#and hes only allowed to manually steer one time as far as we can see | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

randombtsprincessa · 3 years

Text

Buoyed Up

Author: Randombtsprincessa

Characters: Jung Hoseok x Reader

Words: 4.8k

Genre: Fluffy Smut

Rating: Mature/Explicit (18+)

Summary: You take your boyfriend to soak up the sun on his birthday.

Playlist: Robokid - Ur Touch | Figgy - Do It Like Us | Tinashe - Days In The West (Drake Cover) (Ekali Remix)

Warnings: Yatching trip, Hoseok gets wet and shirtless, ogling, explicit smut, nipple/breast play, nipple biting, face sitting, unprotected sex (be safe folksies), hickies, profanity, dirty talk and dirty thoughts.

A/N: Happy birthday to my beautiful Sunboy! I would also like to thank @yeoldontknow for the nipple play inspiration and a special someone who shall not be named for the face sitting scene. I know you’re going to read this, don’t play.

You had never been this thankful for a correct weather forecast before.

The sky and sea stretched out seamlessly in front of you in a brilliant canvas of blue. The wind was crisp and fresh. The wooden slats of the dock platform squeaked in your ears and right in your line of sight was the magnificence you had booked for one of the most important events of the year.

The star of said event was behind you, clutching your hand stretched out between you, fingers entwined. The squeezes he trapped your hands in could be seen as a form of expressing his affection…or simply conveying how nervous he was right now.

Your eyes, protected by the darkened haze of the sunglass could spy the captain and owner of the Yacht boat, wrapping and tying cords at the entrance, feet following the direction when one final, tighter squeeze made you pause, turning to look askance at the man behind you.

Hoseok, the birthday boy, wore a silky white shirt, so long and baggy it almost completely hid his lithe frame, nearly kissing his knees. Beneath them, you could just spy his denim shorts, and beneath them…well, his knees shook a little and toes squiggled in his sandals.

“What?” You asked.

“I just…um, are you sure, it’s alright for us to…take a boat?” He queried.

You paused. “What?” You tried again.

“I mean, things could go wrong if we’re alone. Storms, leaks, shark attacks, whale attacks,” He listed and for a split second, you allowed amusement to color your tone.

“Whales, baby?” You teased and he grumbled.

You had to sigh. You knew your boyfriend was a bit…easily rattled. So when you’d announced your plans for his birthday and he’d whooped enthusiastically, you’d taken a minute to talk him through it. It was a yacht, a decently large and comfortable engine based boat which would take you across to a private section of the shallows where you would spend the day. You would drive, there would be food and drinks and a luxurious day of sunning.

He had been thoroughly stress relieved, with fried chicken and soda before agreeing to your plans.

Of course, you should’ve known that coming out here and seeing things for himself would bring his earlier fears back to the surface.

You tugged him closer to your body. “If you’re really worried, then we can go back. I’m sure I can get a bit of a refund if we ask nicely.”

Hoseok didn’t meet your eyes, looking over your head at the captain who had spotted you by now, getting to his feet expectantly. “Did you pay a lot?”

“Just the standard fee; but your comfort is more important.” You promised, soothing a hand across his bicep.

“I’m…I’m fine, I just…”

“I’ll be steering, we will only go to the shallows and come straight back tomorrow.” You reassured again.

His big brown eyes met yours now, triangle lips pouting in thought before he uttered one word. “Fine,”

The captain, a hand carding through his crew cut, grinned at you when you finally towed Hoseok over to him and his boat. “Good morning, ma’am, didn’t I tell you there’ll be good sun and wind the day you want her?”

You laughed. “Yes, captain, you sure did. This is the birthday boy, by the way; Hoseok, my boyfriend.”

“Pleasure,” He stretched out a hand to shake Hoseok’s, toothily beaming. “You got a fine vibe around you, sir.”

Hobi hesitated before managing a smile. “So, who’s the ‘her’ you were talking about?” he asked.

The Cap turned, placing a gentle hand along the gleaming body of the yacht. “The most precious thing I own, meet Ferret. Come on in”

You couldn’t help but giggle at Hoseok’s stunned expression as he moved in. “He calls it Ferret?” He muttered.

“It’s cute,” You returned, turning your attention to the man in question as he gave you a basic run down of the boat again. You’d already gotten the tutorial and studied the manuals thoroughly over the last month.

You moved over the large reception and living space, glancing through the stocked little kitchenette in the back. The bedroom and bathroom were below deck, and the sun bed and fore deck sparkled from the cleaning it had undergone.

“What do you think?” You asked.

Hoseok sat on the padded sofa in the living, looking around and considering. “It’s good, I like it.”

“That’s what I like to hear. So, if that’ll be all, ma’am; I’ll hop off board.” He walked off, untying the rope that held the Ferret to its spot. “You’ll be back by noon tomorrow, eh?”

“Absolutely,” You shook his hand again, watching him cast a look over the vessel once more.

When he walked off, disappearing around the corner of the wooden walkway, you turned around to see your boyfriend smiling lightly at you.

“What?” You said, returning the smile.

“Nothing, just…” His teeth peeked out. “I’m happy I get to spend the day with you. I hope the guys don’t miss me too much.”

“They can have you tomorrow.” You reached out to pull him to his feet, planting a smacking kiss on his upturned lips. “Today you’re mine. Now come up, let’s take Ferret for a ride.”

Hoseok and you climbed up on to the ‘cockpit’ of the Ferret, set up high on the deck and over the galley for visibility and navigation.

“You’re sure you know how to do this, right? Don’t make me have to sail us back tomorrow.” He joked, climbing on to the day bed next to the steering console table as you sat in the chair.

“I might just throw you overboard on your birthday.” You warned absentmindedly.

You slid in the master key first, turning it and pressing the toggle switches on. The LED display lit up, welcoming the captain and panels of instruction and controls came up.

“Where are we going?” Hoseok asked again, curiously, watching you fiddle with the steering, the autopilot and infra red view to go over anything that may come up under the boat. He wasn’t too enthused with the idea but safety was key if he wanted to come back to shore with you.

“We’ll head over to the shallows; find a quiet spot to spend the day. Tomorrow we sail back.” You explained before the purr of the engine carried over the winds.

He watched you turn the small wheel on the control, carefully maneuvering out and away from the docks. The other boats and water vessels slowly decreased in size with the distance gained and again Hoseok internally expressed some gratitude to the heavens that his birthday came up on a relatively less busy day. It was not too cold to take far off vacations but it was still too cold to take one as this.

“Kick back, we have some time before we get there.” You said and he did just that.

Dropping his head back, he tossed his arms up behind to cradle his skull. The sun basked platform warmed his back, which his face heated up with the sun overhead. Soon it would be hot enough to actually warrant a dip in the seas.

He turned his head to look at his girlfriend, hair tied up and off the face, back ramrod straight even though there was nothing in the vicinity to even remotely pose a threat. She was wearing his chain, he noticed. The idea bloomed adoration in his chest, expanding and breathing air into his veins.

The engine had moved from a kitten’s purr to a loud roar, kicking up sea spray that misted around the vessel, cool and smooth as it hit the exposed parts of his skin. He undid the small scarf he had looped into his belt loop to wrap around his hair. He doubted it would do much, but he didn’t want to risk the salt water messing with the dye that was still settling into his scalp.

By the time they reached the shallows, it was reaching midday. You had cut the engine when you reached the shallows, steering till you were close to one of the small out crop of beach land that attracted the tourists. He could spy only one family, farther away into the distance but thankfully, they were too far to make their presence known obviously.

The autopilot engaged just in case, both of you migrated down to the galley, with you digging out a bottle of chilled champagne from the kitchenette. The bubbly popped loudly, with Hoseok cringing at the volume before the rich, crisp alcohol was poured into a stem less flute, kept to the minimum because his tolerance of alcohol was laughably low and well known.

He shuddered to imagine flushing crimson and losing touch with reality this early into the day.

The first hour was given to simply sitting in the shaded part of the deck, nursing the alcohol and catching up on the activities that were missed out on due to the hectic schedules of your lives.

Hoseok wrapped an arm around your shoulders, tucking you into his frame as he lounged back, feet up on the table, hair fluffing with the passing breeze. The heat, contrasting with the coolness of the sea air and the champagne was enough to lull you into the sleepy state, his soft hums echoing in your ear.

“Hey,” He said finally, his voice teasing. “Don’t’ fall asleep on me now.”

You smiled, sitting up against him. “Sorry, you just feel so peaceful.”

Hoseok kissed you softly before his eyes flickered to the expanse of water behind you. “Take a swim with me?”

Hoseok had been right. The sun had warmed the air enough for the water to be tolerable. Salty, cool and soothing, he plunged into the not too deep waters, his girlfriend laughing as she tossed one of the yacht’s floats in after him.

His head popped up just as you sat down at the edge of the boat, your feet kicking up water towards him.

“Aren’t you going to join?” He called.

“Nah, I want to watch you enjoy.” Your smirk made it clear you were enjoying the view indeed, fingers playing with the fabric of his discarded shirt.

Hoseok smirked right back, swimming closer so he could grab onto a wayward ankle. “Are you planning some mischief, darling?” He asked.

Your face turned impish. “Of course not,” You returned.

“Too bad, because I am.”

A hand smacked hard at the water, cupping and sending a wave of water straight at your face. He backed up quickly, laughing wildly at the stunned look on your face.

“Oh my god, I’m going to kill you!” You screeched, slipping off the deck straight into the water, uncaring of the water soaking through your clothes as you chased after Hoseok.

You spent about an hour in the water, splashing at each other and trying to swim around the other to escape the constant barrages of water. Even as the sun began to dip westwards, the temperature dropped, the cool water chilling against your skin.

Hoseok made you clamber up first, following quickly as you allowed the sea water to drain away first before entering the living space of the yacht.

The evening sun slanted down the slatted windows, illuminating the bags of clothes you’d stocked for the trip two days ago, when you were checking over the yacht one last time. A duffel bag, stuffed with both of your underwear, two extra tops and a change of pants.

Hobi moved to his clothes quickly as you flung them out onto the bed, quickly shucking off the shorts he wore, revealing his boxer briefs, the band hanging just at his pelvis. He grabbed one of the towels from the warming racks, hastily rubbing at his torso even as your actions slowed and then stopped completely, staring at your boyfriend’s visage in the mirror.

Thinly muscled arms moved quickly but precisely, catching any stray drops of water that gathered on his skin and you had to bite your lip, shaking yourself to snap out of it. You still had a cake to cut, damn it.

“What?”

You started, catching Hoseok’s gaze that had now found yours in the mirror. “What are you looking at?” He asked, looking down at himself to see if it was something stuck to his chest that had garnered your attention.

You smiled, handing him the hoodie from the bed, which he quickly zipped over his body, the zipper only reaching midway and leaving his clavicle available to your fervent gaze.

“It’s nothing,” You shrugged. “I just like seeing you shirtless. Never going to get over it,”

Hoseok stopped fluffing his hair, his mouth falling open first in shock at your blatant admission before he was snorting in laughter, body caving from his mirth. It had always been an endearing sight for you. The way his hair turned to floof, his lips and cheeks trembling to contain his chortles and the strain of his body - not from anything stressful though, but pure laughter.

He was beautiful and while it softened your heart for the man across from you, it did nothing to slake your lust.

If anything, it increased your desire to lay him down on the bed and ride him till he was a panting and moaning mess under you, your name on his tongue as he spilled in you.

You cleared your throat, looking away from the mirror and the real thing, down to your fresh clothes.

Cake…you had cake to cut…and dinner to eat.

And even though your body screamed to jump him right then and there, you were a self disciplined woman. You could last.

“Babe, do you mind waiting outside for a bit while I change?”

“Of course,” Hoseok smiled, grabbing the towel to drape around his neck as he exited the room, clicking the door shut after him.

Only then did you relax, peeling your own wet clothes off to change into the dry ones.

Fifty minutes later, Hoseok and you sat on the small dinner table that folded up from one of the couches. Hobi set the table while you cooked in the small kitchen attachment, all of Hoseok’s favorite food and snacks making their way on to the table. Kimchi fried rice steamed, sending tendrils of white mist up which curled around your man as he inhaled the aroma, a glass of Sprite bubbling at his hand.

You had decked out the room with soft fairy lights, too paranoid to risk candles, even though you were out into the water.

“This smells so good, did you add anything extra?”

“Just a lot of love,” You winked, already having promised to not reveal that fact that his mom had given you most of the secret keys to Hoseok’s heart…via his stomach. Fried sesame seeds in a little soy sauce underlying the taste of Kimchi…and here you were.

You swirled a finger around the glass of wine at the counter, waiting for him to dig in and take the first bite, moaning almost immediately as the rice hit his taste buds. “God, I swear my mom cooked this.” he shot you a suspicious look before deciding to let it go.

You grinned, reaching into the small under the counter fridge to pull out the cake.

You had bought, decorated and candled it at least ten days ago, making your best friend hide it in her fridge first before bringing it here. The glass top of the container was lifted carefully, lighting the candles quickly.

Making sure he was still eating, you quickly reached back and turned off the lights, plunging the room in near darkness. Another switch flicked on the fairy lights and the room was then lit up in a beautiful array of orange and pink, revealing Hobi’s surprised face as he looked up with a squawk of protest.

“What’s going on?” He asked, a little high pitched.

You didn’t answer, only picking up the cake and carrying it to the table. Hobi’s expression melted in an O, eyes sparkling at the army bomb candles you’d found. The small picture of you two on the standee, taken on your last anniversary, mirrored his smile.

“I hope you like it.” You mumbled. “I got cherry and strawberry cream filling inside.”

“This is amazing baby, thank you.” He whispered, leaning forward towards the cake.

You folded your arms on the table, “Go on; make a wish.”

Hoseok’s face sobered. He glanced up at you before closing his eyes, a second later blowing out the candles in a quick puff, the only source of light now the twinkling tiny beads that littered the ceiling and walls. His eyes opened, meeting yours with something like awe in his gaze.

“Happy Birthday baby,” You said lightly.

“Babe, you really pulled out all the stops this time.” He whispered.

I laughed, shrugging non-committal. “You’re my boyfriend, and it’s your birthday. I just wanted you to have a nice time.”

“I am.”

“I may have also made a bet with the guys about who you’re going to enjoy spending more time with.”

There was silence in which Hoseok sighed, shaking his head at yours and his friends’ antics but then you were straightening up. “So, what did you wish for?”

“You know, revealing a wish makes it moot.” He pointed out with a smile before grabbing your hand. “But I don’t need to wish for anything more because I have everything I could want right here.” He raised your hand to place a kiss to your knuckles.

You gave him a look. “You wished for a Grammy, didn’t you?”

Hoseok burst out laughing for the second time that evening, thumb caressing the back of your hand. He gave you a coy smile. “You know, I’m having a very nice time right now.”

You nodded.

“But I could be having a nicer time…how about dessert?” He waggled his eyebrows.

“You have a whole cake in front of you.”

“Babe!” He whined even as you giggled, leaning over to kiss his nose.

“Well, lucky for you I was thinking the same thing.”

Hoseok beamed, meeting your lips halfway in a soft kiss. His hair tickled your forehead, fingers brushing over the shell of your ears to delve into your hair. He scratched the soft skin of your scalp, a tiny trigger for you. It made you moan, keen further into his body. Somehow he managed to stand you up, guiding you back towards the yacht bedroom with giddy giggles left in your wake.

Once inside, Hoseok pulled you tighter against him, mouthy sounds and soft pants filling the room along with the gentle lapping of the waves outside and noises one can hear at night out in nature. It made the experience feel closer, more intimate as his hands ran over your skin, mapping out roads he’d explored time and again.

The first thing you did when you managed to pull your hands from around his neck was unzip the hoodie, taking your time to trail your fingertips lightly down the now exposed span of skin. Smooth, soft and supple, you couldn’t help but marvel at him being yours.

Hobi gathered your hair away from your neck, his mouth tracing from the edge of your jaw, nuzzling and nipping towards your neck. His fingers played with the hem of your blouse, hitching it up till he was pulling it up off you, tossing it to join his hoodie on the floor.

“Fuck,” he whispered at the sight of your naked chest, having forgone a bra.

Nudging his knee to yours, he backed you into the bed. You sat down with a thump, the mattress bouncing with your fall and started crawling back, Hoseok stalking after you on his hands and knees.

When you were finally propped on the pillows as to his liking, he dipped to kiss down your body again, encasing a sensitive, peaked nipple in his hot mouth, laving it over with saliva. Your head tilted back, back arching into his mouth until his other hand wrapped around the other, kneading it in rhythm with his tongue, essentially pushing you down to the bed.

“Fuck, Hobi,” you cried when he playfully bit into the nub, blunt teeth testing the waters between pain and pleasure. You glanced down to see him look up at you, pulling his lips back to show you the sight and you had to wrap a leg around his waist to tether you to earth. Swollen and dark with the attention, your chest stood out, resting in his hot mouth as he continued to swirl his tongue around it.

When he saw your attention was on him, he lowered his teeth again, pressure increasing steadily until you whined and he let go, pulling away to blow cool air onto the skin.

You dropped your head onto the pillow, pressing further in to make friends with the heat that settled in your thorax. It pulsated and thrummed in your blood, the very line he had made you just walk, mocking you.

The return of Hoseok’s hand, cupping your other mound, fingers gentle but insistently pulling at the other nipple made you look at him again.

“Good?” he asked.

You smiled nodding; your hand joining his to brush your own nipple before you followed the length of his arm, touching his chest, dragging over the sternum to where his happy trail disappeared into his pants.

He leaned in over you, kissing you again, slower, more intense, enough for you to chase after his tongue to suck on. You threw your arm around his neck, holding him to you as tight as you could as if his kissed poured life-breath into your soul.

“Easy baby,” he chuckled in your ear. “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.” He placed a kiss under your jaw and added a pinch to the nipple he was playing with for added measure.

He moved further down the bed, tugging on your hand to sit you up.

“Come on, I want my dessert.” He winked at you mischievously, throwing his body down to the bed to comfortable lie down, grinning up at you. “Get on here.”

“Are you sure?” You asked. “I mean, it’s your birthday, don’t you -,”

“Shh, it’s my birthday and I know what I want. That’s you; grinding that pretty pussy into my mouth, till you come on my tongue. You can suck me off all you want when it’s your day.”

You gasped, smacking at his shoulder till you were getting onto your knees, crawling over to him and swinging a leg across him. His hands immediately clamped onto the tops of your thighs, squeezing in reassurance.

This wasn’t the first time you were doing this, Hoseok being insistent on your pleasure before him or sometimes only yours, allowed for ‘experiments’ that would enable him to find clues and notes to your body that he blatantly exploited to make you putty in his hands.

A dash of compliments, a pinch of soft kisses, grips of comfort and maybe a good meal if you’ve had a long day revealed to be the key to get you to ride his face. And today, to your dawning realization, he’d played you just as you had attempted to play him.

Damn his brains…

“It’s okay,” he whispered again, much closer to your core now before he was helping you lower yourself to his mouth.

Your breath hitched when you felt his lips rove in a circle over the most sensitive part of your inner thigh, just at the apex where he loved to hover. He nibbled the skin, teasing it with his tongue and teeth before a hand was smoothing over your rear, warning you of the coming onslaught.

You leaned back to watch the sight. Hoseok’s dark hair upon the bed, his glimmering forehead with a few stray strands matted to the skin and then those eyes.

Eyes that shimmered with greedy lust, mirroring yours and overwhelming in the way they channeled your wants through them. If there was anyone who was truly able to give you a peek into their soul by their eyes; it was Hoseok.

And you, oh so, loved it…

The first deep, hard swish of his tongue along your slit had your moan catching in your throat, coming out broken and whiny. There was no time to get acclimated to the sensation of the barest hint of stubble against your soft skin as he moved his tongue again, back and forth, collecting your arousal and massaging it back into your folds.

You chanced a look downwards, seeing Hoseok’s eyes closed too, eyebrows furrowed in pure concentration. His nose was buried inside you and you could feel his breath waft against you.

“Fuck Hobi,” You finally breathed out, not even out of pleasure but the sheer picture he painted with the way he looked. You could write odes but none would ever match his glory.

He pulled away from your core, grinning up at you.

“I like it when you say that.” He told you, index finger resuming the path of his tongue, circling on your clit. He looked down at it. “I like it when this pussy quivers.” He slipped the digit inside and you swore he had hit the spot at first try.

You wouldn’t be surprised, he had had enough practice.

“Yeah?” You asked, sounding lame.

“Oh definitely,” he hummed. “But you know what I like even more?”

You looked at him puzzled, eyes widening when he smacked your ass lightly, jolting you against his finger. “I like when you actually ride my face.”

You stared.

“What are you waiting for?”

You kept your eyes on him before slowly anchoring your hands back on his chest. Hoseok’s eyes narrowed, his tongue poking out and then you hesitantly rolled your hips, the pearl of your clit catching the ridge of his tongue.

“Good,” He nodded as best as he could from under you. “Now; do it like you mean it; use me, Y/N.”

You close your eyes, focusing on the small burning ember in your pelvic floor before grinding down insistently; feeling the bare hint of tongue increase till it was basically a landing pad for you. Your nerve ending sizzled with each contact, Hobi’s hands moving and tracing patterns into your hips to keep you going until you were giving him exactly what he wanted, coming over his tongue.

The digit in your cunt doubled, the soft muscle digging into your core to lap up any wetness he could find but all it did was add to the mess until you couldn’t stand the friction. You writhed away from him, rolling onto the bed haphazardly, Hoseok following. He gripped onto your wrists, pulling you closer to coo over you, praising you for the job well done.

You were his good girl, he was going to fuck you real slow and nice for this; you felt rather than hear his whispers, muffled even though they were against your shoulder.

Hoseok collected you in his arms, winding and tight to your back.

“Can you lift your leg, baby?”

You did as he asked, with Hoseok helping you prop the leg until it lay over his upper arm. The stretch burned, but you knew he was walking the line between pain-pleasure again.

When you felt him enter you, slow but steady, filling you to the brim in one practiced slide, your eyes met his – gazes locked with unsaid words that didn’t need to be voiced out loud.

It was there in your touches, in your kisses, in the way you looked at each other.

He thrust, hips canting into yours and your head fell back, knowing he was going to take care of both him and you this time around. His pace remained calm, the only indicators of his unraveling being the grunts echoing in your ears and the way his lips and kisses became teeth and bites; littering the skin of your neck and shoulders with the mark of his desire for you.

His hands had moved from your back to your ass, gripping the soft flesh to fuck into you, rolling his hips until your sweat slicked bodies moved as one, plunged into a blissful orgasm that painted your body with splashes of his overflowing pleasure.

Hoseok cursed, grabbing onto his length to drive further into you, cock twitching and emptying the last of its essence into your cove.

“Holy shit,” You were the first to speak.

“Yeah,” Your loved raised his head, eyebrows quirked. “No shit,”

You both broke into giggles before he was gently pulling out, tutting at the mess that was probably on the bed. “I sure hope the captain of Ferret has fresh sheets on board.”

You raised a lazy hand, pointing towards the cupboard where you were told extra linens would be. Hoseok got up, golden and naked for your viewing pleasure before a particular notion had you grabbing at his hand, making him turn to you.

“You enjoyed your birthday with me more than you will with the guys’ right?”

“Oh baby,” He laughed, kissing your nose. “They can’t hope to give me the kind of celebration you just did.”

#bts jhope #jhope x reader #bts #ficswithluv #btsguild #bangtansorciere #btswriterscollective #jhope smut #jhope fluff #jhope fanfic #jhope fic #jhope #jung hoseok #bts smut #bts fluff #bts fanfic #bts fic

101 notes · View notes

nettlestonenell · 3 years

Photo

Part Two:

Ardent Human Desire vs. Fate and the Manpasikjeok OR Why Are There So Many Obstacles Between Lee Gon and Jeong Tae-Eul’s Ultimate Reunion?

If you haven’t, please go back and read Part One: Questions About the Flute OR User Manual, Manpasikjeok Edition

Let’s agree to a few things to start, here.

1. In a parallel universe, everyone has a counterpart/doppelganger.

2. In TKEM’s version of this, your counterpart/doppelganger shares not only your birthday and therefore your age, but also your exact genealogy—which is to say you have the same parents, grandparents, bloodline across each universe. In TKEM this means you will have the same family name (Jo, Lee, Jeong, Myeong) across all possible universes, though your first names will change depending on your iteration. This also means that you are fated to be with the same family/lover/spouse across all possible universes. This is pre-appointed and applies to everyone. *exception: as the worlds begin to show their cracks, Jo Yeong’s parents have divorced, while Jo Eun-Sup’s stayed together, and have had twins. (The finale, when the worlds are again harmonized, reunites Jo Yeong’s parents and they do have twins, which seems to signal that this was their proper Fate)

3. Episode 16, the series finale, seems to really muddy the waters of #2 in a way that I probably lean toward being sloppy consistency rather than deliberate revoking of world-building absolutes [Example: Jo Yeong’s parents are together in 2022 and have twins, but those children would be several years younger than their Republic counterparts (who are said to be starting Kindergarten at that same time), which is…not parallel universes in balance? It would signal exactly the opposite—that time and life flows entirely differently in each universe after repairing the flute…and 1:1 doppelgangers are no more--which is maybe yet another post needed to ponder that on…]

If we take on #2, we are left asking ourselves about three particular characters and their doppelgangers: Lee Gon/Lee Ji-Hyun, Jeong Tae-Eul/Luna, and Kang Sin-Jae/Kang Hyeon-Min

Across all universes, how are they fated to hook-up? OR Who is Jeong Tae-Eul’s true, fated love across all universes in the mind and will of Manpasikjeok?

Is it Jeong Tae-Eul/Luna, and Kang Sin-Jae?

For example, if Shin-Jae of the Kingdom is fated for Luna, and vice versa, and he’s been taken to the Republic (against the will of the flute), he can’t be with Luna. BUT, if that is the fate, that those two are to be together--especially to have a child--then it translates across all parallel worlds, and means that Jeong Tae-Eul is meant for Kang Hyeon-Min, yes? The two Republic-based iterations. This also would illuminate two other things:

1. The fact that Sin-Jae "has feelings for” Tae-Eul. She’s not the “right” iteration for him (he’s Kingdom and she’s Republic), but she’s the closest he can get to the satisfaction of his heart, in a frustrated Fate.

2. It could be suggested -- Did you ever notice that the youth embodiment of the flute appears at least twice in situations that throw KSJ and JTE even closer together? In one, he’s leading that group of high schoolers past the TaeKwonDo center where KSJ first sees Tae-Eul, and in another he’s bullying KSJ so that JTE fights for KSJ. It doesn’t seem coincidental to me that the flute makes an appearance trying to throw these two together—even though they’re the wrong match. Poor thing, it’s trying, in its broken state, to still do its job, to still steer fate.

3. But yet, Tae-Eul never--even long before meeting Lee Gon--has romantic feelings for Sin-Jae.

4. And what we’re shown in the final episode of the series between Sin-Jae and Luna in the Kingdom could at best be called pre-romantic. (and more likely be termed platonic) Their relationship mirrors the JTE/KSJ relationship in the Republic, of her hyung-nim well before Lee Gon appeared, before KSJ expressed that he had feelings for her.

Is it Jeong Tae-Eul and Kang Hyeon-Min?

If it’s meant to be JTE and Kang Hyeon-Min as a fated couple, that’s impossible, as KHM has been rendered comatose in a way that we’re not shown is related to either the Traitor or the Treason. We are shown in Episode 16 what was “supposed” to happen was that he would NOT be struck by the car—his original fate doesn’t hold, there, and as such, his character in 2022, now a chaebol, is removed entirely from JTE’s circle of acquaintance. I’d say, importantly, in the Episode 16 re-set (pre-LG’s return), she not only never looks him up, she never encounters him, which if he were her fate or her potential fate, she surely would have.

Is it Jeong Tae-Eul and Lee Ji-Hyun?

I confess this is where my money is. Of course, Lee Ji-Hyun, in the Traitor’s made-over version of the Republic, dies at age 8, so JTE would never have met him, and therefore I posit would have lived as a single, childless woman until her death in that version of the Republic. (Without the LG re-set)

(Had she not met Lee Gon) I believe that JTE and LJH were fated, in the will and agenda of the flute. They are its preferred match.

What about Lee Gon, then? Who for him?

Remember, in Episode 16, Luna gets a found-family re-set, and PM Koo is jailed after some political intrigue (though not having risen as high as PM). While Lee Gon would not likely have met Luna 1.0 the street rat, it’s not impossible to think that he might, at some function or another, have met a politician’s sibling who was college-educated and working as a civil servant.

I choose to believe that all versions of JTE and LG are fated to be lovers and ultimately parents to children. It is only Lee R/Lim’s cockblock that makes it impossible for the Republic’s iteration of JTE to meet Lee Ji-Hyun, dead aged 8.

Which is where Ardent Human Desire comes into play in altering Fate.

What is Ardent Human Desire when we’re talking about Fate?

Let me direct you to a little moment in a show called Goblin/Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, written by Kim Eun-Suk, the writer of TKEM.

A moment of set-up: the Grim Reaper has a tea room behind a solid (to living human eyes) wall. In it he entertains dead souls before they leave this world. In one episode, a living human man comes through the door, begging for a bathroom. Both Goblin and Reaper are stunned: no one living should be able to come through that door, much less see it. It’s not their Fate. Fate is unchangeable, right? But after directing the living man (in pain from a need for the toilet), they muse that ardent human desire can perhaps open any door (alter any assigned fate). [Something Goblin is eager to accomplish, subverting fate]

Seeing as it’s from the same author’s mind, I’d argue that that concept comes into play in TKEM, too.

From the Night of the Treason forward, Lee Gon has an ardent human desire to find JTE. Not Luna. No, he wants to meet the woman from the Republic who’s a police officer. That’s 25 years of a (let’s be clear: non-sexual, non-romantic at the time) persistent desire that never lessens, never fades. Furthermore, it’s a desire of the king who’s a potential player of the flute, of the growing child who heard the flute call to him. Of the man who chooses ultimately to retrieve the flute whole at ultimate personal risk (and risk, even, to his relationship with JTE, the object of his Ardent Human Desire).

And the flute tests him—in fact, I will argue with you all night and into the weekend that what we’re shown of him opening every door in the universe is just that: a test by Manpasikjeok. “Are you sure she’s what you really want?” it’s asking him. “How far will you go to find her? How many iterations of her happy can I show you until it lessens your desire for her? Until you give in?”

I think it’s terribly important that in no iteration does LG find a JTE doppelganger that’s in a bad situation, in need of rescuing. [Case in point: Luna 1.0 street rat--he’s allowed to see nothing similar] He expressly tells JTE that she is happy every time he finds a version of her. And yet, because of how fate works in TKEM’s universes, he likewise never finds her married or involved with anyone, or with children—because, as Part One laid out: if one Lee Gon/JTE has children (same birthdays)/hooks up with their fate, then ALL iterations of Lee Gon/JTE have children (same birthdays)/have hooked up with their fate--particularly once the timeline and flute have been repaired.

We know that if those JTEs had met their LG iterations they would have AT LEAST recognized our LG’s face when he presented himself. But they don’t. Nope. She is always employed, always still living in the same building with one, if not two, parents. Because of that we’re never shown that LG has trouble locating her (as JTE did in the Kingdom locating her mother, checking their address, b/c there her parents were both dead).

This shot will never look above-board.

To think about how these/this situation works, keep in mind that last leap during their epilogue dating trips—where LG had just left the Kingdom and they were blipped back there only minutes later. The flute, in its whole form, is clearly controlling where they are sent and when (and perhaps that’s a different post, too, about how the flute is preparing/teaching Lee Gon to be its eventual player). The flute, when whole, controls where you end up. It’s not a transporter where you dial up your destination, it’s spinning a roulette wheel if the roulette wheel is fixed by the House.

