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kaibacorpintern · 4 years

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yuugi and kaiba... platonic... maybe a lil angst like kaiba doesnt know how to have friends and yuugi just accepts him as he is and kaiba can be a kid for once.. for the minific prompt pls? :) thank u.. luv ur blog btw

just thought you should know that when i read this prompt i instantly turned into this and wrote almost 5,000 words. it’s a little angsty and about friendship, but it’s also about loneliness and food and depression, with a few jokes peppered in here and there. DSOD didn’t happen but atem is alive, because i say so. i want kaiba and yuugi to be friends so freakin’ bad.

long story short: i went nuts. thanks for the prompt!!

***

Every day, little by little, Kaiba looked greyer. The lines of his shoulders slouched. The hollows under his eyes deepened, like holes being dug in the dirt, on hands and knees; a slow, miserable burying. To hear him speak was worse. Yuugi heard his voice from thousands of miles away, like he was on a different continent, a different planet, and the light of every thought was crossing the staggering empty silence of space. It terrified Yuugi, to think of Kaiba as fading, that someone who raged with all the thrill and fury of a storm could slow down like this. But he was fading.

“Hey. Are you alright? You seem down lately,” Yuugi tried, on one of the rare mornings where he caught him alone in the elevator, on his way up to the game design department. With no one else around, he usually felt emboldened to drop the act: not an employee with his boss, maintaining proper deference, but someone who’d known Kaiba for a very long time, and knew him like few others did.

The glass-walled elevator whirred as it rose. Kaiba stood there with his arms crossed, impassive, his back to Domino. The city streets unfurled below them.

“The elevator’s going up, Yuugi,” he said, after a full seven seconds of silence. A weak dismissal, by his standards, made even weaker by a toneless delivery.

“Sure. But - ”

With a polite ding, the elevator opened onto the game design floor.

“You’re running late,” Kaiba said, nodding him pointedly out the door.

“Bro, I’m fifteen minutes early,” Yuugi said.

“Don’t fucking ‘bro’ me, ” Kaiba snarled, with all the sudden, twitching ferocity of a nervous dog. Yuugi smiled and slowly backed out of the elevator, his palms turned out, long enough to make his point: he'd come in peace. Kaiba frowned at him, bristling, until the elevator doors started to close. The last Yuugi saw of him, before they touched together, were a pair of blue eyes, their fiery energy winking out like a popped spark, falling shut with a sigh.

At his desk, Yuugi toyed with his phone for a good ten minutes, ignoring emails and his coworkers’ good mornings, his thumb hovering over Mokuba’s contact info as he rehearsed in his head. Hey, how’s Stanford? You enjoying your classes so far? Making friends? Of course you are. Great. Well, so, I’m calling because I’m worried about your brother -

A call like that would put Mokuba on a plane within an hour, honestly. But maybe Mokuba would want to know. Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe if he left his first quarter of college and returned to Japan, just because his brother had a few bad nights or something, Kaiba would punt Yuugi off the top of the building.

Maybe Atem? The only person Kaiba ever “talked” to about anything, if pummeling each other with card game holograms could be called a conversation. Which they did.

YUUGI What’s eating Kaiba? Is he alright?

He stared at his phone a while longer until remembering it was the middle of the night in Egypt. He put his phone away, put Kaiba out of mind, and got to work.

***

Atem texted back mid-afternoon.

ATEM I don’t know. Go find out

YUUGI Okay but i’m not you lol he won’t tell me. even with a duel

ATEM GO

ATEM FIND

ATEM OUT

YUUGI OKAY I'LL DO MY BEST

ATEM And tell that stuck-up bastard to answer his fucking phone one of these days

Odd. Kaiba never ignored Atem.

YUUGI I’m on it

He finished work late, packed up his things, and headed downstairs to the lobby, moving quickly to catch his train. He had most of a mind to save the Kaiba question for later, go home, and flop face-down on his bed until he roused himself enough to pick at leftovers. The elevated metro station was awash in a crisp dusk light, the navy purple night descending on the day’s final line of gold. His train was coming in three minutes; the next on the same line in thirty-four. He'd just made it.

If he stood at the far end of the platform, craning his neck, he could see the long strip of windows at the top of the KaibaCorp tower. Dark. Kaiba had gone home early. Yuugi frowned, biting his lip, as his train arrived.

He let it go, jostled and swaying in the flood of people flowing in and out of the carriages. The next train took him far from home, flying with sleek electric ease through the glittering glassy black monoliths of the city, and into the leafy, overgrown estates beyond the far edge of town.

***

Kaiba's estate was a brisk walk from the last station on the line, along the side of a road without sidewalks, and through a tunnel of trees that laced their branches together over the road. By the time Yuugi got to the gates, his feet aching in his sneakers, night had fallen. The trees were thick with shadow and wind, whispering to each other in fairy tale voices. It was the kind of night that urged people into their homes, with the doors locked, away from the ancient things that lurked in the undergrowth, wild and forgotten and stronger for it. He was relieved to reach the gates, on the edge of the illumination around Kaiba's mansion, held in the center of the light like a toy castle in a snow globe.

The gatehouse was empty. A security camera peered down at him from the top of a wall, nestled in a thick swell of vines. Ignoring its glossy little eye, Yuugi studied the door in the wall beside the gates, pushing more vines aside to find the keypad. If he called ahead, the chances of Kaiba buzzing him in were next to nothing. They were next to nothing on a good day.

YUUGI do you know the key code for the door?

ATEM 445241474F4E#

ATEM that took me literally years to get

ATEM go around the back. he won’t open the front door

YUUGI you're the best <3

He tapped in the code, carefully. What if he got it wrong? Would a trapdoor open up below his feet? With his back to the quiet road, and the dense, rustling woods on the other side, he swallowed his laugh.

The door opened with a faint click. Yuugi slipped through and began the long walk up the drive to the mansion, sneakers crunching the gravel underfoot. On either side of the drive, the lawns were pristine, every petal of every flower and every leaf on every hedge perfectly in place, holding the poses nature’s hand had fixed them in with effortless ease. Somewhere across the grass, shrouded in the night, came the distant murmur of a fountain.

The mansion itself was an ugly, graceless brick of a building, so rigid and square in its design that its position in the center of this wooded estate seemed an oppressive intrusion. Per Atem’s instructions, Yuugi skirted the front, with its twin dragon statues and Roman columns and imposing front door, and went around to the back, padding silently through the grass. Like the top of the tower, the windows were dark. Every glance through the glass, checking for life, made him feel like he was looking into the bottom of a well, deep and cold and watery, a tomb for hopeless wishing.

At the back of the house was a large patio, with a view of the sprawling grounds, which rolled downwards in a gentle slope, all the way to a line of trees. There, the grounds gave themselves back to the wild. Even on a shivering night like this, it was easy to imagine what the patio was like in the full splendor of high summer, drenched in sunlight and everything shimmering in golden-white heat.

A thin light cast a hazy cloud onto the patio through a pair of sliding glass doors. Yuugi stopped, halfway across the patio, questioning himself for the nth time that night. And if he was overreacting? So what if Kaiba was in a mood? Kaiba was always in a fucking mood. Yuugi had no doubt Kaiba would thunder at him for a while over the arrogance, the audacity of his presumptions or something, and then throw him out by the scruff of the neck. Oh, god. The embarrassment burned in his face already.

