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loudtriumphdeer · 5 months

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Information Teaching How To Install Combi Boilers

Keeping dwelling warm during the cold can spark a drastic craze of the cost of your bills, be it a gas heating system or a central heating system. Many choose to together with the cold, or use not recommended practices for heating up the home, such as leaving the oven open while individuals on, or wearing heavy clothing inside. There are ways to ensure that your home warm without paying the extra. With a caring family heating system can be created aid the warmth already existing in the house within reduce. While there may be some extra expenses initially, the warming system is a perfect investment and will often lower heating bills in days arrive.

A hydronic water heater uses a boiler, which is linked together with a hydronic heating coil with copper tubes utilized to transfer water. As soon as the zone is fixed to heat, a pump arranged will transfer water from the boiler towards the elementary hydronic coil. Water is then disseminated any copper tube that brings back the air pulled in from your home by a blower.

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If your boiler still works is not as crystal-clear. If it is particularly old it can be very inefficient or province work properly anymore. Using surprised at how vehicle put on top of a partially broken central heating Boiler maintenance. It is often the case which individuals will basically able to obtain hot water from a boiler in the event the heating is on. Or they get by with very slow water or heating which won't heat your home.

Most decent engineers will give you a written service insist. This should include any safety checks that are made, success of any tests achieved and information on any parts replaced.

Each installation job and home is special and has different requirements. If your home is very big, then getting a combi Boiler installation may not really the right choice for you.

Old surefire boilers which an open flue be dismantled and cleaned which is not needed for modern central heating boilers. They have a systems performance consider. Depending on the condition and type of boiler may possibly take from a one-half hour to an hour and half for a complete gas boiler expert services. Contractors are often for you to do servicing, especially your summer, for greatly reduced prices, hoping that may call them later if you're need any gas Boiler repair work.

7) Turn to ask you any concerning? - Really they should spend some time of time trying to discover out what your needs are, otherwise how do they really be positive they're meeting them?

If you're able smell gas in household it can be carried out you possess a leak. In this particular instance you should immediately call Transco, that Nti boiler employed to respond to gas leaks around the UK. Don't turn on or off any light switches, do not ignite any gas appliances and don't smoke. Recommended . you should vacate the home until Transco arrive.

#waste oil burner #boiler-st. paul #Youtube

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rubin60rubin · 2 years

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Cedar Window Boxes Help Create A Picture-Perfect Home

Reason #4 - Mystic Mountain is great for anyone. In every group, there will be some people more adventurous than a few. This disparity in activity preference can even apply into the two persons in a couple and Mystic Mountain satisfies both. A thrill seeker can have a jungle bobsled run or alternatively a zip line safari because more sedate can wander through a hummingbird garden or butterfly pavilion. Villas are not only for your rich and famous any. Ordinary folks (like us) can now experience this lifestyle by renting a luxurious villa to find a week. A chef is on call to prepare special dishes famous in the area. or why not wake up feeling for example a princess within your very own castle. suite, that is considered. Vacations like these feel almost remarkable! Don't worry, no one gets in becoming a pumpkin or a frog. Go through it once on your trip as well as the rest with the nights, visit cheap hotels! Villas provide stylish spaces, especially as soon as the weather just isn't as dry because expected it might. This is plus a way refrain from renting a high-end marquee. You will get a villa that has fountains, chandeliers, fireplace and magnificent ballrooms if tend to be after the form for photos. A nice bathroom remodeling goes an expanded way in raising originates from of a house. Houses with outstanding bathrooms tend to be valued better. It is the perfect investment. Years of use end up in signs of damage, usage and general aging of materials. A remodel simply allows for repairs, likewise provides the chance to sneak in a few new nice features. A change in trends can watch some palettes outdated and a update may be welcome. Among the most important reasons for finding a bathroom remodeling would be to increase safety. Many injuries happens to the bathroom every year so interior villa just a few ingredients to ensure that is stays very effective. A little extra space is also desirable. thiet ke biet thu cao cap are particularly in top craze. Other things to consider: It is possible to welcome hoop? Will the owner have essential items the particular interior nice home refrigerator for you, before your arrival? Can you make arrangements for tours? Does it have plates, utensils, pots, pans and other essentials for eating and meal preparation - or will you have to bring unique personal? So, what good are these lights outside of highlighting your dinner list? Plenty! The interesting thing about such decadent accessories is that automatically draw the big eyes. This means that these people be used as a better way to guide glances. How do your eyes follow the inside design? thiet ke biet thu tan co dien drawn to the color or the shapes? Crystal chandeliers will certain aspects pop and dull other companies. They come in amount of designs too: vintage brass and gold, Venetian, modern and art deco. Which type is best option for the home? In the olden days, convents were strictly for nuns. Now, you can remain in a convent you don't in order to be be a nun! Accommodations are clean, simple, very comfortable and most are equal to 4-star Europe hotels with 3-star value ranges! Breakfast and dinner can be arranged give you. The only catch is the fact that some convents have a curfew. It becomes an alternative to cheap lodgings. Anyway, a good night's sleep never hurt anyone! https://thicongnoithat.com could be the one from the United States Military Academy at West Point. The Libraries creative design is rare. In military form it looks like a government building. Just a little known is actually that the oldest book was published in 1486 in Venice by Bonestus Locatellus, for Octavianus Scotus. The library also has over 10.5 million volumes of books simply because of its cadets of doing research.

#thiet ke noi that ha noi #thiet ke noi that

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messinwitheddie · 4 years

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Nny "Why did I leave my house tonight? Why do I ever bother to leave my house? I KNOW something will happen to make me regret it. No good outcome is possible when I directly interact with the world around me. I'm a fucking blight! My existence NEEDS to end."

Squee "It's my fault. I've been a dick to you all week and pushed you to relapse."

Nny "You didn't push me to follow my ex around the streets at night like a fucking crazed lunatic. I'm a crazed lunatic."

Squee "No, you're not."

Nny "I must be, if this is how I choose to spend my time. That's what Devi thinks of me and she'll NEVER think of me as anything else... Maybe that's all I'll ever be, a fucking crazed homicidal maniac."

Squee "No--"

Nn " Meanwhile, I just keep making this already horrible world more horrible while I try to live in a state of denial."

Squee "You're not a bad person, Nny. You do bad things-- Very bad things sometimes, but you're not a maniac and you're not a blight. You just need help. I want to help you; you make my world better all the time."

Nny "No I don't."

Squee "Yes you do. I really am sorry for avoiding you all week."

Nny "It's fine; I get it. I'M exhausted from my bullshit."

Squee "You're not the problem. I just didn't want to burden you with yet another of my problems. You're my best friend. I don't want to keep bothering you or drag you down."

Nny "Squee...Come on...You've seen my life."

Squee "True."

Nny "You are quite literally the only human being alive still willing to speak to me, that doesn't bother me. If you want some you time, by all means, take it, but let me know you won't be around ahead of time, alright? That really messed me up."

Squee "I will. I'm sorry."

Nny "It's okay."

Squee "I'm proud of you, by the way, for dismantling all your torture devices and keeping your hands clean this long."

Nny "Four weeks. Personal record this year. I cleaned and repaired most everything on the top floor too. I'm actually running out of shit to do. I think that's part of the reason I decided to look for Devi tonight."

Squee "I believe you weren't planning to hurt her."

Nny "I wasn't."

Squee "You really have been trying to change your behavior and focus your energy on being productive and positive. I've noticed. I should have been more encouraging. You'll never get better without support."

Nny "I'm not your responsibility."

Squee "I'm not your responsibility either."

Nny "Yes you are. If for no other reason than to give me something to look forward to. I'll probably never meet another person like Devi. I'll probably never keep my shit together well enough to lead a somewhat good, normal, meaningful existence for myself much less share it with anyone...but I can watch you grow up and lead a good life."

Squee *sniffs* "--"

Nny "I need to stop for gas. Do you want a slushy or something on the way back?"

Squee "Na, I have to hurry up and sneak back in my room before dad wakes up. I have school in the morning."

Nny "Ok."

Squee "Are you ok to drive?"

Nny "Absolutely. I've suffered much worse blows to the head than that... I'm glad that one seemed to actually knock a little sense into me..."*sigh* "I really fucked up with her..."

Squee "Just call it a life lesson and move on."

Nny "..."

#jthm #squee #post #ifs #clarity

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aravindhrahul23-blog · 4 years

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shailajamouni333-blog · 4 years

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HOME APPIANCES SERVICES

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#service center

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dreadwulf · 5 years

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A Man for All Seasons: Chapter 10

Only because the wait for today’s episode has been excruciating, and this last hour probably the most painful of all, I’m sharing with you my Tumblr followers a draft of the next chapter of my Jaime fic.

I reserve the right to revise wildly before posting it to AO3 - that will be the final, “canon” version - okay, here we go.

In the darkness of the Long Night, hundreds of men and women from all walks of life and many corners of Westeros share a strange, feverish dream. A dream of endless night and fire and monsters. A dream that yields for a few hours at a time to eat, bathe, and sleep, but then resumes right where it left off, as if it had never stopped. Though they dip into and out of it in turns it never really stops, not for a moment; this long and continuous nightmare.

That nightmare is the Siege of Winterfell.

From the very first day, when the sun set and the Army of the Dead attacked, and the giants started flinging wights over the walls, the battle has gone on unceasingly. There are relatively quiet moments when nothing is coming over the walls, and at those times the men atop the fortifications rest and watch while the archers take up the task of picking off targets, but even then there are still creatures battering against the walls, attempting to scale them, bashing against any weak point they can identify. There is no break in the attack, not at noon or midnight or anytime in between.

They have to take up shifts on the walls, to be certain someone is always fresh. At first two shifts, “day” and “night”, and eventually three or more, when all of their forces are too tired and injured to carry on for 12 hours at a time. Anyone who can hold a sword will take a turn at least once, man, woman or, in a few cases, child. They drop heavy stones on creatures climbing the walls and kick them off when they come close to the top. When they begin to pile on one another they douse the wights in wildfire and burn them. And when some terrible new creature appears, things with wings and teeth that flap over their heads, things that bore into the ground, they will have only moments to determine how to stop them, or else they will be quickly overrun.

Their enemies do not tire, they do not stop to eat, they do not break off to confer with one another. They just keep coming. On and on and on.

At first they are fighting for the North, for Westeros, for their Houses and families. This is motivation enough to push them onward through the endless hours of fighting. Eventually, when nerves are worn to a nub and hopes of victory outright dwindle to nothing, they are fighting for tomorrow. For the next few hours. For their lives.

Jaime and Brienne bear it better than most. They are soldiers, and in a way they are in their element. The both of them have trained their entire lives for this moment. They are experienced, among the best fighters in Westeros, and in the prime of their lives. The Valyrian swords they carry seem to have been forged for precisely this enemy. Perhaps they were too.

Brienne leads by example, much as Jaime once did when he headed the Lannister forces. She expects her squadron to fall in around her and offer support, fall back when she does, focus on the targets she indicates. They never falter. With other soldiers he might suspect that they don’t want to be shown up by a woman, but the wildlings seem to be unaffected by Brienne’s gender. They follow her enthusiastically, eager to fight, and leave her room to do her own fighting. They leave room, too, for Jaime at her side, once it becomes clear that he will let no one else take his place there.

For the first time since they drew swords against one another they have opportunity to fight together, but this time as allies. He will catch her eye as they face an opponent -- like the giant who scaled the wall and stood over them twice again as tall -- and they will move together in concert to take it down, and share in the victory after.

Brienne’s fierce grin when they fell the giant together is one of the great treasures of Jaime’s memory.

He seems to move faster with her at his side, his strikes growing more confident. All his instincts that had kept sending him to the right have switched left. Brienne reliably stays to his right and with her as solid and impenetrable as a wall on that side, this leads him to rely on his left hand more quickly than any practice sparring ever has.

At times fighting with her is more like play than work, especially in the first days when they are not so driven down by futility. They find a rhythm together, learn to work together and play to each others strengths and weaknesses.

The profound connection between soldiers in the face of death grows all the stronger between them in these hours. Some friends and comrades chafe at one another under fire and stress, but Brienne and Jaime grow only closer, so that they each know exactly what the other is thinking, what the other one will think, even before they have thought it. The bond between them was already forged in fire; more fire will only strengthen it.

Day and Night have long since ceased to have meaning. The North tries to maintain that fiction for a while, marking “sundown” and “sunrise” in the passage of time, referring to a day and a night shift on the walls, but it doesn’t stick. It is always night in Winterfell now, and a day is a marker of hours only, the passage of hours marked by candlelight as close to 24 hours as they can measure. The Lady of Winterfell stubbornly keeps to counting the days, marks them at their meals and in their communications, perhaps to emphasize that the siege is not endless, that they can count the days since the sun last shone and know that it will shine again.

Other daily activity finds new patterns as the siege settles into routine. There are two great meals every day and they are both dinners, though for some folk it is midday and others mid-night. Before taking the walls the soldiers break their fast with bread and water, and men just coming down from the wall will join them to drink ale. The cooks and cleaners and craftsmen work similarly around the clock, but staggered, so that the kitchen is always cooking and the armory is always hot. In this way there are two Winterfells, a first and a second, and they overlap only by an hour or so at each end, so that people in the second shift will only rarely encounter those from the first.

It is a strange way to live, but it very quickly becomes normal, as days stretch into weeks and the attack continues without respite. Even endless night and an unending waves of monsters can become a routine with some determination, and solid leadership. For this they can credit the Lady of Winterfell, who governs daily life in the Keep and is largely responsible for keeping as much normalcy as is possible within its walls. She enforces the common laws of behavior despite their crazed circumstances, plans meals, keeps the castle clean and orderly. She sets aside places for small children to play inside so that they are not racing about underfoot, and people to mind them while their parents work and fight. Seamstresses switch between fletching arrows and mending clothing so that they will not run out, and cobblers take a large portion of the stables to repair boots while their owners sleep. The War Council had given little thought to these details, and Sansa takes them up in admirable fashion.

Outside the walls, nothing is normal.

The black sky above hangs low, increasingly oppressive and close, seems to be pressing down on them directly. Not a single star shines in the inky blackness. What feeble light they can create from the ground with torches penetrates only a little into this unnatural night, where the darkness is an actual, tangible presence around and above them. A man can’t look at it long without feeling he will go mad.

The snow falls relentlessly, piles on top of the walls so quickly that men must stop what they’re doing and use their shields to shovel it over the edge. Even in the North they have never seen such snow. Had there not been so many living and dead to trample it down and melt it beneath their activity, it would easily stand at a dozen feet. And still it is falling. They carry it inside with wheelbarrows and melt it for clean water as fast as they can, and still they must shovel paths through the rest. If a man fell asleep in the outer courtyard outside the well-trod paths and swept areas he would be buried entirely and lost within hours, and no one would find him before spring.