Here, in the immediate wake of resetting the night of the Treason, the flute is actively NOT LETTING Lee Gon get to JTE. It is MAKING HIM open every door in the universe, seeing if he will persist, showing him what it wants him to see. (Her happy and at peace, not in need of him.) The flute is trying to see if it can convince Lee Gon to let her go since, as they are from two different worlds, they are not each other’s assigned fate.

Obviously, showing him a JTE in straitened circumstances would only encourage him to find her. That’s not going to lessen his desire, so the flute doesn’t go that route. Instead, it shows JTE with purpose, first (I think) as an airline pilot, then a soldier, a graduate of the police academy, and finally as some version of an ‘Idol’ (I think.) [*All positions that also do a surprisingly good job of showing qualities that would sync well with being the Queen of the Kingdom, so perhaps the flute is a little conflicted about JTE as well…]

And what’s more, during this time, as LG is opening every door in the universe (and also, I assume, only being able to venture into the liminal space and leave the Kingdom occasionally b/c he’s still got King Work to do), the flute decides to put someone directly in bitterly lonely Tae-Eul’s path as well.

And it’s not to break her heart (nor viewers’).

Think about when she encounters Lee Ji-Hyun on the street. On my original views it seemed to me that he didn’t take any notice of her at all (she is, at her height, well out of his line of sight), but upon closer re-watch he DOES actually have a second of looking at her. It’s not extended eye contact, and maybe not direct eye contact at all, but he does see her. In this, the flute gives Tae-Eul the chance to see her original, pre-LG fated love. And what does it have him dressed in, just for her sake?

That’s right: his military uniform. It’s not the same coat Lee Gon wore when washing rice, that was white—but it’s the black one he and Yeong are wearing in their selfie. “Here he is,” the flute/Fate seems to be saying to her, “he could be yours if you’ll only accept him.”

[*It is also perhaps because Lee Ji-Hyu- iterations are serving his military service that the other JTE-iterations have not met him yet in the other parallel universes]

But the Ardent Human Desire of these two lovers refuses to be swayed, even after a year of separation and total ignorance of each other’s post-reset situations. Persistent. Ardent. Human. Desire.

The flute is indebted to both of them. They each took steps that culminated in a destiny/fate they each chose to embrace (to use Prince Buyeong’s words). They sacrificed their own Ardent Human Desires to fix the timeline and the parallel universes while knowing it might well separate them forever from that which they desire (the exact opposite of villainous Lee R/Lim’s actions). [In fact, making ultimately Kingly choices, shows of wisdom and worthiness.]

The King Lee Gon chose for not only his subjects, but also the citizens of the Republic, and the future Queen JTE chose to brave the liminal space with Lee R/Lim for her love, the King.

And in the wake of that, fate—and the Manpasikjeok—agreed to bend.

Which is why LG and JTE then become what is fated.

#tkem #tkem meta #the king eternal monarch #the king: eternal monarch #lee gon #jeong tae eul #manpasikjeok #kang sin jae #tkem luna #kdrama #more like okay: drama!#fate

23 notes · View notes

hoardcloneheadcanons · 3 years

Text

Rhack Story P5-Meet Angel

Moxxi's eye's leveled with Rhys's, scanning him.

"So…. let me get this straight. Jack and Nisha were dating,”

"U-huh."

“Then you and Jack were dating.”

“Sure.”

“Then you get closer to him and... Jack introduced you to his daughter?”

Rhys let out a low unnerving chuckle.

It wasn’t a laugh, so much as what a laugh might sound like if you left it in the dark for months on end and it started scratching designs on the cell walls.

“Oooh No… Good Guess, I guess? Like I can see how you would see think that. Like, it gets serious then you introduce your significant other to the kids. Right? That’d be Normal? That’d be sane?

As if Jack could ever be normal.

So Nooo.”

He made some mouth-clicking noises on his cheek as he tried to form his words

“She was in a satellite.”

“There’s no other way to start that, he was keeping her in a fucking SATTELITE!

OH God. Um. As you’ve noticed, she is a siren. And Jack couldn’t control her. And he hates that, but he still loves his little girl, or he thinks he does. So he couldn’t kill her, because he still loves her, but he couldn’t control her so he had to lock her away. In a satellite.

I know I already said that, but it just keeps getting to me that he put her in a prison that wasn’t even on any natural land. It was way out in the middle of space. It was inescapable, she’d have to make her own pod to get out. If that thing blew up she’d have no way of getting out because he wouldn’t leave that amount of escape for her.

I cannot emphasize how much No ONE was supposed to know about her, meeting her was a fluke.

Jack gave me a mission where I was supposed to go inside a pod with a mechanic, and that mechanic was supposed to fix one of our satellites… uh Krios, specifically.

We were taking a weird path to it, it was longer than it should have been, more… arcs. The official reason was that it was supposed to avoid meteor clusters, but that didn’t track. We send our cargo pilots through meteor clusters all the time.

And all we were supposed to do was follow the autopilot to the satellite, fix it up and go back.

And he said that he knew how mechanics liked to cut corners, and he didn’t want the mechanic trying to take a faster path. He wanted us to stay directly on the charted course. If the mechanic tried to take a different path, I was to shoot them in the head.

He gave me an upgrade specifically for the task. It was a gun hidden in my arm. They’d have no way of knowing it was coming.

And at that point I wasn’t sure if he was giving me the task because he trusted me or because I was disposable. I was in a weird place with Jack at the time, It was after the first time I tortured a guy for him. I knew I was a terrible person. And I couldn’t tell if he saw me as competent or disposable.

Because on one hand, I just beat up a guy for him. so maybe he wanted to see if I’d be willing to kill someone for him. On the other, maybe whatever was important enough to kill a mechanic for was important enough to kill me for.

It went great for a bit. The ship moved itself, and I didn’t have to do anything.

It was awkward. The shuttle was about the size of a small room, and the mechanic and I were just sitting on opposing benches across from each other, trying not to make eye contact.

She didn’t like to talk, and I was just staring at a corner. I was trying not to get attached just in case I had to kill her, so I wasn’t very chatty either. It was just a job to her. It was just a job to me too.

But half-way through the autopilot shuts off. Debris is creating a magnetic interference and it’s making the system glitch out.

And the mechanic- she said something like “fine, I guess we’re going to have to go manual."

And I told her “No we have to wait it out. I don’t know the route and the autopilots off."

She told me she knew the route to Krios, that she’s done this repair job before

And I ask her “Do you know the route we were using, or do you know the old faster route? Because we’re only allowed to use the current edition. It’s company policy.”

And as soon as I say that she looked ready to punch me in the face.

“Are you serious? I’m losing money while we sit here. I don’t get paid by the hour I get paid by the job, and I got other jobs to do. My company’s going to be down my throat.”

Hyperion is a client of her company’s. She was an out-of-house contractor.

Anyway, while we’re having that discussion the debris comes flying at us. You know, the debris causing the interference? It’s a trash shuttle, a big one, about the size of the shuttle we’re on. And the lid is pointy. I don’t know why they design them like that but it’s terrifying. and it was partially opening so that robot limbs are leaked through.

I froze. All I could think about was that after spending so much time terrified of Jack, I was going to be killed by a flying trash can.

While I was distracted, the mechanic, whose name I was specifically did not learn, shoved me out of the way, got to the controls, and steered us out of the way of impact.

Trash compactor collided with a meteor that was behind us. Parts flew everywhere and she continued to steer the ship until we were out of the field of scrap.

Then we get a moment to breath, and the auto-pilot turns back on and kilometers off course.

So based on my mission directive, I had to kill her.

And I got as far as readying the gun on my arm before I realize that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the guy who killed someone after they saved his life. I’d already done things I regretted for Hyperion, this wasn’t going to be one of them.

Instead, I started panicking. And the mechanic thought I was just freaking out from our near-death experience with the debris.”

Rhys mimicked her dry gravel the best he could.

……

“Dude, we’re out of the debris field. We’re alive, calm down.”

“No you don’t get it, we’re both fucked, we’re both dead. I’m suppose- We’re supposed to be killed if we go off path. Hyperion has too many secrets and they don’t like orders being disobeyed, even dumb ones.”

I remember she took a moment to look at my face to realize my panic was real. That I wasn’t lying.

“Fuck, I can’t change my identity again. My sister just adjusted to her school, we just got stable. I can’t do this again.”

I remember her inhale, how quickly she changed from frustration and fear to solid resolve. I remember her looking into my cybernetic eye with hatred, and I didn’t blame her.

“Fine. Fine. We’ll leave. I guess that’s the only option. I’ll take this shuttle as far as it can go, drop you off on some unknown planet, take my sister, and try to get somewhere safe. It’ll suck to restart again but it’s my only option, so lets go.”

Once she said it I realized that the nearby planet she’d probably drop me on would be here, Pandora. And I had to visualize what it would be like to build a life here. And I had a moment of cold fear where I just considered my options before I realized there was a way where neither of us had to give up our lives.

I put my left hand on her shoulder.

“Wait, maybe there’s another option. The data from the mission logs from the shuttle and my eye are probably going to give us away, but it’s going to have to go through a communication’s satellite first.

I’m going to jam the signal and hopefully the magnetic interference is causing a delay. If I can get to a communication satellite, I can alter the data a little bit to make it look like nothing happened. No one needs to know we got off course. No one needs to lose their job. Your sister doesn’t have to switch schools.”

She looked skeptical, but she was as desperate as I was.

….

So, we drove over to the nearest communication satellite.

or what we thought was the nearest communication satellite.

When we were… six clicks away? 400 meters? I noticed that we were arcing away from the dock we were trying to land on and the mechanic told me she lost control of the shuttle.

She lifted her hands up, and the steering wheel kept turning, no human control, and no autopilot engaged. The control panel was glowing a faint blue, so light you could swear it was some odd reflection from the stars.

And suddenly I got this splitting migraine.

Right now, all I have is glass and this eyepatch. But all the circuitry relating to my old Hyperion-tech eye was tied into my nervous system, all too close to my brain. I’d been getting mild headaches and buzzing in the brain since the start of the magnetic field interference. But when we got close to the satellite it felt like something was drilling into my head.

I keeled over in pain and got dark spots in my vision.

Then, while I was on the floor I heard a female, robotic voice say to me,

“I’m sorry I had to take control of your shuttle. There are turrets attached to the outside of this satellite that I cannot control. They will shoot you if you come closer.

I am sorry for your predicament. I am partially responsible. I am doing my best effort to make amends. I am currently erasing your shuttle’s data systems and your eye’s memory banks to make it look like you were never here. Jack will not find you. It is fine. You need to turn around.”

Do not tell Rita Greene I am here. Knowledge of my existence will only bring harm to the people who possess it. I am sorry I had to contact you, but it was the only way to communicate.”

I didn’t know what I was hearing at the time. The best I could guess was a highly advanced surveillance A.I. that Jack was hiding, and who had power over my tech. I was afraid to disobey her, and eager to believe something had saved me from needing to rebuild my life on Pandora.

Rita was the mechanic whose name I was trying to avoid learning. I verified that the data was altered, and then I lied to her. Told her I was in pain because I was hacking from a distance. She asked me why we lost control, and I said the autopilot must still be glitching. I’m not sure if she believed me. She believed me enough to see if my plan work, I think she trusted I wouldn’t put my own life at risk.

We turned around, fixed the Krios satellite. Went back to Helios, and no one killed us. No one mentioned us breaking any rules.

I waited for days for someone to kill me, to realize I didn’t follow orders and gut me, but it never came. Jack never found out.

That was the first time I met Angel. I thought it would be the last.

I was wrong.

#Tales From the Borderlands #Rhys #Angel #OC #Handsome Jack #Thoughts of Murder #Fanfiction #Borderlands #Why Angel Gets to Live

9 notes · View notes

prose-for-hire · 3 years

Text

The Cabin

Pairing: Faith x reader

Request: Maybe ❝ is that your idea of a costume? ❞ and “I can’t get a signal on my phone, the car is dead, and I’m fairly certain we are out of matches.” with Faith x reader. Faith is attracted to readers costume but pulls the whole little kid pulling crushes pigtails with their words type thing. Thanks a million and no worries if you aren't inspired or you are writing and get to it and realize you have too many requests or something.

Requested by: anon

Warning: Swearing. Threat/violence. Serial killer.

A/N: Reader’s family owns a cabin (in the woods). Reader is wearing a Halloween costume. You’re dressed as a vampire. I felt I had to assign something so I’m sorry if you don’t like it – you can imagine you’re something else it’s not essential to the plot.

You and Faith liked each other. It was widely known by pretty much every resident of Sunnydale, demons and humans alike. The only people that weren’t aware that one had feelings for the other were you and Faith. You definitely knew you liked here but you weren’t aware she felt the same. But you had been dropping hints and trying to vie for her attention when you could, without success.

This was your last resort. You were spending the Halloween weekend away at a cabin in the woods. You had convinced Faith to drive you both down there. You told her that the others would meet you there, but you may have forgotten to invite anyone else. You had been sick of waiting for a moment to create itself organically and decided to take destiny into your own hands.

She pulled up in and didn’t get out, just honked her horn at you and waited. She was excited to see you, but she didn’t show it. She didn’t want to be rejected – she knew she was punching every time she tried to create a moment with you. You eventually came out of your front door, hauling a large bag for the weekend. As soon as she saw you, it knocked the breath from her body. Your costume. You were a vampire this Halloween. For a slayer, she was ridiculously attracted to the way you looked as a stereotypical vampire.

“Is that your idea of a costume?” you asked as you stopped next to her rolled down window on the driver’s side. You looked her up and down and frowned. She hadn’t dressed up. She was in her usual clothes. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head at you as if she wasn’t obsessed with you in your outfit.

“We’re going to your folk’s cabin, how am I meant to know there was a fuckin’ dress code”

“It’s Halloween! Of course there’s gonna be fancy dress!” you gave her a look as if to say it was a very obvious requirement. She shrugged, clearly not dashing back home to get her little Bopeep costume.

“Get in, y/n/n” She said “D’ya know the way?” she called as you opened the boot and placed your weekend bag inside.

“It’s kinda off the beaten track, but that’s part of it’s beauty. I have a map” You offered as you shut it and walked around to the passenger side with a smile. She didn’t reply, just started up the car and kept her eyes on the road ahead.

Faith had trouble expressing her attraction and seeing you in your costume was making it harder. Her eyes had widened, only a fraction, and she had raked her eyes along your body as subtly as she could without you noticing.

She set off, driving like a bat out of hell down the highways as you instructed he the right way to go. She chatted a lot and you happily chipped in. She was fun to be around and you desperately wished you could tell her how you felt, but she kind of teased you when you started talking of anything serious.

There was a lull in conversation and you looked to the back seat, noticing a baseball bat rolling about on the backseat. You squinted at the item and then back at her but shrugged. Best not to ask, it might be a Slayer thing.

After getting lost twice, and having almost an argument every five minutes, you finally rolled up the drive.

“Hell’s cove. Are you kiddin’?” she asked after reading the name on the cabin that someone in your family had decided on generations ago. The sign was kind of old and faded.

“It’s named after the beach down the road. We live on Hell’s mouth, it’s not much different” You assured her, but the shiver that ran up your spine and rang through to your brain. It vibrated with concern as if it were the bell you would try to hit using a hammer on a carnival game.

In the cabin you both started to settle in. You took a deep breath, trying to think how to word what you needed to say. You decided to just get it over with.

“Oh, uh, the others kinda cancelled...” you mutter, turning away to check in the cupboards. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. She was actually really pleased that she had you alone.

“Whatever” She shrugged.

“I guess we’ll have to make our own fun” You smiled and she rolled her eyes, but couldn’t quite conceal her smile.

It was later in the evening and you had put some music on. There was a wood fire going and you were bustling about in your outfit with Faith watching you from her seat. You reached to close a cupboard but paused just before you contacted with the wood.

Had it been the crackling of the fire? The music? Movement from inside the shopping bag? No. Your gut told you no. Something was wrong. That noise was coming from inside the house.

“D-do you hear that?” You mutter, shivering slightly despite the warmth of the fire.

“What?” She asked as you go and turn the music right down.

“That... noise”

“Aw, y/n, you never told me you were scared of the things that go bump in the-” She was stopped mid-sentence. She heard it this time. The strange rattling that appeared to be close and yet so far away. You and Faith stared at each other and didn’t say anything. It started to sound closer and closer and then it just stopped.

An eerie silence, all you could hear was yours and Faith’s breathing. You wanted to grab for her hand. But you didn’t want her to think you couldn’t be tough.

You slowly managed to regulate your breathing, after staying still and waiting. Just as you relaxed, a new noise echoed through the cabin.

Knock knock knock.

You jumped. Faith was about to get up but you ran to the door, insistent on not giving into your fear. You swung the door open but nobody was outside. In fact, nothing outside was moving. It was creepily still. The lights weren’t on and there was no movement. You slowly closed the door, the creaking echoing back to you from the tree line.

You turned away starting to walk towards her, wishing you could run into her arms-

Knock knock knock.

It rang through the cabin, you jumped and paused before walking over there. You were staring to feel sick. Scared. This time, Faith came with you. You swung the door open and you were presented with the never ending darkness of the night.

You were so spooked you hadn’t even noticed the door. But Faith had, she tapped your shoulder and pointed.

“Were they there before?” She asked, already knowing the answer. This was all she needed, some demon coming in and ruining her chances with you. You looked to what she was gesturing at. Deep scratch marks had been left in the front door. They were nail marks. They had dragged across the front door after you had arrived.

A shadow goes across the window and you jump. You caught it from your peripheral vision. You moved to her side and she frowned, as you whispered what you had seen. She looked towards the window but not able to see anything. She didn’t leave your side, she allowed you to huddle close to her without comment. You stayed that way for a while until a loud noise made you jump from you place by her side.

The lights had started to flicker before suddenly leaving you both in a flood of darkness. You were trapped in the shadows.

“No no no!” You shouted in frustration and she had to clasp a hand against your mouth to stop you screaming louder. She moved her hand and walked to look out of the window, checking that it was clear. She turned to you, concern evident.

“We’re outta here” She muttered and you nodded. You wanted to leave too. She grabbed your hand and lead you straight out of the door and back the way you had entered.

You both dashed straight to the car and got in. She fumbled with the keys as you turned and manually locked the car doors. Faith turned the key in the ignition but the car wouldn’t start. She tried again, but with no luck.

She hit the steering wheel twice in frustration and when that didn’t work she muttered, “Shit. It’s dead”

“I can’t get a signal on my phone, the car is dead, and I’m fairly certain we are out of matches…” You muttered, banging your head in frustration against the dashboard, “…And I’m 90% sure there’s a serial killer on the loose”

“Okay, what decade are you living in? I’ve gotta torch in here” she muttered, moving you out of the way, her hand lingering slightly on your shoulder, before she started looking in the glove compartment, “See?” She flashed the torch in your eyes to prove it worked as you complained and shoved her hand away from you. She smiled and turned to open the door and leave the car.

“You can’t go out there! What if he- what if there’s someone waiting to-?”

“Aw, didn’t know you cared so much. But hey, I got the Slayer thing goin’ for me so I’m gonna check it out – you should stay”

“I’m not staying in here on my own dressed like this!” you gestured at your costume which wasn’t suitable for the weather or if you were honest, suitable to be seen in public in. It was a little too well-fitted and you really wished you hadn’t dressed up thinking about Faith’s approval.

“Just lock the door, I’ll be back for ya” she winked before turning to walk away.

“I don’t know that! You could be in on it, waiting to hold me down for the creepy shadow guy!” You hissed, opening the door and slipping out.

“Why would I do that?” She squinted, assuming it had been quite obvious that she had a soft spot for you. I mean, she had driven you here hadn’t she? Her well-timed jibes the way she hinted her affection. It was flirting 101, but apparently you hadn’t been taught that teasing and comments designed to brush someone off were now considered flirting.

“Well you don’t seem to like me very much. I mean, I had hoped you were covering for some-” you stopped yourself. You had hoped her attitude was a kinda cover-up for her real feelings. But now you just felt stupid. And cold.

“I came to Creepsville for you, on Halloween. D’you think I’d do that for anyone?” She laughed as you slammed the car door shut and moved to stand by her side rather than safely get back into the car, “What’re you doin’? Stay there”

“I’m not leaving you to go out there! I’m... back up!”

“Back up? We’re never getting’ out of here alive” she quipped, shaking her head. But the small smile suggested that she appreciated you wanting to stick by her side.

“I have fake fangs in my pocket, if anyone gets too close I’ll snap at them” you said very seriously but Faith could help fully laughing at you. You really did make her smile, it brightened her day. Even in a situation like this.

You both walked the perimeter. You had a jacket, but it was pretty thin material and you were cursing yourself for it every step you walked around the perimeter of the cabin. You knew it was cold up here and yet you had sacrificed yourself for the Halloween costume. She rolled her eyes and offered her leather jacket to you, “Take it”

“Thanks” you say softly, a contrast from your spooky costume, “Do you, uh, do you actually like me?” you finally had the courage to ask. It only took a life or death situation to make you finally do it. It could be your last chance, after all.

“What?”

“You said that you wouldn’t come here for… anyone” you pressed.

“I said that, huh?”

“Yep. So, does this mean that-” You finally decided to ask. To see how she felt. But she cut you off.

“We don’t have time for this, y/n/n” She cut you off quickly, unsure of how to express herself. How to explain exactly what you meant to her. But you wouldn’t let her off the hook this time.

“There’s never a good time! I like you! I want to kiss you and hold your hand and all of that!” It finally exploded, pouring from your mouth, “You drive me places, you let me share your jacket and you tried to protect me before – don’t tell me you’re too cool to feel the same way… please?” your voice tailed off slightly.

She closed the space between you. Unable to put into words how you made her feel. She kissed you, in a way you would never have expected. It was slow, almost gentle. She kissed so softly, featherlight at first. She cherished every part of you, her hands now on either side of your face as the kiss deepened, both showing your want. Her non-verbal confirmation of everything. You were the one. You kissed her as if it was the last thing you would ever do. Your desire to have more of her. To have her in every way she would let you. Your lips gliding over hers, parting for her so easily. You had dreamt of this for so long and the feeling was better than you could have imagined. Somehow, you were now pressed against the thick trunk of a tree, her body pressed against yours. She kissed more urgently, the chill of the air whipping around you as you both leant into the fiery embrace.

Just as midnight tolled on a clock that neither of you could hear as the nearest town was so far away, evil walked towards you. This would be where the eerie music would have started playing, if you had really been inside a horror movie. Where the music would start to reach a crescendo, allowing the

A twig snapped and you sprung apart. A figure stood there, his head cocked to the side. A mask, he was wearing a mask. He was holding a knife and he was running his pointing finger along the tip of the knife with the other hand. He was toying with you, not realising who he was dealing with.

Faith scoffed, the kiss from you filling her with more self-assurance than she knew what to do with. She had just got the one person she never thought she would. She felt invincible. She ran straight for the killer, who started to wildly stab at her. But Faith had more practice than him. She was a brilliant fighter and managed to disarm him almost immediately. He didn’t go down easily though.

You left her and her eyes widened. You had gone to grab the baseball bat that you had eyed on the back seat on your journey over here. But she thought you had left her. She nodded, telling herself she should have expected you would leave. Everyone did.

Faith had been distracted watching you walk away. He took his chance and tackled her and they went rolling down the bank together, narrowly missing the trees and landing near a body of water. you just caught them tumbling as you ran back, the bat in your hand. You skidded down the hill, hurrying after them when you returned. She was punching him repeatedly, hitting anywhere she could now. The fight had been on a long time and this human was surprisingly agile. Almost superhuman.

You swung the bat behind you, steadying your breathing. You tried to visualise the shot you needed to take. You moved back, quickly smashing the splintered bat against the back of his head. The bat returning to you slicked with blood.

You gasped, staring at the bat as he sunk to his knees and eventually lay on the ground of the woods that had been littered with pines. The sticky liquid now running down the bank and into the once clear water below.

She ran over to you, taking the bat and insisting you saved her life. That you had to do it or you both would have died. You went cold, staring at the masked figure. You nodded along with her words, getting used to the idea that you had just killed someone. She stepped over the body to embrace you, holding you to her as she could tell you were still in shock. As you sunk into her arms, lulled into the soft embrace of security, the hair on the back of your neck started to raise.

Something was wrong.

A large, garbled breath rattled. A horrifying gasp as the figure moved from the floor and reached to grab at your ankle. He wrapped his hand around you, gripping tight. You start to open your mouth in shock, struggling against him. Faith sprung into action immediately, she kicked him and then stamped down on the mask hard several times. Making sure that this time he wouldn’t get up again.

Much like a Scooby-doo villain the man behind the mask looked a little pathetic compared to his persona. He had messed with the wrong pair and you had both shown him before he was sent to his watery grave.

You both turned to leave, covered in dirt and lightly caked in what you presumed was blood. Faith wrapped an arm around your waist as you both started to climb back up the bank in the early dawn light. Both vowing never to return to the cabin again.

53 notes · View notes

rixxy8173571m3w1p3 · 4 years

Text

Sweater Weather

I enjoy the headcanon of Doofus Rick having a variety of sweaters. And after looking at stock photos, I was inspired to write this fic. Hope you guys like it.

In this fic Ricks sweater causes some conflict.

____________

In the great vastness of space, one could learn the true meaning of loneliness. For miles upon miles, floating upon nothing, you could say it was like sailing across the sea. Yet, unlike the salt or crashing waves of the ocean, you two would navigate across star systems or avoid asteroid fields, while at the same time enjoy the peace which comes from being somewhere uncongested. However, as fascinating as it was to go on intergalactic, space adventures, one of the things you didn't enjoy was the extreme temperature changes; most of the time, you'd stay in the ship or stay home if a planet's climate was too cold for your taste, but on this occasion, Rick needed an extra pair of hands when you two stopped on Mars after spending most of the day at the Jerryboree.

After Zeta-7 had traded a few items of his own to obtain what he came for at a reduced price, you two ran as fast as you could back towards the ship, but by the time the ship was out of the Martian orbit, you were chilled to the bone. Rubbing your arms, you shivered. "I wonder if I'll ever get used to this."

Your breath came out like a cloud of smoke and the cold that had seemed mild at first had numbed your face and extremities. Rick turned up the heat, as well as turned on the seat warmers and offered you a freeze-dried Phytonian branch worm, but you passed on the offer. You knew it would have warned you up straight away, but the last time you tried one of those things, you had a stomach ache for three days. Concerned, he placed the ship on autopilot and did his best to search around in the back seat for anything you could use to warm up, but then as though it struck him on the head he groaned. "Darn it, I-I forgot that I removed the spare blanket to wash it."

"Where is it now?"

"I-I left it in the dryer."

You thought of telling him that it wasn't his fault he forgot it since you had distracted him this morning with a video about ninja cats, but it wouldn't have helped the situation. "Ricky," you tried to ease him with a weak smile but your teeth chattered. "it's not a big deal. Besides, we're not that far from home."

However, he wasn't convinced. You weren't as experienced when it came to space travel, but you knew well enough of the possible dangers associated with extreme body temperature shifts. The chill you had spread deep into your bones until you thought you'd rattle if shaken; a lick of fear traveling down your spine but otherwise you didn't feel too bad. Nonetheless, Rick was concerned for your well-being, and knowing you two were hundreds of thousands of miles away from your dimension's version of Earth, he made a decisive decision and started removing articles of his own clothing. "Whoa, what are you doing?"

With a blush, he handed you not only his knitted Jerry sweater but also his labcoat; leaving him in a thin t-shirt which had a snoopy patch on the right shoulder; how cute. "I hope it'll s-suffice until we get home."

"But what about you? What are you going to wear?"

Flashing you a stern look which left little room for argument, you slipped on his sweater and lab coat, and was delighted to feel a little more like yourself and relaxed by its scent; it was his essence; that of vanilla, of his home, and something you couldn't quite think of; chemicals perhaps. "Hmm, your clothes are a lot more comfortable than I expected them to be. How um…..how do I look?"

Turning down the lights and switching back to manual, he nodded. "It suits you m-mi corazón."

You admired its softness and passed your hand over the tight, twisted knit. It was a lovely shade of light sage green, and had a picture of a smiling Jerry holding a titanic ship model; you thought it was sweet that it was a picture of his friend. So many things this man-made or owned had a purpose or a story; this piece was most likely made to brighten up the day that the Jerrys in his care were having. Your Rick really was a good man; better yet because he saw the value in regular folk who probably didn't see it in themselves. "I like your clothes, Rick," you commented; your heart warmed by his goodness. "they seem to carry bits of you in them."

"Th-that could be said about any piece of clothing that's been worn. They carry bits of our DNA." he stated matter of factly.

"Eh….that's... I mean I get that, but that's not where I was going with this. I meant that they're soft and warm like you Ricky. You enjoy dressing comfortably, don't you? You own a variety of sweaters."

"Wh-who doesn't? I've sort of been dressing th-the same way for the last twenty or so years but when I met you, I had more opportunities to dress up. However, the older I get, the more often I'm in need of something a-a bit warmer and gentler on my skin. Actually, some of my clothes are locked to my particular genetic signature so that they'll or adjust according to the weather or climate. That way, I'll have less t-to carry on certain excursions."

"Incredible, that'll certainly come in handy, but can I ask you something?"

"Y-yes?"

"I know you're focused on driving," you started, wondering if your assumptions were correct. "but is there a reason why you haven't looked me in the eyes since we left Mars, or am I just thinking too much?"

He visibly stiffened, but he still didn't face you. Rick seemed troubled, for he tightened his grip on the wheel. Maybe this hadn't been the best time to ask, but what else could you have done? If you didn't ask, how else would you have known? Still, if you had waited, you would've noticed the red light blinking on the control panel sooner. It was a caution light, but you weren't so concerned, but you should've been.

Rick had opened his mouth to answer, with a faraway look in his eyes, but in the blink of an eye he made a sharp left turn around some space junk; jostling you two as well as the cargo. That was another thing you hated about space was Earth's contribution to its pollution. Unknowingly, you two had deviated from the usual course by a few miles, leading you two into a dangerous situation. Whether it was the fault of his navigation equipment or his lack of focus you didn't know, but it took a couple of minutes of evading space junk before you two could breathe a sigh of relief. And at the first opportunity, he switched the ship back to autopilot. "I'm s-sorry about that. I'm usually a better driver." he started, scratching the back of his neck as he glanced out the window in search of an answer in the emptiness of space. You couldn't see anything except for a few stars and the Earth straight ahead, but you had a feeling that where he was looking was somewhere you couldn't see. When he was ready, he turned around in his seat to glance at you, but then quickly turned back to face the steering wheel. How odd. "T-t-to answer your question," he stammered. "y-you're not thinking too much. I've just been distracted."

"Oh, okay."

"Are y-you alright? Nothing hurts does it?"

"I mean, other than feeling wide awake now, no harm was done I guess, but what happened? It isn't like you to let your mind wander while we're out here. Rick, would you like me to take over the wheel so you can straighten out your thoughts?"

"No, it's not - I can do it. I got this."

"Are you sure?"

"Mhm, as long as I-I focus on the wheel."

He hadn't really answered your original question, but since you guys nearly avoided death, it probably wasn't a good time.

________

He parked the ship in his garage, and since it wasn't that late, you two walked over to your home. Rick hadn't said much since earlier, but you figured he'd let you know what was bothering him later. As soon as you crossed the threshold of your home, you started a pot of coffee for Rick to drink when it was ready. Then, you got a blanket from the closet and offered it to him just in case he was cold, but he didn't care for one. He was still in a mood, and you wondered if the reason you'd upset him was that you were still wearing his sweater. "You probably want this back right?"