Yuugi firmly shoved his own feelings aside. He was a gamer - a gambler - by nature, and he’d learned enough over the years to bet on his own instincts. He gamed it out, in his head, shuddering into the warmth of his jacket as the breeze rolled through him:

He checks on Kaiba, and everything is fine: he goes home feeling awkward and Kaiba avoids him at work for the next three weeks. Acceptable outcome.

He does not check on Kaiba, and everything is fine: he goes home, and the whole night gets written off as a weird, secret little adventure. Acceptable outcome.

He checks on Kaiba, and everything is not fine: unacceptable, but now someone knows. Acceptable outcome.

He does not check on Kaiba, and everything is not fine: Unacceptable outcome.

He stole towards the sliding glass doors. They led into a glossy modern kitchen, as pristine as the grounds, and full of clean, gleaming surfaces. It was completely free of clutter like mail, or keys, or coffee mugs, or any of the other odds and ends that usually piled up over the course of normal days. A bowl of flowers sat on a kitchen table in a breakfast nook, starting to wilt. At the end of the kitchen island was a bowl of fruit. A still-life painting split in two.

Sitting at the island, perched on a bar stool, was Kaiba, his head resting in his folded arms atop the counter. His face was mostly hidden in the crook of his elbow; through the limp tangle of his bangs, Yuugi saw his eyes were closed. His black leather satchel leaned against the leg of the bar stool. The rise of his back as he breathed was slow and subtle, the only thing that convinced Yuugi Kaiba had not turned to stone in his seat. Asleep?

No.

A small blue light rose up from Kaiba's phone, lying on the counter. One hand slowly unfolded, silenced the call, and refolded itself. A gesture that made less than a ripple across the still water of this tableau.

Awake.

Lifelessly, doing nothing. Not even staring into space, but retreating into the space behind his eyelids, a space Yuugi knew intimately well: shallow and lukewarm and wordless, a space for letting hours and days drift by, uncounted. It had been a long time since he’d visited - not since he’d solved the Puzzle - but it was a space he never wanted to revisit. It was a space that stayed with you for the rest of your life, once you’d been there, and yet a space more distant than the farthest star in the universe, beyond the boundaries of both light and love. A place of perfect solitude.

Quietly, carefully, Yuugi tried the handle of the sliding glass door and found it unlocked. He slid it open.

Kaiba startled, pulling himself upright as though yanked by a puppet string on his neck. He turned to Yuugi, still and alert, not quite comprehending. As he understood who stood there, the pieces clicking into place, his eyes hardened in his pallid face, speechless, furious.

“Before you say anything,” Yuugi said, as Kaiba opened his mouth, “I have a story. Let me tell you, and then you can kick me out.”

“This is my fucking house. I can kick you out whenever I damn well please,” Kaiba snapped.

“It’s more of a puzzle, actually. I don’t think you’ve ever solved this one,” Yuugi said.

Kaiba looked at him sideways, now more confused and suspicious than alarmed.

“And if I solve it?” he said, because ah, yes, of course, stakes. Nothing ever for the joy of it.

“Bragging rights.”

“If I don’t?”

“Nothing happens,” Yuugi said.

They stared at each other. Yuugi ventured a smile. Did he dare walk in? He was still standing on the threshold.

“Fine,” Kaiba said, a word more like a sigh. “Come in and tell me your stupid puzzle.”

***

Every house has its own particular smell, its character, its self-contained story about those who call it home. Yuugi took off his shoes, setting them beside the glass door, and frowned. Kaiba's smelled like clean linens, a touch of dust, cool air. A muted smell with no character. He didn't know what he expected. Something else, something thick and wet and heady, like oncoming thunder, or concrete after rain.

On this side of the glass doors, the kitchen was even more exquisite, temptingly so. He knew, from his lusty late-night Internet searches, that the knives in the wooden block alone cost more than several thousand dollars. Untouched! He refused to let them go to waste. Such things were more beautiful when they were held and used and loved, doing what they were made for. And despite the marbled silence, the thin white lighting, this was a house, not a museum. Yuugi dropped his backpack on the floor next to an empty bar stool and turned to Kaiba, who was sitting upright, hands atop his thighs, watching him.

“Uh - do you have anything to eat? I haven’t eaten since lunch,” he said, slinging his jacket over his backpack.

“No. Every night I just plug in and recharge,” Kaiba said dryly. “I believe that’s called a fridge. Those have human food.”

Yuugi bit his tongue, hiding his smile as he went around to the other side of the island. At least Kaiba was still capable of snark. He opened the massive fridge - sparse offerings, sparsely touched - and rooted around, not quite sure what he was looking for between the limp carrots and slabs of smoked salmon. Only the cheese drawer yielded interesting spoils, unspoiled and exotically European.

“The pantry?” he said, nodding at the door next to the fridge.

“Presumably.”

Yuugi found a loaf of sourdough bread on a shelf in the walk-in pantry - a fucking walk-in pantry! - and returned to the counter with his haul: the bread, the butter, a wedge of Gruyere, and a brick of Emmental. “I’m making a grilled cheese. You want one?”

“If it makes you happy,” Kaiba muttered.

“It does, yeah,” Yuugi said, unsheathing one of those glorious, mirror-polished knives from the wooden block. He rolled up his sleeves and attacked the cheeses with relish. “So - the puzzle goes like this. You’re fifteen years old. You’re small for your age, underweight, painfully shy. You get shoved around a lot at school. Before school, after school. Whenever, honestly. No one really sticks up for you, although you try to stick up for them, when you can, and no one really talks to you, because you live in your own little world. Your head’s always in the clouds, and you get really excited over a lot of things no one else really cares about.”

As he spoke, he unearthed a frying pan and set it on the gas stove, slicing off several pats of butter. As they melted, soft and yellow-white, he carved several slices off the loaf, shuddering with secretive pleasure at the fresh crunch of the crust.

“Next time, just bring me your high school diary,” Kaiba said.

Yuugi snorted, buttering the slices and laying them carefully into the pan, where they began to sizzle. He draped the slices of cheese on top. “So you can read everything I wrote about you? No thanks. Anyway. You have one friend, but she’s not always around - her family travels a lot for work. So here you are, a bullied, lonely little oddball, and one day someone gives you a gift. A puzzle.”

“A puzzle in a puzzle.”

“Right,” Yuugi said, pressing down on the slices of bread with a spatula. The butter crackled and spat; a thick, warm smell wafted through the kitchen. “And if you make a wish on the puzzle, it grants your wish when you solve it. So you make your wish, and you solve your puzzle. You know the rest.”

He turned back to Kaiba. “Now I’m here in your kitchen, making you a grilled cheese. So. What did I wish for?”

To his credit, Kaiba was taking it seriously, offering no snide comments about magic or wishing, leaning forward with his arms folded again on the counter. Yuugi let him study him, eyes narrowed and thoughtful, knowing he was running back through all eight years of their shared history, doing the math.

“Well, no one shoves you around any more,” Kaiba said. “Not even me, judging by the fact that I can’t even get you to leave my house. I should’ve known better than to try.”

