#When I am English with a branch of my family in Scotland

[britishaccentcharacterpoll]

Ok imma be real it's getting to the point where I hope Demoman goes out (I love him) just so I never have to read another tag comment about how he's not British ever again

#mod posts #guys #if scotland and wales (i've had one or two comments about this wrt Nia as well) aren't Britain #if Ireland isn't Britain #then why does the word British exist #it would just be English #I'm starting to wish I just called this englishaccentcharacterpoll and excluded Demo and Shrek and Nia #which would be a huge shame bc they're among the characters that have generated the most fun engagement #plus I fucking love Nia and Demo (neutral on Shrek lol) #but it's so tiring #the main reason it's so tiring is that I specifically encouraged non-English British accents to be included #specifically BECAUSE i fucking hate people thinking British=English #I wanted as much diversity of accents from all across the british isles as possible #To show that not all British accents are posh south england accents #And I wanted to remind everyone that British does not mean English #But I've gotten nothing but grief for it constantly #And people assume I don't know what I'm talking about I think #When I am English with a branch of my family in Scotland #I support Scottish Irish and Welsh independence 1000% #I understand some of the nuance and I can understand why people (especially Irish) wouldnt want to be called British #but these are the British Isles and the British Broadcasting Corporation covers all of us #(which is relevant bc several of these characters are from BBC shows including the Scottish accented Capaldi Dr Who) #anyway I'll probably delete this in a couple hours when I feel stupid about posting it

[scotianostra]

November 26th 1908 saw the birth of Charles Carmine Forte in Casalattico, Italy

This has a wee connection with my home town, Loanhead, it was Baron Forte, as he was to become, worked in his relative,  Alfonso Forte, Italian cafe, from a young age after emigrating from Italy.

His father’s distant cousin Pacifico Forte had moved to Scotland and according to family legend, this cousin met a Scotsman who was believed to be a grocer. However, he did not own just one grocer’s shop but many.

The family always believed that this was Sir Thomas Lipton. He said to Pacifico ‘if you ever come to Scotland come to see me and I will help you.’ but truth be told we will never know if it was Lipton.

He opened up what was known as a hole in the wall shop in Kincardine in Fife. There he sold chocolate, lemonade and cigarettes.

He went on to open an ice cream shop in Dundee and with the business expanding, he persuaded some of the family to move to Scotland. In 1911 Rocco Forte arrived in the country.

During that year Mr Forte found a job in a small shop in Loanhead near Edinburgh. Three years later he wrote home and asked his wife and their family to join him, and they arrived at Waverley Station in 1913.

They then left Edinburgh bound for Alloa. Here Forte established the Savoy Cafe.

It sold lemonade and coffee and soon became popular with locals. It was situated on Mill Street and could seat between 50 and 60 people.

As time went on, they employed two or three assistants to serve ice cream, cakes and sandwiches.

Charles was beginning to speak English but with a Scottish accent. He attended Alloa Academy but was teased by the other boys, which is what happens in schools.  At the time, the nickname for an Italian was tally wally and they used to taunt him with this.

Soon though he was accepted because he was friendly and good at sport.

While there he wrote an essay for his teacher Miss Hunter. She showed it to the headmaster as she was so taken with his grasp of English.

ONE of the things Charles Forte remembered about The Great War was the arrival of the Black Watch in Alloa.

He also recalled seeing Lloyd George standing on a box in a doorway, speaking to the crowd of around 100 people.

When Forte was 12, he attended Saint Joseph's College in Dumfries. While there he got into fights nearly every day, and he loathed the place.

After a week he wrote to his father saying: ‘unless you come and fetch me, I am going to run away’. A few days later he arrived at the school and took him home.

He was then enrolled in one of Italy's most prestigious schools in Rome and during his time there, he only returned to Alloa for the summer holidays.

When he was 17, Forte decided to follow in his father's footsteps. Rocco arranged for him to work in a cafe in Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset.

It had been formed in partnership with two cousins and was one of the first of a string of cafes and ice cream parlours which members of the family opened all along the English coastline.

The caveat was that he was to remain in Scotland for six months to study book-keeping and accountancy.

When he was 26, he opened his first milk bar in Regent Street London. From there his business went from strength to strength, opening many more cafes.

During World War II, he was interred on the Isle of Man, but was released three months later. In 1943, he married Irene Chierico and the couple went on to have five girls and a boy.

By the late 1940s he was head of Forte Holdings Limited and in the 1950s had branched out into catering at Heathrow Airport.

He also opened the first motorway service station at Newport Pagnell in 1959. By 1970, following mergers, he was at the helm of Trusthouse Forte which owned the likes of Little Chef and Travelodge. It was now a multi-billion pound empire.

In 1970, Forte was knighted by the Queen Mother and in 1982 became Baron Forte of Ripley in Surrey. He was also appointed Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

In 1992, he retired and handed over the reins of the business to his son Rocco. A hostile takeover bid by Granada was successful and the business fell out of family hands.

Charles Forte died in his sleep in his London home on February 28th, 2007. His wife died in 2010 and was buried beside her husband in West Hampstead Cemetery.

Charles’ son Rocco has built his own hotel “empire”  Rocco Forte Hotels might be modest compared to what his father owned, but the 14 hotels “ From London to Rome, Sicily to Florence, Berlin to Edinburgh each Rocco Forte Hotel is as Unique and Special as the Place it Calls Home.”  The Fortes own The beautiful Balmoral Hotel at number 1 Princes Street Edinburgh.

The first four pics are of Charles, the rest are some of the businesses across Scotland, in order they are Charles at Horsemarket in Kelso., Loanhead,  Friars Street in Stirling, Girvan, Biggar, and Galashiels

#Scotland #scottish #italian-scots #scots-italian #businessman #hotels #milk bars #ice-cream parlours #cafes #history

[topduck48]

Hiiiii! I saw you enjoy reading other people's headcanons for Duck so I am sending mine! Let me know what you think! 💚🚂🌻

Hello! This is slightly irrelevant but I like your art. It has a very earthy, oaky, autumnal colour scheme. It feels like I am jumping into a pile of leaves, with the crunch and all.

Anyway, on to the headcanons. I like your reference for him. I especially like the “rambling, rambling, rambling” and “socially awkward” part, it is definitely Duck.

For the first headcanon on your list, I headcanon Duck as 34, so our headcanon ages for him are quite close. I also agree that he worked on the GWR for ten years before moving to Sodor.

I agree that Duck is English (I think that he was born in the west country), and I personally think that he has been to Scotland with Donald and Douglas to visit their family. I personally don’t think that Duck knows Emily very well, and has only heard of her because of Donald and Douglas. He does briefly see her around, but they haven’t spoken to each other much.

My opinion on the third one is basically what I said for the second headcanon. I personally headcanon Duck as cisgender, but that is merely my own headcanon for my own version of him. Every headcanon version of Duck (and other characters in general) is different, and I really like that. I have seen quite a few people headcanon Duck as trans, so you’re definitely not alone when it comes to having that headcanon.

My opinion on the fourth one is basically what I said for the third headcanon. This headcanon does suit your version of him well.

For the fifth one, I personally headcanon Duck as grey ace. However, he is definitely close to Donald. While I do see the two dating, I think that it would take a very long time before they do. Also, I think that Duck is not one to talk about his romantic relationships (or even friendships) with anyone, so only a very small amount of people (probably only Douglas for a while) would know that they were dating. The people that do find out only find out because the two are holding hands or talking to each other in a way that they wouldn’t normally do with other people, not because Duck has specifically told them. Duck is a very private person to me, and he is private about absolutely everything, to a large degree. Donald understands this though, and he also doesn’t tell anyone about them dating.

For the sixth one, your version of Duck would definitely do this. Duck is a fatherly figure to those that he likes, and Percy is the biggest example of that. Whenever Percy is upset about something, he immediately goes to Duck, and Duck lets him get it all out, then offers a logical and practical solution to the problem. Also I am intrigued in that story of yours for “another day”…

He is definitely proud of his branch line. He takes it very seriously and always strives to make it the best that it can be. Oliver is also proud of working on said branch line, but his pride isn’t quite the same as Duck’s.

He still doesn’t get on with the big engines due to that very reason. The big engines have a large dislike for him due to the fact that he doesn’t bow down and blindly obey them. Therefore, they sieze any opportunity to make up a reason to dislike him. Duck doesn’t like the big engines due to their incompetence, lack of work ethic, and large amounts of entitlement. Duck doesn’t care about them or what they think of him. He likes the way he is, and that’s that. No one else’s opinion is going to change his own opinion of himself.

I agree with the ninth one. While I don’t think that he cared about the big engine’s opinions, he did care when The Fat Controller sent him away. The Fat Controller’s opinion is one that Duck does care about, due to him being a good source of authority that Duck acknowledges and respects. Therefore, that brief moment when he thinks that The Fat Controller believed Diesel was heart breaking to him, and I think that is why he got so distraught to the point of crying (and also because I think that he has quite extreme emotions and struggles to control them sometimes). Not because of the big engines, or Diesel, but because a good and fair authority figure immediately seemed to believe and take the side of the one who was obviously lying.

His special interests are definitely trains and the ocean. I also think that his other special interests are vintage fashion, the great western railway, boats, smart, vintage fashion and birds.

I think that the final one is true for your version of Duck, and I think that your headcanon would also apply for when he was in school.

These are all just my opinion. While some of my headcanons are different to yours, that doesn’t mean that yours are wrong. I think that your headcanons are well thought out, realistic, and suit your version of Duck very well.

#ttte #ttte duck #my headcanons #my opinion #ttte headcanons #my rambles #ttte donald #ttte douglas #ask answer #ttte gordon #ttte henry #ttte james #ttte diesel #ttte the fat controller #ttte emily

[renee-writer]

The Diary of Life Chapter 7 The Historian

Jamie keeps a lighter schedule then he is used to over the next week. His healing arm won’t allow him to lift weights or work out in the gym. His comprise is running and bike riding around the vast estate.

 

Hi is coming back from a ten mile run, when he sees a unknown car parked in front. A dark haired man with glasses steps out.

 

“James Fraser, I am Frank Randall. I believe Claire Beauchamp told you of me?”

 

“Aye. It is Jamie. Forgive me, Mr. Randall but do we have an appointment?”

 

“No, I am sorry for the intrusion. I discovered some interesting things about this estate and the historian in me was keen to discuss them with you.”

 

“Come in Mr. Randall. I am just coming back from a run so I will see you into the library and, then if you will excuse me, I will join you after a shower.”

 

“That is fine Jamie. You may call me Frank.”

 

“Thank you Frank.”  He sees him into the house and library. That should keep the historian occupied, he thinks, long enough for a quick shower. Frank watches him walk away with a sigh. He loves Theo and adores Claire but, he isn’t blind. Jamie Fraser is a beautiful man.

 

He returns fifteen minutes later. “So Frank, tell me what you found out. I only know that she is a Fraser/Murray house. The last know Murray died and it was left to me.”

 

“She was built in 1717 by a Brian Fraser for his wife Ellen. The land was gifted to him from his father Lord Lovat.  This was after the first upraising. Now around the time of the second, the house changed hands, gifted to a child, Jamie Murray the namesake of his Uncle, Jamie Fraser. Meant to keep it in the family.” He hands him a piece of paper, a copy of the deed of session.

 

After this the details get fuzzy. We know that this estate was spared the worst if the damage done to Scotland in the aftermath of the second upraising. This tells up that she was keep out of it.  Jamie and his wife disappeared around this time.  His sister, Janet, moved to North Carolina but that is all we know of her. She had two daughters. One became a nun. The other was lost in childbed along with the baby. Her son’s seemed to fair better. We know her youngest also went to North Carolina but both mum and son seemed to have been swallowed up in the backcountry.”

 

“Thank you Frank. It is more then I knew before.”

 

“A few more things. Seems the original Jamie got into an altercation with a Redcoat over his wife. Was temporally jailed. The Redcoat, Jack Randall, was killed in a cow attack.”

 

“A coo attack!” Jamie giggles.

 

“Yes. As unlikely as that sounds. Seems the bloke was trampled.”

 

“Randall? Any relation?”

 

“Through his brother Alex. He married a Mary Hawkins, a sweet English lass. They lived in England away from his scandalous brother. I prefer Scotland. The sense of history is deeper.”

 

“Aye tis. I would appreciate it if you could do some more digging. See if there are any living Murray relations in America. My own sister Jenny married into the clan but a different branch, ones that had also settled in France. That, by the way, is where the original Jamie Fraser and his wife, Elizabeth settled.”

 

“Ah, why it was hard to find them.”

 

“Aye, I have both Jenny and Elizabeth’s diaries. There was some conflict between them.”

 

“I will be happy to investigate some more. You are welcome to go through the archives and records in the university. It may help you in your search. Lot’s of Fraser’s mentioned.”

 

“Thank you. I might. Wasn’t intending to stay this long but might be here longer.”

 

“Claire will be happy to hear that.” His hand goes to his mouth, “Oops, I have broke a confidence between Theo and his sister. You won’t tell will you Jamie?”

 

“No.” The men stand as Frank prepares to leave. “Claire really discusses me with her brother?”

 

“Yes.” Said with a smile as he leaves. Jamie returns it. Does Claire like him too?

 

He settles into one of the big leather chairs and returns to Janet’s diary.

 

‘’My brother returned home with a Sassanach bride! How could he bring an English woman into my home?

 

She has been here a week and I believe her a witch. She makes Jamie eat green things, like a blasted coo, do a strange thing called brushing teeth, and, if that wasn’t enough, she has delivered four bairns and all lived! Unheard of! I won’t let wee Jamie near her. Jamie is mad at me but he is my son.

 

She has done it now! The crazy witch hit a red back! Not done. They took Jamie away. She left soon after to secure his release. Good riddance.

 

I hear my brother and that woman are in France. Jamie is working on securing a pardon. He won’t be welcome back here unless he leaves the witch there. Ian calls me hard headed but I don’t care. She won’t be back in my house!

 

I found the deed to Lallybroch today. It was signed over to wee Jamie. Jamie left a note saying he wished it kept in the family. I pray he is well and happy.

 

My children hate me. They do. My baby is moving to the colonies. Says he can’t stand my hate and bitterness anymore. Wee Jamie told me that after his father passed, I won’t be allowed to live in the main house anymore.

 

My Ian died today. I wasn’t allowed in the room with him. Our love has been poisoned by my hatred of that woman. He and Jamie were best friends. He blamed me. They all did. I was just trying to see them safe. After the funeral, I will have to move to a croft on the property.

 

I am leaving Scotland. There is nothing here for me anymore. Ian write me from North Carolina. He has twins and requests my help.”

 

Jamie sits it aside with a frown. Sad what hate and fear caused in her life.  Life is to short for that. On that note, he decides to invite Claire to dinner. He needs to see what she feels for him.

#my writing #outlander fanfic #the diary of life #the Historian #jamie and claire #cannon divergence #modern au #outlander fandom

[the-busy-ghost]

Alright here’s my belated Thoughts on that latest TSP episode. I should add again, I am in no way saying people shouldn’t like this show, I just need to be petty on my own blog. 

- Stafford’s Performative Masculinity is a bit Much, even for a sixteenth century man

- Katherine doesn’t want Wolsey appointed chancellor because that would give him too much power and the chancellor is apparently the second most powerful man in the kingdom... so powerful in fact that I’m not even sure we’ve seen the current chancellor on screen, except in his ecclesiastical role as archbishop of Canterbury

- Ah the migrating towers of Holyrood. They weren’t there for the last two episodes and they won’t be there next scene either but they’ll be *theoretically* here all week folks.

- It is mildly hilarious that this show seems to think that every single moment in Scottish politics took place in one wee house in Somerset “Edinburgh”, and the only people who are ever involved are two dozen stereotypical Scottish noblemen, and one Englishwoman (and no clergy? Which is extremely weird given how heavily involved they were in royal administration).

- Not to mention they imply Holyrood is meant to be Edinburgh (it is now, then it was actually in the burgh of the Canongate but close enough) and yet the burgh skyline of Edinburgh is never visible in the background of these shots, just rolling fields and a nondescript hill that I assume is meant to be Arthur’s seat.

- Ok so we’re portraying Angus as the poetic soul instead of his uncle, that’s fine, that makes no sense but it’s fine.

- Who the fuck is Bishop McElroy. Setting aside the fact that McElroy was more common in Ireland than Scotland during the sixteenth century (and there were no major noble or even influential lairdly families bearing the surname), why could they not have just done a google search and found out that, oh yeah, there were Real Life Scottish Bishops in 1515, anyone of whom would have done. And I don’t know why they mucked about with the timeline but if they were going to muck around with the timeline anyway then then how about maybe even, dare I say it, Gavin Douglas, bishop-elect of Dunkeld???

- Also I didn’t quite catch the full line so I may have misheard but I think Margaret states that they got married in the kirk of South Queensferry? I mean tbh this only confirms my belief that the writers think everything happened in the vicinity of Edinburgh (and that they didn’t even bother to think to TRY and find out where the marriage might have taken place, just started tossing a few Scottish place names out there as if that would do. The Ferry’s not even that private, it was on a major pilgrimage route and an important crossing point over the Forth). It’s also a bit irritating because there’s no reason for the inaccuracies? They didn’t have to show the wedding so they didn’t have to change the location or characters for ease of filming or anything, it’s just a throwaway line, there’s no reason for them to make up a bishop and unlikely wedding location? Anyway join us next week as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn conduct their affair in the middle of London Bridge.

- Also excuse me while I make an unconvinced noise at that line about how the Douglases (i.e. all of them, not just the Red ones) have always ‘licked the balls of England’. While their notoriety for being Shady As Fuck and occasionally siding with the English was certainly well known, no sixteenth century Scotsman worth his salt would have sullied the name of the Good Sir James just to score points off the Angus branch of the family.

- (Maybe this is a bad time to point out that they’re not technically licking ‘balls’ in this instance either...)

- I take it back there was one (1) woman very briefly in that scene where Margaret and “Angus” rushed to grab the bairns. She was promptly never seen again. Confirmed Cryptid.

- Also where did all the other bairns (James IV’s ones, not Margaret’s) go. I mean they were actually there last episode I think, so it’s not like they were implying that Margaret got rid of them as soon as she could. Have they FINALLY grown up?

- How quickly do letters travel in this world? How long have they been in that cellar? Are they still there?

- Wait so now Katherine of Aragon knows his name is Archibald??? Why has everyone been calling him ‘Angus Douglas’ then, even when his dad (and presumably grandfather) was alive?

- Lol @ Henry ‘after all I’ve done for her’. Do tell, what HAVE you done for Margaret.

- Hang on so Thomas Boleyn is Earl of Wiltshire already and yet his father-in-law Thomas Howard still isn’t duke of Norfolk

- Second LOL @ an archbishop of York willfully summoning a naturalised Frenchman to Scotland without the king of England’s permission, as if Scotland lay in his gift and as if that was in any way a good idea, even for some political point-scoring

- “Margaret’s sons must take the throne”- Katherine are you aware that James V was crowned King of Scots not two weeks after Flodden, and approximately seven months before his younger brother Alexander was even born.

- Again, HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN IN THE CELLAR? Angus has grown a BEARD.

- He’s not the future king he IS the king. A tiny toddler king. You help him go potty you disrespectful shite, I don’t care if you’re having a nervous breakdown. (May I just point out again it is CRIMINAL that David Lindsay isn’t in this)

- We all pause for An Exaggerated Whispering Scene, that great period drama staple. I mean are we sure they’re gossiping about Henry and a *woman*, because the way people are talking about Wolsey at that dinner once again makes it look like he’s the real Mistress

- So wait how is this ‘letting’ Margaret go with Howard thing supposed to work. Is it like knock-knock special delivery for the duke of Norfolk, here you go please take your princess back.

- And when exactly did Angus do all this negotiating when he has supposedly been stuck in a cellar for weeks. Gavin Douglas has a lot to answer for, and not just the sheer length of the Eneados.

- ‘Bog-fuckers’ - not a bog in sight in this west country version of Scotland. Also er, just how does one fuck a bog. Asking for a friend.

- I’m just being pedantic, Howard’s foul mouth is actually the only genuine piece of comedy the writers can come up with in this tv show.

- Howard putting up a good front here but come on there’s like six of them and about two dozen Miscellaneous Scotsmen. I know that the English were very practised in quartering Scots whenever they liked but eight to one is not good odds, even for the victor of Flodden.

- Yeah that whole scene is not how the history worked. At All. But let’s let them ride dramatically away across a field as if it’s at all plausible. (Also why is it always fields- I know Scotland’s roads were bad in the sixteenth century, but seriously they were at least *technically* roads when you got near Edinburgh)

- And there was definitely no Isabella Hoppringle, which is again, criminal. I mean I expected it but it’s still sad. Mind you I suppose that might imply that Scottish women are real creatures and not cryptids which, as we know, is totally unrealistic.

- Even weirder though, they’re not including Margaret Douglas? Why?

- Only one man has ever been in the king’s rooms? Seriously? You expect us to believe this, not only from a historical accuracy perspective, but also from the tv show that gave us implied Wolsey/Henry?

-  The Great English Midwife Shortage c.1509-1516

- Do NONE of the many many grown-up people at the English court understand the lottery of birth and that you can’t just like, assume the baby will be a boy even if you hope it will. Wishful thinking is one thing (and common) but this wholehearted belief thing is frankly unrealistic.

- It’s also unfair how they’re treating Mary as unloved by both her parents. We know Katherine loved her daughter in some way, and it’s also not really fair to say that Henry VIII was anything less than a doting father in her early years.

- And the record for fastest churching goes to Katherine again. Cracking cape though.

- Katherine all ‘he won’t visit his daughter’- you won’t even look at her either though. How is this a sympathetic depiction of Katherine again? Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely understandable if a royal mother didn’t always want to hold her daughter but really? After every other negative light they’ve shown Katherine in and called it Empowerment?

- Hey I don’t know much about English customs but seems to me that inviting the French to intervene in Scotland without consulting the king might just be a beheading offence Wolsey. AND THEN HENRY COVERS FOR HIM? THE PAGES OF ENGLISH HISTORY BOOKS ARE NOT STAINED WITH THE BLOOD OF CIVIL SERVANTS EXECUTED FOR FAR LESSER OFFENCES FOR THIS KIND OF NONSENSE TO BE ACCEPTABLE.

- Thomas Boleyn, dad of the year

- People do kiss, Margaret Pole. That was a common thing. MEN kissed each other goddamnit. Not really good enough. I mean by your logic Katherine should have broken up with Henry after her dad laid one on him in the first episode.

- How is it that Thomas More, of all people, has the Goss. 

- Oh and apparently there was also a National Laundress Shortage in 1516 too.

Ok so it was about as meh as every other episode but I think this one really brought home to me how poorly thought out Margaret’s storyline was. I mean usually these period dramas have to insert Drama for no reason to keep people interested, but Margaret’s life was FULL of drama and they had so much to work with. Instead they seem to have actually stripped most of the drama out to tell an utterly incomprehensible story about a bunch of stereotypical Scotsmen, who all live in the same house in Fake Edinburgh, chasing the only woman in Scotland into the cellar, and then posting her off back to England a few weeks later.

#TSP #Margaret Tudor #rants #I know I know #I finally got the internet back #And I'm using it to have a really petty rant about a tv show I'm largely indifferent to #This is the true purpose of tumblr

[imspardagus]

A Scottish Fantasy

My mother was the eldest child of a poor family in Sheffield.  There are shades of poverty and theirs was not the deepest but they were decidedly working class and short of every material comfort.  A factor in this was her father, who was a Victorian and a socialist, and who loved children, it is said, so much that he foisted 8 of them onto his second wife, who didn’t. He is the subject of my story.

Grandad was already an old man when, as a small boy, I first knew him. He had long retired from the railways. Back in the fifties, having made the eight-hour journey up the A1 from Essex (through the centre of every market town on the way), we would walk in to the Sheffield council house through a door that was never locked and there he would be, sitting always close to the big kitchen range in the back room, nursing a gouty foot swathed in bandages and thick socks (which must have been agonising). Being a fairly normally clumsy child, I would manage to bang into his foot at least once during our visits, to the intense embarrassment of my parents. It was the only time I heard Grandad react with any fierceness. Now that I have personal experience of gout I understand why.

I will tell the story as Mum told it to my sister and me when we were children. Mind, she never sat us down and told it in one go.  It came out in little sparkling nuggets. Which, paradoxically, made it all the more compelling.  Gold, or fool’s gold, many have confused the two, and we always will, because we all want to believe.

Mum was born in 1922.  As her brothers and sisters followed each other into life, and things became increasingly difficult for the Lawford household, she was sent away to live with a maiden aunt in Nottingham.  This physical distance had several effects.  The first and most obvious was that she became remote from her own family. They never forgave her for “talking posh” and a thinly veiled animosity stuck with her for the rest of her life.  But, perhaps more importantly, it changed her expectations. Auntie Lizzie was a modern woman (for the 1920s), with a career and thoughts of her own. Her home was, by all accounts, an Aladdin’s cave of eccentrically accumulated drapes and  artefacts.  And her home seems to have been a mirror of her mind. She dabbled in religions, cults and philosophies and encouraged my mother to do the same. Mum became an avid reader of books, and a good pupil.  Had the Second World War not intervened, she was bound for teacher training college. Instead, she was conscripted into the Admiralty and spent what she guiltily described as a gloriously happy war in Bath.

According to Mum, what we saw of Lawford home life in Sheffield was very different from how it had once been.  Grandad had once been a qualified accountant but an illness took him to the doctor who advised him that if he wished to survive he needed an outdoor job. So Grandad became an engine driver. (even as a child I always wanted to pause at this point to allow my brain to assimilate the strangeness of this transition). She said he drove the express trains that ran down the East Coast line to London.

Grandad, Mum told us, was a Fabian Socialist, a founder member.  He had spoken on a platform with the great George Lansbury and had been asked on more than one occasion to stand as Mayor of Sheffield but had had to decline it because his wife was not happy with the thought of public life.  

Grandad, she said, was also a soft touch.  Many were the times he would arrive home on payday with little or nothing in his packet because men, knowing his kind heart, would accost him on the way home, with sob stories and he could not refuse them.

But this is a mere prelude to the Big Story.  Apparently, Grandad was the legitimate heir to an Earldom in Scotland.  The Lawfords were, as anyone knew (so my mother said), Scottish reivers – border bandits – and this was our ancestry.  The story went that Grandad had been approached by a solicitor who had told him that if he could produce a certain decorated wooden box his claim to the Earldom would be proved. But he, being an avowed socialist, could not be bothered with such trivialities as personal wealth and title, and declined to pursue his birthright.

The Earldom was that of the Kerrs, on the Scottish side of the Border.

A romantic story.  And apparently a total fiction.  And one that, though I can see the funny side, left me feeling bereft as it unravelled.

For a number of years, whenever I visited Scotland, I would scour books about the clans, wondering why the Lawford name never figured.

Then my sister spent some time tracing our family tree and I got my answer.  Lawford is not a reiver name, not a Scottish name, not even a Northern English name.  It harks from Essex. On our mother’s side, Sheffield was the furthest north the Lawfords had achieved in three centuries. Until our generation, the highest social status of any related Lawford was a publican in Guildford in the 17th Century. There is more.

Grandad did indeed work on the railways.  But he was a porter, not a train driver, still less an express train driver. His father had also worked the railways.  That fine copperplate handwriting that seemed so out of place in a working man’s fist, and thereby lent credence to a romance of a different upbringing, seems most likely to have been the result of a book-keeping course that the railway union put him through in order that he could be a treasurer for the local branch.

Do I feel cheated? Yes, a bit. Not by the lack of status (as a soft middle class southerner, I am in fact a little proud of this gritty heritage and loved the blackened hardness of Sheffield before the planners ruined it). But more by the want of romance on a grand scale.  On a walk with a friend I passed the Kerrs’ family seat and thought, at one and the same time, this could have been mine and this never was mine. Mine has been such a small and mundane life.

But the effect is also more subtle, more undermining. I was born in Ilford, Essex and never felt it was my home.  I visited Yorkshire, and Sheffield, but felt no affinity. When I first crossed the border into Scotland, however, I felt I was coming home.  And when I left it, I felt the lowering of growing distance from where you ought to be. And it continues. I suffer from depression and, when it is bad, walking in Scotland or in the Northumbrian border country will pull me back from despair as no drug can. Yet, as far as I can tell, I have no family connection with it. So I feel diminished by the lack of any Celtic link and I now have no reason to support the effect Scotland has on me.  

Should it matter? Of course not.  I am what I am. I feel what I feel. Scotland is a sublimely beautiful country and its people have a sense of cultural integrity that those of us in the South East of England bartered long ago for a love of sophistication, bling and noisy ignorance. If I was not comfortable with the latter it is likely I would feel more comfortable with the former. And we all have our origins in distant vistas and wild trails rather than concrete canyons and brick boxes linked by tarmac tracks.

Why did she do it, though? Tell those stories, I mean.  Weave those inventions? Is it so hard to understand? We have always been story tellers, hooked on language, driven by imagination that, apparently, no other creature on this planet possesses.  And we have always striven to make, not a true rendition of reality, but a version of it that supports us with a sense of how things need to be if we are to keep going. Something to help us to survive in a hostile environment. I think my mother could not quite bear association with the poverty she had escaped from and needed something a bit more up-market to leaven her back-story.

Afternote: When going through the family history a couple of years back I made an interesting discovery. It involved, not Scotland, but Australia. Apparently, a distant relation of Grandad had emigrated there in “dubious” circumstances and rumour had it that he made a small fortune. When he died, without direct heirs, there was talk of the estate belonging to whomever could prove sufficient familial link. And Grandad had in his possession a box that contained letters which could have provided that proof. But Grandad wanted nothing to do with this man or his fortune.

So maybe Mum was not inventing quite as much as we assumed.

#stories #heritage

[skgway]

1818 Oct., Mon. 19

7 3/4

12

After trying a good while got a good kiss last night – Got up to see I[sabella] N[orcliffe] and Miss V– [Vallance] off to Castle Howard – Was in Miss V [Vallance]’s room half hour this morning. She tells me I am silly when I follow her up and down the room but receives me more and more kindly. She took care to say how very sleepy she was last night and that she did not hear me go out of the room.

I[sabella] N[orcliffe] drove Miss V– [Vallance] in the gig (only the 2nd time she ever drove in her life, the 1st being when she returned from York Monday 28 instant) and John followed – They set off at 9 1/2 – 

Spent the morning till 2 talking, nothing particular, tête-à-tête with Charlotte in the breakfast room – Then wrote 1 1/2 pages to Ellen, offering to go to her next Thursday or Friday week at 7 or 8 in the evening – I[sabella] and Miss V– [Vallance] got back at 4, the latter much pleased with the place – 

The reverend James, and Mrs. and their 2nd daughter Miss Isabella Dalton, from Croft near Darlington, arrived between 7 and 8 p.m. Gave Mr. Brooke my letter (to Mrs. A. Empson Elvington, York) to put into the York office tomorrow – (Miss J[ohn] D[alton] put into Miss V– [Vallance]’s room, Miss V– [Vallance] in I[sabella] N[orcliffe]’s). Mrs. Best staid with I[sabella] and me while we undressed – 

From 1/2 to 3/4 past 11, sat on Miss V– [Vallance]’s bedside – Sucking both breasts and kissing.  Went in very gently and was going out again as she did not speak, tho I knew from her fidgetting and having twice lifted up her head she was awake. Rather than let me go she spoke and I staid – 

Thick fog almost all the day – One of the worst days they could have had for their excursion.

