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#i go on the run to avoid basically getting imprisoned/killed? and I'm trying to get the spreadsheets done while avoiding a terminator
evilwickedme · 1 year
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some fan attitudes about jason todd's morality are insane. no I don't condone murder in real life. but he's not??? a real person???? most importantly he's operating in a fictional reality where rehabilitation is proven impossible, imprisonment has proven impossible, and single individuals are responsible for more deaths than anybody since the fucking nazis. obviously he's in the right. if anything, bruce, who I should agree with since I think murder is wrong, gives the weakest fucking argument in utrh against murder. like utrh told this truly incredible story about a boy's irreparably damaged relationship with his father and positioned us to make a truly gorgeous point where the villain is both right and wrong and the hero both is right and wrong and then it fucked up bc batman isn't right!!! it isn't about his own personal inability to control himself, or at least it shouldn't be!!! but that's how it was positioned so it came across as jason todd is obviously right and honestly yeah the joker should die. there is no other in-universe option bc the joker cannot get better and he cannot be kept away from harming people. jason's been through a lot of writers since then and at first he's an outright ultra-violent villain who hates the batfam and later he's a tortured anti-hero with complicated familial relationships and idk whatever like. I'm not examining him through the lens of my actual real life opinions on whether or not you should kill people or whether or not I support the death penalty, and neither should you. he's a character in one of the most convoluted stories ever told and he needs to be treated as such, both in a doylist fashion (he's been written by real people who have differing opinions on what's morally correct and what makes someone a villain and who might not necessarily have the best grip on what makes murder wrong in a philosophical argument) and in a watsonian fashion (his worldview is shaped by extreme violence that is a cycle with no end in sight and that cycle has more to do with bruce and jason's relationship than it does the joker) and a combined fashion (the cycle will never end bc comic books need to keep using the same tensions over and over again and if bruce and jason resolve their differences jason's character will no longer serve its current narrative purpose and besides even if he did change another writer will just bring him back to whatever's most familiar and convenient for them and their story so meanwhile jason has to make the same exact choice to leave the joker alive and hate bruce for it and bruce can't truly communicate with jason bc the writers need to keep the story going in perpetual limbo). anyway none of this is readable but basically what I'm saying is that when I say I think jason's right for killing people yeah I mean it in that I think it's hot but also I mean it in that narratively it makes sense for him to see the world this way and it makes sense in universe for him to believe there is no better option for villains other than death. like. irl obviously a vigilante running around killing people would be bad (nevermind that jason isn't using guns rn specifically to avoid killing people accidentally or impulsively) but this isn't irl, it's a story, and I'm judging it on the merits of what kind of story it's trying to tell. and also I think jason killing people is hot.
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blakelywintersfield · 3 years
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Yeah I definitely was (am?) sick because that was absolutely one hell of a fever dream
#things i remember happening: an arrangement of cat-like creatures‚ each of a different rainbow color. some kind of portal technology.#two getting lost in the portals‚ the rest trying to recover them‚ they accidentally get alt universe versions‚ and the au versions are evil.#the au versions eventually replace all the originals before the first two get sucked into a portal again and the originals return.#the original two inform them that they know how to recover those missing‚ but they need to be careful because they could accidentally bring#in imposters. the imposters of course get nervous‚ and the originals notice something is up‚ and then there's a huge fight to recover the#originals. they get all except two back‚ and the two impostors nearly got away‚ but then the originals ask them something‚ they speak‚ and#it immediately gives them away. and the last thing they say before they're thrown back into their own universe is ''shit... we were girls in#this one‚ weren't we?''#the next part i remember: a vr dating sim with ''bonus characters'' that are essentially giant gods. you unlock them in certain ways and can#save those side stories for later. some are unlocked in other ways. the main plot of the story actually isn't a dating sim it's like...#a modern suspense story? and by suspense i mean the MC (me‚ in this case) was supposed to get supply spreadsheets done for my friend's#grandma's company‚ that was getting ready to take in people with... dementia i think. and i forgot to do them. for three months. and i get#informed a few days beforehand that i need to complete *two more months* of these spreadsheets. and when i admit i don't have them they flip#their shit because apparently they invested like... $20bil on this? which is unrealistic as fuck lmao but point being it's all my fault. so#i go on the run to avoid basically getting imprisoned/killed? and I'm trying to get the spreadsheets done while avoiding a terminator#who is jerry seinfeld. and the giant gods side stories is basically boning them. just straight up finding their hidden human forms#and fucking. which resulted in them changing into their giant forms and somehow effected me too??#there was also a little side story/dream about a lone bird living on an island that had a house and a outlook post. and it didn't make sense#that there were no other birds on the little island because there were *so* many nesting places#and i was trying to figure out how to attract more birds to the island so the one bird wouldn't be so lonely‚ and have to leave to find#others before i left to go back home#lots of weird ass dreams
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Living with severe depression and anxiety
How It Actually Feels to Live with Severe Anxiety
My anxiety disorder can make me feel like I'm trapped in a cyclone of negative thoughts and fear. But like many mental health conditions, with the right treatment and techniques, life is very liveable.
