#JUST LET ME LIVE MY FANTASY LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE LIFE

[sonicringbond]

Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey - Scene 31

New year new cour!

Hopefully the start doesn’t feel too slow. I have to establish the plot a bit as and current state of the world. and the survey I had going while writing this scene was last trending towards having more plot over anything else. So i have quite a bit that I hope will wet your appetite in...

    ~Things had changed quite a bit since I met back up with Sonic. I couldn’t have been happier to find Sonic out of all my friends though, because with Sonic I just know we’ll find all our friends and continue our Journey home. At least I hope so.

    ~Like I said, the world really changed a lot. That red lightning bolt-like crack in the sky which is like a window to another world is visible all the time. For all the mountain ranges, prairies, deserts, islands, and towns and cities I’ve run through with Sonic, it never goes away, just like that horrible little planet which is always watching me. I can hardly sleep at all because of it. It makes my skin crawl, and something about it even affects my cards. I haven’t been able to read a fortune or ask for advice for some time now.

    ~And I could use it too.

    ~Sonic was right in that I didn’t understand. The damage done by those mean old pirates was a lot worse than I imagined. And it was easy enough to learn about it as more and more people took up the life of traveling sightseers after the crack appeared in the sky and that dreadful planet stopped going away at night. Everyone is afraid the world is ending and getting really funny about it. Some people have started traveling, others have given themselves even more to their work, and then there are those affected by the pirates in the worst possible way.

    ~They hurt a lot of people, but this was even worse. They also inspired a lot of other people to become sky pirates and hurt people too. It was the worst possible outcome, even with the old owl beat. At least I think he is. Despite all the stories of all the new pirates flying through the skies on airships they likely stole from the Engineers, I haven’t heard one about that mean old owl who we couldn’t keep that last Red Star Ring From. But I like to think we beat him. Because if we didn’t, I can’t imagine what he is up to.~

    “Nothing! To think I thought the fool fox the greatest enemy of the Battle Kukku Armada. But no, it’s little wonder why that clown Eggman always challenged him. Allowing him to live Is certain to assure complete and utter failure!”

    Tossing his feathered hands up in defeat, Doctor Fukurokov fell to his knees and looked out at the ruined city he had been wandering for what felt an eternity now. The concrete structures and skyscrapers could never have been built with glass and steel as they were with the typical steam and Ring technology he was used to working with. The city was obviously ancient and from before technology had fallen to the point of early industrialism and steam craft. Yet for all the wonder that could have built such a city, there was nothing left of value and an ever-growing forest had made it its home. Should Doctor Fukurokov not find his way to actual civilization either however…

    “A pitiable state for a creature of the heavens.”

    The voice that addressed Doctor Fukurokov was new to his ears, but he both enjoyed the recognition of his status and hated it.

    “Choose your words wisely, whoever you are,” the old, mad owl warned as he rose to feet. Turning he was greeted to a sight most peculiar. A stone golem fashioned after the long extinct echidnas, painted white and garbed in flowing purple robes adorned with massive gear like decorations. In its right hand he held a staff with half a cog for a head. Held between the two halves a crystal rose spun and glowed purple in contrast to the golem’s glowing blue eyes. “A golem that speaks?”

    “Indeed, elder of the heavens. I was once known as Pir’Oth, a very long time ago. Now I am known simply as Ix the Ring Striker. How the order of the world has fallen. Evident surely in your pitiable state. Bested by meager dirt dwellers as an old friend of mine would say.”

    “I suppose this old friend of yours has business with the leader of the Battle Kukku Armada?” Doctor Fukurokov probed the intentions of the golem, Ix, with a question. He was not prepared for the laughter that met him in answer.

    “If my friend were so readily at hand, neither of us would be in this pathetic state we find ourselves in. No, the one who has business with you is me.”

    Giving his staff a twirl, Ix slammed it into the ground and several cracks tore through it like a spider web. From those cracks, Rings burst forth and with a wave of his staff Ix gathered them to a single point. With a flash they formed into a massive Ring that anyone could easily step through, and then he looked expectantly at Doctor Fukurokov. “What I desire from you is your knowledge and loyalty. With these two things I can assure your return to glory and your rightful place in the heavens.”

    “A bold claim from a man made of stone.”

    “Only this body,” Ix countered,

    “Come, if you desire the return of what is rightfully yours. I can show that this simple vessel is but a small part of what I am.”

    Stepping through the portal, Ix left Doctor Fukurokov to make up his mind. But Ring gates did not persist indefinitely, and that with but a staff, animated stone formed one that could be used by several people and persisted at all was a curiosity he could not resist. Nor was he one to waste an opportunity to leave his would be grave.

    On the other side of the portal however, he found an even greater forest awaited him. One so thick and lush that it was impossible to see the sky or daylight. It was only the glow of Ix’s staff and eyes that illuminated the darkness. Save bioluminescent lifeforms Doctor Fukurokov had no intention to interact with.

    “I don’t see how this is an improvement,” The old owl sneered only to be met with more laughter.

    “No, as an outsider of this abandoned world, I suppose you would not.” Turning and walking away Ix explained.

    “This forest, much like the prairie you must have passed through is a prison for myself. With the Red Star Ring relieved of its power, we can access it once more. And within, find me again.”

    “Your words make no sense golem.”

    “And yet you follow.”

    There was no argument from Doctor Fukurokov. He followed as he had no choice. His willingness was a desire to survive, and the clearing with the dismantled golems of wood that resembled almost comical puppets was a sight he felt defied that. Yet, true to Ix’s words, awaiting them there was Ix again. Though this Ix was made of carved and polished wood painted white with only his robes hiding his nature as a puppet.

    “Then I am not the first to wake.”

    “The second, Pir’Oth,” Ix answered his wooden double. “Only two Red Star Rings of five have been used. But I suspect from the state of the sky that we are fortuitous that you woke at all. We have enemies in this distant future that still know of us.”

    “And the flightling behind you?”

    “A gift for your waking and our steady restoration.”

    “A gift? Doctor Fukurokov balked and moved as though to retreat. But he knew he had no such options as he again watched Ix strike the ground and summon forth Rings. “Preposterous. Doctor Fukurokov is a gift to no one. I am the ruler of the skies and–!”

    “You are no ruler of the skies flightling,” the wood Pir’Oth spoke into Doctor Fukurokov’s ear from behind him. He had never even seen the movement and turned in stiff disbelief. “But I must know the state of the world.”

    Caught between the stone Ix and the wood Pir’Oth, Doctor Fukurokov could do nothing as both threw out a Ring towards him. One pointed with open hand and the other his staff, and caught between the sudden locked in place Rings, Doctor Fukurokov could only let out a shrill scream of terror before falling to the ground. Twitching as he lay helpless, a swirling cloud of golden motes of light settling into him and the two golems.

    There was a long silence though before at last one of the golems spoke, and the stone Ix was astonished. “This knowledge! The world beyond this abandoned husk! Who is this Eggman it houses! His creations…! Never… never have I witnessed such things. I must have this knowledge he possesses!”

    Pulling Doctor Fukurokov back to bis feet, the wood Ix glared into his stupefied eyes with his intensely glowing blue ones. “This Eggman, and this fox who can make use of his technology. Tell me flightling, where are they.”

    “Hehehehehe…Doctor Fukurokov laughed amused. “So, you saw inside my head and don’t even know that much. It would seem I am more useful to you than you thought. But the fool fox is mine. If you want that buffoon Eggman, you’ll have to find a way to the lands I hail from. But I doubt you can pull it off. Whether you leave the fox to me or just seek out a way to Eggman, you’ll have to face him. The scourge of all who desire power.”

    “Who?” Ix demanded to know. “I would know the champion who would challenge my ambitions.”

    “Hehehehehe… It’s so funny you don’t know.”

    “Who, flightling!”

    “Who else? Sonic the Hedgehog…”

Scene 31 · CLEARED And After That, to be continued

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And there we have it!

Though I’ll dash any hopes of Eggman appearing soon. He’s getting a lot of mention, but if you noticed, so is Tails. That survey I mentioned above had had tails listed as the go to character for Rosy to go after next, and as he has knowledge about Eggman’s machines and tech, it’s a nice little way to mention Eggman and set up that tails is in likely danger. but that is for another time.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you next time!

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Special Thanks to Cutegirlmayra Story by @JoshTarwater/SonicFanJ Inspiring Song – Lumacie Archipelago: Mystic Woodland – Tsutomu Narita – Granblue Fantasy Original Soundtrack

Fair Use Disclaimer

Sonic the Hedgehog and all affiliated characters and logos are the express property and Copyright© of SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS used without permission under Title 17 U.S.C Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 in which allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. “Fair use” is use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be considered copyright infringement. The Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey alternate universe (AU) consumer written work of fiction is a non-profit transformative work primarily for personal use and can and will be taken down without warning or prior notice at the request of the copyright holder(s) should it not be recognized under “fair use”.

*Sonic Ring Bond logo created by DEE Art – twitter.com/daryliscute.

