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savannah-lim · 4 years

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You Gotta Be Squidding Me || Savannah & Winn

TIMING: Present LOCATION: Savannah’s office SUMMARY: Savannah meets with Winn to discuss Agent Sterling’s death and gets more truth than she bargained for. CONTENT WARNINGS: Discussion of murder and body horror

Savannah had no idea how she was supposed to put any of this in a report. Dr. Kavanagh had directed her to a gentleman called Winn Woods because she remembered she had seen something in a dream. Great. Excellent detective work, Agent. That doesn’t sound crazy at all. At this point though, Savannah was prepared to try just about anything. The Bureau had supplied her with a small rented office downtown so she at least didn’t have to interview people in a messy hotel room or keep going to the police station. She preferred not to have people looking over her shoulder. The buzz from the door told her Mr. Woods had arrived. Right on time. At least he was punctual. “Come in, have a seat. Would you like coffee or tea or anything?” she asked, closing the door after him.

It was one of those White Crests days where everything felt ominous — gray clouds overhead and a weird chill in the air, both typically foreign to August. Winn’s nightmares the night previous had been plagued with visions of the abomination, of the twisted corpse of Sterling ambling towards him, an inevitable end to what little of his life he’d managed to salvage. It was a wonder he’d managed to sleep. Since that day Sterling had washed up, Ulfric had done his level best to keep the body concealed. But ‘missing’ wasn’t much better than ‘dead’ — especially not where a federal agent was concerned. They’d both known it’d come back to bite them. And while Winn was a fine actor, one gift his mother had left him, there was no masking his unease. Human. Javier Sterling had been so painfully (pitifully?) human — until he hadn’t. Winn would tear his throat out again, spare him the indignity of his body, warped as it was. But that wasn’t the question, was it? “Coffee’s fine,” Winn said, noncommittal. It would give him time to think through a game plan. Smalltalk. He could do smalltalk. “How have you been liking White Crest, Agent Lim?”

“Coffee it is,” Savannah said, brewing a fresh pot. “Although the government doesn’t exactly offer generous funding for amenities, so I can’t promise anything about the quality.” She poured herself a coffee as well. Though she maintained a casual air about her, Savannah was already assessing the young man. His nerves were obvious, but that wasn’t necessarily an indication of guilt. If someone wasn’t nervous about being interviewed by a federal agent, there was something wrong with them. “I like it very well. It’s bizarre, which I find frustrating but also oddly comforting. I’m intrigued by things that are unusual. Something Agent Sterling had in common with me, I’m led to believe.” She handed Winn his coffee. “Did you know him well?”

“I think the first coffee I had was on the Hill. Representatives bring their own coffee, or suffer whatever their interns thought sounded good at the Trader Joe’s on Pennsylvania Ave.” Winn cocked his head. “Don’t know how much time you spent at y’all’s headquarters, or if you’ve always been on-assignment?” He took a sip from his coffee, ignoring the heat dancing across his tongue. Still too hot, but the pain helped to ground him in the moment. He’d dealt with government folks for most of his life. Could Agent Lim be discreet? It wasn’t as if the FBI was known for being bold and brash, not when subtlety could better pave the way to an answer. Winn wished, in that moment, that he had been close to Agent Sterling. Agent Lim’s hints that he’d been investigating the unusual… Could always tackle it the White Crest way, right? “Unusual?” Winn asked, more chipper than was probably wise. “Honestly, I barely knew him. Pointed him in the direction of a shop on Amity, but that was really the last time I ‘spoke’ to him.” Do not joke about Natalia killing Javier. Do not joke about Natalia killing Javier. “I can’t remember ever meeting him in-person, though.” Technically, not a lie.

"The Hill?" Savannah repeated, unsure if she was impressed or actively cringing. "Interesting. You didn't strike me as the political type." He'd struck her as a sort of empty-headed party boy, but then, there were plenty of those in politics too. "I did my training at Quantico, and spent most of my career operating around the New England area." She picked up her own coffee, sipping it. "But this isn't about me. Unless you just want to be impressed by my credentials. I might not have them much longer if I can't solve this case." And the more she looked into it, the more unsolvable it seemed. Winn's name had literally been given to her by someone who said she'd seen it in a dream. "That's interesting," she nodded, "because an anonymous source told me you might know something about his disappearance."

“Representative Delacour. Or former? Figure she’s still up there; I try not to keep up with politics. I wasn’t up there often, just enough to figure out that there was better coffee in the world.” Winn shrugged, another sip from his own cup. Talking about his mother wasn’t his favorite recreational activity, so he was more than happy to drop the subject. He tried not to flinch at Agent Lim’s suggestion, a frown flickering across his face for just a second. Getting a federal agent involved in whatever was happening in White Crest, getting a human involved in all of this. Was that fair? No. It wasn’t. But less fair was keeping her in the dark, letting her wander into getting herself killed. Or, worse, the same thing happening to her that had happened to her former co-worker. Winn tried to think of how a hunter would describe what happened to Javier, Adam’s talk of mutations and infections coming to mind. Winn couldn’t even be sure that was what it was, but something about it rang true. Javier had changed so suddenly… “How much do you know about Cordyceps, Agent Lim?” Winn said, slowly, not letting even an ounce of fear slip into his voice.

“Well, we’ve got that in common,” Savannah scoffed. She knew just enough to make informed decisions at the voting booth, but when it came down to every single representative, Savannah was pretty clueless. Winn could have made up any name and she wouldn’t have known any better. She narrowed her eyes curiously, wondering where exactly he was going with this. “Cordyceps? Isn’t it a virus or something that affects insects? The thing that makes stuff grow out of their ugly little insect heads?” Fascinating, no doubt, but she had no idea what that had to do with her case. Javier Sterling wasn’t a caterpillar.

Winn wrinkled his nose at the reminder of what the fungus did to wasps, ants, and others. Planet Earth had been a staple of insomnia-fueled nights over the last half-decade, so Winn knew the metaphor didn’t stretch all the way out. There hadn’t been anything (yet?) to suggest Winn or Ulfric had been infected by Javier. “Fungus, but yeah. They take over the host body and direct it towards a purpose. For Cordyceps, that means gettin’ up somewhere high and poofin’ its spores as far as they can go.” Winn still had more questions than answers, but… Shit, would it be nice to have someone to bounce shit off of. It wasn’t like he was good for anything more than a helpful sniff or slashin’ someone’s throat. “Damn, almost wish you could read my mind. Would make explainin’ this easier.” He drummed his fingers along the arm of the chair. “Agent Lim, I need you to take everything I’m about to say at face value, alright? I won’t lie, not if I can help it, but I’m gonna sound like I’m off my rocker. If you’re not gonna believe me, this ain’t goin’ anywhere productive.”

“Fungus. Right.” Savannah focused on him, eyeing him as he spoke, determined to figure out exactly where this conversation was going. It wasn’t often someone took the lead on her interrogations, but she figured the more talking he did, the more he might slip up and tell her something useful. God, nobody had given her anything useful in weeks… “Alright, I guess now I don’t need to watch National Geographic when I go home.” She chewed the inside of her lip. “People say that sort of thing when they’re about to say something nonsensical,” she sighed. “But nothing in this case has made sense so far, so I suppose let’s start with ridiculous and work backwards.” She gestured vaguely with her hand for him to go ahead.

Winn almost laughed at the suggestion of nonsensicality. C’mon, Agent Lim. All he was askin’ was for her to believe her co-worker turned into a squid-man hybrid, and spit out a wackadoo language, before tryin’ to kill the werewolf sittin’ in front of her! It all made perfect sense. He groaned, leaning back in the chair. If it wasn’t so close to the new moon… But naw, no werewolfing it up. “I can do ridiculous,” he said, confident. “Javier Sterling washed up one morning while I was fishin’. Took me a minute to realize it was him, ‘cause somethin’ had happened to him. See, your boy had been infected with a— with a virus, if you like. I don’t rightly know what it was, but I can tell you what I saw. Not a fungus, but somethin’ from the ocean. I’d call it a growth, but then I’d have to rationalize the tentacle that wrapped around my arm. And nothing,” Winn wet his lips, “about this is rational.” Winn paused. “I’m not done, but figure that’s a lot to take in. Take, uh, take your time. It only gets weirder.”

“Fishing.” Savannah scoffed. “Yeah, okay, go on. My co-worker washed up on shore and had a… a what? A weird fungal infection from the ocean? Are you saying it was a natural death?” What exactly was he confessing to? It didn’t make any sense. But then she remembered— “Was there a red-headed man with you?” she asked. “Covered in tattoos? Big beard?” She’d seen it in her dream too. Maybe what Regan had said wasn’t so crazy after all. Except that it was, and this whole thing was absurd. Her superiors were going to laugh her reports right out of the office if she tried to go back to them with this.

Winn squinted at the perfect recitation of Ulfric’s description. There hadn’t been anyone around that day. As far as Winn knew, only one person even knew of what had happened to Javier Sterling, outside of Ulfric and Winn themselves. There were few explanations and Winn was eager to narrow them down. “Yes,” he said, evenly. “I’m keepin’ his name out of this.” No need to bring in Ulfric. ‘Sides, Ulf was out of town, last he heard. One phone call, and one of them could tell him to stay out of town. Winn had dealt the killing blow, even if Ulfric had made sure that Javier wouldn’t get up. “An anonymous source, huh? That sure is unusual,” he said, tone almost acerbic. “How much do you know, Agent Lim?” Whether she’d intended it or not, Winn’s hackles were raised, and he was just barely stifling the low growl in the bottom of his throat.

Savannah scribbled down a jumble of notes. Not that she’d have any difficulty remembering this, of course. “I’m not at liberty to reveal my sources,” she said. “And if I tell you what I know, I can’t be sure that whatever you tell me is genuine knowledge that you came to independently.” She sighed. “Would it help if I say I saw it in a dream? Would that be more or less asinine than whatever you wanted to tell me?” She was losing her damn marbles, and she might be about to be threatened by a frat boy. “I hardly know anything, okay? Is that what you want to hear? That’s why I’m asking.”

A long, long exhale of breath. “A dream?” Winn echoed, urging himself to calm the fuck down. “Naw, that sounds about par for the course… for White Crest, anyway.” Okay, Winner. Rewind. Back to square one. “Like I said, really, I’m happy to help. But so long as you’re withholdin’ your sources — and I get it, I do — I’m goin’ to keep back the name of our ginger friend.” She hardly knew anything. That was good and bad. Technically, Winn could lie his ass off. If he wasn’t a man of his word, he’d take that as an easy out. Funny thing ‘bout bein’ a counselor? It was easier to console folks, to let ‘em know it was alright to feel their own emotions than it was for Winn to get across his point, sometimes. So, an answer. “Agent Javier Sterling is dead,” he said, evenly. “He was dyin’ when he washed up, but I don’t know what got a hold of him. We were tryin’ to help him, and he attacked my friend. I moved quickly, because otherwise my friend would have died. I cut Sterling’s throat open. My friend grabbed a knife and gutted him. It was, I hope, less painful than what the infection would have done to him.” A pause. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Fine,” Savannah sighed. “Don’t tell me who the red-headed man is. I don’t care.” That wasn’t entirely true, but she was primarily concerned with finding out what had happened to Javier. The names of everyone else involved could come later. She froze momentarily when he announced Javier’s death. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. She’d suspected it from the get-go, but there was something chilling about the confirmation. “Right, dying from, um… ocean fungus?” She didn’t mean to sound so cavalier, but the whole thing was so hard to believe. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she’d have dismissed him out of hand. Her eyes widened and she stood up from her chair at his confession. Her body was stiff, her gaze trained upon him, as if he would disappear like a thief in the night if she so much as broke eye contact. “Did you just tell me— you killed Agent Sterling?” Savannah stared at this man, dumbfounded. “I think I’m supposed to arrest you for manslaughter,” she said, but somehow, she didn’t. She didn’t even move.

“Oh. The fungus was a metaphor. Probably more like an ocean… demon? Honestly, I was real close to dyin’ last month, so I haven’t had time to do any ‘investigating.’” Winn swung his legs up under him, crossed, and cocked his head. His body was loose. There’d be plenty of time for him to agonize over his decisions in whichever afterlife he ended up in, but this one? No. “I mean no disrespect here, Agent Lim, but d’you really think those charges’d hold up? C’mon, you’re smarter than that.” Winn hummed, taking another sip of his coffee. “I wouldn’t be convicted by any human court. The marks on Agent Sterling’s neck,” Winn raised his hand, eyeing it with faux-disinterest, “were made by claws, for one. I was actin’ in self-defense, like I said, for the other — which is, unless Maine’s laws are weird as fuck, I’m pretty sure’ll get me out without gettin’ charged. And for a third, I’d argue,” Winn sighed, “that I’m not the one who killed Agent Javier Sterling. I killed a monster using his body for somethin’. For what, I really don’t know.” Winn’s gaze turned hard. “And none of that’s goin’ to matter, ‘cause no one would believe a word either of us said.”

Savannah didn’t believe in ocean demons. Why would she? Ocean cordyceps had been hard enough to wrap her head around. This nice, respectful young man had just confessed to her as if it was just another damn August afternoon. Nothing to see here, folks. White Crest was the most bizarre place she’d ever experienced. “No, no, I don’t think they’d hold up. Where’s the evidence? Is there a body? A murder weapon? Or did you dispose of all that too?” She scoffed. Maybe she could get him on destruction of evidence, of covering up Javier’s death, but even that was a long shot. Yes, it would be her word against his, but since her story made no damn sense either, it was going to be tough to do anything at all. “I don’t know if I even believe you,” she said firmly, like that would give her some kind of one-up on him. “There is no such thing as people-possessing ocean monsters,” she said. This whole town seemed as if it was playing one huge joke on her. She folded her arms across her chest. “Take me to his body.”

Winn was quiet while Savannah ran through her litany of questions. There were only so many ways to bust open a mind, let someone know the world was much, much bigger than they imagined. Unfortunately for Agent Lim, Winn hadn’t had to explain himself — or the supernatural world at large — to a garden variety human in, uh, ever. But leading with Javier’s death had been the only option, right? Otherwise, what, shift in front of her? Naw, too dangerous, and he didn’t have spare clothes on him. “Thing about the truth? You don’t have to believe me. As for a body? Doubt it’s there, anymore. Enough flesh-eating things in our rivers that the corpse was destined to get snacked on. But, look, I get it. Evidence.” As much as he loathed to admit it, another journey through his memories could be the easiest solution here. It’d take time, time that Agent Lim didn’t necessarily have. “I want answers, same as you. But it might take some doin’, and it’s gonna require you to trust me. Trust that I want to—” fight? destroy? “—bring to justice whatever hurt Agent Sterling. I said before, I won’t lie to you. And I might be able to give you something to work with. Teamwork’d be better than workin’ against each other, right?” Winn stood, holding out his hand.

Savannah's head was spinning. There was so much sincerity in the man before her. He was just honest, kind even. She wanted to scream, as if yelling would make all this go away, somehow make it easier to digest. She could yell over and over that this wasn't true, but she somehow felt the reality of it, no matter what kind of scepticism she might have wanted to win out, somehow she just knew that Winn was telling the truth. "You know this is the fucking weirdest buddy cop duo ever," she sighed, but extended her hand to his. "I'm going to need a drink."

#paras #with: winn

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bringontheemos · 4 years

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CHAPTER 4 of Itachi x OC Yuri in ‘Another Chance for Family’. This chapter focuses on Yuri and her background and such. I hope you enjoy reading!

(A/N: the land of flowers in this story is different than the land of vegetables. I know in the manga and anime that the land of vegetables is often called the land of flowers but just consider this to be a separate place.)

"As you may know, the Land hidden in the flowers has been very fortunate when it comes to harvest numbers. We're one of the smallest lands but our crop failure is at practically zero and we grow enough food for the surrounding lands. The main contributor to this is my family.

You see, for the past three generations my family has resided in the Land of flowers. When my grandparents came, it was a barren land that could hardly grow grass. The people starved to death and those who survived didn't have the strength to leave.

The mere presence of my grandfather caused the plants to revive. From that day forward, my family were considered the most important and powerful people in the land... that changed soon after I was born.

According to my parents, the night I was born there was a large growth in all of the plants within a two mile radius, the ground shook for hours, and all fire and electricity in the area went out. The village was sure I would bring more good fortune with my heighten powers. They were so happy for my future.

Anyway, I grew up a bit. No one expected much of me yet but they still eagerly awaited the awakening of my full ability. When I was five I caught a cold from playing in the rain. I accidentally spread spores over the entire village. Several people chocked to death on the toxins, especially the elderly and young children. My parents attempted to talk to the villagers and eventually everything calmed down.

The next problem occurred when I was 9 years old. A couple of kids my age were picking on me for being shy and small. They said all kinds of terrible things. They weren't content with just laughing at me though, they started hitting me and throwing things. I tried to protect myself but... I accidentally killed them. Large branches shot out of the ground and through each of the children. I was mortified, and the villagers didn't trust me anymore. They didn't believe I was capable of controlling myself, which is true I guess.

My parents agreed that I was too much of a liability to live in the village, so they cleared out the farmer's shed on top of the hill and told me to stay there. They came to visit me every day and my father would tell me his wonderful stories while mom wove flower crowns. But one day they didn't come back. The night before there was a raid on the town. Thieves came and stole everything. I was forbidden to step foot into the town center so I stayed in my shack and prayed.

My parents and half of the villagers died in the raid. People blamed me for not killing the enemy for them. So after that, they completely avoided me, they hated me, and beat me.

Just before my grandfather passed away, I asked him what my power was good for. He told me, 'you, your mother and I have deep connections with the earth and the creatures on it. We can borrow it's power, create and control life. This power is only given to those the earth loves. Those who are worthy to be its master.' He taught me how to use this power... grandpa was incredible."

My new friends let me finish telling my story before they spoke. Itachi being the first, "So that's what happened? Interesting. Have you mastered control over these powers of yours?"

We all stopped for a break so I was able to sit on the ground.

"Well... the thing is... I'm not sure where my limits are. After that incident with the other children, I stopped trying to use my powers. Although, I do have a pretty good idea what I could potentially do."

"But your village still has healthy crops. How are the they growing if you aren't using your ability?"

"Oh that? Yeah that just kinda happens." I pointed to the area I was sitting on. The once dry dirt was now green and lilies were sprouting. "See? I don't have to do anything, but that also means I don't have much control over this either."

"I'm curious," Kisame had a strange look in his eye. "Could you grow a tree at will?"

"I guess so. How big?"

"As big as possible."

"Alright." I laid my hands on the ground and concentrated on forming a tree. The ground shook for a moment and then everything stopped.

Itachi's POV

'Hm. So she wasn't able to do it. How disapp-'

A large trunk shot out of the ground. The tree grew so tall that it was difficult to see the top through the clouds. The air felt very clean as well. Like all of the toxins had been taken away.

"S-so... How was that?" This woman acted as though she just did something minor and not something as incredible as this.

"Good."

"Really?! I'm glad to hear it!" She smiled at me and Kisame, but I noticed something. Little vines were beginning to wrap around her limbs like snakes. "Hm." She looked at the plant in such a nonchalant way.

"Uh... What's going on?" Kisame finally asked.

"It's my wounds. They're healing them for me. This only happens when I get hurt pretty bad." While she did that I took the time to read her and think about the situation.