“Ooh, a compliment. Thanks, I’ll treasure it forever,” Yuugi said, grinning, flipping the sandwiches. Melted cheese oozed from the sides. The bottom slices had toasted to a golden brown. His mouth watered. “Plates?”

“Up and to your left.”

Yuugi opened the cabinets and, standing on tiptoe, eased out two matte black stoneware plates. Fancy.

“You wished for strength,” Kaiba said.

Yuugi slid the grilled cheeses onto the plates and severed them in half with the spatula.

“Nope,” he said, leaning across the island counter to set the steaming grilled cheese in front of Kaiba. The semantic point that his friends and his strength were one and the same seemed irrelevant. He was speaking to Kaiba. He needed to speak in Kaiba’s language. “Strength wouldn’t have solved anything for me.”

“You just said you were getting shoved around - ”

“I wished for friends, Kaiba,” Yuugi said. “Yeah, I was tired of getting shoved around. But I was even more tired of being alone.”

“I - “ Kaiba cut himself off, pressing a sigh through his nose with a tight, pinched expression. Within seconds his face soured. “You make a wish on your magical little trinket, and you get just what you always wanted. How fucking fantastic for you - ”

“Don’t do the aggressive-aggressive thing, it’s not cute,” Yuugi said. “And don’t test me, either. You and I are way past that. Just look me in the face and tell me, honestly, you want me to leave.”

Kaiba turned that ferocious blue gaze on him, silent.

Yuugi waited, holding his gaze.

Thin, languid tendrils of steam rose from their melting grilled cheeses and folded away.

“Don’t tell me you think of me as one of your magic wish friends?” Kaiba said.

“There’s nothing magical about our friendship, no,” Yuugi said, and to his delight Kaiba snorted with amusement. “Now eat, before it gets cold.”

***

They ate, the evening quiet of the kitchen magnifying every fried, crunchy bite. Yuugi had hoisted himself onto the bar stool next to Kaiba, congratulating himself on a well-made grilled cheese. He would’ve made it work even without the expensive knives.

"Don't tell Mokuba," Kaiba said, dabbing at crumbs on his plate with a greasy scrap of bread, "or Atem."

"Don't tell them what?" Yuugi said.

"How you found me. On hour six of staring at a wall.”

"I won't," Yuugi said.

"They don't need to worry about me. I can take care of myself," Kaiba insisted.

"You can, but are you?" Yuugi said.

"Mmh," Kaiba murmured, resting his elbows on the counter and his chin atop his laced hands. “Don’t tell them that, either.”

His eyes rolled sideways, his gaze drifting around the kitchen, through the arched doorway, through the rest of the house, where all the lights were off. Yuugi slid off his stool and selected two pears from the fruit bowl, heavy with ripeness, rinsing them in the sink.

“Did... something happen? Did you get in a fight?” he ventured. “Atem says you’re not answering his calls.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Then what?”

The kitchen swelled with silence.

"They left," Kaiba said finally, as Yuugi considered how to cut the pears. A basic wedge cut was too childish. "And I told them to go, enjoy it, make the most of it. They have their own lives to live. Mokuba must've asked me a thousand times if I'd be fine without him if he went to California, and I said yes, go, because I don't need him around. I'm fine. And there's no point in getting angry with someone for leaving if you don't need them in the first place."

The effort must've been massive, Yuugi realized, slicing into the pears, to keep the anger at bay. To dig into the wound and wrench the thing out whole, raw and throbbing, without duels or rubbled islands, and without the help of the people who loved him the most. No wonder he looked so exhausted, so limp; no wonder he was again sinking towards the counter, arms folding, his head dropping like there was a hand on the back of his neck, guiding him down with animal docility.

“How long have you been feeling like this?” Yuugi said.

“What the hell do you know about it?” Kaiba said, semi-muffled by his elbow.

“It feels like there’s this dark little pit in yourself that you can’t stop digging,” Yuugi said, “and when it’s deep enough, you’re gonna curl up and bury yourself at the bottom and sleep for a year. Right?”

Kaiba said nothing, heaving another sigh.

“Sit up. Eat this.” Yuugi thunked a plate of pear in front of Kaiba, each slice wafer-thin, almost translucent, dripping with light. Kaiba dutifully pulled himself up and removed several slices of pear, with jenga-like precision, careful not to damage Yuugi’s artful pinwheeling. “Well?”

“I always feel like this,” Kaiba said, a startling confession, all the more terrifying for the blithe, dismissive tone with which he confessed it. “So what if it’s a little worse than normal? I’ll find my way out of it.”

Yuugi leaned over the counter, hands clasped atop it, business-like.

“I have no doubt in your ability to get out of this,” he said. “But I don’t think you should do it alone. See, I don’t want you to leave, either.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah?” Yuugi said. “I challenge you to a duel. My deck’s in my backpack. I have some new strategies I’m dying to test, and you’re the only one who makes me really fight for it. How about it? Wanna duel?”

Kaiba exhaled, resting his elbow on the counter, his cheek against the back of his hand. He plucked out another pear slice, not eating it; instead just letting it dangle from his fingertips, watching a tiny pearl of water roll off the edge and break apart on the plate with monumental indifference.

Watching him, Yuugi allowed himself a brief, private moment of grief, for Kaiba, knowing he wouldn’t want it, and he’d be insulted if he knew. To have your heart broken by what you love was one thing; to swing from love to hate was another; but to stand still and feel your love go, leaving nothing in the hollow it left behind, was the worst.

With a light flick, Kaiba released the slice of pear, his gaze drifting again.

“No. I’m tired of fighting,” he said sullenly, so dull a sound that Yuugi sucked in a breath, two dueling thoughts colliding with concussive impact in his chest. Good, stop fighting, why don’t you finally get some rest, and the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and shout no! keep fighting! I know you’re in there!

Kaiba lifted his head, looking at Yuugi with an air of steeling himself. “Okay. What... what do you want from me?”

Yuugi almost laughed, but caught himself. No good things came from laughing in Kaiba’s face.

“Other way around,” he said, drawing a circle in the air with his finger. “This is about what you want from me. Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

Kaiba frowned, thinking.

“Do you seriously believe the magic of the Millennium Puzzle helped you make friends?” he said.

"Um. Well, it was more like a domino effect, you know? A chaos theory, butterfly hurricane kind of thing - “

“Magic had nothing to do with it. It was all you,” Kaiba said, with more heat and passion than he’d shown in weeks. “But you have to understand I’ll never be your ‘bro’ - ” couching the word in air quotes, a disdainful pair of twin finger twitches - “and I’m not one of your little pals, like Jounouchi, or whatever. That’s not who I am. That’s not how I do it.”

“I know,” Yuugi said. “Listen - ”

“I don’t - ” Kaiba huffed and scowled at the counter, at his blurred, misty reflection. “I prefer to handle things on my own. I always have. I don’t - know how - ”

“Kaiba.”

Kaiba looked up, shoulders stiffening, his face tight and stricken.

“I know,” Yuugi said. He let that hang between them until Kaiba’s shoulders had eased out of their anxious coils. “Don’t worry. I’m not adding you to the group chat or anything. I don’t expect anything from you except the occasional bitchy comment, and maybe a good, boisterous laugh, from way deep down in your chest, like when you draw Blue-eyes in a duel. You know, the ‘I got you now, fucker’ laugh.”