Slipping out of his sweater and labcoat, you felt the temperature difference immediately and took up the blanket you had taken out and wrapped it around yourself. "Thanks for letting me borrow them. I'll be sure to pack something with me next time."

"I'm n-not sure if that's such a-a good idea." he said with seriousness.

"What do you mean?"

The lines around his eyes deepened, as well as the creases of his forehead, and there was a pensive cloudiness of his usually electric blues. Frustrated, he bit down on his lip almost hard enough to make it bleed. "B-because it's distracting."

"What?"

He continued. "I-I should've brought you home first or gotten the parts a different time."

"But I thought you wanted help." you sniffled.

"Y-you don't understand."

"What's there to understand?" you retorted; sinking into the couch as tears stung the back of your eyes, and threatened to come out. "You...you don't want me to help you anymore? I thought we were a team."

Your saddened state shifted his sour mood, and he apologized. "Gosh, please don't cry mi corazón, I-I didn't mean it."

"But you sai-"

"I'm not upset at you," he reassured you. "I'm disappointed in myself for allowing this to happen. I've become complacent and I-I should've been prepared. You could've gotten sick, hurt, or worse just because I got distracted. Next time I'll bring you your own sweater and snacks or whatever you want."

"Is it because you don't want me wearing yours? Did I ruin it or something?"

"No, it's because," he swallowed, unsure how to broach the subject. "cuando lo usas, es… es apretado."

What? You understood the part where he said you used it, but not the rest. Pulling out your phone from your pocket, you asked Google what all of that just meant, but the answer you got didn't help. "Rick, should I be offended?"

"I-I hope not. I promise it's not what you're thinking."

"Then what is it? I'm not getting any clear answers here."

"I um - I'm sorry if I offended you. It's not what I intended to do. I know what I'm about t-to tell you sounds silly since I had hoped I'd outgrow this, but I still feel shy around you."

This much you did know. He was overly conscious of himself, his actions, and how he might disappoint or be lacking, but most of all was hateful of his own inadequacies. Yet, for where he found fault, you found virtue and you would remind him of that, but in this case, you simply needed to listen. "That's okay, I already knew that."

"I don't feel like that all the time, but today I got embarrassed all of a sudden. I-I don't know what happened. Y-you were wearing my clothes and I saw your silhouette in the starlight and I got nervous."

Huh? That's what was bothering him?

"Why?"

"It um - it made me wonder what it'd be like if we lived together and…oh, it's embarrassing."

The hand which he had resting on the couch gripped the fabric tightly, and he was mortified because he had been distracted by you; which under normal circumstances he'd be able to remain calm. Covering his hand with yours, you gave him a squeeze."No, I would like to hear what you were thinking about very much."

Lacing his fingers with yours, you two sat there for a matter of minutes as he gathered his thoughts together. When he calmed a little, he confessed. "I thought about what it'd be like t-to wake up right next t-to you and not be alone anymore. I-I think about it a lot."

"Oh." That hadn't been what you expected. However, was it really so strange? He had intended to propose months ago, but ever since the moment had been spoiled he hadn't attempted to try again; if it had gone well, you two might've been married by now. Though, who was to say he didn't dream of it? Of what he'd always wanted, of a family or of the life in which he needed? Perhaps gentle encouragement wouldn't hurt.

"You know," you responded with a serious, but gentle candor. "you're not the only one who thinks about us living together. I'm very happy here and I love what we do together. And although we've had times where we respected one another's space, I don't mind if that changes. However, there are things that aren't so simple. For example, if I would've known that I could borrow your clothes whenever I liked I would've done so more often. Though, only if you hadn't been concerned about me getting accidentally poisoned by chemicals or radiation. Remember that time you literally fought with the laundry?"

"I do remember," he answered wistfully. "it's what prompted me t-to teach you how to use the freeze ray and laser gun correctly."

"I think the longer we're together, the more our lives will intertwine. Meaning, the more we move forward, the more training I'm going to need to fit into this lifestyle of ours. I think I'm going to need a portable scanner that'll allow me to check your clothes before I think of putting them on."

With serious, but tender eyes, he studied you. Then, he picked up his sweater which sat between you two and wondered. "Y-you want to wear my clothes? A great deal of them have seen better days. Are y-you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," you brightened. "because I love the way your clothes smell. If you were away, it'd make me think of you and it...I don't know, makes us seem more domestic. Is that along the lines of what you were thinking?"

"Y-yeah."

"Cool. Glad to know we're on the same page."

Relieved, he pressed a kiss to your temple and seemed ready for that cup of coffee. And as you stood, ready to head to the kitchen to prepare it for him, you mentioned. "And by the way, I gotta tell you something important."

"Gee, what is that?"

Striking a pose, you made him chuckle; that was a good sign. "That it's totally cool to be into me and check me out. I don't mind, and it makes me happy that I know what it takes to catch your eye. However, there's an exception: when we're driving around in space, where anything could kill us, we gotta keep our eyes on the space around us unless on autopilot. Only then," you winked. "might it be okay to be a little distracted."

Fin

50 notes · View notes

becasbelt · 4 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Pitch Perfect (Movies) Rating: G Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell Characters: Chloe Beale, Beca Mitchell Additional Tags: Fluff, Established Relationship, Post-PP3

Summary:

Beca and Chloe get stuck in a massive traffic jam in LA. Boredom, teasing, and fluff ensue.

* * *

-5:26 PM-

“Come on! Let’s get a fucking move on, people!”

Chloe giggles at Beca’s annoyance with the traffic in front of them. “I really don’t think that’s going to help this situation at all, babe.”

Beca honks the car’s horn and glares at the person in the car next to them when they glance over. “Well it should,” she stews. “This is fucking ridiculous. I hate LA traffic.”

When Beca had kissed Chloe on the USO tour, Chloe’s entire world had changed for the better. After years of dropping hints, Beca finally figured out that Chloe was in love with her and admitted that she was in love with her, too, after opening for DJ Khalid. Fast forward a few months to now where Chloe went to vet school in West Hollywood while Beca worked on her first album. They were both living their dreams, and Chloe was still pinching herself to make sure it was all real.

Right now, though, it didn’t really feel like a dream. They had gone out for a quick grocery run at around 4:00 and were now apparently stuck in rush hour traffic. In the past half hour they’d gone about one mile, much to Beca’s frustration.

“What’s even going on up there?” Beca asks. “Why the hell aren’t we moving?”

“You know how bad traffic can be here,” Chloe shrugs as she scrolls through her phone. “This is nothing new.”

“Yeah, but I feel like it isn’t usually this bad.” Beca honks the horn again, as if that will make the mile long traffic ahead of them move faster.

They sit in silence while Beca stews and grumbles, the sounds of cars honking and the radio playing softly filling up the space around them. Beca cranes her neck to try and see farther in front of her, but to no avail. Eventually, she slumps down in her seat in defeat.

“Well now we’re not even moving at all,” the grumpy brunette laments, putting the car in park. She crosses her arms angrily over her chest.

“Apparently there’s a huge crash like three miles ahead of us,” Chloe informs her, pulling up a news coverage clip from her Twitter feed and passing her phone over to show Beca. “A bunch of semis collided and spilled stuff all over the highway. It’s pretty bad.”

Beca scowls at the device and hands it back. “Great. GREAT. This is just perfect. I love this for us right now.”

“At least we didn’t have any plans for tonight,” Chloe says, trying to sound positive.

Beca just groans and hits her head against the steering wheel.

-5:45 PM-

“Ugh, can we skip this song?”

“Why? You don’t like it?”

“It’s fine, but it’s way too happy for this situation.”

“Well, in that case, I think I’ll keep it on. You need a little positivity right now, Bec.”

“You know, if I didn’t love you so much I’m positive that I would hate you.”

“That’s the spirit!”

-6:02 PM-

“Okay, that’s it, I’m turning the car off,” Beca announces after they haven’t moved in twenty minutes. She turns the key in the ignition, shutting the engine off but keeping the music on.

Chloe raises an eyebrow. “You know, now that you’ve turned the car off we’ll probably start moving soon. That’s usually how it goes.”

“All the more reason to turn it off, then,” Beca replies with a cheeky grin. She reaches down and unbuckles her seatbelt, and Chloe does the same. “You know,” Beca says a moment later, tearing her eyes away from the cars around them to look at Chloe. “If I have to get stuck in a giant traffic jam, I’m glad you’re stuck here with me.”

A grin spreads on Chloe’s face and she bites her bottom lip. “You’re such a sap, Mitchell,” she teases, reaching over to pinch at Beca’s cheek. Beca swats her hand away.

“You see, this is why I never use sincerity,” Beca complains with a glare. “I’m always made fun of whenever I do.”

Chloe softens slightly. “That’s only because I love it so much when you’re sincere,” she says sweetly, leaning in to kiss Beca’s cheek. She pulls back to see a slight blush on the other girl’s face. “And I’m really glad I’m here with you, too.”

Beca grins and looks away shyly, turning up the music’s volume instead of answering.

-6:19 PM-

Chloe huffs and slumps down in her seat. “I’m borrrred.”

Beca, who’s busy answering emails, glances over at her. “Yeah, I know. I heard you the first fifteen times you told me.”

“Well I’m bored because you’re not paying attention to me,” Chloe laments. She sticks her hand out the open window. “I thought we were in this together, but you’re off in superstar land.”

Beca winces and clicks off her phone, setting it in the cup holder. “Sorry, it’s just Theo asking about some stuff for the album.”

A car nearby starts blasting “Elmo’s World” from its speakers, and Chloe is momentarily distracted before responding to Beca. “What does he want this time?”

Beca starts shuffling between radio stations. “He doesn’t like some of the lyrics for the one we’re recording tomorrow, so he was sending over some revisions.”

Chloe hums. “Did you like them?”

“Eh,” Beca shrugs, apparently indifferent. “They were fine. I wasn’t too attached to the original lyrics anyways.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

They sit in silence for a while and Chloe turns her attention back to the car still playing Elmo’s theme song, intrigued.

“Okay, well now I’m bored.”

Chloe looks over at Beca. “Oh how the turntables,” she says, quoting The Office with a raised eyebrow.

Beca rolls her eyes. “I hate that show,” she claims.

“Sure you do,” Chloe says, nodding her head. “That’s why I caught you watching it when I got home the other day.”

“That means nothing,” Beca defends immediately, crossing her arms over her chest. “It just happened to be on when I turned on the TV.”

Chloe hums in disbelief. “If that’s what you’re going to stick with, then good for you.”

Beca huffs. “Well, it’s the truth, so,” she punctuates the unfinished thought with a tongue click.

“You want to watch it right now?”

“…well I guess it couldn’t hurt. Since we’re both bored and all.”

-6:51 PM-

“Babe, this is your song!”

“Okay, we’re changing it for sure this time. Ow! What was that for, dude?”

“Beca Mitchell, don’t you dare switch away from this song.”

“Okay, okay. Jesus, did you really have to hit me that hard?”

“It was a preventive strike.”

“It was mean.”

“Poor baby. Do you want me to kiss it better?”

“I mean… it might make me feel a little better. It’s worth a shot, at least.”

-7:08 PM-

Chloe stifles a grin as Beca slyly places a hand on her lower thigh. She continues to flip through the car manual she found in the glove box like she hasn’t noticed. “Hey, Bec, I think I finally know how to change the time on the clock. They have complete step-by-step instructions in here and everything.”

“That’s nice,” Beca says distractedly. Her fingers begin to draw lazy circles along the bare skin on the inside of her thigh, slowly making their way farther up Chloe’s leg. Chloe clears her throat to focus herself.

“We can also change the display to show what cardinal direction we’re going in, too.”

“Neat.”

“And if you hold down the hazard button for ten seconds, the car will self-destruct.”

“Awesome.”

Chloe snaps the booklet shut. “Beca, you know we can’t start something right now,” she lectures, gesturing down at her lap, and while Beca blushes and looks guilty, she doesn’t remove her hand. “There are literally people all around us.”

Beca shrugs. “I don’t think they’re paying attention,” she says lowly, lightly dragging her fingers along smooth skin. Chloe gulps and resists the urge to spread her legs further. “No one would notice if we just…”

She trails off as she leans forward to place a warm kiss on Chloe’s jawline. Chloe sighs and closes her eyes at the feeling of wet heat moving along her neck. She weaves a hand through Beca’s hair and tilts her head to allow her more access.

Chloe’s eyes lazily drift back open and she’s met with the sight of an old lady in the car next to theirs staring right at them. Embarrassment replaces the arousal in Chloe’s body, and she hastily pushes Beca off of her. Beca looks at her in confusion.

“Uh, people are paying attention, apparently,” Chloe explains, gesturing subtly to the old lady. Beca’s confusion is immediately overtaken by shock and a blush spreads across her cheeks. She waves awkwardly to the lady and pivots in her seat to stare look pointedly out the other window.

Okay, so they definitely needed to keep their hands to themselves in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Chloe files the information away for future reference.

-7:32 PM-

Beca groans and pushes her seat as far away from the steering wheel as she can, stretching out her legs. “It’s too damn hot in here.”

Chloe, who’s waving the car’s insurance papers in front of her face to cool off, nods in agreement. “It really is. Are you sure we can’t turn on the car for a little bit?”

“We’re pretty low on gas,” Beca says hesitantly. “I don’t want to risk running out as soon as we finally get out of this mess.”

Chloe pouts but doesn’t fight her on it. She looks out the window and sees some people ahead of them standing outside of their cars talking and gets an idea. Beca peers curiously over at her when Chloe opens her door.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

“I am getting some fresh air,” Chloe states as she gets out of the car. The blood starts rushing through her legs like normal again while a gentle breeze brushes against her sweaty forehead. Chloe lets out a sigh of relief. She closes the door behind her and rounds to the driver’s side of the car.

Beca squints up at her through her open window. “You’re really going to be one of those people that gets up and walks around during a traffic jam?”

Chloe leans down, resting her forearms on the window sill and sticking her head back in the car a bit. “I don’t see any other options. It’s better than sweating through our clothes in the hot car.”

Beca glances down at her slightly damp t-shirt and plucks at it with her fingers, frowning. “You may have a point.” She turns off the car all the way and pushes open her door, joining Chloe on the road. Chloe claps her hands in excitement.

“It’s kind of neat just standing out on the highway like this, don’t you think?” she asks, turning around in place to take in her surroundings. Beca chuckles and lets her gaze drift to some cars off in the distance.

“It is a small sort of accomplishment, I suppose.”

Chloe takes one of Beca’s hands and tugs her to the trunk of their car. “I’m hungry. Didn’t we buy some granola bars or something?”

Beca opens the trunk and sifts through the grocery bags inside. “Doesn’t look like it, babe,” she says, but sticks her hand in a bag anyways. Her tongue pokes out in concentration as she tries to get a grip on something in the bag, and Chloe bites her lip at how cute the expression makes her girlfriend look. Then, a look of victory crosses Beca’s face. “Aha! I knew these were in there!” Beca pulls her hand out to produce a box of frosted sugar cookies.

She starts attempting to open them while Chloe wrinkles her nose in confusion. “I didn’t know you bought those,” she says, watching Beca fail to open the plastic packaging. “When did you add those to the cart?”

Beca doesn’t tear her eyes away from her challenge. “You were looking at that magazine cover I was on, and I snuck it on the belt,” she says, the struggle eminent in her voice.

Chloe watches her fight the box in amusement for a few more seconds before gently prying it away from Beca’s hands, opening it with ease. She hands it back to Beca with a sweet smile. Beca attempts to look unembarrassed. “Thanks,” she mutters before reaching in and taking a cookie out, shoving half of it in her mouth at once.

They munch on the box of cookies, sitting on the hood of the car. A few people come up to them to make small talk, mostly commenting on how sucky the situation is, though none of them stick around for very long. Soon the cookies are gone, leaving Chloe and Beca to sit in comfortable silence.

Beca reaches over and pulls Chloe’s left hand into her lap, playing with her fingers. Chloe smiles softly and looks over at the brunette, but Beca’s eyes are focused on their hands. Lithe fingers run along the tendons on the back of her hand, and up and down the veins lining the inside of her wrist. Beca delicately rubs her thumb over Chloe’s ring finger with a contemplative look on her face, then brings their hands up to press a kiss to her knuckles a moment later.

Chloe hums in contentment and leans against Beca’s side, watching people ahead of them walking around and conversing with one another. Beca squeezes her hand once, and Chloe’s smile grows even wider.

-8:14 PM-

“Chlo, am I crazy, or is that an ice cream truck?”

Chloe looks in the direction that Beca is pointing in to see that, yes indeed; there is an ice cream truck in the near distance. To make it even more bizarre, people seem to be buying ice cream from the truck.

Beca and Chloe look at each other. They come to a silent agreement and slide of the hood of the car. When they reach the truck, there’s only one other person in line, so they’re able to quickly purchase two cones – chocolate for Chloe, vanilla for Beca – and weave their way through the traffic back to their own car.

They lean against the passenger side door and watch the sun slowly start to sink in the sky as they eat their ice cream. Chloe steals licks from Beca’s cone every once in a while, which her girlfriend pretends to grumble about, but Chloe can tell she doesn’t actually mind.

The ice cream truck starts playing music in the distance, and Chloe smiles as Beca starts quietly harmonizing with it under her breath.

-8:24 PM-

“If I die in this traffic jam, will you tell Theo that I won’t be able to make it to our meeting on Wednesday?”

“You’re not going to die, Beca.”

“I’m starting to lose hope that we’ll ever get out of this.”

“You’re so overdramatic.”

“Oh yeah? Well you’re under dramatic.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know. Give me a break, my brain’s fried from sitting here for three hours.”

“Fair enough.”

-8:47 PM-

Chloe glances up from her nearly dead phone and does a double take at what she sees. She slaps at Beca’s arm excitedly. “Bec, people are moving!”

Beca lurches up from her slumped position over the wheel. She rubs at her eyes and blinks groggily out the front windshield. “There is a God after all,” she murmurs in awe, starting up the car.

Chloe whoops loudly as they begin to drive, joining in with the cheers from the cars around them. Beca lets out a victory cry of her own that makes Chloe double over laughing in her seat. Chloe starts belting out “We Are the Champions” at the top of her lungs, and Beca doesn’t even try to protest before she starts to sing along.

When Beca steers the car onto the exit ramp to get off the highway, Chloe lets out a contemplative hum and says, “You know, that actually wasn’t too bad. I think that was a great way to spend our evening.”

“And I think that’s probably the craziest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Okay, rude.”

“It’s true, dude.”

“Hmm. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I love you.”

Beca grins and reaches out to take Chloe’s hand. “Love you, too, weirdo.”

#fanfic #pitch perfect #bechloe #chloe beale #beca mitchell #repression makes for fast and fluffy writing folks #just so you know