By Swastikapete
7th March 2019 Hotel room in the city
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As part of the human body's acute stress system, the "fight-or-flight" response works by stimulating the heart rate, dilating air passages and contracting blood vessels – all of which increase blood flow and oxygen to the muscles, so we can be ready to run away from something life-threatening: a wild mammal, a fast car, a dangerous person. As physiological responses go, it's pretty important. Only, sometimes, we short-circuit a bit.
Charles Darwin, who for years was reported to have suffered from crippling panic disorder that often left him housebound, argued that, to a degree, it is highly evolved to be "on alert" most of the time. But the fight-or-flight response, as explained by Mark Williams and Danny Penman in Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace In a Frantic World, "isn't conscious – it's controlled by one of the most 'primeval' parts of the brain, which means it's often a bit simplistic in the way it interprets danger. In fact, it makes no distinction between an external threat, such as a tiger, and an internal one, such as a troubling memory or a future worry. It treats both as threats that either need to be fought off or run away from." As the Atlantic's Editor in Chief, Scott Stossel, researched in his brilliant and harrowing memoir, My Age of Anxiety, "species that 'fear rightly' increase their chances of survival. We anxious people are less likely to remove ourselves from the gene pool by, say, frolicking on the edge of cliffs or becoming fighter pilots."...
(Sometimes, though, the "dangerous" person is you).
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I've negotiated anxiety in the form of a panic disorder for many years. And many many times it's tipped over into a severe depression – the kind that imprisons you in your flat, unable to do anything but watch Netflix bad Tv play Xbox for days and never leave the apartment and endless YouTube and forever ordering Ubereats and takeaway.
Will this be the time it makes me psychotic? Should I call an ambulance? How many lines of coke and cigarettes will I smoke....how many sleeping pills would I have to take to sleep for 24 hours but not die?
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These are the kinds of questions I've asked myself in the past, stuck in a tornado of negative thought, my ability for rationality sweating out through my armpits while staring at pictures of myself as a child, saying out loud, "Where did she go?" As if there are two versions of me – Version 1.0: Pre-anxious and Version 2.0: Anxious.
Only, it's not an entirely crackpot theory. Through ongoing CBT therapy I've managed to pinpoint the root of my anxiety – a spectacular near-death experience with a burst appendix that swallowed about six months of my life. Turns out that, if you're a sensitive kid, your body going gangrenous and becoming so weak you have to recuperate in intensive care can have quite an impact on your future mental wellbeing. Particularly when the physical ramifications of said episode have basically ruined your insides forever.
My first taste of panic happened during my first week at work 1999 Camden after the Christmas party.... then it happened while working on the floor in the store
Again and again and then
One afternoon, I started to feel nauseous in the stockroom My hands went numb and I felt as if my skull was about to crack like an egg. It was an alien feeling, one with no reference point whatsoever. I went to the toilet and there, for a few minutes, my brain and body weren't my own. I thought I was going to vomit, but nothing came. Just wave after wave of nauseating pressure, from my temples to my toes. Then came a cold, black fear like I'd never known: my head swam, the walls felt like Silly Putty. Absolutely nothing in my body or surroundings made sense. This was possession, pure and simple.
What the fuck is happening to me? Am I dying?