The army of the dead seems to neither retreat nor advance - they batter the walls and are crushed against them and yet there are always more. The horizon is invisible in the distance, swallowed by the dark of the Long Night, but one senses that the dead would still fill all the land around Winterfell with no noticable diminishment in their numbers. In his darker moments Jaime thinks on the last five years in Westeros and how the War of the Five Kings has left the continent a graveyard ripe for the plucking by the Night King, and then he is sick again, and must redirect his thinking. Those fields lie mainly to the South, and as Tyrion would say, they will jump off that bridge when they get to it.

When the dead forces swarm over the walls they are met by Winterfell’s defences and beaten back and burned away. New waves of enemies take the forefront at intervals: men of the various northern holds, giants of old, animals, creatures they have never seen before. Furry things with long tusks, teeth, horns. Skeletal monsters with scant flesh clinging to their bones that one images were once bears, or perhaps large cats, with great gleaming teeth. The walls of winterfell stand high and strong and they find ways over, they batter at the gates with horns and fists while the wood splinters and archers frantically carpet the snow with arrows to halt their progress. Some great creature will collapse before the gates or beside the walls and their compatriots will tear right through it, sometimes clamor over it to better reach their living targets.

The enemy is mindless and heartless and behaves like nothing human and it scatters one’s wits to see it. It makes them fight back just as ferociously and senselessly, and when the soldiers come down from the walls it takes some time for them to remember how to be men again.

Much like in a dream, familiar faces will appear and disappear unpredictably. Jon Snow will consult with Brienne and Jaime, about their numbers and supplies, and if they are interrupted in this conference he will draw out Longclaw and fight at their side. The King in the North seems to go wherever the fighting is thickest and the forces most inadequate and try to bolster them. Jaime has always believed that one commands from the vanguard, and approves of him more strongly for this.

If he is long away Davos will appear instead and ask for a report, and most often Jaime will brief him while Brienne leads the fighting. Her squadron is one of the most stable on the wall, with the fewest casualties. He suspects it is because she leads the fighting, and is too stubborn to lose. She takes most of the hardest hits herself and is seemingly invulnerable -- though Jaime knows, from helping her out of her armor, that she has many cuts and bruises beneath her steel. Davos seems impressed with her, and will stop to watch her fight with a satisfied expression, which makes Jaime fonder of him in turn. him better, too.

From time to time the Hound will appear, and drag the bodies of their dead down from the walls. He has little to say to anyone, but he will nod to Brienne before he shoulders a dead wildling and carries him down the tower steps to the Godswood, where the dead will be burned before they can turn to wights.

But not always.

Sometimes they rise faster than anyone can predict. A man can die on his feet and be reborn a wight before anyone has noticed the gaping hole in his neck, and turn and kill his former companions before they know what’s happening. No one knows why it goes so quickly at times, and at other times they can lie dead for hours without moving.

It takes him by surprise the first time the man next to Jaime had fallen, and gotten up again with horrible blue eyes and started biting his arm. He had just gotten done realizing he was dead, and he has to kill him again. It isn’t as easy as he'd thought, killing a wight sprung from their side of the wall. There is always a moment of hesitation before stabbing a man he has just been fighting beside for as many as six, ten hours. He didn't even know his name, the first man, but he had coughed every time the smoke rose and offered Jaime a hand up when he stumbled, and he had a knack for kicking a wight’s legs out from under him. Abruptly, the same man was trying to eat him. There is a disbelief that comes with that - its too absurd, it makes no sense. You think you must be mistaken. That wrenching hesitation is just long enough to get a man killed, if he does not fight past it. It earns Jaime a bite on the meat of his arm before he cleaves the wight’s head from its shoulders, and topples the body over the wall with a kick.

You think you will kill anything that attacks you on the walls, but there is a moment. When it’s someone you know, there is a moment. Every time.

Jaime learns the man`s name later. He asks Brienne. Brienne knows everyone’s name. His name was Wendell Snow. Jaime writes it on the inside of their tower using a piece of slate, so he won’t forget it. Wendell Snow and a date, the only dates they will have anymore: Day 3.

Other soldiers take up this habit, writing the names of the dead. By the end there will be many names written on the walls, up and down and around the doors and along the stairs. Day 5, and Day 20, and Day 36, and beyond. Manderlys and Reeds and Royces and Stones and many, many Snows. The names flicker in the torchlight at you when you climb to your place on the walls, and you think about where your name will go, when it’s your turn. There are still blank places on the stone, but they are filling in.

Jaime hopes that they will burn him quickly when the time comes, or at least kick him over the side, so that he doesn't rise up on the walls and start clawing at people. It feels undignified, and he doesn't want Brienne to see him that way. He wants her last memory of him to be a human one.

Jaime is holding up better than he might have guessed after that reckless first night, when he had come at the fighting in a frenzy and collapsed afterwards under Brienne’s care. Her knowing about his “going-away” problem has not been so shameful as he imagined, and her watchful eye prevents him from self-destruction.

Wildfire is too much for him sometimes. They bring out the wildfire to burn down the bodies of the enemy, and to stop them piling up against the walls. The smell of the green fire and the burning flesh makes him dizzy and sick, and if he does not remove himself from it physically his awareness will try to flee it without him. He has to go into the tower and sit down on the steps and take deep breaths, and sometimes he will be flung back helplessly into terrible memories, but at least inside the tower he will not be cut down while he is frozen in place.

He fights so fiercely the rest of the time that nobody seems to mind his taking a few minutes rest. Once he can reliably feel it coming on he can go inside straight away and calm himself, potentially head off these absences, and recover more quickly. Sometimes Brienne can tell before he can when he is nearing the end of his rope, and alert him. She can’t explain how she knows, but it has to do with his stance and the way his face goes slack. She only has to grasp his shoulder and he will fall back, usually, most of the time.

Jaime's getting a reputation of an entirely different sort on the walls of Winterfell. Somehow everyone here knows about how he slipped out of the Keep to challenge the dragon Viserion, how he had faced the giants on the first night of the siege and commanded their scorpions to shoot them down even as they rained wights and wolves on his head. They said he had faced down the dragon queen who wanted his head. They even knew how he had wanted to fight the Night's King himself and would have ridden beyond the walls to challenge him alone had the Lady Brienne not stopped him.

The conclusion the soldiers have come to is that Jaime Lannister will fight anything.

It's becoming somewhat of a recurring jest out on the walls. Anytime some strange new creature appears someone will immediately suggest, “Lannister will fight it.” The strange elephant-like creatures with long fur and tusks, “Lannister will fight it.” If an unusually large group of wights reaches the top, “Somebody get Lannister over here.” After a moment of shocked silence, when some new horror arrives, one of the soldiers will speak his name, and they will laugh instead.

Even stuck doors and bad weather will bring the suggestion that they call Jaime Lannister over to fight it. He catches King Jon making this joke too, in the Great Hall at mealtime, suggesting he fight the cook to earn them a better dinner.

Jaime does not take this joking well at first. Jokes at his expense, in the past, have not been kind, and he has spent too long pretending that his reputation did not concern him to ignore such things now. Brienne has to take him aside and explain to him that it is well meant, that there is some affection behind these jests, and admiration too. This makes him feel a good deal better about the times he has seen her laugh quietly at it behind her hands, her eyes shining.

There are things that happen on the walls that none of them speak of, not then and not after. If you were not there, you could not understand, and those who were there don’t need reminding.

There is the day of the ice spiders. Soldiers of Winterfell will have many tales to tell after the war, but there are no tales of that day. If you ask of it to those who manned the walls that day, they might wordlessly take up a sleeve or lift their shirt and show you a ring of scars the size of a fist and scorched flesh around it, like an archery target with a crater at the center where once fangs dug in and held on tight.

Those with the scars are the lucky ones. They don’t speak of the unlucky ones. The acrid bite of the ice spiders burns through metal and leather down to flesh, with some terrible venom that makes a man swell like a sausage against its casing and stop breathing just before he could pop. Even killing them does not detach the terrible bite of those awful spiders. If you pierce them and pull their bodies off, their jaws will stay embedded in the skin, extruding their awful venom. You have to burn them, until the flesh around them burns and scars too, until their corpses swell and burst open and their fangs finally loosen. The spiders could cover a man entirely in mere moments. They would fasten themselves around a helmet and go in through the faceplate and at such times it is better simply to stab the man through the heart and hasten his death.

The spiders arrive all together in a moving carpet of legs, hundreds of them, some the size of hounds, and they could jump as high as a man is tall. Their hairy hides are coated with frost and frozen to the touch but for their hot hungry mouths. There would be spiders all through the siege after that, here and there, but never so many as that first awful day.

After that day Brienne wakes at night scrambling to get them off her, slapping wildly at the thigh where her own scar sits, where Jaime had to put a torch to her to burn one of them off and tried his best not to mark her too badly. When she wakes in a panic he holds her down with his own weight, telling her firmly it’s a dream, only a dream --

-- he does not tell her that it’s all right, they’re safe, because the siege still rages outside and they do not lie to each other --

-- until she stops fighting and stares at him as her breath slows and she understands she’s in their room, in their bed, and there are hours until they will man the walls next.

“I hate spiders,” she whispers then, shuddering. “Too many legs. Too many eyes. Horrible.”

Brienne complains of nothing else in all the War for the Dawn. Only the spiders.

They have never exactly agreed to keep sharing the bed. Nothing is said, no decision is made. It just goes on happening. She had lain with Jaime once to comfort him when he had broken down, and after that they do not sleep apart, never once in all the Long Night.

The first night coming in from the walls they are so exhausted, mentally and physically, by the strain of fighting and the horrors outside and the enormity of the task ahead that they more or less collapse. Brienne goes down first, as soon as she's shucked her armor and kicked off her boots. She’d been 16 hours on the walls, longer than anyone in her command, and only sheer willpower held her up long enough to undress. She starts dozing off sitting up, and tips over sideways already half-dreaming.

It takes Jaime somewhat longer to rid himself of his armor, unfastening all these latches with one hand, and he is half-asleep himself by the time he is done. He should have gone back to the barracks, but he simply didn’t, he walked here side-by-side with Brienne in a sort of stupor and he should have settled down on the floor beside the fire once he’d gotten himself unarmored, but it feels like the most natural thing in the world to push her gently aside and lie next to her on the bed, and by the time she finishes mumbling “what are you doing” he is already asleep.

He doesnt wake up shoved on the floor, so it must have been all right. Brienne’s already up and dressed when he blinks awake and she doesn't say anything about it, so he doesn't say anything about it, and it seems a perfectly ordinary thing to do.

It happens more or less the same way the next night, first her collapsing and him after, and she’s up and dressed before he even stirs.

The third time she lingers, lets him lie down first, fooling around with various little unnecessary duties though she is plainly tired enough to drop. Jaime takes a deep breath and makes a big production of getting into the bed and taking up all of the blankets and she scoffs at him, noisily, watching. She hesitates, but eventually crawls into the bed, yanks back one blanket for herself and curls up on her side beside him.

After that it is just something they do, without ceremony or thought.

If he ever did stop to think about it, it would be frankly bizarre that he would find himself regularly sleeping chastely beside a woman he adores after spending most of his life fucking a woman that he could never actually share a bed with. He's gone from one extreme to another. But he doesn’t think on that, barely even breathes in that direction so as not to upset this delicate balance between them, which has quickly become a cornerstone of his continued sanity during all this madness.

The desire is definitely there, a heavy presence between them. For Jaime, at least. But he is frequently so pulverized by the continuing siege that whatever thoughts might feint in that direction lack the energy to take any action. His body mostly hurts, is bruised and battered and cut, muscles strained from long hours standing and fighting, and to lie still is luxury itself. There is a safe zone of six inches between them, and he does not consider crossing it.

Though the space between them is breached from time to time, in their sleep, when warmth and comfort become too tempting for their unconscious selves to fight. He wakes with an arm around her waist, or with her breath hot against his neck where she has turned in to him, or her hands pressed up against his chest, and he has to reluctantly pull away, so that he will not be tempted to push further.

Twice after such an awakening he has to go out and walk in the snow until his blood cools, and the desires of his body fade enough to return, and one of those times she is awake and sitting by the fire when he does. She has a knowing sort of look then, but it’s not entirely clear what she knows. Does she notice that he wants her? Does she have urges of her own? She seems to lie easily beside him after he returns, so perhaps she is unaware. She seems wholly innocent, never showing the same need to cool any desires. Either she is not tempted herself or she is a lot better at concealing it.

It should be more pain than pleasure to lie beside her at night and not reach for her, not hold her close. In ordinary times, it would be. But during the siege, when all the world is upside down and their waking hours terrorized by unnatural creatures, people take whatever comfort they can. Soldiers in the barracks sleep piled up against each other to hear the sounds of living men, breathing and coughing and murmuring, as a bulwark against the dead outside. The physical press of bodies around them reminds them they are alive. The Wintertown whores have customers aplenty, but often only to hold them close and let them sleep against their breast.

Jaime and Brienne have each other every single night. Whatever is between them, they know they are fortunate to have it.

He does think sometimes that she wants him to touch her.

It’s how she leans into his body sometimes, when they are huddled close together, and the way she stills herself when he puts his hand on her shoulder. He tests it sometimes, brushes closer than necessary, lets their fingers touch over the table. Lingers a moment when she hands him things.

It’s very slight. She is so difficult to read. Her face betrays nothing like approval or pleasure at such moments, and she certainly does not make any attempt to touch him in return. She is as aloof and reserved as ever, entirely self-contained and apart from everyone; the walls around her as fortified and guarded as Winterfell.

And he has thought many things, in the past, that were only what he wanted to believe, and not the truth.

Jaime can’t quite tell what the others believe is going on between he and Brienne. They get knowing looks and whispers sometimes, typical gossip. Even at the end of the world there is still that. It has not gone unnoticed that they share a room together, and that he is ever at her side. But other times he hears only about her engagement to Tormund, which the wildlings they fight beside heartily approve of. They consider Brienne practically one of them, part of the family, because of their leader’s attachment to her.

Rarely does anyone say anything directly about it. Perhaps unsurprisingly it is Sandor Clegane, on his grim rounds, who stops to watch Brienne hurling an enormous piece of stonework over the wall and onto some target below.

The Hound shakes his head, looking askance at Jaime. “All the women in the world, and he wants that one.”

“Funny, is it?” Podrick says sharply, prepared to defend his lady.

“It’s a laugh. Except,” he shakes himself up and down here, sending snow flying off his furs in little clouds, “except I like the lady. And it’s a bit cruel, what he’s doing.”

Pod looks between the two of them warily. “Cruel how?”

“Coz she’s meant for the likes of me. Or that wilding fuck that wants her. Cunts like him,” he gestures rudely at Jaime, “they get the beautiful ones. Like the Queen, like Lady Sansa. That’s how this is gonna end up, you see. Sure, he wants your friend now, and he’ll probably get her. Cunts like him always get what they want. But before long he’ll have a prettier wife lined up, and he’ll put her aside. She’s better off with some bloke who can’t do no better.”

“Even if she doesn’t love him?” Pod asks, and Jaime holds his breath.

“Specially then,” Clegane emphasizes. “That one, she’s not going to let any man hurt her except she loves him. She marries, she should marry a bloke she can be mates with and no more. Then she won’t get her heart broken.”