'Her chakra is plentiful and she's overflowing with it. So much so that the vegetation around her grows. The strangest thing about this is that I can't see through this jutsu. Maybe it isn't a technique at all.'

~~~~~~

3rd person POV

Yuri, Itachi, and Kisame continued walking to wherever the men were heading. Yuri has already decided to stay with them. After all, they're the only people to show kindness to her.

"So where are you headed?" Yuri asked curiously as she marched next to Kisame.

"Heh. You'll know shortly."

"Hm..... okay!" They continued walking for a few more hours before they reached an area that looked like a deserted village. The houses were burned down and the scorched earth was completely barren. "Um... where are we?"

"We will be leaving you here."

"What?!"

The men were already walking away. "You can wonder off if you want, but if you're in this place, you can train your power without restrictions."

"Oh... I understand."

Itachi turned to the sad young woman and threw her a kunai knife. He gave the knife to her so she could protect herself if she wasn't confident in her abilities quite yet.

Yuri watched as the people she believed to be friends, left her. Even though she could have cried about it, she didn't because she knew this was a challenge: become stronger by the time he gets back.

'I'll do my best and then you'll see how useful I can be!'

#anime #books & libraries #shounen #naruto #itach uchiha #itachi #yuriuchiha #yuri uchiha #romance #feelings #backstory #kisame

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dramaplustautology · 5 years

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Scrambled Egg

It’s Mermay!! And this thing has no big plot, just a slice of life deal cause me and ry were talking about our OCs being mermaid princesses. Sometimes you should just talk about room decor, vague references to a bigger story that I have neither the time or skill to write :”

Hades wound himself around the Princess’ tower in his full Leviathan body, pushing his nose past the curtains into the highest bedroom. Legends sung of how he could fill the deepest trenches with his humongous form but he argued that he might be able to if he had a big lunch. The way he was now left spaces where the sun could touch the ancient stone.

The deep-sea Leviathan, Liberta, took up that space and nestled his chin on top of Hades’ head between his horns.

“Do you have to be this close?” Hades asked when Liberta started to stick his head into the window too. He knew they wouldn’t be able to get out without taking the wall with them.

“No.” Liberta stated, glancing at the other window he could have used to peek at the Princesses. Realizing that Hades was a little bit longer than he was, the white-scaled sea dragon stuck his tongue out to get an edge on his midnight counterpart.

On the large cushion made for five, Ryunn and Takaiko sat beneath the transparent canopy that once served as the bell of a large jellyfish. Constellations were woven into its delicate skin, glittering across it’s numerous string-like tentacles serving to cut the girls off from malicious intent.

They were appointed monarchs, allowing them to swim through the stingers without worry. If a shrimp accidentally crossed the threshold, the last thing it would learn was what evisceration was like.

On numerous occasions, Hades would take Ryunn by the collar poke his nose past the stingers to tuck the workaholic into bed. They ticked him, because he was a monster. The fact that Ryunn’s new friend could do the same worried him.

Perhaps slightly less than Takaiko’s own sea dragon trying to see if he could pick Hades’ nose with his tongue.

“I like your castle a lot more than mine.” She said, balancing a bright pink coral growing from the confines of its scallop shell flowerpot.

An array of bright seaweeds and anemones happily swayed and bloomed all over the room. The newest addition to Ryunn’s nursery was a refined lavender xenia, nestling into the chambered obsidian nautilus shell Takaiko brought from the depths as a gift.

Ryunn offered it back to her but Takaiko shook her head. As opposed to the lustrous pattern of gold-dusted blue pearls decorating Ryunn’s white hair, Takaiko had hers tied into the bio-lights of anglerfish.

Takaiko pinched one of them, saying “This isn’t the sun, they won’t survive. All of the pretty things should stay here.”

“That’s not true,” Ryunn said, flicking her tail to reach an empty rope basket hanging from the ceiling. Takaiko rolled on her stomach to get a better view of the sun making the other princess’ scales sparkle bright enough to shine through her long dress. “Sometimes, the clouds block the stars in the sky but when I look down to the valley where you live, the stars there never stop shining.”

“Those are hunting lights,” Takaiko shimmied closer to a plate of surf clams, popping the chewy snack into her fanged mouth. They caught on the shellfish’s gummy body; unaccustomed to prey that didn’t rely on thrashing and biting to survive. “But if you think they’re pretty, they’re doing a good job.”

“Oh…” Ryunn trailed off, hands brushing over the thick shell of the deep sea nautilus. It had to be thick to withstand the intense water pressure in the Midnight sea. The Apho sea was blessed with sunlight and gentle waves. Scars like the kind Takaiko had crisscrossing over her scales and stomach were virtually unheard of. “You have it hard…”

“Untrue!” Takaiko protested immediately, catching her friend looking. “I just have to keep the Abyss from eating up more of the ocean floor,” Otherwise known as the worst parts of her personality stuffed behind a sealed gate. “You though--” She bundled her long sash tighter around her waist in an attempt to keep her robes from slipping when she shot herself at Ryunn’s tail.

Pressing her face into the vivid scales, she listened to Ryunn frantically giggle that she was ticklish, unable to stop herself from squirming. There were no scars, despite Ryunn’s perilous responsibility.

Likely, if she was as reckless as Takaiko, Ryunn would disappear. No scars to show for missing skin; the Princess and her people would be taken, leaving not a trace.

“You have to keep Death out.”

Out of reflex, Ryunn glanced out the window at the endless emptiness beyond the walls of the reef. For now, the shadows just belonged to the clouds.

Finding that Takaiko was clinging to her tail like a worried guppy gripping their pillow, Ryunn released the shelf and let them both sink to where her vanity mirror stood atop the wide flat plates of a table coral.

“It can’t just be bad things out there. Look at this,” Ryunn lifted an inverted box. The ancient jewelry underneath spilled into a wide pile as a strange furry brown ball floated to the underside of the topmost shelf. “I found this after a big storm swept over the castle a week ago. There were lots of these attached to this stiff seaweed with big wide leaves that I’ve never seen before.” She offered the ball to Takaiko.

Taking ahold of the scratchy thing, the deepsea princess found that it was buoyant.

“None of my retainers knew what it was. At first, we thought it could have been an egg but it isn’t warm.”

“Eggs are supposed to be warm?” Takaiko asked, holding the ball to her nose. “Huh, I can hear pulses but I didn’t know eggs were supposed to be warm. If that’s true, there’s no blood flow, no twitching, so why does it smell good?”

The sunlit sea princess blinked at her friend, clamping her arms to her sides.

Of course Takaiko would have a stronger sense of smell; it was dark where she lived.

“Have you thought about opening it?” Takaiko asked, knocking on the shell to check if it was hollow.

The reason Ryunn was crossing her arms was because she had been playing catch with herself when Hades had almost swallowed it when he tried to play with her.

“I might have thought about it.” Ryunn wondered if a small knife could cut into the shell. Or a big rock could work.

“Make your pet bite it open.” Liberta suggested, overhearing the girls.

“I’m as much as a pet as you are literate,” Hades curled his lip, annoyed at Liberta using his tail as a backscratcher. “And if it isn’t an egg, what if it’s poisonous?”

“What if you weren’t a wuss?”

“What if we all got along!” Ryunn quickly interjected, noticing Hades gnashing his teeth. “I can open it.”

“Really?” Takaiko swam back, giving Ryunn some space.

Confused for a moment, it didn’t occur to Ryunn that Takaiko was staring, expecting Ryunn to rip the shell open with her bare hands.

Saying that she would need a tool to pry the strange object open would take three seconds but Ryunn felt put on the spot. Oh dear, was this a normal thing that monarchs could do? Her fingers would break before she’d be able to tear it apart. Even with clams, she needed to soften them in warm water. Gosh, could she use her teeth?

Though Hades was weighed down by a sleepy idiot, he knew Ryunn would instantly regret having a gap between her front teeth. He pretended to sneeze, shooting an icicle into the shell and it burst open.

A milky substance erupted from the crumbling shell, enveloping the princess in a thick white cloud.

Takaiko had been right. The contents did smell nice, but for some reason, Takaiko was screaming.

“It’s not an egg!” She slammed into her friend, knocking her to the floor. Placing a protective hand over Ryunn’s mouth to keep the milk from seeping in, Takaiko blurted “AAAAHG, are these spores!?”

Hades eyes snapped wide and he wrenched his head further into the bedroom. The wall crumbled as he instinctively threw his head over Ryunn to wall her off from the nasty sperm sack. His chin flattened both her and Takaiko, muffling their shouts and leaving cracks in the tiles.

Meanwhile, Liberta was nosing the broken pieces floating on the ceiling.

“Don’t touch that!” Hades yelled at him, recoiling at the freak darting his tongue out to touch the congealed white substance stuck to the sides of the broken shell. “I SAID DON’T TOUCH THAT.”

Liberta figured out that it wasn’t an egg or spore pouch, but he liked how Hades was freaking out so he made gross licking and slurping noises until the vanity smashed against the side of his face.

#uknow treat yoself #mermaid princess AU #Ryunn (S)#Ty (S)#using her full name instead of her nickname #liberta (s)#hades (s)

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anupamasdiggs · 5 years

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SV 1

Satan, being thus confined to a vagabond, wandering, unsettled condition, is without any certain abode; for though he has, in consequence of his angelic nature, a kind of empire in the liquid waste or air, yet this is certainly part of his punishment, that he is . . . without any fixed place, or space, allowed him to rest the sole of his foot upon.

Daniel Defoe, _The History of the Devil_

The Angel Gibreel

"To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die. Hoji! Hoji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again . . ." Just before dawn one winter's morning, New Year's Day or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky.

"I tell you, you must die, I tell you, I tell you," and thusly and so beneath a moon of alabaster until a loud cry crossed the night, "To the devil with your tunes," the words hanging crystalline in the iced white night, "in the movies you only mimed to playback singers, so spare me these infernal noises now."

Gibreel, the tuneless soloist, had been cavorting in moonlight as he sang his impromptu gazal, swimming in air, butterfly-stroke, breast-stroke, bunching himself into a ball, spreadeagling himself against the almost-infinity of the almost-dawn, adopting heraldic postures, rampant, couchant, pitting levity against gravity. Now he rolled happily towards the sardonic voice. "Ohé, Salad baba, it's you, too good. What-ho, old Chumch." At which the other, a fastidious shadow falling headfirst in a grey suit with all the jacket buttons done up, arms by his sides, taking for granted the improbability of the bowler hat on his head, pulled a nickname-hater's face. "Hey, Spoono," Gibreel yelled, eliciting a second inverted wince, "Proper London, bhai! Here we come! Those bastards down there won't know what hit them. Meteor or lightning or vengeance of God. Out of thin air, baby. _Dharrraaammm!_ Wham, na? What an entrance, yaar. I swear: splat."

Out of thin air: a big bang, followed by falling stars. A universal beginning, a miniature echo of the birth of time . . . the jumbo jet _Bostan_, Flight AI-420, blew apart without any warning, high above the great, rotting, beautiful, snow-white, illuminated city, Mahagonny, Babylon, Alphaville. But Gibreel has already named it, I mustn't interfere: Proper London, capital of Vilayet, winked blinked nodded in the night. While at Himalayan height a brief and premature sun burst into the powdery January air, a blip vanished from radar screens, and the thin air was full of bodies, descending from the Everest of the catastrophe to the milky paleness of the sea.

Who am I?

Who else is there?

The aircraft cracked in half, a seed-pod giving up its spores, an egg yielding its mystery. Two actors, prancing Gibreel and buttony, pursed Mr. Saladin Chamcha, fell like titbits of tobacco from a broken old cigar. Above, behind, below them in the void there hung reclining seats, stereophonic headsets, drinks trolleys, motion discomfort receptacles, disembarkation cards, duty-free video games, braided caps, paper cups, blankets, oxygen masks. Also -- for there had been more than a few migrants aboard, yes, quite a quantity of wives who had been grilled by reasonable, doing-their-job officials about the length of and distinguishing moles upon their husbands' genitalia, a sufficiency of children upon whose legitimacy the British Government had cast its everreasonable doubts -- mingling with the remnants of the plane, equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mothertongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, _land_, _belonging_, _home_. Knocked a little silly by the blast, Gibreel and Saladin plummeted like bundles dropped by some carelessly open-beaked stork, and because Chamcha was going down head first, in the recommended position for babies entering the birth canal, he commenced to feel a low irritation at the other's refusal to fall in plain fashion. Saladin nosedived while Farishta embraced air, hugging it with his arms and legs, a flailing, overwrought actor without techniques of restraint. Below, cloud-covered, awaiting their entrance, the slow congealed currents of the English Sleeve, the appointed zone of their watery reincarnation.

"O, my shoes are Japanese," Gibreel sang, translating the old song into English in semi-conscious deference to the uprushing host-nation, "These trousers English, if you please. On my head, red Russian hat; my heart's Indian for all that." The clouds were bubbling up towards them, and perhaps it was on account of that great mystification of cumulus and cumulo-nimbus, the mighty rolling thunderheads standing like hammers in the dawn, or perhaps it was the singing (the one busy performing, the other booing the performance), or their blast--delirium that spared them full foreknowledge of the imminent . . . but for whatever reason, the two men, Gibreelsaladin Farishtachamcha, condemned to this endless but also ending angelicdevilish fall, did not become aware of the moment at which the processes of their transmutation began.

Mutation?

Yessir, but not random. Up there in air-space, in that soft, imperceptible field which had been made possible by the century and which, thereafter, made the century possible, becoming one of its defining locations, the place of movement and of war, the planet-shrinker and power-vacuum, most insecure and transitory of zones, illusory, discontinuous, metamorphic, -- because when you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible -- wayupthere, at any rate, changes took place in delirious actors that would have gladdened the heart of old Mr. Lamarck: under extreme environmental pressure, characteristics were acquired.

What characteristics which? Slow down; you think Creation happens in a rush? So then, neither does revelation . . . take a look at the pair of them. Notice anything unusual? Just two brown men, falling hard, nothing so new about that, you may think; climbed too high, got above themselves, flew too close to the sun, is that it?

That's not it. Listen:

Mr. Saladin Chamcha, appalled by the noises emanating from Gibreel Farishta's mouth, fought back with verses of his own. What Farishta heard wafting across the improbable night sky was an old song, too, lyrics by Mr. James Thomson, seventeenhundred to seventeen-forty-eight. ". . . at Heaven's command," Chamcha carolled through lips turned jingoistically redwhiteblue by the cold, "arooooose from out the aaaazure main." Farishta, horrified, sang louder and louder of Japanese shoes, Russian hats, inviolately subcontinental hearts, but could not still Saladin's wild recital: "And guardian aaaaangels sung the strain."

Let's face it: it was impossible for them to have heard one another, much less conversed and also competed thus in song. Accelerating towards the planet, atmosphere roaring around them, how could they? But let's face this, too: they did.

Downdown they hurtled, and the winter cold frosting their eyelashes and threatening to freeze their hearts was on the point of waking them from their delirious daydream, they were about to become aware of the miracle of the singing, the rain of limbs and babies of which they were a part, and the terror of the destiny rushing at them from below, when they hit, were drenched and instantly iced by, the degree-zero boiling of the clouds.

They were in what appeared to be a long, vertical tunnel. Chamcha, prim, rigid, and still upside-down, saw Gibreel Farishta in his purple bush-shirt come swimming towards him across that cloud-walled funnel, and would have shouted, "Keep away, get away from me," except that something prevented him, the beginning of a little fluttery screamy thing in his intestines, so instead of uttering words of rejection he opened his arms and Farishta swam into them until they were embracing head-to-tail, and the force of their collision sent them tumbling end over end, performing their geminate cartwheels all the way down and along the hole that went to Wonderland; while pushing their way out of the white came a succession of cloudforms, ceaselessly metamorphosing, gods into bulls, women into spiders, men into wolves. Hybrid cloud-creatures pressed in upon them, gigantic flowers with human breasts dangling from fleshy stalks, winged cats, centaurs, and Chamcha in his semi-consciousness was seized by the notion that he, too, had acquired the quality of cloudiness, becoming metamorphic, hybrid, as if he were growing into the person whose head nestled now between his legs and whose legs were wrapped around his long, patrician neck.

This person had, however, no time for such "high falutions"; was, indeed, incapable of faluting at all; having just seen, emerging from the swirl of cloud, the figure of a glamorous woman of a certain age, wearing a brocade sari in green and gold, with a diamond in her nose and lacquer defending her high-coiled hair against the pressure of the wind at these altitudes, as she sat, equably, upon a flying carpet. "Rekha Merchant," Gibreel greeted her. "You couldn't find your way to heaven or what?" Insensitive words to speak to a dead woman! But his concussed, plummeting condition may be offered in mitigation

. . . Chamcha, clutching his legs, made an uncomprehending query: "What the hell?"

"You don't see her?" Gibreel shouted. "You don't see her goddamn Bokhara rug?"

No, no, Gibbo, her voice whispered in his ears, don't expect him to confirm. I am strictly for your eyes only, maybe you are going crazy, what do you think, you namaqool, you piece of pig excrement, my love. With death comes honesty, my beloved, so I can call you by your true names.

Cloudy Rekha murmured sour nothings, but Gibreel cried again to Chamcha: "Spoono? You see her or you don't?"

Saladin Chamcha saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing. Gibreel faced her alone. "You shouldn't have done it," he admonished her. "No, sir. A sin. A suchmuch thing."

O, you can lecture me now, she laughed. You are the one with the high moral tone, that's a good one. It was you who left me, her voice reminded his ear, seeming to nibble at the lobe. It was you, O moon of my delight, who hid behind a cloud. And I in darkness, blinded, lost, for love.

He became afraid. "What do you want? No, don't tell, just go."

When you were sick I could not see you, in case of scandal, you knew I could not, that I stayed away for your sake, but afterwards you punished, you used it as your excuse to leave, your cloud to hide behind. That, and also her, the icewoman. Bastard. Now that I am dead I have forgotten how to forgive. I curse you, my Gibreel, may your life be hell. Hell, because that's where you sent me, damn you, where you came from, devil, where you're going, sucker, enjoy the bloody dip. Rekha's curse; and after that, verses in a language he did not understand, all harshnesses and sibilance, in which he thought he made out, but maybe not, the repeated name _Al-Lat_.

He clutched at Chamcha; they burst through the bottom of the clouds.

Speed, the sensation of speed, returned, whistling its fearful note. The roof of cloud fled upwards, the water-floor zoomed closer, their eyes opened. A scream, that same scream that had fluttered in his guts when Gibreel swam across the sky, burst from Chamcha's lips; a shaft of sunlight pierced his open mouth and set it free. But they had fallen through the transformations of the clouds, Chamcha and Farishta, and there was a fluidity, an indistinctness, at the edges of them, and as the sunlight hit Chamcha it released more than noise:

"Fly," Chamcha shrieked at Gibreel. "Start flying, now." And added, without knowing its source, the second command: "And sing."

How does newness come into the world? How is it born?

Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?

How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine?

Is birth always a fall?

Do angels have wings? Can men fly?

When Mr. Saladin Chamcha fell out of the clouds over the English Channel he felt his heart being gripped by a force so implacable that he understood it was impossible for him to die. Afterwards, when his feet were once more firmly planted on the ground, he would begin to doubt this, to ascribe the implausibilities of his transit to the scrambling of his perceptions by the blast, and to attribute his survival, his and Gibreel's, to blind, dumb luck. But at the time he had no doubt; what had taken him over was the will to live, unadulterated, irresistible, pure, and the first thing it did was to inform him that it wanted nothing to do with his pathetic personality, that half-reconstructed affair of mimicry and voices, it intended to bypass all that, and he found himself surrendering to it, yes, go on, as if he were a bystander in his own mind, in his own body, because it began in the very centre of his body and spread outwards, turning his blood to iron, changing his flesh to steel, except that it also felt like a fist that enveloped him from outside, holding him in a way that was both unbearably tight and intolerably gentle; until finally it had conquered him totally and could work his mouth, his fingers, whatever it chose, and once it was sure of its dominion it spread outward from his body and grabbed Gibreel Farishta by the balls.

"Fly," it commanded Gibreel. "Sing."

Chamcha held on to Gibreel while the other began, slowly at first and then with increasing rapidity and force, to flap his arms. Harder and harder he flapped, and as he flapped a song burst out of him, and like the song of the spectre of Rekha Merchant it was sung in a language he did not know to a tune he had never heard. Gibreel never repudiated the miracle; unlike Chamcha, who tried to reason it out of existence, he never stopped saying that the gazal had been celestial, that without the song the flapping would have been for nothing, and without the flapping it was a sure thing that they would have hit the waves like rocks or what and simply burst into pieces on making contact with the taut drum of the sea. Whereas instead they began to slow down. The more emphatically Gibreel flapped and sang, sang and flapped, the more pronounced the deceleration, until finally the two of them were floating down to the Channel like scraps of paper in a breeze.

They were the only survivors of the wreck, the only ones who fell from _Bostan_ and lived. They were found washed up on a beach. The more voluble of the two, the one in the purple shirt, swore in his wild ramblings that they had walked upon the water, that the waves had borne them gently in to shore; but the other, to whose head a soggy bowler hat clung as if by magic, denied this. "God, we were lucky," he said. "How lucky can you get?"

I know the truth, obviously. I watched the whole thing. As to omnipresence and -potence, I'm making no claims at present, but I can manage this much, I hope. Chamcha willed it and Farishta did what was willed.

Which was the miracle worker?

Of what type -- angelic, satanic -- was Farishta's song?

Who am I?

Let's put it this way: who has the best tunes?

These were the first words Gibreel Farishta said when he awoke on the snowbound English beach with the improbability of a starfish by his ear: "Born again, Spoono, you and me. Happy birthday, mister; happy birthday to you."

Whereupon Saladin Chamcha coughed, spluttered, opened his eyes, and, as befitted a new-born babe, burst into foolish tears.

Reincarnation was always a big topic with Gibreel, for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the Indian movies, even before he "miraculously" defeated the Phantom Bug that everyone had begun to believe would terminate his contracts. So maybe someone should have been able to forecast, only nobody did, that when he was up and about again he would sotospeak succeed where the germs had failed and walk out of his old life forever within a week of his fortieth birthday, vanishing, poof!, like a trick, _into thin air_.

The first people to notice his absence were the four members of his film-studio wheelchair-team. Long before his illness he had formed the habit of being transported from set to set on the great D. W. Rama lot by this group of speedy, trusted athletes, because a man who makes up to eleven movies "sy-multaneous" needs to conserve his energies. Guided by a complex coding system of slashes, circles and dots which Gibreel remembered from his childhood among the fabled lunch-runners of Bombay (of which more later), the chair-men zoomed him from role to role, delivering him as punctually and unerringly as once his father had delivered lunch. And after each take Gibreel would skip back into the chair and be navigated at high speed towards the next set, to be re-costumed, made up and handed his lines. "A career in the Bombay talkies," he told his loyal crew, "is more like a wheelchair race with one-two pit stops along the route."