It was too be one of many panic attack, but I didn't know that then. For the next few weeks, I thought about nothing else. It happened again a few times. At night I'd cry, but telling my parents was out of the question. They just wouldn't get it – whatever "it" was. I thought it was a physical thing, something related to my damaged insides. But after three weeks of hell and one totally sleepless night, I went to the GP, alone, who said, "I think you might be having panic attacks," gave me some leaflets, and referred me to an elderly therapist in the community centre next to the Shell garage.....Every next second and its potential escape route had to be mapped out. Just in case. Anxiety is the "what if" disease
This lady's approach was to give me some elastic bands to wear on my wrist, telling me to snap them against my skin every time I felt my internal pressure gauge starting to rise. I don't remember it helping the anxiety itself, but it certainly made me aware that there was a flow of energy that needed to be caught. Somehow.
Years later, I left for university in San Francisco /with more of an understanding about panic attacks and the claustrophobic loops of anxiety they cause. My parents knew because I had to explain the abundance of fawn-coloured elastic in both their houses, and were kind and understanding, but I still lived in constant fear of having one (something I'd later learn was a defining characteristic of panic disorder) when I was out and around other people. Whether I was in lectures, pubs or nightclubs,skateparks it never left me. Not for a minute.
Consequently, like many others with the disorder, I developed a pattern of avoidance behaviours relating to where and when I'd felt anxious in the past: 'No, dick, you can't walk through Berkeley Park to get to that lecture because you had a really bad attack there last week,' or, 'I know that pub only has one toilet, best give it a miss in case I freak out and there's a queue, eh?' I'd say to myself in a never-ending internal dialogue – something my current therapist now refers to as "The Chatterbox". Knowing where the toilets were in every place I was going was an imperative – I had to have somewhere to "escape" to if I started to panic, especially considering that, at the sharp end, my panic mostly manifested with gut issues. If I couldn't see a toilet, or at least a fire exit sign, I was fucked.
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Open spaces were a navigable but daunting prospect and, if I did have to walk through A Park, say, because my friends did, I'd mentally keep track of all the dense bushes I could hide behind – just in case. I had to sit at the end of the row in every lecture or cinema trip – just in case. If I ever got the BART (subway)an increasing rarity, I'd stand by the door, facing the door – just in case.
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Every next second and its potential escape route had to be mapped out. Just in case. Anxiety is a "what if" disease.
Fast forward to the present day and, while I could now write a fucking thesis on living with a panic disorder, I can also tell you that I didn't make proper, significant progress until a few years ago and that I still find the idea of having a panic attack frightening because, well, how could it not be? Only, that fear is lessened now because I have the techniques to manage the anxiety as it starts to swell, rather than when the wave crashes. I know that if I do have a panic attack I'll be alright again afterwards, that I'll deal with it the best I can.
"Few people today would dispute that chronic stress is a hallmark of our times or that anxiety has become a kind of cultural condition of modernity," says Stossel. "We live, as has been said many times since the dawn of the atomic era, in an age of anxiety." But not everyone has a "normal" response to anxiety.
Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder characterised by recurring panic attacks and an ongoing fear of a panic attack happening. Stats surrounding the prevalence of anxiety disorders in the US&UK, which were last compiled in 2007, suggested that 1.1 percent of adults (1.3 percent of women, 1 percent of men) met criteria for panic disorder in an adult psychiatric morbidity study. In the US, the number of adults thought to have panic disorder is higher, at 2.7 percent. These, of course, are just the "officially" mentally unwell – my GP told me recently that anxiety is one of the most frequent complaints she hears from patients. More frequent, sometimes, than coughs and colds.
Panic comes in lots of flavours. It can run the gamut from a gnawing unease in the belly to a fear that feels like being hit by a bullet train. My usual cocktail is a wormy prickling from head to toe, a blanched face, constricted lungs, numb hands and a lurching gut. I feel like I'm going to vomit or shit myself at any second. I have done the former but not, as yet, the latter – despite coming pretty close. It's a lovely old dance, really.
There have been times where I've knelt in alleyways trying to steady my breathing and "hold on" to the ground, to root myself to the physical earth while my body enters what feels like another plane of existence. Anxiety physically manifests in every person differently, though. Some people call ambulances for themselves because it feels like they're having a heart attack. Others hyperventilate. Others puke. Others shake like they're standing pant-less in an Antarctic wind.
There's the cognitive stuff, too. That got worse as I got older – before, the physical symptoms eclipsed the mental ones. Later, it became a waltzer car spin of, 'I am going to explode, I am never going to be safe or normal ever again, my body is failing, everyone is going to see me losing it, I am losing it, I'm losing my mind. This is it. The next step is hard restraints on a psychiatric ward.