[More on Castle Howard]

by John Preston Neale, 1818. Image extracted from page 140 of volume 5 of "Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. L.P". Original held and digitized by the British Library.

by Mike Kipling Photography. Castle Howard is a private residence and has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years. Castle Howard is not a fortified structure, but the term "castle" is sometimes used in the name of an English country house that was built on the site of a former castle. It is frequently used as a film & television location, and open to the public for visiting: https://www.castlehoward.co.uk/

#anne lister #anne lister code breaker #isabella norcliffe #mary vallance #Langton Hall 1818

[draconesmundi]

Hey, I've been an avid dragon enthusiast since I was a kid and your blog is a huge inspiration! Would you mind doing England for the Here Be Dragons prompt?

Certainly! I am glad to hear you are a dragon enthusiast, I am the same!

So, I have already done Southern England in this ask here  so to do the rest of England we would need to do the counties not included there - so Northumberland (my home county!), Tyne and Wear, Durham, Cumbria (my partner’s home county), Yorkshire, Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Derbshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Leiscteshire etc. etc. (I was going to list them all then I realised there were A LOT so apologies dear anon if I missed yours!).

So the main difference between your ask, England in general, and the previous ask, Southern England specifically, is that in most of England we do not have the green wyvern or vouivre. The dragons we have are the lindorm (Vivernapterous fafnirus) the smok (Drakon drakon) and the cockatrice (Basiliskos gallimimus).

The lindorm is a long brownish green serpentlike dragon with two small forelimbs. It lives in burrows and deep ponds and eats small game birds and animals. In English folklorish tradition the lindorm is capable of two great feats - the first is being able to grow to impossibly long lengths, and the second is to grow into two dragons if it is split in half.

The most famous lindorm myth from England is that of the Lambton Worm. Once the Earl of Lambton caught an immature lindorm (eel-like in appearance) and, deciding it was too gross to keep, threw it into a well. This dragon grew to a huge size, wrapping three times around Worm Hill near Lambton (often stories say Penshaw Hill, as this is the big famous hill with a cool building on it - Worm Hill is a smaller hill much closer to the river). The Earl asked a witch what to do, and she said he must wear spiked armour to do battle with the dragon, and once the dragon was slain he must kill the next living thing he saw, or else the Earls of Lambton would all meet unquiet deaths.

The Earl planned to have dogs released once he killed the dragon so that he may kill the dogs too, and he marched out to Worm Hill wearing the spiked armour. The dragon tried to wrap itself around the earl and was impaled on the spikes, eventually bleeding out. In celebration, the Earl’s father ran out to congratulate his son instead of releasing the dogs. Unable to kill his father, the Earl doomed the family to a curse for several generations.

Dogs were also involved in the slayings of the Serpent of Kellington, the Long Slingsby Serpent and the Serpent of Nunnington, all in Yorkshire.Yorkshire dragon slayings have a tried and tested formula - the hero must wear spiked armour (as the Earl of Lambton did) and must bring a dog to snap up parts of the dragon which are cut loose from the main body to prevent the dragon from multiplying (which is biologically impossible, but having a well trained dog aid in a dragon slaying seemed like a sensible move back in the day) and the dragon must be fought in a river, so that spare parts of the dragon are washed away downstream and cannot create more dragons to interfere in the battle. There is a chance one may die to the ‘venomous blood’ of the dragon, most likely the cytotoxic venoms spat by lindorms when they are threatened.

The final lindorm myth of note Not in the South of England (please check the other Ask for a wealth of knucker stories) is that of a little known hero called Scaw who killed the Handale Worm of Yorkshire (there are a LOT of Yorkshire dragon legends).

While lindorms are very important to English mythology, the most iconic dragon is probably the smok, a reddish animal with large wings. This is the dragon found on the Welsh flag and on family crests and sigils throughout the UK - this is the dragon made of chalk at Bures, and it’s likeness is also seen in a church at Wissington.

Being from Northumberland I am obviously going to recount a good Northumbrian tale, that of the Laidly Worm of Bamborough. Northumberland was once an entire country, stretching halfway down modern England and a third of the way up into modern Scotland, and the seat of this kingdom was Bamborough Castle. In mythology, the King of Northumberland married a witch, who made plans against him. She sent the prince Childe Wynd away to Norway and poisoned the king slowly to death. The only witness to this crime was a princess that the witch turned into a dragon, and, distraught, the dragon flew away to Spindlestone Hugh.

Childe Wynd, who had been sent away to perform impossible tasks of bravery, came back a lot sooner than the witch expected, as he was somehow able to complete these tasks. He heard of a dragon terrorising the kingdom and rode his horse straight to the scene, tying his steed up at the legendary Spindlestone. He approached the dragon, sword in hand, but then realised it was a kindred spirit. He kissed the dragon on the nose, and it magically turned back into his sister.

The two of them returned to Bamborough, and Childe Wynd was able to resume his rightful place there as the witch had returned to her natural state -a warty toad - when the princess’ dragon spell had been broken.

Another engaging story is the medieval comedy of the dragon of Wantley in Yorkshire - this dragon was killed by More of More Hall by a swift kick to the backside (the dragon’s weak spot!), and More was paid in virgins and beer (a classic folk hero).

Finally there is the Cheshire story of the Moston dragon, who specifically preyed unfairly on the people of Moston who were just trying to eat some really good apples. It was shot by Sir Thomas Venables.

The less iconic English dragon species is the cockatrice, and I was delighted to find the story of a Cumbrian cockatrice at the small town of Renwick. The story says a cockatrice (chicken dragon) was found underneath a church, so one of the church builders needed to smite it with a branch of magical protective rowan - meaning essentially some builders found a dragon, freaked out and beat it to death with a large stick.

There are a few English dragons which did not fit any specific dragon species in Dracones Mundi, such as the winged Essex serpent (might be a gwiber (Pteroserpens cambrius) out of Wales?), the invisible Longwitton dragon, and then a few other dragons which lack proper descriptions (Sockburn dragon from County Durham, Brent Pelham dragon from Hertfordshire, the dragon that lived under the Drake Stone at Alnwick etc.)

Basically this boils down to England having 3 - to - 5 species of dragon according to Dracones Mundi: lindorms, smoki and cockatrices are found throughout England, gwiberod are found near Wales but also sprinkled in a few other locations according to legend, and vouivre are found in southern England.

#Dracones Mundi #Here be Dragons #England #UK #Asks

[sukunas-play-thing]

I jus have to ask. Do you have an OC for my hero academia???? What's their name/ life like? I wanna get inside your head and know what u got in-store for us all. Plllllssssssssssss my amazing person.

Oh my gosh yes I do anon bean. She's still in the making. When I first wrote her she was a mere cross over oc. And I am trying to keep it in universe canon so had to scrap everything I had written.

Her name is Selim Unfrid.

Selim is the name from Arabic meaning "safe" and "undamaged". The name unfrid is an Norman family name of Viking origin name meaning "the one who gives peace"

Norman family name is spelled as onfroy, onfroi. Unfrid is Scandinavian origin.

I kept her fathers origin. He's known as the beast hero: Minotaur

He legit turns into this Badass minotaur.

Her mother is a witch whom has a quirk that allows her to control her blood at will in battle. (Similar to Deadman wonderlands Branch of Sin but completely different origin)

Selim inherited her moms witch lifestyle and quirk but has her dads temper and strength.

And as you might have guessed Selims family is from Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. And has Viking heritage in her family. I haven't decided if I wanted to make her student becoming a hero or a villain quite yet to be in fact.

Originally I thought of her dad being a huge ass but the thought of her having a big burly Scandinavian old man dote and look after his daughter with his booming voice and deep heavy Scot accent just made me melt.

Her dad doesn't believe in relying on quirk alone to get the job done, only to use it against villains with long range attacks or body changing quirks that allow one to change size and or forms. So her father trained her physical strength using a Viking wrestling method called Glima. Glima is the name that covers several types of Nordic folk wrestling practiced as sport and combat. In one common form of glima, players grip their opponent by the waist and attempt to throw them to the ground using technique rather than force. Other variants allow for more aggression.

The key to this technique is to take down the enemy as quick and swiftly as possible. Glima literally means "with a glimpse".

She's very upfront with people and honest. Only a complete dick when the situation calls for it.

She has a license and owns a beat up old red suicide door Chevy truck. And yes her father paid to get it shipped to Japan when they moved from Texas (they moved alot because her father is mostly a humanitarian hero who moves from country to country to expand his hero agency and helps with world epidemics. Such as ending world hunger and helping countries affected by natural disasters and the like. The mans p much the National Guard. )

They lived in Brazil, Norway, Australia, And the US. Her main language is Scottish/Gaelic and is multilingual. Can speak multiple languages such as Spanish, German, Italian, English and Japanese (very little though she struggles alot especially with her heavy Scot accent **don't hate poor baby is trying**

Selim owns a cat

She loves heavy metal and rock music (how she learned English so fast and well while living in Texas. She gained a redneck personality from there. Loves going mudding).

Her favorite food is Haggis.

Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now often in an artificial casing instead.

She does have tattoos. (With her parents permission) she has an Odin tatooine sleeve on her right arm, above his head on her upper arm is yggdrasil (Tree of life) and wrapping around the tree trunk is the serpent Jormungandr. And above her right breast is Odins horns. Also called three horned triskelion.

Loves to read thriller, horror and crime books.

Has a bestie that lives in Brazil. Selim used to be a cheerleader. No not those types you'd see at football games. This gal was aiming for the world championships.

She loves to dance because of it and now can't go a day without dancing. She plans on becoming a professional dancer. She's got so much soul when she dances.

Her favorite band is Slipknot and Blue Stahli. (Never heard? Gotta check em out)

She plays racing games (like need for speed carbon) and RPG pc games.

She so spunky and cares deeply for those she cares about. Calls them her "familia "

Her mom owns her own shop where she makes spells, potions, and hand crafts anything and everything witchy. She even wrote her own handbook on Witchcraft and teaches a class for beginners looking into said craft.

Her mom does palmesrty. And reads tarot cards. Unfortunately she gets those who asks her for readings over the most rediculous things. Momma had to up her prices. She's a very humble women and wants what's best for her daughter. Unfortunately the poor woman worries for her daughter because she takes after her dad way too much.

I love the name Stoick and Volka. The names used for Hiccups parents in How to train your dragon but refrained from using the same names. Their names are still in the making too.

That's all I have for Selim. I went hella overboard writing this post. It just. Omg I'm so happy someone's asked me if I had an OC been wanting to flex on my love of Viking stories and knowledge hope you all love her as much as I do. I have been thinking about giving her a sibling too. Probably will brainstorm that idea later. So sorry... Not many will probably read this lol. Now I'm nervous shit.

🐲Queen Targe🐲

#ask #mel speaks #chat #my hero academia #my hero oc #boku no hero academia #sorta a self insert oc too lol

[tally-my-words]

OC Interview

@wortfinder shared this with me ahead posting her’s. I just saw she finished hers and realized I didn’t tag her right.

Rules: Pick a character from your WIP, and have them answer these 15 questions, then tag 15 people.

I changed the phrasing of these questions a little so that they would have a more intimate phrasing/feel more natural for the characters to respond to.

1: I don’t think I know you’re full name?

It’s Lyall Philip Driscoll. I try to avoid any of the titles with it. Being Scottish doesn’t really transfer so well over to English gentry. 

2: Is there any meaning behind that name?

I think all of it’s ironic, intentional at worse, embarrassing at best. 

Lyall is Scottish, it means something roughly like ‘Wolf’s shield’ and my father was being ironic when he gave it. I don’t know how he thought his first born wouldn’t be his heir, but he always wanted other sons and he always wanted me to serve so he could have more power. Everything he asked was for me to serve to give him power ... 

Philip was about one of the things we ultimately shared - A Christian name for my baptism, but a Greek one with a secular meaning, ‘Lover of horses’ or I prefer ‘Friend of horses.’ My father liked horses for the privilege and had an eye for horse flesh, always knew how to buy a good horse. I on the other hand was as mad about them as any four year girl who wants a pony every birthday and that enthusiasm only wavers when I question if whatever horse I want would really be the best fit for both of us. 

Now Driscoll didn’t suit my father I mention because it’s the only name we shared, but like all the other irony, it suits me. My father never held any leaderships positions with Robert’s pack. He wasn’t interested in those responsibilities, but he thought I was right when I said Andrew Carter’s pack would make more money than Robert’s ever dreamed of. Driscoll means ‘To go between’ or roughly ‘messenger’ and that is the role I’ve played for both my pack and Andrew since I helped Andrew start the blasted mess. 

3: What are your favorite nicknames or maybe something else you’re fond of being called. 

I really do like that Andrew never refers to me by any of my titles. When it’s formal, I am always Mr. Driscoll to him. He measures me as a man in my own right, free of anything I haven’t earned.

4: Do you consider yourself a man, are you comfortable with that?

I was born a man, I am a man, and a man I shall always be.

5: What are your sexual preferences?

I don’t advertise my sexuality freely, but I also make little effort to hide that I am a a gay man. I can’t say I’m quiet a proud gay man, but I didn’t grow up in a time where pride in what I was seemed possible. I take pride in things I do, not things I am. 6: Where are you from?

I was born in Scotland, but my father’s interests and government ties had long brought our branch of the family to London. I was only born in Scotland so that my father wouldn’t feel so shoddy about the title he retained. Hard to be a Scottish Lord when you’re born in England. We’ve really been more English than Scottish since James took the throne. I tend to prefer living outside of London, but I’m within the city almost daily and it would be silly to think I’m anything but an Londoner.

7: How old are you?

Too old for you. I was born in 1855, and if I think about it, I’ll figure that out.

I’m one hundred and sixty four years old. My birthday was in April. Funny that I used to think I was far too young for things I wanted. 

8: What is your lineage, I know you mentioned a pack, so I’d assume you’re a werewolf? Are you anything else?

I’m a werewolf, of a long line of werewolves. Like most of us, I probably have some blood from the continent, but there have been werewolves in Scotland and England for centuries at this point. We’re rare, but we’ve circled the globe by now. I do probably have some witch blood, too, but not much. Mostly some inane insight into trivial things. 

9: How would you describe your appearance?

I think I’m a bit dark for a Scotsman. Especially when you look at me next to Andrew. Dark brown hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, muscles from riding, rough hands because while we might heal fast, it still takes a bit for all the rough spots from hard work to rub off. I’m about average height, 5′10, but broad around the shoulders and broader in the arms. I’m probably twice as intimidating as I’d like. 10: What’s your style?

Anything I can ride in on the average day or don’t have to worry about getting too dirty and rucked up while still looking functionally professional for my day job. When I’m not working in a professional sphere and my focus is on the pack, I tend to base my wardrobe on whatever will look least out of place and most in step with my alpha. 

11: Who’s your best friend?

I have known Andrew what feels like all my life. I met him when I wasn’t quiet twenty, but we didn’t become friends til later. Sometime before I was twenty five, we were inseparable despite the age gap. I think that was mostly my fault and born out of some childish idolization, but Andrew needed a friend and I was it. We’ve had each other’s back since I suggested he leave his father’s pack. It was a good decision politically and financially, so maybe that’s part of why we’ve stayed close. 

12: Would you ever get a piercing/tattoo?

I’ve considered piercings, I know some wolves who get them, but the earrings have to stay in most of the time. They class with professional fashion most of the time. I did once get an interesting piercing. It was quiet tender and hurt significantly. I took it out when it went out of fashion, but it was fun for the period. I wouldn’t do it again. 

13: When are you happiest?

Probably whenever something has gone borderline horribly wrong and Andrew shows up at my door. I get to pretend I’m deeply confused and a helpless oaf covered in dogs. I always like being covered in dogs and I like Andrew exasperated and angry when it’s nothing that can’t be solved. I would do anything to solve all of his problems, but I love how hot his blood boils between the discovery of a problem and its resolution. It’s bad enough to make me consider inappropriate and counterproductive pranks, but if I started, I probably will get to greedy to stop and just end up watching him raging around his office most of the day.

14: If you could reveal something in this room without consequences, what would it be?

How sad it is to be alone. I have a robust dating life including weekly affairs, I have life long friends, people I would trust with my life. I have the respect and admiration of an alpha I am so honored to call my closest friend and a pack that respects me, though I often can’t see why they trust me so ... and I am alone.  I would live longer than any humans I were to decide to date and the pack is about fifty old white men, rather, to be fair, it isn’t. It’s men and women and children and it’s vibrant. They trust me and I love them. I would do anything to keep the pack safe and to support and protect them, even against Andrew, and yet I have what feels a rare privilege to trust my alpha utterly and completely. I want to love and be loved and wake up each day with someone who can be second in my heart to all that responsibility, while still knowing I love them utterly and I want to be with them always. I’m tired of waking up alone. 

15: What was your first impression of…?

…Ian.

He looks so much like his mother. Sarah died too young and Andrew will never recover from his role in that, but maybe Ian will bring him some peace. He and Andrew seem the same overly dramatic, messy sort who the British elite try to pretend their above, with logic and reason where mostly reason is just whatever they want most. But I also saw a danger, Ian had already killed Robert and if he made attempts towards Andrew, I needed to be there and I needed to be ready to protect Andrew. That wasn’t because I thought Ian would win a fair fight or that even if Ian cheated, he would win a dirty one, but that Andrew shouldn’t have to kill his own nephew after everything with Sarah. Need be, I would do that. 

Tagging anyone who wants to as most of the blogs I follow write primarily fanfiction.

#ask game #original character #my writing

[gascon-en-exil]

On Reclaiming Appropriated Culture, or Why I’m (Mostly) Okay with Disney

I wouldn’t exactly describe this as meta. However, Injygo expressed appreciation for my ramblings on Créole culture, and I’ve recently had some thought-provoking interactions on that score. Because I am who I am, they involved sex.

Last week I was taken out for drinks by another self-identified Créole, one who spoke perfect French on account of a family who for generations continued speaking the language at home through Louisiana’s darkest period of monolingual furor in spite of legal restrictions or any sense of practicality. Over duck and middle-shelf drinks we discussed practically every subject pertinent to the contemporary Louisiana French: the American president (an idiot, but everyone knows that), our relations with Cajuns (not as strong as they could be, but there are people willing to extend the proverbial olive branch), the Québécois independence question (intriguing, but Québec cannot understand the situation in Louisiana very well and will not reach out to us much because we would be of little use), the revival of bilingual education here (it will take decades and considerably more support to come up with any real results), and, naturally, our reasons for meeting. His family is conservative in more respects than language, for he is married with children and engages in discreet liaisons with men on the side - so much the fashion for us. He was surprised to learn that I am a demi-mondain and that moreover I took up this lifestyle with full support from a pragmatic mother weighing the options for seeing her sons settled despite little to nothing in the way of inheritance.

Though we concluded by agreeing that a long-term affair was not in the cards - a little ironically, for because the man knew exactly what a demi-mondain was he also knew that he would not be able to keep me in that style - the evening left me with much to contemplate...after I’d gotten over my mortification at being so demonstrably poor at spoken French, of course. It pleased me a little that I was able to be so fascinating to him in coming from a family that maintained certain aspects of French culture even in absence of the language, making do with what scraps we’ve been able to piece together from how Anglos perceive and represent us. At dinner I demonstrated this through the origin of my obviously not French first name. It was taken from a French character in Ivanhoe, a novel in English written by a Scotsman that uses the French during the Norman conquest as an allegory for the Anglos’ treatment of Scotland. Confusing, yes, but meaningful, and a roundabout way for my mother to take something from a book she’d read in high school and make it relevant to us. I can think of a few other relatives who’ve done similar things, from an uncle who once brought together a traditional ménage à trois arrangement with his wife and her lover, a cousin once removed who turned into a laughable home-schooling dévote for whom even Catholic school was apparently not Catholic enough presumably out of insecurity over marrying for wealth rather than heritage, and even my famous grand-uncle photographing the prostitutes of early 20th century New Orleans as an expression of the kind of sexual license that is nothing to us but that makes Anglos cry.

All this brings me then to Disney. In what may or may not be a trend for me going forward of taking inspiration from Youtubers I recently watched a video by Linsday Ellis (formerly the Nostalgia Chick) on Disney’s appropriation and historical revisionism. Her thesis centers on Saving Mr. Banks and the real story of the film adaptation of Mary Poppins, but as part of her argument she cites other works in the canon as examples of Disney stripping historical and cultural context from the source material is order to make a more universally applicable - and marketable - product: their Cinderella, for example, is no longer a French fairy tale but a “Disney fairy tale,” with the strong connection to Anglo-American pop culture that that moniker entails. It’s obvious to point out, but it did cause me to reconsider the ways that I’ve been pulling not just meaning but culturally-specific meaning from Disney’s French-inspired films. When I was very young I wasn’t thinking about cultural (re)appropriation of course; I was simply connecting with Cendrillon/Cinderella more closely than I was with other Disney protagonists because I related to the experience of an abusive, formerly wealthy family willing to do anything to survive. It was only later that I was able to pick up on the cultural elements and make comparisons both to the source material of these movies and to other adaptations, including French ones ex. the two French film versions of La Belle et la Bête. When I got these movies on DVD for the first time I watched them dubbed in French, primarily because that’s an easy way to improve listening comprehension but also I think in part because it was a way for me to add some of the relevant cultural context back to these stories. 

They’re still Disney movies at the end of the day, but as I explained to my date I’m used to that now. Whether it’s William Faulkner, George Washington Cable, Tennessee Williams, Anne Rice, or Kate Chopin (partially) Créoles have had to grow accustomed to Anglos and other non-French New Orleanians telling our stories for us, or else being conflated with Cajuns on account of their more unified collective history and trauma - even one of my Québécois friends once linked to me on Facebook Jean Arceneaux’s bilingual poem “Schizophrénie linguistique,” apparently unaware that it’s much more of a Cajun cultural artifact. One learns to get by on these scraps, and occasionally to make them one’s own. God knows I’ve done that for the perception that we’re all mentally unstable, to say nothing of how my upbringing has opened new avenues to explore my sexuality and perform my gender both in and out of the bedroom. I’m still deeply envious of that man’s fully French-speaking upbringing, but I have my own advantages.

#New Orleans Créoles #Kind of like meta #My sexcapades #And stuff about cultural appropriation and reappropriation #Seriously I don't really know what this is

[forestbathing-studies-blog]

. the effects of fire, human clearance and grazing probably limited forest cover to about 50% of the land area of Scotland even at its maximum. The stock of woodland declined alarmingly during the First World War and at the end of the war the Acland Report recommended that Britain should secure a strategic reserve of timber. The Forestry Commission was formed to meet this need. State forest parks were established in 1935.[10][11][12][4]

Emergency felling controls had been introduced in the First and Second World Wars, and these were made permanent in the Forestry Act 1951. Landowners were also given financial incentives to devote land to forests under the Dedication Scheme, which in 1981 became the Forestry Grant Scheme. By the early 1970s, the annual rate of planting exceeded 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) per annum. Most of this planting comprised fast-growing conifers. Later in the century the balance shifted, with fewer than 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) per annum being planted during the 1990s, but broadleaf planting actually increased, exceeding 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) per year in 1987. By the mid-1990s, more than half of new planting was broadleaf.[7][13]

Historical woodland cover of England. The Domesday Book of 1086 indicated cover of 15%, "but significant loss of woodland started over four thousand years ago in prehistory". By the beginning of the 20th century this had dropped to 5%. The government believes 12% can be reached again by 2060.[14]

In 1988, the Woodland Grant Scheme replaced the Forestry Grant Scheme, paying nearly twice as much for broadleaf woodland as conifers. (In England, the Woodland Grant Scheme was subsequently replaced by the English Woodland Grant Scheme, which operates six separate kinds of grant for forestry projects.)[15][16] That year, the Farm Woodlands Scheme was also introduced, and replaced by the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme in 1992.[17] In the 1990s, a programme of afforestation resulted in the establishment of Community Forests and the National Forest, which celebrated the planting of its seven millionth tree in 2006

The writer must seek isolation, whether he or she likes it or not. So I walk through the forests and hills back to my train, marveling that yet again I found my way. Through Matsuo Bashō, veritable father of haiku, we learn that the true writer does not lead a sedentary life, and indeed must walk in order to express his or her syllables. Bashō walked for 156 days through Japan in his legendary 'Deep Road to the Far North' series of haibun that defined the term. Japan still remains a heavily forested country – at least 70% of the surface is forested. By doing so Bashō also demonstrated that the true haiku and haibun haijin’s tool is not the pen but the wooden staff. Not only does this staff lift branches and part bushes to see the dew drops and flower petals, but it can also be leant on when searching the sky for floating eagles, patterned clouds and drifting cherry blossoms. The wooden staff also taps haiku on a road perfectly, like a variant of morse code to nature; ”win—ter…is…o—ver…my…staff…is…carved…dog…barks…to…each…tap.”

A haibun journey is a pilgrimage, where what happens on the way makes the destination. And the wanderer is not only Quixotic in his, or her nature. A sword of any kind must therefore be put aside for other quests. As haibun merely take from what is walked through on paths onto lines on pages, and a blade only serves to distance the reader from the writer's words. The semiotic staff therefore takes on even more symbolic meaning.

wooden staff— reflected in the shine of samurai sword

Not Don Quixote, nor wandering samurai, then what? Like the Navajo in the south western states, who use wooden tools on mother earth lest they leave scars, I don’t set out to make an impression that might not heal.

samurai’s sword slices candle still stands, and burns and yet…

http://fractalenlightenment.com/16617/life/walk-in-the-forest-to-heal-oneself

Forest holidays. Saudi Arabia date plantation Hofuf Finland

I long for nature’s products. Not the creams from companies with names like Natura, or Flower, Plantigen, with pictures of flowers or berries on the front, and packed with goodness knows what chemicals in a plastic container ultimately destined for the garbage dump. Lies on the cover and junk in the container. Thank goodness  we are finally waking up to the dangers of antibacterial soap and hand gel. And the lack of contact with germs may actually be much more harmful in the long run than we think.

When my copper shop was in full swing before it collapsed and went bust, we were trying to persuade health authorities to change door handles, kidney bowls, keyboards and other items to copper surfaces. There is no better antimicrobal surface in the world. None. Southampton hospital is changing door handles to copper or brass ones — brass is a copper alloy. If all hospitals in GB did the same it is estimated 20,000 lives a year would be saved. That is a serious estimate. Of course more lives would be saved if doctors did not wear ties, which hang down on one patient then onto the next.

We also developed an entirely natural gel we called Yakutia ● Copper Honey, then Yakutia ● Copper Dew, put into aluminium tins. Medical organisations use zinc creams for scar tissue reparation — and zinc shares very similiar properties as copper, except that these days copper receives controversial press. It didn’t use to. Traditionally copper buckets stored water and kept it fresh, and traditionally, and accordingly, many less people suffered from arthritis. When I take part in my pilgrimage through Siberia, with no destination, I wear copper insoles in my boots. I want a woolen sweater, not the popular fleece, which has plastic fibres now found in fish from the world’s oceans. I won’t wear the garish coloured technical performance sports shirts that are specially designed for people not on pilgrimages, but rather a hemp shirt and jute bag, both that grow naturally without draining an area of water like cotton does. I long to be properly back in touch with nature.

sunlit waterfall in my wooden cup the taste of a rainbow

I walked for hours, a little of it in the light of dusk, for in Siberia at this time of the year, now that we have passed through the longest night, we now get dusklight for a few minutes a day. I thought some of the snow had melted, and stepped out into the whiteness with less forbearance than usual. But I was misled by my windowpane and it's view, and that in fact between the footprints in the snow lay patches patches of dark, expressionless ice. We are in January. The sun will not rise until 11.00 am and the snow will not melt until June, so what was I thinking about? The deer have not even taken to the ice yet; they can smell the water, and they are still digging in the snow for the last of the Autumn roots, destroying the forests say the rich landowners, but they despise reindeer herders.

The sun will set just after 2:00 pm, though in fact it never really rises over the horizon anymore, but at least it will rise earlier and set later, and then we will no longer remember the almost total darkness for a few weeks, twenty four hours a day. During those days sanity is not a given, but a conscious choice, like an oxygen mask a diver consciously keeps strapped tight as he descends into the depths, ever tempted though, to succumb to the belief that he can breathe in the deep blue, like those here believe they can survive winter with a bottle and by keeping their watch off, or that they can walk home alone without being tied to another, so that in a blizzard they will only be found the next morning, if it is morning. The mist swirls around me like yesterday's troubles and tomorrow's uncertainties, making the horizon, like time, blurred. I am reminded of The Beatles, and The Glass Onion, and hum it without soul, ‛We fooled you all, the walrus was Paul..’ Winter goes on and on, motionless, humourless, and no longer virginal.

I arrived at my destination at dusk to pay a visit to a family of Bosnian refugees I knew from the old days. Arriving at dusk means arrived at about 1.45 pm and stayed for a cup of coffee, then set off for my train station again, for hours of walking in the winter dark can be a risky affair if one stumbles.

So why did you come so far

‛So why did you come so far, all my daughters are married!’ joked my Bosnian friend.

‛I’m on a haibun pilgrimage,’ I said, ‛walk, write, walk, write.’

He paused, nodding his head and stroking his chin: ‛Pilgrims and refugees are both the same,’ he said.

northern lights at the edge of the city nature whispers in colour

pots, pans and unknown medical cures. But not everyone is only a trader. A Siberian ethnic Yakut, distinguished by his weatherbeaten Asiatic features and headband takes my photograph on an old Kiev medium format camera, spending time to get the composition just right as I sit on my jute duffel bag. He tells me he can send me the photo, in black and white, if I give him my address. I tell him it is ok. I enjoyed my brief stint at fame and don’t need to physically possess the moment.

‛You have a Yakut heart!’ he laughs, confirming my guess at his ethnicity. They say that we are only ever six persons away from knowing any person on this planet, or there are six degrees of separation between us, so that a mazimum of six steps can be used to connect any two persons. The average distance of 1,500 random users in Twitter is 3.435 degrees. I scan the station. The possibilities seem almost endless.

sunlight through windows an orchestra of voices a beautiful departure!

Who has heard of Toliatti and its gulags? About 15 years ago I drank a glass or two of homemade wine on a front porch, with a retired postman who’d walked home from Toliatti, on the Volga. Yes, that’s right, he didn’t walk inToliatti, but from the non-descript decrepid town somewhere on a trainline in the middle of Russia.

Delivering the post had been his job — to the Hungarian eighth army who had invaded the Soviet Union in support of German troops during the Second World War, a not inconsequential fact when you consider the Russian/Soviet determination to ensure that did not happen again by creating the Warsaw Pact countries.

But János delivered mail. He collected it from the train, or trucks and delivered it to the front line troops. This is a more important role than it first appears, for a man cannot fight without news that has loved ones are well.

And love was what made János walk. In the middle of the Second War and the middle of Toliatti, János delivered his mail and kept walking. He walked out of Toliatti, next to the Volga, along the trainline, then through the taiga, through the trees, over the hills, across the river and in the meadows. He walked, and walked and walked, all the way back to Eastern Hungary, to the wine-growing town of Tokaj, back to his wife.

When he arrived back, he discovered his sister-in-law had been taken away, just taken to the gulags. So he turned around and walked, attempting to find her, somewhere in the hugeness that was Siberia. He never found out what happened to her, and only had stories of the bitter cold, and equally bitter sense of defeat.