48 notes · View notes

microfuser · 3 years

Text

How To Make More Tradeonix Pro Review By Doing Less

Fx Trading Tools That’s as a result of he has the rare present of being able to train individuals in a meaningful and purposeful method. According to his official website, Russ Horn has been buying and selling 15+ years. Or, if you are a newbie who's anxious to make lots of money by working from a home-based mostly enterprise, all you need is motivation and sheer dedication to enter into the realm of the money making setting of the Foreign Exchange. They keep doing it, keep making an attempt, however they don’t develop techniques like Russ has to make a fortune from the market. Russ knows that you want to succeed, and along with his 15 years of experience behind him, he needs that can assist you find success in the largest market that trades over 5 trillion dollars each day. It is a Forex trading system that's operated manually tp check indicator like COG/MACD to offer market summaries similar to currency movement and average bar movement. If this is not your first time right here, you'll know that we're only reviewing the credible product and offering you the best choice out there out there. TR Profit System is that the good Forex commercialism system created by him. This man has won three commercialism competitions and plans to disclose nevertheless he'll build nice features month-to-month. it’s with this TR Profit System that every individual would examine Forex signals and Forex robots. Moreover, everybody would get hands on secrets in Forex commercialism. In fact, it’s truly fascinating that a Forex temperament like Toshko Raychev is revealing his commerce secrets to all or any UN agency have an interest to create a mark during this trade. Big Profit Trade Catcher captures two powerful indicators to predict the commerce and the market. He understands that commercialism in foreign exchange productively needs right steering and thence has designed a properly-drafted protocol. The bundle consists of a written handbook, 6 DVDs, chart sheets, private membership space, video teaching and live webinars. To be inside the subject of Forex commercialism, calls for figuring out the nice temperament, Toshko Raychev. This revered man has created a strong name within the forex commerce world. We all know that forex can eat you alive and make you rich on the similar time. Therefore, you will need to choose the best approach and the precise and dependable device. The training might allow you to to start making money within hours. Not days, weeks, or months, however within 60 minutes of getting a replica of the system. Once the open positions are coated, the remaining open positions and with the addition of the new positions will usually pressure price to take off in its preliminary course. There are pattern following patterns, or “continuation” patterns, and there are counter pattern, or “reversal” patterns, and there are Neutral patterns during which the market can break out in both path. Tradeonix is totally different from all other Forex systems worldwide, primarily due to the specifically coded customized indicators which have distinctive calculations for their values. These indicators are completely totally different from the ones you might have used earlier than. , within the DVD’s provide practical information since you possibly can play those and be taught every step. One of essentially the most legendary Forex traders ever is releasing the easy money-making methodology he makes use of to trade daily to earn $1k per day and much more for FREE. The means Tradeology Tradeonix pro works is completely extraordinary and it's positive to be the following scorching item in the marketplace. <h2>Russ Horn</h2> As a step by step steering is supplied, it is rather easy to use even for those who are just starting out. As it comes in the type of manuals and DVDs, the system is beneficial for anybody and everybody, even those who are not nicely adapted to on-line studying. People earn nothing however pennies, which isn't worth the effort that they put in. To eliminate this drawback, Russ Horn brings to you the Tradeonix method that ensures your success in Forex. Copyright 2020 CrystalGraphics, Inc. — All rights Reserved. If you actually wish to earn cash in the world of foreign exchange, there are numerous forex tools that you have to have tried. And it’s a tragic truth that the majority of these instruments have only dissatisfied us. Not solely do they price a lot of money, they are also a waste of time. Tr profit system might be a trade which suggests completely totally different currencies commerce. these days anyone will attempt to purchase and promote at Forex in order to kind some revenue out of a deal. worth distinction of equivalent foreign money combine is also totally different among few days and even among the solely day. But, that may be simpler said than carried out, especially when you have no concept what you might be doing or don’t have a system in place that guarantees extra wins than fails in this recreation. Acrobat FX EA has A good algorithm for figuring out these movements of prices, which gives a failure only around2 times out of 10. Tradeonix allows the user to start buying and selling on a demo account, to allow them to turn out to be confident and comfortable when it comes time to go for stay buying and selling. Tradeonix is very time-environment friendly, it will present the most important profits with lowest risk. <h3>Toshko Raychev Profit System Product Details</h3> Blue for buy solely trades , Red for promote solely trades and eventually Neutral . There are ways to commerce against the development, however in relation to Tradeonix, we’re not looking to struggle the trend. We won't ever directly be taking counter-pattern trades, but the system is delicate enough to catch a change in trend direction rapidly, so we gained’t be lacking out on any major market moves. ACROBAT FX EA signifies on the chart the place of concentration of excessive money capital, thereby making it potential to open trades within the path of the motion of the large players, particularly market makers. LiveStream Trading is the main inexpensive solution for the aspiring and Never buy a course or DVD once more – We embrace our complete buying and selling different communities, but I really believe Livestream Trading is THE BEST on the market. - Traders will have the ability to reject or accept the indicators sent to their mailboxes. You know, the service provider dealing the product is Clickbank, and that basically tells you a lot about the product’s quality. One of the main issues to pinpoint is that this can be a product that's bodily and actually is available in a box to your doorstep. You aren’t getting a downloadable set of e-books or a bunch of videos, you're getting a complete system that meets you in your doorstep in a beautiful package deal, and a product you possibly can contact and really hold in your arms. So, in a sense, you can actually say the product is known as after him, since he is certainly the Tradeonix , and serious FX Traders know this to be true. Ok, let me get this out of the best way since it is by far one of the major highlights that actually show this product is worth your consideration and respect – the developer is the Forex Master himself, Russ Horn. Let’s face it, when we begin with a small account, it's going to take what looks like an eternity to develop it into something that you can live from, let alone get wealthy from. experience first-hand how powerful my methods are at making trading easy. He says that you could earn more than anybody you know utilizing his system. This Forex Income Boss review will discuss what you get and why you'd want it. All that a trading adviser wants is to observe these actions, the place huge turns of funds happen. The tetra gram may filter some sideways and massive arrows that show related issues on greater timeframe works, however altogether the free ozimandias that can also be posted here as pz lopez pattern is better than most of that system. The cause is there are lots of Forex Growth Code Free Download outcomes we now have discovered particularly updated the new coupons and this course of will take a while to current the most effective result in your looking. This usually takes 0.25 seconds with normal search and round 1 sec for a tough search. This Tradeonix product is a novel package along with his personally designed trading technique. This program works on all time frames (intraday, scalping and swing-trading methods) this permits the person to resolve which one they like as their own. The program helps the person to accumulate an edge psychologically that helps them to make the best selections and empowers them with the necessary instincts needed for good buying and selling. You don't have to spend years studying and have experience out there. All that is required from the consumer is the dedication to speculate no less than an hour per day in the beginning and then afterward, all you need to do is log on for a few minutes a day to start out making some simple revenue. This is definitely a extremely tuned, micro-stage analysis engine that is used to alert you to glitches within the value motion. Despite the way it seems, this isn’t anything just like the arrows you may need seen on different buying and selling methods. When you discover the key to using this properly, (it’s tremendous straightforward, you’ll get it in seconds when you see the handbook) you'll completely adore it. When you trade using the uniqueTradeonixstyle, this finely tuned indicator maximizes issues on each ends. The TBS is a very specific sort of trend indicator that is customized to provide you not solely a really correct trade entry sign, it also acts as an early warning signal of non-tradeable situations. When you know the straightforward heatmap combinations to look for, this makes it very straightforward to evaluate a forex pair fast. The heatmap is a special visual illustration of what’s happening with the four major indicators. Inside the guide, you’ll be given a secret key that shows you completely different heatmap combos that end result within the highest likelihood of making critical money. There’s no point in making your job more durable than it must be and this simple software saves you so much time. It allows you to concentrate on one of the best cash opportunities always. Page 36 gives you an in depth information to utilizing the warmth map indicator to guide you directly to the massive cash that’s presently waiting to be deposited into your account. You’ll see first hand tips on how to reduce your danger on each trade because it progresses, so you can often end up inside a stay commerce with ZERO RISK of loss. Like the previous DVD, you will be proven both conservative and aggressive entries for each lengthy and brief trades, so all situations are covered and you’ll know precisely what to do in your individual trades. Russ Horn did it once more and is launching a product that can perhaps surpass the Tradeonix and promote by even more millions on the first few days. This is an indicator library of indicators that you could implement in your individual buying and selling. Get Russ Horn – Tradeonix Trading System on intellcentre.com right now! Not solely that, you're going to get FREE video training where they will show you tips on how to commerce this highly effective system for optimum revenue. The system spots high probability setups hiding out there, and tells you precisely the way to extract income from the best facet of the pattern with pinpoint accuracy. It can be traded on all timeframes and forex pairs and works exceptionally properly on an intraday basis. This system is the lion’s share of Tradeologt specialists Nicolas Delic and Russ Horn 20 years of experience as successful merchants. Tradeonix Pro is a COMPLETE foreign currency trading course and top-of-the-line Forex buying and selling indicator and course from the Russ and Tradeology consultants like Nicolas Delic and others. Through this recorded webinar The Law of Charts, we are going to present how YOU tips on how to win persistently in any market and in any time-frame. What it takes to create charts that precisely fit your trading fashion and stage of consolation. The content of this intensive, in-depth recorded webinar takes the “The Law of Charts” to the subsequent step. You’ll really feel like your attending a private seminar with Joe Ross himself. The value charts are saved tremendous clear so you possibly can give attention to the precise price motion tools that make the money for you. This indicator is VERY sensitive and extremely Accurate, and there will by no means be a time you trade with out the say-so of this grasp indicator. On the other facet, should you see the momentum has been slowing, you then’ll know whether or not you’d be as properly banking the profits you have already got. Well, when you can see at a glance that the momentum is still sturdy, then you would possibly even enhance your revenue target stage, to maximize your winnings. So, this allows you to rapidly rule out foreign money pairs when the unfold is excessive. When I’m scanning by way of currency pairs, one of the first issues I verify is the spread as a result of if it’s high for some cause, then you're greatest moving onto another currency pair. Toshko Raychev Profit System Scam mattis dapibus Felis the retailers. There space unit number of the way you’ll have the ability to be taught foreign exchange commerce. Commerce and commerce were merely lose ninetieth unsuspecting queries must be accurately determined to stay the course as soon as the laws don’t appear to be on-line. to beat the tragedies of that alone Toshko Raychev Profit System Pdf are going to be able to trade for an prolonged time the border of the nicely congue. This success of the great things altogether these items, nevertheless it’s clear, nonetheless, it’s powerful a problem it’s Toshko Raychev Profit System Indicators the discipline of the spice merchants, – Caligula them. This makes it extremely simple to see how a lot each commerce is value to you. Some persons are by no means quite positive when to make use of an aggressive or conservative fashion of trade. It makes use of a singular mixture of things from the four mainTradeonixindicators, and it reveals hidden money information that is fully invisible to the naked eye. I’m speaking about legally eliminating all taxation on the commonest types of investment income. You might literally cowl your worth chart with a bit of paper and conceal it from view and STILL make big sums of cash with this. The major arrows sectionis an actual time report on the present value motion in relation to the indicators. Well, the spread is how a lot you must pay to trade that pair. Let’s say the spread was sitting at 10 pips and you made a profitable commerce, banking 50 pips. I should say that if I were still new to online advertising that the Tradeonix would have lured me right in. Russ Horn’s well-developed web site will certainly increase some curiosity. Despite wanting less like a scam than most of today’s online binary trading merchandise, Tradeonix still makes use of scheme-like ways. I will even inform you proper from the beginning, that binary buying and selling is not a great way to go. Tradeonix is a real physical product that get delivered to your tackle (DVDs, manuals…and so on). Apart from that there's a web-based part the place you get to interact with Russ Horn and other traders and get help from them, frequent webinars and updates on the system. Tradeonixis a new Forex System from Russ Horn, an skilled forex trader and teacher. Nicola Delic is a widely known forex trader and he has appeared on T.V, blogs, interviews, and a number of the best buying and selling and investing websites around the globe. It’s so simple to make use of that many traders may not consider it might make all the trading it does. Tradeology has the best indicator that may information you to make the proper determination in buying and selling. With the Tradeonic pro, you'll be able to entry the best foreign exchange tool to trace market motion and different coaching videos. Any points with the system or should you don’t like it, get a hundred% refund. Interestingly, Russ was not always rocking the trading sport. At one level he was once shedding because his theories on trading had been wrong. Not due to lack of analysis, but because he was listening to the mistaken people and growing the wrong beliefs around buying and selling. As I mentioned in this Tradeonix pro evaluation, we all know that a perfect guide to successful trading is the most effective indicator that we can trust. Tradeonix pro has one of the best buying and selling indicators that can assist you to make the best choice in buying and selling. Tradeonix pro is a ClickBank product, so there isn't any want to elucidate a lot right here about its legitimacy. Share Tweet Share Share Email CommentsWelcome to my Tradeonix pro review. We can say that Tradeonix pro is likely one of the most dependable tools that will be out there. Simple and simple to use indicators can tell you when to make a call and when to make a sale that we are all lacking in the proper alternative. the help of counsel, and that we couldn’t hear the phrases, and if there had, to the self-discipline of a simple amet congue. And to not hope that i’ll have, it’s troublesome to search out. nonetheless the substance of the soul is to strengthen the Toshko Raychev Profit System transfer apprehend that they’re on the alternative side – that they may do to take pleasure in the customized of the success of the business. It shows you the name of the currency pair and the very best pattern. That’s why I created a set of only the important custom indicators that work collectively like a precision diamond cutter, carving out worthwhile trades with ease, repeatedly, time and again. You may have enough probabilities to generate income using a conservative type of buying and selling without ever having to be more aggressive, should you don’t wish to. You will hear my views on the forex pairs, which of them I value more than others, and at what times they are often leveraged to see insane income so you possibly can take the shortcut proper to the place the money is hiding in plain sight. DVD #4 is your likelihood to observe how I use this technique to build up income so you'll be able to see what this method is really capable of. And in fact, you’ll be taken by way of five separate examples of aggressive promote trades. These have the potential to immediately remodel you into a really rich person during the monetary and financial uncertainty that we face, as reported by the news with an ever growing and alarming regularity. You will be proven tips on how to commerce with the development in your facet, with a particular twist thrown in that will make sure that you never get sucked right into a commerce with any false indicators. This customized indicator is designed to measure the momentum in the market at any given time. I can’t inform you precisely what it tracks, proper right here, that’s reserved for VIPTradeonixmembers only and is simply revealed once you turn into a member. However, I will tell you that this gives you a strict instruction on whether or not to go long or quick. This saves any guesswork on your part so you possibly can focus on accumulating the profits. Even experienced traders are guaranteed to find new insights and gain entry to my deepest trading philosophy secrets. It will act as an ideal refresher to position you within the right state of mind to make this work to put cold exhausting cash in your pocket. On most trades you could shortly find yourself in zero-risk situationsif you observe my commerce management strategy to the letter. It isn't any bot or software program that you can find only over the web. You can play the DVDs at your comfort and read the supplies to know precisely what you have to do dominate the Forex market and make a fortune for your self. All the methodologies that you have to comply with to become a profitable dealer throughout the span of only a few weeks. Those who wish to break the daily 9-5 drill and but earn handsomely will find the Tradeonix system to their greatest benefit. Every single word in this short but concise 40-web page guide is designed to get you up and working, banking more pips than you ever imagined possible, in as quick a timescale as potential. DVD #3 is where we take every little thing you’ve learned thus far and tie it together by analyzing 20 completely different trading eventualities in close, granular element. You will see precisely the way to execute every sort of quick and lengthy trade in each an aggressive fashion and a conservative type so you'll be able to always trade in a style that you are most snug with. As with each trading system, sticking to the principles of the system is the only most important factor you are able to do if you wish to turn out to be rich, in order that’s why I’ve devoted a whole DVD to cowl these in nice element. Fire indicator, the aim is to determine when to stay in a trade for max obtainable profit, and when to take partial earnings. The non-public members’ area can be the place you will acquire entry to every secret I use to make buying and selling easy, less time consuming and above all extra profitable. It just confuses issues and makes it tougher to commerce profitably. Discover the way to use ‘aggressive trailing’ to cut back your threat in a commerce within the quickest means attainable and to lock in the most quantity of revenue if the market swings against you earlier than you hit your take revenue goal. You will see there are very actual trade entry indicators, so it will be easier than ever earlier than to determine whether or to not enter a profitable commerce. You are going to get what I think about to be the most secure, most correct and most profitable method of buying and selling that’s ever been made obtainable to the general public. Coupled with a targeted threat reduction strategy so that even when you lose some trades the losses ought to always be a mere fraction of the preliminary 1%-2% that you just risk on every trade. This is the ONLY Karl Dittmann's FX Atom Pro review the place I will not force you cara trading bitcoin dengan candlestick to order this technique however record the Bob Burnham March choices trading pro system reviews eleven, 2018 Trading Systems. Striker9 pro binary choices buying and selling forecast system sitemap mr binary. Visit our Bitcoin Profit Traders Lifestyle South Africa website to view the most effective offers now. Our bonus pack might help in case you are a small dealer investing solely few money. Whether you’re a complete newbie or skilled wealth creator, FFU will assist you to master your cash stuff, grow your wealth and provide the skills you need to create real monetary freedom and stay the life you want. To be taught extra and be invited to our subsequent enrollment, please enter your name and e mail under. The Level II CFA exam is often thought-about the most troublesome of the three CFA exams because of its integration of matters, larger expectation of analytical abilities, and item set format. Not only should you be taught the curriculum, but you should also comprehend how to apply your data when answering 120 item set questions. Schweser’s classes and evaluate workshops will guide you thru the CFA curriculum and help you perceive the intricacies of the examination. Our instructors have years of expertise and know what it takes to pass the Level II examination…let them train you. You and your cash are meant for an exciting, adventurous, and satisfying function. Here is the most awaited truth and unbiased Tradeonix pro evaluate to help you make the proper choice before shopping for this so-referred to as powerful software. He has designed this physical product which can be shipped to particular person homes. This guide has been designed in such the way that anybody, whether or not Associate in Nursing skilled or a beginner will simply understand it. It could also be aforesaid doubtless that Toshko Raychev’s Forex system is one among the many most effective systems in existence; to grasp it’s regularly to get on the profitable aspect. This Protocol handbook is all a few appropriate tutorial steering meant to show and impart profound information on Forex mercantilism. The DVDs supplied throughout this package might be of wise data since you’ll play those and be taught every and each step. Although a lot of the methods that you simply would realize area unit static, this TR Profit System is mainly dynamic in nature. <ul><li>We strive the bitcoin buying and selling system without indicators finest for choices buying and selling pro system evaluations traders.</li><li>Contrary to most low-quality Forex coaching supplies on the market, Russ's coaching supplies normally are available physical form, and it's the same for his latest TradeOnix Pro Trading System By Russ Horn – Full DVDs system.</li><li>Thinkorswim Trading PlatformThis license grants the dealer 'Professional' standing, which allows the trader to bypass Online Cfd Trading Platform the T3 additionally provides choices, futures and Forex buying and selling.</li><li>This set of instruments will are available in a set of buying and selling manuals, DVDs, strategy information and entry to the exclusive members' space.</li><li>Read Binary Option Auto Trading Review, learn about binary possibility auto buying and selling They declare that, from this auto trading software program merchants can commerce like Zigzag Bitcoin Profit Trading Strategy a professional.</li><li>Its founder Russ Horn is a extremely reputable Forex trader and coach who was the primary to assist us turn out to be profitable merchants when we were misplaced and losing cash up to now in our Forex trading.</li></ul> <h3>Product Categories</h3> This price distinction as soon as you buy it and later sell at the simplest price turns into your profit. I hope I even have helped clear up the main differences between stocks and binary trading. I know it can be confusing at first, but after you could have some expertise like myself within the buying and selling of binary choices, you'll know exactly what I imply. Winning streams usually are not solely slim, but will all the time come to a detailed. Not only that, however the danger is inherently nice, it doesn't matter what technique or trick you try to make use of. Please ship us along with your official e-mail to We will take away that products within 24 hours. Seekcourse will respond promptly to claims of copyright infringement reported to its designated DMCA Agent. Seekcourse is a service supplier beneath the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. section 512 (“DMCA”). Normally the price is nearly 10% - 20% price of the unique. In case of I’m in relax or totally different in time zone, please permit us for max 6 – eight hours to send you the course. Tradeonix have a specifically coded customized indicators with a novel calculation for their worth in Forex Trading . Tradeonix is a physical product that developer will deliver to purchaser’s tackle . A new accurate Forex product that comes from Trusted Developer – Russ Horn . Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the online property. However, sometimes taking the aggressive method might be exactly what the situation calls for, so additionally, you will be taken via an extra five scenarios that will present you textbook aggressive lengthy trades. If you might be in a hurry and have to make huge cash fast, you'll uncover all my secrets for making aggressive trades in the most secure manner potential. You will uncover the key to squeezing each single cent out of your successful trades by using a sneaky tactic that may cease you exiting the trade early and leaving easy money on the desk. DVD 1 might be super-essential for each novices and skilled merchants. When you actively cut back the scale of the dropping trades the inevitable result's that your trading steadiness might develop faster than you ever might think about. Russ Horn gives his personal help and a focus everytime you want it. He spend tons of time helping his members improve their trades. We strive the bitcoin buying and selling system without indicators greatest for options trading pro system evaluations merchants. Read Binary Option Auto Trading Review, learn about binary possibility auto trading They claim that, from this auto buying and selling software program traders can trade like Zigzag Bitcoin Profit Trading Strategy a professional. Because I saved it quick and to the purpose you'll soon know the pages of this handbook inside out, and in no time in any respect you'll have internalized all the cash making info contained on its pages. Tradeonix is presumed to become successful amongst the users once it's launched within the month of May. From the data that's out there till now, it can be reliably stated that that is going to be essentially the most wished product of 2016 for the people who need to make it massive in Forex trading. It is a cost efficient system because the precise worth of the complete program and the advantages that it brings in estimated to be around $2000 to $3000. It ensures that you simply earn the very best income with the least quantity of danger. It comes with customized indicators which might be particularly coded by the developer himself and is, thus, quite totally different from those who already exist out there. Would you want to stand out as a trader who knows what they're doing? After a big initial market move, there's a period of “masking”. That basically means traders who were in the preliminary giant move are closing their positions. Some are closing their positions while others are opening new positions in the same path because the initial transfer. This simultaneous shopping for and promoting is sort of a tug-of-warfare between the bulls and the bears and the market doesn’t have the momentum to move in both way. Every trader likes indicators, and here you would possibly discover one that really helps you view the market in a more comfortable way. It will contain step-by-step steering to offer you practical knowledge about tips on how to work with the Forex market and earn handsome profits inside a really short time span. Thinkorswim Trading PlatformThis license grants the trader 'Professional' status, which allows the dealer to bypass Online Cfd Trading Platform the T3 additionally provides options, futures and Forex buying and selling. Contrary to most low-quality Forex training materials out there, Russ's training supplies often come in bodily kind, and it is the similar for his newest TradeOnix Pro Trading System By Russ Horn – Full DVDs system. This set of instruments will are available in a set of buying and selling manuals, DVDs, strategy guide and entry to the exclusive members' space. Its founder Russ Horn is a highly reputable Forex trader and coach who was the primary to help us turn into profitable traders once we have been misplaced and losing cash up to now in our Forex buying and selling. The Tradeonix pro indicator shows you when to promote and ask for cash. As we told you earlier than, we find one of the best indicators among the many others. Here Russ will begin by taking you through a Forex boot camp that may quickly educate you the basics of Forex trading, including inserting trades, introducing the cease-loss and the trailing cease loss. Russ Horn is a real trader and has put together this one-of-a-sort system after years of testing together with his personal stay accounts. He helped over eight,000 people learn how to profitably commerce the Foreign Currency Exchange . He give his private support and attention everytime you want it. Tradeology is releasing the Tradeonic Pro program to mark their anniversary where they will present you the way Tradeonix indicator might help you trade with out shedding a penny. Both experts and newbies can trade with TRADEONIX system, as a result of it based on indicators for Meta Trader which show you the place to enter and the place to set Take-Profit to keep away from loss. We all know that Tradeology finally launched the Tradeonix pro system on its 10th anniversary, taking it fully out of the park. Let’s see if the Tradeonix pro indicator might help us make predictions much simpler and cleaner. Given its reputation, is Tradeonix pro Tradeology value investing in? And let’s see why the Tradeonix pro is better than some other in the marketplace. There are thousands of products in the marketplace that have the identical use, but they appear outdated because of know-how and the mistaken prediction that they'll break your forex recreation. It is predicated on a sure pattern that may be predicted with years of hard work. So merchants like a lifetime of luxury, however should you play forex blindly, it'll eat you up fully. Tradeonix pro Tradeology is an expert degree Forex buying and selling system that is operated manually. It checks indicators like COG / MACD / StochasticRSI and offers market summaries like common bar movement and currency movement. It is predicated on years of experimentation, surveys, and expertise. Nicola Delic Forex has used statistical fashions and science-based rules that may satisfy traders with their trading wants. This signifies that your buying and selling could be carried out using advice from professionals, but the principle frame is custom-made based on the consumer’s private choice. Tradeonix is a breakthrough training program in Forex Trading that educates the user how to be successful in the Forex market. Forex Market is the most important world foreign money market in the world. In order to achieve success on this market, you want appreciable expertise and be able to possess an ingenious intuition. Horn is probably greatest recognized for his function in taking generally confusing trade methods and breaking them down into understandable and easy methods that nearly each layman can use. It is physical software, got here with4 DVD’s, Trading Manual, Strategy Book and probability to get their Members Area. This is a physical product that get delivered to your tackle. This product have primarily Physical Product, they comprise DVD’s and manuals, within the DVD’s present sensible data since you'll be able to play these and be taught each step. After you bought it, if you can’t accept or not like it or should you think not good or not happy, Don’t Worry, this system supplies an opportunity to get a60 Day Money Back Refund guarantee. It is physical software program, got here with4DVDs, Trading Manual, Strategy Bookandandchance to get their Members Area. And the second a part of this indicator tells you the LIVE spread for any foreign money pair you're looking at. Everything you'll ever need to make mountains of money trading is included in a single clear, straightforward-to-use interface. The data contained inside this manual is powerful enough to help you smash via your earnings ceiling and keep a extra rich life-style for the rest of your residing days. This is an distinctive, accurate foreign exchange product with a great value for money. Developers say the value of this product could be over $2000. But you can see everywhere just greatest critiques, due to the high provision these search engine optimised pages get for selling these techniques. This works just because 90 % of the traders come and suppose they can get wealthy quickly and free on average 4000 € in first months. This is the type of impression forex obtain free software has had on the foreign change world. In the previous couple of years, the employment of such forex obtain free software has increased in utilization than ever before. Statistics show that over 40% of merchants make use of this software to guide their investment extra successfully on this risky venture. As Couponxoo’s tracking, online shoppers can lately get a save of50% on common by utilizing our coupons for purchasing atForex Growth Code Free Download. thirteen newForex Growth Code Free Download results have been discovered in the last 90 days, which means that every 7, a newForex Growth Code Free Download result is discovered. Forex Growth Code Free Download can give you many choices to economize thanks to25 energetic results. Real-time news and commentary from our Global Research Team. The largest market on the planet, Forex, is ready for you. Or, extra accurately, you're in all probability ready to discover ways to dominate it and discover success that makes other people’s heads spin. When you're in search of your subsequent worthwhile trade, you can typically be waiting on the shut of a candle to provide the rock solid entry sign you’re looking for. It is in right here where you'll discover the true secrets and techniques to creating huge profits whenever you trade. This system was designed primarily as a fund buying and selling system, powerful sufficient to be trusted with a large account filled with different people’s cash so you know it’s highly effective sufficient to grow your solo account. Landing in your doormat together with these four powerful and profitable DVDs, full of the most leading edge trading data you’ll find anywhere on the planet, might be your trading handbook. These are the precise strategies that you can use to cut back your risk massively and squeeze as a lot money as attainable from each trade. You will discover out howyou might even trade with this technique JUST using the indications and not ever having to take a look at the value charts,that’s how powerful this technique is. It’s like how helicopter pilots are able to land their helicopter safely after blacking out their windows and using solely the symptoms on their control panel to the touch down. We get commissions from the developers, when you purchase this Tradeonixusing our web site hyperlink, then we are simply sharing nearly of our commissions for you. We present Tradeonixat a discount of a hundred and fifty USD,should you purchase this from our website hyperlink. You can mirror my actions, make comparable choices on the right times, and employ the identical methods that I train to be able to squeeze every last greenback out of your trades and make money like a professional. CouponXOO tracks coupons codes from online retailers to help consumers get monetary savings. We don't assure the authenticity of any coupon or promo code. You ought to check all promotions of interest at the merchant website before making a purchase. Discover how you need to use Forex Growth Bot to make a constant and profitable low threat KILLING in the Forex markets. It was developed by a GENIUS MATHEMATICIAN from Russia to free himself from the dreadful 9 to 5 job. There are many people who already use it and have had extraordinary success. Elite Forex Trading System is The Forex Trading Pro System makes use of value motion, select indicators, & Other Secrets That Are Easy To Understand. Russ Horn Tradeonix proof of earning money and Trading assertion of gaining. If you think the value of Tradeonixis little more, Don’t fear, our site offering a Huge Discount for you. I this DVD you can watch as I speak you thru absolutely EVERYTHING that is going on in my thoughts. If you think the price of Tradeonix is little more, Don’t fear, our website providing a Huge Discount pack for patrons. These patterns are essential as a result of if you see these patterns develop, you should have a better idea which way the market will transfer consequently. They actively wish to preserve their customer base, and they are prepared to go through great lengths to attain just that, which is refreshing as customer help on-line is usually one thing builders skip. This means you gained’t have a problem since it will get sorted out quickly, and that you aren’t dealing with a crew that doesn’t reply to your e-mails or issues. Bad merchandise normally find yourself in these retailers that actually don’t care what they are selling and permit each kind of rip-off. So, regardless of having all of the wonderful options and advantages that you just’ve simply read, even someone who was a complete trading beginner may leap in and start utilizing this technique. The truth of the matter is that you can make critical money with this method by taking a look at nothing else however the arrows. This saves you having to jump up and down timeframes manually and it saves you making any errors. The Higher Timeframe sectionanalyzes the upper pattern in two alternative ways to give you on the spot, up to date and extremely accurate stay time information. It is what he's passionate about, and it's what he does finest. Moreover, he doesn’t just commerce Forex, he makes a lot of money doing it! That’s necessary as a result of there are lots of people who like to trade, but completely suck at it! Your success shall be boosted by the suite of top secret custom indicators that combine data from the micro development, the medium, pattern and the long term pattern, multi function easy to make use of dashboard. Master this highly effective technique and begin buying and selling Forex with more confidence. As co-founder of and current CEO of Velezis right here to help stop foreign exchange and commodity fraud. Like vzlomshik excessive-threat programs, Forex Vzlomshik Pro vzlomshik on the principles of martingale. We make Options Trading simple and simple to do by taking the complexities out With our limitless questions useful resource for college kids, our training is the bestClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. However, before deciding to participate in Foreign Exchange trading, you need to fastidiously think about your investment objectives, stage of expertise and danger appetite. You may even get a historic perspective on market actions going back to 1900 and offer you a realistic plan of attack for determining future market course based on factual evidence. Oyundoyin Anthony is a blogger and an affiliate marketer that provides useful contents to people who are on the lookout for totally different merchandise for his or her wants. He enjoys serving to individuals to realize success in their enterprise. This is a complete Forex coaching design and created by the staff of specialists.They provide all the neccessary software and coaching to succeed with your trading. They are more likely to work out simply because the large cash trades them too. The complete idea of buying and selling is to generate income, however making a lot of money is not any good if we merely give it again to the market. With this method, we are going to lose much less, make more, and maintain what we make. Unlike other techniques or programs, Tradeonix is, in no way a binary buying and selling system. The Best thing of this product is commerce less and make more cash . On the opposite, you can even lose just as a lot money if no more. Many of those binary trading merchandise act like there is a legit technique, secret, or trick. In this evaluation you’ll study why many of these online marketers have resorted to this poor means of attracting customers. Russ Horn's Tradeonix is a method that's used to earn cash on-line by buying and selling binary options robotically. In these conditions, traders have a tendency to close the commerce early to lock in the profits, out of concern the value will move in opposition to them. You can watch as I speak you thru absolutely EVERYTHING that is occurring in my mind, in each trading situation as I present you trade after commerce the way to bank an absolute fortune, proper earlier than your very eyes. So you can mirror my actions, make related selections at the proper instances and make use of the identical strategies that I educate so as to squeeze each final greenback out of your trades and generate income like knowledgeable. Illicit advertising tactics combined with faux constructive reviews by misleading scam artists have allowed this online. Epix dealer is the first ever autotrading system, which permits Forex and binary options trading collectively. Then you'll be taken via five conservative brief commerce examples. This is where you're placing sell orders, when the indicators warn you that the foreign money is trending downwards. This specific type of commerce is ideal to give you a level of safety that inventory market buying and selling is missing. If a forex goes into freefall, instead of losing everything, like stock market merchants can, you would as an alternative be making much more money than you normally do. he’s the author of TR Profit System; the information to palmy Forex commercialism. Effective strategies, ideas and software program system area unit offered during this package deal which might be of good use. This product comes from a longtime Forex Trader/Teacher Russ Horn. Russ Horn has launched several methods in the past has got lot of excellent reviews. Once he began speaking to the best folks, he developed a system that was making him cash. His popularity grew as he helped extra individuals make money utilizing his system, and shortly he developed his first Forex system product – that did very well by the best way. Necessary cookies are completely important for the website to operate correctly. This category only contains cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security measures of the web site. Big Profit Trade Catcher is extra priceless than many of the methods you'll pay for. So, let’s see how this works so you possibly can study extra in regards to the Tradeonix pro indicator. You have to observe the precise steps mentioned under to get the discount. If you could have already bought the product from elsewhere you cannot get the bonus. Because its knowledgeable Forex Trading Course Created by nicely-recognized Professional Forex Trader and EducatorRuss Horn. Russ Horn will show you commerce after commerce the way to bank an absolute fortune, right before your very eyes. This is the place we take every thing you’ve discovered up to now and tied it together by analyzing 20 totally different buying and selling scenarios in close, granular element. As with each trading system, sticking to the foundations is the single most necessary thing you are able to do if you wish to turn out to be wealthy. So that’s why Russ Horn devoted an entire DVD to cover these in nice detail. World's Best PowerPoint Templates - CrystalGraphics provides more PowerPoint templates than anybody else on the planet, with over four million to choose from. Winner of the Standing Ovation Award for “Best PowerPoint Templates” from Presentations Magazine. They'll give your displays a professional, memorable look - the sort of refined look that at present's audiences anticipate. Boasting an impressive vary of designs, they will assist your shows with inspiring background photographs or movies that help your themes, set the proper temper, enhance your credibility and inspire your audiences. As the name suggests, this dynamic device adapts mechanically to market conditions. This product will obtainable in 2-3 weeks later after you pay. This is a secret I found and I know you’re going to love its simplicity and the genius behind this essential thought. There shall be no guesswork involved in any respect with this system and I will stroll you thru a number of examples explaining every little thing clearly. You will hear and see the the reason why each example is a perfect trade setup so you can quickly and easily acknowledge the best buying and selling alternatives whenever you come to start buying and selling the system your self. There are only four primary steps to trading this method, so the foundations might be simpler than ever to stick to, that means you’ll have the ability to choose it up and start making money with it proper off the bat. Non-directional options buying and selling education course with videos, pdf reviews and spreadsheets. There are just a few key evaluation tools that can allow you to determine the probabilities of market path and I let you know precisely what those are. This will save you hours per week and make you a far more efficient trader. However it provides added security to the other commerce signals and also can identify false signals that in any other case would be missed. But a pro is that his techniques do not repaint, ALL Raychez methods like Ultimate Profit Solution offered here have primarily badly REPAINTING indicators and most of them cost $1000. These webinars and all the time similar discuss on DVDs and few updates for a year don't assist much either. This means you possibly can try the product for two entire months – yes, 60 days! – and then, when you don’t bank hard with it, simply get your full refund with no questions, no issues and no hassles in any way. Now, let us proceed with this evaluation and with a number of the highlights of it. The system is designed and developed by Russ Horn, who is sort of recognized available in the market for being an expert Forex dealer and mentor. He has been teaching newbies in details about the Forex trading system and this new system from him is meant to be a superb information for these in want. Unlike numerous different guides that come within the digital format only, Tradeonix is on the market within the physical format – manuals, DVDs, etc. – that might be delivered on to your home. If you are amongst those who wish to make an excellent sum of money from the consolation zone of their home, then Forex is undoubtedly one of the most reliable ways to take action. The potential of earning money from Forex is quite good, and you may actually turn into your own boss whenever you begin trading in Forex. But the issue that lies here is that Forex is the game of numbers, proper predictions and sheer information about data about how the market works which is something that most people fail to know properly. If you need any courses that dont show up in our website, please simply send us e-mail () with the name of the course, or the sale page link. After obtain your order, we will ship you download link via Email instantly. It has come to my attention that many people who find themselves new to Forex buying and selling often fear about the basics, and rightfully so, as a result of without having a strong understanding of the fundamentals, you'll be able to simply really feel overwhelmed. By the time you complete DVD #1 you will be pumped and ready to dive into the true meat of this training. Always risk.McMillan's Intensive Option Mentoring is a customized option and his mentors are skilled traders who've made their residing within the choices markets. In testing, we found it incredibly mind-boggling, as 89% of predictions made with indicators are appropriate. That being stated, it really works for each beginner and skilled traders on the identical time. I know you've seen a number of Forex products on-line the place you get to obtain a robot, trade copier…and so forth. Some of them work but most of them will rapidly/slowly erase your funding. There are many scam foreign exchange products out there, however this isn't one, not even intently. And don’t fear, I make this tremendous easy for you to execute like an expert, even if you're new to trading. It's a mechanical buying and selling system that is easy to comply with and generates lots of trading commerce with a very high win ratio . If you have been thinking about going into the binary commerce market these days, then I strongly recommend that you do some additional research into the Tradeonix software program. It is a completely illustrated report that tells you what to do step by step when you see profitable trades seem on a easy chart, so you’ll perceive tips on how to earn cash instantly. The Dynamic Cash Tracker” system is perfect for brand new merchants just getting started with Forex trading, and it’s an excellent software within the hands of skilled traders as properly. He has over 20 years of expertise in forex trading, and he has helped greater than 10 1000's folks on the way to trade forex with out experience loss. PowerShow.com is a number one presentation/slideshow sharing web site. Whether your application is business, how-to, schooling, drugs, faculty, church, gross sales, marketing, on-line coaching or simply for fun, PowerShow.com is a good useful resource. And, better of all, most of its cool features are free and simple to use. Please observe that we dont provide any member login to the sale web page, subscription or chat room account. The value of product price more thn $2000 in market that valued by developer. Russ Horn used his personally desinged trading method on this product to guide individuals in Forex Trading .https://www.reviewengin.com/tradeonix-pro-review/ What which means is that this indicator works in trending and choppy circumstances. While Dyna Range can be utilized for getting into positions, this indicator is designed particularly to offer goal exit targets primarily based on current market motion.

1 note · View note

atamascolily · 4 years

Text

An Appointment in Sawarra, 6/?

Hyperspace travel offers some opportunity for reflection, like, What do long trips in an X-wing look like? Can you sleep through the entire Imperial era? Remember when Leia had her own ship called the Alderaan? What exactly is the relationship between Artoo and Luke’s X-wing’s computer?

(one two three four five)

Luke didn't need Artoo to fly the X-wing, but it was lonely without the astromech along to keep him company. To his dismay and chagrin, the ship's computer--which had grown more and more attached to the little droid over the years, to the point where Luke was starting to wonder if it would spontaneously develop sentience--thought so, too, and sulked all the way out of Coruscanti airspace until he could coax it back into its usual good humor. It was a relief to make the jump to hyperspace and turn over all controls to the ship while they were in transit.

"Keep this up, and you're going to be as bad as the <i>Falcon</i>," Luke muttered under his breath as the stars blurred into smears around them. He sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to whoever had designed the fighter so there was no voice/command interface, and thus no need to worry about the computer overhearing him.

It was three days and multiple jumps out of the Core to the far side of the Mid-Rim, which was cramped and awkward in a ship of the X-wing, which was a short-ranged fighter meant meant for long-haul transport. Luke had pushed the limits of both his ship and himself over the years, but three days in the cockpit with a catheter hookup was a bit much, even for him, especially now that he didn't fly so much.

Were it not for Jedi hibernation trances, Luke would have taken Leia up on her offer of the <i>Alderaan</i>. The sleek silver ship was his sister's secret pride and joy, a wedding present from Luke and Han after Han's first choice of gifts hadn't worked out. Fast, maneuverable, and registered to a non-existent person with no connections to the New Republic, the Jedi, or anything approaching official government business, the <i>Alderaan</i> was an excellent choice for someone flying under the radar, especially to an outlier like Sawarra.

"Come on, Luke," Leia had said, her voice low and cajoling. "The <i>Alderaan</i> isn't big, but it's got to be more comfortable than your X-wing--"

But Luke knew all too well what that ship meant to his sister: her escape from the regimented, regulated world of galactic politics and diplomacy. Even if she didn't manage to get out very often, its mere presence in the hangar was a comfort, secure in the knowledge that she <i>could</i> drop everything and walk away if she chose. He wasn't going to take that away from her, not when there was so little need.

Leia frowned when he said as much, though it eased when he reminded her about the Jedi hibernation trances he'd recently learned, and the excellent opportunity for practice en route. It disappeared entirely when Luke reminded her that she might need her ship in case of emergency, and she relented--disappointed, but also relieved. Her offer had been sincerely meant, but Luke could tell she was pleased not to lose her main outlet of <i>fun</i> in a life otherwise devoted to service.

His sister might chide him for his own recklessness, he thought, unable to hold back a smile, but she was just as much as speed demon as he was at heart.

Hibernation trances had their limits, but it was so much more enjoyable to sleep undisturbed through long jumps, arriving at his final destination refreshed and alert instead of sore and cramped. The crumbling texts he'd uncovered about the trances that had explained how to tune out unwanted stimuli, while allowing others to trigger an awakening, a useful trick when it came to interstellar travel.

<i>I wonder if there are any Jedi out there who felt the same way about the Empire</i>, he thought, as he always did after emerging from hibernation. <i>There must have been some survivors who who decided to go dormant after the initial purge, determined to sleep until a better day came. If there are any Jedi like that still out there, how would they know when to wake up? And how will I find them if they do?</i>

He shook this head. Leia and Mara were right; it was better to take one thing at a time, instead of worrying about matters outside his control. Right now, that meant focusing on the task in front of him: arranging a meeting with Karrde's contact on Access Station to see if she could help with the uneti seeds.

The screen in front of him flickered, demanding his attention as the X-wing's computer brought the ship out of hyperspace and switched over to manual control. Even though he knew what to expect, Luke couldn't help a gasp of delight as the starlines dwindled back to pinpricks and they arrived in the Sawarran system at last.

At first glance, there was nothing of note in his viewports, only the usual scattered swirls of distant lights visible from almost every point in space. There were no ionized field of nebulae like the Transitory Mists of Hapes; no asteroid belts, no stellar streams; no planets and no moons of any sort. Only the egg-shaped orb of Access Station itself, flanked by handfuls of sleek ships of an unfamiliar design, was in any way noteworthy. True, there was a fairly dense star cluster ahead of him, but all of them were small and dull, barely registering in his vision.

The X-wing's computer, however, saw the whole scene quite differently. Alarms flashed and hooted as the ship duly noted the high levels of gamma radiation present, and began tracking the swirling interplay of electromagnetic waves rippling off the neutron stars in front of them. Shields flicked on to protect him from stray bursts of energy, automatically adjusting their activity to accommodate the rapidly changing levels emerging from the pulsars.

Luke had intended to formally announce his presence by hailing the station, but there was no point. A quick glance at his crackling comm made it clear there was too much interference right now for even that limited contact. He was going to have to fly in blind and hope nobody in authority took offense--or could do anything about it until he'd had a chance to explain in person.