“Everyone is full of opinions about courtship. But I cannot help but notice,” Jaime speaks up with much of his old acidity, “that not one of those people has been successful in love themselves.”

“Not like you, Lannister,” the Hound retorts.

Sometimes, alone in the dark, they talk. When the fire has burned out and they are only the outlines of shapes turned towards each other in the bed, and they cannot see their faces a few hands-breadths away, they talk.

She asks him, in the dark, about the weight he is carrying, if it is any lighter. He had confessed to her before the regrets he has, how nearly every decision he has made has turned out wrong. Years of his life lost to a terrible mistake, sometimes one after another. But he does not like to speak of it, even to her.

“You cannot understand,” he tells her, trying to shut down the conversation and get some sleep.

“I have my own sins,” she says thoughtfully.

Jaime is amused. “Your sins. The sins of honorable knight Brienne. They must be dark and terrible indeed. Tell me, did you fail to rescue a kitten from a tree? Trample some flowers?”

Brienne glares at him, he can feel it in the dark. It angers her, clearly, to be so dismissed. “I am no septa, Ser Jaime. I have things to regret.” Much to his surprise, and perhaps to hers as well, she continues on. “I abandoned my duties on Tarth, my family, my father, for my own selfish reasons. Whatever your mistakes, you have been true to your house. That is more than I can say.”

She stops short, gathering herself again. It upsets her, this admission.

“Tell me,” he asks her. Suddenly he is very awake and alert.

“It’s difficult to explain,” she says awkwardly.

“Try,” he urges her. “That is, if you would not mind confessing a few regrets to someone with far worse on his conscience. I’m sick of my own problems – distract me, will you? You know all my secrets. I know so little of you, it seems a bit unfair.”

Brienne sounds perplexed. “So little? There is not so much to know. And it’s not very interesting, I’m afraid.”

“I’m interested.” Just how interested, he tries not to reveal, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

He has to wait for her to begin. You can’t interrupt Brienne if you want her to tell you anything, at the slightest provocation she will wall herself up and you’ll get nothing more from her that night. He’s learning some patience for this, waiting for her to talk.

A long breath.

“My father... is a very stern man, very serious and proud. Except not with me, not always. To me he is softer, when he can be. For a while I was the youngest child, and he was fond of me. I had two elder brothers who would carry the family line, and it did not matter so much that I was… well, me.”

She is quiet far too long, gathering her thoughts. Jaime waits as long as he can manage. “You have never mentioned brothers?”

“They died. One quite young, when I was a child, the other older, when I was twelve. Poor Galledon... He would have made a fine Evenstar if he only lived.” She smiles fondly, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “I adored him. He was kind and gallant, a fine swordsman. I thought he was the bravest and best knight in the world.”

“Was he a better fighter than you?”

“Hard to say. I did not play at swords so much then. I took that up in earnest when he died.” She shifts, turns onto her back, one arm flung up across her face. “But I know he would have been better. He was all that I am and much more. Strong, clever, quick. Graceful. I sparred with him only once and he did not go easy on me. I didn’t get a touch on him. But he didn’t laugh at me either, even though I had no earthly idea what I was doing. Galladon never laughed at me like the others did. Even then I was almost this size – 12 years old and larger than grown men. I thought I’d never stop growing. I prayed it would stop, and the gods did not listen.”

She turns her head back only briefly, to see if Jaime is still listening. He is, raptly.

“Anyway, Galladon drowned in the sea when a storm arose more quickly than he could find shore. It took days to find him and even then we could hardly believe it. And then there was only me...”

A plaintive note enters her voice at this last word.

“Suddenly everything fell to me. The last of my line, the one to carry on the name. Imagine my poor father. I must be matched to a suitable house, but none would have me. What matches were made ended… poorly.”

Brienne shifts uncomfortably, and skirts over that subject.

“After a few… disasters, I simply refused to continue. No more engagements, no more parties, no more court. It wasn’t just the marriage prospects that were a disaster, I was terrible at all of it. The clothes, the manners, the…” she trails off, gesturing helplessly.

“Lying?” he suggests, archly.

“… Politics,” she substitutes. “Sitting at a table full of people who despise you and smiling at them. Making speeches. I was hopeless in every way.”

“You are honest and straightforward,” Jaime says.

Brienne fights his attempt to soften her words, grows markedly more passionate. “I was dull and unsuitable. Bad enough to be ugly; worse to be thick on top of it. I’ve since seen other women – wildling women, the women of Bear Island – that fight as I do, but command respect in a way I cannot. I cannot charm people, or make pretty speeches. So imagine it. Me at court, pretending I belonged there. Being trained to lead the Isle, sitting on negotiations with bannermen, granting petitions. It was torment, all of it. None of them wanted me there. I was an embarrassment to the court, and to my House. They said I would be the Evenstar someday, but only because there will be no one else when my father is gone. are no other heirs, not even distant cousins. I was all they had.”

He can imagine that all too clearly. A miserable teenaged Brienne, shy and awkward, burning with humiliation under all those eyes. It must have been awful for her.

“You seem to know the histories of all the houses, so you must know we were once a great house. We had our own kingdom, and the Evenstar was a King. The Stormlands were ours, and more besides. Now we have only the Sapphire Isle, and soon enough not even that. To name me Evenstar would surely be a joke. No one would listen to me. Our bannermen would flee us. Even now, with a sword in my hand, none will credit me until I hit them with it. If I took the family seat, they would only laugh at me. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Fighting, that I can do. I’m strong, and I took to it. I worked hard – my master-at-arms taught me how to use men’s expectations against them, and it has served me well. Swordplay is the only thing I have ever excelled at. I thought perhaps, if I could be good enough, it would be a way to honor my house. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about Tarth, never that. I love it more dearly than I can say. I just knew that I could do more to help people with a blade than by sitting uselessly at court. Joining the war, maybe I could make things better somehow, in some small way.

“And if I should die in it, it would win honor for my house. Perhaps it would be enough. We could end in some kind of glory, rather than the shame of ending with me.”

Brienne trails off. She rarely speaks so much all at once, and clearly it is strange to her.

“So I left,” she forces herself to finish. “I rode off to war with Renly Baratheon, and thought if I died at his defense at least I would have been of some use to someone. Father, he… he tried to stop me. He is growing old and his only living child was leaving him. I’m afraid I was not kind. I prepared in secret. Gathered what arms I could beg or borrow. Cut off my hair – it used to be quite long, all down my back. I stole away in the night, in secret, without a word to anyone. I rode for the shipyard, intending to take the first boat at sunrise.”

“Unfortunately,” she sighs, “I cannot disguise myself, however I may try, and stealth is not one of my skills either. I was seen leaving, and was easy to find at the docks. By sunrise, Father caught up with me. He begged me not to go. Begged. No one should ever have to see their father beg, Ser Jaime. It was awful. But I hardened my heart and did not listen.”

She is quiet a long while after that, and pulls in a shaky breath to continue.

“He only wanted to preserve our family, to keep the Sapphire Isle under the Tarth name. All I had to do was stay, sit in a stuffy room now and then, marry and have a child. No more than women everywhere do every day, no more than Lady Catelyn and so many others have done. It is not so terrible a thing. I could have done it. But I was selfish and I chose my own way, and now there will be no more Tarths. My father will die knowing he is the last Evenstar.”

That’s the finish of her story, he knows, but he wants to hear more. This is a rare opportunity, to hear her talking about her past. She has never done it before.

“Is that why?” he asks.

He can’t bring himself to finish the thought. Saying the words “why you’re marrying Tormund” makes it too real. He thinks she will understand him anyway.

She thinks it through.

“My father is... He is unwell. I learned of it before the dragon attack. They took him off the island to shield him from Greyjoy’s marauders and he has not borne up under the strain. The fear is that he will not long survive as a fugitive, moving from one place to another. Even if I were to come to his aid, and protect him from Euron’s forces, I could not protect him from illness. He is simply old, and not what he was.”

“When I learned that, I thought… If I return with an heir -- a legitimate heir -- it would make up for what I’ve put him through. Put all of Tarth through. It would settle everything. Father could die knowing that his legacy is secure.”

Jaime grimaces. What she put them through - by existing? By being herself? By pursuing her own dreams? But he bites his tongue, fearing she will stop talking if he tries to interrupt.

Tentatively, she adds: “Tormund offered marriage and he promised our firstborn to Tarth. It strengthens the North’s bond to the wildlings and makes them more willing to follow my command. And he actually desires me, unlike the political matches that my father made for me. It seems a fair arrangement, sensible.”

A fair arrangement. That is an infuriatingly low bar to wed the Maid of Tarth. He grinds his teeth at it.

“Is it truly necessary though?” He chances disagreeing with her. “What if you went back now? Surely you will want to see your father before he passes, if you wait until you have born him a grandson it could be too late. After the siege, with all of your success in the field, having lead men in battle -- couldn’t you take up Tarth yourself, and think of heirs later? Surely they would be proud to have you now, with all you have done.”

“I can’t.” She shifts again, restlessly. “I can’t go back. I will only shame him, returning like this. I haven’t done anything worthy yet. I’ll have failed, and I’ll never be deserving of Tarth. They would take me back regardless, and make do if they must, but I would know. I would know.”

Then he is angry -- at Brienne’s father, at her bannermen, at all these people who made her feel inadequate and worthless. They’ve hurt her terribly, when they should have protected her, treasured her, like the wonder she is.

Jaime speaks up suddenly. “Is he stupid?”

“Excuse me?” Brienne draws back sharply.

“Your father. I’ve never met the man. How foolish is he? Has he his wits?”

“My father is no fool,” she says coldly.

Don’t insult the father. Noted.

“Good.” Jaime raises his voice, and puts all of his easy confience into his words. “Then you will have nothing to worry about. You have already made him proud. Brienne, you were raised to one King’s guard and served him faithfully. You killed another King yourself on the field of battle. You rescued Sansa Stark and served under the King in the North. You fought a dragon and blinded him. You challenged the Dragon Queen. And, of course, you escorted Queen Cersei’s foolish brother to King’s Landing and saved his life on more than one occasion. When they write the histories of the War of the Five Kings and the War for the Dawn, you will be all over them. How could he not be proud of you, if he is no fool?”

Brienne stumbles over her words. “But I -- you exaggerate --”

“If anything, I understate the facts. You are a hero. They will be writing songs of you before this war is done.”

Brienne’s voice is strange. “No one will write songs of me.”

“If they have any decent singers in the North, they will. If they’re too slow about it, I’ll write some myself.” He grins at her. “But no one will want to hear me sing them, I’m afraid. Tyrion has always said my singing could strip the paint off of a fence.”

“I can confirm that,” Brienne says dryly, with an amused tone. Probably remembering his rendition of Two Maidens in a Pool, on the road to King’s Landing.

“If I should meet your father, I will sing your praises - in words if not actual song. Bring me to him and I’ll make him see. Tarth will be proud of you, Brienne. They should have been honored to have you in the first place, but it will be blindingly obvious when you return.”

He can see only her outline against the embers of the fire, and the shape of her holds very still. Perhaps she is considering his words.

Brienne starts to say something, perhaps to contest him, but stops. Instead she says quietly, “Thank you.”

Then one night she doesn’t return to their room with him after their shift, doesn’t appear even though he waits and waits. He sits up watching the door for her return. How is he supposed to get any sleep without her? It’s unacceptable. He puts on a coat and goes out to look for her.

Jaime searches for her all through the Great Keep, every room of which is crowded with people taking shelter, Winterfell is crammed from cellar to rafters, and he knows he will not find her anywhere there are people. If she is hiding herself she will not want to be in the way or to disturb anyone. He finds her in the Rookery where the ravens wait restlessly through the endless night and no more messengers come to give them purpose. She thinks no one would think to look for her here, or perhaps that no one would look for her at all, except he does. He freezes in the doorway when he sees her, still armored, sitting on the floor in the dim candlelight beneath a hundred shivering black wings.

Tears roll down her cheeks silently. She does not move to wipe them away, only stares miserably up at the ravens with her jaw clenched tight.

She never turns her face to look at him, even when he crosses the room and sits down beside her. She only wipes hurriedly at her cheeks.

“I’ve ruined it,” she says softly, and the ravens flutter quietly above their heads.

“Tormund?” he guesses. She sees the wildling sometimes, when they come down from the walls, before she comes back to their room. He never asks her where they go or what they do together; doesn’t want to know.

“Yes.” She looks down at her hands wringing each other in her lap. “He has broken off our betrothal.”

He should be elated. Some shameful part of him is.

But Brienne is crying, and this is the worst thing that could ever happen. He has never seen her cry before, not when the bloody mummers threatened to rape her or when Catelyn Stark died or when she took wounds that would set most men to wailing for their mothers. Brienne crying fills him with a helpless kind of panic.

She’s keeping her voice low, perhaps so as not to rile up the ravens. He can hear it quivering slightly, trying to contain more tears.

“This is four. The fourth time I’ve failed an engagement. It must be some sort of record.”

“He will change his mind,” he says, with some reluctance. “He would be a fool not to.”

“No, he won’t.” She sounds completely certain, and there is note of something -- pride perhaps? -- that he cannot quite identify. “I wouldn’t give him what he wanted.”

A sudden stab of anger pierces him at those words. “He wasn’t ungentlemanly with you, was he? I’ll kill him.”

She snorts at his tone. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

She still isn’t quite looking at him. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but by now they are dry. She can turn back her tears so quickly when she is observed. He wonders if there have been other times, with other tears, that she has hidden from him.

“Is it me?” He hesitates to ask. He’s not entirely sure what he’s asking, really. Perhaps Tormund got the wrong idea, seeing them together. Perhaps he knows that Jaime wants her, and Brienne has not pushed him away quickly enough. Or perhaps he knows that there is something between them that is more than either of them can explain.

She doesn’t answer that. She only wraps her arms around her knees and hunches over them.

“I’ve been going about this wrongly,” she says. “I think I’ve been cruel to him.”

Jaime immediately disagrees. “You could never be cruel.”

Cersei was cruel. He knows real cruelty. Brienne is not capable of such things.

She seems to grow sadder, and bows her head into her arms. “I would like to be alone please,” she says in a small voice that tears at his heart.

The ravens shiver again, restlessly.

He finds Tormund in the great hall, where between the daily meals one can find ale and mead. He sits with his own band of fighters, who serve the West wall, on the same shift as theirs. That red beard shines out across the hall, and Jaime rushes straight over.

“There he is,” Jaime announces himself, once standing beside his chair, “the stupidest man alive.”

He hurt Brienne. He made her cry. Jaime’s inclined to club him in the face with his gold-plated hand for that. It made a very satisfying image all the walk here from the rookery.

But the red-haired barbarian goes on drinking from his flagon, uninterested in anything Jaime has to say. His compatriots at the table look up, over to their leader, and then shrug and resume their drinking.

Jaime gets his first inkling that this isn’t going to go quite the way he had envisioned.