As I sat in Tokaj, Eastern Hungary, drinking his delicious homemade wine, which he kept in his wine cellar dug into the hillside, I noticed her picture hanging on the wall; a beautiful young woman, the portrait soft in the evening glow. They never saw her again.

János spoke no English but the wine talked. We shared many a glass, glancing at the portrait of the young woman who died in the gulag.

sentenced somewhere deep in Siberia —memories make grapes grow

Fellow Travellers 1

American travellers busy sewing or sticking flags of Canada to bags and shirts is legendary and has almost become de rigeur. It is rare, however, that being an American  is alone an offense, and cetainly not in Siberia. All the same, the three Americans across from me are very  busy plastering Canadian patches on bags and clothing, before practicing the accent with a loy of lilted ‛ays.’

‛I am not sure all the matriachical train station guards in the small towns along the railroad tracks will spot the difference,’ I say.

‛Hey man, you gotta do what you gotta do,’ says one of the three,

‛Where’s Snowden anyway?’ says the other male, ‛I’d like to meet him, maybe even bring him in. There must be some kind of reward.’

‛Well, Canadians wouldn’t be saying that,’ I said, ‛and you never know what kind of microphones they have on trains.’

The two American males went quiet in contemplation, a silence broken only by the pretty sight of the slipping out of her flip flops and painting her toenails bright red.

‛I’d do this in the bathroom normally,’ she chuckled.

She was from Florida, and wasn’t exactly sure where the train was heading.

‛All the way to Vladivostok,’ I answered.

‛And no cute guys,’ she said.

She was good-looking in a disharming sort of way, with strawberry blonde hair, but as such did not stand out in the carriage, aside from her flip flops which set her apart from the high heels worn by the Russian women on the train. Inside the compartment it was too warm as usual in eastern Europe, but most passengers kept their sweaters on regardless, as if judging the temperature by the view outside, where patches of snow flashed by under the fir trees.

Linda put her heels on the seat beside me across from where she sat. ‛I could paint a little white maple leaf on,’ she giggled.

At a small station her two friends dashed off to restock on food, eschewing the fresh pine pastries being sold from baskets on the platform and buying instead overpriced stale buns in plastic packets from the buffet.

‛They even asked if we were American, man,’ said the taller of the two returning.

‛Only the mosquitoes weren't fooled,’ said the other.

http://www.myminnesotawoods.umn.edu/2012/03/the-memory-of-trees-in-a-modern-climate-epigenetics/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3586649/

I learn two things today. First that the population of Perm and the surrounding area are the closest of the Irish along with the Basque in Spain and France.

But I also find out that about 150,000 inmates were imprisoned in more than 150 camps in the Perm region during the late 1940s. This was about a third of the working population of the region.

Perm-36 Labour Camp

Daily Schedule of a Gulag Prisoner Time Activity

6:00 AM Wake up call

6:30 AM Breakfast

7:00 AM Roll-call

7:30 AM1 1/2 hour to march to forests, under guarded escort

6:00 PM1 1/2 hour return march to camp

7:30 PM Dinner

8:00 PM After-dinner camp work duties (chop firewood, shovel snow, gardening, road repair, etc.)

11:00 PM Lights out

Yekatinberg

We are on a journey this month, my partners and I, through Siberia, though the further down the train tracks we travel, the more opens behind us. I, myself, am searching for the Russian soul, that unique, raw soul, with all its flaws worn on its sleeve, where the vodka spills.

Today, we are in Yekatinberg, in the footsteps of Coelho’s words and of the Urals. I feel immediately at home stopping here on this journey, among these mountains outside Yekatinberg’s eastern balconies in pine-scented forests again. I am not a man of the pencil line horizon. So I walk upwards, to the nearest peak, to compose my haiku.

high in mountain forests where even shadows don’t reach nature inspires through silence

Tyumen

In Siberia at last, home to so many who live with nature. Winter is when traps are laid, and fresh water comes from holes dug deep in the ice. Soon the bears will be out again, and hungry, though a bear makes fine food. It is not possible to chase them away when fishing. They will always come back, so must be shot.

In a few months the leaves will shimmer in the breeze. In Tyumen I will only see the fort from far. I feel at home among the birch and pine trees.

Tyumen fort shines at night but I shine among the birch trees that rustle with such longing

pine trees gently sway is it the wind blowing or is it my mind?

I looked over at Linda, now applying another colour of nailpolish. I imaged her taking a few barefoot steps with snow melting.

she walks in the snow until the grass at the edge of spring

early blossoms are late how thoughtless yet another haiku about snow

Acrobats

I have come to the singular conclusion that a view must be merited, that it is a right that must be earned, and that this should be our quest. Working hard for a view of the world does not mean the same as slaving away for years for a front porch, in order to be able to sit there, gazing endlessly across a stretch that slowly develops into other front porches. On the contrary.

Ob

across river Ob endless taiga nothing else matters

For four hundred years thousands of mammoth tusks have been found in Siberia, from mammoths almost intact, with many organs perfectly frozen and stomachs half full of food - at times the blood still viscuous due to the 'anti-freeze' components found in the blood, so called cryptoprotective properties, as in Arctic amphibians and fish. But why so many in Siberia remains a real mystery. Why did millions of the woolly mammoth move to the cold in Siberia, and how did they die so quickly after eating? Did a massive cold front move suddenly from the Arctic? That would be a climatic condition that does not exist today. If this is the case, it would have been very cold - freezing a mammoth suddenly and quickly is no easy thing at all. It would have taken temperatures as low as -100C. The mystery is far from solved...

fifty thousand mammoth tusks found deep in Yakutia I step on ancients

Novosibirsk

with all its philosophical and spiritual messages. One of the messages is the exploration of Tengriism, which will happen here on this blog to further depth over the next few days, as our train ride through Siberia continues.

Some you reading this have shaman blood, but you do not know it – yet. I once journeyed with a shaman, taking an inner journey as well one that saw many miles rush under wheels. In many ways I am still on that journey, though already I miss my log cabin of an ever-deepening late winter, the dry, powdery cold and morning ice crystals on the window panes playing with light as I stumble around getting breakfast after yet another night without vodka and morning without hangover.'

I find the coffee, and now feel like the luckiest man alive, with Yenisei on the journey too, and the opportunity to roast some coffee on the charcoal dawn fire and serve it to her, as she purrs herself awake and unwraps herself, naked, from the fur.

charcoal from the embers she becomes my winter tiger nude and hot with stripes

I find it difficult in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, and do not need to be in the capital of anywhere. Soon she will show me how to draw the birch sap from the trees, and I will literally taste the taiga.

within a ring of fire a story is warmed deep in Siberia

Yenisei

among the pine trees only one set of footprints- mine

It is a long way. Much of the railroad has been laid by the bare hands of prisoners from labour camps, whose prison was Siberia itself. Gulags rarely needed fences or guard towers. Escapees were never going to get far. And the railroad still crushes the bones of those who perished building it.

Not everyone who laid down rail lines in Siberia was a prisoner. Many volunteered, and even stayed afterwards. Those people have a special inner peace about them. An understanding of nature, and a deep respect, too. They are people who prefer the numbing colds of winter to the pleasant summers, full of unforeseen dangers and reckless laziness.

Winter is a time when travel is often easier, across solid lakes and rivers and through frozen forests. It is a time when hospitality is offered, and when bears are not around near villages, nor dangerous ticks and bothersome mosquitos in swampy, muddy forests.

And life is more bare in winter, survival more of a test. It is first an appalling mix for the novice, but soon an appealing one. The sense of freedom is like nothing ever experienced elsewhere, and maybe all the more so because it is worked so hard for.

Freedom in the land of gulags. It is an interesting thought. But for all its history of brutality and horror, Siberia is a vast, mystical land, of shamans who reach where the church or mosque doesn't, and where temperature plunges so low that cement or metal foundations of buildings are useless next to the hardy wooden ones of the taiga, thus proving, once again that nature wins.

inhaling pine scent calmed by the breeze rustling trees spirits of the wild

A Prophecy

Up near the Arctic Circle, there is magic afoot at this time. We know here, that Santa was a shaman in his big black boots, collecting the Fly Agraic mushroom, red with white dots from the forest, and feeding it to his reindeer then drinking the mix when their livers had removed the toxins, or putting them in a big sack and later hanging them to dry above the fireplace. And these magic mushrooms that grow under the fir trees, with ethereal fertilisation, are symbolised now with the draping of silver-coloured tinsel over the so-called Christmas tree, in reality the world tree, the tinsel symbolising sperm.

Of course, after eating the magic mushrooms the deer fly, and Santa laughs, with red cheeks. The Siberian tribal and Saami people's myth of the world tree is real. If you would like to treat yourself to one of these mushrooms, make sure you boil it first, unless you have any reindeer around. And then come North, and see our northern lights, and watch, touch our magic, none-materialistic world. Just remember the Swedish saying, 'there is no cold weather, only cold clothes.'

northern lights the magic world speaks shaman inspired

Therapy from another culture

Almaty

If I remember right, when I was working in Kazakhstan, I measured the country to be as wide as Ukraine to Portugal. Hearts pretty much as wide too.

For Kazakhs, hospitality is a tradition learnt from deep within. A guest into a Kazakh home is welcomed with a cup of Kazakh tea; fragant, with indefinable and potent herbs — potent because there must be something in it to have your mind soon dreaming of never ‘’returning home’’, and of putting your own yurt in the grasslands next to the forested mountains.

It is a country of the future, possibly to rank alongside China and Brazil. Sudden new buildings seem to slide up from nowhere, almost, in the bare steppes of Northern Kazakhstan, in the new capital Astana. Almaty retains its former grandeur as capital, greatly aided by the mountains around it, where cool pine trees border paths. Yet each building’s modern, intricate design often reflects a homage to the past. The golden egg building is one, with the Kazakh theme of start of civilisation, and other buildings use much of the Kazakh connection to wildlife and nature as influence.

But I worked far from Astana, at an oil refinery near Tengiz, in Eastern Kazakhstan, somewhere far from anywhere. In the evenings the Kazakh women of the base (proud, as Kazakh women are the only Muslem women who do not wear the hijab, or cover their heads, and more Kazakh women are in upper management positions than in North America) would sometimes perform Kazakh folklore, wearing traditional dress and playing local instruments.  

Here is one thing I learnt which I want to share here, as it works: After eating we stood upKazakhs briefly bring their open hands up to their cheeks or neck, flat palms facing the body and about 2'’ or 5 cms or so away from the body. They bring their palms down slowly past the chest down past the stomach and then away from their body in a wide downward movement. The action takes about 5 seconds, and can be repeated. It can also be done at any time, though definitely works well after eating: without any question of a doubt it aids digestion and brings a relaxed, yet ‘’perked-up’’ feeling.

When I tried to climb the Mont Blanc I remember when I took my gloves off, to try to keep the tent pegged into the glacier during a blizzard. I could barely move my fingers. And that was in July in France, in weather so cold I suppose there should not have been a blizzard, except maybe it wasn't. The wind was howling so strongly it may have just looked like one. It swept away my foam mattress, too, which made for a very difficult night, and movement was not possible in waist deep snow and a cliff edge somewhere, even with a headlamp.

in the taiga I long for no more than taiga

Stragglers are we. Thousands of miles over kilometres of bones. All for what? Sometimes, like now, its good to get off before the end of the journey, then the journey does not end.

The traps are set. The night is young. The snow is fresh. I’ve seen the tracks. The conditions are difficult for the elk right now. The snow is not strong enough to support elks, so they often get stuck, making easy meat for hungry wolves and awakening bears. And an elk, or caribou in north America, can provide food for a long time.

Good. I am nearly all out of frozen fish. I set off this morning into the cold snap, lowering temperatures now hovering at minus twenty two degrees. The cat is huddled on the bed in the cabin and frozen wood has been placed onto the fire. I could do with a cup of tea but will have one when I get back.

long polar winter no sunrise or sunset not asleep not awake

Shamans

Shamans, in yurts, teepees, chant their song Resounding rhythm flowing, to the drum Echoes tapped across the wintry sun ☼ And the sun, a pale echo Tipped so far from the horizon in its trance That the snow shines only by moonlight ☼ While the signs that show Spring has come Are still the sounds of the Shaman's drum The shaman, her eyes lit by fire, the yurt by song ☼ So dance, beauty, dance, dance until the sun rises For soon you will chance upon fields of fresh flowers And lie in meadows perfumed by long-melted snows

The Road of Bones

On the Road of Bones you never travel alone. Here breath suddenly freezes, and drops in tiny fragments, tinkling like a wind chime. In this cold words travel no further than a few feet, and they say words themselves freeze when the temperature drops far enough to make metal crack. This is the notorious road built by the prisoners of the Gulags, the torture camps.The road stretches to Magadan on the Pacific ocean, from Yakutsk in Yakutia, a vast mysterious republic within the even larger emptiness of Siberia. A republic that would be the eighth largest country in the world if fully independent, with a population of just 1 Million.

Here in Yakutia the temperature can plunge to -60C, rendering the road a gamble that only those needing to escape a misdemeanor take, or those imbibed with a certain madness. But who would go in summer, when the mud and mosquitoes make escape well nigh impossible and madness well nigh sure?

So the best time to go is in late winter, before the melting of snow and floods, when the cold is loosening its bitter grip - but even then it is dangerous, for when the temperature rises it begins to snow heavily again, after being too cold to snow during the winter months. And the wolves are hungry by then. And I mean hungry. Last winter a pack of 400 wolves killed 300 horses before they were finally driven away. But we gamble. We leave behind the rugged Yakutians who want us to stay until June, the summer solstice, and the start of the new year in Yakutia, when the republic is full of festivities, and greets the rising sun in the morning as one. We take the Road of Bones, where if voices have really frozen then the painful sounds of the Gulag prisoners is best not heard during the thaw if one is to keep one's sanity.

sun rises ice on pines tinkles in breeze drum - snow from branch hits ground

Ulan Ude is near the Mongolia I always wanted to walk through, and the Kazakhstan I know and like so much. Kazakhstan, perhaps the most tolerant country in the world.

All our thoughts are different in Ulan Ude. It is a chance to explore the Buddhist nature that lies within each of us. I sit facing the last of the taiga, the last birch tree, and compose my haiku.

pine needles make a comfortable rest oh! stinging ants!

And I return to the train. The Tran-Siberian, and stare at the early morning dawn.

Mud

I have seen the draining mud. Like many I played in the creeks for endless childhood hours, vagrantly defying, yet again, rules about set dinner times and sleep in my fantasy of youth, captured and explained now only in my imagination.

But I knew then, as part of my defiance, that mud is glorious, and a natural plaything. In the childhood of our civilisation we knew that too. When I walked the River Nile and sat with villagers for tea they still complained, years later, about the lack of life-giving floods, that used to provide nutrients to the parched and starved land, now changed in the name of control and real estate by the river, but for the select few.

And sitting in fountain square, in Baku, Azerbaijan, I learn from my Bengali friend, recently escaped from the latest Bangladesh flooding, how harmful the dykes and walls we built through the past generations have been, how these blockades were cleverly-designed to contain the rising waters from the Himalayas. Now the rivers rise no more. They spill, and rush over the walls suddenly, when there is barrier no more at a certain height, a masse of water spreading miles wide, all at once.

It is perhaps the same people who always carry umbrellas who conceive of the notion of blocking nature, the ones who want to disinfect themselves from the pleasure of kicking a puddle just to see. They, the seekers of sand beach and cement house can only think vertically, and can only watch a sunset from the umpteenth floor of an office insulated from the earth where it sprouted.

In the creek across a field now of memories I too made little boats from leaves and twigs and watched them float downriver slowly, or more quickly  when the rains came. The creek, like my childhood, is no more, and the skill of building the best tiny boat has gone too, from lack of practice or opportunity, replaced instead by plastic models bought with cereal packs full of the latest ways of modifying taste.

But my memories are still fashioned by twigs and trees and leaves, by not avoiding puddles and staying away from the concrete of car-strewn streets wherever I can.

after the storm colourful pieces of sky in mud puddles

The Gobi

When I arrived in Baku 15 years ago, I spent the first night in a caravanserai. There, I bought a chain; a set of prayer beads, in turquoise stone. I say 'bought' but I had no local Manats, the Azeri currency.

"No problem," said the street sales man, "pay me when you see me next."

A few weeks later I saw him, in a crowd surrounding the then president Aliev's walk though the old town, near the caravanserai. I paid him, and thus became part of the mutual trust we shared for each other.

in a caravanserai on the edge of the orient I told my own fortune

Chita

I did what he asked, and only opened the small rice paper holding his three lines a few moments ago, in order to finish my passage with the haiku. It was written in Buriat script, so I was forced to call upon a Mongolian friend far in Mongolia, in Ulan Baator, to perhaps translate it. He could not, but in turn called his friend living in northern Mongolia, a Buriat living near Chita, in Ereentsav, to help. His friend told me he had a pair of Buriat winter boots he was sure I might like, and very useful for the cold Lappland winters. In turn I remembered my gortex jacket, bought once in a mountain town but too small for me, and promised to forward it.

The haiku he wrote

rain tinged with sand the storm brings dust from the steppes grasslands lands among me

We often talk about taking the train, but of course, the train takes you, just like a dream does. Everytime one steps up the steps of a train carriage, one steps into a dream.

on the train deep into the soul of Siberia we share bread and dreams

The ice patterns blown onto plants are more beautiful than the flowers that briefly bloom in summer, and more fragile. But my journey into Siberia brought me equally tender and graceful moments. They are moments on the landscape of my mind that is the memory of a journey, ever eastwards from Moscow. We passed through many temples that passed through different moments in history themselves, and are in reality only remnants, reminders of former days and ideas. For the true Siberian religion is shamanism, and it is not possible to travel through the Siberian taiga without meeting a shaman, and without taking another journey into the spirit world without one of the shamans encountered on a muddy village path, or up in a grassland meadow.

I know shamanism well from the Saami people in Lappland, and indeed fell in love with a shaman once, and travelled far with her. But that is a story I have recounted elsewhere. Still now, though, I find female shamans are able to reach further into the sky, and  shamanism is a part of Tengriism, with its spiritual home of Kazakhstan, but also Yakutia, in the north.Tengriism is the religion or philosophy of open spaces. No traveller or journey man or woman can remain untouched by its simple and compelling spirituality.

to know your path follow the shadows of the tracks above you

Amur

Amur sounds like 'Amour' in French, which means Love, and is a most-fitting theme as we near the end of our journey. Amur, love, mila, in Latvian, uthando, in Zulu, liubav, beautifully, in Croatian, like Russian. And then I remember it is 'rakkaus,' embarrassingly, in Finnish, and I understand the lack of romance in that country, that I left behind in my thoughts. In Swahili it is upendo, Polish miłość, echoing somewhat nearby Latvia. In Javanese it is katrasen, which disappoints somewhat. In Khmer it looks the nicest, ក្ដីស្រឡាញ់, and I think of languages like Persian, Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin, and their beautiful calligraphy, and reflect on how important that art is.

I look at the flow of the Amur, nature's caligraphy, alive, moving, even though frozen on the surface now. But it is underneath that I took my journey, that we took our train into Siberia. I know I will be back. Back to watch the sun rise over the sparkling untouched snow, and carve its rays through the trees of the taiga, when I will be able to unwrap my haiku by hand with my wooden staff, onto the sandy banks of the river that sounds like love to some.

haiku not yet inscribed -promised for a return journey then drained into sand

There is always one person willing and able to break the mold, one who has that rebellious soul, and sometimes I am lucky enough to meet them. Each time I do, I recognise that innate need to step forward, or even sideways, to walk out of step or in another direction. They carry me. For them I will do everything, and they are much more rare than you think. They are not the ones who tell you they speak their own mind in a self-satisfied grin, but are instead the ones of small gestures at significant moments.

There was the Russian soldier I knew who had served in the Gobi desert and Afghanistan, who had a permanent karate tic, that is to say he was always chopping the air suddenly, in supermarkets and other not-natural karate chop environments.

We lived together, rather ludicrously, in the Russian embassy in Budapest - a long story if there ever was one, and our job was a little more ludicrous; to look after some high-spending Ukrainian teenage girls who thought we were the two most uncool people walking the civilised streets of bourbonville, but as they seemed impeccably connected all the way up to president Yeltsin of Russia, we remained uncoolly present, and very uncool to any cool young men who approached them, which made us even more uncool in the Ukrainian pink-outfitted teenage eyes, which further developed my Russian ex-soldier friend's karate tic, and wiped supermarket shelves of produce alongside the Danube river that cuts Buda from Pest. Those were uncommon days.

Three years later he called me from Korea, where he was studying ancient medicine similar to acupuncture, but with tiny burning pots, to congratulate me on the birth of my first daughter of three in Aberdeen, Scotland. How he got my number, or knew where I was, who knows.

there are people to meet while we walk that make it important to walk

one eagle in the blue sky

one wolf among the trees

one heart beat

hawk flies free but hunts for his master who feeds him

Vladivostok

Vladovostok is the kind of city I would like to arrive in at dawn. There has always been something fascinating about this last city on a train line one could start in Portugal if one so desired, and finish here, with a few waits on station platforms in-between.

In Vladivostok we are near the North Korean border but also near to Japan. Imagine, though, travelling through the whole of Russia, of Siberia, and arriving here, in this mysterious city. One does not immediately think of beginning another journey, and on the Trans Siberian we skirt close to Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan, they must be experienced too.

For now I would be satisfied to sit on a bench facing the Pacific. And I remember Irina, in Western Ukraine in 1991, joking with me about coming on the Trans Siberian, when the price was a carton of Malboro cigarettes, and smiling when I said "Vladivostok or bust!"

hello Irina! I am here at last, facing the sea -without you

her beauty

thousands of miles away

in the immediacy of my mind

It is said the if Bill Gates needed to assign someone to a complex, arduous project, he would give it to a lazy person, because they would simplify it to the easiest level.

Edward de Bono advocated an even easier step; including random factors into the problem to force thought patterns that are not the norm. Costs too high? Here, bring them down using this orange in the equation. Travel does that. Each next corner is different, and therefore subject to creativity and inspiration.

Into Ukraine

I dream of wheatfields, golden, waving slowly in the breeze, the sky spotless, and so blue, of embroidered sleeves, fingers with cherry red nailpolish ripping a chunk of bread, and dippping it in salt before handing it to me. I dream of mountains where carts trundle up mountain lanes, and pastures are decorated with haystacks yielding to the horizon, and pine trees linger next to their aroma on mountain paths. I dream of the Black Sea, in a world where simple enjoyments still have a meaning, of shashlik, of people who have endured a history not many in Europe have, yet remain proud of their almost unique hospitality.

On a geography field trip to Hyères, in the south of France late at night I stood in the sea. Technically, it was not part of the official activities of the school trip, and I stood in nothing except the sea, having removed bathing trunks. My Ukrainian classmate had lifted her flowery skirt up her thighs and walked in, as close to me as she dared raise her skirt, and beckoned. In the sea at waist height, each step was precious, but I joined her, and in fact she let the hems of her skirt drop down as we kissed, and I both learnt about and felt the passion of the Ukraine.

Years later, when I took a troop of Ukrainian college actors around Eastern Europe with a play I had written, called 'How to catch a man,' a tragicomedy, I stayed on to teach a while in a Western Ukraine fresh from the dissolved Soviet Union, and was seduced by the rustic charm of the Carpathian mountains, the people of which I knew as market traders in various countries on the border – in Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and what is now Serbia, selling all their household belongings in that turbulent era, rugs, shawls, knives, forks, samovars, skis, toothbrushes, jams that exploded from jars, barometres crafted in solid wood and gas masks from a variety of wars.

I bought the ornate samovars, plates, barometres and jugs, and an orange-coloured wine, which I sampled in the middle of a street with my Californian Chuck Norris-like US Peace Corps pal, newly returned from a tour of the country himself, in which he'd stayed with gypsies and nearly returned married. So thrilled was I with Ukraine, even its dangerous mafia, that I planned to set up a business in Sevastopol. It never happened, but I visited Odessa and L'viv, and of course Kiev, and now approaching a grey and silver age, I knew I had to again visit the country that had been so much in the news and in my life. and as we drove towards the border I sat note book in hand, pen ready, I felt the exitement of journeys old, and this one, new, to a country that had sealed my interest with its first kiss, thigh-deep on a beach at midnight in the south of France, all those years ago.

She returned to the Ukraine from Canada, as some maybe do.

1

`Ah, well done man!´ I said, in tailor-ruffled white suit, as my fifth piece of luggage, a large heavy chest, was pulled off the steam train onto a platform, where it landed with a clunk. `Smoothly fielded! After all, its full of champers!´

I did not really say that, and only thought it, but then that was really for a start to yet another novel without end, frequent notes in my pockets and bags, like train tickets from long-forgotten journeys with all-too temporary aims.

I would have taken my travels like that in another epoch no doubt, and somehow a travel book set in most eras including this one seem to lend themselves to the romanticm of travel that somehow quickly fizzles out in the reality of plastic bag-lumered crowds waiting at airports around the yet again the same branded fast food joints and industrial beers or that drink that still symbolised freedom in much of Eastern Europe in the early 1990s: Coca Cola.

Thirty years ago, after my first midnight kiss, I would have arrived romantically by train, had the Ukrainian girl herself been foolhardy enough to return to her motherland with me, thus following up on a challenge she had issued. But instead she headed off to Canada, and when I crossed the border in 1991 it was with other teachers in a tiny minivan, and took an hour to scrape through, as one did in Eastern European borders at that time.

This time we arrived by car, with author and photographer Ese Kļava as my translator and journey companion, though having read her fascinating book, Butterfly Thy Name, I was worried if I could pull off the literary conversation that might arise, as well as the raw intimacy that could be covered should her book be broached, which covered her innermost desires, all substantially more revealing than my baptising Ukrainian midnight kiss.

Ese was disarmingly frank. `I have an idea that half Ukrainian, half Georgian would be an exciting, exotic mix,´ she declared.

I met Ese in Burgas, Bulgaria, where she was writing her current bestseller.

`I think will need to base my main character on you,´ she said by way of introduction, `as we'll be spending time together.´

`But you'll have to drop your pants. It 's an integral part of the book.´

`And an integral part of me,´ I said.

`I'll use that line if you're not careful!´ she said.

While I proofread her manuscript she drove up through Bulgaria.

`Ah, well done man!´ I said, in tailor-ruffled white suit, as my fifth piece of luggage, a large heavy chest, was pulled off the steam train onto a platform, where it landed with a clunk. `Smoothly fielded! After all, its full of champers!´

I did not really say that, and only thought it, but then that was really for a start to yet another novel without end, frequent notes in my pockets and bags, like train tickets from long-forgotten journeys with all-too temporary aims.

I would have taken my travels like that in another epoch no doubt, and somehow a travel book set in most eras including this one seem to lend themselves to the romanticm of travel that somehow quickly fizzles out in the reality of plastic bag-lumered crowds waiting at airports around the yet again the same branded fast food joints and industrial beers or that drink that still symbolised freedom in much of Eastern Europe in the early 1990s: Coca Cola.

Thirty years ago, after my first midnight kiss, I would have arrived romantically by train, had the Ukrainian girl herself been foolhardy enough to return to her motherland with me, thus following up on a challenge she had issued. But instead she headed off to Canada, and when I crossed the border in 1991 it was with other teachers in a tiny minivan, and took an hour to scrape through, as one did in Eastern European borders at that time.

This time we arrived by car, with author and photographer Ese Kļava as my translator and journey companion, though having read her fascinating book, Butterfly Thy Name, I was worried if I could pull off the literary conversation that might arise, as well as the raw intimacy that could be covered should her book be broached, which covered her innermost desires, all substantially more revealing than my baptising Ukrainian midnight kiss.

Ese was disarmingly frank. `I have an idea that half Ukrainian, half Georgian would be an exciting, exotic mix,´ she declared.

1

I met Ese in Burgas, Bulgaria, where she was writing her current bestseller.

`I think will need to base my main character on you,´ she said by way of introduction, `as we'll be spending time together.´

`But you'll have to drop your pants. It 's an integral part of the book.´

`And an integral part of me,´ I said.

`I'll use that line if you're not careful!´ she said.

While I proofread her manuscript she drove up through Bulgaria.

Starý Smokovec was the ideal writer’s retreat. A small town in the Tatra mountains, with clean air, not too much to do except walk, and write, a language that I did not understand but was charming to the ear, and prices that meant I was able to concentrate on the book without worrying about where my next meal would come from.

The Tatra mountains were just right for the writer — easily accessible but out of the way, with those great mountain hikes and lubrication. Even the tea was good. I wrote in all seasons, in chalets and pensions and bars, over garlic soup, cheese and bread. I took trips to Moldavia, in the new Czech Republic, just as Dubček, one of the architects of the 1968 Prague Spring died in a mysterious car crash. I took trips down to Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, where I travelled with false documents as the Serbs in Belgrade tried to get rid of Milosovic and his Lady Macbeth, until the Serb police got rid of me.

Despite an ex-boxer prime minister who arranged to have the country’s president’s son kidnapped, beaten up, and dumped at the border, Slovakia was one of my favourite destinations some 15-20 years ago. More particularly, Starý Smokovec, in the Tatra mountains.

Slovakia was a country with an attitude in the early 1990s. In next-door Hungary the prime minister had just announced he was not prime minister of Hungary, but of all Hungarians; tantamount, just about, to a declaration of war. With its sizable Hungarian minority, history of being invaded by Hungary (the last time in 1968, as fighting strafed the streets of Prague during the Prague Spring), and while Yugoslavia nearby crumbled, Slovakia tensed.

Mercier, the infamous Slovak prime minister, argued for Slovakia joining the newly formed CIS, formed from the ex-USSR, to become the’’richest state in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) instead of the poorest in the European Union, and banned shops using only the Hungarian language on their signs.

I loved the atmosphere of turmoil in Eastern Europe at the time. Writers need tension, conflict and pressure — just ask the Czechoslovak authors who wrote the masterpieces they did under the communist regime, permanently fighting censorship or worse.

But most of all I loved coming to Starý Smokovec. I was in various locations in Eastern Europe in those early years of the decade, but whenever I wanted to add a few more chapters to my burgeoning book, I would head straight for the mountain town for a few weeks, in summer, winter, spring and autumn. I stayed in various different pensions, each one clean, charming, with a table in a room with a view. Considering the pensions started around €5 per night at that time, I was able to spend all my breaks ensconced in a room, coming out for breathtaking walks among trails, or a few Tatran beers, surely the world’s finest beer, if also the most unknown.

I took trips to Romania, during those infamous days when miners were paid to come to Bucharest to crack a few demonstrating student heads open, after the fake ‘revolution’ that got Ceaucescu and his own Lady M out of the way, and I traveled to the Ukraine, with its visas issued not to the day of departure, but hour. Then I returned to Starý Smokovec to write. Those were special days of change.

You might be surprised to learn of another reason: trees maintain a memory of their origin that helps them adapt to their local conditions. In this article I will discuss epigenetics: a novel area of research that pertains to both modern medicine and forestry. So what’s in a tree seed? Tree seed contains DNA, the genetic blueprint of the tree, along with carbohydrates for the developing embryo and a seed coat for protection. But DNA alone does not determine what the tree will look like. Scientists are learning that chemicals bound to the DNA influence how the tree looks and functions. These chemicals are referred to as the “epigenome,” and they function to turn genes ‘on’ or ‘off,’ much like a light-switch. This means you can have genes for a trait, but those genes might not be expressed. In fact, there is a field of science devoted to studies of the epigenome called epigenetics, Latin for “outside the genome.”