After the illness, the Ghostly Germ, the Mystery Malaise, the Bug, he had returned to work, easing himself in, only seven pictures at a time . . . and then, justlikethat, he wasn't there. The wheelchair stood empty among the silenced sound-stages; his absence revealed the tawdry shamming of the sets. Wheelchairmen, one to four, made excuses for the missing star when movie executives descended upon them in wrath: Ji, he must be sick, he has always been famous for his punctual, no, why to criticize, maharaj, great artists must from time to time be permitted their temperament, na, and for their protestations they became the first casualties of Farishta's unexplained hey-presto, being fired, four three two one, ekdumjaldi, ejected from studio gates so that a wheelchair lay abandoned and gathering dust beneath the painted coco-palms around a sawdust beach.

Where was Gibreel? Movie producers, left in seven lurches, panicked expensively. See, there, at the Willingdon Club golf links -- only nine holes nowadays, skyscrapers having sprouted out of the other nine like giant weeds, or, let's say, like tombstones marking the sites where the torn corpse of the old city lay -- there, right there, upper-echelon executives, missing the simplest putts; and, look above, tufts of anguished hair, torn from senior heads, wafting down from high-level windows. The agitation of the producers was easy to understand, because in those days of declining audiences and the creation of historical soap operas and contemporary crusading housewives by the television network, there was but a single name which, when set above a picture's title, could still offer a sure-fire, cent-per-cent guarantee of an Ultrahit, a Smashation, and the owner of said name had departed, up, down or sideways, but certainly and unarguably vamoosed . . .

All over the city, after telephones, motorcyclists, cops, frogmen and trawlers dragging the harbour for his body had laboured mightily but to no avail, epitaphs began to be spoken in memory of the darkened star. On one of Rama Studios' seven impotent stages, Miss Pimple Billimoria, the latest chilli-and-spices bombshell -- _she's no flibberti-gibberti mamzel!, but a whir-stir-get-lost-sir bundla dynamite_ -- clad in temple--dancer veiled undress and positioned beneath writhing cardboard representations of copulating Tantric figures from the Chandela period, -- and perceiving that her major scene was not to be, her big break lay in pieces -- offered up a spiteful farewell before an audience of sound recordists and electricians smoking their cynical beedis. Attended by a dumbly distressed ayah, all elbows, Pimple attempted scorn. "God, what a stroke of luck, for Pete's sake," she cried. "I mean today it was the love scene, chhi chhi, I was just dying inside, thinking how to go near to that fatmouth with his breath of rotting cockroach dung." Bell-heavy anklets jingled as she stamped. "Damn good for him the movies don't smell, or he wouldn't get one job as a leper even." Here Pimple's soliloquy climaxed in such a torrent of obscenities that the beedi-smokers sat up for the first time and commenced animatedly to compare Pimple's vocabulary with that of the infamous bandit queen Phoolan Devi whose oaths could melt rifle barrels and turn journalists' pencils to rubber in a trice.

Exit Pimple, weeping, censored, a scrap on a cutting-room floor. Rhinestones fell from her navel as she went, mirroring her tears. . . in the matter of Farishta's halitosis she was not, however, altogether wrong; if anything, she had a little understated the case. Gibreel's exhalations, those ochre clouds of sulphur and brimstone, had always given him -- when taken together with his pronounced widow's peak and crowblack hair -- an air more saturnine than haloed, in spite of his archangelic name. It was said after he disappeared that he ought to have been easy to find, all it took was a halfway decent nose . . . and one week after he took off, an exit more tragic than Pimple Billimoria's did much to intensify the devilish odour that was beginning to attach itself to that forsolong sweet-smelling name. You could .say that he had stepped out of the screen into the world, and in life, unlike the cinema, people know it if you stink.

_We are creatures of air, Our roots in dreams And clouds, reborn In flight. Goodbye_. The enigmatic note discovered by the police in Gibreel Farishta's penthouse, located on the top floor of the Everest Vilas skyscraper on Malabar Hill, the highest home in the highest building on the highest ground in the city, one of those double-vista apartments from which you could look this way across the evening necklace of Marine Drive or that way out to Scandal Point and the sea, permitted the newspaper headlines to prolong their cacophonies. FARISHTA DIVES UNDERGROUND, opined _Blitz_ in somewhat macabre fashion, while Busybee in _The Daily_ preferred GIBREEL FLIES coop. Many photographs were published of that fabled residence in which French interior decorators bearing letters of commendation from Reza Pahlevi for the work they had done at Persepolis had spent a million dollars recreating at this exalted altitude the effect of a Bedouin tent. Another illusion unmade by his absence; GIBREEL STRIKES CAMP, the headlines yelled, but had he gone up or down or sideways? No one knew. In that metropolis of tongues and whispers, not even the sharpest ears heard anything reliable. But Mrs. Rekha Merchant, reading all the papers, listening to all the radio broadcasts, staying glued to the Doordarshan TV programmes, gleaned something from Farishta's message, heard a note that eluded everyone else, and took her two daughters and one son for a walk on the roof of her high-rise home. Its name was Everest Vilas.

His neighbour; as a matter of fact, from the apartment directly beneath his own. His neighbour and his friend; why should I say any more? Of course the scandal-pointed malice-magazines of the city filled their columns with hint innuendo and nudge, but that's no reason for sinking to their level. Why tarnish her reputation now?

Who was she? Rich, certainly, but then Everest Vilas was not exactly a tenement in Kurla, eh? Married, yessir, thirteen years, with a husband big in ball-bearings. Independent, her carpet and antique showrooms thriving at their prime Colaba sites. She called her carpets _klims_ and _kleens_ and the ancient artefacts were _anti-queues_. Yes, and she was beautiful, beautiful in the hard, glossy manner of those rarefied occupants of the city's sky-homes, her bones skin posture all bearing witness to her long divorce from the impoverished, heavy, pullulating earth. Everyone agreed she had a strong personality, drank _like a fish_ from Lalique crystal and hung her hat _shameless_ on a Chola Natraj and knew what she wanted and how to get it, fast. The husband was a mouse with money and a good squash wrist. Rekha Merchant read Gibreel Farishta's farewell note in the newspapers, wrote a letter of her own, gathered her children, summoned the elevator, and rose heavenward (one storey) to meet her chosen fate.

"Many years ago," her letter read, "I married out of cowardice. Now, finally, I'm doing something brave." She left a newspaper on her bed with Gibreel's message circled in red and heavily underscored -- three harsh lines, one of them ripping the page in fury. So naturally the bitch-journals went to town and it was all LOVELY"S LOVELORN LEAP, and BROKEN-HEARTED BEAUTY TAKES LAST DIVE. But:

Perhaps she, too, had the rebirth bug, and Gibreel, not understanding the terrible power of metaphor, had recommended flight. _To be born again,first you have to_ and she was a creature of the sky, she drank Lalique champagne, she lived on Everest, and one of her fellow-Olympians had flown; and if he could, then she, too, could be winged, and rooted in dreams.

She didn't make it. The lala who was employed as gatekeeper of the Everest Vilas compound offered the world his blunt testimony. "I was walking, here here, in the compound only, when there came a thud, _tharaap_. I turned. It was the body of the oldest daughter. Her skull was completely crushed. I looked up and saw the boy falling, and after him the younger girl. What to say, they almost hit me where I stood. I put my hand on my mouth and came to them. The young girl was whining softly. Then I looked up a further time and the Begum was coming. Her sari was floating out like a big balloon and all her hair was loose. I took my eyes away from her because she was fallIng and it was not respectful to look up inside her clothes."

Rekha and her children fell from Everest; no survivors. The whispers blamed Gibreel. Let's leave it at that for the moment.

Oh: don't forget: he saw her after she died. He saw her several times. It was a long time before people understood how sick the great man was. Gibreel, the star. Gibreel, who vanquished the Nameless Ailment. Gibreel, who feared sleep.

After he departed the ubiquitous images of his face began to rot. On the gigantic, luridly coloured hoardings from which he had watched over the populace, his lazy eyelids started flaking and crumbling, drooping further and further until his irises looked like two moons sliced by clouds, or by the soft knives of his long lashes. Finally the eyelids fell off, giving a wild, bulging look to his painted eyes. Outside the picture palaces of Bombay, mammoth cardboard effigies of Gibreel were seen to decay and list. Dangling limply on their sustaining scaffolds, they lost arms, withered, snapped at the neck. His portraits on the covers of movie magazines acquired the pallor of death, a nullity about the eye, a hollowness. At last his images simply faded off the printed page, so that the shiny covers of _Celebrity_ and _Society_ and _Illustrated Weekly_ went blank at the bookstalls and their publishers fired the printers and blamed the quality of the ink. Even on the silver screen itself, high above his worshippers in the dark, that supposedly immortal physiognomy began to putrefy, blister and bleach; projectors jammed unaccountably every time he passed through the gate, his films ground to a halt, and the lamp-heat of the malfunctioning projectors burned his celluloid memory away: a star gone supernova, with the consuming fire spreading outwards, as was fitting, from his lips.

It was the death of God. Or something very like it; for had not that outsize face, suspended over its devotees in the artificial cinematic night, shone like that of some supernal Entity that had its being at least halfway between the mortal and the divine? More than halfway, many would have argued, for Gibreel had spent the greater part of his unique career incarnating, with absolute conviction, the countless deities of the subcontinent in the popular genre movies known as "theologicals". It was part of the magic of his persona that he succeeded in crossing religious boundaries without giving offence. Blue-skinned as Krishna he danced, flute in hand, amongst the beauteous gopis and their udder-heavy cows; with upturned palms, serene, he meditated (as Gautama) upon humanity's suffering beneath a studio-rickety bodhi-tree. On those infrequent occasions when he descended from the heavens he never went too far, playing, for example, both the Grand Mughal and his famously wily minister in the classic _Akbar and Birbal_. For over a decade and a half he had represented, to hundreds of millions of believers in that country in which, to this day, the human population outnumbers the divine by less than three to one, the most acceptable, and instantly recognizable, face of the Supreme. For many of his fans, the boundary separating the performer and his roles had longago ceased to exist.

The fans, yes, and? How about Gibreel?

That face. In real life, reduced to life-size, set amongst ordinary mortals, it stood revealed as oddly un-starry. Those low-slung eyelids could give him an exhausted look. There was, too, something coarse about the nose, the mouth was too well fleshed to be strong, the ears were long-lobed like young, knurled jackfruit. The most profane of faces, the most sensual of faces. In which, of late, it had been possible to make out the seams mined by his recent, near-fatal illness. And yet, in spite of profanity and debilitation, this was a face inextricably mixed up with holiness, perfection, grace: God stuff. No accounting for tastes, that's all. At any rate, you'll agree that for such an actor (for any actor, maybe, even for Chamcha, but most of all for him) to have a bee in his bonnet about avatars, like much-metamorphosed Vishnu, was not so very surprising. Rebirth: that's God stuff, too.

Or, but, then again . . . not always. There are secular reincarnations, too. Gibreel Farishta had been born Ismail Najmuddin in Poona, British Poona at the empire's fag-end, long before the Pune of Rajneesh etc. (Pune, Vadodara, Mumbai; even towns can take stage names nowadays.) Ismail after the child involved in the sacrifice of Ibrahim, and Najmuddin, _star of the faith_; he'd given up quite a name when he took the angel's.

Afterwards, when the aircraft _Bostan_ was in the grip of the hijackers, and the passengers, fearing for their futures, were regressing into their pasts, Gibreel confided to Saladin Chamcha that his choice of pseudonym had been his way of making a homage to the memory of his dead mother, "my mummyji, Spoono, my one and only Mamo, because who else was it who started the whole angel business, her personal angel, she called me, _farishta_, because apparently I was too damn sweet, believe it or not, I was good as goddamn gold."

Poona couldn't hold him; he was taken in his infancy to the bitch-city, his first migration; his father got a job amongst the fleet-footed inspirers of future wheelchair quartets, the lunch-porters or dabbawallas of Bombay. And Ismail the farishta followed, at thirteen, in his father's footsteps.

Gibreel, captive aboard AI-420, sank into forgivable rhapsodies, fixing Chamcha with his glittering eye, explicating the mysteries of the runners' coding system, black swastika red circle yellow slash dot, running in his mind's eye the entire relay from home to office desk, that improbable system by which two thousand dabbawallas delivered, each day, over one hundred thousand lunch-pails, and on a bad day, Spoono, maybe fifteen got mislaid, we were illiterate, mostly, but the signs were our secret tongue.

_Bostan_ circled London, gunmen patrolling the gangways, and the lights in the passenger cabins had been switched off, but Gibreel's energy illuminated the gloom. On the grubby movie screen on which, earlier in the journey, the inflight inevitability of Walter Matthau had stumbled lugubriously into the aerial ubiquity of Goldie Hawn, there were shadows moving, projected by the nostalgia of the hostages, and the most sharply defined of them was this spindly adolescent, Ismail Najmuddin, mummy's angel in a Gandhi cap, running tiffins across the town. The young dabbawalla skipped nimbly through the shadow-crowd, because he was used to such conditions, think, Spoono, picture, thirty-forty tiffins in a long wooden tray on your head, and when the local train stops you have maybe one minute to push on or off, and then running in the streets, flat out, yaar, with the trucks buses scooters cycles and what-all, one-two, one-two, lunch, lunch, the dabbas must get through, and in the monsoon running down the railway line when the train broke down, or waist-deep in water in some flooded street, and there were gangs, Salad baba, truly, organized gangs of dabba-stealers, it's a hungry city, baby, what to tell you, but we could handle them, we were everywhere, knew everything, what thieves could escape our eyes and ears, we never went to any policia, we looked after our own.

At night father and son would return exhausted to their shack by the airport runway at Santacruz and when Ismail's mother saw him approaching, illuminated by the green red yellow of the departing jet-planes, she would say that simply to lay eyes on him made all her dreams come true, which was the first indication that there was something peculiar about Gibreel, because from the beginning, it seemed, he could fulfil people's most secret desires without having any idea of how he did it. His father Najmuddin Senior never seemed to mind that his wife had eyes only for her son, that the boy's feet received nightly pressings while the father's went unstroked. A son is a blessing and a blessing requires the gratitude of the blest.

Naima Najmuddin died. A bus hit her and that was that, Gibreel wasn't around to answer her prayers for life. Neither father nor son ever spoke of grief. Silently, as though it were customary and expected, they buried their sadness beneath extra work, engaging in an inarticulate contest, who could carry the most dabbas on his head, who could acquire the most new contracts per month, who could run faster, as though the greater labour would indicate the greater love. When he saw his father at night, the knotted veins bulging in his neck and at his temples, Ismail Najmuddin would understand how much the older man had resented him, and how important it was for the father to defeat the son and regain, thereby, his usurped primacy in the affections of his dead wife. Once he realized this, the youth eased off, but his father's zeal remained unrelenting, and pretty soon he was getting promotion, no longer a mere runner but one of the organizing muqaddams. When Gibreel was nineteen, Najmuddin Senior became a member of the lunch-runners' guild, the Bombay Tiffin Carriers' Association, and when Gibreel was twenty, his father was dead, stopped in his tracks by a stroke that almost blew him apart. "He just ran himself into the ground," said the guild's General Secretary, Babasaheb Mhatre himself. "That poor bastard, he just ran out of steam." But the orphan knew better. He knew that his father had finally run hard enough and long enough to wear down the frontiers between the worlds, he had run clear out of his skin and into the arms of his wife, to whom he had proved, once and for all, the superiority of his love. Some migrants are happy to depart.

Babasaheb Mhatre sat in a blue office behind a green door above a labyrinthine bazaar, an awesome figure, buddha-fat, one of the great moving forces of the metropolis, possessing the occult gift of remaining absolutely still, never shifting from his room, and yet being everywhere important and meeting everyone who mattered in Bombay. The day after young Ismail's father ran across the border to see Naima, the Babasaheb summoned the young man into his presence. "So? Upset or what?" The reply, with downcast eyes: ji, thank you, Babaji, I am okay. "Shut your face," said Babasaheb Mhatre. "From today you live with me." Butbut, Babaji ... "But me no buts. Already I have informed my goodwife. I have spoken." Please excuse Babaji but how what why? "I have _spoken_."

Gibreel Farishta was never told why the Babasaheb had decided to take pity on him and pluck him from the futurelessness of the streets, but after a while he began to have an idea. Mrs. Mhatre was a thin woman, like a pencil beside the rubbery Babasaheb, but she was filled so full of mother-love that she should have been fat like a potato. When the Baba came home she put sweets into his mouth with her own hands, and at nights the newcomer to the household could hear the great General Secretary of the B T C A protesting, Let me go, wife, I can undress myself. At breakfast she spoon-fed Mhatre with large helpings of malt, and before he went to work she brushed his hair. They were a childless couple, and young Najmuddin understood that the Babasaheb wanted him to share the load. Oddly enough, however, the Begum did not treat the young man as a child. "You see, he is a grown fellow," she told her husband when poor Mhatre pleaded, "Give the boy the blasted spoon of malt." Yes, a grown fellow, "we must make a man of him, husband, no babying for him." "Then damn it to hell," the Babasaheb exploded, "why do you do it to me?" Mrs. Mhatre burst into tears. "But you are everything to me," she wept, "you are my father, my lover, my baby too. You are my lord and my suckling child. If I displease you then I have no life."

Babasaheb Mhatre, accepting defeat, swallowed the tablespoon of malt.

He was a kindly man, which he disguised with insults and noise. To console the orphaned youth he would speak to him, in the blue office, about the philosophy of rebirth, convincing him that his parents were already being scheduled for re-entry somewhere, unless of course their lives had been so holy that they had attained the final grace. So it was Mhatre who started Farishta off on the whole reincarnation business, and not just reincarnation. The Babasaheb was an amateur psychic, a tapper of table-legs and a bringer of spirits into glasses. "But I gave that up," he told his protégé, with many suitably melodramatic inflections, gestures, frowns, "after I got the fright of my bloody life."

Once (Mhatre recounted) the glass had been visited by the most co-operative of spirits, such a too-friendly fellow, see, so I thought to ask him some big questions. _Is there a God_, and that glass which had been running round like a mouse or so just stopped dead, middle of table, not a twitch, completely phutt, kaput. So, then, okay, I said, if you won't answer that try this one instead, and I came right out with it, _Is there a Devil_. After that the glass -- baprebap! -- began to shake -- catch your ears! -- slowslow at first, then faster--faster, like a jelly, until it jumped! -- ai-hai! -- up from the table, into the air, fell down on its side, and -- o-ho! -- into a thousand and one pieces, smashed. Believe don't believe, Babasaheb Mhatre told his charge, but thenandthere I learned my lesson: don't meddle, Mhatre, in what you do not comprehend.

This story had a profound effect on the consciousness of the young listener, because even before his mother's death he had become convinced of the existence of the supernatural world. Sometimes when he looked around him, especially in the afternoon heat when the air turned glutinous, the visible world, its features and inhabitants and things, seemed to be sticking up through the atmosphere like a profusion of hot icebergs, and he had the idea that everything continued down below the surface of the soupy air: people, motor-cars, dogs, movie billboards, trees, nine-tenths of their reality concealed from his eyes. He would blink, and the illusion would fade, but the sense of it never left him. He grew up believing in God, angels, demons, afreets, djinns, as matter-of-factly as if they were bullock-carts or lamp-posts, and it struck him as a failure in his own sight that he had never seen a ghost. He would dream of discovering a magic optometrist from whom he would purchase a pair of greentinged spectacles which would correct his regrettable myopia, and after that he would be able to see through the dense, blinding air to the fabulous world beneath.

From his mother Naima Najmuddin he heard a great many stories of the Prophet, and if inaccuracies had crept into her versions he wasn't interested in knowing what they were. "What a man!" he thought. "What angel would not wish to speak to him?" Sometimes, though, he caught himself in the act of forming blasphemous thoughts, for example when without meaning to, as he drifted off to sleep in his cot at the Mhatre residence, his somnolent fancy began to compare his own condition with that of the Prophet at the time when, having been orphaned and short of funds, he made a great success of his job as the business manager of the wealthy widow Khadija, and ended up marrying her as well. As he slipped into sleep he saw himself sitting on a rose-strewn dais, simpering shyly beneath the sari-pallu which he had placed demurely over his face, while his new husband, Babasaheb Mhatre, reached lovingly towards him to remove the fabric, and gaze at his features in a mirror placed in his lap. This dream of marrying the Babasaheb brought him awake, flushing hotly for shame, and after that he began to worry about the impurity in his make-up that could create such terrible visions.

Mostly, however, his religious faith was a low-key thing, a part of him that required no more special attention than any other. When Babasaheb Mhatre took him into his home it confirmed to the young man that he was not alone in the world, that something was taking care of him, so he was not entirely surprised when the Babasaheb called him into the blue office on the morning of his twenty-first birthday and sacked him without even being prepared to listen to an appeal.

"You're fired," Mhatre emphasized, beaming. "Cashiered, had your chips. Dis-_miss_."

"But, uncle,"

"Shut your face."

Then the Babasaheb gave the orphan the greatest present of his life, informing him that a meeting had been arranged for him at the studios of the legendary film magnate Mr. D. W. Rama; an audition. "It is for appearance only," the Babasaheb said. "Rama is my good friend and we have discussed. A small part to begin, then it is up to you. Now get out of my sight and stop pulling such humble faces, it does not suit."

"But, uncle,"

"Boy like you is too damn goodlooking to carry tiffins on his head all his life. Get gone now, go, be a homosexual movie actor. I fired you five minutes back."

"But, uncle,"

"I have spoken. Thank your lucky stars."

He became Gibreel Farishta, but for four years he did not become a star, serving his apprenticeship in a succession of minor knockabout comic parts. He remained calm, unhurried, as though he could see the future, and his apparent lack of ambition made him something of an outsider in that most self-seeking of industries. He was thought to be stupid or arrogant or both. And throughout the four wilderness years he failed to kiss a single woman on the mouth.

On-screen, he played the fall guy, the idiot who loves the beauty and can't see that she wouldn't go for him in a thousand years, the funny uncle, the poor relation, the village idiot, the servant, the incompetent crook, none of them the type of part that ever rates a love scene. Women kicked him, slapped him, teased him, laughed at him, but never, on celluloid, looked at him or sang to him or danced around him with cinematic love in their eyes. Off-screen, he lived alone in two empty rooms near the studios and tried to imagine what women looked like without clothes on. To get his mind off the subject of love and desire, he studied, becoming an omnivorous autodidact, devouring the metamorphic myths of Greece and Rome, the avatars of Jupiter, the boy who became a flower, the spider-woman, Circe, everything; and the theosophy of Annie Besant, and unified field theory, and the incident of the Satanic verses in the early career of the Prophet, and the politics of Muhammad's harem after his return to Mecca in triumph; and the surrealism of the newspapers, in which butterflies could fly into young girls' mouths, asking to be consumed, and children were born with no faces, and young boys dreamed in impossible detail of earlier incarnations, for instance in a golden fortress filled with precious stones. He filled himself up with God knows what, but he could not deny, in the small hours of his insomniac nights, that he was full of something that had never been used, that he did not know how to begin to use, that is, love. In his dreams he was tormented by women of unbearable sweetness and beauty, so he preferred to stay awake and force himself to rehearse some part of his general knowledge in order to blot out the tragic feeling of being endowed with a larger-than-usual capacity for love, without a single person on earth to offer it to.

