well, nice to meet you. My name is Ivaldi and it seems like I found this lost little guy..." Ivaldi turned to Icarus who was supposed to be sitting next to him but was now throwing himself over both Phil and Ganglat.

"I was sooooo loooost! I was scared and I looked everywhere!" Icarus bawled. Phil attempted to push Icarus off but his grip was ironclad. "Enough already! You're getting my fur all wet!"

As he struggled to pry the human off of him, Ganglat was standing there with her jaw agape.

"Is something wrong miss?" Ivaldi asked.

"What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here."

"Well that's a bit uncalled for. I may be a dwarf, but I have every right to be here and sell my wares. I even have my pass to do so right here..." Ivaldi began to rummage through pockets for the amulet that gave him passage. Ganglat slammed, well tried to slam her hands on the desk but she had to climb up the chair and slam her hands onto the desk.

"Ivaldi! What are you doing here? You can't be here because things are going down here. We can't have things go down if you're in the way."

Ivaldi squinted at Ganglat behind his glasses, "Do I know you?"

From behind them, she could here Phil still struggle to get Icarus off of him, "Have you tried checking by the MVG area? He's probably meeting his parents there with the rest of the gods."

The color drained from Ganglat's face. "Gods?" She asked turning towards Phil. "There are Gods here?"

"What do you mean things are going down?" Ivaldi asked but Ganglat was in no place to answer.

"Ivaldi, just do everyone a favor and get out of here! Far away!" She yelled scrambling past Phil and Icarus, "I need to find Ganglati!"

"Hey where are you going? I thought we had dinner plans!" Phil yelled at her as he tried to wrench himself free of the sniffling Icarus.

Ivaldi stood there in disbelief, as he watched Ganglat run off. "Ganglati?" He knew that name and the other names attached to it, "Ganglat!?"

"Well she's off in a hurry... I got to say Phil, that has to be a new record for a girl to stick around before running off." Icarus noted, finally releasing the Satyr. He looked back to his new old friend who was hurriedly packing up his steam cart with a speed he had never seen in an old person. "Packing up already? We were just getting to the good part! At least stay for Oktoberfest dance!"

"We need to find your friend and leave, that was Ganglat!"

"Ganglat? I thought her name was Astrid." Phil asked.

"That's Ganglat, and if Ganglat and Ganglati are both here than trouble isn't too far behind."

Then the ground began to finally shake.

_______________________________________________________

Still some time before the ground shook, because we still need to establish some things before we cut to the action, far down, deep below the center of town, in a very large, very damp cave system, angry voices echoed against the cavern walls instead of the sound of pickaxes. Three groups were gathered around a large hunk of machinery and arguing amongst each other.

"I don't trust this one bit! It looks like it's going to collapse and blow up!" A feminine sounding figure dressed in silken robes and a wooden carved mask gestured to the large machinery in the middle of the large cavern. The machine could be best described as a large upward facing drill that had three smaller ones ready to spin around it like some terrifying amusement state fair ride, with all of the stability and legitimate safety of a state fair ride.

"Or blow up and collapse," chimed in a similarly dressed figure right behind her.

"Or that!"

"Oh, Shush you mushroom eatin' pansies!" The gruffer, Scottish accented and stereotypical dwarf known as Pyrite fought back. It is a known fact that all dwarves had large beards, Scottish accents and a love for ale. Yes, Even the She-dwarves. Especially the She-dwarves. "It's practic'ly in mint condition!" He said as he punched the side of one of the smaller drills causing a board holding one of the side plates to loosen and slide off. "That's jus' a cosmetic feature."

"We are abandoning this mission." The masked dark elf said disdainfully.

"You gonna tell the boss that Runatntha!? Cause I'm sure Boss would just be thrilled about hearing that from you after you made the prediction that this would be the most profitable hit we'll have this year? Go on ahead!"

"I'm sure you would want that, wouldn't you! Just to have the biggest hit be ruined and collapsing and blaming it on us!" The dark elf had heard the rumors. Centuries of rivalry between them and the dwarves ensured that they were always trying to undermine the other faction to ensure their position in Svaltalfheim.