Sonic Ring Bond AU and Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey are the creation of Joshua David Tarwater/ynymbus/sonicfanj/@Joshtarwater and is to be, including all contents herein considered for all legal purposes the property of the Sonic the Hedgehog intellectual property (IP) and copyright owners, SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS. All story contributors via prompt, suggestion, written scene, art, and all and every other contribution acknowledge that all contributed material is forfeit for legal purposes to SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS upon official request from SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic fan fiction #sonic au #sonic au series #sonic ring bond #the journey #classic amy #amy rose #rosy the rascal #au amy #amy redesign #doctor fukurokov #pir'oth ix

[anundefinedwoman]

Lyrically Speaking

I love music. I think the older I’ve become the more transparent this has become for me. It’s always been a part of my life, but I remember during my childhood, college through part of my 30s, TV was where I would mostly lose myself . It was an escape. Of course there are iconic televisions series for me during my childhood, in college, or back in time that stand out. Certainly shows like The Walton’s, Eight is Enough, Little House on the Prairie, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Facts of Life, Family Ties, Growing Pains, Highway to Heaven, Dallas, Dynasty, 90210, A Different World, Friends and Melrose Place all stand out. Funny enough, even though I watched plenty of shows after college/ my very early 20s (Melrose, 90210, Friends), none really stand out for me like this. Maybe Everybody Loves Raymond, only for the fact that the dynamic in the marriage between Ray and Debra, is reminiscent of the dynamic in my own marriage.

I digress. The point is, sure these shows can evoke a memory or a general feeling for me. But they are all happy, fun memories. Even if my childhood and youth was filled with abuse and neglect. This was my escape. I don’t really remember much of the abuse or neglect. I feel its effects, but remember? No. Why would I subject myself to watching something weekly or daily if I didn’t get some sort of pleasure from it? The best memories are the ones where a group of us would gather collectively so we could watch with the anticipation as a room full of banshees shrieked and swooned over how hot Jake or Dylan was. Or screamed at the TV for Ross just to tell Rachel how he felt about her already because we were all in love with him!!! Or wondering who the fuck shot JR, and why Krystal and Alexis had such huge shoulder pads and fought like trashy twits? (Yes, Dallas & Dynasty came way before, I know.)

But music is different isn’t it? It doesn’t always evoke happy memories. Maybe for someone who had an ideally happy past it would, but for me it does not. I think it’s apparent by now from the television shows listed, I’m not a millennial. As a Gen X’er born right in the middle our of generation (1972), I think it’s safe to say I’ve reached middle age. As much as it pains me to say, I’m not the person who remembers everything anymore. Although I didn’t have all my past memories with me from the beginning due to trauma in childhood, the ones I do (did) have, I was the type that would not forget. Mommy brain turned into Man brain. Sorry guys, but we’ve heard the excuse thousands of times. “I forgot.” We would think, “Sure you did.”, and we would fucking remember that time you didn’t remember something again. Til it happens to us. I say to myself with a sense of humor this must be my form of in-this life-karma being served in a big slice of humble pie. But I’m smart or considerate enough to write things down, and have learned the hard way to back them up to the cloud so I don’t miss important appointments should my calendar crash. In all this talk about forgetting, I forget where I was going in another digression. Music. Songs. Getting old, yes...

I can hear a song from my childhood and it can take me back. I can immediately say 6th grade, 1984. I can probably still remember all the words to the songs too. I may be able to recall some happy memory, a memory in my room, hearing something...

 When I was a kid after I had outgrown Saturday morning cartoons, I remember that it had become the day I had to clean my room. I mean really clean it.  White glove inspection clean (seriously - my kids have it so easy) And I spent a lot of time in there. I remember having my moms old stereo in my room that was a record/LP player; a radio with an 8 track tape deck on it. This was before big boom boxes had made it to mainstream, but technology had already advanced to the cassette tape of the Walkman. But I remember listening every Saturday morning to Casey Kasem’s America’s Top 40. My favorite part of his show was The Long-Distance Dedication portion of his show where his listeners would write him poignant, heartfelt, or sweet letter about someone in their life or a hardship perhaps they themselves had been enduring. Casey would read these with such compassion where you felt like your soul was being touched through the airwaves by the velvet of his voice in the pain these people endured. And at the end of each letter they closed by asking him to play a certain song or would leave it to him. But they would send it out to someone. Maybe that’s where I learned to attach such memories, thoughts, and in times of sadness and need, turn to music. I don’t know. (You should listen to recordings of this online.)

I don’t know how long I’ve been doing it, but I “think in song “. It’s the only way I know how to describe it. Gosh, I wish they were my own songs. I wish I had that ability; that talent. But no. What I mean is somewhere in my memory I have a jukebox - a storage drive so to speak of songs I don’t even realize I remember - or sometimes I even know. Sometimes a situation I have with someone, and it could be very obvious like being out with my girlfriends having a girls night with lots of laughter, wine and the song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” will be the song I hear in my mind. It isn’t usually the song title. It’s usually lyrics that speak to me. I think I equate or attach some sort of word association to the situation or feeling I am experiencing. We had a lot of rain recently. I start singing or rather thinking The Eurythmics,

 “Here comes the rain again,   falling on my head like a memory,    falling on my head like a new emotion...” 

Or since I hit 39-40, I would say my theme song has been Landslide, written by Stevie Nicks and performed by Fleetwood Mac.

Oh, mirror in the sky what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?

~These are questions I ask myself OFTEN.~

Well, I’ve been ‘fraid of changin’ ‘Cause I built my life around you But time makes you bolder Even children get older And I’m gettin’ older, too 

Ah, take my love, take it down Oh climb a mountain and turn around And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills Well, the landslide will bring it down 

This morning Heart’s song, “Alone” came to me. I was thinking in this song. Just because of what’s been going on in my life lately. 

Like I said in my “Sound of Silence” post, lyrics are so subjective. Music is an art form. Poetry is an art form. We take from it what we can relate in our own lives usually. Even though we may understand an artist may have meant X, our own interpretation can be different. That’s ok. They want to reach the masses. They want their work to resonate with you as much as it did them. We don’t have the same experiences, so why would our interpretations be the same?

If you feel color or think in song or taste experience, just let it happen. We evolve.

 Now it’s time for me to turn on some music. I’ve really been enjoying Post Malone lately.

#music #gen x #gen xers #thinking in song #nostalgia #memories #thinking in lyrics #lyrically speaking #infj #spilled words #feel the music #tv vs music #evoking emotions #think in song #spilled thoughts

[mysunfreckle]

Could you write something fluffy with Eposette? You don’t have to if you’re busy but if you do...

A visit to Fantine

Developing Eposette(with background Marisette), Fluff, 1.8k

[This was a challenge, I do not write these girls often enough, so I pushed myself to write something in my ‘official modern au’. I hope you’re not averse to mariposette, anon

It’s notthat Éponine is nervous, but— Well,no, scratch that, she’s incredibly nervous. Which is ridiculous, she knowsthat. It’s not like she hasn’t met friends’ parents before, even if the likelihoodof that is a lot smaller nowadays than it was in high school. Besides, Cosettetalks about her mom so much that Éponine feels like she knows her already. Shealso sounds incredibly nice. As nice as Cosette, which is—

“We’renearly at our stop,” Cosette says cheerfully and Éponine smiles at her, becausethat’s all she seems capable of doing these days. She suddenly wishes Mariuswas here, he knows Fantine already and having him here – in all his officialcapacity as one of her best friends and Cosette’s actual boyfriend –   shouldat least help a little to keep her thoughtsin check. Because right now Cosette, sitting opposite her on the train, in hersalmon dress, travelling to introduce her to her mother, is just a bit too much like the stuff of dreams. Dreams Époninecan’t afford to have.

“I’m so gladyou wanted to come,” Cosette says and for a second Éponine almost thinks shesees some of her own nerves behind the warmth in Cosette’s eyes. It’s gone instantlythough and she continues:

“The ride’sgone much faster with you here.”

“Well, itnearly was a lot longer,” Éponine grimaces. She had gone to the wrong platformat first, nearly missing the train and nearly making Cosette miss it becauseshe was out looking for her.

“I was intime to rescue you,” Cosette says lightly. “And we made it just fine. A miss isas good as a mile.”

“What?”Éponine laughs.

“A miss isa good as a mile,” Cosette repeats. “If something goes right, it doesn’t matterhow close it got to going wrong.”

“Yeah, Igot that,” Éponine smiles. “From context. But I’ve never heard anyone say that.”

Cosette’scheeks colour a little and damn it she’s too cute for human comprehension.

“It’s froma book,” Cosette says, now looking as pink as her dress. “Now I think about it,it must be a really old expression. Probably no one uses it anymore.”

“It’s agood one though,” Éponine says hastily. Cosette always talks prettily, evenwhen she curses she does it poetically. Terrifying, but poetically. “What book?”she asks and Cosette smiles.

“Little Houseon the Prairie?”

The name isvaguely familiar, but Éponine has very little idea of what it actually is. “Isn’tthat an American tv show?” she frowns.

“Yes,”Cosette says, wrinkling her nose slightly. “I don’t like the series much.” Shelifts up her eyes. “The books are wonderful. Very idealistic, I know, consideringit’s about pioneering. But they’re just so cosy.”

They are interruptedby the need to get off the train, but during the walk to Fantine’s houseÉponine gets to hear at least a little of Cosette’s gushing about muslindresses and homemade cheese.

Apparentlyshe’s grinning a bit too widely, because Cosette gives her a scolding push. “Don’tlaugh at me!”

“I’m not,”Éponine chuckles. It’s just cute. And typical. She’s pretty sure that Cosettehas lived in cities all her life, just like she has.

“You aretoo!” Cosette huffs. “And I’ll have you know that rural escape fantasies are biculture.”

Époninesnorts. “I think I know at least a few people you’ll have to fight on that.”

“I’m sorry,”Cosette says airily. “I don’t make the rules.”

Époninewould argue, except she really doesn’t want to and before she can think ofsomething she does want to say, it turns out they’ve arrived.

“Tada,”Cosette laughs, giving a little wave of her hand.

There areroses growing by the door and Éponine takes a moment to appreciate that theuniverse at least has some sense of living up to expectations.

“Maman?”Cosette calls out as soon as she has unlocked and opened the door.