Still, with slightly diminished force, he goes on accusingly. “I cannot imagine what would possess a wildling lucky enough to be engaged to Brienne of Tarth to cast her aside. Have you lost your senses?”

“Might have,” the wildling mutters. It may be literally true, Jaime realizes. Tormund is deeply, blisteringly drunk.

“You don’t understand what you had.” Jaime's hand fists at his side. “If you did you could never walk away from that woman.”

Tormund looks vaguely irritated. “Right. That's why I’m sitting here guzzling this weak southern piss you call ale when I should be asleep in my bunk. Because I don't know what I had.”

He drains the rest of his flagon and slams it down on the table, wiping at his mouth. The other wildlings don’t seem to take much notice of that; such gestures are commonplace among this unruly bunch.

“I went too fast, I think.” He’s more mumbling to himself than actually speaking to Jaime. Even for a wildling, he’s sozzled. “These southern girls want you to marry them first; say the words, switch your cloaks. I can do that, okay. Seemed to please her I offered. I think she liked being engaged to me. It's everything else she don't really want. I thought I could persuade her but all she really wants is to be with you.”

Jaime must have looked startled at this claim, because the ginger man points at him accusingly.

“M'not an idiot. I got eyes. I see you two together all hours of the day; fighting together, hell, you share the same bed. I thought she'd forget about you once we were on the walls, I could make her forget. But it's only gotten worse.”

Damn. It’s true then, he's ruined this for her.

“Listen…” Jaime has to steel himself. Brienne's tears, he reminds himself. Brienne hurting. “I've had some… difficulties and she's been watching out for me. She lets me share her bed to help me sleep. But there's nothing untoward about it. We are only friends, nothing more than that. I've never touched her.”

The ginger man looks, if anything, more exasperated. “But that's worse! Don't you see how that's worse?” He shakes his head disgustedly and takes another gulp of ale. “If you were just fucking it’d be one thing. But that's something else. What even is that?”

“She's a good woman,” Jaime emphasizes. “Honorable. She would not be unfaithful, not ever.”

“Ain’t worrying about that.” Tormund refills his flagon, dipping it into the barrel on the floor behind him. “Look, I know she dont like me much - but I can work with that. Give me time and I’ll charm her. I’ll win her over. I can do anything you can do better, Lannister. Hell, if it's fucking I can do that better too. I'm good at fucking. But this? I don't fit into this. I want a contest I can win outright, not by forfeit. I don't know why she even said she’d have me, when she’s only got eyes for you. And you're just as bad. What are you doing here?”

Jaime shifts uncomfortably. “I’m asking you to reconsider.”

“For fuck's sake, why? Everybody knows you want her for yourself. But you’re here all politely asking me to take her back; why? Because she was sad and you couldn't take it? What the fuck is that?”

He has no reply to it; put that way, it’s plainly ludicrous.

“What's she even sad about? It ain't me, friend. I’m just jumped in the middle of you two. You go back and ask her what she's really sad about.”

Jaime swallows another ounce of pride. “You're the better option. She needs to bring home a husband to Tarth and the Kingslayer is not going to win them any allies. It might actually lose them some.”

“Not my problem.” Tormund slams down his mug and steps back from the table. “Yes, I'm the better man for certain. You're probably gonna fuck this up before the war’s even over. When that happens, you better believe I'll be right back at her side. But you think I'm gonna take a wife who wishes she was somewhere else, you think wrong. I’m not a training dummy for you two to put between you, and I don’t much like being used. I got feelings too, you know.”

Jaime stares back at him, startled, with sudden sympathy. He knows, after all, how it is to be infatuated with Brienne of Tarth.

‘I've been cruel’, Brienne had said. Perhaps they both have.

Tormund sees his expression change, and scoffs. “Now don't start getting honorable at me too. Go back to glaring at me from a distance like a proper rival and let me drink in peace. Fucking southerners.”

Jaime walks along the top of the inner walls just after this, deep in thought. The walls of Winterfell come in layers, with inner walls providing additional defense should the outers fall. The battle still rages along the outer walls of winterfell, but the inner walls are nearly abandoned at this in-between hour, leaving him a lot of room to pace.

Often Jaime struggles to identify what he is feeling. When there is a lot of it his emotions are mostly indecipherable to him. He wouldn’t bother trying to figure it out except Brienne keeps asking him how he feels, and if he says he doesn’t know she gives him a worried look, and then he has to come up with an answer. Generally he’ll pick one candidate out of the howling pile of terrible feelings and try to give it a name for her. Angry. Sad. Exhausted. Frustrated. Ashamed. He’s getting better at that, slowly.

Jaime tries it now. He leans against the stone and closes his eyes and picks at the knot of hot acrid emotion churning in his gut until something comes loose and he can see what it is. What he comes up with is fear. A useless emotion; he just about throws it back. But that’s what most of it is, it seems like -- he’s afraid. He thinks of himself as fearless but here he is, scared to face a woman without the shield of some other obligation between them. This is exactly what he wanted, to have Brienne to himself, and he’s afraid of it. Why?

Because he doesn’t know for certain how she feels? Because she might not want him? Because she might think she wants him, but once she has him, might feel otherwise? Because he’s useless to her? Because he’s an aging disgraced knight and even Cersei had tired of him eventually? Because he doesn’t know a damned thing about how to love somebody, and what he thought was the great love of his life was a grand delusion?

This is the heart of it. In the middle of everything else he has been given to understand how many things he had gotten very, very wrong in his life and chief among them is Cersei. He will never fully understand how wrong it had been. He had loved her. He can’t take back all the years of his life he had given her, for he’d done it freely and out of love; but that it was wrong, it was terrible and it was wrong and it should not have happened, he knows it, even if he will not understand it. She was his sister, his twin sister, and he should have loved her as a sister and not as a lover -- he should have, but he didn’t. If you followed them back into childhood and innocence they had loved each other rightly once, before it all went wrong, but there is no going back, it’s too late.

But what if.

What if he should not love Brienne that way either? What if Sansa is right, and Sandor Clegane and essentially everyone is right, and it would be as wrong for him to be Brienne’s lover as it was to be Cersei’s? Maybe the right thing is what they have now, a friendship, and pressing for more would be crossing a line that they can never un-cross? Brienne is a good woman and a true knight and probably the best person he will ever know, and she deserves a man who can love her rightly. Someone who isn’t broken inside, and a cripple, and a sister-fucker, and a man without honor. Even if it feels right to him, more right than anything ever has, he has been wrong before. He cannot trust his feelings. No matter what he tells himself -- that they have a bond, that he knows how to care for her, that he will be a better man with her -- they may be only more delusions, the way he had been deluded about what he had with Cersei.

It may be that he should go on loving Brienne the way he always has, secretly. Keep things as they are. Protect her when he can, make sure she survives the war, make her laugh and patch her armor and threaten to murder anyone who gets in her way but never touch her as a lover, let her marry someone else.

It may be that he cannot ask her to love him back. That asks too much.

It makes him angry, that thought. It’s so fucking unfair. If he had been another man, or if he had been himself and had no love in his heart, then surely he would have lived a happier life. Instead he is choking on it, all this love he has had, that no one has wanted.

It all turns around and around in his mind as he paces along the walls until he is near the Guard house, and he notices he is shivering. He’s gotten used to wearing his armor outside under his coat, and the wind is picking up.

It must be due to the wind that he doesn’t notice Brienne coming until she is nearly upon him. Still in her own armor, wearing her fur cape. Perhaps she returned to their room eventually and couldn’t find him. They have been looking around for each other all night, it seems.

She joins him quietly at the railing, standing just at his shoulder.

He sighs and bends over the ballistrade, looking down at the East Gate. He should convince her to return without him. It has caused trouble enough, their sharing a room, and a bed, and he suddenly feels foolish for it.

This indefinable something has been left unnamed for too long, he fears. It could ossify into a shapeless form that serves neither of them, and drives him mad with longing. Even he can only torture himself for so long in this way.

He turns his head to look at her sidelong and see that she too stares straight ahead. She would cross to the opposite end of Winterfell to find him and then stand beside him and not talk, not even look at him. They want to be near each other and they cannot meet each other’s gaze, and he cannot explain it at all.

Still, despite all he had told himself earlier, he can’t stand before her and feel nothing. He can only think how ludicrous she is, towering over him in the starched wool cloak and fur collar that makes her shoulders look even more broad and sturdy, with her hands behind her back so formally. Her hair is a mess of tiny pale curls that needs more combing, flattened by long hours underneath a helmet.

He wants her hands on his chest and not behind her back. He wants to comb through those curls with his fingers and watch them fall into place beneath his hand. Standing here he wants so badly to kiss her. Wants in a way that isn’t sweet anymore, it’s heavy on his chest and he can’t breathe for it. Wanting something within reach is one thing; wanting something you will never have is agonizing. He can tell himself that he will forget it in time, but looking at her he knows he won’t. He is not that kind of man. He will want this forever. For the rest of his life he will wonder what she would taste like, what would have happened if he had kissed her.

Brienne takes a deep breath, as if to say something important.

Suddenly the air shivers with tension, as though anticipating her words. But it isn’t her words at all that break the icy quiet.

A sudden increase in volume from the walls, with much shouting and alarm, catches both of their attention instead. The shapes of men along the tops of the walls are moving, suddenly moving very quickly, and all in one direction -- towards the East Gate.

He hears Brienne take a sharp inhale and hold it, much as he holds his own breath. A heavy, black dread enters his body and sinks all through it, down to his feet. Whatever is happening out there, it is nothing good.

Then there is an enormous crash at the East gate. It bends; the gate bends inward as though struck by a battering ram. But they haven’t got battering rams, have they? That has been one of the few things they have not had to worry about in this siege.

The crash issues again, with many subsequent smaller creaks and groans, the sound of wood and metal shearing and tearing.

The both of them grip the ballustrade tightly, unable to see what’s happening but only envision it with a creeping dread.

Then the East gate shudders and breaks through. Pierced by the horn of some abominable creature that sticks out a foot or more through the door, black and solid and huge.

All of the breath leaves his body at the sight. This is it. We’re done. We’re out of time.

The terrible black horn pulls back and leaves a gaping wound in the gate, its doors parted just enough to allow the smaller creatures through. The great horned creature charges again, and blasts the doors completely open.

The wights will be in the outer courtyard now, and the living will have to move to the inner, and they will only lose ground from there. This the beginning of the end, and the end may be very short indeed.

The bells in the watchtower are ringing, a constant alarm call, calling every soul to arms. Below them, any living men in the courtyard are racing for safety wherever they can find it. Those closest to the inner gates rush to them before they can close and bolt them. Those less lucky, too far to make it, rush for other shelters.

Jaime can see Sam Tarly below, where he has been tending the wounded, where his small band of men are now rushing injured men to the nearest shelter in the Crypts of Winterfell. A red-haired woman aids them, the Lady of Winterfell shouldering a limping man towards the door. Several of the girls who had been running supplies as well. They run for the Crypts as fast as they can, just ahead of the wave of wights that is just beginning to come through the gate.

They won’t last long there. The Crypts are not meant to keep things out. Once the courtyard is overrun they’ll beat down the door and they’ll all be slaughtered.

Brienne looks at him, horrorstruck.

He looks back at her. We’re out of time, he thinks again, with considerably more anguish. Gods, what fools they have been. All these weeks and months, and years before that, and all that time they could have loved each other, and now it is too late. They will all die here, and soon.

Her blue eyes are wide and aghast, turning back to the rent in the main gate. Her jaw works silently for a moment and her whole body freezes, rigid with despair.

“No,” she whispers, denying it, her breath coming in short shocks. He can see her already gathering herself to go on fighting, looking for some way to stop it. There’s no way to stop it. But she’s going to try.

She is in the same danger we all are, but it will be worse for her. Brienne of Tarth will face the most terrible of the horrors to come. And you know she will take as many blows as she can, to protect the rest of us. She does not value her life as we do. It will kill her, if you cannot stop it. You are the only one who can.

All at once Jaime thinks of Bran’s prophecy, and he thinks of Sam Tarly, one of the only friends he’s ever had, and Sansa Stark, who he is responsible for, and he decides.

He grabs Brienne by the shoulders and kisses her.

A hurried kiss, but passionate. Her lips part in surprise and he captures them between his own, clutches at her with all the strength he has to hold her firmly against his body.

When he lets her go she is awestruck, speechless. Her pretty blue eyes have never been so enormous before, and they are ringed with confusion.

“I love you,” he tells her, with complete conviction, looking directly into her eyes. He has to make sure she knows. “I’ve always loved you.”

Brienne looks even more bewildered at his words. “What?”

There’s no time for anything else. Jaime shoves Brienne backwards over the wall, into the Inner Courtyard, away from the invading wights. The breach is on the other side. She will be safer there.

She lands flat on her back in the snow banks that line the walls and sits up immediately. “Jaime!”

He turns away from her and runs along the top of the wall. She won’t be able to catch him now. They’re closing the gates, she’ll have to find a tower nearby and climb to the top, and by then it will be too late.

“JAIME!”

He hears her scream powerfully from over the wall and lets it carry him down, down to where the fighting is, sword drawn and ready.

It takes only two minutes to reach the crypts door, but it is a very long two minutes. In that time he slashes and rends and pushes past a dozen wights in succession, and finds the door shut firmly when he arrives. He pounds loudly at the door.

“Open up!” He has to turn to slash again at a press of the creatures around him. “Hurry!”

“For gods sake!” he shouts again, knowing that he has only seconds left. “I’m not a wight, open the door!”

The door opens a crack and he throws himself against it, shouldering the door open and stumbling into the darkness beyond it, never seeing who had opened it for him.

He descends into darkness, down the stone steps, screams echoing at him from every direction. There is something familiar about this place, though he has never been here. He had a dream very like this once.

He’s still feeling that kiss, the taste of Brienne’s lips, and he is lighter than air. That wasn’t how he had wanted to do that, he’d really have liked a more detailed declaration of love and a less rushed kiss, but it’s done. If he should never set foot outside this place again, at least he has that kiss to go on, at least he told her the truth. The kiss was for him; his death is right over his shoulder and he can’t die without kissing her at least once. But the words were for her. He wants her to know. She should live on knowing that she was loved, loved completely and without reservation.

Above him the army of the dead pounds into Winterfell, and Jaime follows the steps down into the crypts of Winterfell where the injured and defenseless living under the charge of the Lady of Winterfell take shelter amongst the dead.

They have no way of knowing that all around them, already dead Starks are stirring in their graves, and the Kings of Winter are about to awaken.

#amfas #this kept me busy today and for that I am glad #mostly I am trying to technically hit my stated goal of posting before this episode airs #also just in case the episode goes badly we may all need fic after #and either way I'm not going to be in a shape to finish this for a few days yet #okay enough stalling press post

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electronicdelusionstarlight · 5 years

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Idea for a horror story

Woman gets job as a caretaker/house sitter of obviously haunted house.