He closed his eyes and stretched out his awareness into void, taking it all in. For his first lesson in the Force, Ben Kenobi had pulled a blast helmet over his pupil's face, allowing him to block blaster bolts with his lightsaber for the first time. Luke had never forgotten that the eyes, for all their strengths, could deceive as well as guide. Sometimes it was easier to see clearly if he shut out as much external stimuli as possible, stripped away everything but that soft, quiet, focus, attuned to a living current that was far too easily drowned out by action and impulse. That was as true now as it had been at the Battle of Yavin, not so long ago.

<i>We are not separate,</i> the old uneti of Dagobah whispered in a distant corner of his mind, so faint it might have been his imagination. The ancient tree percieved both time and distance in ways that Luke could barely grasp, all beings merged and melded into one, while still maintaining their own existence. Despite glimpses here and there, including one memorable vision the day after Yoda's death, it was a higher-level mystery Luke had yet to fully understand. But he'd seen the Jedi reborn, spilling out across the stars in their brown robes and beatific smiles--and they brought the uneti with them.

<i>Difficult to say,</i> Yoda had said of prescience. <i>Always in motion is the future</i>... Luke had discovered to his sorrow and chagrin on Bespin that Yoda had been right. But he couldn't shake the feeling, deep down in his bones, that if he could figure out the trees, the Jedi would follow.

<i>We are not separate</i>.

He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and exhaled long and fully as he steered the X-wing towards Access Station. The computer made the passive-aggressive observation that this task would easier with an astromech assist, which Luke gritted his teeth and ignored as he brought the ship in for a landing.

#an appointment in sawarra #fanfic excerpt #rude mechanicals

6 notes · View notes

bestfriendforhire · 4 years

Text

Children of BFFH, Entry 54

“I’m very happy that Father isn’t making us spend time in traffic.” stated Aid as we strolled to the family ship, now parked in the yard.

“Mother convinced him.” announced Luce with a toothy grin. This trip had been her idea, but we were all looking forward to it.

“I’ll make sure to give her an extra hug then.” I told them with a smile of my own. Most of my free time over the past couple of weeks was spent hanging out with our new friend, Valeria, trying to help her appear more human. I was quite certain that her success could largely be attributed to Cosette and Mila’s work with her and Valeria’s determination, but all of us kids tried to help her practice, playing out countless scenarios to test her.

“I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of the city, even if only through a car window. I quite like cars.” insisted Valeria. Coming from a century where being kept inside, studying to be a proper aristocrat, was seen as something grand, she had a much different view on many things than the rest of us.

Ella, on Valeria’s other side, happily exclaimed “I enjoy cars too! There’s always something new to see!” The day Ella could grow bored would probably be the day Auntie Aaliyah decided to permanently wipe out this universe. Some things were incredibly improbable.

“I prefer the view from the sky. We’ll get to see everything at once!” suggested Aspy as he barely restrained himself from jogging ahead.

Doc sighed dramatically before saying, “My brother’s wanting to look down on everyone again. How can I get him back on the right path?”

He moved to shove her, but was blocked just long enough by a telekinetic wall that she was able to move to the side. Then he did chase after her, first on the ground and then into the air where they were quite obviously messing with each other’s abilities, falling an inch here and there. Not having Crazy around to join them was sooo relaxing! Stormcrow was too burdened with his bags to fly, and the quadruplets were probably arguing with their parents about what gadgets they should bring to show their grandfather.

“Think Grandfather will recognize us this trip?” questioned Luce apprehensively.

“If not, we’ll remind him again. He usually senses that we’re of his blood.” replied Aid, giving our sister a hug.

“Yes, but he doesn’t always really know us.” complained Luce with a frown.

“He will one day. We just have to be patient.” I assured her. Father had told us that Grandfather’s madness was only temporary, but Grandfather had been confused since before we were born. I couldn’t even guess what Grandfather would be like with his mental faculties fully functioning. Mother only ever spoke positively of him, but I just couldn’t see the man she spoke of in the one I knew.

Once on the ship, we quickly stored our luggage and prepared for takeoff. Though Mila kept the ship in perfect order, my siblings and I were still expected to do proper flight checks when one of us flew. Today was my turn, so I was finding what fake problems Mila had set for me while the others started deciding what game to play for the flight. I knew my parents had us do these checks for when we flew spaceships without Mila, but the routine really was tedious. Ten minutes and six problems later, I was barely done before everyone finished boarding.

“If you want to play with the others, I’ll gladly convince Daddy to let me fly.” offered Dani while hugging Leilani. My tiny niece would be turning four next week.

“Thank you, but I’ll take my turn.” I told her, not missing that she offered after I finished my pre-flight checks. “You fly a little fast for some of our passengers.”

She rolled her eyes, but was grinning at me. Dani was very well aware of how the rest of us felt about her piloting, given that she sensed our emotions. Leilani was trying to wiggle out of her mother’s arms to hug me, no doubt sensing my feelings as well.

“Enough, children. On we go.” ordered Mother as she took the co-pilot seat. “We’re already running a couple minutes late.”

“Yes, Mother.” I told her.

At the same time, Dani said, “Fine, Mom.” Dani really did love to fly ships, especially at the edge of her ability to control them. She was very, very good, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she managed to crash a few times that I didn’t know about.

Once Dani was belted down and Father had Leilani, I guided us off the yard and into the sky. The ship’s defenses were turned on, so local radar wouldn’t even detect us. Father surely had permission for us to be flying from the yard already, but there was no reason to startle anyone with this ship’s speed, not that I’d push its capabilities at all this flight. If I did push the ship, we’d probably arrive in Caerllion within an hour rather than three and a half.

Mila could probably outfly my parents, but manually controlling the aircraft throughout the flight was a test of patience and awareness, especially with Mother discussing ideas Messy had told her about for a city. I knew Messy loved the idea of creating a city too, but we rarely directly discussed it together, each plotting a big surprise for the other. Unfortunately, she was probably ahead on her designs. Messy was brilliant and could probably persuade Mila to help her even more than Mila helped me. Being siblings had perks. Then there was Auntie Aaliyah, who was just as doting as she was disturbing as a parent.

Luckily, the conversation kept me plenty occupied throughout the flight, so I didn’t end up feeling like too much time had passed by the time I was taking us down for a landing West of the castle. I nearly botched my landing when I caught sight of the most rickety-looking bus I had ever seen bouncing along the smooth road from our landing pad.

“Just an illusion, Four.” stated Mother with a smirk once the ship was settled on the pad. “Aaliyah’s driving, so expect a loud stop too.”

Probably on queue, given that Auntie Aaliyah was well aware of our conversation before we knew we’d be having it, the bus seemed to swerve out of control, do three donuts, and screech to a stop perfectly over a couple parking spots. I laughed, shaking my head. Auntie Aaliyah waited outside the bus to admire all of our faces as we approached, despite knowing precisely how we’d react without looking.

The bus’ interior was far more luxurious than necessary for the short trip to the castle, but I wasn’t going to complain. The illusion on the outside would probably be dismissed before we arrived to keep up appearances with the locals. Mother was a duchess and couldn’t be seen looking as anything else outside of the castle. As her children, my siblings and I needed to have perfect manners whenever we might be seen by the public anywhere in Europe, which was one of the obvious drawbacks with our visits here.

Despite not having the Slayer name, Slayer politics were part of our life when away from Somerset Estate. Poor behavior on our part could lead to those under Mother to embarrassment, possibly leading them to betray Mother’s interests. Sadly, our distant cousins were known more for their enormous pride than great wisdom. Foolish attacks against one another were common.

“How was the trip?” asked Messy once we were settled.

“I’d wager better than yours.” replied Aid with a smirk.

“What!? No way. Ours was awesome!” insisted Crazy.

“She lies. Mother was Mother, so there were constant hassles.” argued Messy, shaking her head at Crazy.

Looking at Messy in shock, Crazy said, “But they were fun hassles!”

After a little more debate, the two related their journey to the rest of us, probably leaving out bits that not everyone could know.

“No, I’ll definitely pass.” insisted Luce when Crazy expressed her wish that we could have been there.

Departing the bus with my luggage in hand, I noted that the bus was a slick, black vehicle that had to be custom built.

“Lord James, a pleasure to see you again.” stated Sebastian, who was already waiting for us. “Please, sir, allow the servants to tend to your luggage.”

I refrained from sighing and left the luggage by the bus.

“Are there guests already?” questioned Aid as he placed his suitcase next to mine.

Nodding, Sebastian said, “Yes, Lord Aiden.”

Luce frowned, setting down her luggage as well.

“We’ll go see your grandfather tonight. For now, show the others around.” ordered Mother. “Most of our friends haven’t been here before.”

After a little discussion, the trip started with a tour of the grounds to hopefully avoid bumping into our parents’ guests. Cosette and Valeria were covered in protective spells to keep the sun from bothering them, and Dani and Leilani already had their inhuman skin and hair colors covered by an illusion. We’d be safe if spotted, but I was counting on Aid steering us clear of anyone we’d want to avoid. Not openly using magic was always a strange feeling for most of us.

My siblings and I were able to answer most questions about the yard, even knowing the public stories of those in the family crypt. Communicating through Aid, Sebastian told us that Father and Mother wouldn’t be available for lunch, so I suggested a light lunch down by the lake, knowing the servants would gladly bring us food if Mila didn’t beat them to it. Luckily, the adults with us agreed. Even Mommas Ai and Mai didn’t want to subject any of us to local business dealings. Those two probably knew more about the area than even my siblings and me, given that they spent most of their childhood here.

Resisting the urge to ask Doc or Momma Maple to show us all more of every given place’s history during the tour was torture, but this estate was steeped in Slayer family secrets. We’d have to wait for tomorrow to have our history lessons when we ventured out to other parts of the United Kingdom.

#Children of BFFH #Children #of #BFFH #Jovial Times #Jovial #Times #Fantasy #Fiction #Story

1 note · View note

bigskydreaming · 5 years

Text

Imagine that Dick and Jason liiiiiive to synchronize their Let’s Be Shits schedules just in time for any posh gala the Wayne children are expected to attend.

Some Douchebag is like “So, Richard. What is it you do, these days?”

And Dick just plasters on the most vacuous smile in existence, like the kind that could only be engineered in a lab by combining Brucie with a Colgate commercial for sparkling teeth, special effects included.

And he’s like, “Oh, I’m an instagram model and social influencer.”

And then Jason appears out of nowhere, swaying on his feet and throwing an arm around Dick’s shoulder as if to support himself, hiccuping a little and splashing some of his wine over the edge of his glass (its apple juice, of course).

“So am I,” he says, punctuating with another hiccup. “But only like. Ironically.”

Dick leans in towards the Douchebag as if to confide a secret, as the latter tries to lean away whilst still figuring out what expression his face wants to produce.

“He keeps saying that like it means something, but I’m not sure it does. I think he saw it on a youtube video and just started copying it. That’s not copyright infringement right? Bruce’ll probably be pissed if he has to pay out another lawsuit for copyright stuff after I just got in trouble for trying to sell tickets to my band’s show without getting permission to use all the songs we did. Like, how was I supposed to know you needed permission to sing songs? Isn’t this, like. America?”

The Douchebag starts stammering and attempting to edge gracefully away - hell, he’ll settle for not gracefully, he really was never even looking for an answer in the first place, just a soundbite he could reenact for his snobby friends later. This was more than he was actually prepared for.

Jason meanwhile surges forward and grabs a hold of Douchebag’s suited arm, acting like he still needs the support.

“Hey. It does so mean something, and I came up with it on my own, I didn’t steal shit. If I was going to steal stuff, I’d go for the silver, not words, how dumb do you think I am? He’s always doing this,” he complains to the Douchebag.

“Just because I didn’t start school until the sixth grade and had to bribe our little brother to take all my tests for me, he acts like I don’t even know what words mean. But he’s the one who only passed his senior year of high school by getting Playgirl to do a photoshoot of him when he turned eighteen just before finals, and then most of his teachers just made sure he passed so they wouldn’t feel pervy because they’d gone gaga over his photos and then he got held back a year and they had to see him every day and feel sketchy.”

Dick spreads his arms wide as if an extremely self-explanatory point has just been made.

“Hello? Is that, or is that not, a display of genius?”

“Really, I do have to be going, I think I see my old business partner waving at me from over there - “ the Douchebag says somewhat desperately.

“Dammit Jay, look what you did.” Dick wails dramatically. He even stomps a foot for good measure. Jason’s struggling not to laugh. “You’re embarrassing us in front of one of Bruce’s guests. Now he thinks we’re low class and its going to be all over the news and this is gonna be the last straw and Bruce’ll get fed up and say we can never go to these things again and its going to be all your fault and none of this would ever happen if you weren’t always like. Ugh. What’s the word.”

The Douchebag is hastily assuring them he doesn’t think they’re embarrassing or low class and he’s not going to tell anyone otherwise, while still trying to pry his jacket sleeve loose from Jason’s iron grip. Jason meanwhile appears oblivious to anything the Douchebag says or does, as he fixates on his brother and starts waving his own arms around dramatically....which sends Douchebag stumbling in the process, all without either brother seeming to notice.

“Well I’m sure I can’t help you, since I don’t know words so good,” Jason hisses equally dramatically. “I’m just a fucking dumbass from the Narrows, isn’t that right. I’m not some fancy circus boy like you were, all I had to practice reading on as a kid was my rap sheet.”

He moves to fling his arms over his head in exasperation, and tears the Douchebag’s suit sleeve with a resounding ripping noise in the process. Douchebag stares at the remains of the jacket that cost several thousand dollars that he doesn’t have, because he’s a pompous jackass who lives beyond his means in an attempt to fund his social ladder climbing expeditions.

“Now look what you did,” Dick cries, flinging his head back as if in total despair, the black locks of his hair flying from side to side in theatrical disarray. “Do you even know how much that poor man’s suit must have cost him? Probably more than my parents’ trailer, I’ll bet you that much.”

“Really, its quite alright,” the Douchebag tries to insist through clenched teeth. It wasn’t, in his eyes, not by a long shot, but he forced himself to remember that for whatever reasons, these two...peasants were still Bruce Wayne’s chosen wards....or well, worse yet...adopted sons. God, but that man’s abyssmal IQ was an absolute plague on Gotham’s high society. “It could have happened to anyone.”

“No, please, don’t try and cover for him, he’ll never learn that way. You must let us pay for the damage, Bruce will just take it out of his allowance, it’ll be fine,” Dick says, patting at the man’s arm feverishly as if he can smooth out the gaping hole left by the flap now hanging limply down the man’s sleeve.

“Oh, I’ll never learn? How about you, destroying Bruce’s grandmother’s antique china at the birthday party you tried to throw for Damian after Bruce specifically asked you not to try and play host anymore?” Jason gets in his brother’s face, liquid sloshing over the side of his erratically swinging glass and in the process splashing all over the back of the Douchebag’s neck.

“I was trying to actually do something nice for someone else, not that you’d know anything about that,” Dick hisses obnoxiously loudly. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t supposed to use steak knives to cut up food on china? Its not like plates come with instruction manuals!”

“Not like you’d know how to read them if they did!”

“Have you never heard of Youtube tutorials?”

“Have you never heard of shut the fuck up, you absolute dillhole?”

“Would both of you stop it? You’re causing a scene!” The two’s younger brother Timothy arrived on the scene, smoothly sliding between them and the ecstatically grateful Douchebag, who backpeddles out of the way at the first available opportunity. Tim throws him an apologetic glance, but the Douchebag barely notes it as he furiously makes for the side entrance as fast as he can, with the less people seeing his disheveled state the better.

So much for the networking he had planned on doing the rest of the night. He firmly vowed to steer far clear of the eldest two Wayne buffoons at all future events Brucie insisted on inflicting the oafs on the rest of them.

All of which of course means he completely missed the way the brothers’ dramatics hushed into heated whispers upon Tim’s arrival, or the high five Dick and Jason slipped each other discreetly.

“Let’s see Brucie top that,” Jason says smugly.

“Oh god. You’ve finally done it. You’ve turned a charity event into a war games scenario.”

“Oh please. All of that money goes straight into the board of directors’ pockets,” Dick says dismissively. “The only actual money being raised for charity tonight is from the jewelry Selina’s liberating from the guests. And Damian and Cass already called dibs on helping her with that, and Duke’s already doing the scorekeeping for when that inevitably turns into a competition, so we were bored. And left alone to our own devices. So really if anyone’s to blame its everyone but us.”

“Sides, this is a time honored tradition for us,” Jason adds with a smirk. “We call it guerilla class warfare. We’re sleeper agents for the working class, see.”

“You’re the reason the Valentinos never show up to any Wayne Enterprise hosted events anymore, aren’t you?” Tim realizes.

“Some of our best work,” Dick reminisces fondly. Their little brother sighs.

“Please at least tell me you never actually posed for Playgirl.”

Dick shrugs. “Oh, they offered, but even when Bruce and I were at our worst, its not like I ever actually wanted to give him a stroke.”

“Continuity error,” Jason points out smugly. “Total amateur move.”

Dick merely arches a brow. “Not when I can simply claim Bruce must have paid to cover it up for the sake of the family image, and was absolutely furious at my besmirching of the good Wayne family name. And wait a second, weren’t you the one who introduced that into the scene in the first place? I just yes and-ed according to the rules of improv, like the professional that I am.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound right,” Jason says, completely unperturbed. Not an ounce of perturbed in sight. He continues on smoothly. “And if Sir Douchely of Douchington actually digs a little deeper and yet can’t seem to find anyone who recalls ever actually seeing this oh so salacious spread?”

Dick’s shit remains unphased.

“I’ll simply flip the script and release the hounds aka Steph, Harper, Cullen and all three dozen of their twitter handles, wondering all over the Gotham social media highways just why someone of his standing is so intent on tracking down the homoerotic depravities of the eldest Wayne heir, given that despite his unjust leapfrogging up the social ladder, he is still ultimately a....commoner.”

“Ah yes,” Jason nods sagely. “And as all Gothamites know well, if you prick us, we doth not bleed blue. Just a terribly pedestrian red.”

“Oh the humanity,” Dick sighs. He joins his younger brother in nodding the slow, steady head-bob of the intellectually validated, their seeming rivalry melting into sibling synchronicity.

Tim eyes them and shakes his head side to side instead.

“You two disturb me.”

Jason shrugs. “Well, that does make sense. Don’t get me wrong, you’re our little brother and we’re terribly fond of you now, Timmers. But when the revolution comes, we will have to turn on you as well.”

“Fair is fair,” Dick hums in agreement. “We can’t play favorites. That’s how you get an upper class in the first place.”

“Yeah I don’t know what to do with this,” Tim sighs and heads off in search of Steph.

“Just FYI, your girlfriend’s Team Proletariat too. She’s got the T-shirt and everything,” Jason calls after him.

Tim swerves in mid-step and redirects himself towards Kate. At least their cousin slash-aunt-slash-nobody’s-bothered-to-parse-the-actual-relation-there could be counted on to be somewhat normal. Her idea of making a scene was to simply start a brawl, and Tim had overheard Bruce specifically elicit a promise from her earlier in the evening that she would throw no punches or kicks or headbutts or judo throws, nor any manner of actual or improvised weaponry.

23 notes · View notes

insfiringyou · 5 years

Text

BTS - One Night Stand with Jungkook

Contains: Smut, humour, fingering, oral sex, face riding, vaginal sex, sex toys

Jungkook encounters an older woman whose car has broken down at the supermarket. Wanting to be helpful, he drives her home. A couple of glasses of wine later, things escalate.

[Although this can be enjoyed on its own as a oneshot, we imagine this to be part of our headcanon universe . This is set after his breakup with his first girlfriend, Jia, and also shortly after his sexual encounter with the singer IU, but before the 7 mins in heaven party.]

To read each member & their girlfriend’s headcanon universe fics in order, follow the links here: RM / Jin / Suga / J-Hope / Jimin / V / Jungkook & Our full masterlist can be found here

This can also be found on Ao3 here

(Photo credit goes to https://bangtan-sonyeon-scans.tumblr.com/)

Rated content below the cut

The loud crashing sound of glass shattering followed by a string of cursing brought Jungkook’s attention away from the reusable bag of shopping he was currently packing away into the trunk of his black Hyundai and towards the woman who was next to him in the parking lot. He had left the shared house half an hour earlier to pick up some snacks from the supermarket; it was Friday evening and he was preparing for a weekend off, the first in over five months. Two full days of gaming, eating junk food and sleeping in awaited, and he could not wait.

The sky had started to turn navy and he could just about make out the cause of the crashing sound in the dim space. The woman, about ten years older than him at a guess, had dropped a crate of wine on her way to the car. She quickly placed her other bags of shopping on the tarmac and started to kick the large shards of glass away from the path of her car tyres. Jungkook locked up his own car and walked over to her.

“Are you okay?” He asked as she removed the final piece of glass from the path.

“Yeah.” She muttered, not looking at him as she opened her car and started to pack the bags into the back. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts, the edge of a black tattoo poked from the hem, and a white halter top which revealed her fleshy cleavage. Jungkook glanced at the cement and noted the pool of liquid collecting on the surface; the pungent scent of fermented grapes drifted into his nostrils.

“Where you having a party?” He asked, turning to watch her as she placed a large carrier in the trunk. A multi-pack of orange Capri-Sun pocked out the top.

“Not any more.” She said, drily, as she walked to the driver’s side of her car, glancing briefly at him as she walked past.

Not seeing how he could be of any more help, Jungkook walked back to his Hyundai and fished in his pocket for his car key. He unlocked the car and reached for the handle but paused as the sound of the neighbouring vehicle’s engine stalling distracted him. The small postbox red Kia had to be at least fifteen years old and the engine had clearly given up for the time being. The woman turned her keys in the ignition with a sigh but the car refused to start, the rumble of the engine sprang to life for a few seconds, before falling silent again.

“Fuck! Shit!” He could just make out her muffled curses through the car door. He immediately pocketed his keys and walked over to the driver’s side of the Kia, lightly tapping the window. The woman jumped a little at the sound, her eyes snapping from the steering wheel to his own, startled. Her shoulders relaxed when she saw who it was and she opened the door for him, unfastening her seat belt.

“It won’t start.” She sighed.

“Do you have breakdown insurance?” He asked.

“I can’t afford it.”

“I could call you mine, I don’t mind.” Jungkook offered helpfully, sensing that she could use a little good luck. Now he was up close, he noticed that the car had also started to rust around the doors and windows. He wondered whether the garage would even be able to replace the engine, but didn’t say this.

Her eyes flickered around the parking lot quickly, nervously. “How long will that take?”

Jungkook shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe an hour.”

“I can’t wait that long. My food is going to defrost.”

He found himself feeling incredibly sorry for her, despite only meeting her a few minutes before. She was clearly not well off, the supermarket was the cheapest in the area, and her car badly needed replacing.

“Do you live far away?” He asked. “I could give you a lift.” He desperately wanted to help her, even if all he could do was make sure her food didn’t spoil. She glanced at him, a hint of suspicion in her dark eyes. Jungkook shifted, a little uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to people looking at him like that.

“I can’t pay you.” She said, a little cautiously.

He was a little taken aback at the suggestion.”I wasn’t going to ask. It’s dark.” He explained, simply. This sincerity in his voice seemed to put her at ease and her body seemed to relax in the chair.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” She slid from the seat and closed the door, locking it manually with a key which hung from a pink pompom key chain. Jungkook automatically moved to the trunk and allowed her to unlock the it. He reached inside before she could protest and took several of the large bags. She watched him curiously as he walked over to his own car and, intuitively opened the trunk for him. He thanked her and placed the bags in the back.

“Careful.” She murmured. “There’s more bottles in there.”

He nodded, noticing the small clinks which came as he placed them down. His own trunk was spacious and had plenty of room for both their shopping. She locked up her before joining him in the Hyundai. He started the ignition.

“Where are we going?” He asked as he backed out of the parking space.

“Do you know Eunpyeong? It’s not far from here.” She questioned, glancing at him as he changed from reverse to drive. Her eyes roamed along his hands and arms, quietly admiring the tendons which stood out against his tanned skin in the dim light of the car; she hadn’t noticed how beautiful his arms were before.

He nodded. “Sort of. Do I go over the river?”

“Don’t worry. I’m good at giving directions.” She said kindly.

“Have you lived here long?” He asked as he pulled up on the curb of a small, semi-detached house. There was a small garden in front of it, just visible in the low glow of the nearest energy-saving lamp. The streets surrounding her road had also been narrow and dimly lit; he imagined walking home at night would be a nightmare, particularly for a woman, and he felt glad she had accepted his lift.

“Six months.” She answered, hopping out of her seat and walking around the back to unpack her shopping. He didn’t bother asking her whether it was a nice area to live; one quick glance around told him otherwise. He joined her quickly and beat her to the heaviest bags. She thanked him and he made sure he locked up; while he wasn’t especially precious about his new Hyundai, he knew it wouldn’t last long if it were left unlocked, especially on a Friday night. He could hear the low thud of drum and bass music drifting from the windows of one of the nearby town houses, the residents clearly enjoying a party.

He followed her to the front door; the bags in his arms blocking most of his view of the pathway which led there. She fiddled about with her jingly keyring to find the correct key and unlocked the red door, leading him into the hallway and to the small kitchen at the end of the corridor. He paused in the doorway after putting down the bags, wondering whether he should close the door. The woman had already started unpacking, hastily shoving boxes of frozen food into the large freezer, without glancing his way. He hesitated, watching as she pulled out waxed cardboard boxes of turkey dinosaurs, fajitas and ready made rice from the plastic carrier bags on the floor, before deciding to shut the front door.

When he came back, she had finished on the frozen food and had started to pour a large glass of rosé wine for herself. She left the rest of the food in the bags. Jungkook glanced at the closed freezer and noted a jumble of colourful magnetic letters on the surface. “Chung-ae” was spelled out and he wondered whether it was her name.

“Do you have to be anywhere?” She asked, taking a large sip.

He hesitated and shook his head. “No.” It felt good to be able to say that, not knowing when his next weekend off would be.

She nodded and took another glass from the shelf above the black counter, pouring him a large glass of the wine. He shook his head when she held it out for him. “Thank you, but I’m driving.” He explained.

She kept her arm held out. “Just have one glass. As repayment.” She said, convincingly. He saw immediately that she wanted to be able to thank him, and once again his sympathy for her returned. He took the glass.

“Alright. It really wasn’t a problem though.” He tried to reassure as he took a small sip. The wine was fruity and sweet. Opposite him on the other side of the kitchen, the woman took another long gulp.

“I’ve had such a crap day today.” She said. Jungkook noticed her dyed, sandy-brown hair had been hastily tied back in a messy ponytail and the layer of foundation on her face did not quite cover the dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t had a proper night of sleep in days.

This reminded him. “I’ll call the towing company for you.” He stepped out into the dark hallway and checked through his contacts. Behind him, he could hear the sound of the woman pouring herself another glass of wine. The call connected and he explained the situation to the receptionist. She asked him a question and he leaned into the doorway. “What’s your address?” He asked. The woman replied and he repeated the street name on the phone. Thanking them for their help and asking them to put the payment on his account, he switched off his cell and pocketed it. “They said they can collect your car tomorrow morning. Did you have anything planned for the weekend?” He asked.

Leaning against the counter, she shook her head, causing a few strands of hair to fall from the ponytail. Her cheeks were already a little flushed from the drink. “I just wanted some time to myself.”

“Oh.” Jungkook eyed the almost empty bottle of rosé on the counter. “Maybe I should go.” He turned to walk back the way he came, but she protested.

“You haven’t finished your wine yet.” She pleaded and he faced her once more. “Stay for a bit.”

He realised as she said it that she seemed incredibly lonely. He wondered whether she lived with anyone else, or if she had the house to herself. He didn’t hear anyone else upstairs. “Okay.” He agreed, taking another sip from his glass; the wine went down easier this time.

“We’ll go into the living room so you can sit down.” She reached into one of the carrier bags and pulled out a new bottle of wine before leading him back down the hallway, not bothering to turn on the light, and into a small sitting room. A television adorned one corner and a pair of two-seater sofas surrounded a glass coffee table. Compared to what he had seen of the rest of the house, the room was positively cosy and neat. He imagined she spent most of her time in here and liked it to be homely. He glanced at the wall above the fireplace; wicker letters spelling out “Live, Laugh, Love” adorned the chimney breast.

He sat down on one of the sofas, automatically placing his half-empty glass on the table in front of him, beside the fresh bottle of rosé. She sat beside him, her body pressed close to his; he could smell her tropical scented perfume; it reminded him of the beach; sunscreen and Piña Coladas. Now she was closer and the lighting wasn’t so dim, he quickly glanced at her bare thigh, careful not to be caught looking, and noted the tattoo. Up close, he could work out it depicted a Dandelion clock; it’s feathered seeds drifting away from the stem on an invisible breeze. She finished her glass and poured another.

He tried not to be bothered by the way she peered at him as she sat back down beside him. Eventually she spoke up.

“Aren’t you in Exo?”

He shook his head, a little relieved. “No.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed and turned back to her wine. “Sorry. You just looked a little familiar.”

Jungkook shrugged. “Maybe you’ve seen me at the supermarket before?” He did shop there regularly. It wasn’t anywhere near the closest shop to the band’s shared house, but the offers on the groceries were some of the best in Seoul. He didn’t know whether the other members had ever thought to shop there, but he doubted it. He found that if he went late in the evening, as he had done today, he almost never got recognised.

“Maybe.” She seemed convinced and finished her drink, her voice now slurred a little. “Do you have a girlfriend?” She turned to look at him and he finished his glass in one, long gulp.

“No. We broke up.”

“Oh.” She leaned forward and picked up the bottle. “Was it on good terms?”

He shook his head slowly. “Not really.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice, despite its growing unsteadiness, sounded sympathetic and, as though to back this up, she filled his glass to the brim. “You’re handsome.” She returned the bottle to the table. “You’ll find someone else.”

He changed the topic, turning to look at her. “What about you?”

She smiled, dejectedly. “I’m not really looking for anyone right now. Men are too much work.” She thought for a moment. “But you’re really nice.” He didn’t say anything, so she continued. “My ex was not that nice.” She dropped her gaze to the carpet, the loose, slightly wavy strands of her sand coloured hair hung limply around her pink cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” He said, leaning forward without really thinking, getting closer to her. “You seem really nice too.”

She pulled back slowly, noting the shift in his body, and placed her palm on his covered knee, rubbing his thigh gently.

“I should really go.” He said suddenly, realising how late it was getting and how, if he drank anymore wine, he would be over the limit. He put the glass on the glass table and moved to stand up. Once again she protested.

“No, no!” She whined, clutching onto his leather belt loosely as he rose from the sofa. “Don’t go. I like talking to you.”

The desperation in her voice made him sit back down with a sigh. “Maybe five more minutes.” He muttered.

She turned to face him, twisting at the waist. “I’m keeping you from somewhere?” She asked curiously.

He shook his head. “No. I didn’t want to intrude.” He glanced at the bottle of wine and remembered how she had broken another six in the parking lot of the supermarket. “It seems like you’ve had a bad day and need some time to relax.”

She smiled and it lit up her entire face, making her look five years younger. He found himself wondering, once more, how old she was. He had thought at least thirty at first glance but now, up close, he thought that maybe she could be a couple of years younger than that. The years had not been kind of her either way. She looked like she had been given a hard life.

“You’re really sweet.” She said. “I wish every man was as sweet as you.” She took another gulp of rosé and brushed the stray locks of hair from her face, tucking them behind her ear. “I’m sorry.” She apologised, her cheeks blushing pink as she glanced at the carpet. “I look so ugly right now.”

While he hadn’t really noted her looks, he felt his heart sink at the sadness in her voice. He wondered whether her ex had told her she was.

“That’s not true.” He said, leaning forward once more.

“You’re joking.” She laughed drily. “My hair’s a mess…”

“Looks fine to me.” He shrugged.