There is aglad shout of greeting in return from someone in the house and before Époninehas a moment to compose herself Cosette is holding her hand and she’s beingdragged through the tiny hallway and into a cheerful living room. It’s so cosyand homey that Éponine would like to tell the universe it’s overdoing it a bitby now, but she needs her attention for the young woman in the blue dress andblazer that must be Cosette’s mother.

Cosettelets go of her hand and Éponine quickly retracts it, because her first impulseis to reach for her.

“Welcomehome, darling,” Fantine says, hugging Cosette tight.

“Maman,”Cosette says and she smiles just likeher mother. “This is Éponine.”

“Well, it’shigh time I actually got to see you,” Fantine says warmly and Éponine letsherself be kissed on both cheeks with an odd feeling of appreciation. Fantinedoes really feel like a mom, even if she barely looks ten years older than thetwo of them. Éponine knows Fantine had Cosette very young, no older thansixteen if she remembers right, but she hadn’t expected her to look so young.

“How lovelyto have you both here,” she says. “And I do appreciate it, Éponine, it’s quitea trip to go up and down in a day.”

“Thanks forinviting me, ma- Fantine,” Éponine says.

Fantinelaughs, eyes twinkling. “I hear you’ve been instructed already, very good. Ireally do prefer Fantine.” She glances down. “Look at me still in my workclothes, I can’t tell you how hot it was today. Speaking of work, Simplicesends her love.”

Cosettemakes a cheerful noise and Éponine nervously tries to remember if she shouldknow who Simplice is. She really needs to stop being so silly, her heart isskipping just a bit too fast and she can still feel the press of Cosette’s handon her own.

“Oh,Éponine!” Fantine says, taking off her blazer and looking up at her cheerfully.“Cosette told me you had a big test a few weeks ago, have you heard back yet?”

Éponine canjust see Cosette’s apologetic smile from the corner of her eye. “Eh, yes,” shesays, smiling at Fantine. “I did well.”

The wayFantine’s face lights up is very much like Cosette’s. Honestly, Cosette isstarting to make more sense by the minute.

“That’sfantastic,” Fantine beams. “Well done you!” She turns around. “Well, thatwarrants celebration! Strawberries for dessert, I think!”

Éponine canfeel her face grow hot. “It was just small test,” she mutters.

“Oh, but Iknow you study so hard,” Fantine says earnestly and Cosette adds cheerfully:

“Neverargue with strawberries.”

“Quiteright,” Fantine nods. “Go on, show Éponine around the house if you like,Cosette, I’ll get started on dinner.”

“I’d liketo help,” Éponine offers immediately. She was right, Fantine is nice. Far too nice and she wants toshow that even if she might have had to teach them to herself, she has goodmanners.

“Thank you,dear,” she smiles. “And I’d love a hand later on, but the prep I can handle onmy own. You two run along.”

Cosettegives Éponine a reassuring look, following it up immediately with a grin. “Doyou want to see my room?”

“God, I’mtwelve again,” Éponine groans, but she laughs and follows Cosette back into thehallway and up the stairs. The house is small, but very well kept and passingby a window on the first floor Éponine can see a pretty little back garden.

“This ismine,” Cosette says, opening a door. “And speaking of being twelve, this roomis basically still the way it was when I left home at eighteen.”

“Is it pink?”Éponine grins, leaning past her to look inside.

Cosetteblows out an amused breath and Éponine blinks. It’s not pink. Most of the wallsare dark lavender. One is nearly black and the curtains are dark velvet.Éponine turns to Cosette with as serious an expression as she can command.

“Don’t tellme you were goth,” she says, vowing to herself that if the answer is yes shewill do everything in her power, including enlisting Marius, to get her handson photographic evidence of this fact.

“I wasn’t,”Cosette says regretfully. “But I wanted to be so badly.”

Époninelaughs. “You weren’t allowed?” she can’t really imagine that. Then again shecan’t imagine Fantine having breakfast opposite a teenage mess of black clothesand make-up either.

“No, I wasjust really bad at it,” Cosette laughs, walking further into the room. “Catastrophicallybad. It’s good you didn’t know me then.”

“I wouldhave loved to have known you then,” Éponine says unthinkingly.

“Yeah?”Cosette smiles, looking at her with soft eyes. “Would you have fixed my awfulmake-up for me and psyched me up enough to actually go through with dying myhair?”

Éponineswallows. “Absolutely.”

Cosettesmiles a little wider and Éponine gives herself a single second to be sorry forherself. But no more. She made that mistake with Marius and she’s not making itagain. Being lovesick is overrated, being friends is better.

“Your roomis great,” she says, letting her mouth pull into a smirk. “Especially the Aristocatssheets.”

“Hey, thoseare the softest sheets in existence,”Cosette defends herself.

“I wasn’tjudging,” Éponine grins.

“I can hear you judging,” Cosette says, a smileclearly audible in her voice. She turns around to pick a cardigan up from thefloor and Éponine takes the opportunity to look at her desk. She doesn’tactually get to look at it though, because tacked against the wall just aboveit, is a poster. A poster that Éponine looks at, takes in, and stares at withan odd sort of silence suddenly filling her mind.

The poster,contrary to the rest of the room, ispink. And the letters on it, curvy and blue and purple, spell out the words: ‘Perfectly Poly and Practically Perfect’.

“Shall wego back down or do you want to snoop some more?”

Époninebarely hears Cosette’s teasing, but she turns around anyway. She turns aroundand looks at her, with her loose curls framing her face and her laughing eyesand her pink cheeks and she just… Perfectly poly.

“You okay?”Cosette asks, her face turning just the slightest bit concerned.

“Yes,”Éponine blurts and she better think of something to keep her mind busy becauseright now it is racing, along with her heart, and full of sudden and startlingnew ideas and possibilities. “We should go help your mom.”

“Yes,”Cosette agrees cheerfully. “There are celebratory strawberries to tend to.”

Époninefollows her out of the room, doing her best impression of a girl that’s got aperfect handle on the situation. It’s a good thing she has considerablepractice with that act. A very good thing indeed.

#eposette #mariposette #eponine #cosette #fantine #modern means less miserable #sunfreckle's stories #I hope this fulfills your fluffy needs dear anon! #be careful what you wish for #today was a good day <3

[inwardboundseagypsy]

Are we EVER going to break free from the demand of an online lifestyle?

I was raised in the 80s. I used to love to read, and I still do; however, I find it so difficult to dive into a good book these days. It’s in part because of my adult ADD and most likely majorly a side effect of a changing world. I really did some deep thinking today to try to pin point why I simply can’t sit down and get interested in a good book these days, and the answer unveiled itself. Social media and technology paired with parenthood = DISTRACTION! 

When I was a kid, we had one TV in the house. I was part of a family of six, with FOUR brothers. I NEVER got to choose what was put on the TV. I spent my Saturdays watching HE-MAN and Duck Tales, G.I. Joe and the Three Stooges. My afternoons were what my mother wanted to watch. One Life to Live, General Hospital, Little House on the Prairie and MASH. And then in the evenings, but mostly on Friday nights, there was finally something wholesome for the whole family to enjoy. Those were special nights for us. We had ALF, Family Matters, Full House, and the Muppets. But, most days and nights, I filled my social anxiety and hours of boredom with BOOKS! 

Back then, there were no cell phones, PCs, social media platforms...nothing of this nature. There was one TV shared by the whole family, and if you didn’t like what was on, or if it was a boring rerun, there was no streaming platform like Netflix or Hulu to simply switch on. So, I’d run to my bedroom to read a good book. I was especially into the Sweet Valley Twins books, and could read one book per day. I used to get so excited during Christmas, because I’d receive 5  books that I could use my entire Christmas break to plow into.

But now...as badly as I’d love to read a good book, I put it down after a chapter. Or I barely make it through one chapter before hearing the sound of the dryer stopping, or having to make my kid a snack, or scratching that itch to surf Facebook or Pinterest. Maybe I forgot to respond to a friend on WhatsApp, or advertise the release of a new pattern I had designed on Instagram. It’s literally just TOO MUCH and it’s contributing to my stress in a very bad way. I end up feeling completely overwhelmed at least once per week to the point that I just feel like curling up under a rock, and not coming back out until life feels less chaotic. But it seems to be a never ending cycle.

While there is always the choice to simply not engage in social media, it’s becoming nearly impossible. With the onset of COVID, we are utilizing social media like we never did before. People are almost NEEDING to join a Facebook group in order to commune with other mothers as it pertains to finding resources to raise our children...with or without disabilities, with or without the option of homeschooling....the list of needs for the modern day mother are endless...the point being, that we still need to commune with other moms to feel “normal” in our day to day struggles but that we simply don’t have the same face-to-face, in person exchanges that our foremothers once did. We are so busy, and so distracted, that we find the only thing we have the time to do is to take it online. Che schiffo! (Means, “how disgusting” in Italian.) Let’s not even get into talking about those keyboard lions who constantly provoke, judge and provide a toxic environment that nearly every online social community doesn’t seem to be void of. And then there are zoom meetings with teachers and work colleagues, online education, FaceTime with family instead of going to visit, etc. It just feels like nothing happens organically anymore.