His big break arrived with the coming of the theological movies. Once the formula of making films based on the puranas, and adding the usual mixture of songs, dances, funny uncles etc., had paid off, every god in the pantheon got his or her chance to be a star. When D. W. Rama scheduled a production based on the story of Ganesh, none of the leading box-office names of the time were willing to spend an entire movie concealed inside an elephant's head. Gibreel jumped at the chance. That was his first hit, _Ganpati Baba_, and suddenly he was a superstar, but only with the trunk and ears on. After six movies playing the elephantheaded god he was permitted to remove the thick, pendulous, grey mask and put on, instead, a long, hairy tail, in order to play Hanuman the monkey king in a sequence of adventure movies that owed more to a certain cheap television series emanating from Hong Kong than it did to the Ramayana. This series proved so popular that monkey-tails became de rigueur for the city's young bucks at the kind of parties frequented by convent girls known as "firecrackers" because of their readiness to go off with a bang.

After Hanuman there was no stopping Gibreel, and his phenomenal success deepened his belief in a guardian angel. But it also led to a more regrettable development.

(I see that I must, after all, spill poor Rekha's beans.)

Even before he replaced false head with fake tail he had become irresistibly attractive to women. The seductions of his fame had grown so great that several of these young ladies asked him if he would keep the Ganesh-mask on while they made love, but he refused out of respect for the dignity of the god. Owing to the innocence of his upbringing he could not at that time differentiate between quantity and quality and accordingly felt the need to make up for lost time. He had so many sexual partners that it was not uncommon for him to forget their names even before they had left his room. Not only did he become a philanderer of the worst type, but he also learned the arts of dissimulation, because a man who plays gods must be above reproach. So skilfully did he conceal his life of scandal and debauch that his old patron, Babasaheb Mhatre, lying on his deathbed a decade after he sent a young dabbawalla out into the world of illusion, black-money and lust, begged him to get married to prove he was a man. "God-sake, mister," the Babasaheb pleaded, "when I told you back then to go and be a homo I never thought you would take me seriously, there is a limit to respecting one's elders, after all." Gibreel threw up his hands and swore that he was no such disgraceful thing, and that when the right girl came along he would of course undergo nuptials with a will. "What you waiting? Some goddess from heaven? Greta Garbo, Gracekali, who?" cried the old man, coughing blood, but Gibreel left him with the enigma of a smile that allowed him to die without having his mind set entirely at rest.

The avalanche of sex in which Gibreel Farishta was trapped managed to bury his greatest talent so deep that it might easily have been lost forever, his talent, that is, for loving genuinely, deeply and without holding back, the rare and delicate gift which he had never been able to employ. By the time of his illness he had all but forgotten the anguish he used to experience owing to his longing for love, which had twisted and turned in him like a sorcerer's knife. Now, at the end of each gymnastic night, he slept easily and long, as if he had never been plagued by dream-women, as if he had never hoped to lose his heart.

"Your trouble," Rekha Merchant told him when she materialized out of the clouds, "is everybody always forgave you, God knows why, you always got let off, you got away with murder. Nobody ever held you responsible for what you did." He couldn't argue. "God's gift," she screamed at him, "God knows where you thought you were from, jumped-up type from the gutter, God knows what diseases you brought."

But that was what women did, he thought in those days, they were the vessels into which he could pour himself, and when he moved on, they would understand that it was his nature, and forgive. And it was true that nobody blamed him for leaving, for his thousand and one pieces of thoughtlessness, how many abortions, Rekha demanded in the cloud-hole, how many broken hearts. In all those years he was the beneficiary of the infinite generosity of women, but he was its victim, too, because their forgiveness made possible the deepest and sweetest corruption of all, namely the idea that he was doing nothing wrong.

Rekha: she entered his life when he bought the penthouse at Everest Vilas and she offered, as a neighbour and businesswoman, to show him her carpets and antiques. Her husband was at a world-wide congress of ball-bearings manufacturers in Gothenburg, Sweden, and in his absence she invited Gibreel into her apartment of stone lattices from Jaisalmer and carved wooden handrails from Kcralan palaces and a stone Mughal chhatri or cupola turned into a whirlpool bath; while she poured him French champagne she leaned against marbled walls and felt the cool veins of the stone against her back. When he sipped the champagne she teased him, surely gods should not partake of alcohol, and he answered with a line he had once read in an interview with the Aga Khan, O, you know, this champagne is only for outward show, the moment it touches my lips it turns to water. After that it didn't take long for her to touch his lips and deliquesce into his arms. By the time her children returned from school with the ayah she was immaculately dressed and coiffed, and sat with him in the drawing-room, revealing the secrets of the carpet business, confessing that art silk stood for artificial not artistic, telling him not to be fooled by her brochure in which a rug was seductively described as being made of wool plucked from the throats of baby lambs, which means, you see, only _low-grade wool_, advertising, what to do, this is how it is.

He did not love her, was not faithful to her, forgot her birthdays, failed to return her phone calls, turned up when it was most inconvenient owing to the presence in her home of dinner guests from the world of the ball-bearing, and like everyone else she forgave him. But her forgiveness was not the silent, mousy let-off he got from the others. Rekha complained like crazy, she gave him hell, she bawled him out and cursed him for a useless lafanga and haramzada and salah and even, in extremis, for being guilty of the impossible feat of fucking the sister he did not have. She spared him nothing, accusing him of being a creature of surfaces, like a movie screen, and then she went ahead and forgave him anyway and allowed him to unhook her blouse. Gibreel could not resist the operatic forgiveness of Rekha Merchant, which was all the more moving on account of the flaw in her own position, her infidelity to the ball-bearing king, which Gibreel forbore to mention, taking his verbal beatings like a man. So that whereas the pardons he got from the rest of his women left him cold and he forgot them the moment they were uttered, he kept coming back to Rekha, so that she could abuse him and then console him as only she knew how.

Then he almost died.

He was filming at Kanya Kumari, standing on the very tip of Asia, taking part in a fight scene set at the point on Cape Comorin where it seems that three oceans are truly smashing into one another. Three sets of waves rolled in from the west east south and collided in a mighty clapping of watery hands just as Gibreel took a punch on the jaw, perfect timing, and he passed out on the spot, falling backwards into tri-oceanic spume. He did not get up.

To begin with everybody blamed the giant English stunt-man Eustace Brown, who had delivered the punch. He protested vehemently. Was he not the same fellow who had performed opposite Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao in his many theological movie roles? Had he not perfected the art of making the old man look good in combat without hurting him? Had he ever complained that NTR never pulled his punches, so that he, Eustace, invariably ended up black and blue, having been beaten stupid by a little old guy whom he could've eaten for breakfast, on _toast_, and had he ever, even once, lost his temper? Well, then? How could anyone think he would hurt the immortal Gibreel? -- They fired him anyway and the police put him in the lock-up, just in case.

But it was not the punch that had flattened Gibreel. After the star had been flown into Bombay's Breach Candy Hospital in an Air Force jet made available for the purpose; after exhaustive tests had come up with almost nothing; and while he lay unconscious, dying, with a blood-count that had fallen from his normal fifteen to a murderous four point two, a hospital spokesman faced the national press on Breach Candy's wide white steps. "It is a freak mystery," he gave out. "Call it, if you so please, an act of God."

Gibreel Farishta had begun to haemorrhage all over his insides for no apparent reason, and was quite simply bleeding to death inside his skin. At the worst moment the blood began to seep out through his rectum and penis, and it seemed that at any moment it might burst torrentially through his nose and ears and out of the corners of his eyes. For seven days he bled, and received transfusions, and every clotting agent known to medical science, including a concentrated form of rat poison, and although the treatment resulted in a marginal improvement the doctors gave him up for lost.

The whole of India was at Gibreel's bedside. His condition was the lead item on every radio bulletin, it was the subject of hourly news-flashes on the national television network, and the crowd that gathered in Warden Road was so large that the police had to disperse it with lathi-charges and tear-gas, which they used even though every one of the half-million mourners was already tearful and wailing. The Prime Minister cancelled her appointments and flew to visit him. Her son the airline pilot sat in Farishta's bedroom, holding the actor's hand. A mood of apprehension settled over the nation, because if God had unleashed such an act of retribution against his most celebrated incarnation, what did he have in store for the rest of the country? If Gibreel died, could India be far behind? In the mosques and temples of the nation, packed congregations prayed, not only for the life of the dying actor, but for the future, for themselves.

Who did not visit Gibreel in hospital? Who never wrote, made no telephone call, despatched no flowers, sent in no tiffins of delicious home cooking? While many lovers shamelessly sent him get-well cards and lamb pasandas, who, loving him most of all, kept herself to herself, unsuspected by her ball--bearing of a husband? Rekha Merchant placed iron around her heart, and went through the motions of her daily life, playing with her children, chit-chatting with her husband, acting as his hostess when required, and never, not once, revealed the bleak devastation of her soul.

He recovered.

The recovery was as mysterious as the illness, and as rapid. It, too, was called (by hospital, journalists, friends) an act of the Supreme. A national holiday was declared; fireworks were set off up and down the land. But when Gibreel regained his strength, it became clear that he had changed, and to a startling degree, because he had lost his faith.

On the day he was discharged from hospital he went under police escort through the immense crowd that had gathered to celebrate its own deliverance as well as his, climbed into his Mercedes and told the driver to give all the pursuing vehicles the slip, which took seven hours and fifty-one minutes, and by the end of the manoeuvre he had worked out what had to be done. He got out of the limousine at the Taj hotel and without looking left or right went directly into the great dining-room with its buffet table groaning under the weight of forbidden foods, and he loaded his plate with all of it, the pork sausages from Wiltshire and the cured York hams and the rashers of bacon from godknowswhere; with the gammon steaks of his unbelief and the pig's trotters of secularism; and then, standing there in the middle of the hall, while photographers popped up from nowhere, he began to eat as fast as possible, stuffing the dead pigs into his face so rapidly that bacon rashers hung out of the sides of his mouth.

During his illness he had spent every minute of consciousness calling upon God, every second of every minute. Ya Allah whose servant lies bleeding do not abandon me now after watching oven me so long. Ya Allah show me some sign, some small mark of your favour, that I may find in myself the strength to cure my ills. O God most beneficent most merciful, be with me in this my time of need, my most grievous need. Then it occurred to him that he was being punished, and for a time that made it possible to suffer the pain, but after a time he got angry. Enough, God, his unspoken words demanded, why must I die when I have not killed, are you vengeance or are you love? The anger with God carried him through another day, but then it faded, and in its place there came a terrible emptiness, an isolation, as he realized he was talking to _thin air_, that there was nobody there at all, and then he felt more foolish than ever in his life, and he began to plead into the emptiness, ya Allah, just be there, damn it, just be. But he felt nothing, nothing nothing, and then one day he found that he no longer needed there to be anything to feel. On that day of metamorphosis the illness changed and his recovery began. And to prove to himself the non-existence of God, he now stood in the dining-hall of the city's most famous hotel, with pigs falling out of his face.

He looked up from his plate to find a woman watching him. Her hair was so fair that it was almost white, and her skin possessed the colour and translucency of mountain ice. She laughed at him and turned away.

"Don't you get it?" he shouted after her, spewing sausage fragments from the corners of his mouth. "No thunderbolt. That's the point."

She came back to stand in front of him. "You're alive," she told him. "You got your life back. _That's_ the point."

He told Rekha: the moment she turned around and started walking back I fell in love with her. Alleluia Cone, climber of mountains, vanquisher of Everest, blonde yahudan, ice queen. Her challenge, _change your life, or did you get it back for nothing_, I couldn't resist.

"You and your reincarnation junk," Rekha cajoled him. "Such a nonsense head. You come out of hospital, back through death's door, and it goes to your head, crazy boy, at once you must have some escapade thing, and there she is, hey presto, the blonde mame. Don't think I don't know what you're like, Gibbo, so what now, you want me to forgive you or what?"

No need, he said. He left Rekha's apartment (its mistress wept, face-down, on the floor); and never entered it again.

Three days after he met her with his mouth full of unclean meat Allie got into an aeroplane and left. Three days out of time behind a do-not-disturb sign, but in the end they agreed that the world was real, what was possible was possible and what was impossible was im--, brief encounter, ships that pass, love in a transit lounge. After she left, Gibreel rested, tried to shut his ears to her challenge, resolved to get his life back to normal. Just because he'd lost his belief it didn't mean he couldn't do his job, and in spite of the scandal of the ham-eating photographs, the first scandal ever to attach itself to his name, he signed movie contracts and went back to work.

And then, one morning, a wheelchair stood empty and he had gone. A bearded passenger, one Ismail Najmuddin, boarded Flight AI-420 to London. The 747 was named after one of the gardens of Paradise, not Gulistan but _Bostan_. "To be born again," Gibrecl Farishta said to Saladin Chamcha much later, "first you have to die. Me, I only half-expired, but I did it on two occasions, hospital and plane, so it adds up, it counts. And now, Spoono my friend, here I stand before you in Proper London, Vilayet, regenerated, a new man with a new life. Spoono, is this not a bloody fine thing?"

Why did he leave?

Because of her, the challenge of her, the newness, the fierceness of the two of them together, the inexorability of an impossible thing that was insisting on its right to become.

And, or, maybe: because after he ate the pigs the retribution began, a nocturnal retribution, a punishment of dreams.

Once the flight to London had taken off, thanks to his magic trick of crossing two pairs of fingers on each hand and rotating his thumbs, the narrow, fortyish fellow who sat in a non-smoking window seat watching the city of his birth fall away from him like old snakeskin allowed a relieved expression to pass briefly across his face. This face was handsome in a somewhat sour, patrician fashion, with long, thick, downturned lips like those of a disgusted turbot, and thin eyebrows arching sharply over eyes that watched the world with a kind of alert contempt. Mr. Saladin Chamcha had constructed this face with care -- it had taken him several years to get it just right -- and for many more years now he had thought of it simply as _his own_ -- indeed, he had forgotten what he had looked like before it. Furthermore, he had shaped himself a voice to go with the face, a voice whose languid, almost lazy vowels contrasted disconcertingly with the sawn--off abruptness of the consonants. The combination of face and voice was a potent one; but, during his recent visit to his home town, his first such visit in fifteen years (the exact period, I should observe, of Gibreel Farishta's film stardom), there had been strange and worrying developments. It was unfortunately the case that his voice (the first to go) and, subsequently, his face itself, had begun to let him down.

It started -- Chamcha, allowing fingers and thumbs to relax and hoping, in some embarrassment, that his last remaining superstition had gone unobserved by his fellow-passengers, closed his eyes and remembered with a delicate shudder of horror -- on his flight east some weeks ago. He had fallen into a torpid sleep, high above the desert sands of the Persian Gulf, and been visited in a dream by a bizarre stranger, a man with a glass skin, who rapped his knuckles mournfully against the thin, brittle membrane covering his entire body and begged Saladin to help him, to release him from the prison of his skin. Chamcha picked up a stone and began to batter at the glass. At once a latticework of blood oozed up through the cracked surface of the stranger's body, and when Chamcha tried to pick off the broken shards the other began to scream, because chunks of his flesh were coming away with the glass. At this point an air stewardess bent over the sleeping Chamcha and demanded, with the pitiless hospitality of her tribe: _Something to drink, sir? A drink?_, and Saladin, emerging from the dream, found his speech unaccountably metamorphosed into the Bombay lilt he had so diligently (and so long ago!) unmade. "Achha, means what?" he mumbled. "Alcoholic beverage or what?" And, when the stewardess reassured him, whatever you wish, sir, all beverages are gratis, he heard, once again, his traitor voice: "So, okay, bibi, give one whiskysoda only."

What a nasty surprise! He had come awake with a jolt, and sat stiffly in his chair, ignoring alcohol and peanuts. How had the past bubbled up, in transmogrified vowels and vocab? What next? Would he take to putting coconut-oil in his hair? Would he take to squeezing his nostrils between thumb and forefinger, blowing noisily and drawing forth a glutinous silver arc of muck? Would he become a devotee of professional wrestling? What further, diabolic humiliations were in store? He should have known it was a mistake to _go home_, after so long, how could it be other than a regression; it was an unnatural journey; a denial of time; a revolt against history; the whole thing was bound to be a disaster.

_I'm not myself_, he thought as a faint fluttering feeling began in the vicinity of his heart. But what does that mean, anyway, he added bitterly. After all, "les acteurs ne sont pas des gens", as the great ham Frederick had explained in _Les Enfants du Paradis_. Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.

The seatbelt light came on, the captain's voice warned of air turbulence, they dropped in and out of air pockets. The desert lurched about beneath them and the migrant labourer who had boarded at Qatar clutched at his giant transistor radio and began to retch. Chamcha noticed that the man had not fastened his belt, and pulled himself together, bringing his voice back to its haughtiest English pitch. "Look here, why don't you. . ." he indicated, but the sick man, between bursts of heaving into the paper bag which Saladin had handed him just in time, shook his head, shrugged, replied: "Sahib, for what? If Allah wishes me to die, I shall die. If he does not, I shall not. Then of what use is the safety?"

Damn you, India, Saladin Chamcha cursed silently, sinking back into his seat. To hell with you, I escaped your clutches long ago, you won't get your hooks into me again, you cannot drag me back.

Once upon a time -- _it was and it was not so_, as the old stories used to say, _it happened and it never did_ -- maybe, then, or maybe not, a ten-year-old boy from Scandal Point in Bombay found a wallet lying in the Street outside his home. He was on the way home from school, having just descended from the school bus on which he had been obliged to sit squashed between the adhesive sweatiness of boys in shorts and be deafened by their noise, and because even in those days he was a person who recoiled from raucousness, jostling and the perspiration of strangers he was feeling faintly nauseated by the long, bumpy ride home. However, when he saw the black leather billfold lying at his feet, the nausea vanished, and he bent down excitedly and grabbed, -- opened, -- and found, to his delight, that it was full of cash, -- and not merely rupees, but real money, negotiable on black markets and international exchanges, -- pounds! Pounds sterling, from Proper London in the fabled country of Vilayet across the black water and far away. Dazzled by the thick wad of foreign currency, the boy raised his eyes to make sure he had not been observed, and for a moment it seemed to him that a rainbow had arched down to him from the heavens, a rainbow like an angel's breath, like an answered prayer, coming to an end in the very spot on which he stood. His fingers trembled as they reached into the wallet, towards the fabulous hoard.

"Give it." It seemed to him in later life that his father had been spying on him throughout his childhood, and even though Changez Chamchawala was a big man, a giant even, to say nothing of his wealth and public standing, he still always had the lightness of foot and also the inclination to sneak up behind his son and spoil whatever he was doing, whipping the young Salahuddin's bedsheet off at night to reveal the shameful penis in the clutching, red hand. And he could smell money from a hundred and one miles away, even through the stink of chemicals and fertilizer that always hung around him owing to his being the country's largest manufacturer of agricultural sprays and fluids and artificial dung. Changez Chamchawala, philanthropist, philanderer, living legend, leading light of the nationalist movement, sprang from the gateway of his home to pluck a bulging wallet from his son's frustrated hand. "Tch tch," he admonished, pocketing the pounds sterling, "you should not pick things up from the street. The ground is dirty, and money is dirtier, anyway."

On a shelf of Changez Chamchawala's teak-lined study, beside a ten-volume set of the Richard Burton translation of the Arabian Nights, which was being slowly devoured by mildew and bookworm owing to the deep-seated prejudice against books which led Changez to own thousands of the pernicious things in order to humiliate them by leaving them to rot unread, there stood a magic lamp, a brightly polished copper--and--brass avatar of Aladdin's very own genie-container: a lamp begging to be rubbed. But Changez neither rubbed it nor permitted it to be rubbed by, for example, his son. "One day," he assured the boy, "you'll have it for yourself. Then rub and rub as much as you like and see what doesn't come to you. Just now, but, it is mine." The promise of the magic lamp infected Master Salahuddin with the notion that one day his troubles would end and his innermost desires would be gratified, and all he had to do was wait it out; but then there was the incident of the wallet, when the magic of a rainbow had worked for him, not for his father but for him, and Changez Chamchawala had stolen the crock of gold. After that the son became convinced that his father would smother all his hopes unless he got away, and from that moment he became desperate to leave, to escape, to place oceans between the great man and himself.

Salahuddin Chamchawala had understood by his thirteenth year that he was destined for that cool Vilayet full of the crisp promises of pounds sterling at which the magic billfold had hinted, and he grew increasingly impatient of that Bombay of dust, vulgarity, policemen in shorts, transvestites, movie fanzines, pavement sleepers and the rumoured singing whores of Grant Road who had begun as devotees of the Yellamma cult in Karnataka but ended up here as dancers in the more prosaic temples of the flesh. He was fed up of textile factories and local trains and all the confusion and superabundance of the place, and longed for that dream-Vilayet of poise and moderation that had come to obsess him by night and day. His favourite playground rhymes were those that yearned for foreign cities: kitchy--con kitchy-ki kitchy-con stanty-eye kitchy-ople kitchy-cople kitchyCon-stanti-nople. And his favourite game was the version ofgrandmother's footsteps in which, when he was it, he would turn his back on upcreeping playmates to gabble out, like a mantra, like a spell, the six letters of his dream--city, _ellowen deeowen_. In his secret heart, he crept silently up on London, letter by letter, just as his friends crept up to him. _Ellowen deeowen London_.

The mutation of Salahuddin Chamchawala into Saladin Chamcha began, it will be seen, in old Bombay, long before he got close enough to hear the lions of Trafalgar roar. When the England cricket team played India at the Brabourne Stadium, he prayed for an England victory, for the game's creators to defeat the local upstarts, for the proper order of things to be maintained. (But the games were invariably drawn, owing to the featherbed somnolence of the Brabourne Stadium wicket; the great issue, creator versus imitator, colonizer against colonized, had perforce to remain unresolved.)