Kaiba laughed - a laugh at half-power, lacking his usual trumpet blare of triumph, but a laugh nonetheless. “You are an oddball.”

“Birds of a feather,” Yuugi said smugly, and checked his phone. It was getting late. “Okay. I think I’ve bothered you enough for the night - ”

“You’re not bothering me. Are you taking the train back into the city?”

“Yeah.”

“What line?”

“Red line,” Yuugi said, and was struck by an idea. "Why? Somewhere you wanna go?"

"I'm in the mood to get out of the house for a while," Kaiba said. "It's too fucking quiet in here without Mokuba."

Yuugi fixed him with a look. "Yeah, so one of the interns was telling me about a new arcade that just opened off the Ishibashi station. I was gonna go after work with the guys to check it out some time, but..."

He didn't even need to finish the thought. Despite his best effort to hide it, something hopeful had bloomed across Kaiba's face, rich and warm. It made Yuugi ache to see that look, and to wonder what he would've wished for at fifteen, freshly cast from the forge and still hard and brittle and white-hot with rage, burning everyone who touched him.

"Get your coat, let's go," Yuugi said, and Kaiba almost sprang off his bar stool. "Wait - finish the pear. I cut it fancy for you and everything."

Kaiba rapidly ate the pear. "The grilled cheese was excellent, by the way."

"Really?"

"Yes. If you come back and make me another, I'll make all the bitchy comments you want."

Yuugi laughed. "Deal."

***

ATEM did you talk to him?

Yuugi leaned against the polished wooden edge of the pool table, his thoughts whirling in his head lazy and kaleidoscopic. He was halfway through his third beer. They'd gone through air hockey. The racing games. The shooting games. Foosball. Kaiba had spent fifteen minutes at the claw machine, winning a plush Kuriboh for a middle schooler and pressing it into her hands with a firm explanation of how the machines were rigged against her.

Then they'd found the pool tables, in a dim little corner, the green felts shining like tropical islands in a shadowy red-brown sea under the hanging lights. Yuugi was still smarting from the whipping, which Kaiba had delivered with almost careless ease, drink in hand.

"Yuugi. Look," he said, leaning over the table, aiming the pool cue at some bizarre constellation of pool balls, his long shadow falling across the felt.

"Give me a sec," Yuugi said, and swiftly rescued Kaiba's sweating old-fashioned from the edge of the table.

YUUGI ya. now he's showing off

YUUGI trick shots at the pool table

ATEM so he's fine?

"You're not looking," Kaiba said, lifting his head. "Look."

"I'm looking," Yuugi said.

The cue moved smoothly between Kaiba's fingertips as he aligned his shot - sleek, frictionless, silent - with a quick, sharp thrust he sent the pool balls smashing into each other, cracking like lightning across the table and vanishing into the pockets. The last ball rolled towards the last pocket with slow, melodramatic flair, teetering over the lip, like it knew exactly who had struck it, and what kind of show it needed to put on.

It dropped in, clattering into its fellows at the bottom of the pocket.

Kaiba laughed, triumphant, glowing with youthful glory, catching the victory by his hip with a yank of his fist.

YUUGI he will be

"Did you see?" Kaiba said, turning to Yuugi. The lines under his eyes were still there; the seams that held him together, pulling apart. Those would take some time to repair.

But for the moment he was radiating with energy, beaming, star-like in the dim electric gloom of the arcade. Not hidden in the blackness of space, but brighter for it. Despite it.

"I saw," Yuugi said.

#shark-platinum #fanfiction #rivalshipping #it's not romantic but it gets the tag because *ben wyatt voice* its about the dynamic

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why-animals-do-the-thing · 5 years

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Please share your thoughts on Planet Zoo when you feel ready! I'm interested in your opinions :)

Oh man, my draft on this totally got buried! I’m sad the beta is over and I lost my file, because I was on my... 6th? 7th? iteration and had finally figured out most of the mechanics and had a successful facility running.

So here’s the thing: this game is hella complicated! You can tell they talked to zoo people about what it takes to run a facility, and then decided to include literally all of the widely varied considerations in the game. It’s not something you can really play mindlessly just to breed animals or kill guests like the old Zoo Tycoon was (and even when my dangerous animals did escape, they didn’t go after guests, and all the guests ran away really fast). You’re juggling environmental conditions, appropriate enrichment types, fencing construction and height, staff routes / exhaustion / access to break rooms, conservation breeding, protesters... it’s A Lot. Which is kind of great to see in the game, but also makes me hope there’s a way to turn off various mechanics for people who want a less intensive immersion experience.

The beta was super glitchy but had improved massively by the end of the period, which gives me a lot of hope for the final release of the game. I definitely ended up with like 16 peacocks I couldn’t sell or get rid of at all because they’d been kept when I deleted my old save and started a new game. There were some aspects of the staff research features that looked like they’d add a lot of benefit to the game (new path and fence types, new guest buildings) but while they were enabled in the beta they never actually got completed so I spent a lot of time being frustrated at it since none of my fence types except straight glass could hold lemurs and it hurt me inside to create an enclosure that was 360 glass walls that staff would (irl) have to scrub down daily.

The graphics are beautiful and the animations for the animals look really authentic. They even got the weight right for the bigger animals, unlike a lot of animation lately (looking at you, tiger in The Walking Dead).

The controls are frustrating and fiddly, so I hope they improve them before final launch. None of the things you reflexively reach for as a gamer work the way they do in most other games (no holding down the right mouse button to rotate). It kind of makes sense because they had to incorporate so many different types of controls, but a big part of my frustration with my first playthrough was how incredibly hard it was to simply manipulate the game.

There’s some seriously annoying things about terrain modification in the game: paths can only go on smooth “enough” slopes or flat terrain, but it’s really hard to tell when it’s flat enough to be functional. There’s no “flatten terrain for a path” option in the terrain controls. Similarly, I didn’t figure out a way to build bridges or stairways unless I was working with raised or lowered terrain, so trying to get elevated pathways took like half an hour of messing around with terrain tools and wanting to throw my computer out a window when for the 17th time my slope wasn’t flat enough for a path. Building controls are a little better, but I miss the drag-and-draw fencing aspect of the original Zoo Tycoon (although it’s nice to be able to draw fancy fencelines with curves).

The tutorial was actually almost too complicated - it started you off in the middle of a big zoo that was already set up, and so a lot of the controls you need to figure out how to manipulate weren’t actually taught. I feel like a sandbox tutorial might be more useful overall. For instance, I was on my 5th zoo when I figured out that I needed to /assign/ educational content to speakers and signboards after I placed them in order to get the benefit.

Overall, I love the idea and I’m glad I bought it. I hope they streamline things a little or allow you to turn aspects off, and maybe fix some of the controls. But the animal side of things? It’s super great, and accurate, and I really love how much it makes people think about all the little things that go into keeping zoo animals happy and healthy.