I am going to die. This is killing me.
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The carousel doesn't stop spinning once the anxiety has peaked, either. It surges – albeit less powerfully – a few more times, until it passes. And then the exhaustion grips, with a claw on every finger.
Panic comes in lots of flavours. It can run the gamut from a gnawing unease in the belly to fear that feels like being hit by a bullet train
At various stages of my life, I've had panic attacks every day, more than once a day. My first "breakdown" (therapists discourage us from using that word these days, but that's what it felt like) in my third year of university built as my fear of having a panic attack became a 24/7 obsession. I feared walking to the Tesco that was 100 yards away, let alone going to lectures. I needed a "get out" plan for every possible eventuality, even if that was just nipping across the road to the corner shop for milk.
Eventually, this much mis-placed adrenalin became unsustainable for my poor old brain. I became very depressed.
Proper depersonalisation, the inability to not sleep for 16 hours straight and a total lack of appetite – I lost a stone in three weeks – happened very quickly. I just couldn't move. After five days of lying still on my bed, listening to Radiohead kid A over and over again (I'd read that Radiohead was great depression music or was that all in my head...so somehow it felt apt) as a summer breeze tapped my neighbour's eucalyptus tree branches against my window, I became increasingly worried about what to tell my lecturers and parents. Again, I went to my Doc,GP. It took me two hours to get there – there being just over a mile away. He prescribed Sertraline (an SSRI frequently prescribed for anxiety disorders), diazepam and referred me for therapy – I'd had none since I left for San Francisco then London , despite still spending every day locked in a web of avoidance behaviours and being aware that erratic behaviours and days were limping by like, well, wet salad. I wasn't quite "living", never fully in the moment.
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I didn't like the therapist he referred me to, though. She was very young, spent the entire time box-ticking (literally, on a clipboard) and rarely looked me in the eye. I stopped seeing her after four sessions, thinking: It's not fucking worth it. I thought that, because both therapists I'd seen in the past hadn't been able to help me stop my panic attacks in a short space of time, I was immune to help and intervention. I believed this until about three years ago, that I was pretty much treatment-resistant without drugs.
The new medication did nothing miraculous or definitive – I just felt, over time, able to step outside my obsessive thought webs for longer periods, and that in turn helped me to cope, within my parameters. It's only with hindsight that I can realise what a huge strain I was on my partner at the time, not communicating why I still needed to do and not do certain things. I was deeply ashamed and embarrassed, though, rarely telling anyone what was really going on in my head for fear of sounding "crazy" – even the person I was in a relationship with. In fact, there was only one friend who really knew. Still, I coped, in my own, pot-holed way.
I stayed on the antidepressants for a couple of years, making progress in my career quite fast. The fear of having a panic attack or being "caught out" still draped the back of my mind every day, but the curtains had become less heavy. When I would have an attack – one a week, rather than every day – it'd take a few days to get back to normal, but I was alright, really.
I coped when I came off the drugs, too, with another new therapist (older, more mumsy) in tow, until about three years ago. I was going from great job to great job, MTV snowboarding writing a lot, travelling the world interviewing people I admired. On the surface, I was buoyant; gliding through life like a heatseaker missile and able to take whatever it threw at me – tense meetings, long-haul flights, tighter and more high-profile Interviews art commissions. But under the surface it had become chaos again. Paddle paddle paddle, it was. I couldn't accept that I should have maybe stayed on the antidepressants. In some part of my mind, they were a last resort. The point of almost-failure and the penultimate step before straitjackets and electric shock therapy.
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Why did I need a pill that, when I put it between my lips every day, made me think I was an invalid that needed drugs to function properly? So what if my friends were getting increasingly weary of me cancelling on them last-minute because I'd had a panic attack/breakdown en route to meet them and couldn't imagine moving any further than whichever street corner I was on? Why should they know?
I wasn't coping, though. That's the thing and has always been the thing. I was pretending and I needed help. Over the years, I'd become a master of disguise – no one, but no one, could have told you I had an anxiety disorder, save for my inability to get on the tube for more than a couple of stops. If I started to get panicky when out with people, I'd just go home early. Avoidance behaviour after avoidance behaviour enabled me to live what appeared on the surface to be a normal life. Then, three years ago, I had another breakdown – that word again, but, for me, it's the only thing that fits. This time it was much worse than before.