In his thirteenth year he was old enough to play on the rocks at Scandal Point without having to be watched over by his ayah, Kasturba. And one day (it was so, it was not so), he strolled out of the house, that ample, crumbling, salt-caked building in the Parsi style, all columns and shutters and little balconies, and through the garden that was his father's pride and joy and which in a certain evening light could give the impression of being infinite (and which was also enigmatic, an unsolved riddle, because nobody, not his father, not the gardener, could tell him the names of most of the plants and trees), and out through the main gateway, a grandiose folly, a reproduction of the Roman triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, and across the wild insanity of the street, and over the sea wall, and so at last on to the broad expanse of shiny black rocks with their little shrimpy pools. Christian girls giggled in frocks, men with furled umbrellas stood silent and fixed upon the blue horizon. In a hollow of black stone Salahuddin saw a man in a dhoti bending over a pool. Their eyes met, and the man beckoned him with a single finger which he then laid across his lips. _Shh_, and the mystery of rock-pools drew the boy towards the stranger. He was a creature of bone. Spectacles framed in what might have been ivory. His finger curling, curling, like a baited hook, come. When Salahuddin came down the other grasped him, put a hand around his mouth and forced his young hand between old and fleshless legs, to feel the fleshbone there. The dhoti open to the winds. Salahuddin had never known how to fight; he did what he was forced to do, and then the other simply turned away from him and let him go.

After that Salahuddin never went to the rocks at Scandal Point; nor did he tell anyone what had happened, knowing the neurasthenic crises it would unleash in his mother and suspecting that his father would say it was his own fault. It seemed to him that everything loathsome, everything he had come to revile about his home town, had come together in the stranger's bony embrace, and now that he had escaped that evil skeleton he must also escape Bombay, or die. He began to concentrate fiercely upon this idea, to fix his will upon it at all times, eating shitting sleeping, convincing himself that he could make the miracle happen even without his father's lamp to help him out. He dreamed of flying out of his bedroom window to discover that there, below him, was -- not Bombay -- but Proper London itself, Bigben Nelsonscolumn Lordstavern Bloodytower Queen. But as he floated out over the great metropolis he felt himself beginning to lose height, and no matter how hard he struggled kicked swam-in-air he continued to spiral slowly downwards to earth, then faster, then faster still, until he was screaming headfirst down towards the city, Saintpauls, Puddinglane, Threadneedlestreet, zeroing in on London like a bomb.

o o o

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Interlude 1 - pt.2

Abather Crowley “What'sa Teleportation? Why is there a room for it in a mine?…” I would hold my chin, absolutely confused as to what the sign means. “Do ya know where ta find the room, ser?”

DM Jameson looks at you blankly, then back at Nuria. “Who is this? Is he trustworthy?”

Abather Crowley I extend my hand, smiling in a nervous fashion. “Abather Crowley, Ser.”

Nuria Quil “He’s my body guard, it’s all good. If he makes any trouble I’ll beat him up! But I think we have a bigger problem. If it actually is a teleportation room, that means the mages had a reason to come here. Which means that room is not the end of this. There’s likely something big and bad here.”

DM Jameson shudders. “I’m glad we have a cleric here to investigate it. I am loathe to think of us stumbling on this a few weeks ago, before your arrival.”

Nuria Quil “Well, luckily you don’t have to. Let’s go figure this out.”

DM He motions you on through the tunnel entrance. “Follow the main tunnel, and then take a right down the shaft still lit by lamps.” He hands you each copper lanterns, each about half full of oil. “May need these I think. The other human miners use them too.”

Nuria Qui “Thank you.”

Abather Crowley I hang the lantern on a hook fastened to my belt, making sure both hands are free. A full hand will only get in the way of using a bow. “Ready when you are, Miss Cleric.”

Nuria Quil I’ll hold the lantern in my sheilds hand and continue.

DM You both walk walk tentatively into the mine. The first 20 or 30 feet of the tunnel are heavily reinforced and dug out from dirt. The ground there is pack by hundreds of footsteps but fairly soft. You can tell instantly when this changes to stone. It’s like stepping into the inside of a seashell, the way the silence sounds like waves off the walls. The tunnel becomes non-uniform, with outcriopings of lumpy rock protruding into mine shaft from all sides and ceiling. You pass by a small collection of dropped or set-aside tools as you approach the side tunnel that Jameson described.

Nuria Quil “Well, I guess it’s now or never.” I begin walking down the tunnel

DM You lead the way. The ground here is a little less even and packed down. Bits of gravel and loose dirt crunch under your feet as you follow the lamplight further into the depths of Colley Hill. Pretty soon you see the collapsed wall–like Jameson said, it would have been impossible to miss. The stone has collapsed inward, with large chunks of rock scattered around a huge, trapezoidal opening. There is a gentle breeze coming from within, and you can vaguely make out silhouettes and shapes in the darkness.

Nuria Quil “Hey Abigail, what do you think we should do here?”

Abather Crowley I take my hand crossbow into one of my hands, and load a bolt into it. “It’s Abather, Miss… Follow me. If there’s anything in there… Well, if I can sneak up on a rabbit, this’ll be a sinch.” I then slowly step into the opening, trying to keep my steps soft and light. I look around as I step into the room, trying to adjust to the small amount of light the lantern on my hip gives me. “Unsettling place…”

Nuria Quil “I’ll just, stand in the back. Tell me when I’m good to move up.”

DM Abather, it takes a long thirty seconds for your eyes to adjust to the dim light. Even then, you’re not entirely sure what you’re seeing. The room before you is cracked by intruding rock formations, but you can tell that once upon a time this room was something like a meeting area or foyer. After a moment you finally put together what it is that’s bothering you about this space: there’s no seams. No individual stones, no mortar, no beams, no framing. It’s as if the room was sculpted out of one huge block of granite, or simply grew into this shape without the need for masonry or joining artisanship of any kind.

There are two bodies in sight, although in their current state they look more like vaguely human-shaped husks. They’ve been emtombed here for a long time and seem to have dried into mummified versions of what they were in life.

Abather Crowley My skin begins to crawl at how unnatural it feels; I’m growing more nervous with every step closer toward the bodies. Feeling no immediate danger, I turn to bid Nuria to come closer behind me. I would mutter to myself as I turn back to the bodies. “Scary things, you are…”

Nuria Quil I slowly walk forward, trying to keep from jingling.

Abather Crowley I bend down to examine the bodies further, to try and estimate what they once where. “It'sa tomb, I think, Miss Cleric. I reckon you know a lot more about this stuff th'n me.”

DM The skin has dried into something like a brittle leather covering bones–you think that the structure looks Elven but you’re not completely sure. The room itself seems more or less otherwise empty. There’s some broken furniture, including a huge longtable made of oak that has long since collapsed under the weights of itself and time. There is a door beyond that appears to be bowed inward, barely attached to the door frame any more. It looks likely that there’s collapsed rock or some other debris pushing in on it from the other side. From here and in the dark the door seems a little strange. Like it’s textured.

Abather Crowley “Y'should stay here, Miss Cleric. I'mma check that door…” I approach the door, hand crossbow raised. After making my way there, I sling my shovel over my shoulder, off the hook on my backpack, and poke the door with the long handle, seeing if what’s behind it will give way if the door budges.

DM With a simple poke, the door thunks woodenly. It does not seem to budge in either way, wedged into place.

Abather Crowley Slinging the shovel back over my shoulder to hang beside my backpack, I place a hand on the door, trying to see what it might be made of. Afterwards, I then look for a way to open it. “Stand back, Miss. May get a little tricky, what might happen.”

Nuria Quil “I am not moving from this spot.”

DM Abather, you find a gap between the door and the frame and wedge the edge of your shovel into it. Based on the feel and the scraping sound, you wager that it’s mostly loose rock that’s pushing the door in.

DM You put your shoulder into the shaft of the shovel, using it as a lever to pry open the door. It doesn’t seem to move. You strain harder and the door squeals, inching open. You hear the rocks shift behind it. Suddenly, it pops open, sending a small avalanche of rock, silt, and plaster into the room you’re in. You feel pretty good about it until you see the head of your shovel–it’s bent to the point of near uselessness.

Abather Crowley Waving my hand to clear dust from my face, I simply sigh, and sling the ruined shovel back over my shoulder. “That’ll have ta be fixed later… Shall we continue, Miss Cleric? Or are d'ya wanna focus on the bodies?”

Nuria Quil “There is nothing I can do for these. Let’s continue.”

DM The next room, illuminated by lantern light, seems partially collapsed. The floor is caved away in places and a small trickle of water Cascades down the far wall and disappears into craggy cracks and the floor. Some, but not much, of the original architecture is still intact, including a handful of large marble floor tiles that have a partial Circle designed into them with runes dotting the outer edge. Some of the walls and areas of the floor have mushrooms and lichen growing. They fill the room with an earthy, musty scent. There is a body in this room as well, crouched in the corner with its arms raised over its head as if to Shield it from some long gone Danger.

Nuria Quil I’m trying to commit the runes and symbols to memory.

Abather Crowley “Y'got any idea what this is, Miss Cleric? I’ll admit, I’m a tad lost… I can’t tell what even caused all this, either…” I look up to the cieling above the body, and then around the room itself; I want to try and get a clear picture of what happened in this room.

Nuria Quil “I don’t have any clue… I’m a woman of faith, not magic.” I walk around the room clearing debris and other objects to see the runes underneath, and commit them to memory. “Well, I don’t know what any of this means. Ready to keep going?”

Abather Crowley “Y-yeah… Let’s keep going. D'you see an opening anywhere? More rooms nearby?”

Nuria Quil “Scared?”

Abather Crowley “I’m no coward, but… I’m from Riverview, Ma'am. Just a simple farmboy. All this… Magic stuff makes my skin crawl…”

Nuria Quil “I don’t quite see what happens from here. I figure this would be either a broom closet, or the entrance. So we should probably work backwards from here.“

DM As you two poke around in this second room, Nuria gets a bit too close to a mushroom. It shrinks back,withering in some sort of self defense mechanism. Then, the mushroom next to it does the same. And the one next to that one. Like a wave rippling across the walls and floor, all the fungus in the room withers back. For a few seconds, nothing else seems to happen.

Nuria Quil "Abby, look at these cute little mushrooms!”

DM With that, they shake, pop open, and explode, sending thick clouds of spores into the enclosed space. Constitution saves at disadvantage

DM Between the sheer volume of spores and the tightness of the space there’s just no avoiding it. You breathe them in. Lungfuls of spores that tingle–not unpleasantly–as they coat your throat and the inside of your chest. Your vision starts to blur, and you lean against the walls for support. You make panicked eye contact for a moment. Before either of you can speak a word, Abather slips to the ground, unconscious. Nuria struggles a few more tottering steps before she, too, slips away into endless black.

Nuria, you are floating in nothing, twisting and turning in a void without light, without gravity. Before you is the corded door to The Slumbering World. The silence presses in on you from all sides.

Nuria Quil I swim over to the door.

DM As before, the door seems to invite you in spreading away from your body as you approach. Beyond it you can see the room you were in moments ago. There’s no one in it and the mushrooms as well as the circle of runes are undisturbed. When you flip through the door gravity seems to gently assert itself, and you drift upright to your feet.

Nuria Quil I walk through the doorway we will enter through in a few moments.

DM Beyond it is the city from your dream before. You find yourself in the burnt out town square, the familiar muted sounds and over vibrant colors of before. This time, two things are different. The town is no longer on fire–it looks like that’s gone out days ago. Smoking charcoal and debris are all that remain in the twilight. Secondly, Abather is there.

Nuria Quil “Abby! Can you hear me?”

Abather Crowley I look around, feeling a little more than lost and confused, maybe even scared. Hearing Nuria call out to me, I turn to her immediately. “Miss Cleric! W-where are we?… Am I dead? Are WE dead!? You’re a Cleric, yeah? What’s going on?”

DM Your voices have a simultaneous bigness and smallness to them, like shouting in a soundproof room.

Nuria Quil “You’re totally dead.”

Abather Crowley I immediately gasp, not quite wanting to believe Nuria, but… She is the authority on this stuff. “W-well what abou’ you? Y-you sound… Awfully fine with this.”

Nuria Quil “Oh, i’m fine. You however, are one hundred percent, for sure, very dead.”

Abather Crowley “Where’m I, then? Did I make it ta the other end?… Do I get to see Elaine again!? Please, Miss Cleric, if she’s here I gotta find her.”

Nuria Quil “Wow, okay. Sorry to break your dreams, but you’re dreaming. I uhhh, didn’t realize you had any loved ones you wanted to see… Sorry.”

Abather Crowley Giving Nuria’s shoulder a quick punch, I draw my scarf up to hide my face, quite upset at all of this. “That was pretty mean spirited, y'know… Wha…. What now? We’re dreaming? Of what?…”

DM Abather, you glance around from the burnt out town square. There’s not much left to recognize, but even taking that into consideration you’re fairly certain that you’ve never been here before. One thing does stick out to you–a roof poking up from behind some collapsed buildings that seems untouched by flame. From here it looks like a simple two-story house, somehow miraculously spared from whatever fires consumed this place.

Abather Crowley I shake my head. “Not a clue where we are, Miss. Seems like some sorta… Wildfire went through here.” I then point to the lone standing building. “There'sa place intact there, Miss. Should we go look?…”

DM Nuria, the building that Abather is pointing to is the house you went in the first time you were here, you’re sure of it. It completely defies chronology that it is fully restored.

Nuria Quil “If you want to, it’s not often people can join the Slumbering World. Explore, you can lead here.”

Abather Crowley I reach for my hand Crossbow- not even entirely sure if it’s there- and pull my scarf from back over my face. “O-okay! We’ll go look, then. Let’s go, Miss.”

DM Abather, you lead the way. The ground buckles under your feet, like walking through wet sand. The world is eerily quite. There are no birds, there’s no breeze. Looking up, you’re not even sure there’s a sun. The town around you is just… lit somehow.

Abather Crowley Feeling my skin crawl from how unnatural this world feels, I take deep breaths to keep myself calm, trying to ignore the inconsistencies and contradictions this place has with the waking world. “So… How long are we supposed to be here? Before we wake up from the dream, that is?…”

Nuria Quil “Until we need to.”

Abather Crowley “Do you know why we’re here, then?…”

Nuria Quil “Probably because we’re asleep. Last time I went into that same building, so it’s probably important.”

Abather Crowley “Not t'be rude or anything, Miss, but… You’re bein’ pretty vague about all this. Do we have something t'do here or not? Do the Gods have a task for us?”

Nuria Quil “The gods never say anything. They just… Do stuff. I’d really love to say more, but I honestly don’t know.”

Abather Crowley I shrug, continuing the trek to this building in the distance. “You’d know better than me… Say, y'look young fer a Cleric, Miss. Not t'sound disrespectful or anything.”

Nuria Quil “I never had many friends. I just read the books all day. After a while the temple decided I spent enough of my time reading and figured it was about time to get rid of me. So I got out early. You don’t need to be so formal with me, your older than me anyways.”

Abather Crowley “Oh no, that won’t do, Miss. My Ma taught me to be polite ta Ladies. M'head hurts just thinkin’ about her Ladle on m'head. Wonder if she’s still using it to keep Pa in check.”

Nuria Quil “Hmmm. I’ll break you one day. Where are we going?”

Abather Crowley “The only building standing, Miss. Y'did say it was important. Besides, not much t'be found in ashes.”

Nuria Quil “Alright.” I walk towards the building.

DM As you get closer you can see that the house is indeed fully intact. It’s as if someone rebuilt it board for board right after the fire died down–or maybe that the flames simply steered clear of this house. The front door is open, just as it was the last time you were here, Nuria. You can see some of the furnishings and the staircase leading to the second floor from outside.

Abather Crowley I enter the building, pointing my Hand Crossbow at any doorways as I look. “D'you know what this place is, Miss?”

Nuria Quil “It was on fire last time I was here, some girl was trapped inside.”

DM When you both cross the threshold into the house, it’s like a cosmic switch is flipped. The inside of the house is now a burning inferno, as it was the last time. The town behind you is peaceful and calm, like nothing bad had ever happened to it. Going up the stairs you see yourselves. A mirage-like, semi-transparent Nuria and Abather climbing the melting staircase. They pause, looking over their shoulders to wave you forward. Then they go to the second floor and out of sight.

Abather Crowley Absolutely confused and panicked about what’s going on, I freeze for a moment. It’s like I’m being barraged with too much at once. But I collect myself, drawing my scarf over my mouth and nose to try and keep out smoke, as I rush to where our ghost-like apparitions were waving us to.

Nuria Quil I rush up the staircase.

DM You see the second floor, same as before–the young woman is awake this time, staring off into the distance. She seems awake but unconscious. The glass orb is in her hands. Then, she falls. She hits the ground and the glass rolls out of her hand, landing exactly where it was the last time you were here, Nuria. Then, she disappears, leaving the orb behind. The house is burnt out. The fires are gone. The beams have collapsed and there are gaping holes in the floors and walls. You can make out the glint of glass in the middle of the room .

Nuria Quil I pick up the bead.

Abather Crowley “W-what’s that there, Miss?… Is it why we’re here? Some sorta sign?..”

Nuria Quil “Who knows. It was here last time, I didn’t get a chance to look at it though.”

DM The bead glows softly, as if it is containing a universe of fire within. Then, it flashes. With a start, you both awaken in the room under the mine.

Nuria Quil I groan, rolling over on my side as I rub sleep from my eyes. “Abs, you awake?”

Abather Crowley I groan awake, brushing hair out of my face as I sit up. “Nnnn….. Nuria? What… Are we back?…”

Nuria Quil “I think so… I don’t… That orb popped me out last time too…”

Abather Crowley I shake my head to quickly wake up, and look around myself; have we remained in the room we slept? Where we moved? How in the WORLD did our Lanterns not catch fire? “D'you feel any different? Feel any more… I dunno, holy? We did do godly stuff, didn’t we?”

Nuria Quil “I don’t know man! Usually I just dream about long walks on the beach and fluffy animals!”

Abather Crowley “More pleasant ‘n what I get, mostly… D'you think… There’s more t'this cave? Like a room we’re missin’? Some purpose we’re not gettin’? The miner did say it was… I dunno whatchya call it… A 'Teleportation’ room?”

DM Before you can say anything else the room spins. You both see spots, and vomit. Abather first.

Abather Crowley It’s not a pretty sight, either. If any man could vomit gracefully, it wouldn’t be me.

Nuria Quil I have been surviving on a diet of gruel and oatmeal. Mine isn’t a pretty sight either.

Abather Crowley After recovering from such a gruelling process, I wipe my mouth on my sleeve, and check to make sure none of it got on my scarf. “Urgh… Y-you okay? Urk-… Nuria?”

Nuria Quil Looking slightly miserable, I whipe my mouth off. “Well. Bad news, I think I’m dying. Good news, my dog isn’t here to eat it this time.”

Abather Crowley Getting up to my feet, I turn and offer a hand to Nuria. “D'we still got business in here? Was all that the 'Teleportation’?”

Nuria Quil “I have no idea.” I take his hands up.

DM You pull each other up, and the room tilts slightly, sending another wave of nausea through you. For a moment you’re not sure if it’s still the residual sickness from the spores, but you start to realize that the world feels different. It’s extrasensory, like suddenly being able to detect magnetism or see infrared. You realize that the runes that you’ve memorized are more than just script. They’re a map that describe this location. A literary representation of some kind of universal coordinates. You both let the room settle for a second and slowly start feeling like yourselves again. You can’t help but focus on the body in the corner. It looks like it’s shifted slightly since you last looked at it.

Nuria Quil “Hey uhhhh, Amy… Does something look different to you?”

DM You do notice that the corpse seems to have shifted slightly–but more importantly, you notice something different about Nuria. Nuria, what is it?

Nuria Quil Nuria’s hair has seemed to lose its brown tone, and taken on a phantasmagoria of reds, blues, yellows, and every color in between.

Abather Crowley “N-Nuria! Your hair!- What in the… What happened to it?” Grasping my head in my hands, I get a worried expression. “Did MY hair do that too!?”

Nuria Quil “Do what? You look normal. Am I bald!?”

Abather Crowley “It’s! It’s-… Rather pretty, actually. Ghah! It’s like you have a field'a flowers on your head!”

Nuria Quil “Did I turn into a pot or something?”

Abather Crowley At that, I take the pot hanging off my backpack and point the bottom at Nuria, to try and make a makeshift mirror; it probably won’t work, but hey, I can try.

DM Nuria you can vaguely make out a warped reflection of yourself in the shiny pot bottom. It’s clear that your hair is vibrantly colored many flowering hues.

Nuria Quil “Why am I pink now!?”

Abather Crowley “Your guess is better'n mine! Y'feel any different? Maybe somethin’ in the room changed you? Whatabout the runes on the floor? Are they different?”

Nuria Quil “I mean, maybe! I… We should just go, it’s probably dangerous in here.”

Abather Crowley “Wait… We should stay a bit. Something is still off. The body moved.”

Nuria Quil “That’s exactly why we should leave. Bodies don’t just move on their own, Ana.”

Abather Crowley “Well, we move. And we’re bodies, yeah? So why can’t he?” After stating my internal logic, I walk over to the body and examine it again, wondering if it’s even the same body at all.

Nuria Quil “I’m standing ten feet back. Good luck.”

DM You both scan the room, looking for differences. Abather, while you check the body, it’s clear someone–or something– has rifled through it, perhaps looking for something. Nuria, you also see signs that someone has been here. Mushrooms along the left side of the walls have shrunken back, like they did when you got too close. There is a single half footprint in the dirt and rubble leading back into the smooth room. It’s angled to enter the room you’re in, but you see no signs that whatever it was went out the same way.

Nuria Quil “Annie, someone was here.”

Abather Crowley “Yeah,. I can tell…..” Making sure my hand crossbow is loaded, I begin to try and follow where the man may have come from. “Stay close. Dunno if they wanna hurt us.”

DM Heading back into the first room, you can’t help but be struck again by how unnatural the construction is. But you don’t see any signs of entry–or exit–other than your own.

Abather Crowley “D'you think they took something from US? Check yer pockets, this may’ve been a setup to steal from us.” I then check my pockets for all my important belongings, and for the silver ring tied on a cord around my neck.

DM Everything you had, you still have.

Nuria Quil “Hey, amy, I hey an idea, but you have to promise not to get mad.”

Abather Crowley “Well, I figure you know more th'n me. I got no reason ta get mad. Go ahead n’ hit me with the idea.”

Nuria Quil “Alright, you also can’t tell anyone, becuase this is extremely dangerous.”

Abather Crowley I nod, scratching my head. “If you say so, Miss Cleric. I promise to let ya handle this.”

Nuria Quil I sit down and begin to pray under my breath, conducting some sort of ritual.

DM Nuria, while investigating, you find your mind wandering back to the Slumbering World. Before long, you realize you are still connected to it–you can see it, superimposed over the real world like a projection or a mirage. The room now glows with weaves of magic a thousand years old. You can’t tell what they are, but there is a fresher weave as well: a weave that someone used to pull something from another world into this one. You get a sense that this was done within the last four or five hours.

Nuria Quil My face quickly contorts into one of fear and urgency. “ABATHER! WE NEED TO GET BACK TO THE TOWN!”

Abather Crowley Upon hearing how urgent she sounds, I grab her by the arm and help her get to her feet. Once she’s up, I run ahead of her out of the mine, trying to remember the way out. “What’s goin’ on, Miss!? Is the town in trouble!?”

Nuria Quil “WHILE WE WERE ASLEEP, NOTHING LEFT, BUT SOMETHING CAME IN!” I start running to the town as fast as I can.

DM You both tear out into the mine. It is pitch black. The lanterns have burned out of oil.

Nuria Quil I channel the power of Qoth through my shield, causing it to burst into light.

DM Abather, this is a lot for you to take in all at once. Between the dream world, and the ruins, and now the obviousness of Nuria’s magic, you are approaching an anxiety attack. You’ve been raised all your life to believe that magic is evil and unnatural, and that those who use it are soulless and power hungry sacrileges. Since meeting Nuria you’ve been steeped in magic and relics of the past best left untouched. Now, you’re seeing her cast with your own eyes.

Abather Crowley Losing control of myself, I fall to my knees. It becomes difficult to breathe, to move; to even think. This is wrong, I tell myself. She’s a witch. A monster who ruined the world. Before I can even get a grip on my senses, or my thoughts on the situation, my Crossbow is in my hand. She clouded us from Qalda’s light. No, I don’t want to believe it. But here is my proof. She steeped you in her magic. Affected you; changed you. You just don’t know how yet. I begin shaking my head, hands clenching and unclenching. This is wrong.