"Well…" A grave voice spoke up after very patiently waiting. "We could wait for the boss and see what she wants." The large undead man spoke very slowly, causing the other participants in the argument to tap their feet and look at their watches as they waited for him to finish.

"Boss said to start up the machine! And we're starting up the machine!" A screw fell from a strut and bounced off of his helmet. The other dwarf next to him bent down and handed the screw back to his brother. "It's fine. Jus' cosmetic."

"And we are not starting that machine!"

"We should just wait-"

"I do fine work!"

"ENOUGH!" echoed throughout the caverns and was followed by a drastic drop in temperature.

The whole cave system fell quiet as everyone watched their breaths fog up before them and they slowly turned their eyes to the much taller figure advancing on them. Returning from the narrow crevice that led to well water and sending her two minions to the surface. As tall as she was, she was still very young: a thirteen-year-old kid dressed in a tattered hooded tunic, and trousers tucked into boots. Much of her clothes were held in place using bone and found objects. Every bit of skin was wrapped in bandages and her face was covered by a wooden death mask. Only her red eyes could be seen from behind her mask.

Even though she was very young, she knew how to intimidate a crowd. It was easy when you're a lot bigger and stronger than almost everyone else; but being a ball of adolescent rage also helps. She glared at the quarreling parties, "First rule!" She demanded.

"Cut it out." The entire group groaned in unison.

"Now second rule." She held out two fingers.

"What you says goes."

"And I say, we're gonna wait 'till dumb and dumber get back and clear things up, and then we can start the drill. What's the Ymir-dammed problem!?'

"Boss, If I might..." The elf spoke meekly, "We are concerned about the state of the drill, and we would not wish for it to fail on us… It doesn't look to be in the best shape. Look, two more pieces just fell off of it right now!" She pointed to the fallen pieces of the machine.

"I told ya! It's jes cosmetic! Just for looks. It will be fine." Pyrite spoke up defensively.

The masked figure could only rest her hand on the brow of the smiling mask and groaned. Always with the bickering over one thing or another. Just one day, if she could go without having to settle their petty squabbles, she could live that one day happy in this miserable frozen hole. At least the dead weren't as annoying, slow, painfully slow but not nearly as annoying.

"Ugh, just shut up the two of you! Here's what we're gonna do, to shut you both up! Pyrite, you're gonna run a maintenance check, and you're gonna be the one to turn it on and stay there."

"What?" Pyrite gasped eyes widening as it suddenly dawned on him, that he may not be entirely sure that those minor cosmetic issues are entirely minor. 'I- I- I"

"Unless you doubt your craftsmanship…"

The elves behind her Hooted with laughter.

"But I am sure you wouldn't be that dumb to create something that would just fall apart right on top of you."

The masked figure was blunt and cold, so her words cut right to the point and right into his pride. Pyrite grew red faced and marched his way towards the center machine that held a few levers and pulleys.

"There's no point in this, because I know it's perfectly safe, but if it makes you and the gutless elves happy then so be it." He grumbled.

The taller masked figure turned to the rest of the working crew, "And while he does that, you get back to work! We ain't gonna be standing around with our fingers up our noses until Ganglat and Ganglati get back! So, pick up an axe and start chippin' away at the foundations." She said while pointing towards the horde of Draugar and turned to the elves, "And you, make sure the escape tunnels are clear, I want this to be a clean grab and dash."

In the time span it took her to give orders and collect a pick axe herself, she heard the distinct sounds of the machine kicking into gear and turning on. She turned her head as the earth around her began to shake.

"Well… Shite"

_________________________________________________________

*Mare, also known as an Alp, is primarily Germanic in lore. It is the origin of our term Nightmare, and was a being that was sometimes considered to be faun like or horse like in appearance, or sometimes even hag like. I've combined different mythologies to create Ganglat's appearance since Germanic, and Nordic folklore like most folklore is often varied even within the same culture. Tales and myths of Germanic and Norse mythology was not fully written about until hundreds of years later after Christianization and so I took this as an opportunity to take some fictional license with some of the lore.

#whenhelbreaksloose #fanfiction #Disneyhercules #Norse

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