It had been building for a while, looking back. I didn't like my jobs and lifestyle very much, despite the status and worth it gave me. I'd run out of excuses for flaking on my friends. I needed more metal surgery – a terrifying prospect for me that my therapist just couldn't seem to help me rationalise. Travelling for work became increasingly stressful, each airport departure lounge lifting the cloche on a new set of anxiety symptoms. Before going to Bolivia for an assignment for Sleaze-nation, I sat in a toilet in Terminal 3 convinced, plain as day, that my neck vertebrae were about to snap in two and paralyse me because the pressure in my head was so strong as my thoughts spun themselves into a tangle.
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What happens if I have panic attacks in the middle of the Bolivian countryside? Who will help me? What happens if I freak out on the plane and throw up everywhere because I can't get to the toilet in time? What if I freak out in a part of the world where I know no one and end up being locked away somewhere because no one knows what to do with me?
What if, what if, what if. It's exhausting and boring just typing it. Eventually, each panic attack I had would take longer to get over than the last and, over the space of a couple of weeks, they joined up in a constellation of frustration, tears and despair.
I became very depressed again. This time, the "break" was marked by crying, dizziness and a near total inability to over-eat, rapid drugtaking to the point of trying to overdose which, for anyone that knows me, would be the most alarming thing of all. I went to bed one night and woke up a different person; someone who couldn't walk in a straight line, couldn't stop crying, couldn't eat a single slice of toast in less than an hour, couldn't answer the door to the postman, couldn't run a bath, couldn't answer the phone, couldn't feed the cats. Physically, it felt like looking over the edge of The Shard the entire time; a deep vertigo at the very core. I was desperate. Fear had eclipsed everything.
Over the years, I'd become a master of disguise – no one, but no one, could have told you I had an anxiety disorder, save for my inability to get on the tube for more than a couple of stops
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Depression and anxiety often go hand-in-hand. My rational brain knew that, but on the crest of this new terror, I couldn't accept it. I couldn't accept that my brain had had enough of being frightened of itself, that depression had become a symptom of my anxiety because it was overloaded. That, to me, was failure. I had failed and I'd never come back. For three weeks, I didn't go further than the shop at the end of my road and felt, for the first time in my life, rationally suicidal – or, more accurately, desperate for a tangible end to a living hell. I didn't really want to die, though; I wanted to see the little black eyes of the babies I longed to birth, the arid sands of the deserts I wanted to visit.
I just didn't want to be living in fear of the next minute.
On the day I found myself staring at the medicine cabinet for a bit too long, working out what might knock me out for a decent amount of time but not leave me needing a stomach pump and a stay in a psychiatric ward, I looked online for the nearest CBT therapist to me. He was less than 3 miles away from my Apartment. Luckily, I was able to see him that same afternoon. He told me, "This is peaking now, you can regain control," and, despite my legs violently shaking against the chair (a fruity new symptom) and battling the urge to run out of his living room and straight back into my bed, I listened. He was funny, swore a lot and had an in-depth, scientific knowledge of why the brain behaves as it does, which appealed to me.
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That afternoon was my first real turning point in 20 years. After starting out doing two sessions a week with him, I went to my GP and was prescribed a low dose of a new SSRI – Citalopram, another antidepressant that's effective in treating anxiety disorders – and, within a month of this intensive, two-pronged approach, along with a commitment to sticking to mindfulness exercises, I began to feel hopeful.
That was four years ago now, and I'm coping. Actually coping, with a demanding full-time job(Youth worker and behavioural psychologist)...
People – high-functioning, highly successful people – are crying out to talk about their mental health. Someone just has to push that first “Button and begin the process”
All my friends now know I have a tendency for hyper Mania and panic attacks and, as with most of these grand revelation-style things you build up in your head, when I "came clean" about the reason I'd been so flaky in the past, none of them were fussed. They still aren't. People care, deeply, but are generally reasonable once you've explained something to them – be it struggling a bit mentally sometimes or tie-dying the hair in your bum crack. They just want to try to understand what you're saying, offer support, then get on with their lives.