Nuria Quil “Ab? Ab!? are you okay?” I stop running and go to help him up.

Abather Crowley I push her hand away from me, and not even thinking, hands horribly shaking, I point the hand crossbow at her. “W-why?… Tell me…. Why’d the world break?…” You know why.

“D-did'you do it?…” You know she did.

“Y-you’re using….” The one greatest Taboo.

Nuria Quil “Ab, calm down. I don’t know how this is happening either. I’m just as scared as you, but we need to keep it together. The whole town could be on fire by now. Right now our lady mother has given me the power to save everyone, and there’s some mage in town probably preparing to forsake everything. You can kill me, or anything else you see fit, but not until every last person in this town is safe. Not until then.”

Abather Crowley “I… No… I won’t…“ My hands drop back to my side, unable to bring myself to take someone’s life. Not yet. "If… If there’re people ta save… We do it my way. No tricks.. No… Heresy. I… If ya really wanna save people, don’ do it with the power tha’ forsook 'em so long ago. Do it the good, honest way.”

Nuria Quil “I can’t promise that, but I will promise that if I fail, if we can’t save them… I will subject myself to whatever justice you deem upon me.”

Abather Crowley “I'mm a good, honest man. It ain’t my place ta enact justice. I jus’ do what’s right. Now enough dallying! We can deal wi'this later!”

Nuria Quil “Atleast you still have that much sense left in you.”

DM Abather, in your addled state it’s all you can do to follow Nuria as she leads the charge out of the mine. Emerging, Nuria, you notice that it’s late evening. You’ve been in the mine for most of the day. As you emerge, Jameson comes over to meet you. “Well,” he says. “That was quick.”

Nuria Quil “James! Something may have come out of the mine!”

DM He looks puzzled, and slightly alarmed. “What do you mean?”

Nuria Quil “We aggravated some mushrooms in there, and they knocked us out. When we woke up there were tracks that weren’t there before…”

Abather Crowley “Ain’t a thief, either. Didn’t take a thing off us, and… Well, didn’t find no man’s tracks. Somethin’ else, I bet.”

DM Jameson points to the miner next to him, who shakes her head. “None of us seen anything go in or out since you all did about ten minutes ago.”

Nuria Quil “It may have been earlier. I managed to… Inspect the runes. Something used it today, but that’s all I can tell, I’m not a witch, this is new to me.”

DM The other miner looks uncomfortable at the talk of witchcraft. Jameson shakes his head. “You weren’t in there all that long. Nothing in between. We’ve all been sitting right here.”

Abather Crowley I shake my head in disbelief, trying not to freak out again. Surely more of this…. Witchcraft. Something’s wrong. “There’s… There ain’t no way that’s jus’ ten minutes. Ain’t no way. Where’s Mr. Chivay? Has he been lookin’ for us? Surely he’s been lookin’ fer me for hours, now.”

Nuria Quil “Clearly we just lost track of time well we fell asleep. I need you to do something very important right now. Can I trust you?”

Abather Crowley “I ain’t no liar, Miss. Y'can trust me.” Even if I can’t trust you.

Nuria Quil “Great. Follow James to my house. When you get there I need you to find my ink and quill in my desk. Oh, also, James, you’ve had a hard time, feel free to take a nap, sleep is important for stress. Abather will take care of everything, he’s nice.”

Abather Crowley “Erm.. Wh-what am I suppose'ta write, Miss?…”

Nuria Quil “I’ll write it, I just forgot where I put my stuff, so I’d like you to fish it out for me.”

Abather Crowley “Right… Erm, I’m new ta town, Jaaa… James? Can ya show me the way ta the cleric’s home?”

DM “Uhhh… yeah.” James and the other miner share a look, and then James sets off for town.

Abather Crowley I simply walk with them, not entirely sure what Nuria is up to myself.

Nuria Quil I walk over and start calming down some of the other miners and blessing them. Though, I ask one of them “How long ago did Ab and I go in there?”

DM The miners all look at each other. “Maybe half an hour?” Another pipes up. “Honestly, glad for it. Less time means you probably didn’t find any curses or relics.”

Nuria Quil “Hmm, alright. I guess I’m thrown off from sleeping late.” I follow behind Abather and James.

DM You follow. Abather and James arrive back in town in no time–Chivay’s cart is no longer set up and it seems quiet around here. James leads you through the center of square and to a small two-story house on the edge of town. “This is it,” he says.

Abather Crowley I nod, giving his shoulder a pat as I walk by him. “Much obliged, Sir. Much obliged.” I then head inside and I do as instructed. Looking for some paper, a quill, and ink to match. Having no idea what Nuria might be planning to do with all this, I stuff them into my backpack, and head out of the house. Who knows what’s she’s thinking.

DM As you exit you run into Chivay chatting with Jameson. “Ah!” he says. “There you are. What a day it’s been! Sold almost the whole cart!”

Abather Crowley Despite the recent stress, I put on the best smile I can, adjusting the massive crossbow on my shoulder. “That’s great, Mr. Chivay! Whatcha got left? Y'did say when we’re done, I could get some of what’s left, along with a silver or two. Ahh- Nevermind, we can chat about all that later, I gotta get back ta the Cleric.”

DM “Yes yes, we can talk money later. After all, it’s been a long day.” Jameson nods approvingly. “I must say, Mr. Chivay, I’m impressed. Here less than an hour and already sold all your wares? There must a be a silver tongue in that mouth of yours.” Chivay looks confused. “An hour? You chaining me? I got here in the morning.” He points at the sky. “It’s got to be at least seven bells by now.” Jameson’s face scrunches. He looks up at the sky and winces, putting a hand to his head. “Yes… yes I suppose you’re right.”

Abather Crowley “Speakin'a time, Mr. Chivay… How long d'ya think I was out, doin’ work with the Cleric?.. I’ve been in the cave all day, an’ everyone tells me different then what Qalda’s light tells me.”

DM “All day is right. Ran off this morning and just now seeing you.” Jameson opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. He looks confused, then he squeezes the sides of his head. Then, he collapses.

Abather Crowley More of this Witch tomfoolery! “Sir? Sir!?” I shout, kneeling beside the man. After a moment, I try to wake him up, pouring some of my waterskin on his face. “Things’ve been real odd, Mr. Chivay. Somethin’ ain’t right about this town, and… Makes me feel a bit queesy jus’ thinking about it. Something’s… Wrong. People tellin me the wrong time, a 'teleportation’ room in the mine, and….” She may be a witch, but she has done no evil. Not yet. “Well, jus’ odd folk.”

DM It’s been awhile since you’ve seen someone die, and you can’t help but think about those whose losses hit you the hardest. Jameson’s body is slack and his eyes are rolled back in his head. Another person you were not able to save.

#D&D #dungeons and dragons #d&d story #rp stories #fantasy #fantasy story #fantasy roleplay #fantasy rp #d&d rp #rp #abather Crowley #Nuria quill #interlude #interlude 1 part 2

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evolutionsvoid · 7 years

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As one should know from my earlier entries, Mancer Syndrome does not just effect the prime elements that we are familiar with. There are many other elements and niches that can lead to Mancer Syndrome, things that are outside of elements like fire, water and earth. We have already seen that beings like Apiaromancers and Psychomancers can exist, even though they do not wield magic that we would label as "elemental." This types of mancers are quite rare, as it involves a magic user to become consumed by this narrow field of specific magic. Many mages and sorcerers prefer broad types of magic, so that their arsenal is varied and their studies are vast. Not many wish to narrow down their field to such a slim margin. Thus, these specific mancers are not commonly created. One good example, is the Mycomancer. Mycomancers are magic users who are obsessed with mushrooms and other fungi. Some may find an appeal to all plant life, but their number one favorite will be fungus every time. The use of magic with mushrooms is a very specific field, and one that does not see much use outside of potion brewing and medicine making. So rarely does one actually use their mana on fungus, that one has to wonder how they become infected by such an element. Some may use their mana to speed mushroom growth, or to try and make new species of fungus, but that should not reach the levels necessary for mutation. They can use their powers to control the fungi, but if they are not on a battlefield or fight, that ability sees little use. This as led to some scholars theorizing that certain breeds of fungus or mushroom may actually affect the natural mana when consumed or inhaled. Perhaps their spores or natural juices somehow infect the natural mana of the human body, and aid in the conversion of a Mycomancer. This would help explain some things, but at the same time, not much has been discovered to prove this. Regardless, I would still advise any magic users to be careful when consuming shrooms. It may not mutate you into a rotting corpse, but it may cause one to hallucinate and end up burning down half their school.

When those who study fungi become afflicted with Mancer Syndrome, they will become obsessed with the organisms to an unhealthy degree. An admiration for the organisms will occur, with the infected host seeing them as the perfect organisms. Any other plant, creature or being pales in comparison to the mighty fungi. The infected will begin to grow the fungus on everything around them, desiring their company at all times. Mass consumption of these organisms will commence, as they choose to only feed on what they can grow in their rotting gardens. The infected will reek of rot and decay, and hygiene goes right out the window. As time goes on and the sickness worsens, the fungi will appear to grow more and more on their body. At first they will sprout from their clothes, but eventually they will burst from their flesh and orifices. When one becomes fully consumed by the infection, they will have become more mushroom than man. What emerges from the final transformation is a rotting corpse that is swallowed by fungal growth. Flesh will rot to a putrid liquid, bones will be exposed and organs may become simple vessels for fungus. Limbs will melt down to thin twigs, as their bodies become covered in large growths. Most of the time, their heads will develop mushroom caps themselves, covering their horrible rotted faces. The mushrooms and mold will have reached a point to where they are one with the mancer. Everything that bursts from their flesh is a part of them, all linked together by some organic network. Things like food and water will no longer be a concern for them, as they feed off the nutrients their overgrown bodies provide. All they will concerned about, at this point, is their beloved fungi. When one becomes a full blown Mycomancer, they will do nothing but grow fungi. They can grow gardens as big as a village, and it still wouldn't be enough. They need to be fully surrounded by rot and mold, rearing and breeding new types to infest their gardens with. They will seek out isolated areas that will suit their needs, a place far away from the vile, ignorant humans. A nice place of dark dampness, so that their fungal beds can be "happy" in a perfect environment. That is another thing that will come from the transformation, an apparent "communication" with the fungi themselves. There is no way to tell if this is a real power, or if the mind is so far gone that they simply imagine the voices that talk to them. Mycomancers will do everything they can to provide for their fungal friends, making sure they get everything they need. If their beautiful gardens are endangered, they will not hesitate to unleash waves of rot and clouds of spores upon their enemies. Due to their isolated nature, Mycomancers do not pose an immediate threat. It is only when their gardens begin to overflow towards civilization that you should begin to worry. Mycomancers do not care about humans or others, so if their flesh eating fungus gets loose in a town, they don't really think too much about it. In fact, they will usually take the fungus' side and get angry when the humans seek to exterminate them. That is another way a Mycomancer can become dangerous, if someone harms their fungal beds. If a band of adventurers or angry town folk torch their fungal friends, than the wrath of the Mycomancer will be unleashed. They will go after the offenders, looking to use their corpses as the fertilizer for their new breeding grounds. When fighting a Mycomancer, one should make sure no skin is exposed. They rely on spores and mold to infest enemies, spreading throughout their bodies so that they may eat away from the inside. From their mouths, lungs or other exposed orifices, they can spray streams of liquid rot that can cause instant infection in any wound they touch. Mycomancers will also summon the help of their fungus when in battle, directing the devouring hordes to surround and assimilate those who defy them. So if you seek to fight one of these mancers, be sure to either get them away from their fungal beds or destroy them. The use of fire and ice can eliminate these breeding grounds with ease, so that you may focus on the main body. Heat and cold also helps when fighting the mancer head on, as they are vulnerable to these elements. Fire spells are especially useful for burning away the clouds of spores they release. This is critical for when you wound the mancer. Since they are consumed by fungi, any strike to their body will usually result in a splash of rot or a puff of spores. This is powerful ability that many forget about, and usually brings victory to the Mycomancer despite a losing battle. Some barbarian will lop their head off and call it a victory, only to get hosed down by the rotting blood that spurts from their stump. The Mycomancer will pull themselves back together, as the once victorious warrior melts into a pile of sludge. That brings up another point, as Mycomancers are practically immune to physical damage. Lop a limb off, run a spear through them or grind their head to a pulp, they will still fight back. The fungi is so prevalent within their bodies, that destruction of their head or organs will do nothing to them. To fully defeat them, you must burn them to ash or seal them in a tomb of rock or ice. While Mycomancers can seem short sighted in their goals, they may be the one mancer class that has truly succeeded. Mycomancers seek to spread the growth of fungi and create a perfect world of mushroom and mold. Some say that this scenario would be the end of days, but others believe that they have already won. Though Mycomancers put a lot of care towards fungi, they do like plants. And what other species walks about this earth with such a pronounced head cap? Scholars and researchers have talked on end about this, but we believe that the dryad species may have been created by ancient Mycomancers. Their power over fungus could be strong enough to craft the species and bring them to life. How else would you explain their prevalence on this planet? What else would explain their amazing adaptability and their numerous sub-species? It makes perfect sense. Some Mycomancer, long ago, sought to make himself a companion, and thus created the dryads. Their kind then went forth and multiplied, coating the world with many different forms and kinds. It would explain why so little is known about their history or origins. The resemblance is also impossible to ignore. And maybe that is why they are so insufferably cheery and upbeat. Mycomancers are so enamored with their craft and kind, that they are just a bunch of grinning fools. Makes sense to me..... Cavarious Shaid

#fungi #fungus #monster #creature #mancer #mage #wizard #art #drawing #mushroom #mycomancer

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ravager-life-for-me · 7 years

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Summary:

The Guardians need a vacation. They're tense. They're distant. One of them set themselves on fire. It's time.

Chapter 1: Fool Around

If you point that at my face one more time, rodent, I will—”

“I wasn’t pointin’ it at your face! I was pointin’ it at the bad guys and your head just happened to be in the way!”

“Guys!” Peter zipped into the melee, skidding on the rocky terrain as his rocket boots sputtered off. “Can we please just go, like, ten seconds without you two—”

“She started it!” Rocket rolled out of the way as the ground behind him exploded in a bubbly mountain from a plasma blast. He was on his feet in a flash, firing over the range. Something up on the mountain top exploded, rippling greasy black smoke up into the clouds above. “I’m doin’ my job. We’re all just doin’ our job. Just makin’ them units and killin’ all these bad guys.”

A mostly-on-fire Drax ran by, waving his arms over his head not to put out the flames—as one might expect—but to brandish the red hot blades he had gripped in his fists. Peter would have expected screaming from any other sane individual but, true to Drax fashion, he was clearly shouting a battle cry. A red light grazed his shoulder. Someone had their sights on the literal beacon and got off a few rounds. Didn’t even slow him down.

“Can someone put him out before he actually hurts himself?” asked Quill.

Gamora gave him an eye. She was always giving him an eye. It was this cold look, pointed, unblinking. She was mad. Sure. So was Rocket. So was….

“I am Groot!”

“That’s a terrible idea,” said Rocket as he scooped the small Flora Colossus off the ground to perch there on his shoulder.

“I am Groot?”

“Because you’re made of wood.”

“I am Groot.”

“Because wood burns, Groot. Come on.”

“I am Groot!”

“No you’re not. Quill’s gonna anyways cause he’s a big ol’ fire fighter, aren’t ya, Quill?”

Quill sighed, shoulders slumped as he spun and shot down the raider who leapt out into the clearing, jaws snapping. Peter didn’t kill him with the same zest as Drax or the intense precision as Gamora. He barely looked at the man when he fired, just pumped three blasts into his chest cavity and stomped his rocket boot back on.

“We’re gettin’ a vacation after this is done,” said Quill, already hovering a little off the ground.

“You swear this time, Terra-Boy, because last time we tried to do the whole family vacation thing, I almost got poached by those daft idiots on Sattor.”

“Yeah, well.” Quill shrugged again as he rocketed off to collect anything from the Milano that might help him put Drax out.

“I am Groot?”

“Nah,” said Rocket, pivoting back a little as the blaster in his hands extended, revealing four barrels and a hazy green sight screen. “He’s only pissed cause ‘Daddy’ didn’t come to play.”

“I am Groot?”

“I know! Humies gotta be so temperamental. Not us, huh, Groot?” Rocket widened his stance, ears flattening as he watched the little heat signatures flare up on his sight screen. “We got our heads on straight, don’t we?”

“I am Groot.”

“It is not lopsided. It looks fine, Groot.”

“I am Groot.”

“No, my head looks fine too,” said Rocket, his muzzle crinkling at the edges, flashing all his pointy little teeth. “We all look fine. Everybody looks fine. You gotta work on yer head issues, y’know? Some people like hats.”

“I am Groot?”

“No, of course I don’t.”

“I am Groot!”

“Sure.” By the heat signatures, it looked like they were surrounded. Drax was throwing off a little interference as he cut a long white-hot path in front of them, but Rocket wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the calculations to compensate. And, anyways, Quill was already flying back with what looked like a canister and long hose. Rocket put his finger on the trigger, mouth twitching again in a smile. “But first? I'mma kill these guys.”

“I don’t even know what that is.” Quill poked the gelatinous blob, rosy-colored tendrils gently undulating around the base. “So you eat it?”

“If you did,” said Gamora as she lowered the glass shield over the blob, “it would be the last meal you would enjoy.”

“But I would enjoy it, right?” asked Quill, lifting an eyebrow. He still knelt down in front of the box and watched the tiny yellow spores bubble up near the tulip-shaped head.

“They say that it is one of the most rare delicacies, yes,” said Gamora. She straightened the bracers on her arm and dusted off pants. “So delicious it would drive a simple man insane and anything he ate afterwards would taste like dirt.”

“Oh. I don’t wanna eat dirt the rest of my life.” Peter flicked the glass with his finger. The tendrils raised a little, slightly agitated before they settled again. “Guess that’s why the Favorite Prince of Znai is paying so much to get one then, huh? He’s already had a sample?”

“I do not know,” Gamora answered without looking at him. “One would assume.”

“Yep. One has. Assumed, I mean.”

Now she wasn’t even giving him an eye and it was really annoying. Quill almost reached out to grab her arm but she had pulled out one of her blades to clean and he learned pretty quick it wasn’t the best idea to try and touch Gamora when she had a blade out you could see. Or not see, even. Sometimes she was scary when she was sleeping too. God, he loved that about her, honestly. It was weird, but it made him feel safe. And he kinda hoped that just having him there made her feel safe too.

“Hey,” he said and stood to his full height, stretching on the doorframe from the cargo hold to the small galley/main sleeping quarter/weapons locker/Rocket’s workbench—the Milano wasn’t the Quadrant or nothing and they had to be up for multi-purpose rooms for these longer hauls. “Uh, I was talking to Rocket back there. On, well, on the mission and everything. And, uh, I was thinking.”

“A rare hobby,” said Gamora, pushing out her lips with the tip of her tongue. She didn’t smile, not exactly, but she was teasing him and that was a step in the right direction.

“Sure,” said Quill and laughed in good humor. “But, well, I was hoping, you know, after we deliver this to Znai that, well, maybe we can all go on a vacation.”

“A vacation,” she echoed back. She slid the length of her blade down the whet stone. “Last time, Rocket was almost—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Perhaps it would serve well if he were collected and taken in as a pet.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Peter, straightening again.

He saw Gamora’s shoulders bend just a little. She so rarely relaxed. Thanos had really drilled it into her, that soldier’s stance. Peter couldn’t even imagine what he’d be like if Yondu or the Ravagers had been like that when he was growing up. What kinda nut job would he be if he was like the Nova Corps or something? Not that the Ravagers didn’t leave a few hard lessons of their own.

“No,” she conceded at last. “I do not mean that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we could all use a vacation, huh?”

There was only the sound of the blade scraping across the stone; clean, clear, perfect. Peter wanted to come up behind her and wrap his arms around her, sway a little to one of the songs coming through the Milano’s speakers and kiss the top of her head. She’d been a little distant after Nebula left. Things weren’t all rainbows and sunshine between the two, but it was clear that some of the bridge had been patched and now that the crazy scary villain-turned-not-so-villain was gone, Gamora felt a little…colder. Sadder? Angrier? Something. She felt something and she wasn’t even saying what that something was. Not exactly the easiest to read.

Peter wanted to talk to somebody about it, but who? Drax? And have him laugh in his face? Or, what, Mantis? She’d probably touch his hand or something and pull another dumb deep dark secret out and he just didn’t need that. Like, Mantis was cool. He felt somewhat responsible for her safety and well-being, enough that he had her stay back on the Milano while they went hunting for the plant/creature/thing for the Favorite Prince. She even helped him get the extinguisher that had put out the flames Drax had doused himself in. Which, get this, was on purpose. Oh my god, they were all losing it, they seriously needed that vacation, there was no question. Yondu got a freakin’ vacation, didn’t he? Okay, but, yeah. He deserved it. Nearly dying in the freezing void meant he could go away for as long as he needed. Kraglin was there to take care of him too, so, that was…. Whatever. He didn’t miss them. They were allowed to go on a vacation. They could go do…whatever!

Plus, and this was just Quill putting Quill into the mix, as he often did, there was the Unspoken Thing dangling between him and Gamora. He could let it go, he could, but she had said things and he had said things and his core thrummed with a nervous energy. Dancing helped. It always helped. But Gamora, even though she had moves when she wanted to, wasn’t up for dancing then. He could tell. So, Peter sighed, wiped his hands down the front of his shirt and put on a smile as he went up to the cabin to sit with the others and ask where they might want to go after they finished the delivery.

“How’s our course lookin’?” asked Quill as he climbed up into the cabin.

“Got thirty jumps to Znai,” Rocket answered from his copilot seat, two tiny paws wrapped around the joy sticks.

Peter went over to take his usual spot but noticed Groot strapped in, munching on his skittles—no, they weren’t actually skittles, but they were colorful candy and the best assimilation Peter had to what he could remember Terran skittles actually being like. They were called grttzrs, but that was literally ridiculous and Peter liked skittles way better.

“Don’t eat all those,” said Peter, eyeing the little twig-terror, “or you’ll get a stomach ache.”

“I am Groot.”

“Dude, I’ve cleaned up your vomit.”

Groot took another handful and shoved the candies into his mouth, munching obnoxiously as he glared up at Quill.

“Okay, but when you throw up, don’t expect—”

“It would be best to clean up when it is fresh, rather than when it has time to sit.”

Peter spun and saw the lumpy gray mass stretched out on the floor with Mantis working a salve onto patches of bright shiny skin. Drax sounded drunk. His face was smashed into the grated floor, but he didn’t seem to mind. Whatever was in the salve must have been nice, even if it did smell about as bad as a burning skunk. Mantis smiled and applied the salve gently, but her little bug antennae were lit up and she flashed a quick worried look at Peter before she returned to her ministrations.

“How you doin’ there, Human Torch?”

“I am not a torch,” said Drax and Mantis at the same time. Mantis looked annoyed, but then concentrated again and pushed Drax to calm down.

“He’ll be okay,” said Rocket from the copilot chair. He didn’t turn to look. Barely said it loud enough over his shoulder. But Peter heard, all the same.

“Well.” Peter put his hands on his hips. He wasn’t gonna grimace or nothing. Had to give Mantis the impression that she was doing good. Hell, she was doing good. “You look rough.”

“He’s been through worse,” said Rocket. “Haven’t ya, ya big idiot?”