So...literature for me seems to be a thing of the past. But here’s to hoping that as I grow older, I’ll grow “out of” my own addiction to social media, and it will possibly begin to play a small role in the background of my life, so that I can get back to enjoying tangible things like the smell of the pages of a really good book, and the solitude it offers me as I allow my mind to escape into a world of fantasy....because it truly was an escape from those difficult things in life we face everyday. Instead now, we pick up our phones, take it to the bathroom with us, peruse Facebook while waiting in the car to pick up our children from school (as opposed to having a nice conversation at the play yard with other moms), and let’s face it. Facebook...social media in general...is NOT an escape from our lives. It’s a giant slap in the face and heavy dose of what’s really wrong in the world right now. A constant, heavy burden of a reminder that people are even more stressed out than ever...and we are all desperate for human connectedness, yet none of us can seem to agree on anything, and none of us feel deeply connected to our friends anymore. We are just using the wrong platform in life to do so, and it’s bringing out the worst in us. We are losing the essence of the human connection. A non-verbal cue or reaction from a friend sitting in front of us. The inability to read the subtleties within the written words of our friends. The ease at which we can wrongfully perceive what we are reading, thus taking things completely out of context...these are all side effects of an attempt at preserving friendships online. And I personally think that it is costing us more friends than it is providing. The question is...what WILL we do about it?

#human connection #human condition #social media #social media toxicity #80schild #growingupinthe80s #reading #modernmotherhood #modernparenting #modernmoms #booklover #adultadd

[hannah-deserved-better]

Bunker Pack Chapter One

 When Dean parked the impala in front of the massive stone structure almost completely obscured from view, he didn’t know what to expect. From what he could see, it looked exactly like the bunker from Kansas, but the ominous forest it was buried in was nothing like the wide-open prairie they were used to, except for the fact that they were both located so far from civilization that getting to them was no easy feat.

“So just what was this anonymous tip you received, Sammy?” Dean asked as the two of them approached the entrance, their guns both at the ready. A thick misty fog hung in the air, and all around them were the brilliant orange, red, and yellow leaves of a forest in the midst of autumn. The thick smell of birch and pine permeated through the air.

“Just what it sounds like, Dean,” Sam explained. “An anonymous tip. I’ve been making these bunkers. Apparently, the one in Kansas is connected to a network of men of letters bunkers that are scattered all over the world. Many are abandoned, like this one, and we hold the only keys that will open them. I found a few books that list some of their locations and they are all in remote areas like this.”

“Great,” Dean said with a smirk, as Sam inserted the key and opened the door. “I guess we found ourselves a whole lot of vacation spots.”

“Yeah,” Sam focused as they cautiously entered the compound, their guns ready for anything that might take them by surprise. After the incident with the other bunker in Jersey, neither of them were going to take any chances.

The interior of the bunker was just as Dean expected. It was identical to the one in Kansas in nearly every way. The brothers stood on the balcony level entrance overlooking the large main room which was lined with books, filing cabinets, and some antique chairs and conference tables. Even the furniture looked the same.

“I guess whoever built these things weren’t going for originality,” Dean commented as they descended into the main hall.

Just as they made it to the main hall, a slim figure stepped out from behind one of the bookcases on the rear wall. Dean recognized the red-haired woman and immediately lowered his gun.

“Charlie?” he murmured as the woman he’d come to know as a sister approached them, a grim look on her face. “You aren’t our Charlie are you?”

“No, I’m not,” she confirmed. Dean had only been back from the apocalypse world for a few weeks now, but he was still reeling from having encountered apocalypse world, Charlie Bradbury. Seeing her had brought back so many feelings of guilt and remorse over the way his Charlie had been so terrible butchered and how he and Sam had failed her in her time of need.

Now, suddenly, after so many years, she’d been thrust back into their lives, into his life anyway, since Sam hadn’t seen her- until now.

“You’re from the other world,” Sam guessed, his tone of voice betraying his own feelings at seeing Charlie again. “The apocalypse world.”

“How’d you get here?” Dean asked as they moved to stand in front of her. “How long have you been here?”

“We just arrived,” Charlie explained. She wore a dark green jumpsuit, a belt across her waist bore an array of blades, pouches, and supplies. In many ways, she resembled the LAARP fantasy world character their Charlie had liked to roleplay as. But this was another woman altogether. This was a Charlie who was hardened to the harsh realities of the world she’d come from. The flirty, timid, geeky Charlie that they knew had been replaced by a cautious, grim version.

“We?” Sam asked as he and his brother gazed around, looking for any other inhabitants.

“My team and I,” Charlie explained. “They’re out surveying the area and laying out defenses.”

“Defenses?” Dean questioned. Charlie motioned for the brothers to sit down at the wooden conference table and she sat across from them. “When I saw you, you said you didn’t want to come to this world. That you and your friends needed to stay and fight.”

“Yeah that was before we stole Michael’s ingredients for opening the portal,” Charlie pointed out with a shrug. “Some of the ingredients. Dean, we’re here because you need our help.”

“Help with what?” Dean started to see where this might be heading. He was just about to say as much when they were interrupted by a loud crash coming from somewhere in the back of the bunker.

The three of them were quickly on their feet; their weapons were swiftly drawn. Dean noted that Charlie had brandished a large angel blade as she faced the noise.

“Sam go check the perimeter outside,” Dean ordered. Sam nodded and turned back for the entrance of the bunker while Dean and Charlie headed cautiously down the hall.

Another crash and a loud grunt came from one of the bedrooms. The bedroom that had they been in the Kansas bunker would be Dean’s room. The door was left slightly ajar, and Dean swiftly kicked it the rest of the way opened and frowned at the sight.

Castiel was sprawled out on the floor while a brunette woman in a grey blazer coat threatened him with an angel blade. When the two of them both looked in their direction, Dean blinked. She was familiar. How could Dean have forgotten the little angel cult Castiel had found himself the leader of back in the Metatron days?

“Uh, Hannah, right?” Dean asked, lowering his weapon. The women frowned at the recognition of her name, but she quickly turned back to Castiel, eyes fixating on him as she moved back, letting him slowly get to her feet.

“Yes,” she said timidly, not looking at Charlie or Dean, but focusing entirely on Castiel. Both angels looked as though they had just seen a ghost. And in Castiel’s case, that might as well have been true since Hannah had been dead for almost three years.

“Hannah…” Castiel breathed, equally fixated on her. “How can…”

“She’s with me,” Charlie blurted out quickly to Castiel. Dean gave her a quizzical look, and she quickly corrected. “I mean… she’s not with me, not like that. She’s part of my team. She’s kinda our angel. And you…”

“From the apocalypse world?” Castiel surmised, glancing at Dean who nodded in confirmation. Hannah nodded.

“There… was a Castiel in my world,” she said softly before shyly fixing her gaze to the floor. “He’s dead.”

“That is unfortunate,” Castiel replied as he moved over to stand with Dean. “And… awkward.”

Dean thought he saw some kind of emotion flash through Castiel’s blue eyes, but he couldn’t quite tell. The angel didn’t have an extensive range of emotions, and he often had difficulty expressing the ones he did feel. But there was definitely something there. Dean never knew how close Castiel and Hannah had gotten years ago when they worked together, Cas had often kept his excursions when he wasn’t with the Winchesters a bit of a secret, though Dean had suspected they had gotten close.

“Did you secure the rest of the place?” Charlie asked Hannah as the four of them headed back to the main room. Dean noted that Sam hadn’t returned yet and felt concerned, but concentrated on Charlie, as he suspected she wasn’t paying a house call here.

“Yes,” Hannah replied curtly as they all took a seat back at the wooden conference table. Dean noted that Hannah no longer made eye contact with Castiel, and in fact, seemed to be trying to avoid his attention, as she sat next to Charlie, almost in a defensive posture, scooting her seat as close to Charlie’s as she could get it.

“How did you find us, Cas?” Dean asked as the angel sat next to him. Castiel shrugged.

“I monitored the movements of the impala on occasion,” he explained. “I admit I did not expect to find another bunker, nor did I expect to find Charlie or… Hannah…” he spared a glance in the angel woman’s direction, but Hannah kept her focus.

“Hannah’s been part of my team for about nine years,” Charlie explained. “Ever since we liberated her from a death camp.”

“A what?” Dean blinked. He didn’t like the sound of that and Hannah seemed to visibly flinch at the mention of it.

“It’s not important right now,” Charlie said, sensing Hannah’s discomfort. “Let me get to the reason we’re here.”

“Yeah I’ve been waiting for that,” Dean said as he glanced in the direction of the entrance, wondering what was taking Sam so long. “You said something about Michael and us needing your help. Care to explain?”

“Yeah, Michael is looking for a way to get into this world so he can do to you what he’s done to us,” Charlie explained. “He nearly succeeded until my resistance group, and I stole the ingredients he needed. We used them to get here and help you prepare. There’s nothing from stopping him from gathering the ingredients again, Dean and it’s only a matter of time.”

Dean and Castiel exchanged grim glances. They both knew what this could mean. If Michael got to this world, he could wage the same kind of human exterminating war that Charlie had just come back from. Dean shuttered to think of the invasion. He looked at Charlie.

“So you just came to warn us?” he asked.

“Not just warn you, prepare you,” Charlie replied. “My team and I have been fighting angels all of our lives. We know what to expect. So that’s the mission. Prepare for the invasion.”

“Got it,” Dean said. Just as he said that he heard the door creak open behind him and glanced up at the balcony deck just as Sam emerged, hands up against his head.  Dean frowned, then his eyes lit up as he saw the two women who were holding his brother at gunpoint.

“It’s okay, he’s with us,” Charlie called up to them. Then he glanced at Dean. “Dean Winchester, Sam, Castiel, meet the rest of my team. Eileen Leahy and-”

“Jo,” Dean murmured, gazing up at the blonde haired woman who lowered the weapon she had fixed on Sam. She shot him a harsh glare when he said her name, but he didn't care. “Jo Harvelle.”