#planet zoo #bisexualshoemarriage

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chiseler · 4 years

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The Long, Sad Death of the NYC Newsstand

Up until 2003, New York’s newsstands—those charmingly ramshackle wood-and-aluminum sidewalk constructs where scurrying commuters could grab a morning paper, a pack of smokes and the new issue of Leg Show on their way to the train—were all privately owned and operated by the scruffy characters who inhabited them. All a would-be news dealer had to do was fill out some forms, give the city a check for $1000, and in return they’d receive a two-year license. The license gave them rights to a location, but the costs of building the stand and operating the business was the responsibility of the new owner. That said, within zoning regulations, they could do what they wanted with their stand: paint it whatever garish color they liked, design it after the Taj Mahal, sell Ju-Ju powders along with The Irish Times and racing forms, and keep all the profits at the end of the day. They even, under certain circumstances, maintained the right to sell the newsstand and the license if they so chose. All that changed in 2003, but I’ll get back to that. It was hardly the beginning or the end of the city’s war on newsstands, a war which began soon after newsstands became such an iconic part of New York’s sidewalk landscape.

If we can accept Hollywood films as providing an accurate historical record, ad-hoc open-fronted newsstands had been a familiar and welcome part of daily life in New York since at least the first half of the nineteenth century. Most, again if we accept the Hollywood myth, were owned and operated by gruff but lovable cigar-chomping midgets or preternaturally wise blindos, colorful outsiders who inevitably knew far more about what was going on than what was reported in any of the periodicals they sold. Newsstand operators were the eyes and ears of the community, knew everyone, and acted as invaluable sources for cops and reporters in search of tips. Especially the blind ones.

We may have no choice but to accept the mainstream studio version, as historians seem flummoxed when it comes to pinpointing exactly when or where the first of New York’s newsstands appeared. All they can say for certain is that the hundreds of newsstands that dotted street corners and subway stations across the five boroughs were modeled in function if not form after similar news outlets which had been commonplace in England, France and Italy since the late eighteenth century. But there is at least a small kernel of truth to the mainstream studio version, if you’ll allow me an aside.

For over half a century, thanks to a program spearheaded by the NY State Commission for the Blind, a handful of the city’s newsstands—in City Hall, the King’s County Courthouse, and a select few subway stations—were designated to be run by blind operators exclusively. It seemed a more humane alternative to forcing the blind to sell pencils out of a tin cup. Whether or not these blind news vendors acted as infallible informants for newspapermen and the cops is unknown, but the program was an extremely popular and desirable one within the blind community, allowing those lucky enough to take over a newsstand to earn a living wage. Unfortunately the program was so popular that in the early ’90s I was told the waiting list was so long it would likely be twenty years or more before I was set up in my own operation. Now I have to imagine the wait is even longer, but more about that later, too.

By the late nineteenth century New York’s stand alone sidewalk newsstands had evolved into their iconic form: a shack, usually painted green, constructed of wood and metal, with a low shelf along the front to hold bundles of newspapers, another shelf above that to hold candy and other snacks, and open window through which the proprietor conducted business, with cigarettes and magazines displayed on the wall behind him.

As beloved and essential as the newsstands became among New Yorkers, they’d always had a rough go of it. During the newspaper wars of the 1880s and ’90s, when competing papers quite literally battled each other in pursuit of higher circulation numbers, it was often the newsstand operators who caught the brunt of the violence. If, thanks to personal political leanings or, more often, a little monthly handout, a news vendor opted to carry The World, say, and not The Herald-Tribune, he might find himself beaten bloody by Herald-Tribune deliverymen, his newsstand torched or bombed. A similar fate often also awaited those vendors who, out of respect for the First Amendment or a sense of egalitarianism, refused to play favorites by foolishly carrying all the city dailies.

Not long after the Newspaper Wars were resolved, the city took up the fight to make your average news vendor’s life miserable. In 1911, the city prepared legislation to get rid of newsstands altogether by revoking the owners’ licenses, arguing the stands blocked foot traffic. Newsstand operators banded together against the threat. In a public hearing, the Newsdealers Association President William Merican told members of city council, “Why, there are some men who cannot eat their breakfast without a newspaper. Think of the women in the crush of the subway and elevated. They are exposed to every kind of indignity and hardship. They buy newspapers to make them forget their misery. If the public cannot get their newspapers on the street, they will find the inconvenience intolerable.”

The mayor was swayed by the argument, and the proposed legislation was shelved, at least for a little while.

A decade later in the early Twenties the NY Times took up the fight to do something about what the city’s wealthy and powerful considered an eyesore. Citing the Municipal Art Society’s plans to design polished modernist newsstands that would blend organically with their surroundings, the Times wrote “Why should the sidewalk news stand remain in the architectural class of the squatter’s shanty and the chicken coop? Why shouldn’t it be beautiful or at least not offensive to the eye?”

What the Times clearly didn’t realize was that by then, and over the decades to come, news vendors were not only designing and decorating their stands to reflect the personalities of the owner and the community, but selling things catering specifically to the neighborhood. You can’t get more organic than that. A Financial District newsstand served a different clientele and purpose than one in the East Village, and one in Park Slope served a different clientele and purpose than one in Flushing. (Well, at least that was the case in the twentieth century, even if it isn’t anymore.)

A number of newsstands, especially in the outer boroughs, evolved into mini community centers, with folks from the neighborhood hanging out with the owner to catch up with the news and each other. Some vendors gave their stands unique paint jobs (in some instances adorning the sides with murals), others hung Chinese lanterns or installed awnings, while still others abandoned the standard shack format altogether for more architecturally interesting designs. Despite the general perception, virtually no two stands were identical.

Ignoring (or more likely unaware of) this, the city pushed ahead with their efforts to beautify the stands,. In the ’50s and ’60s the city began once again drafting plans and sponsoring contests with an eye toward replacing the glorified chicken coops with sleek and uniform metal and glass designs, but none of their efforts went anywhere. Beyond that, there were the seemingly bi-annual efforts mounted by city council and various morality watchdog groups to ban the sale of porn. Every time the city pushed on this issue, the newsstand operators once again pushed back, arguing that porn sales represented a huge percentage of their annual profits, and by taking that away, the city would be putting them out of business.

In 1987, Hudson News was founded. Hudson News was an international chain operation, essentially the Taco Bell of storefront newsstands, whose slick and jazzy neon logo quickly became a familiar sight in airports and train stations across the country. It seems Hudson News represented exactly what New York officials had been looking for since the turn of the century. After grabbing spots in Penn Station, Grand Central, JFK and LaGuardia in the early ’90s, Hudson News and the city both took aim at the newsstands in the subway. Suddenly it was argued that the newsstands which had been there forever were not only obstructions to commuter movement, but blocked police sight lines on the platforms as well, preventing them from stopping crime. It was an insane argument no one had brought up before, but it worked. Before long, a number of the old subway newsstands were replaced with stand-alone Hudson News kiosks. The ironic thing of course, is that the Hudson News stands were much bigger and brighter, presenting even more of an obstacle to commuters and cops alike. But they were much nicer looking and covered with neon piping, so that was okay.

For the moment anyway, the sidewalk newsstands were safe.

Then along came Rudy Giuliani, The new Law and Order mayor who made his own bid to get rid of New York’s newsstands. Along with his efforts to scrub the city clean of porn, Giuliani argued the newspapers sold at these stands sometimes blew away, adding to New York’s litter problem. The only solution, as part of his Quality of Life campaign, was to get rid of the newsstands altogether. Once again the vendors and their customers alike pushed back.