She has to take the job despite all the signs screaming at her that this is a obviously haunted house (grim history of dead people, crazed old woman screaming at her to run away from the garden, creepy owners of the house bailing on her the second she takes the job, set of weird rules to follow unless she wants to fall victim of the local haunted house demons, whole place is miles away from town, a town that has already unofficially dubbed the place "the killing mansion" or "the howling cottage" or some shit) because of her personal history, as she's running away from someone that has been abusing her in the past (husband, father, boyfriend, you name it) and is still trying to find her in order to "punish her" from ratting him out to the authorities (whom did nothing to save or protect her) or just for running away from him, and any job, especially one as well paid as this one, will have to do.

Anyway, she gets alone in the creepy obviously haunted house, and starts living her life there, not always fulfilling the rules she had been asked to follow, and interacting with the outside world as little as possible both due to her trauma and because internet deliveries are a thing.

Since she has been slipping up on the rules, however, demonic shit starts happening. Loud howling in the middle of the night waking her up right as she's about to fall asleep, claw marks on the walls and sofas start appearing, pools of slobber and bite marks start forming around her favorite clothes, flower pots start falling off from tables, delivery people get a instinctual fear of getting near the house and start avoiding it like the plague, dead birds are brought to her room's door, the usual shit.

So, since she's actually a smart cookie, she decides, rather than do something rash, to start following the rules of the haunted house, and the demonic happenings starts subsiding. In fact, after not even a month, she one night finds her previously damaged clothes miraculously repaired, and a cooked chicken on a plate rather than a dead bird in front of her room's door, with tray and plate and all.

She's starting to acclimate to her new life, and even starts to get to town more, there she meets, I don't know, Caroline the local vet at a self defense class she's starting to take, they connect over some shared interests and they start seeing each other, at some point she even invites her to her house for coffee, cue some shenanigans about homegirl having to deal with the jealous demons trying to fuck up her date with her, demons who after some coaxing do see that this now get girl is alright and they male her understand in their own way they guess they will share her with her, things are starting to look good...

Then One night she hears a loud crash from the living room, and at first she wonders what it is now since she's been following the rules to the letter, and she thought they were starting to like Caroline, but then she goes downstairs and finds her abuser there and she's scared because how did he find her and she tries to run away but he grabs her and strikes her and she tries to remember her lessons but the fear is making things worse and she cries out for help, and the abuser mocks her because they are miles away from anyone and who would ever try to help someone like her as he starts squeezing the life out of her as he chokes her to death-

Which is when the 2 demons living in the house show themselves. One barrels right against the guy, getting him off of her, crashing on the floor and he doesn't even have the time to scream as black maws of sea water and iron fangs sinking into the man's exposed neck and tearing flesh apart as he screams as the other goes to check on her, coughing and disoriented and still afraid as tongues of light and warmth start cleaning her face, healing her injuries and calming her, as she takes the scene.

Her abuser is gone, swallowed by the first demon, a massive, humongous wolf, somehow made of water and iron, its form wobbling and unstable, as if it could turn any minute into the wave of maws he had become before, and yet now sitting a few centimeters away from her, looking almost sheepish to her, as the other demon, a small, floating coal ablaze in a bright with flame, vaguely resembling the form of a miniature tiger, "looks" apprehensively at her.

She should be scared, she knows that, those beings are the stuff of nightmares, and she should be scared of them and run away in fear.

And yet... they had saved her from her own personal monster, and after all those months of living together, she has begun to tolerate, perhaps even like their presence in the house, so she starts crying, which at first makes the 2 demons panic, only for her to reassure them between sniffles that there was nothing wrong with her, now, and that she really really thanks them for what they did to her, as the two demons grow near and she envelops them into a hug, still on the floor, sobbing.

#horror #short story #oc #i am guessing i should tag it as oc?#eh #ghost story

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screamowyabois-blog · 5 years

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Remarkable Tips For The Best Home Improvement Project If you want to improve the house you're living in but don't know what to do, this article can help. This article is geared to help you learn ways to improve your house with many insightful tips. Make sure that you read and absorb the information here since it is the best way for you to achieve change. If you are purchasing a house, have your home inspected by a professional. This way, you do not have to figure out on your own or rely on a seller let you know about things that must be repaired or replaced if you purchase the home. A third party who is objective provides a great way to keep relations between the invested parties civil, too. It is very important to change air filters. It is healthy for the inside of your home and will get more life from your furnace and AC unit. Many repairmen get calls when the machine simply needed a new air filter, which makes it cost more than it should. You can make your ceilings appear higher by following two simple tips. Your walls could be painted with stripes, or maybe you can add a tall lamp. This will give something for the eye to marvel at. Your eyes focus on the lines and make the ceilings look like they are higher. When planning your home improvements, it is important to pinpoint which room you want to start on. You do not have to do everything at one time; in stead, do it room by room. Do some advance planning when it comes to remodeling, and watch for sales and deals on construction and labor. A good way to save money while improving your house is to plan ahead. Before starting a job, decide what you will do beforehand. All improvement jobs require a well formed plan to ensure completion on time without going over the available budget. Making constant changes to your project after you start can be expensive and time consuming. Contractors will be much happier if you know what you want before construction starts. If you are looking for issues, rotting wood, peeling paint, and water damage are all tip offs that a house has not been properly maintained. Things like structural damage, poor ventilation, and roof defects, among other things, will only be detected by a home inspector. Spending money on repairing these things is a good investment in the home. Use two-liter bottles that are empty to store things in your kitchen. They provide a see-through surface and can hold a myriad of dry goods ranging from sugar, flour or oatmeal. You can keep them on a shelf, in the refrigerator, or even in the freezer. With two-liter bottles all it takes is a simple twist of the cap to gain access to your products. Focus on the front porch if you are thinking about home improvements. A porch is highly visible to the public and gives a lasting first impression to guest visiting your home. Clear out any clutter and add personal touches such as flowers, plants, patio furniture. You may also want to add new light fixtures and a nice wood varnish. Fix any obvious issues such as broken boards or unstable steps. This will add property value to your home. Contractors that are not licensed should never get hired by a homeowner for a project of any kind. Every state requires some form of certification for general contractors and sub-contractors. Of course, this doesn't mean your contractor is competent, but is does show that he has the proper credentials. More importantly, a person who doesn't have a proper license probably doesn't have the right insurance, and they can be risky to do any work with. When you are wanting to do bathroom remodeling, make your bathroom handicap accessible. It is not necessary to talk about it extensively, but you should get ready because it may save you a lot of time and effort. If you are planning to sell your house, these preparations will surely add to your house's value. With this knowledge in mind, you should know what to do next. Now that this knowledge is something you know, you can start to create strategies on how you can make your home look better. Apply what you've just learned, and you will be successful.

Incorporate These Unique Ideas For Your Next Home Improvement Project

When you or anyone you know will be doing a renovation in the home, it is beneficial to obtain information in order to know the project is getting done properly. The piece that follows is full of great information for those contemplating home repairs and improvements.

If your trailer, house, or apartment is too small to house a dryer and washer separately, think about installing a combination unit instead. There are lots of combination units on the market that take no more floor area than dishwashers. A combo unit will work to wash your clothes and dry them.

If you do not have a signed contract, your contractor should not begin work. It is also wise to have the contract inspected by your attorney. Your contract should contain specifics that pertain to all work being performed, costs, warranties and beginning and ending dates.

When you are considering home projects, be creative and think about what you aim to accomplish. Getting the preparation out of the way will allow you to place your focus on the work in progress when the time comes. Get inspired by family, friends, home improvement shows and magazines.

You can overhaul the appearance of your appliances without spending lots of money. Stainless steel may be popular, but why trash your refrigerator that is still working because it is not a "cool" color? It is possible to purchase appliance spray paint for a very reasonable price, and paint the appliances whatever color you so desire. Your kitchen can have a whole new look with just a few hours of painting.

It is always best to plan ahead when working on any home improvement project. Not planning ahead can make decisions more difficult and could cause you to make poor decisions as you are rushed to make them. By planning ahead of time, it will be easier to do the work and accomplish the result you are looking for.

See to it that all the spaces in your house have a defined purpose when you're selling your home. Rooms such as the office and family room need the proper furniture to accompany them. Buyers will be able to imagine themselves in the room and think of how they will make use of it and enjoy it. A house with properly defined spaces is a more appealing prospect, and will generally find a buyer faster.

Basements generally don't get much in the way of natural lighting. Therefore, you should ensure you are properly planning for artificial lighting in your basement so that it appears more attractive to others. In the best of scenarios, your basement will have a portion of the walls that exceed ground level. In this case, you can have windows as well.

To make your walls look their best, you do not necessarily need expensive artwork, you can decorate the walls with tiles. For example, three-dimensional tiles can be used in alternating colors behind a sofa to create a one-of-a-kind art piece.

Bring out the selling points of your home. If you have a nice view, do not block the windows overlooking it. Make sure that your home points at anything that may make someone want to buy. By doing these things, the potential buyers are able to figure out what is so special about your home.

When you are considering a home improvement plan, analyze how much water your household uses. You can conserve water by installing low flow plumbing fixtures, including toilets, faucet aerators, shower heads and water heaters. These fixtures will help you cash in on the green craze and also save you quite a bit of money on water.

When you are looking for some help to do your remodeling, ensure your friends will be there in case the other person bails out on you. It's simply always better to have an out. Even if they're not helping you, it's best to have them on retainer. This is true in this situation.

No matter if you or someone else is doing the home improvements you need to do the right research. Doing some research is the best way to make sure you are prepared for your home improvement project. The ideas and inspiration you've just read should give you a great head start on choosing and completing your next project.

High Power Cleaning Services

#Highpowercleaning

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nessiefromspace · 6 years

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Terror Prompt: "I think the door is locked!" Zerhys, Gore is okay if you want it.

He called through the glass window. They stared, frozen to their spot until a guard ushered them all up the stairs. Rhys frowned. “What? No!” He banged on the glass. “You can’t leave me here! Hey!” he yelled. But it was clear they weren’t going to help him. He banged on the window. “COWARDS!” he screamed. He watched them turn their backs to him and hurry to safety.

Rhys faced the hallway, the flashing lights reflecting off the tiled floor in the dark.

An alien has escaped capture in the secret government facility and Rhys is trapped there with it.

I hope I did a good job making it horrrorrr.

You can also read this on my AO3!!!

The hallways to the secret military facility were dark save for the flashing red and yellow lights that twirled in alert around the rushing crowds. Scientists, researchers, and engineers were being lead by guards to designated exits. Rhys, among many terrified others workers were ushered this way and that. They had no idea what was happening, but the alarm had sounded and screams could be heard echoing down the halls.

Rhys had a good guess. The alien they had captured and tortured and experimented on had gotten loose. And he was glad for it. He felt no sympathy for the men and women who had ruthlessly chained and beat the creature. Rhys bitterly remembered the dark green blood seeping from open wounds and orifices.

They had detained Rhys when he’d lost it and tried to stop them, proving just how heartless they were. His ribs still had bruises, his jaw was still healing from a cut. He’d been reprimanded and warned no one got fired from here, simply misplaced and Rhys would only get one more warning. But Rhys hadn’t cared, he’d began planning to help the alien escape, fortunately, it seemed to have gotten out on its own.

Now, everyone ran for their lives, shoving past those too slow. They were crazed with fear and it only got worse when they finally reached the corridor with their designated exit. The promise of safety made everyone around him wild and they began to shove each other, shoving Rhys into a wall and making him trip. He scrambled back to his feet, now a good foot or two behind them and sporting a new limp. He hurried with all his might, pain searing through him. He reached the door as the last person barreled through, hearing it click closed just as Rhys ran into it. All the momentum he’d had could not push the door open.

Arms aching and bruised, he peered it at the crowd, staring back at him. “I think the door is locked!” He called through the glass window. They stared, frozen to their spot until a guard ushered them all up the stairs. Rhys frowned. “What? No!” He banged on the glass. “You can’t leave me here! Hey!” he yelled. But it was clear they weren’t going to help him. He banged on the window. “COWARDS!” he screamed. He watched them turn their backs to him and hurry to safety.

Rhys faced the hallway, the flashing lights reflecting off the tiled floor in the dark. His heart pounded, dread pouring over him like ice water. He needed to find another way out. He pushed off the door, his feet an entity of their own, walking separately from him. His head filled with static at the silence in the hall. As he stepped down it, he found his footsteps echoing a thousand times louder than he remembered.

He hugged himself, trying to comfort his panicked mind. He assured himself that he’d find a way out and he wouldn’t meet the creature- the alien. He could hope that it would recognize him and spare him, but Rhys didn’t know its mind. It very well may not have understood what had been happening that day.

His feet clicked along the corridor and he winced all the while at the sound. His ears strained to hear any noise beyond the ones he himself made, but none was to be found. He found the second door with no interruptions, pushing into it with a choked hope only to cry with dread when it was locked.

“No, no, no, no!” he gasped.

He knew the protocol that the doors would lock, but he’d hoped he’d find one in time that wasn’t. His eyes stung with fear and he hastily wiped it away. He needed to focus, to keep his wits about him. He had to escape. He trudged back to the main hall and towards another exit, the lights still flickering. His body shook and he hugged himself tighter, his mind racing and blank at the same time.

He was going to have travel across the expanse of the building, to the other side and to a little known part, where an exit may have been overlooked. He walked briskly, hating the silence and loving it at the same time. Silence meant he was safe, but it also exposed him and his stupid feet clacking away for all to hear.

The stillness of the place made his hair prickle and form goosebumps. Always were scientists bustling about, excited by their horrible projects and counseling with each other. He walked around toppled carts and chairs until he saw a mass of broken vials, their liquids pooling around the shattered glass. It hindered his journey as he stepped over a minefield of spilled chemicals. He had to twist his body this way and that to keep his feet clean of them, his pained body screaming.

Once free of the hazards, he turned to further his trek, smirking at the small triumph. But then he stilled, a scream frozen in his throat. At the end of the corridor, the red and yellow flash of lights bounced off the dark orange body of the alien. It stretched towards the ceiling, lean with two strong arms and legs, watching Rhys. He could see its many eyes reflecting the light as it stared at him.

Stomach in ugly, twisting knots, Rhys felt as though his legs would collapsed right under him. There was nothing to block the alien from chasing him and Rhys wasn’t sure if he could even outrun it. He heard a growl mix with low clicks that sent shivers down his spine. He had seen it plainly that one day and though it had revolted others, Rhys hadn’t found it hideous and he didn’t now. He found it terrifying. It took a step towards him and his heart leapt to his throat, panic turning his feet to lead.

No, he couldn’t just wait for his death, he had to put up a fight or he had to try at the very least. He willed his legs to move, one foot in front of the other until he was running and skidding down a side hall. He didn’t hear it give chase, but Rhys could feel it right behind him. He didn’t know where he was going and every door he tried were locked. He swore seeing it at the end of the hallway, light and efficient on its feet.

Rhys ran, wanting to scream, but was lost for words. He was nearly to the end where he could turn either left or right, but was grabbed, the creature sending him careening to the floor. Rhys yelped, gasping and shivering while the alien crouched over, face inches from his own. Rhys stared with wide eyes at the ten peering back at him. Its mouth opened, sharp fangs hissing. Rhys winced, waiting for those teeth to take hold of his gullet and end him forever.