Not talking about our mental health just doesn't work out well. As Stossel writes: "My current therapist, Dr W, says there is always the possibility that revealing my anxiety will lift the burden of shame and reduce the isolation of solitary suffering. When I get skittish about airing my psychiatric issues in a book, Dr W says: 'You've been keeping your anxiety a secret for years, right? How's that working out for you?'"
If I can add my own tuppence worth to the conversation, the most crucial thing I've learned about treating anxiety is that you need to find a therapist you like. If that means "shopping around" until you find someone you're comfortable and can completely brain-dump with, and you have the resources to do so (most private therapists offer concessionary rates if you ask), that's OK. If you are relying on NHS services through your GP and don't like or get on with who they refer you to, ask for someone else – it's your health and you don't have to stick with someone you feel weird around, just as it's your right to ask for second opinions with physical illness. Your brain is an organ and it needs proper maintenance when it gets ill. It is, like Louis Theroux said of his own therapy experience when I interviewed him recently, "Like looking under the bonnet of a car and seeing what's going on."
With this therapist, who I'll call "S", I've realised that the absolute backbone of me being able to function properly was accepting that there was no "cure" to make me better – only techniques and interventions (in my case, medication) to make life liveable. Frustration is too close to anxiety and the constant "WHY THE FUCK IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME" thing, like not talking to anyone, makes it worse. It's too much pressure.
How did I go from telling no one about my issues to writing in such detail here, you might rightly ask. To which there is a very simple answer: people all over the world plough the internet every day searching for mirrors to their own pain, looking for evidence that people have overcome dire mental discomfort. An echo. When I was unwell, that is all I wanted – some idea that I could come out of those black woods.
It's a very base idea that being more open about our own experiences with mental illness will encourage others to talk about theirs. But it's true. Stossel writes about attending a dinner with a bunch of writers and artists in his book, and how, after he'd spoke about its progress, each of the other nine people responded by "telling me a story about his or her own experience with anxiety and medication. Around the table we went, sharing our tales of neurotic woe."
I've been in a similar situation more times than there is to recount here. People – high-functioning, highly successful people – are crying out to talk about their struggles with mental health. No one would feel ashamed discussing an arrhythmia: why should an instability in the brain be taboo over one in the heart? People want to be heard – someone just has to push that first domino. And this idea that we'll be "revealing" too much – as I have been fearful of in the past – making people uneasy or run the risk of forever painting ourselves as a "crazy person" by talking about our mental health is so very wrong. It's question of health full stop. The man who served you your coffee this morning may have overcome cancer a few years ago. Or, he may have overcome a bout of severe, disabling depression. He may have attempted suicide and been sectioned, but you'd have no idea because he has recovered and is getting on with his life the best he can.
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adrianna-m-scovill · 6 years
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Dragon Swan excerpt
Here is an excerpt from the fourth book in my Dragon Hearts romance series. This scene is the initial meeting between Captain Swan and Ella Fisher. 
Links on my website, www.savageimagination.com
“Get your hand off her,” Luca said, sounding desperate.
“It's alright, Luca,” she said. She wanted to ask Ivan for mercy, too, wanted to implore him to go back up and pretend he'd never seen her. She couldn't bring herself to beg, however.
“What's your name?” Ivan asked, gruffly.
She stared at him, mutinously silent, fighting the urge to yank her arm from his so-far-gentle grasp.
“Fine. Let's go.”
“Ivan,” Luca said, rattling the bars, slightly. “Come on. Please. Just—”
“Stealing food is nothing compared to harboring a stowaway,” Ivan said, shooting him a quick look. It was difficult to tell in the lantern light, but Ella thought that Luca paled. What was the punishment for harboring a stowaway? She couldn't let him be killed.
“He didn't know I was here,” she said, and Ivan's gaze swung back to her.
“Right. Let's go,” he repeated.
She took a deep breath. “No,” she said. “Get your hand off me.”
There was no mistaking his surprise, as his eyebrows reached toward his hairline. “Are you sure you don't want to come easily?”
Swallowing her fear, she opened her mouth to speak. She wasn't even sure what she intended to say, but Ivan must have seen the stubborn pride in her face, because before she’d uttered another word, he moved with surprising speed.
Luca shouted, banging on the bars, and Ella let out a little sound—more of surprise than actual fear—as Ivan bent, scooped her up, and threw her over his shoulder. She kicked her legs, and he almost dropped her headfirst over his back. He clamped an arm across the backs of her legs, turned, and started toward the stairs.