Although Giuiliani was able to clean up Times Square and Coney Island, by the time he left office those sloppy newsstands remained steadfast, and New Yorkers were still wandering knee-deep in scattered fluttering pages of The Financial Times and The Guardian.

It took his successor, Michael Bloomberg, to do what Giuliani couldn’t. Always with a mind toward the tidy and seemly and sterile, Bloomberg had long found the city’s newsstands an eyesore. In 2003 he signed what was called The Street Furniture Bill. As he put it, the aim of the bill was “to rationalize the streets of the city, where right now it's a hodgepodge of unattractive things.” The quote says a lot about Bloomberg, how he perceived New York, as well as how and why NYC turned into Des Moines.

With an eye toward faceless uniformity, the city cut a deal with the Spanish company Cemusa to design not only clean and pleasant newsstands, but matching public toilets and other bits of street furniture as well. Soon, it seemed, Bloomberg would have his dream, and wherever you went in New York, it would look just like every other part of New York.

Four years later, the city began seizing those ugly hodge-podge newsstands away from their longtime independent owners, people who had in some cases owned and operated their own newsstands for forty years or more, replacing them with identical steel and glass boxes decorated with enormous digital ads. In a blink, those faces you saw behind the newsstand windows were now mere employees, and all profits from those digital ads went straight to the Cemusa company.

By 2009, over 200 old newsstands had been removed, replaced by 300 sleek and shiny boxes with those goddamn digital ads all over them. But by then it was a moot point. With the internet killing off newspapers and magazines, and with everyone staring dead-eyed into phones instead of picking up a copy of the Daily News on the fly, newsstands themselves became all but irrelevant. As quickly as those slick and flashy boxes appeared, they began to vanish. Nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find a sidewalk newsstand anywhere in New York, though there are still a few in the subways and train stations, where Hudson News is still king.

In a final and ironic insult, in 2013, long after most of New York’s newsstands were nothing but a grubby and fading memory, every last one of them operated by Angelo Rossitto in a newsboys cap, the city spent an estimated $90,000 on a new newsstand design to replace the one which had been in the lobby of the Brooklyn criminal courts building for over forty years. As that had always been one of the stands set aside for blind operators, the primary goal of the new design was that it be blind accessible.

Once completed, it was discovered this fancy new newsstand, which had been designed with absolutely no input from a single blindo, let alone the one who would be working there, was not in the least accessible, and so had to be scrapped. The city then dumped even more money into yet another design, but by then it was too late. No matter how popular and valuable that State Commission for the Blind program was, the New York newsstand had gone the way of the dodo, making the hubbub over the blind-friendly design for the Brooklyn courthouse irrelevant.

I can’t help but suspect the city’s alleged good-hearted move to do something decent for the disabled community (one member of it, anyway) in fact cloaked a deeply cynical effort to deal out one last fatal blow in the century-old effort to do away with newsstands altogether, making the city that much less interesting.

Well, they got what they wanted, though aesthetics aside, the more conspiratorial sections of my brain still wonders what was really behind the push.

.by Jim Knipfel

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kinfriday · 5 years

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Wandering Hops: Epicenters and Fears

Fear makes things bigger in your mind than they are. This is especially true in my case taking that I have an anxiety condition.

For me, there is very little chill, and every issue, even a perceived issue can become a massive crisis in my head in an instant. This is one of the reasons I hike. Conquering miles and rough terrain, helps turn down the volume on all the static surging around and empowers me in my day to day.

At least, that’s how it normally goes…

Loowit Falls, at first, absolutely terrified me. As said in previous blogs, research is the key to a good hike. Before I set out on a trail, I check reports, check what the forest service (State or National depending) has to say. I read reviews on All Trails… and consult guidebooks if I have them.

Knowledge can make the difference between a great hike, and an utter disaster, so it helps to do your homework beforehand.

Cliches seem to be multiplying today, so let’s move on, shall we?

Selecting this hike, I knew it to be a challenge. It’s rated as hard, clocks in at a whopping 14 miles, and is a there-and-back-again hike. Any time spent going downhill in the beginning, means uphill at the end, and vice versa. As you can see from the altitude graph, this was going to make the end especially tough, but as I was reading, it wasn’t the physical challenge stressing me out, but the trail reports warning me of ledges with severe drops, gravelly sandy trails, and grueling up-hills that did.

Still, I’d been feeling strong the last month, making miles, and conquering hikes. Long hikes are my thing (more to come on that later) so a 14 miler seemed a logical next step.

With my chest tingling with excitement and a touch of fear, I told my team… “I’m gonna do it.” Or as Maya would say… YEET.

So now it was time for the research to really begin. I began looking at the topo maps, and followed the trail on google earth. I made my plans, talked to my husband, and began to get the logistics worked out.

Saturday, 0430, I was up and getting ready for my biggest hike to date, and all the while I was doing final gear checks, looking at maps, all that fun stuff, my nervousness beginning to build.

Then the husband woke up, around 630 as he often does before a hike, just to spend some time with me and said, in fearful tones.

“Bun, I’m worried about this one.”

I just smiled and said. “Me too, but I have fallbacks in place, and if it’s something I don’t think I can do, I’ll turn around and reassess.”

Then, he rose, hugged me, and began pricing life insurance policies.

I shit you not… this happened. I’m about to leave on a massive, monster hike, INreach SOS beacon charged, maps printed out, checklist double checked, and I’m looking forward to a nice encouraging talk with my husband, and he leaves to check on life insurance policies.

It’s moments like this that keep a marriage together, I tell you.

Full of confidence, I set out on highway 504 towards Mt. St Helens, the Spirit Lake Highway, only to run into a very unusual type of traffic in Toutle Washington.

Come to find out, there was a bike rally scheduled for the day of my hike, and there were hundreds of them on the side of the road, making their way to Johnston Ridge, the very same place I was going.

Now, I can almost hear you reading this, and shrugging, no big deal right? Well for most people that would be true, but for me, well… driving is something that makes me feel anxious, my mind likes to mess with me, and so for many years I didn’t. It’s only been recently after a lot of work and dedication that I’ve felt safe getting back behind the wheel again and now I had to deal with bikers everywhere, some of whom were so bold as to occupy the car lane, and refuse to yield.

On top of this, the weather turned foggy as I entered what is colloquially known as Big Foot Country, so as the long and windy road took me towards the parking lot, I was feeling more, and more stressed.

The day was beginning to feel cursed, my confidence was getting shakier by the moment, and I hadn’t even set out upon the trail yet.

Finally arriving at Johnston Ridge, the trail head, almost 4000 feet in elevation, the fog was even thicker. I couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of me at any given time. Still, that was enough to sight the trail, and there were others there, getting ready for their own adventures. It was a motley mix of hikers, tourists and those waiting for the bikers to arrive as they picked their way up the road, but hey, at least there were porta-potties.

After taking a few centering breaths, and strapping on my gear, I set off, hiking towards Boundary Trail, which would eventually take me to Loowit Falls.

This entire section of Mt. St Helens is filled with history, making this trail an even bigger draw for me than others. Boundary Trail #1, was founded way back in the first decade of the US Forest Service. In 1911, Park Rangers rode horses from ridge to ridge, patrolling what was then the border of two national parks, Ranier and Columbia.