Genes are inherited from parents, and the epigenome maintains a “record” of life experiences that you inherited from them. Sounds like a science fiction novel? Here’s the rub: the epigenome shuts genes on or off based on life experiences. For example, a child’s brain is in a heightened state of development and wiring. Life experiences can switch genes on or off through the epigenome, essentially leaving a record on your DNA. The really crazy part about epigenetics is that the “position” of the DNA switches, whether “on” or “off,” can be passed on to their offspring. In this way, your grandparents’ life experiences may influence the way your genes are expressed.  between obesity and diabetes. In medicine, scientists are just beginning to understand these trans-generational links between health and inheritance that complicate studies of disease and susceptibility to disease. The epigenome provides an important mechanism by which experiences are imprinted onto our DNA to help us adapt to modern life.

Back to trees. Trees, like people, experience a huge range of environments during their long lifespan. Unlike people, they cannot run from bad environments, and spend a great deal of energy reproducing to disperse their offspring to better novel environments. In this way, trees are masters at adaptation. Like humans, experiences can be imprinted on seeds. In this case there is an evolutionary advantage at stake: trees imprint clues about the local photoperiod and possibly local temperatures onto developing seeds. Scientists recently, and unexpectedly, observed this mechanism in Norway spruce trees. Scientists in Norway conducted a simple experiment. They selected Norway spruce trees with established pedigrees that reliably produced tree seed adapted for reforestation in the northern part of the country. These parent trees were copied through grafting, and the new grafts were planted into a location farther south. After the trees matured, seed was collected from them and planted back north. Much to their shock, the seed from this southern orchard more closely resembled trees growing in the southern environment than their kin in the northern part of the country. The growth rhythms of the seed from this new southern orchard were more in tune with the day lengths and temperatures of the southern environment. In fact, the seed from this southern orchard was not suitable to plant in the northern part of the country. Genes, assumed to be the blue-print for tree growth patterns, had been trumped by the effects attributable to the epigenome. The scientists later learned that they had just witnessed adaptation due to epigenetics. This was one of the first reports of this phenomenon in trees. The effect was pronounced within a single generation. I had the good fortune to meet one of the scientists at a meeting in Thunder Bay, Canada last summer. I asked Dr. Johnsen how his colleagues accepted the news that he had essentially made a discovery that contradicted Darwin’s basic theories of evolution. Epigenetics works alongside natural selection to provide an additional mechanism for trees, and other organisms, to adapt to their environment. As the climate changes, developing seeds receive environmental cues that allows them to make adjustments to improve their ability to grow in a novel climate. At some point, our climate may change too drastically for

In order to write wtn I decided to live in Chamonix, France, next to the Mont Blanc, highest mountain in Western Europe. I took a job as a mountain refuge warden there for a while, at some 2,000 metres altitude, but soon enjoyed reading the mountains more than a reader would have reading my never-appearing novel, so I moved down to the centre of town as winter set in. I loved Chamonix.

In the town I enjoyed a friendship with the PGHM, the mountain rescue team, a friendship I struck when working at the refuge, and particularly when one night a hammering at the door woke me; a man in a terrible state, having stumbled and jumped down the steep mountain side to the refuge after watching his wife fall over a cliff. The rescue helicopter went up to look with searchlight and found her, but radioed back they could not get near her in the cliffs at night, and that anyway, she had not survived the fall, that much they could see. I had gone up anyway to find her, especially after the helicopter team told me in no uncertain terms not to tell the man his wife had been killed in the fall until morning, as he might very well just step straight over a cliff himself at the news. So I went up the mountain in order to not have to answer his questions, and after a few hours saw she was not in a state of survival, and I waited till morning, standing at the door of the téléphérique, the cable car, to tell him, at which he crumpled onto the floor of the cabin, and the big moustached cabin operator later remarked:

‘’you know Hamish, I would have expected him to fly at you in a rage and hit, beat you.’’

‘’Yeah, great. Thanks.’’

The PGHM had recovered her body and then got into an argument with the local police, who wanted to take the man back to the scene for ‘questioning’.

‘’I’ve seen it before,’’ the station head of the PGHM had remarked: ‘’we’ll have two bodies over cliffs. He’ll jump.’’

There were other solid friendships; with the ski instructor, a woman who had skied down the very difficult Bossons glacier, after walking up with her skis for over eight hours, and who giggled at my British reserve when she and her friend had thrown their tops off to sunbathe at a mountain lake only hours after meeting me; and there was Catherine D’Estivelle, the climber, who that summer had climbed the Aiguille Verte —the Green Needle, alone, over eleven days, bivouacking on the rock face, and the woman who owned the bar that let me keep a tab running all winter, the bakery owning couple who made the freshest bread on the spot, which I ate where it was cooked, and the other mountain people, who regarded the tourists with mild indulgence; the tourists who had a penchant for acting like tourists — you know what I mean, of which perhaps the most touristy were the Swedes, who drank copious amounts of booze but would not touch the water, for fear of it not being pure, who boasted of a clean Sweden while uprooting all the Christmas trees in Viking exuberance and drinking coffee slowly each morning, wearing heavy mountain gear that clinked and jangled and jarred on their nerves.

And I decided to leave. To leave the town I loved. The blue/green late afternoons in the shade of the pine tree slopes of the mountains, the cream mornings of snow-capped mountains between open shutters, the newsagent who gave me my morning newspaper and coffee every morning when I walked through the door, and the mountains, again, and my mountain climbing partners and the seasons.

My last season in Chamonix was late summer, in the Saami definition of eight seasons. I was living my last few weeks in a tent at the bottom of the Mer de Glace glacier, and my morning plunge into the water rushing off the bottom of the glacier brought a new definition to the word cold, as well as embarrassment, when one morning I had jumped in, lay down briefly in the current and clambered out quickly, and heard a ‘’coooeeee!’’, looked left, looked right, looked behind, looked in front, my skin growing red, my vital parts shivered to mere millimetres, and then heard the ‘’coooeee!!’’ again, looked left right front back sideways and finally..upwards, to see a woman on delta wing, circling before landing, and laughing at my lack of restraint.

And the morning I left I met a silver-haired solitary Czech climber, who was hammering nails in his boots and knotting old ropes — his dream happening at last: climbing Mont Blanc, his food with him in cans, his home a tarpaulin over a wire, his happiness complete.

I was going to Oymyakon, the coldest town in the world (lowest temp recorded -71.2ºC/ -96.16ºF) , in Yakutia, Siberia, and chosen because I was sure that sitting in a hut in the coldest town in the world was a sure-fire way of writing, and importantly, completing a book. Immediately I set about planning an expedition through Yakutia, until I remembered it was to write I was going, and to attempt to ensure I was getting myself stuck into a small cabin, with a pile of logs, tea pot and long lost love deep in fur. The last one was not actually a requirement, though it was true that having someone to cook always means a necessary routine can be installed into a writer’s drab existence at the table, which is in reality a window of course. Yakutia, and in particular Oymyakon, fits some requirement’s of a writer’s retreat, but not all: it was exotic, not pricey — the cash flow is going in 1 direction after all, if the book is to be scribed — and the fish can be caught and cooked, a welcomed way to meditate. Oymyakon is a small town, the nature is beguilingly beautiful, but it forces you back to the writing table quickly, and the natives are not too restless. The town is found on the infamous Road of Bones. It does get a sprinkling of tourists, which is nice, and not all are similar to the Norwegians who got stuck and needed rescuing, claiming to be broken down, or the Germans who also got stuck and chose not to leave their vehicle when being rescued to thank the rescuers. (They would have been charged in another country of course, in places like Vancouver, but then would have probably found ways to sue for being charged for stupidity, as some do.) The fact that conditions were harsh, and risky, like the mountains of Chamonix, is something of a bonus for a writer. But it is also a pleasure when the little luxuries are available — bananas were prevalent, which was comforting, because at -55ºC ( -67ºF) they are more useful to hammer nails into wood than a badly made hammer, and don’t stick to the tongue like the head of a hammer does — something I can personally vouch is true, and if you don’t think you look absolutely stupid walking around town, even in Oymyakon, with a hammer stuck to your tongue, then think again. The wolves do hunt at night, and it if true that if the cold mist descends with the plummeting temperature in the deep snow and you are lost, then you have about 15 minutes to unlose yourself and find your way. After that your chances get pretty slim pretty quick, except your chances of being found next morning when the day is clear, a mere few metres to your cabin. But this provides the tension for your novel, so is worth the risk. Did I write the book? Yes. Did I find a cook deep in the fur, in a cabin down the road? The culture in Yakutia is captivating. And for those against fur, I can honestly tell you from experience that artificial fur just shreds; falls apart at those temperatures, and not keeping warm is not a question of fashion. Everything is different in summer though, when they welcome dawn on the longest day of the year at the summer solstice. Travel narrows our horizons — the more we learn about other cultures, the more sure we are about universal truths. And in Yakutia a universal truth is hugging cooks keeps you warm, as long as you compliment the mammoth steaks - tens of thousands of mammoth bones or even frozen mammoths have been found throughout history, so there’s a chance...

Some benefits of Forest Therapy

Lower concentrations of cortisol (indicator of stress)

Increased Natural Killer Cell count (enhanced immune response)

Lower pulse rate

Lower blood pressure

Greater parasympathetic nerve activity

Lower sympathetic nerve activity 

Results of physiological measures show that forest therapy effectively relaxes people’s body and spirit (emotional state).

Heart rate during forest walking was significantly lower than that in the control. Negative mood states andanxiety levels decreased significantly by forest walking compared with urban walking. 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/05/02/national/forest-therapy-taking-root/#.VFiY6DSUdAU

Notes from a train window

A forest cannot be tamed

time is different among the trees

baby milk powder, in Africa, cutting down trees, removes happiness from the equation.

There is no other forest like the pine forest. When I write in my haiku that I fall asleep under the boughs of a pine tree, I mean that can happen for a night, or even during winter, where heavy snow does not make it under the thick boughs that trap the warmth. I am writing a book about the benefits of forests on health, specifically pine forests, and I can honestly say that a few hours spent filtering thoughts through pine branches while dozing off under a tree is a natural way to recharge. Perhaps it is the scent I like most, as well as the gentle grandeur of the pine forest.

seeking comfort

I sleep on a mat of pine needles

I am rejuvenated

Among the many reasons to preserve what is left of our ancient forests, the mental aspects stand tall. The notion that forests have a special place in the realm of public health, including an ability to refresh the weary, is not a new one. Medical doctors, including Franklin B. Hough, reported in early U.S. medical journals that forests have a “cheerful and tranquilizing influence which they exert upon the mind, more especially when worn down by mental labor.” Individuals report that forests are the perfect landscape to cultivate what are called transcendent experiences—these are unforgettable moments of extreme happiness, of attunement to that outside the self, and moments that are ultimately perceived as very important to the individual.

In 1982, the Forest Agency of the Japanese government premiered its shinrin-yoku plan. In Japanese shinrin means forest, and yoku, although it has several meanings, refers here to a “bathing, showering or basking in.” More broadly, it is defined as “taking in, in all of our senses, the forest atmosphere.” The program was established to encourage the populace to get out into nature, to literally bathe the mind and body in greenspace, and take advantage of public owned forest networks as a means of promoting health. Some 64 percent of Japan is occupied by forest, so there is ample opportunity to escape the megacities that dot its landscape.

Undoubtedly, the Japanese have had a centuries-old appreciation of the therapeutic value of nature—including its old-growth forests; however, the term shinrin-yoku is far from ancient. It began really as a marketing term, coined by Mr. Tomohide Akiyama in 1982 during his brief stint as director of the Japanese Forestry Agency. The initial shinrin-yoku plan of 30 years ago was based solely on the ingrained perception that spending time in nature, particularly on lush Japanese forest trails, would do the mind and body good. That changed in 1990 when Dr. Yoshifumi Miyazaki of Chiba University was trailed by film crew from the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) as he conducted a small study in the beautiful forests of Yakushima. It was a test of shinrin-yoku, and NHK wanted to be there. Yakushima was chosen because it is home to Japan’s most heralded forests. The area contains some of Japan’s most pristine forests, including those of select cedar trees that are over 1,000 years old. Miyazaki reported that a level of physical activity (40 minutes of walking) in the cedar forest equivalent to that done indoors in a laboratory was associated with improved mood and feelings of vigor. This in itself is hardly a revelation, but he backed up the subjective reports by the findings of lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in subjects after forest walks compared with those who took laboratory walks. It was the first hint that a walk in a forest might not be the same as a walk in a different environmental setting.

Since then, university and government researchers have collaborated on detailed investigations, including projects to evaluate physiological markers while subjects spend time in the forest. The research team from Chiba University, Center for Environment, Health and Field Services, has collected psychological and physiological data on some 500 adults who have engaged in shinrin-yoku, and a separate group from Kyoto has published research involving another 500 adults. These studies have confirmed that spending time within a forest setting can reduce psychological stress, depressive symptoms, and hostility, while at the same time improving sleep and increasing both vigor and a feeling of liveliness. These subjective changes match up nicely with objective results reported in nearly a dozen studies involving 24 forests—lower levels of cortisol and lower blood pressure and pulse rate. In addition, studies showed increased heart rate variability, which is a good thing because it means the circulatory system can to respond well to stress and can detect a dominance of the “calming” branch of the nervous system (the parasympathetic nervous system).

Forest Therapy, Tree Density and Cerebral Blood Flow

Research has certainly shown that the emotions of pleasure and happiness are elevated with an increase in tree density within specific settings, even in urban settings. The bigger and denser the trees, the higher the scenic beauty scores—up to a point. If trees are too tightly packed—if a trail is too narrow or obscured—the scene becomes foreboding and fear will be increased.

Adding to the strength of the research, in many of the studies, the objective measurements were also recorded in urban environments as a means of comparison. Here, the researchers controlled for physical activity, time of day, temperature, average hours of sunlight, and other factors. In other words, they weren’t stacking the deck by recording the objective measurements in rainy and cold urban settings compared with sunny and warm forest environments. In one study, the researchers went so far as to bring an instrument capable of measuring brain activity out into the urban and forest settings. The time-resolved spectroscopy system (TRSS) device allows for a reading of oxygen use in the brain via the reflection of near–infrared light off red blood cells. The Japanese researchers found that 20 minutes of shinrin-yoku (compared with 20 minutes in an urban setting) altered cerebral blood flow in a manner that indicated a state of relaxation. More specifically, the total hemoglobin (as found in red blood cells) was decreased in the area of the prefrontal cortex while in the forest setting. Hemoglobin levels are jacked up in this area during anticipation of a threat (stress) and after periods of intense mental and physical work—complex equations, computer testing, video game playing, exercise to exhaustion. So essentially, a decrease in levels means the brain is taking a time-out while in the forest. Although sedatives are also known to reduce activity in this area of the brain, they can have detrimental influences in cognition. Stress hormones can compromise immune defense; in particular, the activities of frontline defenders, such as antiviral natural killer cells, are suppressed by stress hormones. Since forest bathing can lower stress hormone production and elevate mood states, it’s not surprising that it also influences markers of immune system strength. Qing Li and colleagues from the Nippon Medical School showed that forest bathing (either a day trip or a couple of hours daily over three days) can have a long-lasting influence on immune markers relative to city trips. Specifically, there were marked increases in the number of natural killer cells, increases in the functional activity of these antiviral cells, and increases in the amount of intracellular anticancer proteins. The changes were noted at a significant level for a full week after the trip. The improvements in immune functioning were associated with lower urinary stress hormones while in nature. None of this was observed during or after the comparison city trips. As mentioned, the reduction in stress is almost certainly at play in the improvement of immune defenses. However, the natural chemicals secreted by evergreen trees, collectively known as phytoncide, have also been associated with improvements in the activity of our frontline immune defenders. Li has measured the amount of phytoncide in the air during the studies and correlated the content to improvements in immune functioning.

This is an interesting finding in the context of the century-old reports on the success of the so-called forest cure in tuberculosis treatment. In the mid- to late 1800s, physicians Peter Detweiler and Hermann Brehmer set up sanatoriums in Germany’s pine forests, as did Edward Trudeau in the Adirondack forests of New York. All reported the benefit of the forest air; indeed, contrary to expectations, the results seemed to be magnified when the forest air trapped moisture. There was speculation among the physicians of the time that pine trees secreted a healing balm into the air, and in yet another twist of the shinrin-yoku studies, the existence of an unseen airborne healer is being revealed.

Shinrin-yoku is alive and well today; the word has entered the Japanese lexicon. At present there are 44 locations approved as “forest therapy bases.” These are sites that have been not only the subject of human research indicating benefits to stress physiology; a team of experts from the Japanese Forest Therapy Executive Committee ensures other criteria are met before designation, including accessibility, accommodation (if remote) cultural landmarks, historical sites,, variety of food choices, and comfort stations. Chiba University’s Miyazaki, who played a massive role in taking shinrin-yoku from a throwback marketing concept to credible preventive medicine intervention, continues to perform research and is now looking at the physiological effects of time spent in Tokyo’s major urban parks.Since Ulrich’s original observation, there have been additional studies confirming that the mere presence of flowering and foliage plants inside a hospital room can make a difference. Specifically, in those recovering an appendectomy and randomly assigned to a room with a dozen small potted plants, the use of pain medications was significantly lower than that of their counterparts in rooms with no potted plants; they also had lower blood pressure and heart rate, and rated their pain to be much lower. As well, those who had plants in their rooms had comparatively higher energy levels, more positive thoughts, and lower levels of anxiety.

Since a view of nature or a few potted plants can influence subjective and objective measures of stress, and maybe get us out of the hospital faster, it seems likely that nature can keep us out of the infirmary to begin with. The first indication that this might be the case was in the reporting of architect Ernest Moore in 1981. In examining the annual sick records of the State Prison of Southern Michigan, he noticed there was a glaring difference in health-care utilization based on cell location. Specifically, those inmates housed in the cells facing outside to a view of green farmlands and forests had far fewer visits to the medical division than did those inmates housed in the inner half, with a view of an internal concrete yard. In addition:

Norwegian research shows that having a plant at or within view of an office workstation significantly decreases the risk of sick leave. A 2010 study from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, reported that levels of anger, anxiety, depressive thoughts, and fatigue all reduced over a three-month period, and not just by a little bit—these parameters were reduced by about 40 percent, while reported stress was down by 50 percent. On the other hand, those without the stress buffer of a visible plant indicated that stress levels rose over 20 percent during the study.

• Installing plants within a radiology department of a hospital reduced short-term sick leave by 60 percent.

• Research published in 2008 in the Journal of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science showed that greening select high school classrooms with potted plants for a four-month trial period significantly reduced visits to the infirmary compared with age-matched students attending classes without the visible plants.

In Chechnya if you are not mafia the chicks don’t dig you. The capital of Chechnya is Grozny, and the Grozny football team, run by some mafia head who may also be president of Chechnya, one forgets these days, tends to win most of it’s home games. Getting into the stadium is not exactly easy, with all the machine guns around — bodyguards, security, police, passerbys with machine guns. Since the guy who runs the team, who also has mafia written all over his black shirt black tie black sunglasses black Mercedes Benz, and may also be president of Chechnya, is very rich, some very famous stars play for Grozny, and pledge absurd alliance to this poor, developing football team. Brazilians, Africans, ex-European footballers of the year. They train thousands of kilometers away somewhere in Russia then fly in for home games and fly out again immediately. They just love the club of course, in a wry sort of way.

That’s Chechnya, and if you don’t have cash bulging out your pockets you grow a beard like the kind they would not dare in some Arab countries, and then pretend you don’t care if the chicks don’t dig you and take to the hills, where if you shout ‘freedom for Chechnya!’ loud enough and proclaim faith to a god you did not find before at the bottom of a bottle of vodka, then someone somewhere will subsidise you, not necessarily some disparate Arab group, who know you do not fully understand what Jihad means, but perhaps even a spy agency from a land yonder who likes the idea of you harassing Russians.

Some of that changed, after Beslan, where nearly 1,000 people were held hostage without water for 3 days in North Ossetia, Russia, a part of Russia that has a dialect of Iranian as the regional language. The Chechyans, who arrived fully armed for the siege and easily bribed their gunladen way passed police check points, then massacred a few hundred fleeing victims, nearly 200 of them poor children, during a totally bungled-up and quite disgraceful attempt by police and army to break the siege. Chechyans were no freedom fighters; they were really bad guys.

Being a really bad guy in the Caucasus Mountains, where Chechnya is located, puts you in good company; it’s where Stalin was born in nearby Georgia, and for that matter Sadam Hussain was born only 300 kilometers away. But it’s also a beautiful area of the world. “When God was handing out land for different countries,” they say in the Georgia, ‛he forgot about us, because we were eating and drinking and dancing when we should have been queuing up for our land. Since he’d already given all the land he had to give, he was forced to give us the special parts he was reserving for himself.”

And in the Caucasus refusing a gift can start a war. Name two republics there and they’ve probably fought each other. It’s where the world’s first Christian nation is located, and the first holocaust of the last century. Near the mountains is Kolmykia, the only Buddhist republic in Europe they say, where chess is taught as a school subject, but the rest of the countries and republics are divided between variants of Christianity or Islam, and often a mix, where traditions include bride kidnappings, when the woman is plucked off the street by a gentleman on a horse, or worse, and instantly is therefore married to him, or these days bundled into a black Mercedes.

Paganism has long been associated to the worship of trees - and particular trees have been allocated different roles, almost similar to the role of a saint in the Catholic religion.

  Quite rightly, too. Place your palm against a tree trunk and feel the energy. What if the energy is coming from you, and not the tree? So what, it is flowing - and what if you feel it is only your imagination? Even better, for imagination is more important than intelligence. And that comes from Einstein so don't take it up with me.

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Grand Bisous

I am so grateful for my amazing, eight month long study abroad experience in Strasbourg, France. I met some great people and made friendships that will last a lifetime. I saw places in the world, I never thought I would see at such a young age. I have grown, personally and have learn many life lessons. Studying abroad is the best decision I have ever made in my life, and I am so thankful to my family and Bowling Green State University for allowing me this opportunity. For those of you thinking about studying abroad--DO IT! You will not regret it. But first, after reflecting on my time in Europe and my experiences (and even some regrets), here are sixteen tips, I think you will find useful.

1. Appreciate your host city/country

Get to know your host city/country, especially if you’re spending a long time abroad. This place will become your home. Learn about it’s history, it’s culture, it’s food. I love Strasbourg, it is truly such a diverse city. I especially fell in love with it’s Germanic culture and Christmas markets. I also, really love France! It’s crazy to see so much geographic diversity in one small country. I absolutely love the culture and I can’t wait to explore more of this amazing country in the future. Give your host city and host country the love it deserves! You don’t know what you have until it’s gone!

2. Travel alone/in a group/with an old friend/with a new friend

Travelling in all these different settings gives you a unique experience. I traveled alone, a lot and I really enjoyed that, because I had the freedom to do what I want. In a group, you lose that freedom, but you always have people to hang out with, and you can always break off into small couples and do things you want (like my trip to Italy). I went to Amsterdam with my friend Maya, she’s a friend from high school and she knows me and my personality, so it was great I got to share this experience with her. Sydney, who I met first semester, we went to Munich together and it was nice to have that one-on-one time to develop our friendship.

3. Keep a journal or blog (or both)

I know you’re going to be super busy while abroad, but keeping some sort of account of your time abroad is really useful. By having a public blog you can share with your friends and family what you're doing. It can also look good to future employers because it shows you have an understanding of blog websites which are becoming a popular marketing tactic. Also, you can look back on your blog when you’re back home and remember the awesome places you went.

It is also a good idea to keep a personal journal. That way you have somewhere to share your personal feelings. You can talk about school, your friends, vent if you're upset, angry, sad or stressed. It’s a more private place where you can record your challenges and how you overcame them.

4. Talk to people who don’t speak your native tongue/aren’t from your native country

During my time abroad, I noticed that people tend to group with other students from their native country or who spoke the same language as them. This is okay at first, especially since you're nervous about meeting new people and making friends, but don’t be afraid to branch out! Becoming friends with people from other countries not only gives you an opportunity to learn about their culture, but you can also visit them in the future, after your time abroad. For example, I’m planning to visit Jackie in Mexico after I graduate!

5. Plan your trips and vacations

I’ve always been a person who is very organized and plans everything! However, on my spring break trip to England, Ireland and Scotland I didn’t plan that much...and boy, I wish I had. By planning your trips, transportation, housing, and sites you want to see in advance, you can save yourself A LOT of money and time! I could’ve saved at least 500 euros if I had planned my spring break trip, a little better.

6. Stay safe

Obviously, this is a common tip, but I can’t stress this enough. Things are different abroad, cultures are different and you might be in a country that doesn’t speak English. I have heard many terrible stories from my friends about being followed, stalked and assaulted. Always be aware of your surroundings. If you’re taking public transportation at night, sit towards the front, so you’re close to the conductor. Make sure before going out for drinks at night your phone is charged, and you have a plan to get home. Trust me, you don’t want to be stranded alone at 5am waiting for the tram to go home. And always be sure that you are following the laws in your country, for example it’s illegal to have mace in France, so instead if you feel like you need something to protect yourself, carry around hair spray or aerosol deodorant.

7. Keep in touch with friends and family

You’re going to miss your friends and family, and they are totally going to miss you. Be sure to keep in touch, especially with your parents who definitely supported you so you could have this amazing opportunity. You can video chat via skype, Facetime, Whatsapp; message them through Facebook or Whatsapp; or even been old school and mail them postcards! I mailed my best friend Lydia, postcards from everywhere I went and she loved them.

8. Join a club or sport at your host university

This is one thing I regret not doing after studying abroad. By joining a club or sport at your host university, you can meet more people with similar interests. At EM Strasbourg, we didn’t mix with French students that much, if I had joined a club I could’ve met more people and practiced my French. Plus, joining a sport can help you not gain all the weight from eating and drinking all the amazing food in your host country.

9. Actually go to school, please

The first word in the phrase “study abroad” is “study”, so please actually go to class and take school seriously. Yes, my lectures at EM Strasbourg were 3 hours long per session and that was hard to get use to, but I went to all my classes and did well. I understand that you want to travel and go places all the time, but you’re there for school first, and exploring second. Plus, most schools understand this, and encourage that you travel so they will give you an additional free day (so every weekend is a long weekend).

10. Rest

Traveling every weekend is not only exhausting for your wallet but also your physical health. Make sure to give yourself a few breaks on the weekend and stay in your host city, binge watching Netflix and napping. You might feel guilty doing this, but your body will need to get rest. Sleeping on buses, trains and in airports really takes its toll. And you don’t want to be sick abroad, trust me even having the common cold is a bummer (especially since medicine may be extremely different and not as effective as the brands you find in your home country).

11. Don’t be afraid of hostels

One regret I have, is not staying in hostels as often. First, because they are a lot cheaper and usually closer to main tourist sites. They also may offer discounts to museums, and provide free or discounted tours, too. Lastly, you meet super cool people from all around the world, who may have similar interests as you and can offer advice on future travels. I met one of my great friends, Ben in a hostel in Lyon, we ended up going on the small trip to Annecy together which was unforgettable!

12. Say “yes” to (almost) everything

As long as you feel safe, and it’s nothing illegal, say “yes” to everything. New food; a spontaneous weekend trip; going to see a movie or going out for drinks. Saying “yes” and going out of your comfort zone is how you grow as a person and meet new people, and have new and exciting experiences.

13. Know you will change and accept it

Before I left for France, my friend Meredith who studied abroad during the summer told me I would change. At first, I didn’t believe her, I already enjoyed the person I was and the personality I had, so I didn’t think I would change that much. However, reflecting on my study abroad experience and the person I was eight months ago to who I am now, I have changed. I’m more focused on my goals, I’m more passionate and full of love and motivation. I’m itching to help people and help the world. I’m more patient, understanding and independent. I am nice to everyone and strangers on the street, because you never know when a smile or a simple “hello” to a stranger could help and change someone’s bad day into a good one. Honestly, I think these changes not only came from traveling alone, or being in a foreign country but from the experiences I had in everyday life in France as well as the friends I made. My friends were some of the biggest influencers, especially my best friend Jackie.

14. Try to speak/learn the language of your host country

In my opinion, nothing is more flattering to a person than attempting to learn and communicate in their native tongue. It shows that you are interested in their culture and are open to learning new things. Although it can be scary to speak a foreign language, try to speak it as much as you can to get the practice. At EM Strasbourg, we didn’t mix that much with french students so it was hard to practice my french. When I would do on solo trips, I tried my best to speak french, and yes at first I was very nervous and I did embarrass myself A LOT (I told my Uber driver in Paris that I loved him…). But practice makes perfect, and I’m sure the people you interact with will be willing to help you. The more you speak it, the better you’ll get at communicating. In second semester, when I was traveling alone and speaking french by myself, I noticed after a few days o just speaking french, I could carry on conversation with my Airbnb hosts, with ease!

15. It will be an adjustment at first

Things will be different in your host country and it could be frustrating at first. Getting all the appropriate paperwork settled, and opening my bank accounts and insurance was extremely stressful and overwhelming. But after a while you will get use to the flow of things in your host country. You’ll fall into a routine. You’ll remember to buy groceries on Saturday, since all the markets are closed on Sunday. You’ll learn the bus schedule and public transit schedule. It takes time and patience, and if you feel overwhelmed, vent! Vent to your friends back home, your family, your journal or even your classmates abroad, who are going through the same things as you!

16. Live in the moment

As someone who loves punctuality and planning, and being an American, my brain is always on and active; always thinking of “what’s next”. But while in Europe, I learned to stop and appreciate the moment. Whether it was walking through a park in Nancy, sipping a coffee near the cathedral in Strasbourg, looking at the end of the Earth at the Cliffs of Moher, or marveling at the ruins of Pompeii, I would stop and reflect. I would sometimes say a little pray and all-in-all just be thankful that I was in Europe seeing these amazing places, I only ever dreamed about. So, if you find yourself in a perfect little moment, stop for a few seconds and take it all in. The smell, the touch, the sight, the sounds and maybe the taste, too.

My eight months in France, honestly flew by. I thought it would be enough to explore all of Europe, but it wasn’t and I can’t wait to go back! I hope you’ve learned something from my travels, and hopefully I’ve inspired you to travel and provided you with quality advice and ideal destinations. Until next time. Grand bisous, Caroline xx

Je suis très reconnaissante pour mon extraordinaire expérience de huit mois à l'étranger à Strasbourg, en France. J'ai rencontré des gens formidables et j'ai fait des amitiés qui dureront toute une vie. J'ai vu des endroits dans le monde, je n'ai jamais pensé que je le verrais à un si jeune âge. J'ai grandi, personnellement, et j'ai appris beaucoup de cours de vie. Étudier à l'étranger est la meilleure décision que j'ai prise dans ma vie et je suis tellement reconnaissant à ma famille et à l'Université Bowling Green State pour m'avoir permis cette opportunité. Pour ceux d'entre vous qui pensent étudier à l'étranger - FAITES-LE! Vous ne le regretterez pas. Mais d'abord, après avoir réfléchi sur mon temps en Europe et mes expériences (et même quelques regrets), voici seize conseils, je pense que vous trouverez utile.