Luca was hollering, but she could scarcely hear him over the roaring in her ears. Her cheeks flamed with anger and humiliation, and she beat at Ivan’s back with her fists, cursing him. Under the anger and humiliation, however, the fear was surging. He paid no attention to her blows, or her words, and he carried her easily, his steps echoing up the stairs. The higher they went, the more her stomach burned with fear, because she did not know what punishment was coming.
Would they simply throw her overboard to drown or be eaten by sea creatures? It seemed far too much to hope for that she would be imprisoned with Luca.
Finally, after it seemed as though she'd been over Ivan's shoulder for a hellish length of time, up stairs and through rooms and up more stairs, she finally blinked against the sudden daylight. She squinted, because the brightness hurt her unaccustomed eyes. She had long since given up pounding on Ivan's back, afraid that they would both tumble down the stairs with broken necks.
The sun was heavy and low, burning red above the unbroken horizon. As Ivan stepped onto the deck, and turned, Ella's squinted gaze swung across several men, all of them staring at her. She swallowed the lump of fear, painfully aware of the fact that she was wearing a filthy dress and that the only reason she wasn't completely exposed up to the waist was because of Ivan's tight arm, holding her against his shoulder and her skirt against her thighs.
She counted five men, ten, and then she stopped counting, because the numbers didn't matter. Intent was what mattered, and soon their looks of surprise would change to something else. Her eyes were watering, and she told herself that it was simply from the sting of salty air and the glare of the fat sun. The wind swirled her hair around her face, obscuring the men from view, and she was bitterly glad.
Ivan pulled her forward without warning, spinning her and lowering her to her feet so quickly that she stumbled, disoriented and dizzy. He grabbed her arm to steady her and she resisted the urge to pull away and run. Where would she go? She could fling herself into the ocean, or she could face judgement on the ship, and she wasn't sure which would give her better odds.
“Captain,” Ivan said, and then Ella's watery eyes found him. Captain Swan. He was standing on the rail, near the front of the ship, one hand holding the rope angled past his head. He was staring out at the sea, east, toward the coming night, his dark hair blown back from his face.
In spite of the rush of wind, he turned his head at the sound of Ivan's voice. His dark gaze raked over Ella's body, quickly, and her mouth went dry. She tried to swallow and couldn't. She wanted to hug herself, to go into a defensive posture, but her pride wouldn't let her. Instead, she raised her chin, blinking away the moisture in her eyes, and squared her shoulders.
Captain Swan's dark eyebrows were drawn together, his jaw clenched. “Hell,” he said, the sound carried to her on the wind. He stepped casually from the railing, dropping to the deck three feet below with surprising grace and ease. He glanced down the length of her body again, and she clenched her teeth and fists, refusing to squirm. “What's going on, here?” the captain asked, looking past her toward Ivan.
“Stowaway, Cap,” Ivan said, pushing her forward a step. “Found her hiding out in the dungeon when I went to feed the prisoner.”
Hearing Luca referred to as the prisoner made her choke back angry words of defense. She wouldn't do herself, or Luca, any favors by antagonizing these men.
“How'd you get on board?” the captain asked. His eyebrows were still dipped in a scowl, and his expression was forbidding. She could feel the butterflies swarming in her stomach, and swallowed, holding her silence. A muscle in his jaw clenched, and she knew that he was unused to being denied answers. He clasped his hands behind his back. He was dressed in black, from shoulder to foot, the clothes as dark as his glossy black hair. Even his sword was sheathed in black. “What's your name?” he asked.
She considered her options, and knew that she was at his mercy. While her pride wanted her to hold her ground and her tongue, she knew that it would be foolish. There was no friendliness in his face, no gentleness, and she knew she had little hope of being shown leniency. That was no reason to ask for the worst, however. “Ella,” she answered, in the nick of time. She'd seen his impatience swelling with each heartbeat.
“And what, pray tell, are you doing on my ship?”
“Staying out of the way,” she said, before she could stop herself.
His dark eyebrows lifted for a moment, then lowered. “Who's been helping you?”
“No one,” she said, mentally preparing herself for Ivan's contradiction. She didn't think that they could prove Luca had anything to do with her, but she knew that they wouldn't need proof to condemn him. She silently cursed herself, again, for being so stupid. How could she not have heard Ivan's approach? He had known he would find someone, or something, and that was why he'd softened his footsteps. That was no excuse for her carelessness, though.