Loowit Falls on the other hand, is of the newer type of history. After months of erupting back in 1980, one morning a 5.1 earthquake struck the already battered region, and an entire wall of Mt. St. Helen’s crater collapsed, and turned into a hellacious landslide, ultimately opping a peak before crashing into the valley below, inundating Spirit Lake.

Loowit Falls was one of the many new features that arose out of the cataclysm shaping the region, up on the mountain itself, directly in the path of the former landslide.

First though, I had to get there, and the hike starts off easily enough. There’s an observation loop that lets out to the Boundary Trail, that’s made more for tourists than hikers, so the first little bit is paved. Soon though, it gives way to gravelly dirt before angling down zig zagging and switchbacking, but I’ve seen all that before. Been there done that.

And there’s another cliche…

After about a mile and a half in, still wondering if I should really attempt to go for the falls, socked in by fog I came across a sign showing the trails in the area along with this picture…

Nervously, I set out from there, heading towards my decision point. I could have gone left, or right. Left had an easier hike, that went up to a peak, ending at around 10 miles covered, with less elevation gain, but to my right, shrouded in fog and mystery, was the hike I came to conquer.

This was the real moment of truth. All I had was my research that said it could be challenging. Some reported the height could be intimidating, others said it was merely tough.

What should I do?

Taking a (figurative) leap of faith, I decided to for it, comforting myself with the idea that it was ok to turn back if things got to intense, and began to descend down the trail, and the mountain, making decent time. The pillowy shroud of fog continued to lay across the trail granting me no wider vista than 5 or 10 feet, but the path was wide, and while I did get closer to edges I still had plenty of room.

Eventually things leveled out and I could tell I was in a valley as the fog slowly began to lift, and I’m thinking is that it? Really?

From my perspective there had been nothing to be truly afraid of. The descent wasn’t especially challenging and I had felt safe the entire time. Unlike the husband searching for life insurance, this buoyed my confidence, even though I had eleven miles still to go. With a bounce (hop?) in my step I set out, the fog continuing to lift, revealing more of the stark landscape around me. Black and red lava rocks dotted landscapes that were in some places sandy, other places akin to moonscape, sparkling with volcanic glass and in others, covered with thick shrub like trees, or coated in wildflowers of amazing colors. Chipmunks ran to and fro, eating flowers and wondering if I was going to feed them, while birds flew overhead.

Then it happened. Suddenly the clouds broke and there was a literal mountain in front of me, emerging out of the fog like some giant from the dusty tomes of mythologies. Mt. St. Helens lay before me in all its majestic glory, and off in the distance, a light glinted off a fast moving waterfall surrounded by volcanic sand.

That was my half way point, where I would turn around and come back, Loowit Falls.

I stood there for a moment and took it all in. The vista before me left me awestruck by the power of nature. Then, taking a deep breath, I dug in my trekking poles and began to hike.

And hike….

Then hike some more…

As I went traffic fell away to a few familiar faces, I’d pass them, then they’d pass me as we took alternating breaks, until finally around 2pm, I rounded a switchback, and heard for the first time the roar of a waterfall.

There it was, right in front of me, the moment I had been waiting for. Loowit Falls, in all its splendor, flowed relentless down the mountain as the wind howled off the glaciers above, chilling the air to what felt like the mid to upper 40’s.

Buttoning down my outer layer, I made my way to a flat spot, laid my pack out and had lunch, reveling in my victory only for my open pack to flop over and spill out on the ground, voiding its contents. I went from resting to scrambling as I dove for my glasses and meds, hoping they wouldn’t fall off the edge.

In some ways, it reminded me of the day so far, there was a sensation of “emotional breathing” to the experience, stress followed by periods of ease, akin to the contraction and relaxation of breathing. Up and down, in and out, oh shit to okay…

And this was the halfway point, soon I’d have to go back the way I came, picking my way back up the mountain I had descended to get back to the trailhead. The only difference being, was that now I knew the trail, I knew what to expect, so I hoisted my pack, tightened down my straps, took some water, and got back on the trail.

My speed increased, as the air warmed and I left the slopes of St. Helens, making good time across the dramatically stark volcanic plains. Gradually, I began to feel more accomplished than I had in a while and, by the time I had hit ten miles I was riding high. With four miles left to go I charged forward, eager for the challenge.

Then I started to climb. All of the descent from the morning, had to be repeated, this time going up. This is where it got grueling, as if the trail was attempting to punish me for every step I made down upon it just a few hours before, but there was nothing else to do but push through it, keep pace, and enjoy the view as I ascended, granting me new perspective now that the fog was gone.

There were places where it was quite steep, and the drops quite far, the morning’s fog had hid all that from me, but there was room, there was space, it was something to respect, but it wasn’t anything to fear.

All of that worry, all of that concern, and if I had let it stop me, I wouldn’t have been there.

Humbled by that revelation, sore from the elevation I was having to make, and humbled by a day full of experiences, I pushed myself up the trail. Soon there was the last arcing climb, until I set my feet on the pavement of the observation trail yet again, and just beyond was the parking lot.

Setting my gear in the well of the passenger seat, I popped an electrolyte tab into my water and watched it fizz as I nibbled a Clif bar, feeling like the master of my own little universe, resting from the exertion of the day. Once I had some time to recharge, I put the key in the ignition, put the car into drive, and had a major anxiety attack.

The problem with anxiety attacks it that you know, rationally, everything is fine. The problem is your brain isn’t listening to reason. I worked through my coping skills, and tried to get myself centered, but nothing was working. I was exhausted from the hike, and the worries of the day, and it was all crashing in on me at once, amassing as a parade of my biggest fears, and inner demons within my mind.

I made it about three miles before I had to pull over. I stopped in at the Coldwater boat dock, the location of last week's hike, and took a few more deep breaths, walked around the car, and tried to get my mind right. Finally I messaged my husband letting him know what was going on.

Messages travel slower by satellite than text, and so I had some time to sit. I looked out on the parking lot, at the strange bathrooms that looked like forgotten temples, and it reminded me that I had hiked twelve miles last week, and today, I had hiked fourteen…

That caused my brain to stop and pause for a moment, like rays of sunshine penetrating the gloom.

I had excelled through challenges, walked along ridges, and managed my water. I was capable, I was competent, and I was ok.

In the face of this revelation, the anxiety began to let go, and a lightbulb went off in my head. I had a weapon now against it, a reminder, that I was stronger than I thought, and as the messages came back from my husband and other supportive folks, the anxiety withered away.

In spite of all of the difficulties of the day, I had made it, and now, all I had to do was drive home. Turning the car back on, and setting into drive, I carefully made my way out of the parking lot, already thinking of next week's adventure.

#hiking #adventure #mtsthelens #wanderinghops #studioprey #rebeccamickley #pacificnorthwest #trailreport #amblogging #blog #pnw #anxiety #fear

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pcttrailsidereader · 4 years

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The Best...for me

By Howard Shapiro

In 2012 the John Muir Trail beckoned Rees, Jim, and I. We had been sectioning for many years. The call to climb up and over eight of the highest passes on the Pacific Crest Trail and literally top it off with an ascent of Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the ‘lower 48′ was hard to resist. We had been enticed in 2009 when we walked from Ebbets Pass to Tuolumne Meadows.