1. Êtes sensible à votre pays/ville organisateur

Apprenez à connaître votre ville/pays organisateur, surtout si vous dépensez longtemps à l'étranger. Cet endroit deviendra votre maison. En savoir plus sur l'histoire, c'est la culture, c'est de la nourriture. J'adore Strasbourg, c'est vraiment une ville si diversifiée. Je suis surtout tombé amoureux de la culture germanique et des marchés de Noël. J'aime vraiment la France! Il est fou de voir tant de diversité géographique dans un petit pays. J'adore la culture et j'attends pour explorer plus de cet incroyable pays à l'avenir. Donnez à votre ville organisateur et pays organisateur l'amour qu'il mérite! Vous ne savez pas ce que vous avez jusqu'à ce qu'il soit parti!

2. Voyagez seule/dans une groupe/avec un ami vieux/avec un ami nouvel

Voyager dans tous ces différents paramètres vous offre une expérience unique. J'ai voyagé seul, beaucoup et j'ai vraiment apprécié ça, parce que j'avais la liberté de faire ce que je voulais. Dans un groupe, vous perdez cette liberté, mais vous avez toujours des gens à traîner, et vous pouvez toujours vous séparer de petits couples et faire des choses que vous voulez (comme mon voyage en Italie). Je suis allé à Amsterdam avec mon ami Maya, elle est une amie du lycée et elle me connaît et ma personnalité, donc c'était génial je pourrais partager cette expérience avec elle. Sydney, que j'ai rencontré le premier semestre, nous sommes allés à Munich ensemble et c'était sympa d'avoir cette fois-ci pour développer notre amitié.

3. Écrivez un journal ou blog (ou le même)

Je sais que vous allez être très occupé à l'étranger, mais garder une sorte de compte rendu de votre séjour à l'étranger est vraiment utile. En ayant un blog public, vous pouvez partager avec vos amis et votre famille ce que vous faites. Cela peut aussi être bon pour les futurs employeurs, car cela montre que vous avez une compréhension des sites Web de blogs qui deviennent une tactique de marketing populaire. De plus, vous pouvez regarder en arrière sur votre blog lorsque vous rentrez chez vous et rappelez-vous les endroits géniaux où vous êtes allés.

C'est aussi une bonne idée de garder un journal personnel. De cette façon, vous avez quelque part pour partager vos sentiments personnels. Vous pouvez parler de l'école, de vos amis, si vous êtes en colère, triste ou stressé. C'est un endroit plus privé où vous pouvez enregistrer vos défis et comment vous les avez surmontés.

 4. Parlez avec les gens qui ne dit pas votre langue/qui n’habite pas dans votre pays

Pendant mon séjour à l'étranger, j'ai remarqué que les gens ont tendance à se regrouper avec d'autres étudiants de leur pays d'origine ou qui ont parlé la même langue qu’eux. C'est d'accord au début, d'autant plus que vous êtes nerveux à l'idée de rencontrer de nouvelles personnes et de faire des amis, mais n'ayez pas peur de vous brancher! Devenir amis avec des gens d'autres pays ne vous donne pas seulement l'occasion de connaître leur culture, mais vous pouvez également les visiter à l'avenir, après votre séjour à l'étranger. Par exemple, j'ai l'intention de visiter Jackie au Mexique après mon diplôme!

5. Planifiez vos vacances et voyages

J'ai toujours été une personne très organisée et tout planifiée! Cependant, lors de mes vacances de printemps en Angleterre, en Irlande et en Ecosse, je n'avais pas prévu autant ... et pfff, j'aimerais avoir eu. En planifiant vos déplacements, votre logement et vos sites que vous souhaitez voir à l'avance, vous pouvez économiser beaucoup d'argent et de temps! J'aurais pu économiser au moins 500 euros si j'avais planifié mon voyage de printemps, un peu mieux.

6. Mettez sûr

Évidemment, c'est un conseil commun, mais je ne peux pas le souligner assez. Les choses sont différentes à l'étranger, les cultures sont différentes et vous pourriez être dans un pays qui ne parle pas l'anglais. J'ai entendu beaucoup d'histoires terribles de mes amis à propos d'être suivis, harcelés et agressés. Toujours être conscient de votre environnement. Si vous prenez des transports publics la nuit, asseyez-vous vers l'avant, vous êtes donc proche du contrôleur. Assurez-vous avant de sortir pour les boissons la nuit, votre téléphone est chargé et vous avez un plan pour rentrer à la maison. Croyez-moi, vous ne voulez pas être bloqué seul à 5 ​​heures du matin en attendant que le tram soit rentré à la maison. Et assurez-vous toujours que vous suivez les lois de votre pays, par exemple, il est illégal d'avoir du gaz lacrymogène en France, donc, si vous sentez que vous avez besoin de quelque chose pour vous protéger, transportez la laque à cheveux ou désodorisants en aérosol.

7. Restez en contact avec votre famille et amis

Ils vous manquent vos amis et votre famille et vous les manquez totalement. Assurez-vous de rester en contact, en particulier avec vos parents qui vous ont soutenus afin que vous puissiez avoir cette incroyable opportunité. Vous pouvez faire un chat vidéo via skype, Facetime, Whatsapp; les envoyer les messages sur Facebook ou Whatsapp; ou même été vieille école et leur envoyer des cartes postales! J'ai envoyé ma meilleure amie Lydia, des cartes postales de partout où je suis allé et elle les aimait.

8. Devenez un membre d’organisation ou un sport à votre université étrangère

C'est une chose que je regrette de ne pas faire après avoir étudié à l'étranger. En rejoignant un club ou un sport dans votre université étrangère, vous pouvez rencontrer plus de personnes ayant des intérêts similaires. À EM Strasbourg, nous ne avons pas melange avec les étudiants français, si j'avais joint un club, j'aurais rencontré plus de gens et pratiquer mon français. De plus, rejoindre un sport peut vous aider à ne pas prendre tout le poids de manger et de boire tous les aliments incroyables dans votre pays organisateur.

9. Allez aux vos cours, si vous plait

Le premier mot dans la phrase «étudier à l'étranger» est «étudier», alors, s'il vous plaît, partez en classe et prenez l'école au sérieux. Oui, mes cours à EM Strasbourg ont duré 3 heures par session et c'était difficile, mais je suis allé à toutes mes cours et j'ai bien réussi. Je comprends que vous voulez voyager et faire des places tout le temps, mais vous êtes là pour l'école d'abord et en explorant le deuxième. De plus, la plupart des écoles comprennent cela et encouragent votre voyage afin qu'ils vous donnent une journée gratuite supplémentaire (donc chaque week-end est un long week-end).

10. Restez

Voyager chaque week-end n'est pas seulement épuisant pour votre portefeuille, mais aussi votre santé physique. Assurez-vous de vous donner quelques pauses le week-end et de rester dans votre ville organisateur, en regardant Netflix et la sieste. Vous pourriez vous sentir coupable de faire cela, mais votre corps devra se reposer. Dormir dans les bus, les trains et dans les aéroports prend vraiment son péage. Et vous ne voulez pas être malade à l'étranger, croyez-moi même si le rhume est un bummer (surtout que la médecine peut être extrêmement différente et pas aussi efficace que les marques que vous trouvez dans votre pays d'origine).

11. N’avez pas peur des auberges

Un regret que j'ai, ne reste plus souvent dans les auberges. Tout d'abord, parce qu'ils sont beaucoup moins chers et habituellement plus proches des principaux sites touristiques. Ils peuvent aussi offrir des réductions sur les musées et proposer gratuitement des excursions à prix réduit. Enfin, vous rencontrez des gens super cool du monde entier, qui peuvent avoir des intérêts similaires à ceux que vous et pouvez vous conseiller sur les voyages à venir. J'ai rencontré un de mes grands amis, Ben dans une auberge à Lyon, nous avons fini par faire un petit voyage à Annecy qui était inoubliable!

12. Dites “oui” à (presque) tout

Tant que vous vous sentez en sécurité, et ce n'est rien d'illégal, dites «oui» à tout. Nouvelle nourriture; Un voyage de week-end spontané; Aller voir un film ou sortir pour boire un verre. Dire «oui» et sortir de votre zone de confort est la façon dont vous grandissez en tant que personne et rencontrez de nouvelles personnes, et avez des expériences nouvelles et passionnantes.

13. Saviez que vous changerez et l’acceptez

Avant de partir pour la France, mon amie Meredith qui a étudié à l'étranger pendant l'été m'a dit que je changerais. Au début, je ne l'ai pas cru, j'ai déjà apprécié la personne que j'étais et la personnalité que j'avais, alors je ne pensais pas que je changerais autant. Cependant, en réfléchissant sur mon expérience à l'étranger et la personne que j'avais il y a huit mois à qui je suis maintenant, j'ai changé. Je suis plus concentré sur mes objectifs, je suis plus passionné et plein d'amour et de motivation. Je me passionne pour aider les gens et aider le monde. Je suis plus patiente, compréhensive et indépendante. Je suis gentille avec tout le monde et les étrangers dans la rue, parce que vous ne savez jamais quand un sourire ou un simple «bonjour» à un étranger pourrait aider et changer la mauvaise journée de quelqu'un dans une bonne. Honnêtement, je pense que ces changements ne viennent pas seulement de voyager seul ou d'être dans un pays étranger, mais des expériences que j'ai eu dans la vie quotidienne en France ainsi que les amis que j'ai faits. Mes amis ont été parmi les plus influents, en particulier ma meilleure amie Jackie.

14. Essayez parler la langue/apprenez la langue de votre pays organisateur

À mon avis, rien n'est plus flatteur pour une personne que de tenter d'apprendre et de communiquer dans leur langue maternelle. Cela montre que vous êtes intéressé par leur culture et qu'ils sont ouverts à apprendre de nouvelles choses. Bien qu'il puisse être effrayant de parler une langue étrangère, essayez de le dire autant que vous le pouvez pour obtenir la pratique. À  EM Strasbourg, nous ne mélangeons pas autant avec les étudiants français, donc c'était difficile de pratiquer mon français. Quand je ferais des voyages individuels, j'ai fait de mon mieux pour parler français, et oui, j'étais d'abord très nerveux et j’ai embrasse moi-même beaucoup (j'ai dit à mon conducteur d'Uber à Paris que je l'aimais ...). Mais la pratique est parfaite et je suis sûr que les personnes avec lesquelles vous interagissez seront disposées à vous aider. Plus vous parlez, mieux vaut vous communiquer. Au deuxième semestre, lorsque je voyageais seul et que je parlais en français par moi-même, j'ai remarqué, après quelques jours, que je parlais français, je pourrais entretenir la conversation avec mes hôtes Airbnb.

15. Ce sera un ajustement, au début

Les choses seront différentes dans votre pays organisateur, et cela pourrait être frustrant au début. Obtenir toutes les formalités appropriées réglées, et ouvrir mes comptes bancaires et l'assurance était extrêmement stressante et écrasante. Mais après un certain temps, vous allez utiliser le flux de choses dans votre pays organisateur. Vous allez tomber dans une routine. Vous vous souviendrez d'acheter des épiceries samedi, car tous les marchés sont fermés dimanche. Vous apprendrez le calendrier de bus et le calendrier de transport en commun. Il faut du temps et de la patience, et si vous vous sentez débordé, faites-le vent! Entrez vos amis à la maison, à votre famille, à votre journal ou même à vos camarades de classe à l'étranger, qui font face aux mêmes choses que vous!

16. Vivez dans la moment

Comme quelqu'un qui aime la ponctualité et la planification, et étant un Américaine, mon cerveau est toujours actif; Toujours en train de penser à "quoi de suite". Mais en Europe, j'ai appris à arrêter et à apprécier le moment. Que ce soit en parcourant un parc à Nancy, en sirotant un café près de la cathédrale de Strasbourg, en regardant le bout de la terre aux falaises de Moher, ou en s'émerveillant des ruines de Pompéi, je m'arrêterais et réfléchirais. Je dis parfois un peu de prière et tout-en-tout, je suis reconnaissant que j'étais en Europe en voyant ces endroits étonnants, je n'ai jamais rêvé. Donc, si vous vous trouvez dans un petit moment parfait, arrêtez-vous pendant quelques secondes et prenez tout. L'odeur, le toucher, la vue, les sons et peut-être le goût aussi.

Mes huit mois en France ont honnêtement volé. Je pensais qu'il suffirait d'explorer toute l'Europe, mais ce n'était pas le cas et j'attends peu de revenir en arrière! J'espère que vous avez appris quelque chose de mes voyages, et j'espère que je vous ai inspiré pour voyager et vous ai fourni des conseils de qualité et des destinations idéales. Jusqu'à la prochaine fois. Grand bisous, Caroline xx

#strasbourg #france #europe #study abroad #college #university #erasmus #em strasbourg #university of strasbourg #amazing #adventure #travel #memories #friendship #unforgettable #tips #bisous

[shockcity]

HP #3A - Temeraire Crossover

Rating: T Summary: Harry finds himself stranded in an alternate universe in which the Napoleonic Wars are fought with dragons. Yeah. He thought it was weird too. Category: M/M Pairing: John Granby/Harry Potter Warnings: none

THIS IS PART I

Note: this is long (SO LONG) and full of tropes and silliness. I wrote this on and off for years, and finished just after Crucible of Gold was published, so this has been sitting around while I hemmed and hawed about whether or not it was worth posting, until I finally just decided to put it in the junk drawer with everything else. It doesn’t incorporate Blood of Tyrants and League of Dragons, mostly because I’m lazy but also because I haven’t read the last book yet *is sheepish*, so this is in four parts and is considered finished, for now. Also, this isn’t beta’d *cringe* so…uh…enjoy? Yikes.

—

Part I

.

“There you are,” called a voice, and a dragon landed in front of him with a heavy thump. Its claws tore at the earth, kicking up dirt and grass into Harry’s face. “I have been looking everywhere for you!”

Harry slowly wiped away the dirt with his sleeve, staring.

“Oh, sorry!” said the dragon. “Didn’t mean to get you!”

There was nothing else to do but shrug. The sudden arrival of a talking dragon was the least alarming thing to happen to him lately, on account of him not knowing where he was, exactly, and really any sign of magic (even the dangerous kind) was welcome. He’d woken in a forest, cold and confused, and after sitting around and waiting for someone to find him, had decided to trudge onward and seek some answers for himself. And so he’d trudged, for about a day and a half…with no sign of any people, anywhere.

There were no towns or villages, no cars or roads. Not even a light on the horizon. Signs of life were limited to a few startled rabbits and a mangy fox, who had eyed him amusedly before trotting off. He had thought, at first, he might be in the Forbidden Forest, but surely there would have been a centaur by now, or, Merlin forbid, an acromantula?

Harry had just decided that he was hopelessly lost (and maybe dreaming, or hallucinating, whatever) when the irritated dragon had arrived. He’d thought the situation couldn’t possibly get any stranger, but then, well– such was his life.

Besides the fact that it was talking to him (Norberta had never spoken English, as far as he’d known, and the Hungarian Horntail hadn’t been talkative but then she’d been trying to incinerate him at the time and was obviously busy) ridiculously enough, the dragon had an accent and sounded rather unused to speaking English. If Harry didn’t know any better he would say it were French. Could dragons be French? Bollocks.

“Well,” it huffed. “You haven’t a harness and you’re all bloody. Have you been hurt? I’ll be happy to kill what’s hurt you, capitaine. Capitaine?”

Captain of what? What? Harry scratched the side of his head, gaping with tremendous rudeness. “Sorry,” he finally managed to say. “I have no idea what you mean. Do you know where we are?”

“Oh. Britain.” The dragon nodded decisively. “We are in England. Almost Scotland, I should think, if we keep on north. I’ve come from France to you, so that you may be my capitaine.”

Harry licked his lips. “Yes, but–” He paused, until at last he admitted, “I’m really confused. I’m not where I– well. I’m…really confused.”

The was dragon was comfortingly unconcerned. “Alright,” it said. “You tell me what you remember, capitaine, and we’ll sort out this mess.”

So Harry did. He began with the battle, the end of the Dark Lord, and his long sleep, which lead him to this forest and his wandering about, looking for other people. The dragon listened with earnest eagerness, and when Harry stopped speaking, he took a moment to observe the creature in kind. It was small, barely the size of a large dog, with deep blue and iridescent green markings across its sleek, black body. He thought for a moment of the dragon’s voice, and was careful to correct his use of pronoun; it was he, a young he, if he were to guess.

“I think you may have to tell me all of it,” the dragon demanded, coiling his tail around to sit. “You have come from a battle! I want to hear everything.”

He blamed his still present confusion and perhaps shock for the ungainly, babbled recital of his past deeds. As the story progressed, at parts when Harry was hurt or even confessed to being very frightened, the dragon growled and trembled, touchingly angry on his behalf. Finally, when Harry was sat and quite burned out for talking, the dragon said, “Oh, I’ve the finest capitaine in all the world, I am sure!”

Harry had no comparison with which to disagree, though he thought he was maybe the most confused captain in all the world, rather than the finest. And what was this captain business anyway?

The dragon saw his expression and sighed, “I suppose I had better tell you what’s happening. You are in the year of seventeen ninety-eight, and we are at war. I have come from the Armee de l'Air, where Commander Napoleon would have me fighting the country where my true capitaine is! I have hatched two days past, and I am a baby, of course, but I shan’t be for long if you are worried. I’m not hungry, either, there was a bunch of cows south from here that I ate, though the man in the fields was saying some not-very-nice things to me when I left with them!”

“Sorry, you said– Napoleon?”

“Oh yes. Very presumptuous. He spoke to me, before I left, you know. Said I was to be no use but for breeding. So I escaped and came here to you. And you shall harness me and we shall battle, because you are so very good at it, already, and Commander Napoleon was so very rude to say I am worth naught!”

He ran a hand across his face, a desperate, slightly crazed motion that made the dragon nuzzle him worriedly. “I suppose you are in a different world, if there is such a thing,” the dragon surmised. “I am sorry if you left behind those you love, but you have me now, and I have you!”

It was a thing to say, to a boy who had never had much to start with. No family. Close friends, perhaps, but certainly not the sort of companionship this dragon was proposing. And he was a lovely, darling creature– and Harry was already very fond of him.

He had never thought himself predisposed to affection or even the assumption of it between him and others, but this dragon would have him without even really knowing him, and Harry wanted to return the favour. He had also shown remarkable loyalty already, coming all the way from France and flying around all of England, just to find him.

“But how did you know I was here? How could you possibly know where to look?” he asked.

The dragon nuzzled him again. “Just knew,” he said, and if Harry were a normal young man this explanation would never have been enough. But he was used to the unexplainable. Used to magic. “They took me from capitaine to capitaine, to harness me, but I was decided already! You were here, and I had to find you. So, I just knew.”

Then…dragon companionship was normal here? Harry suddenly remembered the dragon mentioning an army. Armee, something… de l'Air? “You mean to say there’s an army composed of…of dragons?”

“Oh, yes.” He proceeded then to explain the Armee de l'Air, or His Majesty’s Aerial Corps in Britain. It was a fantastical idea, even for a wizard. And speaking of, the dragon was very keen on seeing some magic for himself, and nudged Harry into floating some branches away from their makeshift clearing. Reminded of his magic, he gazed down at the Elder Wand that was still upon his person, aghast at having it when he meant to be rid of it in Dumbledore’s tomb. Yet the dragon’s pleasure was contagious, and he put it out of his mind for now.

“Very good! Oh, splendid,” he cheered, drawing Harry closer to him; which oddly did not frighten or unsettle Harry in the least. “You will be my capitaine, and a great one, I am sure.”

Harry leaned his head against the long neck and sighed. This was so strange. He wondered if it were not a dream. “What now? This is mental,” he muttered, and then yawned. He was finally warm and terribly exhausted.

“We shall go to one of your coverts. I asked a little dragon about it, on my way here, though he was rather confused, I think. And we should go in the morning, perhaps, for it is getting dark now and you are tired. May I…may I have your name?”

Harry made a face at his own horrible manners. “Sorry,” he cringed, drawing away to stare up at the dragon. “I’m Harry.”

“Harry, my Harry. Yes, that will do nicely,” the dragon said. “The man in your story…Remus. I like his name. He was a hero, was he not? Like you.”

“He was,” Harry agreed, though sadly.

“I will be Remus, then. In honor of him. Though you may call me Remy, for that is French and no matter how rude Napoleon was, I am a French dragon.”

Remus. Remy. Harry thought it was fitting. He would not think too deeply about Remus though. The nickname rather helped in that regard. Remus was lost, and Tonks, and their son he had left behind, by no choice of his own but abandoned all the same. Sensing his melancholic turn, Remy coiled around him and bade him to sleep.

As strange as it was, to be in so new a place without any warning, Harry was oddly comforted. And Remy, having flown so far for his capitaine, was proud of his intuition and forwardness to find him. His Harry needed him, and Remy needed and admired him too. He was the best capitaine of the lot, for what others had saved the world? There was none that could compare, and Remy was satisfied.

::::

“I escaped from France!” Remy was telling the tiny dragon by the name of Volatilus. “I didn’t like Napoleon, or any of the capitaines they wanted me to have, so I came to England to find my Harry. That’s him there, Volly. That’s Harry.”

Volly turned his head to gaze at him, although there wasn’t much understanding in his perpetually cheerful eyes. “Rem’s Ree!” he cried happily.

“That’s right,” James said, patting his dragon affectionately. “But this is extraordinary! A Papillon Noir up and leaving for England! I’d laugh if I weren’t worried one of ours would mutiny so.”

James and Volly were escorting them to Loch Laggan, a bit of fortune fallen into Remy and Harry’s hands, according to James, who was often set in the opposite direction and unable to divert. He and his little dragon served as a courier, of all things. Harry would be surprised had the last few days not been comprised of the ridiculous and bizarre. Royal Mail by dragon seemed a small thing, really.

Lucky though it was, James’ heading to Loch Laggan was a double-edge sword. They now had a very nice escort to the closest covert, but James was very interested in not only Remy’s story, but Harry’s.

This brought him to the startling revelation that he was in another world entirely, forced into service by a dragon on the lam (James had said the French would seek out the missing dragon, and be positively furious when they learned Remy had defected to the enemy) and with no proof of his existence to the main and might, he would need a cover story that wasn’t crazy enough to get him thrown in Nick. And who was to say they would let Remy keep him? Though he’d like to see them try to separate them, it would be amusing up until their execution, to be sure.

He sighed. James cast him a narrow look but pressed, “This is entirely extraordinary. Where are you from again, Potter?”

“London,” Harry hesitated. “Around abouts.”

Could he perhaps pass for a homeless man? His clothing, both strange to James’ eyes and manky enough, would lend a bit of truth to his tale. Perhaps if he didn’t say much about a home? A traveler, maybe a vagrant with no ties to any land at all? But his accent wasn’t uneducated. He had adopted, unfortunately, the slightly elevated speech of middle class London, rather than the guttural informal vernacular of a street boy. And caravaners, for as little as Harry knew about them, had an distinct voice of their own.

And then it hit him. There were times when Dudley attended Smelting’s, when Stonewall news came to Little Whinging, when a boy sick of exams and prefects and A-levels with no care for sixth form and a future, had run away from a proper school to live on his own terms. It wasn’t often that parents would put out a boy for it, but Harry was sure it was acceptable in seventeen ninety-eight. A runaway he would likely be, to these Aerial Corps…or a spy, which wouldn’t end well. So, he would have to be on the lam with his dear Remy.

He would be careful not to mention the name of his school or a headmaster. It wouldn’t do at all for officials to correspond with the unlucky headmaster he named out of idiocy and be caught in a lie.

And when on earth did he decide to up and involve himself in another war? He cast a look at Remy, who was telling Volly all about the battles he would soon fight.

“I’m supposed to be in school, sir,” Harry confessed, picking at his cottage pie woefully. They had stopped to eat and wash (mostly for Harry’s benefit) before the thirty kilometer flight ahead of them. Harry hadn’t wanted to leave Remy alone, so James accompanied him outside where they sat in chairs provided by the tea room, thankful, perhaps, that the dragons were not to wait unattended in the streets. “Please don’t send me back.”

James blinked. “If your family is missing you–”

“They aren’t,” Harry said quickly. “My parents are dead. It’s my Aunt and Uncle. They…well…please don’t send me back.”

“If you’re in school at your age, Potter, they’re likely to make a fuss when they find out what’s happened,” James pointed out, and Harry nearly cursed himself aloud for a fool.

Surely only the very well-to-do boys in England went to private apprenticing schools. Most, probably, joined the regiment, or earned their living through honest toil and a specified trade. Harry, at seventeen (though he would try to pass for younger, if he could) wouldn’t have been still studying unless his family were peerages or particularly in clovers as scholars. He could pass for a lawyer’s kid, maybe, or churched affluence, but many of those people were acquainted with particular circles. There would be hell to pay if a presumptive heir or scholar’s boy were lost to vagabondage. Yet there was nothing for it, he had made his bed.

“Please,” Harry tried again. “They never cared for me besides to send me to school, because my parents would have wanted it. I don’t want to go back. Remy says we’re to fight the French, because I’m his captain now…is it true?”

And this would work in his favour soon enough. Harry might request liberty (he wasn’t quite sure how the military gave a day off, but neither was he ignorant of things; Primary and Hermione, respectively, made sure his knowledge was not all magic) and go to “make peace” with his fantasy relations, which would perhaps satisfy the officials, when in actuality he could use this excuse to check for magical landmarks. He would have to see if the wizarding world existed, for there was no way he would rest without knowing. And probably, (after concluding that there were no people in the forest and he was not anywhere near Hogwarts) that would have been next thing he had done, but then Remy had come and, well….

Harry would not go home without his dragon, if it were even possible to go home at all. He had a strange feeling that he would not find the Leaky Cauldron here, nor the Alley, the Ministry, or any magic places at all. There was something in the current here…the air didn’t quite buzz like it did at home. Harry suspected that missing thrum was magic.

“Alright,” James was saying. “I won’t say anything about going back. England needs fighters enough that I won’t complain. Admiralty might, if they know your family and they’re in arms about a missing boy.”

Harry shook his head. “My Aunt and Uncle have an heir. I was only a burden on them. I doubt anyone knows them much at all. Or would admit to it.”

James was still suspicious, Harry could see it clearly, and so could a very keen Remy, of course. “Harry’s been through an awful time of it, Captain James,” Remy said, cutting off Volly’s nonsensical rambling. “He’s not a spy, if that’s what you’re thinking. Who would want to fight for the French? Their Commander was very rude. Did I tell you what he said to me, Volly?” and was off again, seemingly unworried that adorable little Volly could hardly keep up.

James laughed. “Well, he’s told me!” He slapped Harry on the back and handed his leftovers to Volly. Harry did the same with his own pie. “We will have to sort it out, in any case. Shall we go?”

Happy his story was settled (and unhappy he was just as good a liar as Aunt Petunia always said) Harry went atop Remy and tied his makeshift strap tighter. It was no harness, but he was safe enough, he supposed. Remy was just big enough (after another two days of trudging and eating stolen cows) to hold him. He wasn’t stupid enough to think the matter closed, however. There was the Admiralty, as James had called them, to convince…and if he were found out a charlatan, he had a hope that England was as desperate for fighters as they seemed. Perhaps upon his confession of dimension travel, they would still let a madman fight in their war? He could only hope.

:::::

It turned out that the sole authority Harry had to answer to was Celeritas, a keen old dragon and respected veteran of the Corps. Harry wasn’t at all surprised at a dragon training-master, given Remy’s quick command over his well-being and their future plans. He was a bossy creature, and Harry surrendered to him easily.

Celeritas listened to their tale, mostly told by an overly excitable Remy, who, being wonderfully wily, went along with Harry’s lie without a hitch. Their hushed conversation about the subject, before Celeritas had asked for them, went a bit like this:

“But why can’t you tell them the truth?”

Harry stroked Remy’s green speckled nose and said, “They’ll lock me up in a loony bin if I do. Normal people don’t just travel to other dimensions, you know.”

“I shan’t let anyone lock you up,” Remy growled. That sudden, protective violence Harry was getting used to sparked in his bright blue eyes. “I’ll bite them first. But I suppose you are right. You are a little strange.”

This teasing remark actually made Harry laugh, which shocked him for a moment. When was the last time he had laughed?

“Well, I suppose you’ve got your hands full with him, Captain Potter,” Celeritas was muttering, his eyes on Remy, who had gone over to another dragon in the crowded clearing. Harry heard Napoleon’s name and stifled a laugh. He reminded himself never to insult Remy in any way (as if it were possible, he thought affectionately) for his dragon knew very well how to hold a grudge.

“Am I a captain so soon?” Harry asked. “Don’t I have to–” he wanted to say earn it, but stopped himself. “–move up from a lower position?”

Celeritas stared at him, and Harry was surprised to see an odd sort of smile in his eyes. “The others will likely think so. You’ll have to deal with a fair amount of jealousy, sure. But Remy’s tale will put it out quick enough. His awareness of you is strange, pardon me for saying, Potter.”

Harry had assumed it was, even for military hired dragons. However, after a short time he could respond with nothing else but, “I am glad he found me.”

Celeritas snorted. “He seems glad enough for the both of you.”

“–and that is my capitaine over there. He’s the best capitaine in the whole world, and we’ll win lots of battles and take many prizes because those other capitaines and Napoleon are rather stupid and we are very, very smart.”

“Skinny, isn’t he,” the other dragon said, chewing on the leg of something that was not much flesh but all bone. “You’ll have to fatten him up if you want to fight. And you’ll have to learn the formations.”

“We know them!”

The other dragon frowned. “But how can you? How long since you’ve hatched, anyway?”

Remy hesitated. “Four days bygone,” and at the dragon’s scoff he said, “But I was born quite clever. I’m sure I’m smarter than you.”

Harry, who had been moving toward them, began to move quicker. “That’s not very nice, Remy,” he chastised, rushing up. “I’m sorry for him.”

The other dragon was amused rather than offended, however. Remy nudged him as if to reproach Harry instead as the dragon said, “He is very young. No harm in him, I think. I am Excidium, you’ll be in my formation soon enough.”

“Harry,” he introduced himself. “Good to meet you.”

“He is my capitaine, Excidium, no matter how big you are,” Remy announced possessively.

Embarrassed, Harry stroked the side of Remy’s neck and muttered, “I’m sure Excidium has his own captain, dear one.”

“So long as he knows.”

::::

Loch Laggan covert was big and busy. The courtyard where most of the dragons slept was large, perhaps unnecessarily given how the dragons piled on top each other. The quarters for the captains were homey and spacious, especially for a boy who went from cupboard to dorm-room to tent. Harry was glad of the hospitality, mostly for the baths he immediately indulged in and the hand-me-down, if not comfortable uniform. He was certainly able to blend in better after he was cleaned and redressed.

It seemed only an hour was good enough for the news to spread. The man who had shown him around, a Lieutenant Faversham, was cordial but stiff. Harry could not tell if it was simply his character or if he was one of those jealous men that Celeritas had warned about. In any case, his priority after bathing was to eat, and he figured the mess hall could not be avoided for long. When he entered, there was a small suspension of chatter, something he was tired of but used to in his short life.

Faversham abandoned his duty then, and Harry didn’t much mind for all the conversation he was good for. Not much of a talker himself, Harry sat at a lonely table and floundered a bit until the cook came out and gave him a hearty meal of milky soup and a warm heel of bread. His disregard was an offense to the other officers, all except for a young man who sat at Harry’s table without introduction.