“Why are you on my ship?”
“I needed a ride.”
What's wrong with you? Stop being a smartass. Apologize, ask for mercy. The captain strode toward her, suddenly, and her breath caught. He drew his hands from behind his back, and she flinched—it was instinctive, and she hated herself for it. It was only a small wince, and she immediately raised her chin again, but she felt her cheeks flame at the show of weakness.
The captain stared at her for a moment from under his black brows. The low sun glowed in his dark eyes. “What's to keep me from tossing you to the sharks?” he asked.
“Basic human decency?” she blurted. She wanted to clap a hand over her own mouth to shut herself up. She heard Ivan snort behind her, and saw the surprise momentarily soften the captain's expression.
Then, with a flash of white teeth, the captain bowed with a flourish. She managed to keep from flinching, this time, at the sudden movement, but her heart stuttered in her ribcage. “Perhaps you're unaware of who I am,” he said, and under the rush of wind, she heard several of the men behind her laughing. “Allow me to introduce myself. I'm—”
“Captain Swan,” she interrupted, unable to stomach being mocked. “I know who you are. Why do you think I was hiding below?”
“Hold your tongue, lass,” Ivan said, but the captain held up a hand.
“Unauthorized passage is punishable by death,” Captain Swan said. “Have you nothing to say in your own defense?”
She struggled for a moment, trying to force her tongue to form an apology. “I was desperate,” she finally admitted, the closest she could manage. She waited for further ridicule, and the captain was silent. His eyes traveled down the length of her body for a third time, and she tried to imagine what he was seeing: Oily hair, tangled and matted; grimy face, and eyes circled by dark smudges; filthy, wrinkled dress; dirty, bare feet. Could he smell her, too?
“Take her to the bunks,” he said, finally.
She felt a surge of alarm at the thought of all the men that might be waiting there. She knew she should beg; she should drop to her knees and apologize. She clenched her jaw and held her silence. She would endure anything she had to in order to get to Travis, and to protect Luca, and she would not let them see her weakness again.
“She can sleep in the thief's bed,” the captain said.
“He's not a—” She broke off. She'd been distracted, and she wanted to punch herself in the face. She closed her eyes, briefly, to avoid the smug look on the captain's face. Finally, taking a deep breath through her nose, she opened her eyes and met his dark gaze.
“Stealing food is the least forgivable offense on this ship,” he said, quietly. “Aside from harboring a stowaway.”
“He didn't steal food,” she said. There was no sense continuing to claim she didn't know Luca. She'd already stepped into the trap, and she couldn't unspring it from her stupid foot. She would defend him to her last breath, though.
“He was caught red-handed, yes?” Captain Swan asked, looking at Ivan.
“Yes, sir,” Ivan answered. “He was stashing food in a sack.”
“He wasn't stealing. He was—”
“Oh, I see now very well what he was doing, Ella,” the captain said, his voice silky and low, barely audible above the wind. “Go. I'll decide what to do with you tomorrow.”
After the men have all had their fill of me? she thought, still struggling to hold on to some semblance of courage. The captain had already begun to turn away, clearly dismissing her, and Ivan once more had a hold on her arm. He started to tug her backward. “Wait. Wait!” Ella cried. “Please.” There, she'd finally said it.
Captain Swan turned back. “Yes?” he said, sounding bored.
“Please,” she said again, ignoring the bitter taste it left on her tongue. “Let Luca go.”
The captain tipped his head to regard her, and asked, softly, “And where would you sleep, then?”
His voice and steady stare sent a small shiver through her, and she clenched her fists again. “I'll take his place in the dungeon,” she suggested.
“Oh, I don't think so. Ivan,” Swan answered, with a small gesture.
“Yes, Cap,” Ivan said, pulling on her arm.
“Wait,” she said, again, but the captain was walking away, and he didn't look back again.
“Come, lass,” Ivan told her. He pulled, gently. For a moment, she held her ground. Until he said, “Don't make me carry you again.”
With a curse, and a wave of anger and frustration and fear that almost swallowed her, she allowed herself to be led back toward the stairs.
Think about Travis, she thought. You can endure anything, because all that matters is getting to him.
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