What he got was wet. Rhys jumped, a surprised squeak shooting from his lips as a tongue met the base of his neck. It went upward, curving over his chin, up his jaw to slime his cheek and pull his hair out of place. Rhys popped an eye open, unsure of what was happening. The alien bent down, resting its forehead on Rhys’.

Flashes whirled around Rhys’ mind. Of a crashed ship and men in suits attacking tying him up. The poking and abuse. Starvation wracked at his stomach while the feeling of their hostility and morbid curiosity gnawed at his sanity. Chains choked and chafed him raw, while feet and fists and objects bruised and cut, making him dizzy with lack of blood. The humans were uncaring, cruel, except that one.

Rhys saw himself, tall and awkward, eyes watching with a curiosity shed of malice and malevolence. There was no hatred that raked against the alien, but a kindness and a sadness at its lack of wellbeing. Then, it watched the human turn angry at the others of his kind, fighting them and getting hurt. Rhys’ heart filled with fury. Rhys called out as the kind one was dragged away, beaten the same as him.

Rhys knew now, could feel the alien inside his head. Zer0, it was called, or at least translated into words Rhys could comprehend. It would not hurt Rhys. It only wanted to find its ship, repair it and get the hell away from Earth.

Calm now, Rhys tentatively put his hand against what he thought was Zer0’s cheek. The location flashed in Rhys’ mind, as well as guards and military storming back in to reclaim the facility.

A harsh growl, low and angry vibrated through Zer0 as he understood. His arms wrapped around Rhys’ waist, pulling him up as Zer0 stood and holding him tight to the alien’s body. It began to run, picking up a speed that was inhuman, through halls and down locked stairwells. Zer0 shouldered down each door without hindrance. Within a few short minutes, they had arrived at the large hanger bay that housed Zer0’s ship.

It was still in one piece, but Rhys could see where they’d messed with it. “I… I don’t know what all they did to it, but I’ll do my best…” Zer0 let him go once his feet were steady and they both went to it. It was large for what Rhys was used to, but he was awed by it. They worked fast. To Rhys’ relief the scientists hadn’t made a lot of progress and they were able to get the ship up and running in no time.

As Zer0 started it up and lights flickered to life, a realization prickled at his heart. “Uh… I guess this is goodbye?” He said quietly, heart clenching at his words and thickening his throat. He didn’t want to leave his new friend, but he knew it wasn’t safe for him on Earth.

A series of light gurgles were made and Rhys felt it in his mind. It wanted Rhys to come with it, longed for companionship like Rhys did.

A wide smile swept over Rhys and he ran for the alien, wrapping his arms around it in a tight hug. His heart was lighter than air, his eyes wet with joy. He could feel the alien’s surprise as it caught him and then laughter as it comprehended. They were both done with this planet and Rhys ready for a new life. A new adventure with Zer0.

#Borderlands #Zerhys #Zer0/Rhys #zer0 the assassin #rhys the company man #fluff #horror #no gore though #Rare Pair Extravaganza

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8thcourier · 6 years

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@gxnnut

one fist thumps, somewhat indelicately - on the top of the stereo unit. there’s a trickle of power, not a lot, but it should be enough to get the thing to play the small raft of holotapes he has laid out on a table behind him.

as jericho has something of a knack for repair, you might be mistaken for thinking he’d attempt to fix the damn thing with something other than brute force. but - from experience - sometimes the most subtle way to repair something was just to beat it into submission by sheer force of will... or sheer force of fist.

to his surprise - and ushering forth a sense of smug satisfaction - something inside the housing knocks and rattles ( probably a damn bloatfly larvae dead in the mechanism... ew ) - but the tape clicks into the slot and begins to play --

‘if you find this, i’m heading to concord. i don’t know where you are, but i hope you make it there. i’ll be waiting at the church with the others....’

when those tapes play, he always tries to imagine the person on the other end. what they might look like. who they might have been ( past tense... there’s usually not too much hope that either creator or intended recipient still survives... though it’s not entirely unheard of... and as a ‘courier’, there’s something about messages that has him collecting them like a crazed magpie ). he also kicks back into a dusty armchair in the abandoned house - picked clean of most valuables at some point, eyes closing as he listens to the voice that emerges from crackly and tinny speakers.

‘...if you haven’t got there by the fourth, i’ll leave the bag in the sewer grate behind the speakeasy. god, i miss you. please come as soon as you can. i don’t like these people. i don’t trust them...’

well - a mystery bag from a mystery person with mystery contents. that’d certainly give him something to do tomorrow. when there was a little more light on the situation... poking around in sewers was never a splendid idea, even at high noon.

he’s almost lost in the voice - almost... but not enough to hear the creak of a door on rusted hinges, protesting at some force behind it - and he’s thumbing the hammer of the .44 at his side, just in case whatever was intent on coming through wasn’t exactly -- friendly...

❝ i appreciate it when people knock - not that it’s my house but - y’don’t wanna be givin’ no one a surprise - jumpy people make for jumpy trigger fingers... ❞

#gxnnut #v: there's no place like home #very random but - i hope it's alright!

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pennywyzescorner · 3 years

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Hobbies

Created by: Goddess Pynari for the gypsies of Earth to keep them busy; well-known to every goddess, godd, ruling entity is this: idle hands are the devil's playground

In the year 375AD, Pynari begins to create tasks for the Earth bound gypsies to perform; these tasks can be, and usually are, malleable; they have been changed throughout time from the original 21 tasks to the ones in 1977AD, and those are: Galaxy observing, Stargazing, Fire starting, Pool swimming, Breakfast preparing, Lunch serving, Dinner cooking, Number crunching, Drink mixing, Letter stamping, Dishwashing, Laundry folding, Hole digging, Trash burning, Radio changing, TV surfing, Music dancing, Poetry reading, Fabric cutting, Piano tuning, and Motor fixing; each gypsy learns a hobby, passed down from their parents; when a male gypsy gets married, he learns his wife's hobby; details of each hobby, and which couple performs an individual hobby, are listed below:

Galaxy observing - Anaya & Jeremiah: keep an eye on the skies in the Milky Way Galaxy; always looking for anomalies such as meteorites asteroids and UFOs; if there's any type of threat to Earth, they can call the US President and other worldly diplomats; discovered and named Hailey's Comet

Stargazing - Elishena & Steven: keep an eye on the skies of the northern hemisphere; always looking for anomalies such as meteorites asteroids and UFOs; if there's any type of threat to Earth, they can call the US President and other worldly diplomats; discovered and named the constellations in the northern and southern hemisphere

Fire starting - Gynnie & Maxwell: build pyres for bonfires during sporting events birthday parties and Independence Day celebrations; extend their services to both gypsies and humans; maintain the flames so they're not carried away with a breeze; keeping the embers and hot ashes from catching something on fire they have no control over; work with arson investigators and police when needed

Pool swimming - Gracie & Bradford: create, build and maintain cleanliness of pools for their clients; extend their services to both gypsies and humans; are invited to join their clients and their families in pool parties; swim in each pool they build and clean

Breakfast preparing - Raina & Aren: given the foods to prepare the first meal of the day; only prepare breakfast for their clan members; those adult gypsies who are waking up for work, and the adults who are coming home after work on the graveyard shift, do not have to slave over a hot stove in order to feed their families; the aromas of sausage frying in the skillet, eggs being scrambled, biscuits coming to the appropriate temperature in the oven, and coffee brewing are very welcoming and enticing; the breakfast menu changes weekly; the adults choose the meals for themselves; the children are allowed to pick their own food to eat; i.e. cereal and milk, grits and eggs, or something from the adult menu

Hole digging - Clor & Bastian: bury the ashes from the burns of Kymmie & Xxavier; dig holes that are safely, and can be completely covered up; these members of the Michaelson Clan are diligent about the process of disposing of waste

Lunch serving - Stormy & Hunter: given the foods to prepare the second meal of the day; only serve lunch for their clan members; the lunch menu changes weekly; the adults choose the meals for themselves; the children are allowed to pick their own food to eat; i.e. chicken nuggets and fries or grilled cheese and tomato soup or something from the adult menu

Trash burning - Kymmie & Xxavier: gather the trash from the cans outside of their clan members and certain peoples' houses; remove all items that cannot be burned from the bags they've collected prior to burning the items that can be incinerated; place the ashes from each burn into containers in the back of their truck, and deliver them to the hole diggers for burying purposes

Dinner cooking - Karizmah & Randolph: given the foods to prepare the last meal of the day; only cook dinner for their clan members; the dinner menu changes weekly; the adults choose the meals for themselves; the children are allowed to pick their own food to eat; i.e. hamburgers or hotdogs and fries or something from the adult menu

TV surfing - Kylen & Myles: are requested by their clients to surf through the TV channels in order to help them find a program to watch; when they move through the channels slowly, they're attempting to find the client something to watch; when they change the channels rapidly, it's for the purposes of emitting light throughout a darkened room, without waking anyone who may be sleeping in the same room

Number crunching - Karmah & Jaxxon: they're both Certified Public Accountants; handle the finances for both Elishena and Steven; prepare and file taxes for both Eli's Parish and Pilar's Landing; purchase the food and drink and alcohol for both places

Drink mixing - Trista & Tomas: prepare the drinks for each meal of the day; they mix every drink they can directly from the source: Kool Aid, tea, milk, juice,water, and alcoholic beverages; only mix drinks for their clan members

Letter stamping - Freya & Wexler: donate free time to the local post offices in the Austin area; they make sure every envelope and package has the adequate amount of postage; place stamps on the ones that need extra postage; are never really home during the holidays

Dish washing - Divastina & Troll: gather and hand-wash the cups, plates, bowls, silverware, pots, pans and skillets utilized during each meal; extend their services to both gypsies and humans; prefer to wash dishes in a sink full of hot soapy water, and don't hold back when elbow grease is needed

Laundry folding - Cristallè & Donovan: wash, dry, iron, and fold the clothes for their clan members; never return any clothes with stains; have the skills and tools to dry clean the articles of clothing which call for this process

Radio changing - Iliana & Abraxas: Texas; during the week these gypsies are the familiar voices that greet the citizens of Pflugerville with the music from greatest musicians of the time; they also have what their human neighbors call "Iliana & Abraxas throw together parties"; when they get word that a less fortunate family wants to have a party for their child who has graduated high school or their parents are having a 25th, 50th anniversary, but the family cannot afford entertainment, Iliana & Abraxas gather all of their own party supplies, "throw together" a party for the graduate or happy couple, and do not ask for compensation

Music dancing - Hyvari & Luthor: professional dancers who own a studio; teach adults and children to dance any style of dance they wish to learn; extend their services to both gypsies and humans; know the moves to every new dance craze, and teach their students how to "Watusi" or "Jitter bug"

Piano tuning - Strozolè & Petraeus: called upon to tune up the instruments in the symphony orchestra, at the schools, and make house calls for their clients; extend their services to both gypsies and humans

Fabric cutting - Quavara & Zimmer: professional tailors; each unit of clothing is hand seen; create beautifully stunning dresses and suits for homecoming and prom; put together the softest materials for a judge's robes, and an attorney's suits for court; also see the uniforms for all sports teams and their coaches across the school district

House watching - Vestra & Dawson: stay in the homes of their clients while they go on vacation, celebrate the holidays in another city or state; extend their services to both gypsies and humans; they are a sigh of relief for the client who must leave to fulfill the need to get away and relax or have to help with a sick family member

Motor fixing - Juniper Flowers: has the only female owned mechanic shop in Pflugerville; repair prices are always reasonable

#thedaygypsiesstoleme #book 01:gypsylifestyle #meetthegypsies

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ariel4 · 3 years

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COVID-19 The Pandemic (The Resiliency)

[A/N]: For educational purposes only.

It’s been almost a year and more, since the COVID 19 was defined a pandemic. It has been almost 8 months since those of us in the country were asked to change our ways of working, studying, and living. And being force to work despite of the fear and worries they feel. The said virus is called to be the most threatening to whole world because every corner of it is suffering from this virus. It knows no national borders and no difference between rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Even the most developed countries in the world are struggling to face this major health crisis, despite of their technological economic advantages, still they struggling to put an end to the spread of the virus. Even though they put in so much effort, tens of thousands are losing their lives as the virus continues to spread. While the scientist are putting so much effort into developing a treatment and a vaccine for this a disease.

8 months ago, people are very busy with their work, studies, hobbies, etc. But a sudden change came up, the country declared lockdown. Everyone were said to stay on their homes, to distance ourselves socially, and wash or disinfect our hands from time to time and especially when you go out or touch something, only vendors at the market, front liners, nurses and doctors are allowed to go out and one member of every household that has a quarantine pass. Everyone are worry for everything. We worry for our studies and the things that we do in every day, like going to school, chit chatting with our friends or going out with our friends, going to beach with our family and celebrate birthdays outside the house, going to church and pray, although we could still pray at home but its more special when we were at church. We think about our friends and family, especially to those who are far away from us. We think about those who were forced and volunteered to face this pandemic and still giving their own, sacrificing and working in healthcare as doctors, nurses, health-workers, as well as those in the service industry or in the policy roles and to all front liners. Moreover, it worries us more to those who live in poverty and suffer from a poorer state of health. People who are homeless and now in shelters face the difficulty of isolating themselves. People who are dependent on their low income and need to continue working, would be impossible. People who are single parents that are more likely to be need of continued income. People without regular residence status and to those who are mentally weak, which are subjected to experience severe stress that can lead to depression or self-harm. Generally, for the poor who have no money to spend, no food to eat, and no jobs due to lock down. There are rich people who stock up and due to the shortage of supply, the prices touch the sky and the poor always are ready to push themselves under inflation, since they have no choice.

In the lockdown, obviously we were stuck at house doing household chores, like, cleaning, washing dishes and clothes, pitching water, scrubbing floor and etc. Also I play with my younger siblings and my niece, surfing on the internet, watching Philippine drama and Korean drama, dancing on the new dance craze, singing and listening to the music. I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with family and my favourite is to sleep, sleep and sleep but it’s a joke. My favourite moment is the time that I get to bond with my family, like we laugh with the same jokes, the time that we teases each other, a day that we spent greatly and happily, a snack time that we cooked together and a feeling that we were together is really the best feeling ever and it truly touches my heart deeply. Even though, things seems repetitive but, different emotions or mood. That sometimes I feel bored, excited, happy, angry, and etc. And I know many people out there do and feel the same thing that I do.

And now we are leaving in a new normal, were everyone must wear face mask and face shield, and to distant ourselves at least in one meter apart from each other. Every stores, fast food chain, mall, pharmacies, and etc. must have contact tracing book, disinfectant and hand sanitizer. And to those who go out of the country or province will be quarantined for 14 days and will take a swab test. People are continuing following protocols, as our way to fight the pandemic, while the government are striving to keep it under control. And People became more active on their lifestyle and conscious on their health. They became more creative and make small things more essential. They value God, family, and friends even more.