#chestervelle #Hanstiel #apocalypseworld

[orbemnews]

Jessica McClintock, 90, Dies; Dressed Generations in Lace and Satin Jessica McClintock, a fashion designer whose romantic, lacy confections dressed generations of women for their weddings and proms, died on Feb. 16 at her home in San Francisco. She was 90. The cause was congestive heart failure, said her sister, Mary Santoro. In 1969, Ms. McClintock was a newly divorced mother and had been teaching science and music to sixth graders in Cupertino, Calif., when she invested $5,000 in a San Francisco dress business called Gunne Sax. (In creating the name, the founders, Eleanor Bailey and Carol Miller, had riffed on the idea of a “sexy gunny sack,” according to Vogue magazine.) Soon after, Ms. McClintock became the sole owner, designer and saleswoman. She had no design training, but she could sew. Inspired by those she called San Francisco’s “flower children,” she began making calico, lace and beribboned pastiches known as granny dresses. It was a style — a little bit Victorian, a little bit prairie — that hippies in the Haight-Ashbury section had popularized by putting together the wares of vintage clothing stores. Gunnes, as Ms. McClintock’s dresses were known, became a cult item, and Gunne Sax became a wildly successful business. By the mid-1970s, the dresses could be found in department stores across the country. For just over $50 (the equivalent of about $250 today), you might score an ankle-length, cinched-bodice Victorian number at the Dillard’s at your local mall. That is what a 27-year old Hillary Rodham did for her wedding to Bill Clinton in October 1975 at their home in Fayetteville, Ark. She had completed her work for the House Judiciary Committee on the impeachment case against President Richard M. Nixon and had moved to Arkansas to be with Mr. Clinton while he ran, unsuccessfully, for a House seat. They both found work teaching at the University of Arkansas School of Law. (He had proposed to her twice before and had twice been refused. The third time he asked, in early October, she relented. As she recalled in a phone interview, “Bill said, ‘Let’s hurry up and do it next week before you change your mind.’”) Mrs. Clinton thought she would just throw on a dress from her closet, but her mother, Dorothy Rodham, said no way: She had to wear something new for her wedding. They headed to Dillard’s. “I saw this dress and fell in love with it,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I felt acutely that it was meant to be. I couldn’t have done better if I’d been looking for a month. It fit my aesthetic and my sensibility. It was a kind of hippy Victorian, I loved the whole look of it, and I felt like the wedding gods were with me when I went shopping with my mom.” Mrs. Clinton is not the only political figure or celebrity Ms. McClintock dressed for a special event. Another is Representative Jackie Speier, who serves California’s 14th District, in the Bay Area. Ms. McClintock designed a wedding dress for her. (Ms. Speier called her “the fashion designer for Democrats” because of her inclusive price points, though Ms. McClintock was a registered Republican.) Vanna White, who has made a career out of elegantly flipping the letters on the game show “Wheel of Fortune” clad in satiny sheaths, did so for a time in Jessica McClintock gowns. But Ms. McClintock’s bread and butter was also in gussying up young women for their proms and quinceañeras and even elementary school graduations, particularly in the heyday of the 70s, as they danced to Fleetwood Mac or Peter Frampton, their hair done in Dorothy Hamill-style bobs. As the decades marched along, so did Ms. McClintock’s styles, from pale Victorians and Great Gatsby-esque satins in the 1970s to poofy silk taffeta in the ’80s to more streamlined dresses in iridescent silk in the ’90s and beyond. In 1999, when her business, a private company, turned 30, sales were at $140 million, according to Women’s Wear Daily. She operated 26 stores around the country, marketed a fragrance, Jessica, and had licensing agreements for handbags, jewelry, china, eyeglasses, bedding and home furnishings. Jessie Earl Gagnon was born on June 19, 1930, in Presque Isle, in northern Maine. Her father, Rene Arthur Gagnon, was a salesman; her mother, Verna (Roberts) Gagnon, was a beautician. They divorced when Jessie was 2. Her mother, before she became a hairdresser, baked cookies and played the piano in movie theaters to make ends meet. Jessie learned to sew from her maternal grandmother, who cared for her for a time. She was attending Boston University when she met Alston Frank Staples, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After they married, Mr. Staples found work near San Francisco developing a metal used in rocketry, and Jessie earned her degree in education at San Jose State University, taught in Cupertino and had a son, Scott, with Mr. Staples. The boy was just 8 when Mr. Staples was killed in a traffic accident. She married his best friend, Fred McClintock, an Eastern Airlines pilot, and moved back East, but when the marriage failed she returned to California. Mr. McClintock had always called her Jessica, and the name stuck. Ms. McClintock became the focus of a bitter labor dispute in the early 1990s. When a former contractor for her company went bankrupt and did not pay its seamstresses’ wages, labor activists declared her company morally liable for their work, organized a boycott of her brand and took out an ad in The New York Times with the headline “Let Them Eat Lace.” The boycott lasted more than three years, and Ms. McClintock received death threats, said Ms. Santoro, her sister, who was the company’s director of sales. The boycott ended in 1996, when Ms. McClintock signed an agreement with Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, a community organization, to promote fair labor practices and establish an education fund for garment workers. In addition to her sister, Ms. McClintock is survived by her son. Her longtime partner, Ben Golluber, who was chief financial officer of the company, died in 1998. Ms. McClintock retired from the day to day management of her company in 2013, only to return a year later. Since the early 1980s, the company headquarters were in a commercial building in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, but Ms. McClintock sold the space in about 2016 and thereafter ran the business from her home office. She lived in a Queen Anne Victorian house in Pacific Heights, which she bought from the filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. With a decorator’s help she turned it into a romantic fantasy, with Venetian chandeliers, billowing pink satin curtains, inlaid marble floors and Aubusson carpets — just the right backdrop for the Old World fashions she favored. “I have a romantic feeling about life,” Ms. McClintock told a reporter in 2007. “I like Merchant-Ivory movies and candlelight and beautiful rooms. I like the patina of age.” Source link Orbem News #Dies #dressed #generations #Jessica #Lace #McClintock #Satin

[wormyapples]

Evertroll

Part 1

"I already hate this place" I said more to myself than anyone. We were in the car on the freeway going up into Rhinebeck, New York. The part of New York nobody cares about. Cows, corn, apples, goats and strip malls full of nosey grandparents and an abysmally small number of pre-college age kids desperate to leave town for the city.

Worst of all, my cousin Jezzy had lived there with my mom and her immediate family. This was going to be a horrible weekend.

I scraped at the remainders of my chipped black nail polish while my dad whistled along to Nickleback on the radio. I couldn't tell if it was the song making me want to puke or the egregiously long drive.

"Come on Kaylie. What happened to enjoying your favorite season? Hayrides, pumpkins, and your favorite? Hot cider, but fresh, locally made" said dad, trying to cheer me up.

Maybe it worked. I couldn't stop the slight smile he inspired, but I could hide my face by turning it towards the window and watching the swaths of green land and prairie houses pass by. That's when he figured me out and I could see him smile from the corner of my eye.

"And don't worry. You can text me anytime. If you're bored, if you're upset. You know you can reach out" he continued on, as Nickleback faded to Daughtry.

"Ugh" was all I said. "Can we listen to something else? No offense"

"Here" dad replied, unhooking his phone from the mount on the AC vent. The phone was connected to the car speakers by bluetooth, but I did miss the days when we'd flip through a case full of CDs. I scrolled through his playlists with my band-aid wrapped right thumb until I settled on a stray AFI song, "girls not grey".

"Okay. We are almost there. I'm gonna pull into a drive through and order some coffee. Want anything?"

I knew he was talking about Dunkin Donuts. Dad was a police officer but he was on vacation. That didn't stop him from going to his favorite feed station.

"Oatmeal?" was all I said with a shrug. I was barely hungry, but if I wanted to survive entering Rhinebeck without a mental crash, I needed the sustenance.

"Of course honey" says dad as he pulls the car neatly into the drive thru. There were no other customers there. Upstate New York was so different from Queens. The pace was slower. Everything was monumentally more boring.

I picked at a loose thread hanging from the collar of my Tripp moto jacket, a hand-me-down from Jezzy of course. Remembering that fact made me want to hide it in my sleepaway bag. Did she even remember it anyway? She had a million jackets just like it. I placed my bets on her forgetting and sighed.

Dad and I ate quietly and sipped coffee and hot white chocolate respectively as we closed the distance between civilization and the family house. Well, mom's side of the family.

Pulling up onto the spacey car-addled drive-way lawn hybrid felt both familiar and strange. I finished my tasteless oatmeal and warm drink just as dad finished his doughnut and started on his breakfast sandwich. The smell of the maple sausage filled the car.

Immediately I saw my baby cousin Abby outside on the front steps of the big family house holding her American Girl doll and twirling one of her blond pigtails. My youngest aunt, Tabitha came out of the house and scooped Abby up into her arms and approached the car just as dad put it in park. Tabitha called back and soon Mom and my other aunt Jennifer and uncle Joe came outside. Uncle Joe was wearing oven mitts and had on his "Grill Sergeant" apron. He must have been flipping burgers in the backyard. I wondered if grandma was up too? She had dementia and needed constant care. But I found that I missed her anyway.

Dad opened my door after he got out of the car and I stepped out, unprepared for the borage of hugs and shoulder pats that soon followed.

"Hi" was all I said after the first hugs. When mom hugged me, I said "hey mom I missed you"

"I missed you too honey" she said and kissed my forehead. Abby squealed when she hugged me and hit me with her doll.

"Ow" I said.