She turned back to meet his gaze, putting her glass on the table. He noticed she had started perspiring a little from the drink. “You’re really sweet.” She repeated. “You’re ex must be kicking herself.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think she’s really bothered.” His voice came out surprisingly blank and he decided to take the plunge and down his glass of wine.

“I would be.” She reached out slowly and placed her hand on his bicep, surprised to feel its unexpected hardness through his plain black t-shirt. “You don’t find this everyday.” She smiled, giving his upper arm a little, gentle squeeze. When he didn’t protest, she moved her palm to his chest and trailed it along his pectorals, delighting in the feel of them through the fabric. “And these are nice.” She murmured, dreamily, hardly aware of how carried away she was getting. “I’d feel really lucky to be with a guy like you…”

Feeling his own blush, both with the feel of her warm hand against him and the effects of the large glasses of wine he had consumed, he reached forward and poured himself another. She watched this, a little amused, and when he sat back down she leaned forward and wrapped her hand gently around his wrist, holding it steady. She took a large sip from the glass in his hand and looked up at him, a little seductively beneath her spidery, mascara coated eyelashes. He felt his heart begin to race in his chest as he realised he could see down her low cut cami; her black bra was lacy and a little see-through. As though sensing his unexpected desire, she pulled away and shifted onto his knee, straddling his hips. There was a moment’s hesitation as he tried to contain his surprise before she pressed her open lips to his.

It took a few moments to process what was happening, but his body eventually caught on, and he opened his mouth against her, knowing it wasn’t the best idea but unable to stop himself from pressing on. He had discovered, fairly recently, that sometimes it was easier to go with the flow than to protest. As she pressed her tongue against his hungrily, he felt the wine glass tremble in his hand and the liquid spilled onto his blue jeans and her bare thighs.

“Oh.” He gasped in surprise, pulling away from her to look at the damage. “I’m sorry…”

She shook her head, letting him know it was okay and took the glass off him, finishing the remaining liquid in a single gulp and tossing it absently behind her. The thick carpet cushioned it, preventing it from shattering. She turned back and removed his t-shirt in one, smooth movement before kissing him again, grinding her hips a little and feeling him grow hard beneath her. He moaned into her mouth and she crawled off him slowly, leading him by the hand out of the room. He followed her easily down the dark hallway, accepting that he probably wasn’t going home tonight. He stumbled over something in the darkness and she steadied him, leading him up the stairs and into the master bedroom.

Like the living room, it was neat and cosy, decorated in hues of silver and gold, with matching bedding and curtains. The room faced the front of the house and the low sound of the club music drifted through the double glazing from the nearby party. She let go of his hand in order to close the door behind her and he watched as she clawed her white cami over her head and pressed herself flat against him, kissing him once more. He warmed to the feeling of her lips; they were surprisingly soft and her confidence was started to feel reassuring instead of intimidating. She was a good kisser and he found himself making little whimpers into her open mouth as she moved his hands to her covered breasts. He could feel her hard nipples through the lacy fabric.

“Is this okay?” He whispered against her lips, past experience had taught him to be cautious. She slipped her palm down to his leather belt and began to unbuckle his trousers. Satisfied with her answer, he massaged her slowly, squeezing her breasts together and allowing his fingers to trail beneath the low-cut trim of her bra to brush her nipples.

She gasped at the contact and pulled away from the kiss. “You’re so sexy.” She murmured breathily as she succeeded in unfastening his stained jeans and pulling them apart. She sank down to the floor and pulled his trousers down his legs. He watched with wide eyes as she reached for the bulge in his black underwear and pulled it free from the waistband. A few drops of precum dribbled from the swollen tip and down his shaft. Licking her lips, she ran her thumb over the clear liquid, lubricating him gently before leaning forward and taking him in her warm mouth. He moaned, flicking his eyes shut as she moved along his shaft, running her tongue on the underside of his thick cock, enjoying his taste. He glanced at her through thick eyelashes, his eyes flicking from her open mouth to her rosewood coloured nipples which poked above the trim of her black bra. He brushed his hands through her mousy hair and held her closer, enjoying the feel of her. Sensing his pleasure, she moved her lips back up his cock and circled the head with her pink tongue, making eye contact with him as she licked his frenulum. He snapped his head back, unable to help himself. He hadn’t received many blowjobs before and never one this good.

Knowing that if she kept this up, he would boil over prematurely, she pulled away and straightened up. He opened his eyes slowly at the loss of contact and looked at her with dilated pupils. He was both a little awe struck and tongue-tied when she backed him onto her silver sheets and he kicked away his trousers and boxers, moving until his head reached her plush pillows. He watched, his expression a little dazed, as she straddled his bare waist, grazing her clothed pussy against his cock. She unclasped her bra and threw it across the room, smiling as Jungkook eyed her bare breasts. She leaned forwards and pressed her right nipple to his lips.

“Suck my tits.” She whispered, shifting against him to elicit a moan. He complied and opened his mouth against her; circling his tongue around the hard nubs and sucking gently. She moaned at the sensation; his lips felt amazing and made her cunt tingle delightfully. She felt him twitch against her thigh.

“You’re cock is so big.” She moaned, pulling away from him. He let go of her nipple but kept his lips parted as he watched her slide down her denim shorts and red thong, discarding them both on the floor. Her pussy had been waxed immaculately, something he had never encountered before. The sight of it, her lips plump and flushed, made him lick his lips subconsciously. She noticed and, with a smile, moved forward to straddle his face, wanting him to taste her. She clutched the cushioned silver headboard with both arms as she moved her wet slit against his lips. After a moment of surprise and, if he were honest with himself, alarm, he slipped out his tongue and touched it to her nervously.

Like the blowjob, this was something novel to him, his ex, Jia, had certainly never allowed him to do anything like this to her. Wanting to try his best, he grasped her fleshy thighs and held her to him, keeping his tongue steady as she gyrated her hips, moaning loudly. He felt the softness of her folds and the little nub of her clitoris against his muscle. She tasted salty and, surprisingly, a little fruity, like the wine she had been drinking. She continued for a few moments before pulling away, moving back down his body so their hips were aligned.

Lubricated with his saliva, her pussy slid around him easily as she sat on his cock.

“Oh, fuck!” He gasped as he felt himself sink into her. She felt tight and warm and slick.She licked her lips and smiled at his pleasured expression.

“You like this pussy?” She groaned, moving against him. He snapped his eyes shut for the first few minutes as she dragged her hips backwards and forwards, grinding against him. He clutched her hips and massaged the skin there with his thumb gently, in circular motions. Hearing her moan, he opened his eyes and gazed at her. Her mouth was parted in pleasure and he looked at her appreciatively, admiring the damp trail her pussy left against his crotch; how wet she was for him. He grasped her more firmly and guided her body against him, encouraging her move her hips in circular motions. He watched the space between their bodies with fascination as his glistening cock disappeared and reappeared as she bounced up and down on him.

Suddenly, she moved off him, causing his cock to flop against his stomach. He whined, unexpectedly, at the loss, but found himself moaning with pleasure moments later when she moved down his body, pursed her lips and spat a mouthful of saliva on his cock. She grasped him tightly with one, manicured hand, and sucked him quickly, bobbing her head enthusiastically. Once again, he panicked that the sensation was too intense; that he would finish this way if she kept it up any longer and now he had felt her around him, he wanted desperately to fuck her again. He brushed her hair gently, encouraging her to stop.

Leaning forward, he kissed her passionately, opening his mouth against hers and pressing his palm to her cheek. She moaned against him. It was an intimate kiss and she felt her knees quiver with the sensation. She hadn’t been kissed like that in a long time and once again, her mind wandered to his ex girlfriend and how lucky she had been to have had this man as a boyfriend. He pulled away from her lips with a soft gasp to kiss and suck at her breasts, her nipples quickly disappeared between his plump pout.

Flipping her over by the hips, he gently guided her onto her back and pressed her into the sheets, his mouth moving from her chest back to her mouth as he tugged her legs a little roughly, straightening her up before entering her again. He kept his body upright and wrapped her legs around his hips, holding her thighs in place as he fucked her quickly. Their moans echoed around the room and he hoped the sounds of the nearby drum and bass music would mask their passion from the neighbours.

“You feel so good.” She gasped, gazing up at him as he fucked her.

“So do you.” He replied in a croaky voice, his entire body consumed with the feel of her. He moved his eyes from her flushed, damp face to her body. Her breasts were large and surprisingly good for her age. He licked his lips, roaming his eyes from the perky buds of her nipples to her stomach. The position they were in naturally caused the skin on her otherwise slender stomach to bunch a little; creating creases. He noted one crease larger than the others, just above her pubis and vaguely wondered whether it was a scar. He didn’t linger on this as the sound of her loud moans brought his attention back to her face.

While he hadn’t thought her so earlier, he now recognised that she was beautiful. He pressed his body against her, maintaining eye contact as he felt the beginning of his orgasm brewing from deep in his body. She held his face still between her damp palms as he thrust into her deeply, burying his cock as far as he could. As he began to orgasm, he clutched the centre of his shaft tightly and pulled out of her. Straddling her hips, the pearly liquid shot from the tip and landed on her upper stomach, between her rib cage, and the bottom of her breasts.

“Oh fuck!” He gasped, his cheeks scarlet as he milked himself onto her, his hand moving frantically along his cock, squeezing the head gently with his thumb and index finger. She reached out and took him in her hand, stroking him against her nipples and moaning as his cock ejected the last of his desire against her breasts in little trails.

Out of breath, he collapsed beside her on the covers, his black hair sticking up in little damp tufts, making him look younger. She reached over him to her bedside table and opened the top draw to remove a baby pink object. He eyed this curiously as she moved back on top of him. Sex toys were not something he had much experience with and he wondered how this was supposed to work. He was a little awe struck at the thought of her having them stored so casually by her bedside.

“Here, hold this.” She whispered, handing it to him. He took it without question and held it out. One end was thicker than the other but he could already tell it wasn’t used for inside exploration. She reached and flicked a small switch he hadn’t noticed along the barrel. The thick end began to hum softly and he felt the vibrations in his palm. She edged herself forwards until her bare slit was pressed against the thick end of the toy and slowly began to grate herself against it, angling her hips so it made direct contact with her swollen clit. Jungkook tried to hold it as still as possible as she moved; his gaze fixed on her pussy which glistened with her pleasure. Seeing her get herself off like this was unlike anything he had ever seen before and, did he not feel so thoroughly fucked, he would have undoubtedly gotten hard again at the sight. It didn’t take long for her to orgasm. Her eyes fluttered closed and she bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood as she rode it out. Jungkook didn’t turn off the device until she stopped her movement completely.

“Fuck, that was good.” She gasped, moving off him and taking the wand from him. He watched her deliriously as she slid off the bed and moved to the door. She opened it and went into the bathroom, just across the dark landing. He could just about see her as she turned on the light and stood at the sink, washing the toy and her breasts. She disappeared for a moment behind the open door, presumably to use the toilet, before returning to the bedroom. Reaching into a set of draws, she put on a fresh pair of briefs and moved to the bed.

“I really needed that.” She sighed as she placed her head on his chest. Without thinking, he cradled her gently, wrapping his arms around her bare shoulders. “It looks like you did too.” She muttered as she closed her eyes. They were both asleep ten minutes later.

The first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes was that his head hurt. The second was that the room was not immediately familiar to him. He looked around, eyeing the silver wallpaper and the golden painted sets of draws. He rolled over onto his side, feeling his temples protest at the sudden motion, and noticed a small, silver key and a piece of paper on the bedside table. He picked it up and read the writing printed across it.

I had to go out. Can you post the key through the letter box after you’ve locked up?

He sighed, remembering where he was and why his head hurt so much. He wasn’t much of a wine drinker, instead preferring to stick to beer. Moving slowly as to not hurt his head anymore than was necessary, he got off the bed and began to get dressed. He was aware that his body felt dirty, having not showered the night before, but ignored this as he put on his boxers and jeans. Looking around the room, he panicked for a moment when he couldn’t find the t-shirt he had been wearing, before he remembered that the woman had taken it off downstairs. He was about to leave the room when a loud, beeping sound from outside the window caught his attention. He gazed out at the street and his mouth dropped open as he watched his Hyundai being towed on the back of a truck. The beeping sound alerted any pedestrians nearby to the fact it was backing up. Horrified, as well as confused, he started to pound his fists against the window, hoping to attract the driver’s attention.

“Wait! That’s my car!” He called, to no avail. A moment later, before he had even reached the open bedroom door, the truck had pulled away. He clutched his sore head in his hands, realising belatedly that he had given the insurance company the woman’s address last night instead of the address of the supermarket. He had also failed to describe the woman’s car to the polite receptionist. It was only natural that they would have towed the car they already had on their records.

“Shit!” He called to himself. His cursing uncharacteristic but certainly warranted. Feeling bruised and embarrassed, he grabbed the front door key and made his way across the narrow landing. The daylight revealed that other than the bedroom and bathroom, there were two other rooms upstairs. On one, a wooden placard, painted in pink and orange hues, spelled out the name Chung-ae. The other room boasted a blue and green plaque with the name Joo-won. Frowning, he walked downstairs, dodging past a Barbie doll in the hallway which he realised he had tripped over in the darkness last night. Forgetting which door led to the living room, he pushed on the wooden surface of the nearest and found himself confronted with a play room. A model train set circled the wooden floor and a pink and purple doll’s house adorned the corner. He glanced at the picture frame which hung on one wall and saw the twin smiles of two children, a boy and a girl of around three and six, gazing at him. He closed the door and realised, as he reached for the handle of the adjacent room, what the scar had been on the woman’s stomach.

He found his t-shirt on the carpet and slipped it on, grimacing as he caught sight of himself in the hallway mirror. His jeans were stained from the wine he had spilled and his hair stuck up in a dozen different places. He wondered, idly, whether the woman was out picking her children up from their father’s.

Fishing his cell from his pocket, realising that without his car he had no way of getting home, he dialled Taehyung’s number and let it ring. On the third ring he realised, with a slight panic, that if Taehyung found out about this, it would undoubtedly be passed along to Jimin who would never let him hear the end of it. He quickly hung up and searched through his contacts. He considered telephoning Namjoon but decided against it. Finally, after a moment’s thought, he pressed on Hoseok’s name. He answered on the tenth ring.

“Hello?”

Jungkook took a deep breath. “Hoseok. You have to come and get me. My car’s been towed!”

“What?” Jungkook could almost picture the older member’s puzzled expression on the other end of the line.

“I don’t have a car.” Jungkook tried to explain, feeling himself panic once more. His temples pulsated uncomfortably and his stomach felt unpleasant. “I don’t know where I am.”

“What’s he saying?” A low voice purred from the other end of the phone, a little muffled. Jungkook realised that Yoongi was with Hoseok and he sighed.

“He says his car’s been towed…” Hoseok explained to Yoongi, his voice louder and clearer on the line than his companion’s had been.

“Was he parked illegally?” Yoongi muttered drily, making Hoseok chuckle. He quickly gathered himself.

“Where you parked illegally?” Hoseok echoed. Jungkook rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time for this.

“No. I gave the towing company the wrong address.” He said, trying to be patient but failing.

“He gave them the wrong address.” Hoseok explained to Yoongi, his voice getting softer as he moved the phone away from his ear.

“Where is he?” Yoongi asked in the background.

“Where are you?” Hoseok repeated.

“I don’t know!” He exclaimed, feeling his frustration rising, about to boil over along with the contents of his stomach. He clutched onto the banister to steady himself. “Somewhere in Eunpyeong. North of the Han River.”

“He doesn’t know.” Hoseok repeated, telling Yoongi. “Somewhere north of the city.”

He could hear Yoongi sigh in the background. “Tell him to turn on maps on his phone.”

“Yoongi says to turn on your maps.” Hoseok said.

Jungkook didn’t bother explaining that he could hear every word Yoongi was saying. “Okay. I’ll call you back with the address…” He hung up.

Hoseok and Yoongi pulled up outside the house in the younger member’s dark green Toyota. It had been difficult to navigate the small, narrow streets around the district and they had struggled to fit the large vehicle down a few. The trip had taken an extra twenty minutes than they anticipated and Jungkook positively ripped the front door open, having watched them approach from out the window. The small front garden was littered with plastic toys, a hula hoop lay abandoned on the patch of grass and a Fisher Price red and yellow toy car was toppled over beside it, like the relic of a car crash. As Jungkook locked the front door behind him, he wondered how he hadn’t noticed them the night before. Then again, the street lamps had been incredibly dim and her bags of groceries had blocked most of his view.

The two older members watched him with amusement as he left the building.

“Why’s he posting the key through the door?” Yoongi asked indifferently.

Hoseok shrugged. “Do you think he broke in?”

Jungkook, his task finished, practically ran to the car. Half-way down the footpath, he tripped over a football. Yoongi and Hoseok tried to contain their sniggers as he reached them and flung the back door open. There was a long pause as he fastened his seatbelt.

Eventually, Yoongi spoke up. “Is this a heist?” He asked with a smirk.

Jungkook met his gaze through the rear view mirror. “I got lost.”

“We can see that.” Yoongi said. Jungkook realised that Yoongi had caught on to what had happened.

Hoseok turned around from the driver’s side to look at the younger member. His eyes roamed from his startled expression to his clothes. “Your jeans are dirty.” He said, a little alarmed. Jungkook looked down with a blush. Unlike Yoongi, Hoseok seemed baffled by the situation and Jungkook wondered whether the older hyung would tell him about it later.

“Good shopping trip?” Yoongi asked with a grin, his tongue sticking out a little between his teeth.

Jungkook sighed, his head still throbbed. “Can we go home please?”

***

Thank you so much for reading! The next event in Jungkook’s timeline in our headcanon universe is 7 Minutes in Heaven.

You can read all about our headcanon universe plot and characters here

You can find all of the member’s headcanon fics in order here: RM / Jin / Suga / J-Hope / Jimin / V / Jungkook

& our full masterlist for more fics, scenarios, lists and fan art can be found here

You can support us by buying admins a coffee here (if you wish). :)

152 notes · View notes

and-then-there-were-n0ne · 4 years

Text

In the economic sphere too, the ability to hold a hammer or press a button is becoming less valuable than before. In the past, there were many things only humans could do. But now robots and computers are catching up, and may soon outperform humans in most tasks. True, computers function very differently from humans, and it seems unlikely that computers will become humanlike any time soon. In particular, it doesn’t seem that computers are about to gain consciousness, and to start experiencing emotions and sensations. Over the last decades there has been an immense advance in computer intelligence, but there has been exactly zero advance in computer consciousness. As far as we know, computers in 2016 are no more conscious than their prototypes in the 1950s. However, we are on the brink of a momentous revolution. Humans are in danger of losing their value, because intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

Until today, high intelligence always went hand in hand with a developed consciousness. Only conscious beings could perform tasks that required a lot of intelligence, such as playing chess, driving cars, diagnosing diseases or identifying terrorists. However, we are now developing new types of non-conscious intelligence that can perform such tasks far better than humans. For all these tasks are based on pattern recognition, and non-conscious algorithms may soon excel human consciousness in recognising patterns. This raises a novel question: which of the two is really important, intelligence or consciousness? As long as they went hand in hand, debating their relative value was just a pastime for philosophers. But in the twenty-first century, this is becoming an urgent political and economic issue. And it is sobering to realise that, at least for armies and corporations, the answer is straightforward: intelligence is mandatory but consciousness is optional.

Armies and corporations cannot function without intelligent agents, but they don’t need consciousness and subjective experiences. The conscious experiences of a flesh-and-blood taxi driver are infinitely richer than those of a self-driving car, which feels absolutely nothing. The taxi driver can enjoy music while navigating the busy streets of Seoul. His mind may expand in awe as he looks up at the stars and contemplates the mysteries of the universe. His eyes may fill with tears of joy when he sees his baby girl taking her very first step. But the system doesn’t need all that from a taxi driver. All it really wants is to bring passengers from point A to point B as quickly, safely and cheaply as possible. And the autonomous car will soon be able to do that far better than a human driver, even though it cannot enjoy music or be awestruck by the magic of existence.

Indeed, if we forbid humans to drive taxis and cars altogether, and give computer algorithms monopoly over traffic, we can then connect all vehicles to a single network, and thereby make car accidents virtually impossible. In August 2015, one of Google’s experimental self-driving cars had an accident. As it approached a crossing and detected pedestrians wishing to cross, it applied its brakes. A moment later it was hit from behind by a sedan whose careless human driver was perhaps contemplating the mysteries of the universe instead of watching the road. This could not have happened if both vehicles were steered by interlinked computers. The controlling algorithm would have known the position and intentions of every vehicle on the road, and would not have allowed two of its marionettes to collide. Such a system will save lots of time, money and human lives – but it will also do away with the human experience of driving a car and with tens of millions of human jobs.

Some economists predict that sooner or later, unenhanced humans will be completely useless. While robots and 3D printers replace workers in manual jobs such as manufacturing shirts, highly intelligent algorithms will do the same to white-collar occupations. Bank clerks and travel agents, who a short time ago were completely secure from automation, have become endangered species. How many travel agents do we need when we can use our smartphones to buy plane tickets from an algorithm?

Stock-exchange traders are also in danger. Most trade today is already being managed by computer algorithms, which can process in a second more data than a human can in a year, and that can react to the data much faster than a human can blink. On 23 April 2013, Syrian hackers broke into Associated Press’s official Twitter account. At 13:07 they tweeted that the White House had been attacked and President Obama was hurt. Trade algorithms that constantly monitor newsfeeds reacted in no time, and began selling stocks like mad. The Dow Jones went into free fall, and within sixty seconds lost 150 points, equivalent to a loss of $136 billion! At 13:10 Associated Press clarified that the tweet was a hoax. The algorithms reversed gear, and by 13:13 the Dow Jones had recuperated almost all the losses.

Three years previously, on 6 May 2010, the New York stock exchange underwent an even sharper shock. Within five minutes – from 14:42 to 14:47 – the Dow Jones dropped by 1,000 points, wiping out $1 trillion. It then bounced back, returning to its pre-crash level in a little over three minutes. That’s what happens when super-fast computer programs are in charge of our money. Experts have been trying ever since to understand what happened in this so-called ‘Flash Crash’. We know algorithms were to blame, but we are still not sure exactly what went wrong. Some traders in the USA have already filed lawsuits against algorithmic trading, arguing that it unfairly discriminates against human beings, who simply cannot react fast enough to compete. Quibbling whether this really constitutes a violation of rights might provide lots of work and lots of fees for lawyers.

And these lawyers won’t necessarily be human. Movies and TV series give the impression that lawyers spend their days in court shouting ‘Objection!’ and making impassioned speeches. Yet most run-of-the-mill lawyers spend their time going over endless files, looking for precedents, loopholes and tiny pieces of potentially relevant evidence. Some are busy trying to figure out what happened on the night John Doe got killed, or formulating a gargantuan business contract that will protect their client against every conceivable eventuality. What will be the fate of all these lawyers once sophisticated search algorithms can locate more precedents in a day than a human can in a lifetime, and once brain scans can reveal lies and deceptions at the press of a button? Even highly experienced lawyers and detectives cannot easily spot deceptions merely by observing people’s facial expressions and tone of voice. However, lying involves different brain areas to those used when we tell the truth. We’re not there yet, but it is conceivable that in the not too distant future fMRI scanners could function as almost infallible truth machines. Where will that leave millions of lawyers, judges, cops and detectives? They might need to go back to school and learn a new profession.

When they get in the classroom, however, they may well discover that the algorithms have got there first. Companies such as Mindojo are developing interactive algorithms that not only teach me maths, physics and history, but also simultaneously study me and get to know exactly who I am. Digital teachers will closely monitor every answer I give, and how long it took me to give it. Over time, they will discern my unique weaknesses as well as my strengths. They will identify what gets me excited, and what makes my eyelids droop. They could teach me thermodynamics or geometry in a way that suits my personality type, even if that particular way doesn’t suit 99 per cent of the other pupils. And these digital teachers will never lose their patience, never shout at me, and never go on strike. It is unclear, however, why on earth I would need to know thermodynamics or geometry in a world containing such intelligent computer programs.

Even doctors are fair game for the algorithms. The first and foremost task of most doctors is to diagnose diseases correctly, and then suggest the best available treatment. If I arrive at the clinic complaining about fever and diarrhoea, I might be suffering from food poisoning. Then again, the same symptoms might result from a stomach virus, cholera, dysentery, malaria, cancer or some unknown new disease. My doctor has only five minutes to make a correct diagnosis, because this is what my health insurance pays for. This allows for no more than a few questions and perhaps a quick medical examination. The doctor then cross-references this meagre information with my medical history, and with the vast world of human maladies. Alas, not even the most diligent doctor can remember all my previous ailments and check-ups. Similarly, no doctor can be familiar with every illness and drug, or read every new article published in every medical journal. To top it all, the doctor is sometimes tired or hungry or perhaps even sick, which affects her judgement. No wonder that doctors often err in their diagnoses, or recommend a less-than-optimal treatment.

Now consider IBM’s famous Watson – an artificial intelligence system that won the Jeopardy! television game show in 2011, beating human former champions. Watson is currently groomed to do more serious work, particularly in diagnosing diseases. An AI such as Watson has enormous potential advantages over human doctors. Firstly, an AI can hold in its databanks information about every known illness and medicine in history. It can then update these databanks every day, not only with the findings of new researches, but also with medical statistics gathered from every clinic and hospital in the world.

Secondly, Watson can be intimately familiar not only with my entire genome and my day-to-day medical history, but also with the genomes and medical histories of my parents, siblings, cousins, neighbours and friends. Watson will know instantly whether I visited a tropical country recently, whether I have recurring stomach infections, whether there have been cases of intestinal cancer in my family or whether people all over town are complaining this morning about diarrhoea.

Thirdly, Watson will never be tired, hungry or sick, and will have all the time in the world for me. I could sit comfortably on my sofa at home and answer hundreds of questions, telling Watson exactly how I feel. This is good news for most patients (except perhaps hypochondriacs). But if you enter medical school today in the expectation of still being a family doctor in twenty years, maybe you should think again. With such a Watson around, there is not much need for Sherlocks.

This threat hovers over the heads not only of general practitioners, but also of experts. Indeed, it might prove easier to replace doctors specialising in a relatively narrow field such as cancer diagnosis. For example, in a recent experiment a computer algorithm diagnosed correctly 90 per cent of lung cancer cases presented to it, while human doctors had a success rate of only 50 per cent. In fact, the future is already here. CT scans and mammography tests are routinely checked by specialised algorithms, which provide doctors with a second opinion, and sometimes detect tumours that the doctors missed.

A host of tough technical problems still prevent Watson and its ilk from replacing most doctors tomorrow morning. Yet these technical problems – however difficult – need only be solved once. The training of a human doctor is a complicated and expensive process that lasts years. When the process is complete, after ten years of studies and internships, all you get is one doctor. If you want two doctors, you have to repeat the entire process from scratch. In contrast, if and when you solve the technical problems hampering Watson, you will get not one, but an infinite number of doctors, available 24/7 in every corner of the world. So even if it costs $100 billion to make it work, in the long run it would be much cheaper than training human doctors.

And what’s true of doctors is doubly true of pharmacists. In 2011 a pharmacy opened in San Francisco manned by a single robot. When a human comes to the pharmacy, within seconds the robot receives all of the customer’s prescriptions, as well as detailed information about other medicines taken by them, and their suspected allergies. The robot makes sure the new prescriptions don’t combine adversely with any other medicine or allergy, and then provides the customer with the required drug. In its first year of operation the robotic pharmacist provided 2 million prescriptions, without making a single mistake. On average, flesh-and-blood pharmacists get wrong 1.7 per cent of prescriptions. In the United States alone this amounts to more than 50 million prescription errors every year!

Some people argue that even if an algorithm could outperform doctors and pharmacists in the technical aspects of their professions, it could never replace their human touch. If your CT indicates you have cancer, would you like to receive the news from a caring and empathetic human doctor, or from a machine? Well, how about receiving the news from a caring and empathetic machine that tailors its words to your personality type? Remember that organisms are algorithms, and Watson could detect your emotional state with the same accuracy that it detects your tumours.

This idea has already been implemented by some customer-services departments, such as those pioneered by the Chicago-based Mattersight Corporation. Mattersight publishes its wares with the following advert: ‘Have you ever spoken with someone and felt as though you just clicked? The magical feeling you get is the result of a personality connection. Mattersight creates that feeling every day, in call centers around the world.’ When you call customer services with a request or complaint, it usually takes a few seconds to route your call to a representative. In Mattersight systems, your call is routed by a clever algorithm. You first state the reason for your call. The algorithm listens to your request, analyses the words you have chosen and your tone of voice, and deduces not only your present emotional state but also your personality type – whether you are introverted, extroverted, rebellious or dependent. Based on this information, the algorithm links you to the representative that best matches your mood and personality. The algorithm knows whether you need an empathetic person to patiently listen to your complaints, or you prefer a no-nonsense rational type who will give you the quickest technical solution. A good match means both happier customers and less time and money wasted by the customer-services department.

The most important question in twenty-first-century economics may well be what to do with all the superfluous people. What will conscious humans do, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better?

Throughout history the job market was divided into three main sectors: agriculture, industry and services. Until about 1800, the vast majority of people worked in agriculture, and only a small minority worked in industry and services. During the Industrial Revolution people in developed countries left the fields and herds. Most began working in industry, but growing numbers also took up jobs in the services sector. In recent decades developed countries underwent another revolution, as industrial jobs vanished, whereas the services sector expanded. In 2010 only 2 per cent of Americans worked in agriculture, 20 per cent worked in industry, 78 per cent worked as teachers, doctors, webpage designers and so forth. When mindless algorithms are able to teach, diagnose and design better than humans, what will we do?

This is not an entirely new question. Ever since the Industrial Revolution erupted, people feared that mechanisation might cause mass unemployment. This never happened, because as old professions became obsolete, new professions evolved, and there was always something humans could do better than machines. Yet this is not a law of nature, and nothing guarantees it will continue to be like that in the future. Humans have two basic types of abilities: physical abilities and cognitive abilities. As long as machines competed with us merely in physical abilities, you could always find cognitive tasks that humans do better. So machines took over purely manual jobs, while humans focused on jobs requiring at least some cognitive skills. Yet what will happen once algorithms outperform us in remembering, analysing and recognising patterns?

The idea that humans will always have a unique ability beyond the reach of non-conscious algorithms is just wishful thinking. True, at present there are numerous things that organic algorithms do better than non-organic ones, and experts have repeatedly declared that something will ‘for ever’ remain beyond the reach of non-organic algorithms. But it turns out that ‘for ever’ often means no more than a decade or two. Until a short time ago, facial recognition was a favourite example of something which even babies accomplish easily but which escaped even the most powerful computers on earth. Today facial-recognition programs are able to recognise people far more efficiently and quickly than humans can. Police forces and intelligence services now use such programs to scan countless hours of video footage from surveillance cameras, tracking down suspects and criminals.

In the 1980s when people discussed the unique nature of humanity, they habitually used chess as primary proof of human superiority. They believed that computers would never beat humans at chess. On 10 February 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, laying to rest that particular claim for human pre-eminence.

Deep Blue was given a head start by its creators, who preprogrammed it not only with the basic rules of chess, but also with detailed instructions regarding chess strategies. A new generation of AI uses machine learning to do even more remarkable and elegant things. In February 2015 a program developed by Google DeepMind learned by itself how to play forty-nine classic Atari games. One of the developers, Dr Demis Hassabis, explained that ‘the only information we gave the system was the raw pixels on the screen and the idea that it had to get a high score. And everything else it had to figure out by itself.’ The program managed to learn the rules of all the games it was presented with, from Pac-Man and Space Invaders to car racing and tennis games. It then played most of them as well as or better than humans, sometimes coming up with strategies that never occur to human players.