“Oh yes,” Drax answered and laughed. Mantis giggled a little too, but then something flashed on her face and she grimaced, pulling her hand away to sever the connection. Drax, sprawled on the floor, continued laughing despite himself. “Much worse!”

Peter’s mouth twisted in a lopsided scowl before he knelt by Mantis and took the little tub of cream from her.

“Are you certain? I could make him sleep, if that would be easier,” she said, blinking those big black eyes. “He has told me he does not want to sleep, but he is very tired.”

“Nah, that’s okay,” said Peter. “Hey, buddy, you know you got a bunch of, like, blisters and shit all over?”

“Yes,” Drax answered and laughed, picking his head up as he did. “Did you witness their destruction? It was glorious.”

“Burned those bastards up right quick.”

“Those villainous thieves didn’t see it coming,” Drax answered, and struggled to bring his hand up to wipe his eyes, which were a little glassy.

“Maybe not the best strategy, though, huh?”

“No. Not the best.” Drax leaned on his elbow and surveyed himself, poking some of the red scars across his pecs. It looked like they were mostly unscathed and only the greenish-gray skin on his back had been harmed. Drax tapped a particularly gnarly looking red patch near his shoulder with what looked like a toothy beast reaching for his neck. “It was nothing like defeating the loathsome beast of the Last Cliffs.”

“Yeah?” Peter sat cross-legged and told Drax to lay down while he finished tending to the burns. “Tell me about it.”

Mantis took a seat across from them, drawing her knees up close to her chest as she watched, unblinking but with a small, careful smile on her face. Peter winked as Drax droned on and on about a hunt from his childhood with his father and the other boys of his village.

“I…uh. Wow.” Peter unholstered his blaster, checked the cartridges out of habit, and then reholstered it. “Wow,” he said again. “I did not expect the Favorite Prince of Znai to, uh, look? Like that?”

“Oh, yeah, cause we all gotta have the two legs and two arms and the one head, just like all you humies.”

“No,” said Peter down at Rocket, who was picking some of the confetti off his fur. “I didn’t say that. I just meant I hadn’t ever seen anything so…?”

“Grow up, Quill.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Rocket’s right,” said Gamora, striding to Peter’s side. She had been the one to present the glass case with the Favorite Prince’s meal, much the delight and celebration to everyone there. There had been an Znai band playing fanfare music and everything. The confetti had rained down and Groot got off Rocket’s shoulder, chasing some of the glittering pieces. Gamora had stood stone still through it, holding out the case. She was also the one to collect their units and confirmed the transfer on her data pad. “You should grow up, Peter.”

“Oh come on. Is nobody gonna say it? Honestly?” Peter looked back at the castle behind them with its aquamarine spires and huge vaulted entryways carved with dizzying diamond patterns. “That was clearly…it was clearly…well, you know.”

Gamora rolled her eyes. She walked ahead, leading the way back to the launch site where they had parked the Milano. A pinkish sea stretched out around them as far as the horizon, its waves sparkling with the twilight of the two small suns crossing above.

“That man had a striking resemblance to a vagina,” said Drax, coming up from the rear.

“Dude!” Rocket glared up at the hulking destroyer even as Mantis giggled childishly behind her hands. “You don’t gotta just say it like that.”

“Oh my god, thank you,” said Peter, arms wide in a half-bow towards Drax. “I wasn’t crazy!”

“It was obvious, was it not? That is a common configuration of the—”

“Yeah! We all know what it looks like,” said Rocket as he flailed his arms above his head.

“Do we?” asked Peter skeptically, looking around the ragtag group.

“We do!”

“But do we?” Peter pressed.

“I dunno, Quill, maybe some of us aren’t lucky enough to have gotten up close and personal.”

“Okay.” Drax burst into laughter, pointing even, eyes wide in glee. Mantis bumped into him and quickly joined in. The pointing is what sucked. “Okay, guys. Okay. Come on.”

“If you’re all ready?” Gamora asked by the Milano, the hatch open and a ramp already lined up. “We might get off Znai before the full solstice?” She waved the Guardians up onto the ship, touching Peter briefly on the arm and giving him a pitying smile. “It has been a long time then, hasn’t it?”

“What?” asked Peter, pausing as everyone walked by.

“If you have forgotten simple anatomy, then—”

“Whoa, hey,” said Peter and scoffed. He shrugged out of Gamora’s reach. “I know what it looks like, jeeze.” Then he skidded a little and turned back. “Why? You offering me a lesson?”

“In your dreams, Star Lord,” she answered and sauntered onto the ship.

He watched her go, admiring her in, alright, yes, an absolutely sleazy fashion, but also just for her. All of her. Her languid movements, her perfect control, her everything. He smiled. Of course he smiled. And as he clapped the ramp to retract and closed the hatch, he nodded to nothing in particular and said, “Those dreams, though. You wouldn’t even believe.”

“Now about that vacation that Quill promised,” said Rocket from the ladder up to the cabin.

“Oo, I’ve never had a vacation before,” said Mantis, clasping her hands together in front of her chest.

Nobody decided to comment on that. Groot managed to get out something, but they all ignored it. He was just being mouthy, anyways.

“Alright, jerk wads. Where’re we goin’ anyhow?”

“Take us somewhere special,” Rocket yelled back.

Peter almost answered, but he stopped in the cargo hold, looking over at the case of space suits and the “For Emergency Use Only” printed neatly on the display with “(or fun)” scribbled haphazardly beneath hit. He remembered the cold cloying feeling blanket his body as he screamed, literally screamed, feeling himself drain of the flickering energy from that bastard Ego. And the icy hands just barely touch his cheek as Yondu began to freeze solid in front of him. Blood vessels bursting. Eyes frosting over.

Peter didn’t realize he had been holding his breath and he gasped, fist to his chest as he came back to himself. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like, if he lost…. No. No. Peter flicked a hand across the space suit display, pocketing one of the pods out of habit and replacing an old one from his ravager jacket so it could recharge. He usually kept two on his person, sitting next to each other, just in case.

“Quill?” Gamora called from the ladder. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he answered, forcing himself to breathe normally. He tapped the display again, for good luck, and stomped off towards the cabin. “Yeah, you guys wanna go somewhere special? I got a couple ideas.”

#gotg fanfic #post gotg vol 2 #peter quill #gamora #drax the destroyer #rocket racoon #mantis #groot #jerk wads

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scribefindegil · 7 years

Text

Cycle Eight--Week 1

[Ao3]

The bright blue leather of the book's cover has faded over time, and the silver metalwork has tarnished, but the ink inside is still crisp and clear.

A (condensed, if I'm being honest) version of Lucretia's journal from Cycle Eight.

Day 1

For the first time, we spend the night of our arrival still airborne.

Lup is eager to explore the land below us, a world covered in vast glowing forests of fungi. Even now, when the single sun is on the far side of the planet, it glows as though it were daytime (At least, if daytime were characterized by an ever-shifting pattern of neon hues). The air is filled with clouds of spores which diffuse the light, concealing the edges of individual mushrooms so the entire world looks like a great ocean of light.

Tomorrow we head for one of the dark spots we can make out on the horizon in search of a clear landing ground. Captain Davenport has ordered that no one is to leave the ship until we can verify that the environment is inhabitable. Thus far, we have had the good fortune to only visit worlds on which we can walk and breathe, but there is no guarantee that every set of Planes will be so hospitable.

Magnus offered to go down to the surface by himself. “It’s the quickest way to see if we can survive!” he said.

Taako scoffed. “Oh, right, check it out by dying, that’s a brilliant idea. Idiot.”

“Yeah, Maggie,” said Lup. “You only just got back! Is the company really that bad?”

He didn’t push the matter, but offered to man the helm for part of the night so Captain Davenport could get some sleep.

We’ve seen no signs of inhabitants so far. Perhaps there are none, or perhaps they’re just hidden by the lights and the wide caps of the mushrooms. My lenses are of limited use from this distance.

The world appears to be of medium size, similar to that of Cycle 4 and to our home. It has only one sun and no moons. Our course is high enough that despite the light from below and the dense clouds we’ve been passing through it is easy to make out the unfamiliar stars that fill the sky.

(The next page spread is taken up by a painstakingly drawn star map, with notations on brightness and hue. Later annotations have been made in lighter ink connecting certain stars into constellations: The Mask, the Spider, the Pipes, the Bear.)

Three hours into his watch, Magnus called out and pointed to the forest below. I caught the briefest glimpse of what had startled him—movement, as if there was a creature passing through the mushrooms. Neither of us got a good enough look to describe what we saw, but it would appear that the life on this world is not, after all, limited to the vegetal.

Day 2

Throughout the night and the early hours of the morning we continued to make out shambling figures moving through the forests below, though we haven’t been able to identify them. Lup offered to burn a path through the mushrooms so we could have a better view, but she was overruled.

In the afternoon we finally discovered a settlement. It was easy to make out from a distance—one of the only dark patches in the glowing forest. The village is small and circular, with low, squat buildings clustered in the center. The outskirts are guarded by bonfires—dozens of them in three staggered rings—and the earth inside the village is charred. The inhabitants are in a constant battle against the encroaching forest, and fire is the only weapon they have. I suspect that Lup will get along well with them.

When we landed at the edge of the village, the inhabitants ran out from their dwellings to meet us. There was barely room for the Starblaster to touch down between the buildings and the flames, but Captain Davenport has always been a deft hand at the controls and only becomes more skilled the longer we spend on this mission.

At first we were unsure what race these citizens are. They are small in stature, no taller than Davenport or Merle, and are clad in long garments made of a heavy, dark material. But their most notable feature is the masks they wear. Everyone has some type of face covering, although there appears to be no standard type. I saw some with fine white veils wrapped around their heads and faces, revealing only their eyes. Others wear large masks with bulging glass eyes and long protrusions in the front like a bird’s beak. Still others have masks that seem to be made of the same material as their clothes sewn into a bulbous shape that covers their mouths and noses.

When the ship first landed, some of the people raised weapons—long tubes attached to packs that rest on their shoulders—but when we emerged they lowered them immediately. For a moment they stared at us, their eyes wide above their masks.

“Hail and well met!” said Merle, waving at them.

There was a brief shuffling as they spoke among themselves, and then one of them stepped forward. They wore one of the beaked masks and were short even by the standards of their companions. When they spoke, their voice was deep and strangely resonant—perhaps by nature, perhaps due to the acoustics of the mask.

“Where did you . . . come from?” they said.

After seven years on seven different worlds, we’ve become used to questions like these, and everyone knows that explaining our situation requires a certain delicacy of phrasing. So, of course, Taako said, “We came from fucking space, my man!” and then high-fived his sister.

“. . . Not a man, but okay,” the speaker muttered. Then they seemed to pull themselves together and said, “Listen, you’re in grave danger. We’re sheltered here . . . a little. As much as . . . Listen, you need masks or you’re all going to die.”

Perhaps not the most positive welcome we’ve received, but honestly not the worst either. We stepped down into their village and let them fit us with masks as they explained that the spores produced by the mushroom forest are deadly poisonous if inhaled. The constant bonfires around the village provide something of a buffer, but not enough to protect them completely.

The person who originally spoke, a dwarf who introduced themself as Mico, invited us into their dwelling for a meal and to learn more about us. We accepted, though we soon found that the building was too small for all of us to enter. I had hoped that I could at least remain at the door and record the conversation but Captain Davenport insisted that would be impolite. While Merle and Davenport went inside, the villagers built us a sort of crude tent out of the same white material they used for their veils.

They are all both curious and shy. They haven’t asked many questions yet, but they stare at us openly, especially Magnus. He’s as big as three of them put together.

Davenport and Merle returned and let us know that this village is known as Fungston and we are welcome to stay as long as we like provided we help with protecting the town. The mushroom forest is always advancing, and it has been as long as any of them can remember, although there are stories of a time before the mushrooms came. I hope I have the chance to record some of them.

There are other villages like theirs scattered around, the closest a ten days’ march through the forest, but as far as the people of Fungston know there are no elves or humans left on this world. None except us.

Day 3

Magnus and Davenport have spent the day on the Starblaster, in hope that they will be able to track the Light of Creation as it falls. It has given the rest of us the opportunity to explore the village.

(The rest of the page is taken up with a map detailing the locations of the two dozen buildings that make up the village of Fungston)

They have a regular pattern to the day. When they wake up, everyone checks the inside of their own buildings and then the common areas for any mushrooms that have sprung up overnight. It they find any, they burn them and the ground around where they sprouted with the flame cannons that are their primary form of weaponry.

Then they breakfast, usually in their own small family groups. There are one or two buildings covered in extra layers of the veil fabric that are devoted to the growth of herbs for cooking and medicine, but their primary diet is insects and the non-luminous mushrooms that grow on the floor of the forest. Boiling neutralizes the effects of the spores, but it still feels like tempting fate. Food is a necessity, not a pleasure, although from the meaningful glances that Taako and Lup share over mealtimes I suspect the village may have some cooking lessons in store if we remain here for any length of time.

Most of the villagers spend the day working on the incredibly fine white fabric which, along with fire, is their primary protection from the spores. The weave is finer than any cloth from home. Air can pass through it, but nothing else. Barry is fascinated by it and had taken some samples to study.

Their secret is the colony of fist-sized spiders that live in the forest directly outside of town. It would be wrong to call these creatures domesticated, but they are farmed. The villagers provide them with food and then use a large spindle powered by magic to gather their silk for weaving. Nearly everyone has a loom in their home, but they will sometimes take them outside and sit together under an awning at the center of the village, working steadily with only the clicks of their shuttles and the sound of the everpresent rain disturbing the silence.

Those who do not weave or have their own specific duties tend to the bonfires, making sure they continue to burn high. They are fueled by dried sections from the stems of mushrooms and by the oil well which caused the early villagers to settle in this place.

A little before sunset they prepare the main meal of the day. Even when eating, they wear spider-silk veils over their mouths, and usually use the opportunity to check that their masks are in good repair.

As night falls, the scorch teams head out to the North and South, burning the forest back as far as they can before their flame cannons run dry. It is only when they return, with no spores for several hundred feet around, that anyone dares to take off their masks. Still, this is something that is done only within their homes. Seeing another person’s face is considered a moment of rare intimacy. They barely know how to react to knowing what the seven of us look like.

I thought at first that it was just their shyness, but these people are exhausted. Every night they send out scorch teams to burn as many mushrooms as they can, and every day the forest grows back. It reminds me of our own mission, these seemingly endless loops of struggling to find the Light and protect a world from the Hunger only to be thrown back into another cycle.

A gnome child ran up to us this morning and demanded, “Have you come to save us?” None of us knew how to answer, and finally Lup said, “. . . In a way . . .” The child could tell it wasn’t the answer she needed, and the bright spark of hope in her eyes faded away. Even if we do prevent the destruction of this planar system there is nothing we can do about the great mushrooms amidst which these people eke out a living.

Deadly as they are, the mushrooms are beautiful. I’ve been able to make out at least ten different species without passing beyond the ring of bonfires. They vary so much in structure and color: there are ones with stalks like smooth treetrunks and domed orange caps with deep pink gills, ones that jut out of the ground like green dripping fingers, tall ridged ones and orbs that sit low on the ground. All of them glow and all of them release sprays of the deadly spores.

I asked Nita, a Halfling with bright, deep-set brown eyes who walks with two canes carved from the tough caps of the shelflike purple mushrooms, if it would be safe for me to leave the village to make more notes and sketches of the forest provided I wore my mask at all times.

She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “You can’t go out alone,” she said. “The Keepers will find you!”

Apparently the strange moving shapes we’d seen on the forest floor were no trick; there are ambulatory mushroom creatures as tall as a human that tend to the forest. None of these Keepers have ventured within the circle of bonfires in living memory, but there are still stories of them sneaking up to remove the masks from incautious travelers.

Day 4

The Light of Creation fell early this morning before the sun had risen. Magnus, Davenport, and Barry had been taking turns watching for it, and it was Barry’s watch when it fell. We heard him cry out and followed his pointing finger, but by the time we looked the trail it left in the sky had already faded.

“I barely saw it,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s somewhere to the South, but that’s half the world to search . . . I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it this time.”

Magnus clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course we will!” he said. “You and Lup just need to do your whole science magic thing! You’re great at it!”

The mask covers most of Barry’s face that isn’t already covered by glasses, but the blush reached his ears.

After a brief discussion we decided that we would stay here in Fungston for the time being, at least until we had a better sense of how to navigate this world. In a month or so we would discuss organizing an away mission.

Magnus has spent most of his time since our arrival waiting on the ship, so this was his first day spent out among the villagers. They all stare when they think he isn’t looking. They also stare at me and Barry and the twins, but Magnus is both taller and broader than the rest of us. One of the children asked how he could be so tall, and he laughed and said, “Like this!” and swung her up onto his shoulders. She screamed for a moment, but then it turned into laughter as he helped her balance and she got to look down on all of us, even the rest of the crew.

It attracted quite the crowd: other children begging for a turn while their parents looked on in shock and muted horror which slowly abated as they saw how careful he was not to let anyone fall.

Vetch, the first child he picked up, is a small dwarf girl who looks younger than her nine years. She wears her hair in small braids that stick out all over her head. One of her mothers, Frelya, leads a scorch teams and Jarrus, the other, spends most of her time tending the spiders. Befriending the “giant” has made her very popular among the other children.

Frelya has agreed to take me out into the forest tomorrow, although I don’t think any of them really understand my work. I tried to explain it, but they insist they simply remember everything important and have no need for writing.

Day 5

The forest is even more astonishing up close! I will have to return with my paints to see if I can capture something of the colors of these mushrooms! There is so much variation in the form and texture! Some of them do remind me of fungi I’ve seen on previous worlds, but so much about them is utterly alien.

And the insects! These spores may be deadly to mammals like ourselves, but the forest is still teeming with life. I saw butterflies as big as my head and worms that glow the same shade as the mushrooms they feed on and tiny flies with delicate, lacy wings and bugs with armored carapaces that burrow through the leaf-mold. There are even frogs that live in the cup-shaped caps of some of the smaller mushrooms where the water collects.

(The rest of this entry consists of pen-and-ink drawings of the fungi and creatures of the mushroom forest. On one page the drawings are somewhat smudged with tidelines, as if it had gotten wet. There is a note next to it: “Better ink! Also: umbrella!”)

Day 6

I had hoped to spend another day in the forest, but Nita found me after breakfast.

“Come give Frelya a break and take a look at the gardens!” she said. We are all growing more accustomed to reading expressions without being able to see people’s mouths, but there was a genuine sparkle in her eyes.

She led me to the herb-filled huts, which she and a gnome named Gully are the chief tenders of. “You like listening to people talk, right? Well lucky for you, I can talk all day!”

And she was right! She explained how the gardens were constructed differently from the other buildings, lined with stones and spider-silk so the mushrooms couldn’t creep up from underneath. She led me through descriptions of every herb they grew—which would relieve pain, which could be turned into a salve for burns, which ones would stop you from getting sick if you added them to your meals.

“This is the most important,” she said, pointing to a plant with purple-gray, arrow-shaped leaves. “There’s nothing that will save you if you breathe in the spores, but this slows them down. Before we found it, people had days at most. Sometimes just hours. But chewing on these leaves or making them into tea every day, we’ve had people survive for months. It grows wild in the forest and it’s one of the first things to sprout from ground that’s been burned. We call it Sparkweed.”

She made me explain everything I was writing; a few of the elder citizens of the town still know how to write, but most of them never learned.

(Several pages are filled with drawings of plants, along with their uses and notes on how to identify them.)

Lup and Taako volunteered to “help” with cooking tonight. It involved perhaps slightly more striking poses than was strictly necessary, but no one complained. The Starblaster’s larder is well-stocked, and when Davenport asked if they were afraid they’d run out of something important Taako just laughed and transmuted his spoon into a pile of white peppercorns.

It was a much more satisfying meal than the others we’ve had so far, and more importantly the villagers seemed to love it too. The brought out a barrel of beer brewed from mushrooms as a thanks and shared it with us. It was very . . . heady. And dark. Taako took pity on my and transmuted my second cup into wine.

Vetch, still proud of her favor with the “giant,” has taken to climbing into Magnus’s lap or across his shoulders during meals. He encourages it, of course, although sometimes he tickles her in retaliation.

Day 7

The Hunger has found us.

It’s not a surprise by now, but it’s still horrible to behold. For a few minutes the colors seemed to drain from the world and hundreds upon hundreds of eyes opened in the sky and stared down at us. The villagers pointed their flame cannons at the sky. Vetch and the other children ran and clung to Magnus’s legs. The rest of us simply . . . waited. And as it always has done before, the darkness passed.

And now we have a year. A year of waiting for the Hunger to arrive. A year to find the Light and save this world. A year to learn all I can about this reality before we leave it forever.

Mico strode up to us as the eyes winked out.

“What is going on?” they demanded. “What the hell was that thing? You weren’t even surprised!”

“It’s . . . a force,” said Lup at length. “A really fucking nasty one, not gonna lie. It will be here in a year, but if we find the Light that landed here a few days ago we can lead it off and your reality will survive.”

“Our . . . reality?” Mico said. “What about us?”

“Um,” said Lup. “Well. That . . . depends . . .”

We explained, as best we could, what we’re up against. What it does to worlds and why it’s so important that we find the Light. What it can do to worlds even if we do. There’s no good way to spin it.

Dinner was quiet. Some of the villagers stared at us distrustfully. Others looked vacant, their shoulders slumped beneath their heavy coats.

They’d had so little hope anyway, and when we arrived for a moment we’d given them more. Hope that there were other people still out there, other worlds where the inhabitants could breathe free. And then we’d told them that they had another enemy, worse and more inevitable than the mushrooms.

As the sun set and the scorch team began to prepare for their nightly work, we heard a voice cry out.

“Wait! Brothers and sisters, if I may, I’d just like to offer up a little prayer to Pan to bless your work tonight and every night and to give you hope and joy through these dark times!”

It was Merle. He did pray, and the villagers listened in puzzlement. None of them have mentioned any gods. And then, as the scorch team filed out into the forest, Merle began to sing. It was one of those old hymnal tunes with a set of words for almost every god. The rest of us hummed along even though we didn’t know the words about Pan.