"Come on inside Abby. Let's eat some cookies. Your aunt Madeline worked on them all day" said aunt Tabitha towing Abby inside. As I lugged my sleepaway bag over the few steps that led into the house, I watched in the corner of my eye as mom and dad talked quietly outside by the car. A part of me hoped dad would suggest they go get something to eat. In this fantasy, mom agreed and the two of them would go out and eat all day, and maybe dad would stay over too. But a girl can only dream.

The house smelled like pine scented Cheseapeake Bay candles and grilled beef.

"Hey there scout" said uncle Joe. "I'm making burgers. Feel free to have one if you're hungry from that long journey out of the city"

"Thanks uncle Joe" I mumble, heading straight upstairs for the guest room, hoping and hoping with all my heart that Jezzy wasn't in there. It was her room before she ran off and started living with some creep. It was around then that the family's wariness turned to me instead of her. She got off their plate. Me? I was the appetizer about to be upgraded to a dreaded entree.

I didn't even look up when I dropped my Nightmare Before Christmas sleepway bag on the floor by the door, but as soon as I did, my stomach dropped.

There was Jezzy sitting on what was to be my bed. She had the same long vibrant purple hair--- reminding me of all the times I enviously eyed the dye bottles she'd leave littering the bathtub and dining room table. She wore the same signature shade of autumn brown lipstick, one of her trademark moto jackets, ripped black jeans and shiny black chunky heel boots. I was taken aback by how amazing she looked, how it made me idolize and dislike her all at once. Nobody prepared me for this.

"Hey there cuz" she said, her voice raspy yet upbeat. "I'm so happy you like that jacket. I wore that to a few concerts when I used to go. Wow! you cut a bang? It looks so good, that layered teased look. Just a wait a few years and maybe Madeline will let you get highlights" she says crossing her legs.

"Do they know you're here?" I ask. No greetings. No manners. I was slightly ashamed.

"Of course not" she said. "Oh and by the way. Don't let anybody bully you here okay? You're not like some kind of spawn I spit out before running away. You're Madeline's kid. You're a good kid. My mom, as much as she likes to pretend she was, wasn't exactly a stellar child. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess" she finishes it off by biting into a McIntosh apple I didn't even realize she had, if she had it at all before biting it. Her lipstick stayed perfectly intact afterwards.

"Okay" was all I could muster. "Well, I'll be fine"

"I know you will. Just stay safe. Stay away from bridges and all that. You know" she says with a smile. "Grandma would appreciate it. A little milk in a bowl. Don't step over the mushroom rings and such"

I clenched my jaw. Here we go again. I needed her to disappear. I needed her to leave. Even though I thought she was gorgeous, and wanted with every fiber of my being to be just like her. Run off with my own dark prince, go to any shows I wanted, get into clubs with a fake ID, meet bands and artists and directors, model for underground magazines and kiss boys behind the bleachers. Most of all get to know her. The real Jezzy. The brave, wayward girl. The only one in the family privy to grandma's whimsical insanity. The only one who could get her to speak a coherent sentence. It sat heavy on my bones, that desired that wish to know the world they shared, and the world Jezzy ran away for.

But I was just Kaylie. The ticking time bomb. The one that reminded everybody of Jezzy. And grandma's dementia. And everything that ever went wrong in the family.

"Don't you have somewhere to go?" I nearly spit.

"I'll see you around. Bye Kaylie" she says with a warm smile, standing up, long, reed thin, perfect. She looked like she could drift on the autumn air like a fallen leaf. Like her laughter brings the wolves to howl at the moon. Like her hands can tame the night. Like she dances with elves in the forests. And part of me ached for it. Ached for the life she chose. It was so physical I almost rushed to her. In my mind I fell at her feet and begged her to tell me how she did it.

But I'm Kaylie Scheifflin. I'm not Jesslyn Rivers.

When I turned to glance at the doorway to see if anyone was eavesdropping, I felt a slight draft of cool air and when I turned to look back at Jezzy, she was gone.

#original fiction #supernatural romance #ya fiction #goth fiction #fae #urban fantasy #fae stories #the folk #faerie #teen fiction #goth girl #evertroll #wormyapple fiction #hobby writer #autumn stories #fall theme #short story #evertroll part 1 #halloween stories #dorky ya fiction #teen drama #fae fiction #modern faerie tales

[konnl]

Edward Willett expands the Worldshaper universe with his new novel, Master of The World

For September’s guest author we have Edward Willett, who is a writer and performer from Regina, Saskatchewan. He has authored more than 50 books of various types. He is well known for writing in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Some of his work has been published by DAW Books in New York, such as the novels Lost in Translationand 2009 Aurora Award-winning novel Marseguro. He has also been published with Bundoran Press. Let’s welcome him to the blog.

Hi Edward Willett, thank you for joining us. Can you introduce yourself to the readers?

Hi, readers! As the introduction says, I’m a multiply published author—I’ve actually lost count of exactly how many books I’ve had published. They run the gamut from non-fiction (local history, science books, biographies, and computer books) to my first love, science fiction and fantasy. There’s even one book of poetry! I’ve written for children, young adults, and adults.

I started my career as a newspaper reporter at the weekly Weyburn (Saskatchewan) Review. (Weyburn was the town where I grew up.) At the ripe old age of 24r, I became news editor there. Then, in my late 20s, I became communications officer for the then-fledgling Saskatchewan Science Centre, which is what brought me from Weyburn to Regina, where I’ve lived ever since. After five years at the science centre, I quit my job and became a fulltime freelance writer, which I’ve now been for 26 years.

In addition to writing (and some editing), I’ve done quite a bit of acting and singing, both professionally and just for fun. I’m married to a telecommunications engineer and have one daughter, who is currently enrolled at the University of Toronto. Oh, and we have a black Siberian cat, Shadowpaw—can’t forget him, since I used his name on my own little publishing company, Shadowpaw Press.

Tell us about your latest release, Master of The World.

Master of the World is the second book in the Worldshapers series, published by DAW Books, which began with Worldshaper last year. In Worldshaper, the main character, Shawna Keys, has a pleasant, low-key life: she’s just opened a pottery studio in a small city in Montana, she has a great boyfriend, she has a wonderful best friend. But then everything changes in an instant. Black-clad gunmen storm the coffee shop where she’s having lunch with her friend. Her friend is killed. She’s about to be killed. She refuses to believe it’s happening…and just like that, it isn’t. It hasn’t. The gunmen are gone. The coffeeshop is undamaged…but her friend, Aesha, isn’t there, and no one remembers that she ever existed.

A mysterious stranger, Karl Yatsar, shows up and explains to Shawna that her world, which she thought was the only world, is in fact a Shaped world—and that she Shaped it exactly the way she wanted it when she was thrust into it ten years before. Not only that, it’s only one of a plentitude of Shaped worlds in a vast extra-dimensional Labyrinth. And now, she’s about to lose control of it. The Adversary, the leader of the gunmen, who touched her forehead before threatening to kill her, has stolen her knowledge of the world and is already turning it against her. They have to flee her world entirely…not just to save her life, but because Karl believes she is a powerful enough Shaper—even though, much to his shock and bewilderment, she didn’t remember being one—to travel through all the worlds of the Labyrinth, gathering the knowledge of each, and taking it to the mysterious Ygrair, the one who gave all the Shapers, who originally came from the First World—our world—their own worlds to Shape. Ygrair has been wounded and weakened, and needs someone to bring her the knowledge of as many worlds as possible so that she can save the Labyrinth and all its myriad worlds from the depredations of The Adversary, who wants to enslave and then destroy them all.

In Worldshaper, Shawna and Karl embark on a hazardous cross-country journey, trying to stay one step ahead of The Adversary, to find the only place where a Portal can be opened into the next world, where Shawna can begin the quest she’s been saddled with

 In Master of the World, Shawna finds herself in that next world over, but without her guide and mentor—Karl was left behind. In her first two hours, she’s rescued from a disintegrating island by an improbable flying machine she recognizes from Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, then seized from it by raiders flying tiny personal helicopters, and finally taken to a submarine that bears a strong resemblance to Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. Oh, and accused of being both a spy and a witch.

Shawna expects—hopes!—Karl Yatsar will eventually follow her into this new steampunk realm, but exactly where and when he’ll show up, she hasn’t a clue.

In the meantime, she has to navigate a world where two factions fanatically devoted to their respective leaders are locked in perpetual combat, figure out who the Shaper of the world is, find him or her, and obtain the secret knowledge of this world’s Shaping. Then she has to somehow reconnect with Karl Yatsar, and escape to the next Shaped world in the Labyrinth…through a Portal she has no idea how to open.

Master of The World is part of the Worldshaper storyline, how many novels do you estimate to have in the series?

The series is open-ended: the concept allows me to tell any kind of story in any kind of world. Potentially, it could have any number of novels (although I know how it ends, there’s no rush getting there). I’m currently writing Book 3, which takes place in a world with werewolves and vampires!

You’ve done a lot of writing, as mentioned on your website, over 50 books. When and what did you first start writing about?

I’ve always been drawn to science fiction and fantasy. I have two older brothers, both of whom read it, so the books were around the house. My very first complete short story, written when I was eleven, was called “Kastra Glazz: Hypership Test Pilot.” My mother typed it up for me and I showed it to my Grade 7 English teacher, Tony Tunbridge, who did me the honor of taking it seriously and providing some actual criticism—criticism which, rather than prompting me to give up, instead prompted me to try to make the next thing I wrote better. (I dedicated my recent stand-alone science-fiction novel The Cityborn to Tony by way of thanking him.) I went on to write three science fiction and fantasy novels in high school, so my course was set early on.

Edward, you are a performer too. Care to elaborate more about this aspect of your life?