Living on lockdown has given us time to reflect on ourselves, our relationships, like family, and friends and what’s more important to us. For some of us, that means reaching out to old friend, or healing old wounds with people we once thought we’d never speak to again. And in a way, technology that helps us reconnect makes repairing those relationship easier. Also, in this period has actually made us redefine the nature of our life’s goals and ambitions. It has made us live simply and contented and live with a purpose. Moreover, it proved how resilient we are, how resilient Filipinos are, that amidst from all the disasters that our country have faced we quickly bounce back with a smile in our face. We stand and continue life with a spirit and hope that life is normal and will be soon. And this period forces us introspect on the border purpose we have in life. Most especially, we then realize the weight of humanity, the implications of our actions and how we are all connected.

-A. Salem

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survivalplan1 · 4 years

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Exists Income After Peak Oil And Economic Collapse? If You’ …

Exists Income After Peak Oil And Economic Collapse? If You’re Clever, there Is.

A variety of forecast that the globe will absolutely promptly experience a financial stress and anxiety, produced by a range of parts, yet a good deal of specifically Peak Oil – the lowering manufacturing of oil. (For complete info on Peak Oil, see Dry Dipstick – www.drydipstick.com).

Whatever strikes the economic setting, you’ll greater than most likely still require revenue. Job incomes also in tough times. Regretfully, in addition to furthermore paradoxically, each time when a lot added demands to be done, it gets far more difficult in addition to a lot more hard for individuals to absolutely position work.

We can think what sort of task could vanish initially as an outcome of decreasing oil items along with similarly financial collapse– such as home framework, freeway framework in addition to structure, virtually any kind of sort of sort of sort of framework along with structure as well as building for that worry, charge card, financial, bonds in addition to in addition products, over night tourist (daytrip might do alright), airline firm organization (yet bus along with perhaps additionally trains might succeed), the car market in addition to all its connected companies, resorts in addition to similarly motels, drive-through fast-food, cars as well as additionally lorry cleans, store depending on low-priced things from China, along with added– nevertheless it’s possibly much better to anticipate along with initiative what sort of task in addition to similarly capabilities will definitely be most required.

We presume they will definitely need common needs– food, water, wellness, as well as a lot more. There will definitely greater than most likely be a lot more concentrate on caring for factors than changing them, so home markets such as little home tool repairing service in addition to in addition garments repair service can do well. Escapist fulfillment along with similarly fads were expanding throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s together with there’s no variable to think comparable, budget-friendly business could prevent doing similarly too currently.

You should not count on a person utilizing you. Approach currently to help on your own, supplying solutions along with furthermore things to individuals that require them.

We can not make any type of type of kind of assurances, nevertheless the adhering to concepts are displaying opportunities. As similarly they ought to absolutely obtain you assuming in the excellent instructions stressing various other possibly firms.

Barter Network.

When individuals do not have cash, they do trade. They’ve continually obtained factors– along with furthermore abilities– that they can trade. Establish a barter network, aid others do it, in addition to in addition take a little cut of the job.

Beer in addition to furthermore Wine Making.

Despite exactly simply exactly how difficult times obtain, individuals will certainly still require beer in addition to furthermore red wine. You’ve obtained a limitless supply of barter thing if you can alter the factors out at residence.

Bike Sales/ Repairs.

The truly first aspect you must absolutely do today is gone out in addition to furthermore get as large amounts of taken advantage of bikes as you can. Utilized bike sales along with fix call for to do exceptionally well. You can similarly contain motion mobility scooters together with motorbikes, as a result of the outstanding gas mileage they obtain.

Car Repair.

While this is no time at all in any way to be in the brand-new cars as well as likewise car sales organization, lorries as well as additionally car repair work need to be excellent as individuals attempt to maintain their existing vehicles running as long as they can– in addition to furthermore as prolonged as they can invest for the gas. You can furthermore supply lorry fixing training programs.

Cost-efficient Luxuries.

In difficult times– actually specifically in tough times– individuals will most definitely like to damage themselves currently in addition to afterwards. Or great smelling hand-made soap or a hand-carved lumber plaything.

Computer system Repair.

Computer system repair remedy along with upkeep need to do extremely well. Individuals will certainly bid farewell to be going out to acquire among one of the most as high as day upgrade (computer system, display screen, printer, etc) nonetheless will definitely be a whole lot a lot more thinking about maintaining what they have running correctly.

Shipment Service.

It makes a lot much more feeling to pay a tiny cost to have a shop supply an acquisition to you than to enter your car in addition to furthermore make a big salami to do it on your own. Smart shopkeeper will definitely use totally cost-free shipment in order to create consumers. (On a bigger range, firms like UPS together with FedEx require to be effective.).

Satisfaction.

Individuals prepare to be amused, especially when times are testing. Think about unifying gifted individuals to give real-time residence satisfaction in location or area areas. You possibly will not get plentiful yet you’ll appreciating, along with you in addition to in addition the artists will definitely wind up with a whole lot even more cash than when you began.

Work Service.

On a whole lot even more exclusive degree than a blood circulation treatment, job alternatives can include your needs with comparable requirements of others, to give alternatives a great deal a lot more affordable than you can do them on your own. This could be pick-up along with blood circulation, yet might moreover include financial, taking kids to after-school training programs in addition to similarly displaying jobs or family pets to the vet, along with in addition a range of many various other work.

Patterns.

It would definitely act to produce, in addition to also obtain plentiful off, the following craze. You can in a similar way remain to touch with the society, along with also offer budget plan pleasant methods for your area to worth those patterns.

Farming.

An acre of land together with a great deal of hard job will most definitely generate what you require for a small remedy. Taking into consideration that of the good deals of usages of hemp, that will definitely be an impressive plant once it’s licensed– or at the minimal feasible without enforcement– to widen.

Organic Treatments.

You can expand, or forage for, natural herbs in addition to in addition utilize them to make recovery blends, syrups, salves, teas, in addition to similarly a range of various other healthy and balanced and also well balanced as well as likewise well balanced products. You can additionally use blossoms for Aromatherapy.

Residence Repair.

Individuals will certainly need to do what they can to maintain whatever in their home in functioning order. If you have woodworking, pipes, electric in addition to a large range of various other vital abilities, you can be a huge aid to those individuals. You could also have success at disclosing these capacities to others.

Criterion.

You call it, a person will certainly have an interest rate in it. Whether it’s using gizmos, playing needlework, songs or story. The lessons possibly to do finest will definitely be those concentrated on fundamental basics, conserving cash along with shielding wellness, such as horticulture, food canning, low-cost home food preparation, yoga exercise along with various other health as well as additionally wellness workouts, depiction along with entertainment, natural herb foraging along with make use of, in addition to in addition pet pooch treatment.

Enlightening Video Library.

Considering creating a training video clip collection; video clip together with DVDs that inform individuals numerous capabilities, whether they’re residence or vehicle repairing service, needlework, tracks, language or any type of type of amongst many various other topics.

Raising Rabbits in addition to poultries.

Bargains of individuals can begin their actually very own yards, yet incredibly variety of will definitely increase their truly very own meat. If you’ve obtained area, you can take benefit of that by boosting hens as well as rabbits-and various other animals.

Rental Library.

Collections aren’t simply for publications in addition to furthermore video clips. Take into consideration giving specialized woodworking, truck together with cookware gizmos, video game, playthings, house repair service devices, horticulture devices along with essentially anything else you can consider.

Seamstress/ Tailor/ Clothing Alterations.

In tough times, individuals can not invest for to just get brand-new garments to change instead made use of garments. Stitching along with weaving capacities are no a lot longer typical, neither are stitching devices.

Tiny Appliance/ Electronics Repair.

Till currently it’s been much more economical to throw out a damaged radio, mixer, telephone or food cpu, microwave, coffee manufacturer along with furthermore comparable devices than to have it fixed. With conclusion of cost-effective imports, together with loss of incomes, individuals will certainly no a lot longer have the capability to invest for brand-new factors.

Soap Making.

Everyone requires soap. While there can not be a time when you can not discover soap to acquire, you’ll maintain cash money, have some enjoyable, along with furthermore wind up with a remarkable barter thing by making your actually very own soap.

Toys along with furthermore Games.

When playthings were not mass-produced plastic aspects, there was a time. They were completely crafted from wood, product in addition to furthermore countless various other all-natural products, were valued by the youngsters that got them, along with also were offered from generation to generation. Produce some on your own, along with furthermore you’ll have clients.

Regretfully, along with similarly paradoxically, at the same time when so a great deal included requirements to be done, it obtains more challenging together with more challenging for individuals to really reveal tasks.

While this is no time at all to be in the brand-new car sales company, car repair work solution work need to be superb as individuals attempt to maintain their existing vehicles running as long as they can– along with furthermore as extensive as they can spend for the gas. In tough times– in reality specifically in hard times– individuals will definitely intend to ravage themselves currently in addition to also afterwards.

Regretfully, in addition to furthermore paradoxically, each time when a lot included demands to be done, it obtains a whole lot even more challenging in addition to much more challenging for individuals to in fact discover task.

Escapist contentment in addition to furthermore patterns were prospering throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s in addition to there’s no facet to think comparable, economical business could avoid doing just too currently.

You probably will not obtain numerous yet you’ll having delightful, along with you in addition to in addition the artists will most definitely end up with likewise even more cash money than when you began.

The lessons more than likely to do finest will certainly be those concentrated on standard fundamentals, conserving cash money in addition to securing wellness, such as horticulture, food canning, economical house food preparation job, yoga exercise along with various other health in addition to wellness workouts, depiction in addition to leisure, natural herb foraging along with usage, along with also pet dog treatment.

They were very carefully crafted from lumber, product in addition to furthermore countless various other all-natural things, were valued by the youngsters that obtained them, in addition to in addition were supplied from generation to generation.

There will absolutely much more than most likely be a lot extra concentrate on taking treatment of factors than changing them, so home markets such as little residence tool repairing option as well as furthermore garments repair service can do well. Escapist fulfillment as well as similarly fads were expanding throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s along with there’s no variable to think equal, price efficient firms could prevent doing similarly as well currently.

They’ve continually obtained factors– as well as furthermore capacities– that they can trade. The truly preliminary aspect you need to definitely do today is headed out as well as also get as fantastic bargains of made usage of bikes as you can. They were completely crafted from wood, product as well as furthermore various other all-natural things, were valued by the kids that obtained them, as well as also were offered from generation to generation.

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ricandhaiz · 7 years

Text

#LostSouls, Part 3

Week 3

After a morning spent prepping and painting the outside of the house in the sweltering heat, Miguel was ready to take a break. He felt hungry and was dripping with sweat as he strode into the house to get something to eat. He opened the front door slowly and carefully so as not to disturb Emma, who was asleep in their bedroom.

He went straight to the kitchen to make a ham and cheese sandwich and then grabbed a bottle of water before heading back outside. As he sat down on the top step of the front porch to eat his lunch, he thought about how far this place had come from the weed-infested and dilapidated bank-owned property that he and Emma had purchased just weeks ago. He had thrown himself into the job of repairing the house like a zealot on a crusade after Eva’s death. Although he could have hired others to do the work, he had opted to do most of it himself. More often than not, he had found it to be therapeutic, especially in the face of the soul-crushing grief he had experienced ever since the day he lost his beloved daughter. He spent countless hours pulling up threadbare carpet, scraping walls off decades old wallpaper and repairing leaks and electrical shorts before laying down hardwood flooring and repainting almost every interior wall with one notable exception: Eva’s room. Given Emma’s fragile state, he thought it best to leave that room untouched for the time being.

It wasn’t long, however, before his mind began wandering to thoughts of Emma. In the three weeks since they’d moved in, she would often sleep until noon and spend hours at a time sitting next to the tire swing hanging on the oak tree by the lake. Until now, he had thought that giving her time and space would be enough as she worked through her feelings of anguish and loss. But now, he was beginning to wonder if that had been the wisest course of action to take, especially since his leave of absence from work was set to expire in less than a month. He was wary of leaving her at home alone in her present state and was beginning to wonder if a more intense psychological intervention was necessary at this point.

As Miguel pondered his options, the sight of his neighbor’s dog bounding toward him from across the street made him smile. As it stopped at his feet and rolled over for a belly rub, he saw its owner, George, following closely behind.

He approached Miguel with an outstretched hand and said, “We meet again.”

“It is good to see you,” Miguel replied with a firm handshake. “Where is Casey?”

“She’s at the store. What about your wife?”

“Emma is sleeping.”

“Ah, okay,” George replied with a quizzical expression since it was already well past noon. “I see that you’ve made a lot of progress since the last time we spoke. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” Miguel replied with some pride. “It is coming along quite nicely. I did a lot of work on the inside of the house and pulled up all the weeds outside even before my wife and I moved in. Once we unpacked and arranged our belongings inside the house, I spent the next few days building shelves and storage cabinets in the garage and fixing up the front yard.” He then pointed to the rose bushes he’d planted in front of the porch railing and said, “As you can see, I planted these just yesterday and am in the process of patching all the bald spots in the lawn with grass seed. I am hoping to finish painting the exterior walls by tomorrow and would like to get to cleaning out organizing the basement next week.”

“I can’t imagine what it must be like down there,” George replied with a shudder.

“It needs a lot of work,” Miguel admitted. “I have only been able to clear out the section of the basement in and around the stairs. I made an appointment with a contractor to come over and help me figure out how best to utilize and repair that space.”

“Were there still items from old man Rhoades in the house when you moved in?”

“Actually, yes,” Miguel replied. “I found an old record player, which still works, and quite a few vinyl records in the basement. I also found cases of old comic books and baseball cards down there.”

“Really? I didn’t think that he was the type of guy who collected that kind of stuff. But then again, my wife told me that his ex-wife Carrie, had lived there with her first husband before he died in Vietnam. I’m guessing that’s probably all his stuff.”

“Did she tell you that I ran into her at Starbucks last week?”

“Yes, she did,” George replied with an almost apologetic look. “She told me that she filled you in on all the local lore about this place. Personally, I think it’s all a bunch of hooey made up by people with overactive imaginations.”

Miguel smiled and said, “Your wife, Casey, seems to be convinced that it is true.”

“Tell me, in the three weeks that you’ve lived here, have you seen or heard anything that made you think that your house was haunted?”

As Miguel thought about the numerous times he had heard a door close of its own accord or had felt a gust of cold air blow past him, his rational mind quickly came to the logical conclusion that these occurrences were probably par for the course in an old and drafty house like his. And as for the girl that he thought he saw staring back at him through the picture window…Well, he told himself. She just can’t have been real. Thus, he said, “No.”

“I thought so,” George replied. “I tried to tell her to just leave things well enough alone but she wouldn’t listen.”

“I am sure she meant well,” Miguel said.

“Well, all the same, I still think that it was mighty nice of you to indulge her the way you did.”

“It was no problem, really.”

George nodded and said, “Is there anything I can do to give you a hand?”

Miguel thought a moment and then said, “Now that you ask, I do have quite a few empty moving boxes that I have been meaning to move from the garage to the basement. Would you mind helping me out with that?”