Computer algorithms have recently proven their worth in ball games, too. For many decades, baseball teams used the wisdom, experience and gut instincts of professional scouts and managers to pick players. The best players fetched millions of dollars, and naturally enough the rich teams got the cream of the market, whereas poorer teams had to settle for the scraps. In 2002 Billy Beane, the manager of the low-budget Oakland Athletics, decided to beat the system. He relied on an arcane computer algorithm developed by economists and computer geeks to create a winning team from players that human scouts overlooked or undervalued. The old-timers were incensed by Beane’s algorithm transgressing into the hallowed halls of baseball. They said that picking baseball players is an art, and that only humans with an intimate and long-standing experience of the game can master it. A computer program could never do it, because it could never decipher the secrets and the spirit of baseball.

They soon had to eat their baseball caps. Beane’s shoestring-budget algorithmic team ($44 million) not only held its own against baseball giants such as the New York Yankees ($125 million), but became the first team ever in American League baseball to win twenty consecutive games. Not that Beane and Oakland could enjoy their success for long. Soon enough, many other baseball teams adopted the same algorithmic approach, and since the Yankees and Red Sox could pay far more for both baseball players and computer software, low-budget teams such as the Oakland Athletics now had an even smaller chance of beating the system than before.

In 2004 Professor Frank Levy from MIT and Professor Richard Murnane from Harvard published a thorough research of the job market, listing those professions most likely to undergo automation. Truck drivers were given as an example of a job that could not possibly be automated in the foreseeable future. It is hard to imagine, they wrote, that algorithms could safely drive trucks on a busy road. A mere ten years later, Google and Tesla not only imagine this, but are actually making it happen.

In fact, as time goes by, it becomes easier and easier to replace humans with computer algorithms, not merely because the algorithms are getting smarter, but also because humans are professionalising. Ancient hunter-gatherers mastered a very wide variety of skills in order to survive, which is why it would be immensely difficult to design a robotic hunter-gatherer. Such a robot would have to know how to prepare spear points from flint stones, how to find edible mushrooms in a forest, how to use medicinal herbs to bandage a wound, how to track down a mammoth and how to coordinate a charge with a dozen other hunters. However, over the last few thousand years we humans have been specialising. A taxi driver or a cardiologist specialises in a much narrower niche than a hunter-gatherer, which makes it easier to replace them with AI.

Even the managers in charge of all these activities can be replaced. Thanks to its powerful algorithms, Uber can manage millions of taxi drivers with only a handful of humans. Most of the commands are given by the algorithms without any need of human supervision. In May 2014 Deep Knowledge Ventures – a Hong Kong venture-capital firm specialising in regenerative medicine – broke new ground by appointing an algorithm called VITAL to its board. VITAL makes investment recommendations by analysing huge amounts of data on the financial situation, clinical trials and intellectual property of prospective companies. Like the other five board members, the algorithm gets to vote on whether the firm makes an investment in a specific company or not.

Examining VITAL’s record so far, it seems that it has already picked up one managerial vice: nepotism. It has recommended investing in companies that grant algorithms more authority. With VITAL’s blessing, Deep Knowledge Ventures has recently invested in Silico Medicine, which develops computer-assisted methods for drug research, and in Pathway Pharmaceuticals, which employs a platform called OncoFinder to select and rate personalised cancer therapies.

As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might not only manage businesses, but actually come to own them. At present, human law already recognises intersubjective entities like corporations and nations as ‘legal persons’. Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they can own land and money, and they can sue and be sued in court. We might soon grant similar status to algorithms. An algorithm could then own a venture-capital fund without having to obey the wishes of any human master.

If the algorithm makes the right decisions, it could accumulate a fortune, which it could then invest as it sees fit, perhaps buying your house and becoming your landlord. If you infringe on the algorithm’s legal rights – say, by not paying rent – the algorithm could hire lawyers and sue you in court. If such algorithms consistently outperform human fund managers, we might end up with an algorithmic upper class owning most of our planet. This may sound impossible, but before dismissing the idea, remember that most of our planet is already legally owned by non-human inter-subjective entities, namely nations and corporations. Indeed, 5,000 years ago much of Sumer was owned by imaginary gods such as Enki and Inanna. If gods can possess land and employ people, why not algorithms?

So what will people do? Art is often said to provide us with our ultimate (and uniquely human) sanctuary. In a world where computers replace doctors, drivers, teachers and even landlords, everyone would become an artist. Yet it is hard to see why artistic creation will be safe from the algorithms. Why are we so sure computers will be unable to better us in the composition of music? According to the life sciences, art is not the product of some enchanted spirit or metaphysical soul, but rather of organic algorithms recognising mathematical patterns. If so, there is no reason why non-organic algorithms couldn’t master it.

David Cope is a musicology professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He is also one of the more controversial figures in the world of classical music. Cope has written programs that compose concertos, chorales, symphonies and operas. His first creation was named EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence), which specialised in imitating the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. It took seven years to create the program, but once the work was done, EMI composed 5,000 chorales à la Bach in a single day. Cope arranged a performance of a few select chorales in a music festival at Santa Cruz. Enthusiastic members of the audience praised the wonderful performance, and explained excitedly how the music touched their innermost being. They didn’t know it was composed by EMI rather than Bach, and when the truth was revealed, some reacted with glum silence, while others shouted in anger.

EMI continued to improve, and learned to imitate Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky. Cope got EMI a contract, and its first album – Classical Music Composed by Computer – sold surprisingly well. Publicity brought increasing hostility from classical-music buffs. Professor Steve Larson from the University of Oregon sent Cope a challenge for a musical showdown. Larson suggested that professional pianists play three pieces one after the other: one by Bach, one by EMI, and one by Larson himself. The audience would then be asked to vote who composed which piece. Larson was convinced people would easily tell the difference between soulful human compositions, and the lifeless artefact of a machine. Cope accepted the challenge. On the appointed date, hundreds of lecturers, students and music fans assembled in the University of Oregon’s concert hall. At the end of the performance, a vote was taken. The result? The audience thought that EMI’s piece was genuine Bach, that Bach’s piece was composed by Larson, and that Larson’s piece was produced by a computer.

Critics continued to argue that EMI’s music is technically excellent, but that it lacks something. It is too accurate. It has no depth. It has no soul. Yet when people heard EMI’s compositions without being informed of their provenance, they frequently praised them precisely for their soulfulness and emotional resonance.

Following EMI’s successes, Cope created newer and even more sophisticated programs. His crowning achievement was Annie. Whereas EMI composed music according to predetermined rules, Annie is based on machine learning. Its musical style constantly changes and develops in reaction to new inputs from the outside world. Cope has no idea what Annie is going to compose next. Indeed, Annie does not restrict itself to music composition but also explores other art forms such as haiku poetry. In 2011 Cope published Comes the Fiery Night: 2,000 Haiku by Man and Machine. Of the 2,000 haikus in the book, some are written by Annie, and the rest by organic poets. The book does not disclose which are which. If you think you can tell the difference between human creativity and machine output, you are welcome to test your claim.

In the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution created a huge new class of urban proletariats, in the twenty-first century we might witness the creation of a new massive class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society.

In September 2013 two Oxford researchers, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, published ‘The Future of Employment’, in which they surveyed the likelihood of different professions being taken over by computer algorithms within the next twenty years. The algorithm developed by Frey and Osborne to do the calculations estimated that 47 per cent of US jobs are at high risk. For example, there is a 99 per cent probability that by 2033 human telemarketers and insurance underwriters will lose their jobs to algorithms. There is a 98 per cent probability that the same will happen to sports referees, 97 per cent that it will happen to cashiers and 96 per cent to chefs. Waiters – 94 per cent. Paralegal assistants – 94 per cent. Tour guides – 91 per cent. Bakers – 89 per cent. Bus drivers – 89 per cent. Construction labourers – 88 per cent. Veterinary assistants – 86 per cent. Security guards – 84 per cent. Sailors – 83 per cent. Bartenders – 77 per cent. Archivists – 76 per cent. Carpenters – 72 per cent. Lifeguards – 67 per cent. And so forth. There are of course some safe jobs. The likelihood that computer algorithms will displace archaeologists by 2033 is only 0.7 per cent, because their job requires highly sophisticated types of pattern recognition, and doesn’t produce huge profits. Hence it is improbable that corporations or government will make the necessary investment to automate archaeology within the next twenty years.

Of course, by 2033 many new professions are likely to appear, for example, virtual-world designers. But such professions will probably require much more creativity and flexibility than your run-of-the-mill job, and it is unclear whether forty-year-old cashiers or insurance agents will be able to reinvent themselves as virtual-world designers (just try to imagine a virtual world created by an insurance agent!). And even if they do so, the pace of progress is such that within another decade they might have to reinvent themselves yet again. After all, algorithms might well outperform humans in designing virtual worlds too. The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms.

- Yuval Noah Harari, The Great Decoupling in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

#yuval noah harari #the great decoupling #homo deus: a brief history of tomorrow #homo deus

2 notes · View notes

conartisthaiji · 5 years

Text

i would walk a thousand miles

fictober day 9: you shouldn’t have come here

assassination classroom. hazama/kurahashi. au where you’re assigned a class (princess, prince, witch are the ones mentioned here) and have certain items/powers/actions relating to your class. you can do anything you want though. kind of a fairytale vibe. Hazama is a witch and Kurahashi is a princess.

fic under the cut! also on ao3 here

"Your princess is another castle” is a phrase that Hazama never, ever, ever wants to hear again.

She scowls and storms away from the twelfth tower she’s climbed.

“Kurahashi!” she screams in frustration. “When I find you, I will kill you!”

She stalks through the forest with reckless abandon. Screw this bullshit. Just because Kurahashi was born a princess does not mean that she needs to deal with the ramifications of searching for her. She herself was born into the witch class, not the prince class. Why then is it imperative that she climb all these towers in search of her? Can’t someone else be responsible for saving her? It’s been a year since she last saw the pretty princess anyways. Who’s to say Kurahashi’s still waiting for her?

“Stupid fairytales,” she hisses. “I refuse to do this the way it’s supposed to be done. I am not a prince, I am a witch!” She smashes her glass sword against a tree and rips off her stupid paper crown. Then she sighs. “I’ll find her, all right.” She unscrews the lid of one of the many glass jars hanging around her waist. “We need to rescue Kurahashi,” she says to the tarantula, Itona, inside. “And I refuse to do it in a matter befitting a prince. I am a witch, and I’m going to save her in a matter befitting a witch.”

Itona climbs onto her shoulder. “Go west.”

“If you insist, Itona.” Hazama starts to trek westward. “I must say, they make really good boots for princes. These have lasted me the entire hunt. The rest of the clothes need to REVERT!” She screams the last part, and the seams of princely garb split open and fall down into the traditional witch clothes that Hazama is used to. “That’s better,” she murmurs, running her hand down the wrinkled black fabric of her shirt. She pulls out her hat and plops it unceremoniously on her head.

Itona says nothing as she finishes reverting to a witch. Hazama takes stock of her supplies, then groans. “I don’t have anything to fly on!”

“We’re in a forest, Hazama,” Itona replies. “There are trees everywhere.”

“...right.” Hazama strides over to a large tree and picks up a decently large branch. “This should do it.” She straddles the branch and leaps into the air. “West, right?”

“Yes.” Itona jumps onto the end of the branch and makes himself comfortable. Hazama sighs as she soars out of the thick trees and breaks through into the starry sky above. The wind brushes past her face, and she leans slightly back, letting her hair be blown back. Her hat remains securely on, and Hazama relishes the feeling of freedom and flight that comes from being a witch. “Princes don’t know what they’re missing,” she muses as she shifts her branch marginally to continue the westward course. “Life is easier as a witch.”

“Can a witch be with a princess?”

“Shut it, Itona.” She grips the branch a little tighter. “I’ll shove you back in the jar and let Terasaka come out.”

“You wouldn’t.” Itona shifts slightly from his perch.

“Try me.” She pulls out the jar and carefully reaches out towards Itona. “Come on, get in the jar-”

“Noted!”

Hazama cackles. “That’s what I thought.”

She can practically feel Itona’s displeasure. He was right, though. She would never put him back in the jar. He is, without a doubt, the smartest of her familiars. Add the bonus of being the least annoying, and it really isn’t a contest among her four familiars.

“Hey. How far west?” She asks.

“You’ll know it when we get there.” Itona clambers onto her shoulder and pads around a couple of times. “Speed up the branch, though.”

Hazama curses. Stupid forest. Stupid towers. Stupid Kurahashi.

The branch cuts through the air. Hazama hunkers down and lets herself speed over the trees.

After what feels like forever, but, judging from sky, was really only a few hours, she spots a tower far off in the distance.

“There,” Itona whispers, and Hazama doesn’t need to be told twice. The setting sun makes the sky warm with oranges and reds, and Hazama is a streak of black hurtling towards the tower, desperate to see Kurahashi again.

“Slow down!” Itona shouts, and Hazama startles slightly. Right. She’s currently going fast enough to break the tower.

She slows down dramatically. The jars clink as they bump into each other. Hazama jolts forwards and grabs tighter to her branch. It’s going to take longer to get to Kurahashi, now that she’s begun decelerating. She continues flying, knuckles going white in anticipation.

“Relax.” Itona walks down her tense arms, forcing her to relax as his fuzzy feet tickle her. “It’s going to be fine.”

“What if it isn’t her?” Hazama asks softly.

She can feel the displeasure dripping from Itona. “Have I ever steered you the wrong way? If you had asked, say, Terasaka for advice, your worry would be justified.”

It’s true. She had originally asked for Terasaka for help, and he had suggested she be a Prince to save Kurahashi. Look how well that had turned out.

“Terasaka didn’t have a bad idea,” Itona mutters. “It’s just easier to do things in your way, rather than someone else’s.”

Hazama sighs. “What if she doesn’t want me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Itona is pacing up and down her arms now. “It’s Kurahashi. She was always kind to us. To you, especially.”

But she knows that her tarantula is unsure, so they continue to fly in silence.

Eventually, they come to complete stop just underneath the window. Hazama grabs the window ledge and hauls herself up.

“Kurahashi?” she asks, gazing around the small room. Orange hair litters the floor. “Kura...” Her voice trails off as she comes face to face with a brunette witch.

“You’re not Kurahashi,” she says dumbly.

“Who are you?” the strange witch demands.

“I’m here for Kurahashi.”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” the witch snaps. “Kurahashi left about a week ago.”

Left about a week ago.

She’s too late, then.

“Said she was going to find someone called Hazama and vanished,” the witch seethes. “Just climbed down the tower saying she wasn’t going to wait anymore! If you’re her prince, then you should’ve brought your slow ass here way earlier.”

“I’m Hazama.”

The witch’s eyes widen. “Oh. OH. Well.” She takes a moment to collect herself. “I’m Yada. You shouldn’t have come here, though. She’s already left to find you.”

She has to climb down the tower manually. When Yada had told her that Kurahashi had already left to find her, she had felt her tenuous grip on the branch snap, and the stupid branch had broken free of the magic keeping it hovering underneath the window. Right now, all four of her familiars rest on her shoulders. The tarantulas had gotten along decently with Yada’s finicky feline familiar, a rather spoiled Persian named Okano.

“It’s kind of nice that she decided to find you,” Muramatsu comments.

“Shut up.” She is not in the mood for this. All that searching, of acting like a prince, and when she reached Kurahashi’s tower the girl had vanished. Chopped off her hair and disappeared into the forest, according to Yada.

“It shows she still remembers you.” Terasaka turns around on her shoulder. “Once we get back home, you can just use your scrying bowl to find her.”

“I don’t want to hear from you,” Hazama retorts.

She finishes her climb in silence. None of her familiars say anything as she picks up her branch and prepares a course for home.

Home, huh. A wry smile crosses her lips. She has yet to return to her small cottage. Everything is covered in dust, probably, and she wouldn’t be surprised if the animals had ravaged her garden.

For Kurahashi though, it was worth it.

Or at least, if she’d actually found the stupid princess, it would have been worth it.

Hazama sighs as they soar through the sky. What a waste of a year. She’ll have to start over.

It’ll help keep her mind off of the wasted time spent searching for Kurahashi. She can reassemble her life while Kurahashi goes off on whatever adventures she had planned.

She circles around the overgrowth that surrounds her cottage, surveying the damage. Weeds have overrun her plants, and her plants have grown wild and broken free of their original spaces. The roof is covered in leaves and dirt, and she thinks there’s a bird nest on the chimney. She groans at the mere thought of how much work she has to do.

Her feet touch the ground and the branch clatters harmlessly on the stones that form crude pathways. Moss covers certain areas, but Hazama is pleased that the smooth grey rock is still mostly visible. She strides up to her front door and pulls out the old key from her belt.

“It’ll be fine,” Yoshida says, sensing her nerves.

“Don’t worry. Nothing will have broken,” Itona adds.

“I’m not nervous,” she lies, shoving the key into the lock and pushing open her door. She steps foot in the still darkness of her cottage, her foot disturbing the layer of dust that coats the floor. Muramatsu hops off her shoulder and scuttles across the dusty floor, his tiny feet leaving small disturbances wherever he goes.

“Let’s get to work,” Terasaka says, and her remaining familiars hop off her shoulders and vanish into the cottage.

She sighs. “Let’s get to work,” she murmurs, and throws open the curtains to let some light in.

Dusting is tedious, and Hazama thinks she would be content to never touch a dust rag ever again.

Currently, she has enchanted a mop to clean the floor while she takes the dead plant husks outside for compost. The dirty windows have been wiped to better allow light to stream through. Her books, despite being dusty, appear to be in good condition still. The door is open to allow for fresh air, since the place smells musty and old. She scowls as she wades through the sea of plants that scratch at her skirt. Inside first, she reminds herself.

“Hazama!”

Her head whips up, and leaning on the fence, gazing at the overgrowth, is a certain redheaded princess.

“Kurahashi.”

Kurahashi laughs. “What happened to your cottage?”

“I went looking for you, dummy,” Hazama replies, slowly making her way to the fence. “I spent an entire year searching and searching only to be told that you’d left a week ago!” Tears are gathering her eyes, and she wants to bang her head in frustration over the display of weakness.

Kurahashi climbs over the fence and opens her arms wide. “I should’ve known you were looking for me. But I missed you so much; I grew impatient. I wanted to see you again, and I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

Hazama yanks Kurahashi into a fierce kiss. ��Don’t ever disappear like that again,” she murmurs once they’ve pulled away.

Kurahashi smiles, those jewel green eyes glittering with mirth and fondness. “I missed you.”

Hazama kisses her again.

“I missed you too.”

She can feel Kurahashi smiling as they kiss again and again.

#fictober 2018 #lmao #its nanowrimo now #hahaha #assassination classroom #hazama/kurahashi #i tried my hardest #My writing #oh boy this is kinda crappy

11 notes · View notes

drones-of-innocence · 6 years

Text

Universal Gravitation

O~o~O

The silence was deafening. There was nothing, nothing at all except for the spots of light, too far away to make out. And even then, he was becoming blind to them. They must have meant something up close, but from so far away, they were reduced to meaninglessness.

The soft murmurs of the transmissions had been the only sound in the cabin. Quiet, technical conversations went on, too low for him to comprehend them, as he never bothered to listen anymore. But still, the meaningless words had provided some semblance comfort. The faint droning of men and women at home, up at all hours had become dimly familiar, even if they spoke about aerodynamics and computer science that went beyond his understanding. The condition of the computer’s program, the status of the thermal protection system, and the effect of debris on the outer hull, anything that could possibly go wrong was being accounted for. He could have understood if it made a difference, but he’d learned to tune out the noise.

He had been gazing sleepily out his window, into the stark cosmos. Before him was history in the making, the sharp outline of Mars to his right. He remembered when Mars was nothing more than a big yellow star in the sky on a clear night, back when his fantasies ran wild and free. Back then, Mars was just a distant thought, a dream underlined by a reluctant understanding that it wouldn’t happen within his lifetime. And still, he dreamed. As a kid, his bedroom wall was lined with poster after poster of the planets, his ceiling dotted with glow-in-the-dark galaxies. When he closed his eyes, he was up there, sleeping among the stars.

Blinking at the large, cratered expanse before him, he reckoned he finally caught up with his imagination.

“Jones. Jones, do you copy, over?”

He had faintly recognized his name distantly in his thoughts, only to realize he wasn’t dreaming. Jolting, he quickly reached to press flashing light on the communicator. “Yeah, Capcom, I’m here. I dozed off for a moment, over.”

There was a short pause, after he released the button. As he was staring up at nothing, the reply came with a faint warble of amusement. “How’s it looking, over?”

His eyes wandered to the red planet. “Beautiful, just beautiful. The pictures just can’t compare to the real thing, over.”

He could hear the smile. “I can only imagine, Jones. Over.”

Falling quiet, he had wondered what Mars looked like from the shuttle’s camera. He imagined a somewhat grainy, rose-tinted hue, with an overly saturated image that exaggerated the color of Mars to a blood orange. Perhaps there’d be some disruption in the signal, some static that would send Mission Control into a momentary panic to regain contact. It had been a cold reminder of how far away he truly was, alone. Kilometers upon kilometers, he’d heard the distance so many times. Numbers were easy to look at, but hard to truly comprehend.

The process of falling into Mars’ orbit would begin in a few hours, and that would be the true test of NASA’s past thirty years. It would be the first time a manned spacecraft would orbit Mars. The shuttle would use a technique called aerobraking, which would take advantage of the planet’s own atmosphere to slow down and gradually fall in. The process would take roughly another six months, if all the previous probes were anything to go on. The best mission control could have given him was an estimate.

He was dizzy, but it wasn’t because he was spinning. Consciousness rolled over him like a wave, like the oceans he would never touch. He wondered; what had be become now? Where he had once been the dreamer, perhaps he was the dream. A dream that failed instantly and forever ago, and it would take approximately three minutes for that information to reach earth. Light was the fastest messenger of them all, but it wasn’t quite fast enough.

“Jones. We are detecting a slight disturbance, over.”

Perhaps those minutes had passed already, perhaps the light had opened their eyes.

“Capcom to Jones, there appears to be something wrong with the program, over.”

Some might see it as a great tragedy to learn from. Others likely saw it as millions of dollars in wasted technology.

“Jones, please respond, over.”

He felt like he’d been asleep for less than a minute when he jerked awake, only to realize Mars took up most of the window. He had stared, slack jawed for a moment, just trying to process the sheer detail he could see. With no special equipment, he make out craters and the volcanoes, seeing with his own eyes just how red it was. No image could accurately describe the planet, but he tried to imagine how he could portray it back home. Mars was the color of monarch butterflies and leaves in the fall, it was the color of the orange callas in his mom’s garden. It was the color of the sodium street lights on rainy nights back home, back where he knew all the rules.

Figuring he must have been asleep for at least three hours, he remembered clumsily pressed the communicator. “Could you repeat that, over?”

Immediately, Capcom came in. “Jones, the computer is not responding to our commands. You’re going in too fast. Over.”

“What should I do?” he frowned, glancing around at the flashing lights warning of building heat. He pressed the keypad a few times. “It’s not showing me anything wrong on my end, over.”

He was another tick on a list of many mistakes. Gazing at the distant, orange marble, he understood for the first time that he was very small. His miscalculation was one of many, and that was the way it was supposed to be. How would humanity make any progress otherwise? Even in failure, he served a purpose to better everyone. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good, even if it meant leaving behind everything he ever knew.

The next reply didn’t come until after a long moment of hesitation, and it had worried him. “It appears to be a glitch of some sort due to some damage on the shuttle. You’re going to have to do manual override to correct the trajectory.” a heavy sigh made it through the speaker. “You’ll have to listen very carefully to our exact calculations. One degree off and you’ll either burn up in the atmosphere or go careening into space. Over.”

He remembered thinking it suddenly felt very warm in the cabin. With an unsteady hand, he had pressed the communicator. “Understood. Over.”

The buzzing chatter of the voices back at Mission Control seemed more excitable, then. He looked up once more to the window, where Mars gazed back at him with it’s rusted brilliance. If he held up a hand, he felt like he could touch it.

He remembered, with fond tears stinging his eyes, when he was a boy, desperately trying to recreate the stars with LED lights in his room. Endless hours were spent tracing constellations and galaxies, trying to make his sky map as accurate as possible. His father had helped him build a telescope so powerful he could make out the craters on the moon in blinding clarity. On road trips out in the country, he always insisted stopping at night so he could have a chance to gaze up at the stars and pick out every one he knew. The light pollution in his city was too heavy for him to see the real ones, but Mars always managed to peek out through the urban gloom.

Now, he couldn’t pick out any stars. He had never seen this sky. And yet he’d looked upon it all his life, with a three minute delay.

“Okay, Jones. You’re going to have to turn right 2.363 degrees. Over.”

He let out a shaky sigh. “Copy that, over.” he carefully gripped the joystick and started to tilt it ever so slightly. The monitor told him how far he was turning, and he could see the slight shift out his window.

Mission control began buzzing again once he hit 2.363 degrees, and he held steady. “Jones, you have turned just two degrees. Over.”

Frowning at the monitor, he tapped it. “Two? The computer says I turned 2.363. Over.”

A different voice took over for Capcom. “He did. He turned 2.363 degrees. The computer is steering it back to the original trajectory.”

“The program must still be online.”

“Jones did the proper procedure for manual override! Why is it online?”

“The computer is not responding to his commands. The computer thinks it needs to stay its course.”

“But he followed our calculations exactly! Run the numbers again.”

At the flurry of conversations that tumbled over one another in increasing panic, Capcom came back on. “Jones, it’s going to be okay. The computer has a glitch, all of us back here are working to fix it. Hang in there Jones. Over.”

It was cold. He had been told all his life how cold space was, but he never could truly understand until he was there himself. If he squinted, he could make out the stars that had eluded him before. He could make out colors he was certain the cones in his eyes weren’t designed to process. The universe was beautiful, full of wishes and dreams. But it was a very cold and lonely place to be.

He waited for mission control while the computer steered him along.

“Commander Jones,” a woman spoke up. “The computer is dead set on its course. It won’t allow you or mission control to adjust it. It’s responding to the debris that struck the outer jet.”

He pursed his lips. “You’re about to shoot through Mars’ atmosphere. The shuttle is too big and it’s moving too fast to latch onto the gravitational pull. There’s a very large chance the shuttle will burn up in the atmosphere before it can make it back out.” Capcom explained. “There’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry.”

Burying his face in his hands for just a moment, he swallowed down a thick lump in his throat. A drop of sweat fell on the control panel. “Is there anything I can do? Over,” he rasped, even though he knew the answer.

“...No. Nothing.” Capcom reluctantly let out. “Over.”

Fifty-five million kilometers away. Fifty-five million kilometers and he wouldn’t be going home. He gasped weakly, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be walking up to the porch of his parent’s house, where he imagined his mom was planting more orange callas. Perhaps his dad would be reading the news in his old rickety chair. The little brick house in the little cul-de-sac in the little city was too big for them now. He let out a choked sob at the image, the idea unbearably more painful than anything space had waiting for him. Who was going to tell his mom?

He struggled to breathe, and his voice wobbled as he pressed the communicator. “Understood. Over.”

The cabin suddenly felt too stifling. He wrestled off the seatbelts and held on to the arms of the chair so he didn’t float away. He checked the screen for the distance from Mars and velocity he was heading towards it. All kinds of measurements were laid out for him in neat tables, telling him their information in bright green numbers. The numbers should have grounded him, but instead they made him feel further from earth than he really was. In an instant, he decided he didn’t want to burn alive in the atmosphere.

Mission Control’s buzz grew again once he opened a door. “Jones? Jones, what are you doing, over?” the worry was obvious in Capcom’s voice.

He pressed on his earpiece. “If I’m going to die, Capcom, I don’t want to go without trying to fix it.”

When all the people working Mission Control started yelling, he sighed with an empty grin.

“What does he mean? What’s he doing?”

“Fix it?”

“Jones, stay in your seat! You’re going to hit some debris in the next hundred kilometers.”

“Why is he up and about?”

Capcom had to raise his voice to be heard over Mission Control. “What?! Jones, you might get pulled in by Mars!”

He had pulled out the spacesuit, he struggled to fasten on the first layers. The cap and liquid cooling suit were difficult to put on. “I’m far enough away. I’ll take the SAFER to launch myself away. I’ll be fine.” he reassured Capcom, adjusting the cap around his earpiece.

Mission Control had become incomprehensible, filled with people lecturing him about decision making and safety in space. He couldn’t distinguish any of their voices and didn’t bother to try. He fumbled with all the pads and slid on the gloves as quickly as he could. There were so many pieces to put together, but the metal bands were difficult to fasten in zero gravity. Still, he managed to wrestle on the pants and top, and finally put on the helmet.

The lectures had stopped, and had instead turned into pleas for him to respond. He slid the SAFER on his back and ignored the proximity alert for Mars’ atmosphere.

“I’m here, Mission Control.” he spoke with a resigned tone. “I’m just going to hop out and tinker with the jet.”

Before anyone could speak up again, Capcom came back on. “You sure about this, Jones?”

He wondered how far along the shuttle had gotten. Had it burned up already? There wasn’t a way for him to tell anymore. He hoped the shuttle made a pretty show of comets and shooting stars on Mars. Maybe they could get some images of it at home.

“I’m sorry, Capcom, I’m sorry Mission Control,” his chest heaved, and he struggled to form words as he spun wildly out of control. “Tell my parents I love them. Over and out.”

His oxygen tank was running low, the notification in his helmet warned him. He had a little over three minutes left. Smiling wryly, he laughed with a fluttering breath, the irony making him feel ill.

The SAFER helped him slow down his spinning, but there was no way for him to completely stop it. So he spun in the middle of nothing and everything, watching his timer run out. He couldn’t even see earth anymore, or at least, he couldn’t recognize it. It probably wasn’t distinguishable from the other stars. If he looked upon all of them, at some point he hoped he’d be looking at the earth. He had read somewhere that the desert was beautiful because somewhere, it hid a well. The stars were beautiful because somewhere, they hid a rose.

He looked down at the suit, at the emblem proudly smacked across his chest. Out here, it was meaningless. Out where no one could see him exactly as he was, he had lost all connection to his home. Even if his death supposedly meant more than just a light going out, what were the ripples in the water that he made? Did a bright future for the race really mean the mothers and fathers of those fallen in the cracks had to grieve alone? Did that mean he had to grieve alone for the future he allowed, but would never see?

Finding himself grateful for the timer, he tried to picture his mother’s face. When it was too hard, his eyes screwed shut and he smacked his helmet trying to wipe his tears away.

There was less air, and his lungs struggled to take in what little was left. His vision was blurry now, wet and unfocused. His eyelids fluttered, wanting to close, but he fought. He fought to see earth one more time.

And suddenly, there was light.

He moved to shield his eyes at its brilliance, but it went past any shade to take away any darkness. Any darkness was banished from him, squandered and defeated to nonexistence. It burned in his eyes, for he had not seen such bright light in nearly a year. He had been away from the light for far too long. “Do not be afraid,” the light told him gently, with a voice as smooth as silk.

The light hurt too much for him to want to understand. “I’m not afraid,” he wheezed back, the light even invading all his senses. And he meant it; the light never drove him away. He thrived under it. His skin had gone pale from being deprived of his sun for so long. And still, it burned him. “I’m alone.” his voice cracked, breaking him open and letting the light inside.

The light dimmed just slightly, enough for him to try and open his eyes. “No,” it disagreed with him. “You are never alone.”