I’ve always sung—my father was a choral director—and I got the acting bug at age 11 when I played Petruchio in a one-act adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. I carried on acting and singing, whenever I got the chance. In Weyburn, while I was at the newspaper, I was a founding member of Crocus 80 Theatre, a new community-theatre group, and had leading roles in many plays, and also directed twice. When I moved to Regina, I immediately gravitated to Regina Lyric Light Opera (now Regina Lyric Musical Theatre), a community theatre group that did musicals (it was in a production of The Music Man that I first met my future wife.) I did a lot of shows with Lyric, Regina Little Theatre, and Regina Summer Stage.

When I went full-time freelance, in addition to writing, for three years I performed with a professional opera company, Prairie Opera, which did six-week tours of Saskatchewan schools, typically two shows a day. That made a nice addition to my fledgling freelance income. A few years later I was hired by Regina’s professional theatre company, Globe Theatre, for a production of On Golden Pond (I played the boyfriend from California). As a result of that, I became a member of Canadian Actors’ Equity. I’ve continued to perform every chance I get, both professionally and (more often) just for fun. I’ve been in dozens of plays, musicals, and operas. I��ve also sung with many choirs, including the Canadian Chamber Choir, an auditioned group made up of singers from across the country.

I’ve combined my writing and performing sides a few times in shows I’ve written and directed. Two I’ve done for Regina Lyric Musical Theatre had fantastical elements. In 2013 I wrote and directed As Time Goes By: A Love Story with Music and Ghosts, which did indeed have ghosts in it, and this past year I wrote and directed The Music Shoppe, which might not sound fantastical, but in fact took place in a mystical music store with an ageless proprietor and a mysterious mechanical pianist with magical abilities. Both were hits with audiences.

What was your most challenging novel to write to date?

Worldshaper was challenging because it’s designed to set up an open-ended series. My editor at DAW Books, Hugo Award-winner Sheila E. Gilbert, and I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that everything that was needed to enable the series to work going forward was built into the first book. It was also a bit challenging to write because it’s an interesting mix of first-person (the main character, Shawna Keys) and third-person (her guide and mentor, Karl Yatsar, and her enemy, The Adversary) viewpoints.

Now that Master of the World is released, do you have other novels in the works?

In addition to Book 3 of the Worldshapers series, I’ve got a middle-grade fantasy, Fire Boy, in circulation to publishers; I’m finishing the editing of a young adult science fiction novel, Star Song, which I’ll be bringing out myself through Shadowpaw Press; and I’ll be writing another young-adult story, a dark fantasy called Changers (involving shapeshifters) for ChiZine Publications. I have some other books I want to bring out through Shadowpaw in the not-too-distant future, novels I’ve never found a home for that I think deserve a chance to see the light of day, but I have to fit those in around other work so they won’t be for a while yet.

And I have ideas for many more…

Is your writing and performance inspiration intertwined or are these parts of your life entirely separate?

It’s all one thing. I find there’s a great overlap between being and actor and director and being an author. Actors pretend to be other people; writers do the same. Directors move actors around on stage and guide them in their interactions with each other in order to best tell the story being presented. So do writers. I’ve always felt, when I’m acting, even though I’m bringing some other author’s characters to life, that I’m using many of the same mental muscles as I do when I’m trying to make my own characters live and breathe on the page.

Also, in Worldshapers, I’m able to make lots of musical -theatre jokes, so there’s that.

Any final thoughts you’d like to share with the readers and aspiring writers?

I urge both readers and aspiring writers to check out my podcast, The Worldshapers. It features hour-long conversations with some of the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy writing, with a focus on their creative process, from the generation of ideas to the planning process, the writing process, and the editing process. I also ask them about their philosophy of writing: why they do it, why they think anyone does it, and what impact they hope it has on readers. The interviews are all fascinating and offer great insights into the writing process. You can find it www.theworldshapers.com.

I particularly like the episode where E.C. Blake (the pseudonym under which I wrote a fantasy trilogy called The Masks of Aygrima) interviews me…

Thank you Edward Willett for joining us!

You can find Edward through the following links below.

Website: edwardwillett.com

Amazon: amazon.com/Edward-Willett/e/B001IR1LL6/

Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/22635.Edward_Willett

#Author #Fantasy #Guest #Sci-Fi #YA

[gleeksfreaksandwannabes]

I was tagged by the lovely @banelewis! Thanks love!! RULES: Answer all the questions, add one of your own and tag as many people as there are questions 1. COKE OR PEPSI: Neither, fizzy drink makes me feel yuck but I used to drink Diet Coke like once in a blue moon. 2. DISNEY OR DREAMWORKS: Disney I think, who can resist a good sing along? 3. COFFEE OR TEA: Tea, I only recently got into it, I drink Chai, Camomile and Green Tea! 4. BOOKS OR MOVIES: Books, but I barely have time to read so it's been TV shows or YouTube videos lately! 5. WINDOWS OR MAC: Windows, my sister has a Mac and I don't understand how it works. 6. DC OR MARVEL: Marvel. 7. XBOX OR PLAYSTATION: PlayStation, but I'm no good at the games on either, I used to play the Wii a lot before we got the PlayStation. 8. DRAGON AGE OR MASS EFFECT: Never heard of either of them. 9. NIGHT OWL OR EARLY RISER: Early riser, let me stay out past like 11pm and I'm exhausted. 10. CARDS OR CHESS: Cards I guess? I suck at them both! 11. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA: If this is about ice cream or frozen yoghurt then vanilla, I always worry I'll get that bitter chocolate flavor and it's gross. 12. VANS OR CONVERSE: Vans, but I own neither. 13. LAVELLAN, TREVELYAN, CADASH, OR ADAAR: I don't know what those are, sorry! 14. FLUFF OR ANGST: Fluff with angst and a happy end (sorry I stole your answer Nana!) 15. BEACH OR FOREST: Beach, I think, but we have some beautiful bush land here that I guess you could count as forest so maybe that. 16. DOGS OR CATS: Dogs! We have both but for some reason I just prefer the dogs. 17. CLEAR SKIES OR RAIN: Clear skies but summer rain, how's that? :) 18. COOKING OR EATING OUT: If I'm doing the cooking, eating out, but otherwise I like both. 19. SPICY OR MILD FOOD: Mild! I didn't start eating sweet chili sauce until like a year ago! 20. HALLOWEEN/SAMHAIN OR SOLSTICE/YULE/CHRISTMAS: Christmas! 21. WOULD YOU RATHER FOREVER BE A LITTLE TOO COLD OR A LITTLE TOO HOT: A little too cold, sweat is gross and if I get too hot (which for me is a tiny bit warmer than normal) I get dizzy. 22. IF YOU COULD HAVE A SUPERPOWER WHAT WOULD IT BE: Invisibility, if I could come and go at will, or shapeshifting but I would literally only use it to change my appearance a tiny bit and then never again haha 23. ANIMATION OR LIVE ACTION: It depends on the movie, but overall live action! 24. PARAGON OR RENEGADE: I'm not sure what these are, but if we're talking about games, all I know how to play is Sims! 25. BATH OR SHOWER: I only recently got into baths, but I only stay in there for a short time before I get bored, so overall showers with a really nice soap! 26. TEAM CAP OR TEAM IRONMAN: Ironman. 27. FANTASY OR SCI-FI: Fantasy! 28. DO YOU HAVE 3 OR 4 FAVORITE QUOTES IF SO WHAT ARE THEY: Oh god! Probably, ummm... there's one on my wall that says "laughter is timeless, imagination has no age and dreams are forever". 29. YOUTUBE OR NETFLIX: I love both! But usually I'll go to YouTube because it doesn't take me as long to pick a video as it would to pick a show or movie. 30. HARRY POTTER OR PERCY JACKSON: Harry Potter was my childhood! 32. STAR WARS OR STAR TREK: Haven't watched either. 33. PAPERBACK BOOKS OR HARDCOVER BOOKS: Paperback, I'm terrified I'll break hardcover, but then I always end up bending paperback! 34. FANTASTIC BEASTS OR CURSED CHILD: Fantastic beasts! From what I've heart Cursed Child was a mess. 35. ROCK OR POP MUSIC: Depends on my mood and what you classify as rock, but I would say pop with a little Panic and Green Day mixed in. 36. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN YOUR LIFE: Family 100%! We just had a family dinner last night and we all just talked over each other but it made me super happy! Especially seeing my cousins, they and my sister are my best friends in the whole world! 37. THE LAST BOOK YOU READ/THE ONE YOU’RE CURRENTLY READING: City Of Glass by Cassandra Clare. I tried to read all 6 before season 2 started but it didn't happen! 38: SONG THAT MAKES YOU SMILE/SONG THAT MAKES YOU CRY: Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran makes me cry, and pretty much any song from a musical or Team Starkid makes me happy, but the song that comes to mind is Love Wreck Thrill Ride from Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List, the song has very little to do with his character but it always reminds me of Matt Daddario (because he was in that movie), that and Home by Deluka (another song from that movie) always make me super happy! Also (this is a really long answer) The Internet Is Here - a song from the end of Danisnotonfire and Amazing Phil's The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire - always makes me so so happy, because they're two of my favorite people in the world, so having a little piece of them on my iPod whenever I need it makes me smile. 39. SUSHI OR WAN TAN SOUP: Sushi!!! 40. SPRING OR AUTUMN: Spring, it's so beautiful even though it's hard to dress for, although I love Autumn fashion! 41. DRAWING OR WRITING: Writing! I wish I could draw so bad though, some things just don't translate into words very well! 42. SINGING OR DANCING: Singing! I ADORE IT!! Whenever I'm feeling anxious or nervous (especially when I'm driving somewhere I'm not confident) I find that singing, especially belting out big songs from musical theatre, just gets rid of all my nerves! I only sing in the car by myself though, even though I'm kinda proud of my voice, I'm too nervous to share it! BONUS QUESTION: TV SHOW/MOVIE/BOOK THATS LIKE YOUR HAPPY PLACE, SOMETHING THAT ALWAYS MAKES YOU SMILE: Mine is a tie between Degrassi and Little House On The Prairie, I could watch those two forever! I'm tagging @deadspacedame @peachyjellybean @prettylightwoodinspires and anyone else who wants to do this!