“Sure. Just give me a minute to bring this little one back to the house and then I’ll be right back.”

“Great. The boxes are stacked on left side of the garage,” Miguel said as he got up to open the garage door. “I will leave it open and keep the front door unlocked for you.”

While George went to take his dog back home, Miguel picked up a stack of the boxes from the garage and carried them into the house. As soon as he walked in, he heard Emma playing “Silence is Golden” from behind the closed door of the master bedroom. Emma’s been playing that song a lot, he thought as he toyed with the idea of checking in on her. He got as far as the doorway and even raised his hand to knock on it before he lost his nerve and went to open the basement door instead.

A powerful gust of cold air struck Miguel like blow to the chest, knocking him off balance as he stepped onto the stairs. He quickly steadied himself against the door frame and then flipped on the light switch. Before descending, he paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim flickering light illuminating the basement floor. On the way down, he carefully braced himself with his free hand on the brittle wooden railing while holding an armful of boxes in the other.

Miguel was nearly halfway down the stairs when the music from the master bedroom suddenly stopped. Although the eerie quiet that ensued unnerved him and almost caused him to turn back, he forced himself to keep going. Once he had reached the bottom of the stairs, he put the boxes down by the wall closest to the stairs and again found himself fighting the urge to flee as he and looked around the dirty and musty smelling room. What is wrong with you? he asked himself. Get ahold of yourself. What are you afraid of?

While his conscious mind struggled to placate his growing fear, the sound of footsteps near the basement door nearly caused him to jump out of his skin. “Hello?” Miguel called out as his eyes darted toward the top of the stairs. “Is anybody there?” No answer. “Emma? George?” Still, no response.

Rather than wait for a reply which didn’t appear to be forthcoming, Miguel elected to see for himself who was moving around up there. But as he made his way back up the stairs, yet another strong gust of cold air slammed into him with even greater force than before. As he grabbed hold of the railing to keep himself from falling, he heard what sounded like the crazed laughter of a young girl echoing through the room. He bounded up the stairs as soon as he had regained his footing and was nearly at the top step when the light bulb at the bottom of the stairs blew out with a loud popping sound. As he lunged for the doorway, he felt a pair of ice cold hands grasp his ankles and yank him off his feet. He cried out in terror as his torso hit the stairs with a painful thud just as the door above him slammed shut.

“No!” he screamed as he tried to scramble up the stairs in the dark on his hands and knees. At that point, the laughter in the room had grown to an ear deafening pitch as yet another gust of wind sent him hurtling down the stairs once more.

“Emma, I need you,” Miguel groaned as he lay sprawled on the steps. “Help me, please.”

Seconds later, Miguel thought he heard the basement door creak open. When he looked up, he saw what looked like the figure of a man standing by the doorway.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” George asked as he quickly made his way down to Miguel. “What happened to you?”

At first, Miguel just shook his head while George helped him get back on his feet. Will he believe me if I tell him what happened? he thought. Probably not. He could hardly believe it himself. Finally, he said, “Thank God you came when you did.”

“How could I not?” George replied. “I heard you as soon as I walked in the house. You could have probably woken the dead with all the racket you were making down here.”

“You think so?” Miguel asked as he stepped into the hallway and looked over at the still closed door to the master bedroom. “I was hoping that someone would hear me.”

“Is your wife still asleep?” George asked as he followed Miguel’s gaze. “Wow. She must be a sound sleeper.”

“I guess she must be.”

Later that day, Miguel was sitting across from Emma at the dinner table when he heard her ask, “How was your day?”

Is she actually talking to me? Miguel thought to himself with some surprise since they had spent much of their meal up to this point in virtual silence. He replied, “Good. And you?”

Emma shrugged and said, “All right, I guess.”

“Umm…by the way, did you happen to hear any unusually loud noises earlier this afternoon?” Miguel asked. Emma shook her head.

How is that possible? Miguel thought to himself. “I had a little problem in the basement earlier this afternoon. Did you not hear me calling out to you?”

Emma blinked once and then twice before saying, “Sorry…no.”

Miguel bit his tongue so as not to start a fight. Who are you? And what did you do with my wife? he wondered and then decided to change the subject. “I saw one of your co-workers, Connie, at the post office the other day. Do you think you will be ready to go back to teaching in the spring?” No answer. “Emma?”

“What did you say?”

“You heard me,” Miguel replied a little more loudly and forcefully than he had intended.

Another blank stare and then…nothing.

A few minutes later, he put his fork down and asked, “Why do you like to play that song “Silence is Golden” on the record player over and over again?”

“I like it,” Emma replied slowly. “I thought you did too.”

“I do. But do you really have to play it fifty times a day? I am surprised that you haven’t worn the record out yet.”

“Then buy earplugs…or just leave.”

For a moment, Miguel was too shocked to speak. But instead of ratcheting up the rhetoric, he took a few deep breaths and tried to take a more conciliatory approach with her. “You could play other songs, you know.”

“No,” Emma replied firmly. “I need to play that one.”

Why? Miguel thought with growing alarm and as he paused to consider what he should say next. “Why do you sit by that tire swing in the back yard all the time? Where do you go when you go for those long walks through the neighborhood?”

“Why are you asking me all these questions? I am an adult, remember?”

Then act like one, Miguel wanted to say but didn’t. “Can you just answer my questions?”

At that, Emma rose from her seat and slammed her fist on the table as she said, “God, you really can’t take a hint, can you?”

“How am I supposed to know what you are thinking? By osmosis? I am not a mind reader.”

“Okay…So, what about this? Leave me alone. Was that clear enough?”

“Emma, we need to talk,” Miguel replied as he motioned for her to sit back down. “The way you have been acting is not normal. You need help.”

“No, I don’t.”

Miguel shook his head. “Most of the time you sleep half the day away and…and when you are awake you are either locked in your room listening to that damned song or outside sitting by the tire swing. You can’t go on like this. Eva would…”

“Don’t you dare mention her name in front of me,” Emma snapped.

“Why not? She was just as much mine as she was yours.”

Rather than answer, Emma simply rose from her chair and flung her napkin on the table before fleeing the room. Miguel made no attempt to follow her.

Long after Emma had closed the door to the master bedroom with a loud bang, Miguel remained rooted to the spot as his shell-shocked mind replayed their last conversation like a tape on a loop.

#hailee steinfeld #ricardo gomez #horror #ghost story

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littlesilverplatinum · 5 years

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Herded Back Home

---

A mothers concern is deep-seated and everlasting.

Yet it is nothing that Hikari wants.

Outside the door of her mother’s domain, Hikari absentmindedly – distractedly – fingered at her coarse shirt. The fabric would most likely stay this way until she washed it, dry and crispy from the cold autumn air. Upon her shoulder sits the eyes of Horace. Her guiding light in moonlit nights, her safety net for when things weren’t truly going her way. --Her dutiful owl whom had brought her here. She gives his soft, feathered belly a scratch. A silent thank you for his efforts and time.

It took her too long to realize that she could just�� knock – then even longer to realize this was her home, not someone else’s.

So, in reality, she could just go inside.

With a soft click from the door, she did just that. The warm light spewing out from the kitchen was interrupted by the shape of her mother, dressed in her apron and gloves that almost stood as the signature garb of the other woman. Hands drying upon a towel – a rhythmic motion that paused once her eyes fell upon her daughter.

“Welcome ho- Hikari?”

Hikari did not respond to her mother, the tilt of concern in the tone of her voice enough to make her force away any compassion – any help and comfort her mother may bring. It is not something she wants (don’t look at her like that, with the sorrow and worry in your gaze). Instead, she clicks her tongue and raises her arm for Hanish to take off into the house.

The owl does as he is asked, landing as carefully as he can on the backrest of the living room couch. Try as he might, it didn’t save the leather fabric from any tears. His sharp talons dug into the backrest, bloodied and dirtied from where he first was perched upon his trainers shoulder. The clear as day bruises on her had gotten no real time to heal – dirt mingled inside the broken flesh, dried up blood chunked around the indentations.

It was not pretty, to say the least. But for something that looked so painful… it just wasn’t. Willfully ignoring the horror in her mother’s gaze, Hikari hung up her cardigan by the front door. Disregarding that that, too, would need a wash. --When she dug her feet out of her boots, it felt like sandpaper fell from the heel of her feet. Mud, sand and caked in with water.

“Bath.” She enlightened, as though that would make things easier for Johanna to process. Though she knows what she must look like, with stains of dried, brown blood resting against her shoulder and hair messy and tangled – she could not find it in her to explain. She knows why her mother stared at her in disbelief, with concern. Just like a good mother should.

It is on her toes that she travels up the stairs to the second story, throwing a ‘Please clean his feet’ over her shoulder as a request for her mother to fulfil. Hanish is quick to leave his perch, instead stumbling to a halt on the kitchen island Johanna is leaning against.

It’s the least he could do for her.

---

The face starring back at her felt like a strangers. Their eyes, wide and almost crazed – heavy-lidded and broken. A scratch she hadn’t been aware of getting sat prominent upon her cupids bow. She… Probably hit some branches when running. Yeah, that must be it.

The loud dripping of the water hitting the empty tub changed into that of a numb, hollow buzz. Little by little, the water filled up. Carefully, she knelt by its side, dipping her fingers into it to test its temperature. Burning hot. --When she pulled her shirt over her head, her hair followed with it. Tangling into the button holding the collar together, she struggled to get free. Once she did, several pieces of inky strands got left behind.

She threw it to the side, in front of the laundry case rather than inside it. Next was her skirt. Medium length and dark, it looked as though it had been saved from damage. But feeling the course fabric between her finger and thumb, Hikari knew that it held more mass than it should. She stepped out of it one leg at a time, almost losing her balance through the mechanical motion.

The water rushed, for just a moment before slowing back down.

Now, bare save for her underwear, Hikari took a look at herself. At her lean shoulders (had they always been like that?) and at the ribs poking out under pale skin. She let her hands travel over the places – over her collarbones, her neck.

Her shoulders.

Time seemed to come to a halt. Every piece of her mind zeroed in on the mess that colored her left shoulder. Into the crusted blood, at the torn skin and dirt sitting under the wounds. Almost timidly, she touched at it. Hardened and thick, but once she dug a little harder, the bloody mess underneath showed itself.

She turned, facing her back to her mirror rather than the front. Twisting her torso to get a better view, she continued her exploration. The straps of her bra sat nested within the gore, stained beyond repair for sure – pretty pearl white doesn’t stay white for long.

Hikari felt over the wounds, wondering over how nothing felt… bad. The sensation across her back was seemingly gone, passed away to save her the hurt. So, she tried her best to find it. --By digging her nails – longer than they need to be, dirty – into the healing scabs, pulling and drawing them out. She found cavities, dents and bloody messes stained the palms of her hands pink.

The dim lights of the bathrooms did little to help her see past the mess. What may have been clear red sat dark and murky, almost charcoal black and thick. (She had never seen anything like it.) It was as though a horror show had made itself home upon her shoulder blade. Dented its pegs into her skin, forcing the flesh to part for its tent.

Shaking her head, Hikari tried to think clearly. Tried to move her hands, occupy them – something other than what she was doing. Almost franticly, with a sudden burst of energy, she opened the cabinets over the bathroom sink. Found the cup of toothbrushes, found a vanity bag of deodorants and brushes.

… She found the medicine chest.

Without thought, she pulled it down. Heavier than all other items, she lost her footing and stumbled into the back wall and slid down. A bolt of something akin to pain traveled down her spine, the shock of the impact harder than she had felt it to be. Yet, all the while, she held the kit fast.

Getting her bearings, Hikari opened it. Dug through its contents to find old packages of band aids – pink and pretty, with scents and lovable characters. She found bandages, gauze pads, gloves, elastic wraps-

Scissors.

The metallic utensil came into her grasp, cool to the touch and stainless. Hikari held it tight, set down the chest and all its contents on the floor and got back up. Weak knees carried her to the mirror once more. Position, angle. --She held the scissor tight, fist closed around it as though it was a mallet.

Don’t do it, something told her.

You shouldn’t do it.

But…

With one swing, she dug the points into her shoulder. Stabbed the mounds of dirt and blood – pulled them off of her in clumsy motions. An audible gasp left her frail frame. In her frenzy, she took note of the pain. Finally, true and honest pain. With each pull, each rip of her weapon of choice she pulled at her sore skin. Forced wounds better left alone open, created new ones by poor aim and recklessness.

Then, the scent.

--It came over her suddenly, after having dug into a certain mound of gunk. Pus, yellowish and thick spilled out over her hands, trailing down to the small of her back. Like a popped pimple that had no end.

Next thing she knew, she was hunched by the toilet. Heaving after breaths, gasping and spitting out snot and mucus. Something pooled over her back, dripping down to her panty line and beyond. Three nods of her head, then everything came pouring out. An empty stomach filled with nothing but acid and water – bubbling up into her nose and eyes to the point of suffocation.

---

The water had lost its burning sensation thirty minutes after she readied it, but what it lacked in warmth it made up in color and texture - a murky brown, thick and nothing like the water it once had been. Like a swamp, you should not see the bottom no matter how hard you tried.

In the middle of it all sat a girl with her knees tucked up to her chest. With her hair spilling into the bath water around her, never clean yet wet. The silence was the worst thing of it all.

Hikari could deal with being alone. She well and truly could – had, in fact, dealt with it before. In the silence she usually found comfort. Peace. --Yet now, she only found fear. But not fear that made her sob her eyes out. Not fear that caused her body to convulse – to go rigid and uncertain. Now, it was fear that left her numb.

She moved her hands through the murky waters, splashing in small motions to fill up the empty space around her. In the back or her mind, she thought – I should drain this. Tap a new bath, get clean. Get him off me. The liquid cupped in her palms was brown and gross, flakes of crusted blood and dirt swimming within.

Carefully, she stood up. Where the water once had reached the underside of her breast, it now sunk lower than to her mid-calf. She felt dirtier than ever, yet the smell stayed with the liquid around her. Slowly, the water would drain around her until only a layer of gunk was left at her feet – nasty enough for her to not look at it, but not enough so to do anything about it. Instead, she took to showering.

To hold the showerhead strained her tired limbs, yet she kept it up. Hung her head, fingered through her long hair to rid it of any knots and dirt. The water coming over her head drowned out any thoughts, any feelings and in the end – she got herself to a manageable state.

She was not healed, still bled down her back in a manner she shouldn’t but it was enough for now.

After refilling the tub (something she would’ve been scolded for in her youth - wasting water was not good) she took a seat. Took her time to wallow in the soapy mass, found calm in a moment she never knew she would find.

Absentmindedly, Hikari let herself float. Let the small, short amount of weightlessness the water gave her take her over.

--And it scared her enough to thrash. Grasping at the sides of the tub, kicking her feet hard enough against the porcelain to cause a loud rattle – then settled. Panted.

A deep breath.

… Hikari sunk her head below the water and tried her best to waste away.

#(ic - muse)#Story Progression - Hikari #-drabble-#important #tw #(if only i could remember the icons i used to have for these lmao)

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