“So the Papillon Noir is yours? Is it true he left France to find you?”

Harry wiped his mouth, feeling suddenly mischievous. “Remy is a brat, and he just showed up and wouldn’t leave. Have you seen him yet? He’s the prettiest one.”

This casual affection in his voice seemed to endear him to the young officer. “Lieutenant Granby, your servant,” he introduced, and Harry shook his hand. “There’s a fair few officers who have approached Remy already, so don’t blame him for telling them tales.”

Harry put down his spoon. “Approached him?” he asked.

“Well–” Granby flushed.

“I see,” he realised. “They thought Remy might take a different captain.”

Granby was sorry to have said anything, judging by his expression. “You’ve got to understand…aviators wait for a long time until they get their own. Some never do, really. Mates of mine have cut straps having never been a captain. Civilians not in the Corps don’t normally go near a hatchling at all. Or any dragon, to be sure. You may find it new and exciting–”

“But it’s insulting to a trained Lieutenant, yeah.” Harry sighed. “I would want the best for Remy. If that meant a captain who knows more, and could do better, then I would try to convince him. But he’s–”

“He’s greedy and out for blood, is what the others are saying,” Granby laughed. “I can’t argue with someone with so much conviction. And he’s quick to gloat about his ‘capitaine’, so I came to meet you.”

“I am sorry for taking the chance from another British officer, but not the French,” Harry gambled. He presumed the rivalry between countries, and his own participation in it (however new) would assure Granby of his character.

It worked. “Well, what’s to do about it, I say,” the man shrugged. “And it’s the funniest thing we’ve ever heard, a turncoat hatchling.”

“And why aren’t you upset with me?” Harry asked curiously. Granby was outright friendly, so far as he could tell.

Granby grinned. “I haven’t been waiting as long as the others,” he said, gesturing behind him to an older crowd of officers who were muttering darkly. “Just made third Lieutenant. I’m still a scrub, really.”

“Oh.”

“They will be sulking until you prove you’re up to it, make no mistake. It will be hard to convince them that you’re little but a ham-handed civilian.”

He understood, and was grateful for the warning. He was an outsider to Granby and the others, however apologetic the young man seemed about it. Yet Harry couldn’t help but smile, for this world of theirs, of fantastic beasts and abnormal being normal, didn’t hold a candle to the magic he’d seen and performed. Despite their knowledge and training, this dragon fighting wasn’t anything compared to where Harry was from and what Harry could do.

Perhaps Remy’s bragging wasn’t so much of an exaggeration after all.

He could not help but laugh and say, “I’m afraid I’m not a normal civilian.” And at Granby’s questioning expression he merely confessed, “I have the feeling I might adapt quicker than you think.”

:::::

Formation training under Celeritas, who was a taskmaster but an exceedingly capable one, was hard work for Harry and Remy. Despite Remy’s boasts of innate knowledge of formations, the little dragon was often complaining of how difficult the flying was. Until, of course, it was mastered, and then the grousing was of how boring flying about in the same circles and turns were day after day. Harry himself was weary of flag signals and maths, breeds and proper Aerial Corps modus operandi.

He was told that Remy was a Papillon Noir, a breed which he had recently learned about. The name was French for black butterfly, and fitting, given Remy’s dark hide streaked with blue and green. Remy was a middleweight, among the categories ranging from light to heavy, at either end being the Winchesters and Regal Coppers. The Longwing who Remy had harassed on their first day here, was a breed that would only take women as captains, which did not alarm Harry in the least, despite Granby’s expectant looks.

James and Volly made two returns while Harry trained. Volly, a Winchester, was a bit slow but no less efficient at his job. Remy was quite taken with him, to be sure. Excidium’s captain, Jane Roland, had introduced herself a day after his arrival. She was a lovely, slightly plump woman of twenty and some, often holding the hand of a very young child named Emily; her daughter. Auctoritus, a Bright Copper whose Captain was named Danvers, was quick to laugh and not often at Loch Laggan, but when grounded took to Remy for their similar characters. Danvers was middle-aged but unprejudiced toward young captains, and showed no disdain for Harry’s previous status as a civilian.

Crescendium, or as Jane called him “Cressy”, was a lively thing that had hatched a year prior. His formation training had just ended, and he felt smug enough to tease Remy about how he had quite a long way to go before he was up to snuff. The rivalry between the two middleweights was friendly and amusing, to most of the captains at least. Cressy’s captain Gregson was a man without laughter, though he was cordial enough.

Once training was done, Harry would join Excidium’s formation, as Celeritas had confided. Yet training was brutal, and often Harry could not even dream at night for how tired he was each day. This was fortunate, given his inability to sleep soundly since he was fourteen. Most often he slept next to Remy in the clearing, surrounded by dragons and all the better for it. He was oddly prone to seek them out for advice, rather than the captains in his upcoming formation, though none of them begrudged him it and were all suitably friendly. Jane and Danvers, especially, as well as Granby.

They had made fast friends, against all odds. Granby was a few years his senior. Harry also outranked him, and was a living reminder of Granby’s lack of dragon. Yet he was quick to find humour rather than exasperation in Harry’s many moods, and often times easily drew Harry into the sort of friendly chatter he had only ever known with Ron.

Another unexpected friendship came with his meeting a very young girl by the name of Catherine, who spent most days schooling for her eventual promotion to captain. This nepotism was very much the way of life in the Corps, but Harry was glad of Catherine’s shy but empathetic way of forgiving him for cheating others out of a dragon.

In the meantime, Remy grew. And grew. And grew. As a middleweight, he wasn’t as big as the other dragons, like Laetificat; a Regal Copper who Granby was currently assigned to. Despite Remy’s small size in comparison, nothing could quite beat the dragon’s prodigious ego. Remy was well known, very quickly, for being argumentative and arrogant, despite his age. This amused the older dragons and captains greatly, most unfortunately.

Harry tried his best to temper Remy, but the dragon was sure Harry was simply grossly modest. He didn’t balk at orders, thankfully, and often looked at Celeritas and the other captains with respect and youthful awe. It was only the other untried dragons at his mercy, really.

This attitude was also fortuitous at sieving out the best officers to assign to Remy’s crew, when the time came. Some rather stuffy men were wary of being included, and did their best to profess in the dining hall their intentions to join so and so’s crew soon enough, waylaying Harry’s regard for them. Though being put on Remy’s crew would be a promotion, certainly, Remy wasn’t at all as serious as the others. He was a riot, according to talk, endlessly jesting with dragons and captains alike, and with so forward a personality some were disapproving of his cavalier personality. It was a small consolation that Harry was withdrawn and disturbingly serious for his age, when Remy was so very precocious.

Eventually a crew was put together, those included being in good temper and affectionate with Remy. The protectiveness his dragon was known for was not only for his captain, but also for his crew. Remy treated them all like dear friends, and so Harry did as well, and he was probably terribly informal with them but didn’t much care.

Among them was Lieutenant Faversham, who Harry learned was always quiet but for the times when discipline was needed. He was a vastly capable first Lieutenant, to make up for Harry’s rather tolerant nature, and Harry was happy to have him.

Then came a welcome surprise. Laetificat lost a third Lieutenant in Granby, who came to Harry one morning and said, “Well that’s torn it, I’d be happy to be on your crew, if you’ll have me.”

Harry would have him, and he said as much when he was done gaping. “But Bee,” he said, using Remy’s nickname for him. “You were happy on Laet’s crew!”

“Celeritas is worried your training will have to be cut short,” he explained. “And he wants two proficient officers on board. Faversham is good, but you’re scared of him–”

“I am not!” said Harry indignantly, though he knew Granby was teasing.

“–and I know you’re considering Scarborough for second, but he’s a bit…silly, I say with your pardon. Celeritas wants you in good hands.”

Harry grinned. “And you’re good hands, are you Lieutenant?”

Granby puffed himself up. “I should say so, sir.”

“Well, then.” Harry bowed to him with good humour. “I dub thee my second. Silly-Willy Scarborough can be third. Bless him.”

So on all accounts, everyone was satisfied. Though Laet was annoyed at the loss of one of his crew, and it didn’t help when Remy informed him, with an air of smugness, that if Granby wanted a different dragon, he was welcome to choose the best. They had a mild spat about it, though it was rather half-hearted since they both knew it was Celeritas who had made the change and nothing else. As for the nearly full crew, they were quite happy to initiate Granby into the fold, though their rowdy celebration was cut short by a strict but sympathetic Faversham.

As the months passed, Harry learned more and more, and Remy complained more and more but was learning too. The days were short and the work hard, but time went on peaceably until the month of July came to an end. With it, Harry’s eighteenth birthday passed uncelebrated, as Harry was wont to do since things had gone to hell in his own world. On that very day, he was lucky enough to receive liberty for his crew, and requested one for himself upon learning that Volly and James were among the officers with an upcoming furlough. Harry tentatively asked if James were going round about London, and with a nod of understanding the captain agreed. Harry put in for the day with Celeritas, who was surprised to be asked given Harry’s clear record of attendance from the moment he’d come to Loch Laggan. He allowed the trip, however, and Harry had a little battle with Remy to be able to go, before the dragon finally conceded to Volly’s taking him.

It was time to inspect England for magic, and with it, decide his future definitively.

:::::

James left him to his business two blocks from Whitehall, just a bit south of what he supposed would be a modern Charing Cross. The buildings were new to be so old, in his strange eye. They lacked the age of his London, but the architecture was antique in the same turn. Harry walked in what he thought was the right direction, for the streets were unnamed, largely, and there was no Victoria or Trafalgar to guide him. Much less an Underground or even a bus to take him there.

The streets were coarse with stone and loud when struck by hoof beats. Carriages were the only form of travel here, besides walking, and most of the pedestrians stared back at him; gawking. So far, Harry had not seen much historical garb besides the white trousers, stockings and buckled shoes of the Corps. Now, here, there were long skirts and high collars, bowler hats in the fashion of Fudge and was that…was that a powdered wig? Harry himself was a source of entertainment as well, it seemed. His bottle green coat with gold bars that betrayed him as a captain were quite shocking. James himself had garnered a few scandalized looks before he had left with Volly.

He did his best to ignore them and finally came upon a sort of familiar street. Charing Cross was mostly shop fronts at this time, and largely unmarked. A trained eye went from each shop to where The Leaky Cauldron should have sat, and there he found nothing. This was less of a surprise than he thought it would be.

Another walk back toward Whitehall and one more length to what should be Downing provided all the necessary answers he had asked for. Obviously there would be no phone booth, stark red and modern in these times, but neither was there an indication of some wizardly-type entrance. There was no loo where he, Ron and Hermione had entered the Ministry in disguise, no wonky signs queer in their clues to an underground government; no nothing… no Ministry of Magic.

He sat upon a stoop leading to the side of some consulate, and sighed. If ever he had speculated where his magic came from, he was now sure. The lack of it, in the air and in physical proof, betrayed that magic itself was exclusive to him alone. He was sure the dragons had to be a form of magic, but perhaps they were a consolation to a world without wizards and witches? There was no doubt he could use his own wand, so this lack of practitioners meant he was the only human with that capability.

But then he thought. What if the government had yet to be established? There might be wizards and witches in hiding, completely separated from the Muggle world. After all, this dimension was strange enough, what was to say they did exist, but absolutely and completely in hiding? He was sure he had walked half of Scotland in those first few days here, and there had been no Hogwarts. But the school might never have come to pass, if something had made the Wizarding world withdraw permanently. Perhaps the witch hunt had been worse than usual? But then the lack of magic in the very earth told otherwise.

And Wizards would never let dragons be known to Muggles, that much was certain. So, maybe not a very secret, very silent magical community, then. There was likely, however, to be many sole practitioners. They would probably be more frauds than anything, but perhaps the world was scattered, unorganized and based on this assumption– somewhat less than what it was in his world. But Harry didn’t have the time to go about England seeking every person even slightly interested in wizardry, nor the patience to deal with Trelawney-like men and women convinced of their own trickery.

Annoyed, and more sad than he would have suspected, he continued to think upon it until it was close to his rendezvous time with James. And he had made two decisions since:

One, and it was an obvious one, was that Harry would not give up looking for the slightest proof of other magics while in this world. Not for any real hope of getting back (what had he left? Mourning and Ginny and Teddy, perhaps. His best friends. Yet all could take care of themselves bar his godson, who Harry often thought of, worrying if he was safe and happy) but for an end to the mystery of his being here. His second decision was an obvious one, and would drive him forward on a new path.

Harry would train as hard as he could so that Remy would not be in danger of any of his amateurish mistakes. And he would fight, because he was lucky enough to be sent to a dimension where a good purpose had basically dropped into his lap. He would take care of Remy, as best as he could, and though never having been too patriotic, he would fight for England against Napoleon and make sure they won. He laughed. It seemed so very silly to be here, in this world and this time, but now his options were narrowed down and his decisions decided. There was no use in sulking about, and so he wouldn’t.

Perhaps later he would think about what was left behind.

It was a good thing, then, that he was early, because James and Volly were as well, and looking harried upon their arrival.

“Oh good,” James said in regard to him being there. “We have to go. The Navy’s caught up with the French; They’re mucking about in Egypt and mean to take the river. Excidium’s formation has been called.”

Harry gaped. “But we haven’t finished training yet!”

James gave him a short, desperate grin. “You’ll have to do. We’ll get that bloodthirsty beast of yours and you’ll be off. I wouldn’t worry. Celeritas cleared it with the Admiralty, so he must think you’re up to it. Just be cautious with Remy, he’s still very young.”

Harry was worried, and very excited, though he wouldn’t show it and look like a proper scrub in front of the other aviators. This would be his first aerial battle, and hopefully not his only one. His decision to stay and fight was now being put to the test– It was time to see if his heart still had that certain mettle that had earned him a place in Gryffindor.

:::::

Excidium’s formation came upon the battle at Akoubir Bay just as the fighting started properly. Remy, positioned at Auctoritus’ flank, moved easily with the group despite Harry’s own worries of him possibly wandering. The sound of cannon fire was loud, smoke hovering in the air and debris splashing into the water. The line of French ships had halted in a long, curved line, and around the fleet came the British Navy from the north.

Their formation moved toward the dragons hovering in the no man’s land. Harry bade Faversham to signal 'make ready’ in response to the beginnings of Excidium’s offensive maneuver. His heart pounded, and though the motions of this battle were different, the fluid, water-like fog of action was a very familiar feeling. Remy beat his wings at a quicker pace in his excitement.

He could hear the clamouring and the shouts of the men beneath Remy’s belly, even over the howling wind of their speed. 'Engage the enemy closer’, the ensign signaled, and they made the pass at a Chanson-de-Guerre as a round of musket fire burst outward. The Chanson screeched and lilted away from the onslaught, making to scratch at Remy’s wing, which missed the dragons head by a hair’s breadth.

The gap in their formation filled in as the aviators reshaped. They were allowed one more pass until a shadow fell upon them, and a Grand Chevalier dropped into the formation heavily and broke it.

Harry cursed as Remy dipped and looped around instinctively, Auctoritus following suit and the others of their formation fleeing in various states of distress. Only Excidium remained unmoved in his flight, alone in their broken team. He engaged the Grand Chevalier instead, and the sharp stench of acid permeated as he spat and hit the dragon’s flank. It ate away at the straps, sinking into the tough hide as the beast screamed in pain.

They had drifted off course, and the fighting and the engaged dragons of their formation were far from them. A rush of wind hit the side of Harry’s face as beside them came another Papillon Noir, coloured similarly as Remy but with striped patterns. To Harry’s shock, the dragon spoke to Remy in French, but they did not fire.

And Harry realized that they thought Remy was with the Armee de l'Air. Not an entirely foolish assumption, but foolish all the same. The Papillon Noir repeated her call to Remy, who was silent in shock along with the rest of the crew. Still they did not fire, but Harry did.

The volley of bullets took out most of the crew, stinging the side of the Papillon Noir’s wing and tearing through it brutally. Her wail of agony was nothing compared to Harry’s triumph at seeing his men shoot straight and true, motivated by their lucky ruse. The Papillon was hurt badly, and unable to fly. She dropped down onto the nearest French frigate instead of fleeing, and Harry’s men cheered but soon fell silent at Faversham’s shout. Harry gave the signal to change position, and they flew around and north, where a new set of dragons were fighting.

They circled without engaging, and soon another dragon, a Pecheur-Couronne (so brilliantly blue that Harry stared), came about to fly with them. They fired again, and again, and the attack was less successful but drove the dragon to retreat after a flash of Remy’s talons to its chest. They were able to use this strategy once more, though the last engagement was unbalanced between them and the Grand Chevalier. Injured but still fighting, the Chevalier turned about to crush Remy with its weight, but the spit of musket fire interrupted the likely fatal assault. Laetificat’s formation had come.

They tore away from the crossfire quickly, and behind them there were signals from the French captains, warning the others that Remy was not theirs. He was disappointed the French had caught on so quickly, but forgot about it when he caught sight of a British ship in peril. Their staysail was tangled with an enemy frigate called the Tonnant. The frigate was coming under heavy fire, and would not hold out unless Harry did something. He thought quickly.

“Mr. Faversham, inventory of grenades?” he shouted.

“Nine, sir.”

Harry frowned. “Remy, we need to help. Fly low and fast–”

“Shall I use my claws?” Remy asked with enthusiasm. Harry smiled grimly.

“Yes,” he said. “Mr. Faversham, aim the grenades for the hull. Remy will clear the way.”

Faversham did not argue, though he likely would have were there time. Remy would be flying directly into the path of the cannonade, and it was admittedly a very risky maneuver. Yet Harry would not let Remy or his crew be massacred (the discovery of his magic be damned) and the men on British ship slaughtered and the ship sunk; sending two hundred men or more into the deep. They swooped so low and so fast, a mist of foam gathered in their wake, and then Remy’s claws were sinking into the side of the Tonnant and ripping away the hull with a horrible screech. The grenades were tossed in quickly, and just as they flew clear and circled around the British ship (without cannon fire, thank god, for the French sailors could hardly believe their daring and stood in shock) the crackle of explosions shook the ship, and it arched upward upon the water.

There was a great shudder and a sound like the creak of old bones, and the ship dropped and started to sink. Their frigate was untangled in the movement, jib boom free but damaged, and finally able to return fire, the Tonnant took rather unnecessary cannon fire as it sunk.

“Brilliant, Remy! Brilliant,” Harry said over the cheering, patting the dragon’s neck.

And then they were meeting another Pecheur-Couronne head on. Remy yelled as claws seared his forearm, and Harry jolted at the sound. The Pecheur-Couronne aligned with them then, and Faversham shouted, “'Ware boarders!”

Harry looked back at the struggle, but did not move back from the dragon on Harry’s hurried order. Instead, Harry patted Remy and said, “Shake them off, Remy, and then fly straight. I’m going to do something stupid.”

Remy understood. “Be careful. I don’t want you hurt, but I do so like prizes! Tell Granby to keep count.”

“'Ware boarders!” came again from Faversham, who showed upon his usually emotionless face that he could not quite believe Harry’s refusal to come away. There were eight French boarders atop Remy, and Harry bade him a rough turn.

Remy had the audacity to laugh as he turned sideways and completely upside down. Harry felt weightless for a moment, and the rush made him laugh as well. The straps had, of course, held their crew in the loop, if not dizzied them, and where there were eight men now there were only two. Harry kept Remy steady and unbuckled himself. He stood.

“Sir!” Faversham yelled, but his strangled shout did not stop Harry from bending his knees and flinging himself off of Remy’s neck.

He hit the side of the Pecheur-Couronne with a gasp, before hauling himself up swiftly and fluidly enough that even he was surprised at how well it was done. He shot the lieutenant in front of him and put his pistol to the completely astounded captain’s head.

“I think you’d better land,” Harry said, as Remy crowed in victory.

They came about on a British ship, depositing the captain into irons, and left with the wind bursting through Harry’s hair. Strapped in once more, Faversham, showing a lack of composure he had never seen, said, “Madness! Sir, what–?”

“I was in a position to capture, lieutenant,” Harry smiled.

“We do not board when boarded!” Faversham gasped. “And we most certainly don’t risk a captain!”

“I don’t see why not,” Harry remarked. “Everything was under control.”

“That’s one, sir!” Granby bellowed. The men were laughing (laughing!) behind him. Faversham face was red. It seemed that the lieutenant had only just now realised that Remy’s captain and crew were barking mad.

The battle quickly turned in their favour. The British fleet had a wiser Admiral than the French. Remy engaged twice more and took one more; a Chanson-de-Guerre to the men’s loud cheers and Remy’s pride. Harry’s daring and unprecedented boarding came in handy once again (causing Faversham apoplexy, but no matter).

And then the French l'Orient, which had been in the thick of it– exploded. It burst apart with a tremendous boom and a flash of light. In the wake of the explosion, and amidst the cheers of the British sailors, the closest ship to the l'Orient struck its colours. Another one soon followed.

Two frigates escaped the melee of the French defeat. Harry and Remy flew back into Excidium’s formation, finally, but one of the Chequered Nettles of their team, Basilius, was badly clawed and moved slowly. They acclimated to that weary pace and surrounded the wounded from further attack, but the retreat had sounded, and most of the dragons had fled into the horizon. The French Navy had lost.

Remy turned to his captain and said, “I knew I chose right with you, mon capitaine. That was–”

::::::

“–possibly the most dim-witted, harebrained, ridiculous thing I’ve ever had the displeasure of witnessing!” Jane Roland was yelling.

Newly promoted Admiral Lenton, stationed at Dover where they had stopped on the way back from Akoubir, seemed to have permanently misplaced his eyebrows at the top of his hairline. Jane continued her ranting, yelling at Harry and Faversham respectively, while they stood stiff and browbeaten in the Admiral’s office.

“–and the danger presented to your dragon, who is the first priority for a captain, is absolutely unacceptable! Damn near negligent, sir!”

“I would never risk Remy!” Harry burst out, unable to help himself. “Never! I’d bloody well die first!”

“And what good would that do, but to have Remy suffer your death enough to want to die himself?”

Harry backed down. They didn’t understand. Harry would never risk Remy, that much was true, and he had his own arsenal to prove it. The Elder Wand in his pocket shuddered at Harry having thought of it. They didn’t understand and he could not make them, and by all accounts Harry deserved this dressing down. But he would not have them think he was dangerous to Remy.

“My reckless actions I take full responsibility for,” Harry said, speaking out of turn and outraging them further. “But I would never want Remy hurt. You can count on it. I’d die first. I’d shoot myself. I risked my own body more, today, and for that I apologize, but only myself was in any danger. And you insult Remy by accusing him, in his own enthusiasm, of stupidity. He is ridiculously clever, and understands risks for the benefit of the whole. He will not change his character, and though I may find it hard, I will try to change mine. And I beg you not to blame Lieutenant Faversham for my recklessness. He tried to stop me.”

Jane and said nothing for a time, seething silently. Admiral Lenton, who had not spoken since Jane had started to tear into him, said, “Well. Well,” and turned to Faversham, “Lieutenant, do you wish to be reassigned?”

Harry started. He knew Faversham hadn’t agreed with the maneuver, but hadn’t realized the man might want to be away from the rash captain and his dragon. Faversham was red, and had been since the Nile.

“Sir,” he began, “I-his…” he cleared his throat. “Captain Potter’s strategy goes against everything in my gut.”

Harry looked down at his feet.

“But I cannot deny it was a masterful tactic that was both foolish and amazing to behold. I would be a right scrub to not want a part of that, even if only to council the captain against his– penchant for bravura in future,” Faversham concluded.

“Oh, I’ll listen, Mr. Faversham, I will,” Harry promised. He liked Faversham’s solid dauntlessness, and perhaps should have listened about the boarders, if this lecture were the consequence. But it would be hard to change Harry’s knee-jerk recklessness. Faversham would have a job on his hands, yet Harry could not imagine a better officer for it; he was the sensible one in their company, the unshakable man at his back. Battle always made Harry respectful of his fellow fighters. Always.

“I hope you will, lad,” and there was a strong note of chastisement in Faversham’s tone, but he looked at his captain with a certain fondness Harry likened to Moody’s dry disapproval, when Harry put his wand in his back pocket.

“Well,” Lenton nodded. “That’s settled. Lieutenant Faversham, or Councilor Faversham, as it were, will stay on your crew. Though I have no doubt you mean the best for your dragon, Captain Potter, I don’t want to hear of anymore dangerous maneuvers.”

Harry bowed slightly in accord.

“But a frigate down and three captures,” Lenton continued, sighing. “You’ll keep on with that ingenuity, I think, but without the carelessness, eh?”

He was startled at the compliment for a moment, and then bowed again, belatedly. Faversham heard the dismissal and turned to leave, Harry following at a slower pace. To his surprise, Jane caught up with him as he walked toward the courtyard and to Remy.

“Poppycock,” she said. “But according to everyone else you were famous.”

Harry halted and bit his lip. “Jane,” he started, “I hope you’re not too angry–”

“I’m furious,” she told him, but her eyes smiled. “I’ve never seen that sort of gall, that sort of absolute stupidity before. Not in the Corps, who have intelligent and cautious men and women in service.”

“I’m sorry–”

“I’ve also never seen a braver man, nor a more ingenious one. Much less in our youngest captain. I’d have you clapped in irons for it, if you were not worth ten aviators alone.”

And with this parting statement, she left, leaving Harry baffled and flushed with both shame and pleasure. He gathered himself and looked about, glad that he was alone in the corridor. If her words got back to Remy, his head would grow so big he’d probably float away.

::::::

Remy’s jewels glittered in the sun. The large lavalliere around his neck was set with a giant ruby, surrounded by tiny crystals. It blazed silver and red in direct light, blinding everyone as it shined. Of course it clashed terribly with the smattering of blue and green on black that was Remy’s hide. Harry hadn’t thought about that when he’d bought it, and he wouldn’t dare tell Remy that it clashed and was maybe a bit…garish.

All he had noticed was how it sparkled, and he was enamored enough with his dragon that in order to properly spoil him rotten, certain sacrifices must be made. Like taste. And expense. This lavalliere was certainly not the only one Remy owned. And of all of them, the ruby pendant was perhaps the least tacky.

“–and Cressy was very jealous this morning, because I showed him my chest, you know, with all my jewels–”

The chest full of garnets and sparkling things were what Harry had spent all his hard-earned money on; enchanted by some terrible curse as he bought countless trinkets for the silly creature.

“–and I said to him, 'it’s no fault of mine that Gregson hasn’t got you a chest of sparkles, you have more than Excidium in any case’–”

Harry sighed and tilted his head to look at Faversham, who as actually listening raptly, the sod.

“–and he told me that Jane doesn’t have to get Excidium anything because he’s more sensible and doesn’t want to show away like I do, but I don’t show away when I’m just so very much more impressive–”

“You tell them, Remy, mate!” their midwingman, Mr. Tracey, yelled from Remy’s underbelly.

“–thank you, Tracey. And so I said…oh! There they are. Laetificat is hurt. Shall we battle, Harry?”

Harry came to attention. The British ship was surrounded by two French frigates and three dragons, their reinforcement of five welcome to Laetificat’s lone struggle. “Yes, love, I think we should.”

“I’ll finish my story later,” Remy said, quickening his pace. “Because I simply have to tell you what Dulcia said then!”

Harry sighed.

:::::

They were in Dover when word reached them about a dragon egg captured on the sea. Harry’s furlough, the first one in three years, was scheduled for after his immediate return to Loch Laggan; their temporary station for the last few months while relieved from patrol on the channel. Harry and Remy were quite happily looking forward to the time off, if only so Harry could get some much needed sleep after three days of frustrating skirmishes.

Unfortunately, Harry had to drop his crew off in Scotland before going back south. With their latest capture of another French frigate, just two days prior, Harry had managed to save up enough that he could be off to London again almost immediately, with a little left over for a new trinket for Remy. Sometimes Harry thought he’d eaten some if Romilda Vane’s cauldron cakes, since he could not really help himself and continued to buy Remy sparkling things. He’d need another treasure chest soon, and that was just sick.

Their reputation for balking at the rules and their ingenuity in battle was famous now, and a source fond frustration for the seniority. Lenton and Celeritas had given up on the both of them, and oftentimes their lectures trailed off with resigned sighs and tired mumbling. Harry was always apologetic, but also not really.

He and Remy were known for their captures, and Remy had a reputation for showing away amongst the other dragons. Harry, however, was something of a joke among aviators.

Granby had a million anecdotes by now, and they were often retold over cards. Playing Old Harry was something of a common idiom at Dover and Loch Laggan. Which by definition meant that someone was doing something very risky, and very stupid. Sometimes it just meant being particular wily, too. Jane simply said it meant he had “a lot of guff” and seesawed between shouting at him about maneuvers and worrying over him after each successful bout. 'Playing Old Harry’, she said, was 'the equivalent of dying young’.

Harry liked Jane. She tried her very best to talk sense into him, and to take care of him, when he let her. Emily too, was very like her mother. Harry would test her on her sums (which she was dreadful at, poor thing) when he saw her, and give her sweets and bobbles after he’d been shopping in London. He had a weakness for children and Remy, of this there was no doubt. Her mother was away often enough, like Harry, who was sad for her, though she was not very melancholic at the lack of a constant parent. She was something of Excidium and Remy’s pet, anyway, and between them received loads of affection.

Through the years, he and Granby remained close. The period of peace in eighteen hundred and one was tentative but welcome, and allowed time for Harry and Remy to finish their training properly with Granby’s help. They had dined together every night to learn and sometimes modify maneuvers, and from then on were seldom away from each other’s company.

Harry disregarded Jane’s warning that 'familiarity bred contempt’ and knew that though he should not, in truth, be best mates with his underling, he didn’t put much stock in strict leadership most days. Faversham took care of that anyway, the old tyrant.

Harry and Granby were good fun and beloved by their crew, yet Harry’s confidence and ability meant his men were quick to obey when Harry gave an order. He was a good captain, and a good comrade, scandalous informality aside.

Remy was another thing entirely. Still young, but old enough to have ceased his silliness by now, Remy defied expectation, ignored all the words of wisdom from the older dragons, and remained charmingly unchanged. The crew adored him, and though Excidium often spoke sharp about Remy’s showing away, the other dragons were usually affectionately exasperated and not truly cross.

Remy toed the line, often. He was an incurable gossip and an irredeemable rogue. He was also a vicious and valuable fighter and as bold as brass; capable of anything he set his mind to. Like convincing Harry to buy things for him.

“He was wearing gold! Gold! With his yellow colouring?” Remy said to Harry, in regards to Cressy’s new trinket. “Gold looks awful. I don’t know what he means by it. I despise gold. Do you think I’d look good in gold?”

Harry surmised what he would be buying that day in London, against the screaming denial of his funds.

“Cows, Remy, cows,” Harry drew his attention, hauling the animals closer. The farmer he had bought them from had already fled into his house and bolted the door. “I’ll be back soon, dearest, don’t get into trouble.”

Remy nuzzled him before saying loftily, “I recall and shall recite some common phrase you have used oft: pot and kettle.”

Harry laughed and made his way toward the city, a mile or so walk that he didn’t at all mind. He went to a jewelry shop there, when in London, for Remy’s trinkets. Often times he went another way, just to look into other shops. It wasn’t often he got leave, and he liked to spend it well. He went a new route today, and came upon a curiosity.