When the song ended, Merle looked around nervously. The scorch team had paused at the final ring of bonfires. The other villagers were staring out from the doors of their houses.

“What . . . what was that?” said Mico. He looked flabbergasted.

Merle shrugged.

“Hope,” he said.

#araxie writes #the adventure zone #Magnus rushes in!#i've made a terrible mistake but i'm sticking with it #we'll see how many weeks in the middle are just image descriptions of mushrooms #cycle eight

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avaaste · 7 years

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Some writing I did! (Response to the writing prompt “The Sea of Trees. The deeper you go, the taller they get, and the more incredible the animals. After a month of traveling, you just found your first clearing.”

It's funny how easy it is to think of the Sea like a normal forest. You always imagine it as the same, just bigger.

You expect the myriad assortment of trees, but enormous. You expect sunlight streaming through the leaves, only far far above you. You might expect the crunch crackle crunch of crispy fall leaves beneath your feet, only the leaves are the size of dinner plates. Kind of when you're a kid, and you assume that ponds are just big puddles, and lakes are just big ponds, and everything sort of just scales up. Until you fall in.

Our minds are so limited like that. We think of ourselves as children in a forest, marveling at the size of it all. You don't realize that we are ants. Only ants have the blessing of brains too small to comprehend their own insignificance. We aren't so lucky, so things are a little different for us.

Because no one tells you that deep in the Green Sea, it stops being green. They don't tell you that the ancient wooden giants to whom this place belong are not the size of houses, but of mountains. They don't tell you that in the depths, you'd be lucky to ever touch a trunk, rather than scurrying about through roots that take an hour to run across. They never mention the fact that past fifty miles in, anything less than a thousand meters tall really isn't worth the sun's attention. Don't worry though, the real darkness only lasts about a dozen miles, then things start to get a different kind of light.

Fungi and spores mostly, though I hear some places have things called lampvines growing down from the trees that emits filtered sunlight siphoned down from above, almost totally white. Apparently poisonous, too. I don't buy it though, sounds too much like wishful thinking. Light means death.

The thing about all that nice, light-giving fungus is you never want to get close to it, because it glows to let anything with a stomach know that it's good to eat, and if you stay nearby, you're the free appetizer that comes with it. Light is death and that's good, because it means when you wake up in the middle of the night because you think you're back in your apartment and a train just passed by, you know to find a better hiding spot from whatever has a mile-long set of glowing portholes on it's side. It means that when you see a shaft of sunlight off in the distance, you don't run towards it, you wait until something else walks into it and the ground beneath it erupts into teeth, and everything goes dark again. And then you keep waiting until you can't hear the sound of something the size of an aircraft carrier tunneling away to find its next meal location. And it means that when you lose your hope and you see everything around you light up because suddenly the canopy is gone and it's all just the white, blessed light, of heaven, beckoning you in, you run, dive, climb, and jump to the deepest place you can find before heaven clamps its jaws shut on everything in a half mile radius.

That's why I was scared when, after the loudest thunderstorm in memory, the ground shook and light appeared in the distance, I didn't go toward it. I tried to go around, but it got bigger. I thought it might be coming toward me so I went deep and hunkered down as best I could for a few weeks. But when I came back up, it was still there. I kept going around, and the light stayed where it was, not moving, not going away. I knew it had to be bad, but at the very least I had to find out what it was, how it worked, so I knew how to avoid it next time. I was slow, careful as I could be. Moving every few days, then taking a few to make sure nothing was chasing or following.

Must've taken me a month to get to the light. I wanted to stay out of direct sight, so I'd been down among the roots, but the roots kept going up and up, and the light was shining more and more above me. There were broken roots everywhere, nothing new, but I hadn't ever seen so many, almost never ones this big, and never more than one big one broken in one place. I was scared. Finally, I took the risk, made it to one of the broken ends of a big one, and peeked my head over. I was blinded. Light, bright bright light, so much of it my eyes burned. I shut them, squeezed them tight, and took another look. Opened my eyes slowly, each fraction filling them with more blinding brightness, but eventually I had them open all the way. There was so much light. And nothing else. Nothing. Else. There's nowhere in the sea where there's nothing. Bugs, spores, vines, fungus, corpses, roots, always something. But after this root, everything stopped.

I waited for my eyes to adjust, maybe they just weren't seeing well yet. As my vision cleared, I saw it. The sky. The sun. Bright and blue, not a cloud to be seen. I couldn't understand what was happening, and looked down. And I saw further than I'd ever seen before. The depths of the sea don't have clearings, ever. The trees are too strong, too big. Their branches and roots weave in and out of one another, an impenetrable floor and ceiling that goes on further than anyone can imagine. And one of them had fallen. Ten thousand meters of solid wood, almost a mile across, stretching, horizontally, into the horizon. The canopy was gone, torn away in every direction for miles around it. The roots were ripped out of the ground, reaching up like children scared and alone, not knowing where their parents had gone. Leaves and branches were scattered everywhere, and I could see the trees around the clearing. I could see the one nearest to me, that had shielded me from so much of the light, but two others as well, across the clearing, the depths of the sea illuminated by sunlight it had long since forgotten. Since I'd entered the depths, I had never, ever seen more than one tree at a time.

It was the most miraculous thing I'd ever seen. And then I was terrified, more scared than I had ever been in my life. It wasn't a thunderstorm a month ago, I was hearing this tree break and crash through everything on the way down. The earth had shaken from the impact, I remembered. And then I was more terrified than I'd ever been. Trees in the depths didn't fall. Not ever. Not by themselves. Something had felled this tree. Something had broken and brought to the ground one of the biggest, oldest single things I had ever seen in my life. Something had caused destruction on a scale I can't describe, reaching literally as far as the eye could see, in a matter of minutes destroying something that had taken more time than I could imagine to grow. Something had brought more light to the depths of the Sea than had ever been there before. And light was death. And I was an ant among giants, and I was afraid.

#my art #my writing #bits and bobs and headcanons #writing #short story #so uh #yeah this is the first time #I've posted any writing in a while #lemme know if y'all like it I guess?#I might post more and if it gets to be a thing people are into #I'll probably ask y'all for writing prompts

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the-poke-nebula · 3 years

Note

😈😈😈😈😈😈 from ur sassiest muse

Blessed Counter: 0 Cursed Counter: 6

"From your Sassiest Muse" is probably Moralixxi so gonna get her up here.

"A whole 'trainer's team' of 'cursed facts', huh? Dang, who didn't love you enough as a child?"

1) "I'll start with probably my least favorite Pokemon in Uplyria- the Beedrill that live there. A quick reminder that a Beedrill from Kanto can sting straight through you and probably do bad damage to you- these ones are probably worse. The poison from a Kantonian Beedrill isn't bad, but the poison from an Uplyrian Beedrill? Get ready for internal frostbite, literally freezing your blood solid. That's right- these Bee Pokemon are Bug/Ice Type and they will not hesitate to sting."

2) "Next up, I'll talk about a Pokemon known as Tastee. You can probably guess from the name it's a culinary delicacy here in Uplyria. I don't really see the appeal in it, but I'm a Pokemon, so what do I know." Sarcasm. "I at least know better to know that Tastee is literally on the endangered list because of over-hunting it for its meat. That's what I hate about Tastee over the Pokemon itself; it really is super cute. Seriously people- find some better alternatives to Tastee Meat."

3) "Fungross and Slymbiosis; man, where do I even START with these Pokemon? These Pokemon are reminiscent of Slugma and Magcargo, but these guys aren't like them, y'know, at all. Fungross and Slymbiosis are nasty little parasites that, when part of their mold-like slime covers a Pokemon with a weak will, will lose all cognitive function and go about like a zombie. Did I mention that these things also get Wonder Guard? And are Bug/Poison Type? Look, a lot of my gripes are about Bug-Types, and since I'm a Psychic-Type Pokemon, I'm allowed to."

4) "Speaking of Bugs, let's talk about Mozozamo and Mozonguz. They're both evolutions of Mozito, and you can probably guess they're all Mosquito Pokemon. So fun and not disease-ridden at all. -First up, Mozozamo. This thing doesn't have just One Proboscis (The little sharp bit that stabs you and drinks your blood); in an act of hubris against nature, this thing has TWO. It can bite you in two different place at once and drain you of your blood twice as fast. Especially since it has the ability Bloodlust, which makes draining attacks, such as Leech Life, even more powerful. -Mozongus is what happens when the aforementioned Fungross infects a Mozito when under the influence of a Leaf Stone. Mozongus is blind and has a whole ton of fungus growing all over its body, and like most other Pokemon under Fungross' spell, acts like a member of the Undead. Unlike its cousin it still has one Proboscis, but it still has access to Bloodlust; It just is more Special-Attack oriented, so Mozongus will drain your life force, instead. Even if it doesn't have Bloodlust, it also could get Effect Spore, which, if you breathe in those spores from its fungus, could put you to sleep, poison you, rash up, or paralyze you, and while you're helpless, it feeds."

5) "Next up is probably a worse affront to nature than Muk ever could be- the Hazmat Pokemon, Wastoxyn. This thing is literally Made of nuclear wasteproduct. Not only is probably every single Wastoxyn clinically insane, but they have an insatiable goal of polluting the Earth by consuming and spreading its toxic filth. They're also MASSIVE; think Muk but maybe twice as big. This is humanity's hubris coming back to bite you people in the butt. Especially since it has the ability known as Black Clouds. Dunno what it does? It literally summons acid rain. That's right; corrosive acid rains from the sky and deals damage to all Non-Poison or Steel-Types."

6) "Finally, let's talk about the Scrap Slasher Pokemon, Screaper. Screaper is what happens when you throw its previous evolution, Curibo, away with some of your old computer parts. These things are merciless, ruthless, and tireless, hunting you down while making you absolutely terrified by the constant sound of grinding metal. There are stories where the owners' heads were found tied to belts they made out of broken wires, keeping their black shrouds from slipping off their scrap-trap forms."

"Aaand, that's about all that I really have some hang-ups on... can I go now?"

#Clear Conscience (Moralixxi)#Passing the time while Hatching Eggs (Memes)#preuzien #From Other Regions (Fakemon)#Detailed Pokedex Entry (Mun Art)

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a-strange-sim-fic · 4 years

Text

It's All a Little Strange

Chapter One

"Your dad know you're here?"

"Hey Erwin, can I get another book? Dad trashed my last copy."

"Beck, you're not supposed to be here. If your dad finds out-"

"What? He'll ground me, again?" I rolled my eyes and slammed my money on the counter. The curio shop owner sighed and rummaged through his bins to look for my book.

A guest of wind passed by, kicking up some dust. When it cleared, I could see on of those crazy plants growing in the distance.

"I swear, if your dad finds out I sold you another copy-"

"Erwin, relax. I'll say I got it from a kid at school," I reassured him. He didn't seem convinced. "Seriously, Dad won't find this one. Promise."

I hopped on my bike to head home as Erwin shouted something about me saying that the last time. Blah, blah, blah. It was another dark, gloomy day, as always. If I tried hard enough, I could almost remember when the sky was blue. Almost.

Ever since I was little, our town was trapped under a mysterious dark cloud that barely let an ounce of sunlight through. I rode through the dusty desert, passing Jess Sigworth and a few other soldiers going into the Salty 8 Saloon.

She saluted me as I passed, glancing behind me towards Erwin and his little pop up curio shop.

Dammit.

She was sure to tell my father that I'd been down here again. She worked under my him, as one of his sergeants, but she's my mother's friend. Or at least, she was, until my mother disappeared.

I was nearly to the top of the hill, I could see the shiny gates to our community reflecting in the dull light. But, it wasn't Rusty the security guard at the gate. It was my dad.

"Beck, where have you been? You are grounded, you're not supposed to even leave the house. When I found out you weren't in your room-"

"You were in my room?" I shouted. "That is my private space, dad. You get the whole house, you promised-"

"To stay out? Yes I did," my father sighed, lifting my bike into the back of his pick up. "Don't worry, your thirteen locks on the basement door work just fine."

"Fifteen actually," I corrected.

"Beckleigh, you are the child and I am the parent, that is-"

"YOUR house, yes I know."

"You really need to stop interrupting me," he shouted. In his anger, he jerked the wheel and the truck bounced off the curb. He was furious with me, as always. Dad's been hot headed since even before my mother left. Always in a bad mood, always yelling at me about something.

We were finally home, and before he could place the truck in park, I was already jumping out and rushing to my room in the basement.

Dad had finished it off for me as a birthday gift when I turned 16. I guess it was his way of making it up to me that I had no mom, or he thought such a cool room would keep me home, instead of poking around town for clues about my mom.

"She's gone," he'd say. "Just leave it at that."

But it couldn't be so simple, could it? My mom loved me, I even thought she might have actually loved him too. She followed him here from Brindelton Bay when he was assigned a new military base, though she had nothing of her own. Well, except me.

She would spend her whole day at home with me, playing games and cooking. She taught me to walk, talk, everything. Meanwhile, Dad would spend all of his time at work. When he was actually home, he was shut up in his office or the gym he installed in the attic.

Even as a toddler I could tell my mom was lonely. It wasn't until my mom met Jess and Leslie that she ever perked up.

I went over to the far side of my room and put pressure on the loose floorboard at the foot of my bed. Everything was still accounted for.

My spore scanner sat nestled next to some of the bugs I purchased from Erwin the week before. Carefully wrapped in an old handkerchief, a photo of my mother sat on top of my secret treasures. I swapped the photo for my new book and gingerly unwrapped it.

A couple years after she left, Dad had taken down all of her photos in a rage after a long day at work, throwing them in the trash. I managed to save a few, hiding them in the bottom of my toy chest at the time.

Gently stroking the glass, I admired my mother's hair taking up more than half the photo. It was so wild and big, I never understood how she managed to fit it under her cowgirl hat. Her big blue eyes sparkled, and only her smile could outshine them. The yellow dress she wore complimented her dark skin, and she looked like the sun glowing in the early morning. I pressed a kiss to my index finger and tapped it over her face before covering the photo back up.

"Love you, Mama," I whispered, placing the floorboards back in place. I checked my watch, realizing there were only a few hours left before my curfew was invoked.

"I'm going outside, want to squeeze in a few laps," I told my father in the kitchen, as he stirred something in a pot on the stove.

"You are not to-"

"Leave the yard, yea, I know," I interrupted, waving my beach towel at him. "I'll just be in the pool. You can see me from the kitchen window."

He grunted his permission, never once looking at me. Rolling my eyes, I went out the back door and slung my towel over my old monkey bar. I eased myself into the pool and began my laps, counting each one as it was completed. Ten a day, that was the goal. I'd follow up with whatever high protein dinner Dad was making and do my sit ups downstairs before bed.

"Early to bed, early to rise," Dad would always say while leading me to my bed every night at 8pm sharp. He'd wake me the next morning for our daily jog and double check that my homework was finished while we ate breakfast.

I was expected to keep my mind and body at the highest point of health. Straight A student that could bench press a semi was Dad's ideal child. While I wouldn't be lifting semis anytime soon, I could still hold my own in my boxing class or whenever Dad insisted on sparring practice.

Working out was the only time he ever really spent with me. He was a military man, as was his father before him and his father before him. There was a long, long line of Cardenas men serving their country, and being the first girl in the family did not excuse me from that tradition.

"Beck, it's seven. Inside, now," my dad's voice shouted from the back door, snapping me out of my thoughts. I dried myself off, going back into the house. After changing my clothes, I was sat at the old mahogany dining table, my father on the complete opposite end.

"You know, I'm probably the only teenager ever to have a seven o'clock curfew," I muttered. His eyebrows raised high enough they'd have disappeared into his hairline, if he had one. "It's not fair."

"Excuse me?" He grumbled, his eyes shooting daggers. I nearly expected to feel the sensation of being stabbed. "You have a curfew to establish routine, discipline. You need to be responsible for yourself when you enlist, you can't expect others to pick up your slack."

"That's fair," I agreed. "I'm not saying I shouldn't have a curfew, just maybe one that allows me to actually spend time with my friends?"

"Oh, you mean your friends like Erwin?" Dad scoffed, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "That clown is nothing but trouble. He keeps poking his nose into business that doesnt concern him, and he's going to pay for it one day. You can't allow yourself to be involved with someone like that."

"Erwin is a nice guy, and he's smarter than people think," I countered.

"He's a paranoid conspiracy theorist, he's a total loon!"

"He's my friend!"

By now, we were both shouting, pounding our fists on the table as we stood up in defiance of each other. Dad's face was red, his eyes narrowed and I could see that he was working out if it was worth it to smack me across the mouth.

I rushed to my room, closing the basement door behind me before he could follow. I latched all fifteen locks behind me.

___

"Oh this is disgusting, Beck," I heard my grandmother call out. "Beck! Beckleigh, mija!"

"What is it, what's wrong?" I called, rushing to the bathroom after her. She opened the door and I could see the, the purple vines snaking their way out of the sink. "Oh, they're back."

"They're back?" She repeated, passing a hand over eyes. "This is a thing that just happens?"

"Yea," I shrugged, opening the sink cabinet to pull out the pruning shears we kept for these exact instances. "All the time, actually. It's really bad the further into town you get."

"So the whole town just has vines growing from their sinks?"

"Well, some people get it in their showers and toilets too. "

"That's appalling," she shuddered, eyeing the vines with disgust.

"That's Strangerville," I shrugged again. "Abuela, it's always been this way. It would be weird if I suddenly didn't have to clear out vines everytime I needed to pee."

"Tell me you're joking."

It wasn't often that my grandparents came to visit. They didnt like the desert, or the strange weather, or weird, glowing purple plants that sprouted up all over town. It was so different from their home in Willow Creek, and different is bad apparently.

Today was a special occasion though, Dad's birthday. My grandmother insisted on coming to us and preparing a meal for her only child. While he and my grandfather sat in the living room, staring at the sports center on our tiny television set, I followed my grandmother into the kitchen.

"Mija, will you take these and chop for me please?"

"Abuela, I'm not much of a cook," I tried to excuse myself and pushed the cutting board and vegetables back towards her.

"And what does that have to do with chopping? Any idiot can use a knife," she scoffed. "Just make sure you cut evenly or nothing will cook the same. And avoid hitting any of your fingers."

We worked quietly beside each other, occasionally hearing one of the Cardenas men shouting at the tv, as if the athletes could hear them. When I was done cutting the vegetables, my grandmother set me up at the sink to clean the dishes she'd already used up in dinner prep.

"Always clean as you go, mija," she stated matter of factly. "Then you can enjoy the rest of your evening without worry."

I smiled back at her, happy to have the extra company in the house for once. Dad didn't really like for me to have my friends over, even just to study. He occasionally made an exception for Christie Sigworth, if she came with her parents.

We weren't exactly friends, but we got along. Jess would bring her along for playdates when she came over to gossip with my mother and Leslie Holland about what was happening in town. After mom left, Leslie stopped coming around. The Sigworth's always stood by us though, especially in the beginning.

As if my thoughts had summoning powers, the doorbell rang and Dad called out to me to get it. I opened the door to find Jess, her husband Dylan, and Christie. Jess held out a freshly baked honey cake and made her way to the living room with Dylan.

"Hey," I said, gesturing for Christie to follow me. We left the cake in the kitchen and made our way to my old swing set.

"How are those college apps going?" Christie asked, digging her toe into the ground as she swayed in the swing. "I heard back from Foxberry, early admissions."

"That's great," I mumbled, so tired of college talk. We were less than a year from graduating, but it hardly mattered. It wasn't like I was going to get to leave anyway. Military first, school later. "Have fun in Britechester."

We sat in silence a few minutes, looking towards the crater under the big, dark cloud. The early spring air was already warm, as it was almost all year long. The faint glow of the plants scattered across the desert lit up the landscape as far as we could see.

"Have you asked your dad yet?" Christie suddenly questioned. "About Sulani? Everyone's going, and Wolfgang asked about you."

"Oh did he? And what did Wolfgang Munch want to know about me?"

"If you're coming," she cried out exasperated. "I think he likes you."

"He just likes that I'm his science partner. Easy A."

"Don't be so modest," she dismissed me with a wave of her hand. "You make him so soft, everyone can see it. You should give him a chance!"

"And give my dad a heart attack?" I laughed, thinking of how my dad would handle his daughter dating a Renegade. "Sergio's head would actually implode. And then he'd come back to life just to kill me."

"Since when do you care about your dad's rules?"

I rolled my eyes as she wiggled her eyebrows at me, giggling. Silently, I agreed with her, knowing that she was completely right about it all. Wolfgang was cool, but he was kind of an idiot. Acted sweet when we worked on our labs, but a total jerk to everyone else. It was clear that he had a thing for me, and as satisfying as it would be to stick it to Dad, I couldn't bring myself to use him like that.

"I haven't asked him about Sulani," I tried redirecting the conversation. "Ditching school to go to the beach doesn't seem like something he'd go for."

"We're not ditching! It's over the weekend, he cant be mad about that."

"Oh, so you think I should ask him to have a Saturday off when I could be studying or training? Anytime away from books is ditching school to him."

"You're dad is such a buzzkill."

"Tell me about it."

Inside, around the dinner table Dad talked to Jess and my grandfather about work, while my grandmother talked to Dylan about some new recipes he should try.

"I really want to try my hand at pork adobo," Dylan told her. "I'm planning to get a fresh pig when I take the girls to Sulani this weekend."

"Whose going to Sulani?" My father demanded, his eyes boring into my skull. "Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?"

"Because I wasn't planning on going," I explained. "Christie and some kids from school are going to the beach, I guess Mr. Sigworth is the chauffeur."

I shrugged and focused once again on my food, trying to avoid eye contact and hoping Dad would turn his attention back to work talk. But he didn't.

"You should go," he suggested softly. My fork clattered against my plate as I dropped it in shock. Pure glee took over Christie's expression, and I could tell it took all of her being to avoid squealing. "You made a good point the other night, you should be able to spend time with your friends. A day at the beach sounds fun."

I stared in disbelief, not sure what to make of his offer. A full day spent on pleasure, and not on securing my future? A day of real, actual sunlight away from StangerVille? I was hardly allowed in my own yard after seven, but suddenly I'm allowed to leave town without being under his supervision?

"Oh my gosh, Wolfgang is going to be so thrilled - ouch!" Christie rubbed her shin where I had kicked her from under the table. I glared at her, jaw clenched. How could she be so stupid?

"Wolfgang Munch? Why would that delinquent care if you're there?" Dad's demeanor changed immediately, and he sat stiff in his chair.

"He won't," I tried to assure. "We're lab partners, if anything he'll just want to make sure I finished my half of the project."

It seemed to settle him enough that he didnt take back his permission and the previous conversations resumed. Christie continued looking at me gleefully while I shook my head.

《 masterlist

#sims 4 strangerville #sims 4 #sims 4 gameplay #sims fanfic

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