#tags #mutuals <3 #banelewis #thanks love! #about me #get to know me #personal

[hannah-deserved-better]

Bunker Pack Ch.1

Summary: Charlie Bradbury arrives from the Apocalypse world with her team of soldiers Jo Harvelle, Eileen Leahy, and Hannah, to prepare Sam, Dean, and Castiel for the invasion of Michael, but are also faced with this world's many challenges, including the impending extinction of the angels.

Trigger warning; this will be a pretty dark story with mentions of various types of torture. 

Note: This is an older fic and one of my very first in the Supernatural fandom. It was written around the beginning of season 13 so there’s a lot about that season and season 14 in canon that hadn’t yet been covered so you can consider this AU.

When Dean parked the impala in front of the massive stone structure almost completely obscured from view, he didn't know what to expect. From what he could see, it looked exactly like the bunker from Kansas, but the ominous forest it was buried in was nothing like the wide-open prairie they were used to, except for the fact that they were both located so far from civilization that getting to them was no easy feat.

"So just what was this anonymous tip you received, Sammy?" Dean asked as the two of them approached the entrance, their guns both at the ready. A thick misty fog hung in the air, and all around them were the brilliant orange, red, and yellow leaves of a forest in the midst of autumn. The thick smell of birch and pine permeated through the air.

"Just what it sounds like, Dean," Sam explained. "An anonymous tip. I've been making these bunkers. Apparently, the one in Kansas is connected to a network of men of letters bunkers that are scattered all over the world. Many are abandoned, like this one, and we hold the only keys that will open them. I found a few books that list some of their locations and they are all in remote areas like this."

"Great," Dean said with a smirk, as Sam inserted the key and opened the door. "I guess we found ourselves a whole lot of vacation spots."

"Yeah," Sam focused as they cautiously entered the compound, their guns ready for anything that might take them by surprise. After the incident with the other bunker in Jersey, neither of them were going to take any chances.

The interior of the bunker was just as Dean expected. It was identical to the one in Kansas in nearly every way. The brothers stood on the balcony level entrance overlooking the large main room which was lined with books, filing cabinets, and some antique chairs and conference tables. Even the furniture looked the same.

"I guess whoever built these things weren't going for originality," Dean commented as they descended into the main hall.

Just as they made it to the main hall, a slim figure stepped out from behind one of the bookcases on the rear wall. Dean recognized the red-haired woman and immediately lowered his gun.

"Charlie?" he murmured as the woman he'd come to know as a sister approached them, a grim look on her face. "You aren't our Charlie are you?"

"No, I'm not," she confirmed. Dean had only been back from the apocalypse world for a few weeks now, but he was still reeling from having encountered apocalypse world, Charlie Bradbury. Seeing her had brought back so many feelings of guilt and remorse over the way his Charlie had been so terrible butchered and how he and Sam had failed her in her time of need.

Now, suddenly, after so many years, she'd been thrust back into their lives, into his life anyway, since Sam hadn't seen her- until now.

"You're from the other world," Sam guessed, his tone of voice betraying his own feelings at seeing Charlie again. "The apocalypse world."

"How'd you get here?" Dean asked as they moved to stand in front of her. "How long have you been here?"

"We just arrived," Charlie explained. She wore a dark green jumpsuit, a belt across her waist bore an array of blades, pouches, and supplies. In many ways, she resembled the LAARP fantasy world character their Charlie had liked to roleplay as. But this was another woman altogether. This was a Charlie who was hardened to the harsh realities of the world she'd come from. The flirty, timid, geeky Charlie that they knew had been replaced by a cautious, grim version.

"We?" Sam asked as he and his brother gazed around, looking for any other inhabitants.

"My team and I," Charlie explained. "They're out surveying the area and laying out defenses."

"Defenses?" Dean questioned. Charlie motioned for the brothers to sit down at the wooden conference table and she sat across from them. "When I saw you, you said you didn't want to come to this world. That you and your friends needed to stay and fight."

"Yeah that was before we stole Michael's ingredients for opening the portal," Charlie pointed out with a shrug. "Some of the ingredients. Dean, we're here because you need our help."

"Help with what?" Dean started to see where this might be heading. He was just about to say as much when they were interrupted by a loud crash coming from somewhere in the back of the bunker.

The three of them were quickly on their feet; their weapons were swiftly drawn. Dean noted that Charlie had brandished a large angel blade as she faced the noise.

"Sam go check the perimeter outside," Dean ordered. Sam nodded and turned back for the entrance of the bunker while Dean and Charlie headed cautiously down the hall.

Another crash and a loud grunt came from one of the bedrooms. The bedroom that had they been in the Kansas bunker would be Dean's room. The door was left slightly ajar, and Dean swiftly kicked it the rest of the way opened and frowned at the sight.

Castiel was sprawled out on the floor while a brunette woman in a grey blazer coat threatened him with an angel blade. When the two of them both looked in their direction, Dean blinked. She was familiar. How could Dean have forgotten the little angel cult Castiel had found himself the leader of back in the Metatron days?

"Uh, Hannah, right?" Dean asked, lowering his weapon. The women frowned at the recognition of her name, but she quickly turned back to Castiel, eyes fixating on him as she moved back, letting him slowly get to her feet.

"Yes," she said timidly, not looking at Charlie or Dean, but focusing entirely on Castiel. Both angels looked as though they had just seen a ghost. And in Castiel's case, that might as well have been true since Hannah had been dead for almost three years.

"Hannah…" Castiel breathed, equally fixated on her. "How can…"

"She's with me," Charlie blurted out quickly to Castiel. Dean gave her a quizzical look, and she quickly corrected. "I mean… she's not with me, not like that. She's part of my team. She's kinda our angel. And you…"

"From the apocalypse world?" Castiel surmised, glancing at Dean who nodded in confirmation. Hannah nodded.

"There… was a Castiel in my world," she said softly before shyly fixing her gaze to the floor. "He's dead."

"That is unfortunate," Castiel replied as he moved over to stand with Dean. "And… awkward."

Dean thought he saw some kind of emotion flash through Castiel's blue eyes, but he couldn't quite tell. The angel didn't have an extensive range of emotions, and he often had difficulty expressing the ones he did feel. But there was definitely something there. Dean never knew how close Castiel and Hannah had gotten years ago when they worked together, Cas had often kept his excursions when he wasn't with the Winchesters a bit of a secret, though Dean had suspected they had gotten close.

"Did you secure the rest of the place?" Charlie asked Hannah as the four of them headed back to the main room. Dean noted that Sam hadn't returned yet and felt concerned, but concentrated on Charlie, as he suspected she wasn't paying a house call here.

"Yes," Hannah replied curtly as they all took a seat back at the wooden conference table. Dean noted that Hannah no longer made eye contact with Castiel, and in fact, seemed to be trying to avoid his attention, as she sat next to Charlie, almost in a defensive posture, scooting her seat as close to Charlie's as she could get it.

"How did you find us, Cas?" Dean asked as the angel sat next to him. Castiel shrugged.

"I monitored the movements of the impala on occasion," he explained. "I admit I did not expect to find another bunker, nor did I expect to find Charlie or… Hannah…" he spared a glance in the angel woman's direction, but Hannah kept her focus.

"Hannah's been part of my team for about nine years," Charlie explained. "Ever since we liberated her from a death camp."

"A what?" Dean blinked. He didn't like the sound of that and Hannah seemed to visibly flinch at the mention of it.

"It's not important right now," Charlie said, sensing Hannah's discomfort. "Let me get to the reason we're here."

"Yeah I've been waiting for that," Dean said as he glanced in the direction of the entrance, wondering what was taking Sam so long. "You said something about Michael and us needing your help. Care to explain?"

"Yeah, Michael is looking for a way to get into this world so he can do to you what he's done to us," Charlie explained. "He nearly succeeded until my resistance group, and I stole the ingredients he needed. We used them to get here and help you prepare. There's nothing from stopping him from gathering the ingredients again, Dean and it's only a matter of time."

Dean and Castiel exchanged grim glances. They both knew what this could mean. If Michael got to this world, he could wage the same kind of human exterminating war that Charlie had just come back from. Dean shuttered to think of the invasion. He looked at Charlie.

"So you just came to warn us?" he asked.

"Not just warn you, prepare you," Charlie replied. "My team and I have been fighting angels all of our lives. We know what to expect. So that's the mission. Prepare for the invasion."

"Got it," Dean said. Just as he said that he heard the door creak open behind him and glanced up at the balcony deck just as Sam emerged, hands up against his head. Dean frowned, then his eyes lit up as he saw the two women who were holding his brother at gunpoint.

"It's okay, he's with us," Charlie called up to them. Then he glanced at Dean. "Dean Winchester, Sam, Castiel, meet the rest of my team. Eileen Leahy and-"

"Jo," Dean murmured, gazing up at the blonde haired woman who lowered the weapon she had fixed on Sam. She shot him a harsh glare when he said her name, but he didn't care. "Jo Harvelle."

#castiel/Hannah #Castiel #apocalypseworld #AU: Hannah #AU: Eileen Leahy #AU: Charlie Bradbury #AU: Jo Harvelle