In the back of his mind, he often kept an eye out for places like this in his unending and unhurried search for magic. It was not a settlement, but a caravan, outside in the street just west of the farm Remy was stopped in. The gaudy colours of the caravan and the tinkling bells on the back of its carriage were not what drew his gaze, though they were splendid. He was not gaping at the horses, who were large and mottled as they whinnied and tossed their hairy heads at the ladies gawking in the streets; their manes tied in braids with beads and bells and ribbons. The caravan was very impressive, but the sign on the back of it was what really caught his attention:

“MADAME BIDDY - PSYCHIC” Apenny a Reading

He moved toward the door and knocked without hesitating. It slid open, and with two thumps he walked up the steps and journeyed in, ignoring the whispering bystanders outside. The woman before him was obscured by smoke and tapestries. They were as colorful as the outside of the caravan, and jangled as he moved them aside.

Who he assumed was Madame Biddy sat at a rounded table with her hand splayed across a deck of cards. A smoking pipe, smelling strongly of earth and cannabis, titled in her long-fingered grasp. She was a sunken-eyed, dark woman, older than Jane but not by much. The dress she wore was not one a society lady would approve of, for her bust was bulging obscenely enough to make Harry blush. Her long, coiled hair was done up much like the horses, braided with bobbles that tinkled as she gestured to the chair in front of her.

“A reading for you?” she said, her accent thick and landless. “A penny,” she held out her hand.

Harry gave her the toll. With a flourish, she put down her pipe and grabbed up the cards, her many rings clinking together as she shuffled them. “I tell you your future, but none of it is certain.”

His mouth twitched.

“It changes like the sea, and man cannot tame the sea,” she told him as she held the deck out to him. He touched it without her asking, and her gaze narrowed. The cards went down onto the table. With a muttered word, the first one flipped over. “A happy jester,” she read, whispering loudly. “Unlimited possibilities, my dear.”

Her rings clicked together again. “The lovers. An affair,” she intoned. “And a tower for disruption. Unlucky,” she huffed.

Another card flipped over. “A world like no other. The world for you,” Madame Biddy muttered, pinching her lips and gazing at him. “Eternal life.”

She went quicker, seemingly enraptured with his reading. “Death, but not death–” her words stopped. “Death as a friend?”

The last card she uncovered made her sigh. “Man upon the rope. A needless sacrifice. Perhaps one. Perhaps many.”

Harry smiled and stood. “Thank you,” he said. He was done here. He had sensed no magic from her. The tapestries rustled, her bells rang behind his back.

“You have death with you.”

He stopped and nodded, frowning.

Madame Biddy gazed at him, her eyes dark and curious. “You are different.”

“Yes,” he said, seeing no reason to lie.

“Very different. Not from here.”

He watched her back, now. There was still no magic, no buzz around her, no heady senses besides the overwhelming scent of cloves and smoke. He wondered, for the first time, if she was something like Trelawney, who didn’t so much practice magic but stew in it. “Have you ever been a prophet?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “Once. A long time ago.”

Harry smiled. “Have you got a prophecy for me?”

She looked away. Her silence lasted a long time, but Harry was patient. “It is not enough,” she said, finally, “what powers I possess–”

Harry nodded in understanding, and the Madame eyed him carefully. “I have never met a God,” she said.

He could not help but laugh. “I doubt you ever will,” he snorted.

“The reading will be true,” she told him. “That much is certain. Though nothing is certain.”

Harry grinned bitterly. “Yes. Good day.”

“Good day.”

The warm sunlight did not lift his sagging spirits, although being out of the miasma of smoke and vapors helped to halt his growing headache. He moved away from the street, feeling sad, though he didn’t regret going for a reading. The woman was unlikely to be a fraud, and most likely using a magic he did not understand. Muggles had a magic of their own, and this world had it’s own laws of nature. Just because Harry could not see it, did not mean it didn’t exist.

There might be magic here, but it was probably true that there was no one quite like him. He might be the only wizard in the world. Harry laughed suddenly. What a perfect place for an unbeatable wand, he thought, where no other wands exist.

::::::

“I would like to meet the dragon who escaped from France like me,” Remy was saying, after much excited gushing and nuzzling when Harry returned and presented him with a gold brooch. “They say his captain is a Navy man! Like that Nelson fellow we met!”

Harry winced as he adjusted Remy’s harness. He couldn’t imagine Admiral Nelson standing for anyone addressing him as 'that Nelson fellow’. Their one meeting with the man had been brief and awkward.

After the Battle of the Nile, Nelson had expressed an interest in meeting the captain that took so many prizes and saved a British ship, and with much pomp and circumstance, publicly shook Harry’s hand but barely spoke to Remy. Harry knew he was a mastermind, a legend in Naval warfare, but he was too puffed up for Harry’s taste. And he didn’t much gush over Remy, when everyone else did and should, so something must be wrong with him.

This news about the Navy captain turned aviator was interesting though. “Are they assigned yet?”

“Volly says they’re to train with Lily’s formation,” Remy said. “We haven’t seen Catherine or Lily yet, by the way.”

“We’re leaving in a moment,” Harry consoled him.

“Oh, good. Bee says it’s a right shame,” Remy continued. “Dayes, you remember him, he’s been waiting and waiting for an egg, and Bee said that the French dragon refused him, and would not be separated from his Navy captain. Quite right, I said, because they tried to do the same to you and I, as you must recall, and that wasn’t on.”

Harry frowned.

“But Bee says Navy captains are stiff-necked and don’t take to dragon company, and think only that we consort with the hoi polloi, as aviators, and he won’t belong at all, so he’d best give up the young one and go back to his ship.”

“Remy,” he interrupted, feeling a horrified rage bubble up inside him. Granby had said what? “That’s not fair at all, Remy!”

“Oh? Why?” he asked.

“Because we don’t know him! Granby has no right to judge…I can’t believe…he was never like this with me.”

Remy sighed. “He queued for an egg two years go,” he reminded his captain. “It went to stupid Rankin. And there hasn’t been one since.”

Harry was aware of Granby’s disappointment over Levitas, a dragon Harry had not seen for quite a while, and according to Remy, Rankin was horrid to his dragon on top of it. It was a sorry situation, as distressing as it was not surprising, given Jeremy Rankin’s awful personality.

Harry hated him, and he hated Harry just as much, ever since the incident in the dining room when he’d been showing away about getting an egg and Harry had tripped him. Accidentally, of course. As the son of some Earl or what have you, Rankin had shoved poor Granby out of the running for the promotion, and had been insufferable about it as well. Which called for revenge.

Even though his bitterness remained strong and had probably grown some, and Granby had every right to be disappointed, Harry could not approve of Bee’s words. “That has nothing to do with the new captain,” Harry said sternly. “He could not have expected Dayes to succeed, when no one succeeded with you. Besides that, this Navy man none of us knows, and we’ve no right to think badly of him. I expected better of Bee.”

Remy looked suitably chastened. “Are you cross with him?”

“We shall have words, I imagine,” Harry grunted, tightening the straps on his packages. “And you, dear one, will do your best to introduce the new dragon to your friends, won’t you?”

“Of course I will!” Remy said. “He won’t be an outcast at all, Harry! And neither will his captain. I shall inform everyone the moment I return!”

Harry had no doubt he would, and the other dragons would likely heed him, if not to get Remy to stop badgering them about it. He was unsettled and angry as they left, and bade Remy not to worry that he was cross with him. No, it was Granby who had to be put to rights, though Harry had no blasted idea of how to go about it. He hoped Jane hadn’t been right about their friendship. He hoped there would not be contempt between he and Granby at all.

He was never one to be overly optimistic.

:::::

Remy landed and called out to Crescendium, first and foremost, “Look at my gold! It is much better than yours.”

“Remy, really,” Harry muttered as the good-natured squabble began. They were interrupted, however, when a sinuous black dragon landed in the clearing. His blue eyes took in the new arrival with curiosity and a certain wariness, and his tongue flickered out to taste the air.

The dragon was a gorgeous species Harry had never seen before. He glanced at it with an appreciative eye as he unloaded Remy’s belly netting of its sweets and a bracelet for Emily, and other articles he had been ordered to acquire by his crew and a few other captains. Remy jolted at the arrival of the dragon and then was off, leaving Harry’s work unfinished. He threw his hands up and rolled his eyes.

“Bonjour!” Remy said to the dragon. “I am Remy and you are black like me!” He glanced quickly at Crescendium. “Do you see, Cressy? Only the best dragons have our colours!” He turned back to his new companion as Cressy grumbled mutinously, and then cocked his head in surprise. “But you are not French at all!”

“I’m an Imperial, that’s Chinese,” the dragon answered, looking taken aback at Remy’s enthusiasm but with a hint of surprised pleasure. Harry thought, sadly, that because of his captain’s ostracism the dragon probably hadn’t made many friends of his own. “Are you French?”

“I’m a Papillon Noir, and I escaped Napoleon so that I could be with my capitaine, who is English. Harry! Harry! Come meet my new friend!”

Harry did not refuse him. As if he could. “What is your name?” Remy was asking the dragon as he approached.

“Temeraire, and my captain is Laurence. He won me in battle,” the dragon introduced.

“What a lovely name! My capitaine has been in many battles. He’s a hero. And your capitaine is too! My, we must be the best in all the Corps, I’d say,” he concluded loudly for Cressy’s benefit. “This is Harry.”

Harry bowed with a smile. “A pleasure to meet you. Temeraire, was it?”

“Yes,” Temeraire said. “The pleasure is mine.”

“I like your pendant!” Remy interrupted. “That’s a pearl, isn’t? I haven’t any pearls yet.”

Harry gazed at him and sighed. “Perhaps another frigate, dearest, and we’ll get you a pearl.”

Remy perked up and said to Temeraire in a conspiratorial hush, “My capitaine is really very easily won over, and I never want for anything. But I do adore my Harry, however soft he is.”

“I can hear you, Remy,” Harry pointed out. “How are you settling in, Temeraire?”

“Quite well, sir, thank you,” the dragon said, smiling at Remy with a solid, quick fondness. “You are welcome join us down at the lake for swimming later, after we eat.”

Remy was entirely baffled. “Swimming!” he gasped. Temeraire hunched a bit, as if wary of acting outlandish to his new friend. “What a capital idea! Why haven’t you taken me swimming, Harry?”

Harry scratched at his head. “Uh…sorry? I’ve never seen a dragon swim.”

“Which just means we should do it, of course. Really, Harry, you’re so adventuresome, normally!”

“I wasn’t refusing–”

But then Remy was off and hadn’t heard him at all, telling Temeraire about their various exploits. He excused himself just as Temeraire was telling of his capture in battle by his captain, and passed Cressy and Maximus coming toward them with interest; peeved at being left out.

The problem of Temeraire’s acceptance into the covert settled, Harry made his way to his rooms to wash up before lunch. He changed into his fatigues and unpacked his purchases, before resolving to bathe after the lake outing. Or perhaps he would swim as well.

Harry came into the corridor before the dining hall in time to catch a disturbing exchange indeed. Granby saluted a stiff-backed man with spiteful mockery, saying, “Sir,” as if it were the last thing he would call the man even in formal company.

To the man’s credit, he replied merely, “Mr. Granby,” and continued on his way toward a table. He did not sit alone, but did not speak with any other.

Harry frowned as he lingered by the door, assuming that the slighted man was the new captain. He was tall and slim, laced with wiry muscle obvious even in his too formal attire. His full head of blond hair rested gracefully (Harry observed with envy) atop a smooth forehead which framed a handsome face. He certainly held himself with decorum, though Harry could sense no maliciousness in his posture. Having met Temeraire first helped, for bar Captain Rankin, a dragon often told much about their captain’s character, and vice versa.

He sighed and came away from the shadows, waylaid very suddenly at his entrance by Emily, who sat with the other children and had been looking out for him.

“Harry! Harry!” she called to him exuberantly, hugging him around the middle. Emily did not ask for her booty, but simply held out a hand.

He laughed. “You brat,” he teased. “What makes you think I have anything at all for you?”

“What’s behind your back then?”

“My hand.”

“And what’s in your hand?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

She sighed with unending patience, as if he were a little child, and said, “Harry, really–”

He handed her a bag of sweets and the little bracelet, laughing again at her enthusiastic perusal of his gifts. Emily pronounced herself satisfied and with one last hug, marched herself off to show off her treats. Harry had not forgot the others and followed her to put a bag of sweeties on the table, to which they scrambled through immediately, chewing with piping thank yous. Emily looked put out by his lack of favouritism, but indulged in the other sweets as well.

“Hello, Father Christmas, what do you have for me?” Berkley said, coming up to him. His parchment and pens, as requested, as well as money left over exchanged hands. Harry gave Faversham his new buckles, amidst much teasing from the others and handed out the various items for the officers present.

“Did you buy another trinket for your vainglorious beast?” Cressy’s captain, Gregson yelled from across the room.

Harry shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry, mate.”

“Damn!” Gregson cursed, turning back to Captain Warren. “I’ll be bankrupt in a fortnight with Cressy’s complaining.”

Granby was standing at their usual table. Harry smiled at him, tightly, and with a terrible turning of his stomach, made his way to Captain Laurence instead. “May I join you?” he said without preamble.

The captain was surprised, but not unwelcoming. “But of course. Captain William Laurence, on Temeraire, at your service.” He held out a hand.

Harry gave it a firm shake. “Captain Harry Potter, at yours, on Remy. You’ll not have met Remy yet, but I’ve just had the pleasure of speaking with Temeraire. I should warn you, Remy has found a fellow conspirator, and now they shall never behave.”

Laurence smiled. “What would they be planning, I wonder?”

“Most likely how to make us hand them the world on a silver platter. My spoiled beast will have your Temeraire expecting all manner of luxuries soon enough. How do you find Loch Laggan?”

“I find it very well,” Laurence said politely and quickly as Harry’s meal arrived. Harry knew this to be a falsehood, but admired his manners anyway. “Temeraire has been comfortable, but I am glad to hear he’s made friends with yours.”

Harry grinned. “More like Remy’s made friends with him. Didn’t give Temeraire much choice in the matter. You’re training with Lily’s formation?”

“We are.”

“Celeritas have you run jolly ragged? My first few months were ghastly, and Remy complained day and night of endless formation flying.”

Laurence was surprised by this knowledge, for some reason. “Oh yes, Temeraire is just the same. He is very clever, far more intelligent than I, I’d say. He has an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and so I am often reading to him. I was never one to appreciate books but now I suppose I will become scholar for his benefit.”

“You read to him?” Harry said, smiling. “I tried once with Remy, but he doesn’t sit still for long and he’s well…you’ll see.”

“Are you normally stationed at Loch Laggan? I know many captain‘s more often in the air than on land.”

“Dover. But we’ve been mostly patrolling these last few months, and besides a skirmish or two and a ship in peril, there’s not been much action. No great battles, to be sure, like the Nile.”

“My word!” Laurence said. “Were you in the Corps then?”

He nodded with a smile. “Three months into our training and we receive word that we’ve been called to battle as is. I was scared out of my wits, not being fully trained.”

“He lies,” Berkley suddenly said, popping over to lean on Harry’s chair. “Lad went and flew his dragon as close to the sea and near enough to eat a cannonade as he could get. Had Remy claw open the hull and sink it. The bravest and stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. I was on Auctoritus then, as Lieutenant. Absolute madness.”

“You are the captain with the French defector!” Laurence said in realisation. “I saw that happen as well! I was first Lieutenant on the Goliath.”

Harry gaped and Berkley began to laugh. “Is that what they call Remy? The French Defector?”

“I beg your pardon,” Laurence apologised, for no reason Harry could surmise as it was only a case of good-natured ribbing. “It was news six or seven years bygone, and that was indeed what he was called.”

“Remy will love that. Now we have a name for both of you,” Berkley chortled.

“Mad Old Harry on the Runaway Frog,” one of the men shouted.

Laurence looked nonplussed but amused at the slagging Harry was getting and said, “Whatever do they mean?”

Harry made a face at the noise and waved them away. “Scrubs, the lot of them,” which started a new round of teasing. “Temeraire invited us to the lake after lunch, if you don’t mind us joining you. Remy’s cross with me that I’d never thought to take him swimming before, though I shall never know how I was supposed to think of it.”

“Of course,” Laurence said gladly. “We would be happy to have you.” He sobered for a moment. “I beg your pardon, may I ask your age? You were at the Nile, I know, and that was not long ago, but please excuse me… you look very young.”

Harry was amused by Laurence’s tentative informality, ever so polite and cautious despite his friendly nature. Harry liked him.

“Four and twenty,” he answered with a smile. “Remy found me and made me a Captain at seventeen.”

Laurence bowed his head slightly. “I imagine it was quite a shock,” he said immediately, so not to seem like he was insinuating anything.

Harry leaned forward to continue their conversation in a hush. “Captain Laurence, it was more shock to find me so hated for my luck. The Corps is a different sort of place, I find, but once properly acclimated there can be no service better. While it was hard dealing with the unfriendliness, I found Remy a solid comfort, and the companionship of my second Lieutenant, Mr. Granby.”

“Oh,” Laurence said seemingly before he could stop himself. He curbed his tongue quickly over what he might have said next, however.

“Yes, I know,” Harry went on, looking sorry. “I have never known him to be disagreeable, though I am too informal with him, I suppose. I would apologise for him, though despite how it looks, he is not an ill-behaved child.”

Laurence was uncomfortable, Harry could tell. “I would not wish you to assume responsibility for others, sir,” was all he responded with, but his tone was grateful.

“I won’t,” Harry assured him. “It’s far too late for me to amend my status as his superior officer and not always his friend. And I am no sir, everyone just calls me Harry.”

This overture, Harry observed, seemed to take Laurence aback greatly. He, like Harry, did not assume affection quickly. But Harry really did think this man was spot on. “I beg you call me Laurence, as I am addressed by my comrades.”

Friends, then, Harry corrected internally. He did not know that Laurence had had a very similar thought.

::::::

“I don’t know what you mean by it!” Granby was shouting at him.

Harry’s jaw tightened. “And I gave you my answer. It is our duty to accept new captains and make them welcome! You could have brought yourself to our table if you’d liked, nothing was bloody stopping you–”

“Besides Captain Laurence or sir, as he likes!”

“He is your superior, Granby, whether in the Navy or in the Corps, and worthy of respect for his experience and at the least his manners! Which you seem to not possess at all!”

Granby went bright red. “So you like stuffiness, do you? Toffee-nosed captains who steal promotions from other more deserving men?”

“You certainly don’t seem deserving at the moment! And no one has stolen anything! And I would appreciate you not telling Remy your ignorant opinions about people you don’t even know!”

They had started the conversation civilly, if not with some hovering tension. Granby had come to him on his way from bidding Remy goodnight with more hurt than anger in his expression. Harry had wanted him to confide, and had listened while coming up with a strategy on how to point out Granby’s wrongdoing. Granby had started with the disappointment of Dayes and his own bitterness, until he’d sharply diverted his tone all of a sudden, and asked Harry angrily what he had meant by slighting Granby’s company. Harry had professed his need to make Captain Laurence welcome. Granby had scoffed. Harry made him out to be the rudest scrub he’d ever met, and the fight had dissolved into the mess it was now.

“Then I take my leave of you, if I am so far beneath your regard,” Granby spat.

“Oh, belt up, Bee!” Harry yelled. “You were rotten to him and you know it!”

“I would have thought my closest companion would remain true in an strop between gentlemen– your loyalty quickly changed from me to Captain Laurence, I say!”

Harry nearly screamed in frustration, wanting to punch Granby right in the face and be done with it. But he didn’t want to hurt Granby– he just wanted him to listen. “I cannot condone your behavior,” he said, absolutely seething. “You have disrespected a superior officer–”

“This again? Shall I call you sir and salute you…shall I bloody curtsy since you think you’re His Majesty himself?”

“You are insubordinate–”

“And you have never cared for rules or authority, Harry, never! You cannot tell me otherwise when you do what you like, even if it’s damn risky for Remy and your own bloody crew! If you’re too selfish to change then I’d rather be shot of you so I won’t have to risk my neck protecting some careless dodger!”

Granby stopped himself abruptly and paled.

Harry nodded, feeling his insides churn. “Fine. Be shot of me. I’ll inform Celeritas in the morning.”

He left quickly, and Granby stood there for a long while, ghostly white and cursing. He didn’t mean any of that, damn him–

“Well that’s torn it,” the ground crewman said with a laugh, coming back from the courtyard. “You handled that well, lad.”

Granby called him something not very nice at all and fled.

:::::

Harry did not sleep that night, restless as he was due to both fury and melancholy. He hated being at odds with anyone, most times, and the last person he had fought so heartbreakingly with was Ron, his best friend left behind in his journey to this new world. But this quarrel was both different than and similar to his and Ron’s infamous disagreements.

During both the trouble in his fourth year and while camping in search of Horcruxes, Ron’s jealousy had been the source of the problem. It seemed Granby was of a mind that Harry’s defense of Laurence was disloyal, as well as an abandonment of their friendship. His jealousy was queer in that where Harry could understand Ron’s fear of being overshadowed by Harry’s fame, this was simply a matter between two seemingly ordinary men over the acquaintance of another. If Harry had befriended anyone outside of Hermione and Ron, he wondered if Ron would act the same as Granby.

Yet he could not see Ron taking it to heart. His jealousy had not extended to Neville, who Harry was often in confidence with, or Fred and George, his mischievous brothers. Not when Harry had been with Cho or Ginny, not even when Harry went off alone to avoid Ron and Hermione’s bickering. No, his jealousy was of the envious kind, for Harry’s fame and fortune. Or, in the case of Granby, it could not be jealousy at all, now that he thought about it.

There was a truth to his crime of disloyalty. He had not spoken to Granby before slighting his table at lunch. Harry belatedly realised he should have. But there was no telling how Granby would have reacted to the chastising. He had seemed absolutely furious at Harry’s talk of superior officers and respect, and really, Harry truly was a hypocrite, due to his own informal relationships and balking of orders. He should have gone to Granby and asked why he held Captain Laurence in so little regard, and then soothed Granby’s irritation after he was assured of Laurence’s character.

The remonstrating voice in his head sounded an awful lot like Hermione, who he imagined would simply say, “Boys. Honestly.”

His temper had got away with him again. But in his defense, Harry had grown to expect tolerance and companionship in this world, for he had found it in the Corps and had wanted…well, he wanted to show off the friendliness, the welcome the Corps was capable of. To contradict the hostility that he had had to endure when he had first arrived. He wanted to be Laurence’s Granby, and be the leader in acceptance, to hurry along the inevitable really. Like Granby had done for him.

Harry was soft for the Corps now. They were his comrades…his fellows. They were the only people he knew in this lonely world and the Corps was now something like a home. He knew others who had accepted outsiders with little hesitation; Mrs. Weasley, her children, Mr. Weasley, Hermione, Neville…Granby, and he promised to himself that when the time came to reciprocate with others that he would be the one to welcome them. Harry wanted to be that person.

Yet his stupid self-righteousness and distemper had messed everything up again. Harry sometimes hated his awful habit of jumping headfirst into situations he had not thought through. While at times it turned out well, in contrast (mostly when his brashness collided with sentiment) he was also known to royally bollocks things up. Like now.

But Granby owed him an apology as well. Harry was fuming over his words, which were, excusably, said in the heat of quarreling. Yet it still merited an apology, and Harry would not give his own unless Granby recognised that the blame was mutual. He fussed and fretted over the matter all night, until he gave in and went to Remy, who was sleeping beside Temeraire.

Remy woke as he climbed in between his shoulder and forearm, nuzzling him with concern. “Harry? What ever is the matter?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” Harry said, more sharply than intended. “Go back to sleep, dearest.”

The dragon obeyed and Harry did as well, finally warm and calm enough to sleep.

:::::

In the morning things did not look better. Granby was with the ground crew when Harry left for his rooms, looking tired but unwilling to approach him. Harry ignored him in return and went to bathe. During breakfast, he sat with Captain Laurence, who, despite Harry’s grumpiness, was very politely concerned though he did not press when Harry refused to talk about it. Harry did manage to cheer up a bit after agreeing to another journey to the lake that afternoon.

When they went out to the courtyard together, Remy and Temeraire were speaking in low tones to each other, heads bent in secrecy.

“Oh, they’re thick as thieves already,” Harry groaned. “Now we’ll have mutiny and chaos. Just see.”

Laurence laughed. “Temeraire possesses a curiosity for the laws of property. He is often professing his outrage that stealing cows from unsuspecting farmers is prohibited. I am torn between amusement and concern that he will be locked away for treason. ”

“Remy is just the same. He thinks cows should be free and orders are silly, and though he doesn’t disobey, usually, I see the rebellion that lies in wait. What are we to do with them, I wonder?”

They had made it to the two dragons by then, and so his words were heard. “You’ll have to love us despite it, I suspect,” Remy told him promptly. “Now what’s this about you and Granby fighting?”

Harry went red with mortification. “A minor disagreement, Remy,” he answered lowly, avoiding Laurence’s questioning gaze. “Should we watch Temeraire’s flying today? I’ve heard he’s quite good.”

If dragons could blush, he supposed Temeraire would be bright red with how bashfully he dipped his head and said with pleasure, “I’ve heard that you and Remy are the best.”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Remy told him. “If we’re both so good perhaps we can have a formation to ourselves.”

Temeraire looked absolutely ecstatic over this proposal, much to Harry’s horror. They had little regard for orders already, and he imagined changing the fundamentals of Celeritas’ formation training would have them sent to Coventry so fast their heads would spin. Thankfully, Laurence helpfully intervened.

“The training is well enough for us, my dear,” he said to Temeraire. “We would not want to be an imposition to Celeritas or Lily’s formation.”

“If we’re better than the rest it really isn’t our fault, Captain Laurence,” Remy argued. “Though I suppose you are right. We will simply propose it slowly, so Celeritas can get used to the idea.”

Temeraire thought this was a perfect plan and Harry winced. “Remy, perhaps when we’re not so…busy with Napoleon,” he offered, glancing at Laurence apologetically.

“You’ve two more days of liberty,” Remy reminded. “We can create some maneuvers before then, and show them to Celeritas, who will be very impressed. You’ll see.”

Harry gave in with a helpless shrug to an amused Laurence. They made their way to the training grounds with Temeraire and Remy conspiring ahead of them, most alarmingly, in Harry’s opinion.

“I beg your pardon,” Laurence addressed him, apologising first, as he was wont to do. “I do hope your quarrel with Lieutenant Granby was not due to me. I would not wish to cause dissension among your men.”

Harry looked at him. “Our quarrel is necessary, I’m afraid,” Harry said at length. “Granby has been spoiled with a crew and a captain that usually forgive him anything. I will admit that I did not handle it as well as I should have, though nor did Granby. I beg you not to worry, Laurence, that you have caused any problems I did not make myself.”

Laurence still seemed concerned, and Harry thanked him again but they did not say any more on the matter, for Temeraire was about to fly. He truly was magnificent in the air, smoother and more effortless than Remy’s controlled fits and starts. Unfortunately, Remy had Celeritas’ ear as Temeraire did his formation flying, and suspiciously, when Temeraire landed he bid Harry and Remy to go up with them. Laurence was smiling from the harness, amused at Harry’s grumbling. They flew the formation tactics together, Remy finally finding Temeraire’s pace and moving like liquid with him. They were close together, closer than most formations flew, and even Harry had to marvel at their grace.

When they landed, Celeritas said as much. “If there were more time, I’d suggest a single formation with you two,” he told them thoughtfully, and Remy nudged Temeraire happily. “Though Captain Potter will have to control himself.”

Harry flushed. “He likes to cut straps and traipse about on a flying dragon,” Celeritas answered Temeraire’s request for an explanation. “Boards as well, against all order and reason. Never seems to fall off, I’ll credit to him. Unless it’s intentional.”

“I’d always catch Harry,” Remy proclaimed. “As if he would need my intervention. He’s a flier just like me. He’s supposed to be in the air–”

“Please, dearest, no boasting today,” Harry cut him off quickly. He knew Remy would never give away his past, but the dragon was always so enthusiastic, and often got away from himself. Most of his chatter was considered irrelevant, but Harry was sure even tales of broomstick flying and air sports would be taken seriously enough that there would be some uncomfortable questions.

They left after Temeraire mastered a few more maneuvers and all chatted amiably on the way to the dining hall. Harry belatedly realised he hadn’t talked to Celeritas about Granby, and sighed, knowing very well that for all his pride– he simply wouldn’t.

:::::

It turned out that Harry didn’t have to, for on his last day of furlough Granby did it for him. They had not talked, and avoided each other quite effectively. Celeritas called for him and informed him of the change, introducing a Lieutenant Eastaway to be his second. Eastaway was an open and friendly young man, but still very young. Harry liked him, but wondered how well he would work with the formidable Faversham, and whether he would stand up for himself like Granby had, to earn Faversham’s respect.

And it looked as though Granby was well shot of him.

Harry tried not to be angry or show any of his hurt feelings to Eastaway. He shook the man’s hand and introduced him to the rest of the crew, who were welcoming but bewildered. He suspected they all knew of he and Granby’s row, yet had not expected Granby being replaced. Once the introductions were over, Harry excused himself. His bellman, Morrow, stopped him briefly to ask, in a whisper, “Are you alright, sir?”

The concerned faces of his crew were welcome, but a bit too much for Harry at the moment. He merely nodded, his head down, and left.

::::::

They departed for patrol the next morning. With his furlough over, Harry and Remy were put to work and seldom grounded. He saw his fellows briefly, and kept to Laurence’s company or Chenerey’s, who was aware and saddened by his and Granby’s silence. He did his best to cheer Harry when he saw him, and so in between his patrolling Harry was not too melancholy.

Temeraire and Remy continued their plotting, to Harry’s mortification. The talked about maneuvers hadn’t quite happened yet, to Harry’s relief, as they were run ragged enough without more training.

In June, Harry came off a long patrol that had taken him from Dover to Falmouth on account of a fair number of attacks and distress calls. He heard about Victoriatus being injured, having been in Aberdeen where the news had come in very quickly. Temeraire had done brilliantly in getting Clark’s dragon home, and of the crew temporarily serving Temeraire, Granby had been one of them as first Lieutenant. Harry did not know what to think of this.

“I would not want us to be at odds, Harry,” Laurence was saying, unusually familiar with him in his consideration. “He is an excellent Lieutenant, as you said.”

Harry nodded. “By all means, Laurence, please place him,” he finally said. “It was his decision to leave us, and I won’t have him suffer for it. He’s a good man. You can trust him.”

Laurence bowed solemnly. “Lieutenant Granby did indeed work efficiently,” he agreed. “But his abandonment of you was hasty, and entirely disrespectful.”

Harry was shocked at Laurence, who normally spoke kindly of everyone or was silent in the face of those he disapproved of. He shook his head.

“We are both to blame, and it shall be resolved sooner or later.” He had no real hope it would be, though, but did not want to worry Laurence. “In the meanwhile there are more important things. Lieutenant Eastaway is just as capable on Remy, and you need a good man at your back.”

Laurence told him about his troubles with Rankin as well, who was neglecting Levitas quite terribly. Harry commiserated with him, disapproving of the unspoken rule that other aviators should not interfere with a captain and his dragon. They spoke of Temeraire’s plans for maneuvers, many of which included Remy, and bemoaned their fate as the overseers of such mutinous creatures. They did not speak of Granby again.