Squinting at the figure before him, he saw a vague image of gold and white. As his eyes adjusted, he got a clearer and clearer picture of the being that shined. He could make out green eyes peering at him, alight with certainty and life. “What do you mean?” he asked, slowly adjusting and picking out more and more details. Two wings kept the figure aloft, and a gold halo was perched just above its head. He didn’t think he’d ever seen such a flawless form in his life. Trying to move his arms towards the angel, he struggled to take a full breath, his lungs unable to take what little was left.

The figure smiled at him, and reached towards his face. The angel’s hand went right through the glass visor of his helmet and rested on his cheek, his movements elegant and fluid. “Loneliness is impossible.” he explained. “At every moment, there is a force at work, breathing new purpose into all living things. There is a gentle pull that binds us. Each of us are drawn together by this tiny, wonderful force, and it works all across the cosmos in its own mysterious way. Everything that happens is a result of this unique gravity, be it life or love. It draws everything in the universe together, but at the same time, it has to pull some things apart.”

Nothing he said made sense. He wasn’t sure how to respond. Smiling somewhat sadly, the angel continued at his silence. “That gentle pull brought you into existence, on nothing more than a whim. It made you who you are, carving you like the water carves a canyon. It leaves wonderful mark, but to do that, it had to take away the dust first. This force brought you here. And it brought me here with you.” the angel smiled soothingly. “So you see, you are not alone.”

He took in a shuddering breath, glancing once to the oxygen level. “I wouldn’t call it ge-gentle.” he rasped, and the angel laughed warmly. “Why did it take me here? Why did it bring you?” He looked upon the angel with absolute awe, trying desperately to understand.

The knowing smile the angel gave him was positively radiant. “You see, there?” he pointed off in the distance, and by following his hand, he could pick out a star. “That is your home. The future of your kind depended on your mission. Though it doesn’t feel like you accomplished anything, just know that you are the first rain that washed through the plain. One day, a beautiful canyon will take form, all because you took the first step. Few of us get to be catalysts like you, as most of us are content with our place in the universe. Humanity has a wonderful future ahead, and you made it possible for them. You’ve served them well.”

The star in the distance was so fuzzy, he could barely recognize it. He was quiet for a long time, his eyes wandering in and out of focus. The colors all seemed to bleed and swirl together, so far from him and so close to each other. He briefly saw an image of orange callas and newspapers in the dark. The light could only illuminate that which was so distant. His suit warned him with a soft noise that he only had a minute left.

He didn’t feel like rain. He felt like dust, destined to wander forever. And if he was dust, then the angel must be the wind, gusting wild and free and taking him along with it. Though, he didn’t resent the angel, or the wind for acting out their purpose. Instead, he just wished his own purpose allowed him to go home one more time. After all, he figured he was only human, catalyst or not. He suddenly wished that he had been content with his place when he was a child instead of dreaming of the stars. At least then, he wouldn’t be so lost.

“Where am I going?” he asked quietly. “What happens now?”

The angel hushed him. “Save your breath, my love. It’s time to go.”

His lungs strained for air. The angel smiled and leaned towards him, pressing his lips to his forehead. The universe pulled him along, and his eyes started to close. He saw the LED lights, the glow in the dark stars that dotted his midnight walls. He saw his mother’s colorful garden and his father’s old chair. He saw the driveway and then the street, the small city and the state. He saw the continent and the earth before him, shrinking away out of his sight.

The angel shrouded him with his wings, embracing him as the tears froze on his cheeks. He looked with unseeing eyes upon the earth one last time. Just as he took one final, shuddering breath, the angel leaned in close to him to whisper in his ear.

“The dreamer always eventually becomes a dream.” he said. “It was only a matter of time.”

O~o~O

23 notes · View notes

jakkosisle · 6 years

Text

The Battle For Lordaeron: Part VI - Psychology

Spritzie slammed another trio of shells into her triple-barred shotgun before unloading another volley into the approaching Alliance. She growled in frustration - for every humans she shot down, two more took their place. There was no end to them.

Fine. Let them come. She’ll turn every single one of them into swiss cheese for what they did to her baby! She lunged at a nearby worgen, who was seemingly caught off-guard by the fact that such a tiny goblin would be brave enough to take him head-on. She relished the look on his face as she unloaded a round into his chest. She heard a rumor that only a silver bullet can kill a worgen, but the corpse before her told her that lead worked just as well. She reloaded as she scanned the battlefield for her next victim…

And spotted a very familiar-looking draenei.

Crystal and Verde’s murderer!

She whistled for her wolf, Scruffy, and her wasp, Gigi, and ordered them to charge at the draenei.

“Gah!” Roniaar gasped as a large wolf nearly tackled him to the ground, but his natural strength and tall stature allowed him to stand his ground. The wolf growled and slobbered as it gnawed on his arm. He spotted a wasp hovering overhead, stinger at the ready. The shaman had to time this right…

As the wasp lunged, he swung out the arm with the wolf hanging onto it and fired off a lightning bolt with his other arm. Bullseye! He then grabbed one of his wind-axes and brought it down onto the wolf, who whimpered as it let go and let out a death rattle.

“NOOOO!” a goblin shrieked as she charged forward, shotgun at the ready. Roniaar recognized her as the goblin from before. “STOP MURDERING MY BABIES!”

Thinking quick, Roniaar summoned a slab of earth from the ground just in time to block the incoming bullets. “I would if they’d stop trying to maul me to death!”

As he hid from the goblin’s barrage, he looked around, trying to spot Marbelma. He saw her run off toward a collapsed battlement before he lost track of her. Oh Light, please let her be-

There!

Roniaar spotted Marbelma up on the battlements, locked in a heated dual with a troll that had two large swords. It looked like she needed backup. He transformed into a ghost wolf and tried to make a break for the collapsed battlements.

It was then that he was hit by something hard, like a kodo just ran him over. It tossed him several yards, knocking him out of wolf form as he tumbled across the ground. He looked up and saw the source - a big, angry direhorn. Perched on top of it was a rylak, both heads hissing at the draenei. To the direhorn’s left was a jade quilen and to its right was a riverbeast.

And standing off to the side was a goblin with a whistle in her mouth, leering at the draenei.

How many pets does this goblin have?!

Alright, fine. If that’s the way this goblin wants to play it…

Roniaar muttered a few words in Kalimag as wind, water vapor, clumps of dirt, and embers all swirled around his hands. When he first landed here, he felt that the elements of this land were in anguish - no doubt the result of years of Forsaken polluting the land with their blight. He beseeched their aid, telling of how the Alliance sought to free this land from the Forsaken’s undead grip, and if they saw this cause as a righteous one, please, help.

The elements answered.

An air elemental swirled into being out of the very air itself. A water elemental did so as well, swirling into existence out of the water vapor in the air. A rumbling earth elemental clawed its way up from beneath the soil. And a fire elemental seemed to erupt from a simple spark. The goblin’s beasts all growled at the draenei’s elementals.

“As you can see, you’re not the only one with little friends.” Roniaar boasted.

“I RAISED my beasts for combat practically from infancy!” the goblin shouted. “All you’re doing is hiring local help to do your dirty work for you!”

“We shall see…” Roniaar said before he and his elementals charged, clashing with the goblin and her beasts.

“Ah-ha!” Soozee triumphantly cried out as he finally grabbed that slippery void elf. He tried to struggle, but it was no use - her mech’s claws could squeeze him at 2000 PSI, enough to break every bone in the elf’s body!

And that’s when the elf poofed again. “SON OF GNOMEREGAN WHORE WHERE DID YOU GO?!?!” Soozee shrieked, getting sick and tired of this cat-and-mouse bullshit.

She heard a whistle. She looked over her shoulder and saw the void elf sitting on the mech’s shoulders. “Question.” he asked as he held out a bunch of wires. “Were these important?”

That’s when the void-buster started to shake and spark. “YOU IDIOT!!!” Soozee said as she checked the mech’s readings. “THOSE WERE CONNECTED TO THE VOID BUSTER’S INTERNAL STABILIZERS!!! IT’S ABOUT TO GO INTO MELT DOWN!!!”

“That’s what I thought. Bye!” And just like that, the void elf disappeared into another spatial rift.

“SHIT!” Soozee swore as she pulled on a red lever that activated the mech’s ejector seat, activating a rocket that shot high into the air. Unable to contain the power of the void core, the mech imploded, sucked into the small black hole that had opened inside its engine compartment. The Void-Buster was no more, as though it never even existed.

It occurred to Soozee that the ejector seat might’ve had a touch too much rocket fuel, as she was now so high that she could see ALL of the Ruins of Lordaeron and the surrounding Tirisfal Glades. From up here, the battle resembled a large, very elaborate diorama.

When the parachute automatically deployed, the winds took her slightly away from the battle, which was just as well. With her Void Buster gone, she wasn’t quite as confidant in her odds of surviving a battle of this scale. Furthermore, as she squinted through her goggles, she could see that the Alliance was slowly but surely pushing the Horde out of the courtyard. The Horde was losing this battle.

That’s when Soozee remembered that she still had family down there. Jakko and Spritzie.

“…Curse my familial obligations.” Soozee muttered as she took manual control of the parachute and steered it back toward the battle. She landed on top of the far southern wall - quite a distance away from most of the fighting, but not so far that she couldn’t help out her siblings if she needed to.

“Nice landing.”

“Thank you.” Soozee replied to the void elf.

…The Void Elf!

Tendalel couldn’t resist a healthy chuckle as the goblin freaked out at his presence. He knew he shouldn’t be so far from the battle, but A: The Alliance was pushing through and at this point, it’s only a matter of time before the city falls. And B: After all the trouble this goblin had put him through, he was feeling just petty enough to come over and rub his victory in her face for a bit before going back and helping out.

“So yeah - a void-powered mech. Gotta admit, that’s a new one.” Tendalel said. “Course, leave it to a goblin to think using the void as a power source is a good idea.”

“Oh hi Pot, name’s Kettle, have we met?” the goblin replied as she stood up and glared at the elf through her goggles.

“Hey, I didn’t ask for this little dye job.” he said, pointing to his purple hair. “Hell, I wasn’t even one of Umbric’s followers. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s kind of a long story.”

“You void elves…” the goblin growled. “I’ve been studying the Void for YEARS! I’ve had to WORK to get to where I am today! But you….you had all the secrets and power of the Void just DROPPED into your LAP!”

“Clearly, you’ve never had a crazy ethereal try to forcibly change you into a void abomination. For the record, it’s not fun.” Tendalel said. An explosion was heard in the distance, rising over the din of the battle. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat, it sounds like I’m needed elsewhere. Ciao.”

And with that, he leapt through another spatial rift…

…But was dragged back?

Tendalel turned around and saw that a void tentacle had wrapped around his ankle and pulled him back through the rift. He looked up and saw that the tentacle was attached to the goblin’s shoulder -a goblin now shrouded in shadow magic. “You are NOT escaping me again…” she growled.

“A shadow priest…” Tendalel said. “That explains a lot.”

“I am NOT a shadow priest!” the goblin shrieked. “I’m not some cultist or hack theologian! I am an Ebonologist! I do not worship or revere the Void, I study it! I harness its power and I make it mine!”

“You don’t say.” Tendalel deadpanned before swiping at the tendril with one of his daggers, cutting it off. As he stood up, he smirked underneath his mask. “Fun fact…”

Several void tendrils appeared from his own shoulder. “I can do the tentacle thing too.” he said.

“Then we shall see who handles a tentacle better!” the goblin shouted.

Tendalel snickered.

“…Wha-THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!”

The clang of metal against metal continually rang in Jakko’s ears as he blocked and parried the dwarf’s hammer strikes, dodging whatever he couldn’t block. He had to admit though, the dwarf was pretty good in a fight. She was likewise quick to dodge, block and parry every attack he made.

He’d probably respect her for her skill if he wasn’t getting increasingly frustrated by this dwarf’s stubborn refusal to piss off.

He crossed his blades in the air, blocking an overhead hammer strike, just like he did during their first duel on the bombing run. “Yeesh, kid.” he panted - battle fatigue was finally catching up to him. “Where’d you even learn to fight like this?”

“The paladin who saved me from you?” the dwarf asked. “She took me in. Trained me in the ways of the Light. Every day since, I’ve been training twelve hours a day, honing my body, mind and even my very soul into weapons of the Light!”

“You need to go on a date, kid.” the troll quipped.

The dwarf roared. Apparently, that made her angry. She pulled her hammer back and swung it horizontally at the troll, but he hopped back out of the way. He jumped and delivered a roundhouse kick to her face.

Spritzie loaded multi-shot ammo into her shotgun before firing another round at the elementals, looking to help her pets however she could. It faintly reminded her of a Hearthstone match - beast hunter vs. elemental shaman. Except this wasn’t a friendly card match and the stakes were much, MUCH higher than who pays for the next round.

She spotted the draenei beyond who was….trying to run away? Oh no he won’t! She clicked together her heels, activating her rocket boots and jumping forward, landing on the draenei’s back and wrapping her arms around his neck. He gagged and, using his race’s natural strength, pried her arms off and bucked her off. Not sparing her a second thought however, he continued running, towards a collapsed section of the battlements.

“Hold on, Marbles! I’m coming!” he shouted. Spritzie then noticed Jakko and some dwarf with a big hammer dueling on the battlements above, where the draenei was climbing up to. Now she understood - the dwarf must’ve been his buddy, and he’s trying to lend her a hand.

Not on her watch.

Spritzie pulled out a hand grenade, something no self-respecting goblin ever left home without, pulled the pin, and threw it up at the pile of debris the shaman was scaling. A second later, it exploded, triggering an avalanche and burying him. She grinned in satisfaction.

A grin that disappeared however, as the shaman emerged from the rubble, completely unscathed. Indeed, it was as though the rocks seemed to protect him more than-

Oh. Right. Shaman.

“Just walk away.” the draenei said. “I do not wish to fight you.”

“Well I do.” Spritzie said as she spat on the ground. “After today, they won’t find enough of you to fill the nut sack of an ant.” On that colorful note, she raised her gun and fired.

Tendalel had been on the run for several minutes, dodging void bolt after void bolt. He had leapt down from the battlements was now running through a network of overgrown alleyways, the goblin in hot pursuit.

“Stop your resisting.” the goblin said, her voice seemingly coming from everywhere. No doubt a void trick. He wondered if he could do that. “I will find you.”

“Yeah, you’re not the first clingy girl to say that, and you probably won’t be the last.” Tendalel said as he ducked around a corner.

“Damn it, stop wasting my time!” she ranted. “I’ve already wasted enough time just SHOWING UP to this pointless battle and fight in this pointless war! I’m not going home empty-handed - mama needs some ren’dorei organs!”

“Yeah, I’d rather not end up as some crazy goblin’s science experiment, so no.” Tendalel quipped. “Though I gotta ask, if this battle is pointless, why are you even here?”

“First of all, personal reasons.” the goblin said. “Secondly, I came here in the hopes of acquiring fresh ren’dorei bodies for my research. Your bodies are conduits for the Void, and yet you seem capable of resisting its whispers. I must understand why.”

“Oh, must you?” Tendalel asked. “What’s wrong? Are the whispers getting to you? Or maybe the nightmares?”

The goblin only growled in reply. “Sorry baby, but if you’re thinking that the key to your salvation lies somewhere in my small intestines or whatever, you are sorely mistaken.”

“…Let’s test that hypothesis, shall we?”

It was then that Tendalel felt multiple void tendrils wrap themselves around him and pull him through some kind of void portal - and not one that he made.

Marbelma ignored the protests of her arching arm muscles as she swung her hammer for what felt like the fiftieth time at the troll, once again to no avail. She should’ve known. She should’ve known that the monster who’d been haunting her nightmares for the last ten years wouldn’t die so easily. But she wasn’t going to give up. Not after everything she’d been through.

After catching her hammer again, the troll pushed her back and away, thought not by much. She snarled as she once again raised her hammer over her head and tried to bring it down on the troll. She missed entirely this time. She was getting tired. And judging from the smirk on the troll’s face, he knew it too.

“Think it might be time to call it a day, kid.” he said.

“Fuck you.” she spat.

The troll paused. Then sighed. “I’m sorry.” he said.

Marbelma must be getting tired. She could’ve sworn he said…. “What?” she asked.

“I’m sorry.” the troll repeated. “For killing your family. For ruining your life. Back in those days, I was a real piece of work. It’s why I became a druid. Felt like I needed to make up for all the bad I’ve done.”

Marbelma looked at him, more dumbfounded than anything. He looked back down at the courtyard below, where the skirmish raged on. He turned back to her. “Look, I can see the writing on the wall.” he said as he sheathed his swords. “The Alliance just keeps comin’ and with Jaina Proudmoore leadin’ the way, it’s only a matter of time before the Horde loses this battle. Now, I’ve still got family down there and at this point, I just wanna grab ‘em and get outta here while I still can.”

The dwarf panted. It was only now that she realized just how tired she really was. “…You’re sorry?” she asked.

The troll nodded.

The dwarf roared in fury, swinging her hammer at his torso while his guard was down, finally knocking him down. She snarled as she tossed the hammer aside and straddled him. Grabbing a fistful of hair with her right hand, she started punching him in the face with her left.

“SORRY DOESN’T BRING BACK GILNEAS!!!”

Wham.

“SORRY DOESN’T BRING BACK THERAMORE!!!”

Wham!

“SORRY DOESN’T BRING BACK TELDRASSIL!!!”

WHAM!

She paused. Her left fist opened up, fingers spread, and the hand glowed with Holy Light. “Sorry doesn’t bring back my family.” she hissed. She planted the glowing hand on the side of the troll’s face and burned him with the Light.

“Just walk away!” Roniaar shouted as he tossed another bolt of lightning at the piece of rubble the goblin was hiding behind. “I have more elemental power than you have bullets!”

The goblin wouldn’t relent though, and would occasionally blind-fire at the shaman, and come uncomfortably close to missing. He checked on the elementals and found that they were winning - without their mistress to lend them aid, the beasts stood little chance against the fury of the elements. The direhorn was being pulled beneath the earth, the rylak was being blown out of the sky, the riverbeast was being drowned and even the quilen’s stone hide was melting under the heat. “Give it up! You cannot win this fight!” he bellowed.

“I’ve still got one ace up my sleeve.” she growled before letting out a sharp whistle.

Roniaar felt the ground shake. And not from the earth elemental he summoned to his aid earlier. He turned around and saw a truly massive blue hydra galloping towards the shaman, biting and hissing as it charged towards him, trampling several Alliance soldiers underfoot. It skidded to a halt and roared at the draenei, its hide crackling with electrical energy.

“Say hello to Rilla!” Spritzie shouted. “My strongest, most feared beast!”

“Most feared beast, eh?” Roniaar asked. “I should say so. It seems downright…electrifying! Hahahahaa!”

The hyrdra roared.

“Hahaha…..ha….Oh, I’m going to die.”

The hydra lunged.

Soozee grinned maniacally as she finally had the slippery elf right where she wanted him - with her void tentacles tying him down against a wall. “You know…normally, I’ve got to buy a girl dinner before they tie me up like this…” he wheezed as he strained against his bindings.

As she pulled out her dagger, she made a mental note to start by slitting his throat.

“Normally, I do most of my dissections in my lab.” Soozee said as she pulled some plastic bags from her belt. “But I don’t mind a bit of field work from time to time…”

It was then that she noticed a void tendril wrapping itself around her arm. Followed by another around her other arm and even one around her neck, all seeming to be coming from the floor. “I can do the tentacle thing too, remember?” he wheezed.

“I can see that…” Soozee wheezed back. “It seems we’ve reached an impasse…”

The two void users spent the next several minutes staring each other down, tangled and strangled by each other’s tendrils.

Pain. That was all Jakko’s world was for a good thirty seconds - blinding, burning pain. The dwarf was searing her handprint into his face with the raw, burning fury of the Holy Light. Finally, she took his hand off his face, dismounted, and threw him to the floor hard enough to make him see spots. At least the headache he had now helped to take his mind off the burning, smoking flesh on the right side of his face.

“You’re just like the rest of the Horde, when all’s said and done.” she snarled. “You talk about redemption and atonement, thinking that cleans yer plate of all yer crimes. Well lemme tell ye a dirty little secret - nobody fucking cares about your redemption.”

She walked back over to where she dropped her hammer and picked it up. “When you commit acts of evil, you’re not the one who decides how you should be punished for it.”

“…And you are?” Jakko grunted.

“Who better?” the dwarf shot back as she walked over to the disfigured troll with murderous intent.

Welp. Guess this is it. Jakko thought to himself for the second time that day. He gave it his all, but this paladin beat him fair and square. An ‘honorable death’ as the orcs would call it. It was better than hacking up a lung in a cloud of blight, at least. Hell, this was downright poetic. A part of him always knew that it would be someone from his past that would finally kill him, but he always figured it would be someone from his old assassin’s guild, none too pleased that he left. Maybe even the guild leader…

But no. Turns out he wasn’t that important. No, the sins of his past had come in the form of someone he had well and truly hurt. Someone with fire and rage in her soul and, honestly, Jakko couldn’t very well blame her. As he heard the dwarf approach, he closed his eyes and hoped the final blow wouldn’t hurt too much.

…But then he thought about Spritzie. Lately she had been getting wilder. More rebellious. With the death of several of her beloved pets in this battle, he feared she was only gonna get worse. Who was gonna be there to keep her from doing something stupid at a critical moment?

What about Soozee? Her research was driving her to look at things no mortal should look at. Who was gonna be there to help her from diving straight into the abyss? She’s already on the edge as it is.

…And Vorz’ka. There’s a name Jakko had been trying to forget the last few weeks. His last meeting with his girlfriend didn’t end on great terms. Would she grieve? Would she miss him? Would she regret that their very last meeting ended in an argument.

The thoughts whizzed through his mind over the course of seconds. Names of old friends, estranged family, business left unfinished. He suddenly arrived at a conclusion.

I can’t die now. I still got shit to do!

He rolled out of the way, just as the dwarf’s hammer met the floor.

He quickly morphed into a tiger and, able to catch the dwarf off guard and swiped at her with his right paw, delivering a savage claw swipe right to her face. She screamed as she gripped the three gashes on her face, gushing blood. Now was his chance. He lowered his head and performed a skull bash so hard it dented her armor - Spritzie always said he had a thick head.

Morphing back into troll form, he punted the dwarf to the other end of the battlement. Using his most powerful druidic magic, he commanded the roots that had grown over the long-ruined walls to ensnare and entangle the paladin. The dwarf snarled as she struggled against the vines. “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!” she cursed. “WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIE?!?!”

“Because I decided I wasn’t gonna roll over and die just so you can vent your teenage angst.” Jakko replied before spitting on the ground. “I’m still sorry for what I did to your family, but I’ve got my own family to think about.” On that note, he turned around and walked away.

“THIS ISN’T OVER YOU BASTARD!!!” the dwarf shrieked. “I’LL HUNT YOU TO THE ENDS OF AZEROTH!!! DO YOU HEAR ME?!?!” Jakko couldn’t really hear, as he had already leapt off the wall.

Spritzie watched in delight as Rilla threw the draenei around like a big rag doll, her acidic saliva melting parts of his armor. “Spritz!” she heard Jakko cry as he sprinted over in tiger form. “You okay?”

“Watching my babies’ murderer get used as a chew toy? Never better!” Spritzie replied. She winced as she looked at Jakko. “Shit, Jakko. What happened to your face?”

Jakko pawed the right side of his face, where there seemed to be a hand print literally burned into his skin like a brand. “Close encounter with a paladin.” he briefly explained.

Meanwhile, Rilla had finally let the draenei go, sending him flying into a wall. He hit the stone wall hard and collapsed on the ground, spitting out some blue blood. Spritzie giggled evilly as she approached the draenei with murderous intent. “Spritz, we don’t have time for this, we need to find Soo-“

“Shut it!” Spritzie snapped. “This’ll only take a minute anyways…” she said as she lined up her shotgun on the draenei’s head, getting ready for the execution shot. The draenei was on all fours, muttering something the goblin couldn’t quite hear. “Pray all you want - your Naa’ru ain’t gonna save you from a bunch of lead pellets tearing through your flesh.”

That’s when his body started to crackle with electrical energy. “Spritz…I don’t think he’s prayin’ to the naa’ru….” Jakko said.

In a flash of light, a bolt of lightning had seemingly struck the draenei from the sky, and enveloping him in a tornado. His form began to change. His flesh gave way to raw, elemental energy. Spritzie tried to unload her ammo on him, but it the lead seemed to just bounce off of some electrical barrier that now surrounded the shaman. “What’s happening?!” Spritzie demanded.

“He ascended!” Jakko said.

“What the fuck does THAT mean?!” Spritzie asked.

“COWER BEFORE THE TEMPEST STORM!” the no-longer-draenei shouted as it conjured a massive bolt of lightning that nearly missed the two of them.

“We need to get out of here!” Jakko said before grabbing Spritzie by the collar of her shirt in his mouth, like an unruly cub, and throwing her onto his back and running off. She cursed before whistling for Rilla to follow them, which the every-loyal hydra did. The ascendant gave chase however, as a literal tornado chased the two of them across the courtyard.

“Where’s Soozee?!” Jakko yelled.

“I saw her eject before her mech blew up!” Spritzie shouted. “I think she landed somewhere on the Southern Wall!”

“WINDS! OBEY MY COMMANDS!” the ascendent shouted and suddenly the winds around them shifted. The wind was blowing Jakko, Spritzie and Rilla away from the Southern Wall they had been running to, and towards the ascendent’s electrifying grasp.

As they struggled against the winds pulling them towards certain doom, one of Rilla’s heads turned to Spritzie and made eye contact with her. It flicked out her tongue, and nodded. Spritzie gasped.

“Rilla! No!” she shouted too late, as the hydra turned on its heels and lunged at the ascendent. The panicked elemental flew up into his tornado with the hydra hanging on, bolts of lightning flying from both of them. It had distracted the elemental enough that the winds were no longer pulling Jakko and Spritzie towards it.

“Come on!” Jakko said as he morphed into a bat and carried Spritzie over the wall. “We gotta find Soozee!”

“But what about Rilla?!” Spritzie asked. “Jakko, all my other pets died in this battle! Rilla’s all I got left!”

“…Rilla attacked that thing to give us a chance to get away.” Jakko said. “Best way to honor that sacrifice is to take that chance.”

Spritzie had to fight back tears. She couldn’t cry. Not yet, at least. The battle wasn’t over.

But as the Alliance continued to push against the Horde, it sure as hell looked like the battle was over.

“Okay.” Tendalel wheezed, the tentacle still having a firm grip on his neck. His own tentacles, however, were still wrapped around the goblin’s throat and arms. “We both agree this is stupid, right? I mean, if we snap each other’s necks at the same time, than nobody gains anything.”

“Correct.” the goblin said.

“Okay then. So on the count of three, we both let go. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“One….Two…..Three!”

Neither of them let go of the other.

“…Okay, see? Now I’m just disappointed in both of us.”

“You were trying to trick me!” the goblin shrieked.

“So were you!”

“No, I was trying to counter-trick your trick!”

“Counter-tricking is not a real term!”

“Well, it SHOULD BE!”

Tendalel and the goblin stared each other down for a few seconds. “…You know, I just realized. This situation is a perfect micro-chasm of the Horde and Alliance’s current conundrum.” the goblin said.

“How’s that?” the rogue asked.

“We are two opposing forces, ready to kill each other in a heartbeat.” she elaborated. “Neither of us are willing to lower our guard, for fear of destruction from the other. Thus, we are locked in an eternal struggle that will likely end with both of our deaths.”

“Are you seriously giving me that age-old ‘Alliance and Horde aren’t so different’ speech?” Tendalel asked. “Cuz A: I’ve heard it before. And B: It’s kind of inaccurate.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Horde is WAY worse than the Alliance.”

“You’re invading one of our cities!”

“Only because you literally burned down one of ours!”

“What about Camp Tau-“

“I will snap your neck if you bring up Camp Taurajo.” Tendalel threatened. “Raiding a dinky little tauren village in the middle of nowhere is NOT the same as destroying cities and razing kingdoms.”

“Oh, why all the patriotic fervor anyway?” the goblin demanded. “Just a year ago, you were a blood elf! You were as Horde as I am! Why the sudden Alliance enthusiasm?”

“Because I kinda have to!” Tendalel replied.

“What are you talking about now?” the goblin groaned.

“Look, before I went Void, yeah, I was a regular old blood elf.” Tendalel said. “And like most blood elves, I wasn’t exactly an Alliance fan boy back then. But I knew that if things didn’t work out Horde-side, all I had to do was pop in some blue contact lenses and voila - I’m a High Elf! Yes, High King, I’ve been with the Silver Covenant all my life, never sided with those dirty blood elves, no sir. And if shit hits the fan in Stormwind? Out come the lenses and back to the Horde I go!”

He paused for a breath, which the tentacle only barely allowed him. “But after I started growing tentacles in places I shouldn’t, all of a sudden, I’m exiled from the Horde and I can’t exactly put in green contact lenses and blend in. Thanks to Umbric and his pack of crazies, I actually have a dog in this fight now! If the Horde wins this war, I’m screwed.”

“What are you expecting? Sympathy?” the goblin demanded. “I’ve got a lab back in Kalimdor that contains crucial research on the Old Gods, the ones we should REALLY be fighting! But if the Alliance get their way, the entirety of the Horde will be ejected from Kalimdor and my lab would be! If the Alliance wins this war, I’M screwed!”

That’s when another goblin showed up, riding atop a large bat. “Soozee!” the bat said. That bat talks now? “There you are! We gotta get outta here!”

“I’d love to, but I’m a little pre-occupied at the moment!” the goblin, Soozee was apparently her name, shouted back.

“On it!” the goblin on top of the bat said as she pointed her shotgun at Tendalel.

“Woah there!” Ten shouted. “Lower the shotgun or I snap your friend’s neck!” Just to prove he wasn’t joking around, his tentacle tightened its grip on Soozee’s throat.

“Lower your gun, Spritz!” Soozee wheezed and gouged.

“But-“

“Just do it!”

The other goblin, Spritzie obeyed and lowered her shotgun, giving the void elf a withering look.

“Okay…so here’s what’s gonna happen.” Ten said. “It sounds like you guys just wanna get outta here. So do I. So on the count of three, both me and…Soozee, was it? We let go of each other. Okay….one…..two…..three!”

Tendalel let Soozee go - a risky move on his part, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He had to meet the goblin half-way at least, otherwise they’d still be stuck in this stalemate and nothing gets accomplished. It was a calculated risk.

And as he let go of Soozee, he realized that he wasn’t too good at math, because while he let her go, she didn’t return the favor. “Okay….Soozee…..we had a deal….” Ten wheezed.

“A deal that I never officially agreed to.” Soozee said. “You just said you were gonna let me go, did so, and foolishly presumed I would reciprocate when I’d have no reason to.”

She calmly approached the void elf and removed a dagger from her belt. “Now…give me a reason why I shouldn’t dissect you right here and now…”

“RETREAT!”

All ears turned to the Southern Courtyard, where the unmistakable booming voice of High Chieftain Baine Bloodhoof echoed through the halls of the city. “RETREAT!”

“…Because you’re out of time.” Ten wheezed. “You’ve got two choices now - stay here and torture little old me until the Alliance overrun the city, find you here, and they probably won’t take too kindly to you chopping up one of their top guys. Or, you can do the smart thing, and follow the rest of your Horde to fight another day. Your call.”

Even though Ten couldn’t see Soozee’s eyes through those ridiculous goggles, he could FEEL her hateful gaze punch through them. Finally, her tentacles allowed Ten to drop to the ground. “Good choice, Soo.” Ten said before he disappeared into a spatial rift.

#Jakko #Marbelma #Spritzie #Roniaar #Soozee #Tendalel #World of Warcraft #Wyrmrest Accord

2 notes · View notes