As the time flew, for patrolling was both boring at times and eventful at others, Harry came to Loch Laggan one afternoon to find Temeraire gone. Celeritas informed them that orders had come, and Temeraire and Laurence were reassigned to Dover with Lily’s lot. Harry and Remy were moved to Middlesbrough as well, away from Excidium’s formation for nighttime patrol. Remy enjoyed the chance for any prizes, but was sad to be away from his companions.

Their departure was quick and their months tiresome, for it was a long while until they saw their friends again.

:::::

The call to Cadiz was for all of Excidium’s outfit. Harry had not seen Jane in a while, and when they met at Falmouth to rendezvous, Harry was very happy to see her.

“Emily’s ensign for Temeraire, did you know?” she said as the crew put their equipment up in preparation for a long journey. “And Granby too.”

Harry liked Jane but did not want to speak of the fight anymore. She sensed this, and seemed to agree, because she let it be. “Laurence told me enough,” Jane said at his lack of response.

“How are Laurence and Temeraire? Remy misses his best mate.”

“Quite well,” she answered. “Captain Laurence is a good man.”

One of Jane’s ground crewman suddenly said, “Is he, Cap'n?” with unconcealed innuendo.

Harry burst out laughing as Jane thanked her crewman for providing them with so far unlearned information. “Oh, Jane, really?” Harry laughed. “You’ll ruin him!”

She scowled. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a gentleman, Jane.”

“And an aviator,” she reminded.

“But a gentleman first and foremost. You want just an aviator, something to warm your bed, but he’ll go on fancying you and only you until death do you part.”

Jane gave Harry a narrow look. “I happen to like that he’s a gentleman,” she said.

Harry patted her on the back. “Just be careful with him,” he told her. “Oh, poor Laurence,” and dissolved into laughter again.

She seemed to find this funny as well. “I can promise nothing,” she admitted. “But I like him more than any other I’ve had relations with.”

“Poor, poor Laurence,” he repeated, then was set off again with giggles. She tussled the back of his head in response.

:::::

By October it seemed that Remy and Harry battled awake and asleep, if they got any rest at all. Their skirmishes with the Spanish were long and at times brutal. Hayes, Remy’s surgeon, spent most nights when they finally set down after hours of flying and fighting, digging musket balls out of poor Remy’s hide, who fussed terribly. They had been lucky so far, only one of Remy’s topmen, Wansley, had been injured with a clean break at the knee when Remy had shook off a few boarders and his strap had caught. He was sent back to England in fever, but Harry was assured he would live.

Excidium’s formation remained strong as ever, if quite tired. Mortiferus was made to rest for a week after a slash to his breast had torn him open to the bone, but besides endless complaining of being grounded, he seemed well enough. Jane and Harry both wrote to Laurence while gone, and Remy put in his own news for Temeraire. He was homesick, and Harry agreed with him silently, not having the heart to whine to as well, as Remy did better when at least one of them stayed strong. Jane helped to distract them with her easy companionship, and Harry’s crew was as resilient as always. But it was a hard few months all the same, and if Harry never saw Cadiz again it would be too soon.

And then the French attempted to set sail for Naples with thirty-three French and Spanish frigates and ten dragons. Nelson, in pursuit, called for the fleet to make ready for battle, and Excidium’s formation at Cadiz was included. Pushed back south, to Cape Trafalgar, the fleet sprawled across the coast in an uneven line as Nelson made for them.

In those early hours of preparation, and upon arriving at the coordinates, Harry was aware of the immensity of this day. He marveled at being a part of it, and his sharp grin and Remy’s joyous enthusiasm raised the morale of his crew quite contagiously.

He saw the stratagem high in the clouds as their formation came to battle. Instead of fighting at close parallels, as most Naval warfare had maintained, the British fleet was severed into two lines, and Harry was able to see them cut through the blockade, splitting the fleet into three. Excidium signaled Remy, Auctoritus, engage enemy flag ship and Harry smiled in anticipation. Seeing the Naval mastery of Nelson was much better than meeting the puffed up man in person, he thought as they made for the ship responsible for flag signals.

Remy howled happily as they came down, his claws outstretched to wreak havoc on the mainsail. Auctoritus engaged a Petit Chevalier to keep him away from Remy as he swiped his tail, knocking men clean into the water and toppling the mast. He was too quick to shoot at, though their safety would not last long. The French were likely warned of Remy and Harry’s outlandish tactics, and would adapt.

A man on the prow jumped over Remy’s tail, but was unlucky enough to trip and fall upon a another, who, having finally made ready a shot, accidentally turned his musket upon another man and shot his hat off.

“Sorry!” Harry shouted down at them, feeling ridiculously giddy. The crew laughed.

Their harassment of the flag ship continued until Auctoritus crowed in victory as the Petit Chevalier fled, bleeding from the chest. Nelson’s line had suffered direct fire for his strategy, but now the French and Spanish fleet was broken. They engaged the three clusters of separated ships as the enemy flag ship suddenly caught fire. Harry looked at Remy briefly, to see if somehow they had caused this, but saw to his amusement a Flecha-del-Fuego, who had intended to hit Remy but missed. The colours struck on the French ship, and the British 'Defiance’ aligned and boarded them amidst cheers as Remy swiped at the fire breather.

“I don’t care that you can breathe fire!” Remy yelled at the Flecha-del-Fuego. “You are small and silly. You missed me!”

His taunting had the dragon after them, and Harry ordered Remy toward the British lines. They lured the dragon into the crossfire and a well-aimed cannon grazed its belly and toppled most of its crew into the sea. The Flecha-del-Fuego roared in pain, and very suddenly let loose a barrage of flame. It caught the Victory’s foremast on fire, burning fast, until the whole lot fell to the deck amidst the startled yells of the sailors.

“Whoops,” Harry muttered over the wind. Unfortunately, the Flecha-del-Fuego retreated when Laetificat came at him with claws outstretched, its crew unwilling to give England a fire breather. There didn’t seem to be too much damage to the Victory, to Harry’s relief. He didn’t have time to worry, though, as a Parnassian came at them almost too quickly for Remy to dodge.

“Mr. Brindle, what was that?” Harry bellowed to his lookout.

“Dead, sir,” Scarborough informed him.

Harry winced and ordered Remy to engage. Remy tore at the Parnassian with a viciousness Harry knew to be anger at the loss one of his crew. The Parnassian managed a strike to Remy’s shoulder, where the bleeding gouge had him howling in pain.

“Remy! Remy!” Harry shouted.

“I’m alright!”

“Not deep, sir,” Faversham said.

“Have at them, then!” Harry ordered with narrow-eyed fury.

Remy laughed and drew close to the Parnassian. His boarding crew lunged over and onto the beast under Harry’s close eye, and Harry tapped Remy’s shoulder to let him know his next move. And like the Admiralty had forbade him, and like how the French had probably been warned about but didn’t quite believe it, Harry unstrapped and jumped right onto the dragon’s captain. His pistol was at the man’s head in one quick moment, as his own boarders pushed the Lieutenant over the side to clear is back.

“Non bien,” Harry said in perfectly awful French. The Frenchman cursed as his dragon balked at the threat. “Oui. Bollocks,” he commiserated cheerfully.

He gave the captain over to the boarding crew, who would direct them to England. All of the sudden, he heard Remy cry out as a shadow fell upon them. The Chanson-de-Guerre had shocked Remy into dipping away from the Parnassian, and Remy was almost three kilometers below him now.

The Chanson did not engage, but hovered close to them in defiance, looking to separate Remy and Harry. “Lower, lower, fly,” his boarding crew beseeched the Parnassian, shoving the pistol hard enough into the French captain’s head that he cried out. The dragon obeyed, but before he could make it back to Remy, the Chanson intercepted them with a roar, using his large body as a blockade. Remy flitted closer and the Chanson swiped at him again.

Harry supposed this stalemate would not last. That they would try and board Remy and force Harry to surrender to their captured Captain. The Chanson began to fly lower, doing exactly as Harry had expected. But Harry would not let this happen, and there was a clear shot down to Remy if he was daring enough.

“Signal Remy to remain. Tell him not to move,” Harry ordered one of his crew.

“But sir, he must flee–”

Remy would not flee with his Captain aboard another dragon. Perhaps this was what Jane, Granby and the Admiralty had meant by recklessness. Yet the maneuver had worked time and time again, and the French had prepared for him, so Harry would only have to think again, and outsmart them a second time. He grinned into the wind as his ensign signaled affirmative from Remy’s back.

“Take them to England,” Harry ordered.

“Sir–”

Harry jumped. The free fall froze him through with cold wind and his own adrenaline. He had never done this before, but angled his body like an arrow toward Remy instinctively. The distance was not much, and he cut through the path of the Chanson without too much speed, spying the shocked faces aboard. He laughed into the fall, reaching out a hand to slow himself down with a spark of power. Remy was directly below him, a few meters, closer, then–

He caught the dangling strap of his own harness tie and swung up and around, using the wind, a little magic which burst from him happily and his own momentum to arch around Remy’s neck and back to his harness. Harry sat with a thump and exhaled as Remy laughed in appreciation. Strapped in again, Harry smiled at the rush and looked to his crew, who gaped back at him.

He had enough time to see, with the utmost satisfaction, that the captured Parnassian was well on its way to England, before the Chanson suddenly came about beside them. His crew snapped out of their stupor, thankfully having loaded their guns, but the Chanson was not close enough to board, and the men did not fire.

The French captain stared at Harry. “Monsieur,” he said, tapping his cap with a nod of admiration. His shocked face would make Harry laugh later, as well as the memory of seeing it mirrored in his dragon and their crew. Harry grinned back at him.

The Chanson departed, possibly unwilling to tangle with that sort of madness or conceding to their brilliance (perhaps both?) and Harry looked around to take stock of the battle. Twenty French and Spanish ships ran white in surrender; out of the thirty-three there were two still under fire and one sunk. Nelson’s strategy had held.

And then it was suddenly over. The Battle of Trafalgar, a decided British victory. Harry and Remy got back into formation. Jane grinned at him as the cheers rose well above the ocean and the canon fire, above the heavy wing beats of the dragons and into the sky where they flew.

:::::

“Yes, I heard about Nelson,” Jane was saying. “For all his strutting I suspect he’ll be happy to wear his medals where he will never lose them.”

Harry winced but said nothing. They had not made it to Dover in time for the battle, much to Remy’s disappointment, though ever since they’d heard of the turn of the tide with Temeraire’s surprising roar, Remy was telling everyone all manner of made up tales about the Imperial. As a friend to Temeraire, Harry suspected his dragon was basking in the glow of his companion’s victory with very little shame. If any. Probably none.

The lot of them, Maximus, Lily, Temeraire and Remy, along with their other accomplices were enjoying a concert Laurence hired for them in the courtyard. He had never heard of dragons enjoying Beethoven, but supposed it wasn’t too strange, when he really thought about it.

Luckily, Jane had not seen Remy’s taunting of the Flecha-del-Fuego, so the blame for the Victory’s catching fire was not on Harry’s shoulders. He made a face anyway, at hearing of Nelson, who had been injured in the event; the medals upon his Admiral’s coat now permanently melted into his skin. Laurence caught the look and raised an eyebrow curiously, but Harry widened his eyes and smiled innocently, much to Laurence’s amusement. Remy would laugh at the news, and with all his bragging, sooner or later everyone would know that Harry had almost incinerated a revered Naval commander. Fantastic.

“Sir,” Faversham suddenly said, coming over to the captain’s group and handing Harry a glass of wine.

The celebration due to the combined victories of Trafalgar and Dover was a mixed society of revelers. Harry and seen Laurence speak with a haughty woman and a gentlemen by the wine tables earlier, and though he could not begrudge anyone the chance of a celebration, he wished it was only the Corps here, and that Jane would not feel so uncomfortable in her mandatory frock.

The Lieutenants and some of the topmen joined them in the hall, but most of his ground crew and the others took to a livelier party in the barracks. Harry wished he could have joined them instead. He had espied Granby in company with a few other Lieutenants across the room, and they glanced at each other in some sort of strange, shy exchange, unwilling to commit to a glare. Jane had already caught them at it and scoffed, but said nothing so far.

Harry gazed up at Faversham and took the glass, skeptically looking at the dark red wine. “Why thank you, Faversham. Is it poisoned?” He made a show of looking into it suspiciously.

Laurence coughed to hide his laugh but Berkley and Jane had no such composure and guffawed at poor Faversham. “Sir, only, I’d like to say something,” Faversham continued, as unruffled as always.

Harry swallowed. “Oh.” He looked about for an escape. “By all means.”

“I would like to simply say that you are mad,” Faversham told him, going on even though the captains were gaping. “Mad and brilliant and if you should do it again I will cut straps and retire and go to my grave still entirely befuddled as to how you pulled it off. Sir.”

Harry was glad that was all he was going to say. “Well,” he said, hesitating. “I wouldn’t blame you. And it won’t happen again. I promise.”

“Harry, what on earth does he mean?” Jane asked, adjusting her skirts and leaning forward. “What have you done now?”

Faversham left and suddenly it was Granby in his line of sight. “Is it true?” Granby demanded of him. “Did you jump from a dragon?”

“What?”

“They’re saying they split you and Remy up when you boarded and you jumped an impossible distance to him?”

“What?!”

Harry put his glass down. “I think I’ve had enough lectures for the night. Pray, excuse me.”

“Now, what does he–”

“Harry–” Granby started, but Harry pushed past him and out of the hall. He could hear Jane interrogating Granby in that horrified, disappointed tone of hers. She would reveal later what she thought of him, no doubt.

:::::

“Madness,” she said, after Granby reluctantly told her what Harry’s crew was saying. “Only he would…good God.”

Laurence had left to see to Temeraire, and Berkley and Catherine had fled at the first sign of Jane’s temper. Granby looked as if he would have liked to follow suit. “I didn’t want to–” he began, but Jane waved him off.

“I know you didn’t mean to get him in any trouble, and I suppose he has learned his lesson about boarding, in any case. Or he’ll come up with some equally mad scheme to shock me worse. That lad,” she shook her head. “The both of you give me griping pains.”

“Sir–”

“Don’t sir me,” Jane said. “This strop you’re in with Harry is ridiculous. I suppose you know by now that Laurence and I have relations, due to the mouthiness of the crew.”

Granby looked away. “I do know, yes,” he replied softly.

“Well, your overtures leave something to be desired. To be jealous so quick was foolish, I’d say. And Laurence is a gentleman, as Harry has told me. He would not have thought of it.”

“Neither would Harry, I should say,” Granby said sulkily. “He was promised to a girl once.”

Jane scoffed, downing the rest of her wine. “There has been no such romance since, and though I do not think he has considered it yet, with time I do believe he will come to his senses. He holds you far too close for a man who prefers women. And he did not ever notice Catherine’s attentions, when she was hopeful.”

Granby lifted a shoulder. “She did not make them sincerely plain.”

“And neither have you,” she told him curtly. “Go to him and make peace. You must repair your friendship if there is to be anything else.”

He bit his lip as Jane stood, wrestling to her feet with her dress twisted about the ankles. “Are my affections so well-known?” He asked nervously. He did not worry that Harry would know, apparently as the officers did, for the man was anything but observant.

Jane frowned at him. “Of course they are, Granby, you are absurdly transparent to us all. Though not to your Captain, I imagine, he is worse than Harry at times, when noticing the romantic entanglements of others.”

Granby could not help but breathe a sigh of relief. He was on good terms with Laurence now, and admired the man. Harry had been right about him. “We do not think ill of you,” Jane continued. “Pray, do not think we are mocking you. This quarrel has gone on too long for jesting. Only, if you think it prudent to fall in love with a captain who springs from dragon to dragon mid-air like a frog upon a lily pad, with neither concern nor fear for his own neck, then I say good luck to you and I wash my hands of you both.”

She left him then and Granby waited only a moment to commit to his resolve before leaving as well. It was time to talk to Harry.

:::::

“Come in,” Harry said, putting aside his coats. He hadn’t had the time to unpack just yet, and was doing so now. He would not admit he was hiding. From Jane or Granby.

Expecting Laurence, who would likely want to hear about the battle first hand, Harry was quite shocked to find Granby entering with an anxious expression upon his face.

“I would apologise to you,” Granby said before Harry could get over his surprise. “Harry–” he paused and swallowed audibly. “Harry, I am sorry. I was wrong to say those things to you and wrong about Laurence–”

“Bee,” Harry interrupted. “Bee, I was disloyal to you, and–”

Granby flushed at the nickname, his lips twitching as he stopped himself from smiling ecstatically. “No, I was out of line and you should have knocked me about because I deserved it–”

Harry grinned. “You would not want to brawl with me, I think.”

Granby grinned back. “No,” he conceded. “No, I would have been soundly trounced. I happen to care about my own skin enough to avoid madmen like you.”

“Suppose you’ll want to know about that, then,” Harry said. “Sit down, will you? Have some wine. I boarded a Parnassian after the Victory caught fire–”

“Why do you have that look about you? I know that look. What did you do now?”

“Honestly, Bee, we didn’t mean to melt Nelson’s medals to him, it was an accident!”

And Granby laughed.

.

End Part I

Go to Part II

#Hp fic #crossover #temeraire fic #hp3a

[the-busy-ghost]

Lords and Lairds and Ladles

And while I’m on the subject of names and titles, it’s worth pointing out another easily mixed up custom that prevailed until at least the end of the sixteenth century (and probably later, it’s not my specialty).

If you were a nobleman whose surname happened to be ‘Kennedy’ or ‘Douglas’ or ‘Gordon’, that does not mean that you would necessarily be referred to as Lord Kennedy or Lord Douglas or Lord Gordon. Those are very specific titles which belong to specific members of those families. 

You MIGHT be referred to as ‘my lord’ as like an honorific, if you were a nobleman or a bishop or an abbot- for example, ‘my lord of Aberdeen’ would be the bishop of Aberdeen while ‘my lord of Murray’ could be either the bishop of Moray (most likely) or the earl of Moray (less likely, but still happened) or, very rarely, a nobleman with the surname Murray. However none of these people would hold the official title ‘Lord Aberdeen’ or ‘Lord Murray’, nor should they be referred to as such. 

Sometimes contemporary sources do make mistakes- in particular English diplomats often got mixed up when referring to Scottish nobles, and they might, for example, refer to any male member Kennedy family as ‘Lord Kennedy’, even if they didn’t mean the person who actually held that title. But it does not seem to have been common practice back in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and it certainly isn’t correct to refer to sixteenth century noblemen who didn’t hold a lordship of parliament using those titles in modern historical writing.

I am not au fait with English titles, but it seems that, nowadays, historians generally use the title ‘lord’ much more flexible- I have seen multiple members of the Howard family, alive at the same time, referred to as ‘Lord Howard’ in secondary sources. Whether that was actually the custom in the 16th century I don’t know, but certainly nobody seems to bat an eyelid now. 

But as a general (flexible) rule, Lord Hamilton is the man who has been specifically granted the title, not just any nobleman with the surname Hamilton. In 1503, Lord Drummond refers usually to John, 1st Lord Drummond, not any of his sons, and not one of the lairds of Innerpeffray who also bore the surname Drummond. There is a level in the Scottish peerage known as being a ‘lord of parliament’ and these lordships of parliament are an important concept, if sometimes complex. 

This is also why laird and lord are not exact synonyms. Yes laird initially stems from the concept of being someone’s lord, and most lords of parliament were also lairds (as were earls and dukes). Sometimes in poetry and prose you will find lord spelt like laird. But in a strict sense, lairds are a lower level of the nobility than the men called ‘Lord’- although lots of lairds, especially those employed at the royal court, could be influential too.

But when speaking plainly Lord Hume does not usually mean the same thing as ‘Laird Hume’. For example Alexander Hume, 3rd Lord Hume, who got his head cut off in 1516 was ‘Lord Hume’- he held the lordship of parliament and, though some might have disagreed, he would probably be thought of as representing the senior line of the family. Several of his kinsmen who bore the surname Hume were lairds though, such as the laird of Cowdenknowes and the laird of Wedderburn. Technically, Lord Hume was a laird too, in the explicit sense of someone who holds lordship over others. But a laird tended to be an ill-defined and lower level of lordship. Calling Lord Hume ‘Laird Hume’ would be like referring to the Duke of York solely by his knightly title Sir Edmund of Langley- he was both, but one of those is his highest title and the other is merely a subsidiary extra. 

Hence how James Hamilton, 6th Laird of Cadzow is created, in 1445, James, 1st Lord Hamilton. His son was later created Earl of Arran in 1503. But while the Hamiltons were an important, large, and influential kindred, this did not mean that other male members of the family were Lord Hamilton. Sometimes they might be Lord Hamilton of XXX (a location) or given another title altogether like Lord Paisley (for Claud Hamilton, third son of the 2nd Earl, in 1587). 

Alternatively Alexander Gordon, 2nd Lord Gordon, was made Earl of Huntly in 1457. In the sixteenth century we often find the eldest legitimate sons and heirs of the Earls of Huntly bearing the title Lord Gordon. Alternatively, they could be known as the ‘Master’ of Huntly, a common term indicating that the holder was the heir to the estate. But younger sons were not generally referred to as ‘Lord Gordon’ unless they had been granted possession of that lordship by the Earl of Huntly or someone with equal authority- for example, if they were the heir apparent while their older brother was childless. Otherwise they were usually just ‘my lord James Gordon’, or ‘Sir Adam Gordon of Auchindoun’ or ‘Alexander Gordon, the Laird of Lochinver’. 

As for their ladies, both lords and lairds’ wives might be referred to as lady, but in slightly different ways. So, had she not already borne a title from her first marriage (Countess of Bothwell), the wife of Alexander, 3rd Lord Hume would have been “Agnes Stewart, Lady Hume”. However the wife of Lord Hume’s distant kinsman David Hume of Wedderburn would be “Alison Douglas, the Lady of Wedderburn”, and the wife of the laird of Cowdenknowes would be perhaps “[Dame] Elizabeth Stewart, [the] Lady [of] Cowdenknowes”. Obviously full names were not always given, and bits and pieces get added and taken away, this was just to give a rough idea. 

DAUGHTERS on the other hand are never Lady Hume or Lady Elphinstone, unless they inherited the lordship. Lord Erskine’s wife is Lady Erskine, but his daughters are not all Lady Erskine as well, though they might become ladies of their husband’s title- Margaret Erskine, Lady of Lochleven because she married the laird (not lord) of Lochleven. Though their first name might be put in there to make it easier- Lady/Mistress Barbara Hamilton for example, who then becomes ‘Dame Barbara Hamilton, Lady Gordon’ or Lady Janet Stewart/Mistress Stewart who becomes ‘Dame Janet Stewart, Lady Fleming’ but never just Lady Stewart. 

The way people are ‘referred’ to in sources from sixteenth century Scotland is very fluid and flexible (and it doesn’t help that a lot of sources are from English or French writers who didn’t know the difference anyway). But from a modern perspective there are just certain unwritten rules. They’re generally easier to pick up naturally through reading primary and secondary sources than to explain exactly. The concept of a ‘laird’ is often confusing and ill-defined, but a lordship of parliament on the other hand meant something. Lord Crichton was not the same as Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, and certainly not the same as any number of lairds or younger sons who had the surname Crichton but held lands that weren’t associated with the lordship of parliament. Lord Lindsay of Crawford referred to the men who became earls of Crawford, but there was also Lord Lindsay of the Byres, and then a bunch of lairds and knights like Sir David Lindsay of the Mount who shouldn’t strictly be called ‘Lord Lindsay’. Stewart of Innermeath, Stewart of Darnley (later son of the earl of Lennox) and Stewart of Ochiltree all held lordships of parliament, but usually they would be referred to as Lord Innermeath, Lord Darnley, and Lord Ochiltree, even if theoretically they were all Lords Stewart. Then there’s a whole host of minor branches of the Stewart family whose heads can loosely be described as lairds, not lords. And in the plural, for example when referring to the political community, people usually refer to the Scots lords (as in the ‘lords of the parliament’ or ‘lords of the council’) not the Scottish lairds. 

And then of course churchmen come along and mess everything up even further, but we won’t get into that. 

#It's messy and much easier to just Get once you've done a bit of reading and absorbed the info by osmosis #This is not strictly in line with strict heraldic titles of the 21st century #But if I see one more butchered title in a popular novel or history book I will scream #That being said I know it's a pain so I can answer questions if anybody has any #Can't promise I'll always be 100% correct but there's a good chance

[coruscorp-blog]

DEAR, MS. ( MITSUE ONISHI )

We are pleased to have you back for another year as an UPPER SECOND YEAR STUDENT at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We sincerely hope your classmates in RAVENCLAW treat you well.

sapporo, hokkaido. 1988. odori park is where onishi rikizou and matsumura kanon meet under the fleeting flowers of spring. two people lost to the heart of a work culture that demands constant overtime and obeying of seniors, their minds only know of exhaustion. one silently craves death, telling nobody of their thoughts. if the two of them had not met, forced to share a bench to eat their respective lunches, then perhaps this story would come to end in a tragedy.

conversation strikes solace. then a friendship blossoms while the brief sakura wilts above them. among the emerald and turquoise of summer, rikizou decides to ask kanon out on a date. the cicadas almost drown his voice out, but she hears. he doesn’t think he’s ever seen a smile that shone so beautifully in his life. she can’t wait to offer him many more, scattered throughout the future.

kyoto, honshu. 1998. “nee-san, nee-san!” there is a loud thump of a body hitting the floor, but the excited boy in question does not feel the pain from the soft tatami. he scrabbles over to a nearby coffee table, to slap his sister’s arms. “okan and otoun are coming back! i see them right out the window!”

“amato what did i say about keeping calm?” his sister hisses without much malice for she too is excited, leaving the table to head to the door. it only takes a few seconds for the door to unlock and there enter two proud parents. kanon is cradling a precious bundle against her chest.

“amato. yuika. come to meet your imouto mitsue.”

kyoto, honshu. 2003. “mitsue, what did i say about climbing the gingko tree?”

“but nee-san i can’t think as well when i’m on the ground.”

“are you a bird? why do you need to be high up to think better?”

“maybe it’s the sky…” the little girl reaches her hand out towards the broad blue carefully. "because when i look at the sky it spreads out infinitely and it makes me realize how much i don’t know…but also how much space my mind probably has. like the sky.“

“is that what a five-year-old should be saying? maybe amato was being serious when he said you’re smarter than him,” there is a giggle, a brush of leaves against branches as a familiar figure sits beside her to stare off into the distance. but unlike her younger sister, yuika is unable to see the same colors and thoughts.

but though she won’t tell mitsue beyond a fond stroke of the younger girl’s hair, yuika knows that she doesn’t want to live the same life. a life of obsessing over details, solving riddles and theorizing things that extend even beyond a simple explanation of imagination.

kyoto, honshu. 2004. “mitsue is what? a witch?” kanon pulls her daughter closer to her on the couch, but the little girl is not paying attention to her mother’s movements. she’s focused on the sudoku book in her laps, but she can hear distress. she can also hear the stranger’s words.

there’s some things about magic which now explains to the little girl why she’s often been able to stare at something long enough for it to float. or the few times that she’s been angry at her older siblings she’s made the ceramic on the dining table crack much to her entire family’s further displeasure.

weird things happening. emotions correlating to power. there’s an answer to it all. there’s always an answer to things, it just depends how easily everything can be reached. the stranger does’t take long to convince kanon and rikizou of their daughter’s behaviors and soon she is sent off every morning on umi tsubame to an unknown island with unknown people.

unknown, but they are just like her somehow.

minami iwo jima, ogasawara. 2008. “mitsu! what book have you lost your nose in this time? put it down! we’re going to be late to the entrance ceremony.”

“hai, hai, i’m coming!” mitsue sighs but she’s not actually annoyed by her friends calling for her, tucking away the milky way road by miyazawa kenji into her gold colored robe she runs after her them. opening ceremonies are nothing new, but this will be the first time she attended mahoutokoro as a boarding school and not something simply for the day.

it’s the first time she’ll be away from her parents and her two older siblings. it was the first time she saw amato cry too when he hugged her goodbye, but the girl had promised him when he handed her his stack of mangas that she’ll read them all and message him back about it before they meet again over christmas holidays. there was no way she wouldn’t go back and risk missing her mother’s osechi during the new years.

“are you excited to live here mitsu?”

“stuck on an island with you? i don’t think so,” she earns a sharp jab in the ribs by a rough elbow but the laughter in the air as the flock enters the building is enough to explain everything about them all.

minami iwo jima, ogasawara. 2014. “takeru you’ll get water all over your bangs.”

the boy leaning over the water foutain looks up at her with a goofy lopsided grin, mischief glimmering in his eyes. she sighs at his response, reaching into her robes to pull out a simple red hair-clip. her fingers are careful when they brush aside wet bangs, clipping the stray strands into place with a satisfied smile.

“is this the school idol onishi mitsue that i know? the famous mahoutokoro quidditch manager being a lot more approachable than rumors say and even doing a few things beyond playing tactician? shocking.”

“what are you saying? are you an idiot,” mitsue scoffs at takeru but she doesn’t break eye contact from the warm familiar brown hues that she’s come to call a piece of her home. comfortable silence fills the space between the two of them, then it too is pushed out of the way as he leans in to close the distance between the two of them. her eyes close. briefly, a sensation like honey floods her entirety for eternity. but eternity is always so painfully short.

“hmmm, i wonder? what am i saying to my girlfriend?”

“girlfriend,” mitsue tilts her head to the side playfully. “quidditch captain, i wasn’t aware that someone like you could actually get a girlfriend?”

she screeches when cold water hits her robes but the noise dissolves into a fit of giggles under the sunny warmth.

minami iwo jima, ogasawara 2017. “onishi-san, as you are the valedictorian of your year and someone who holds an excellent extracurricular record, i would highly recommend you to attend the new program at hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry,” there is a short but loud snap of a folder snapping to a close. mitsue sits in her gold, knees pressed together and hand on her lap. maple irises are reading the headmaster’s every expression.

hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. another transition to another world.

“kouchou sensei, i’m honored you believe that. but are you positive about this? it’s halfway across the world and i have never stepped one foot outside of japan. i may know english, but i know nothing about the people there. the culture. i don’t think i’m suited for it, i would be so lost.”

“remember when we first met?” there is a warm hand on her shoulder, offering her a comforting squeeze, “i told you that i wanted you to become like the sakura trees and blossom beautifully. but you told me you didn’t want to live such a short fleeting life. that as someone born to a regular family, you wanted to become a tanpopo. one that can survive anyplace anywhere. people may call you a weed, but they would also be the ones holding hands with the wind to spread the seed of your legacy. that was almost ten  years ago when you told me this mitsue. you wre still a child when you said such profound words. now tell me, where is this dandelion now?”

a pause, there is a small shuffling noise that comes from her aureate robes as she finally stands up from the couch to bow down to the senior.

“preparing for a journey across water and land to scotland.”

highlands of scotland. 2017. i can already tell, you’re a smart one. but i have one question for you, do you like quidditch?

“no, i’ve never been athletic. sweating’s gross and flying’s not as fun on a broomstick.”

interesting, but when i look into your memories i see a lot of the sky.

“when i’m high up, i think better. i tell myself the sky is endless and that the only part stopping me is the horizon itself. same goes for the human mind. we’re stopping ourselves.”

the sorting hat murmurs something she can’t quite catch then it roars into the great hall.

RAVENCLAW.

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