Our experience on that trip had reminded us of why we continued to come back to the trail again and again as well as the fact, on paper, we weren’t getting any younger. If we were going to pick one more piece of PCT fruit it had better be the JMT.

Hiking from north to south the passes get increasingly higher. Being the high Sierras weather is a factor one cannot ignore. Our good fortune was the weather gods smiled down on us for the first five days. Often is the case where by early afternoon the puffy build up of clouds and the distant rumblings of thunder can change the outcome of a perfectly dawning day.

We experienced the first taste of what the heavens could deliver at Wanda Lake just below Muir Pass. A thunderstorm at 11,000 feet felt very different from the thunderstorms I grew up with in the Midwest. Everything is more open and the closer. Despite the threat of afternoon lightning and thunder, hail, and rain, we would always wake up to a fresh new day. Those fresh new days were one of our greatest motivations for seeking the next mile and any other future challenge that might come our way.

As we left Wanda Lake the first really high pass was in our sights. Muir with it’s distinctive rock shelter was really something to behold in the midst of this barren landscape. Shortly thereafter we gave up what was to become a pattern; hard earned elevation. After Muir Pass, dropping in to LeConte Canyon we were met with a visual feast for the eyes.We discovered a cold clear brook flowing through the first of several delicate meadows. This brook was a welcome relief for our feet as they soaked before moving onward.

In the days that followed, we climbed the Golden Staircase, the last section of the JMT completed in 1938. Here we were, seventy some years later reveling in the labors of those CCC fellows who built the ‘staircase’ and more leaving in place for generations a unique legacy. Eventually we gathered the energy to get up to Mather Pass only to descend again to climb Pinchot, Glen, and eventually Forester Pass. Forester at 13,200 feet is the highest pass on the entire PCT. Making it here was exhilarating.

Now we were poised for the icing on this ‘cake’ that is the JMT. We ambled our way to Guitar Lake in preparation for climbing to the top of Mount Whitney before exiting at Whitney Portal. Guitar Lake greeted us with a pleasant enough campsite that we settled into easily. We weren’t alone though. Nearby were many others with the same intention of leaving in the middle of the upcoming night and finding their way to the summit for sunrise. Overhead the clouds were building, we were definitely not alone.

As if there was one final test of our endurance, willfulness, and friendship the storm gods threw one last ‘everything available’ our way. As we huddled in our tent not really being sure we would see Whitney summit or anyone else in our lives who we knew and loved. FLASH, one thousand one , CRASH/BOOM! Rain and hail pelted the thin walls of our tent. New water courses were flowing swiftly as we troweled escape routes for the streams directing them away from our shelter. FLASH, one thousand one, one...,CRASH/BOOM! Slowly, very slowly the storm moved on. As we peeked out of the vestibule,the surrounding slopes were coated in glistening hail and drying raindrops. The sun reminded us that we were okay. We were safe. We were together. Being together was both solace and deep validation of our relationship with and to each other. I wondered then and still wonder, how could I have survived this without my partners?

Realizing again, the value I associate with my long friendship and deep brotherhood to Jim and Rees gave me a glow that is difficult to put into words. Waking up at 2:30 AM and working our way 2000 or more feet up in one of the starriest of nights ever towards Trail Crest then Whitney summit illuminated my soul. The magic we make together will remain one of my most cherished experiences. No matter the challenge, no matter the hardship we always see it through. I may hold the greatest doubts at times but my partners help me find the ways to extinguish them, setting them aside to be replaced with laughter, safety, and culminating in the joy that is what we find whenever we are together.

This is my number one. It is a summit shared by both the John Muir Trail and those who have helped me define my PCT experiences. Like those CCC fellows who carved out the Golden Staircase and placed the rocks that hold the trail up the downside of Forester and who did so much more, Jim and Rees have helped me create a belief in myself, an infrastructure that will carry me forward. I have passed some of this onto the next generation with my daughter Emily. She and I have experienced a section of the PCT and will hopefully do some more. My greatest hope is she will find people like Rees and Jim to share her own experiences with in places like the JMT or the many other ‘best’ places along the Pacific Crest Trail.

#John Muir Trail #Wanda Lake #Muir Pass #Guitar Lake #Whitney Summit #Whitney Portal #Relationships

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thejackal64 · 5 years

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Pillars of Magic: Paradox | Chapter 4: Within the Walls

Piano keys were being taped without fingers somewhere in the marketplace, along with the strings of a lute playing itself. The song was pleasant, like the first warming breeze of Spring kissing goodbye chilled Winter days. Some men and their ladies danced.

The music, the sounds of people buying and selling their wares, the clatter of silverware against plates from outdoor restaurants, the happily laughing women, all had been a comforting presence that surrounded Star in an embrace all its own every time she was able to travel to the square. But now, all of the to-do became a single merged unwanted din to her ears, and none of it at all as comforting as before. It was a cloud of chaos that she was intent on escaping as quickly as possible.

She rushed past a couple of other concubines, accidentally bumping into them and nearly tripping on her long shimmering gown.

Star stammered an incoherent 'So-orry!' not sparing them a glance. But with the jostle of the crowd, nobody heard much of anything and didn't take the time for pleasantries towards the people they knocked into. She kept her eyes forward, her feet run-jumping, as fast as they could carry her out to the front of the pavilion where a great marble fountain marked the place of transit.

The fountain was an entire story tall, with jets of water constantly surging out from the horns of a dozen floating stone-faced pony heads encircling around its base. The water danced with an array of colors; it shifted hues as it traveled through the air before diving back into the fountain, only to rain down like a multicolored waterfall into the holding pool below. It was a portrait of calm nestled within the chaos.

Cars hovered around the fountain as they speedily pulled up curbside to take on their passengers. Valets got out, still taking a brief moment to bow to their fares as they hurried inside the magical vehicles. Some of the vehicle doors opened up like the wings of eagles, while others slid up or away on invisible tracks.

Without pause Star waved down one of the drivers, jumping into the humming machine as soon as the door had opened wide enough to allow her to squeeze through.

"Where to, miss?" asked the surprised driver. "Reports are coming in of a monster in the pavillion?"

She barked like a thief that was trying to make a getaway from the scene of a crime.

"I don't know, just drive to anywhere, just not here!"

"Excuse me, my lady?"

The driver furrowed his brow, unsure that he'd been spoken to in the manner that he'd heard, and doubly unsure if the panic residing in the young woman's eyes was simply due to the lights from the aether-tech gauges reflecting therein, or if she truly was in need of some kind of assistance. He wasn't certain whatever was happening in the marketplace wasn't just a publicity stunt of over-hyped drama. He had been so startled from the speed at which he took on his new guest that he couldn't be sure if maybe he was seeing in her face, or hearing in her voice, things that weren't there.

He got into the vehicle and adjusted the mirror to better see his frazzled, but elegantly dressed, passenger, almost ignoring all others, or at least the notion of panic in the area.

"Uurm, that is," Star quickly worked to calm herself, giggling lightly back at his questioning stare, "…that is to say, anywhere away from all of this commotion!"

She exaggerated breathily, fanning her hand in front of her face for effect. She hoped, secretly, that she wouldn't actually pass out while she tried to relax her racing heart.

"It has made me dizzy, with all the lights and sounds."

"Ah, I understand, miss!"

The driver tipped his hat to her in the rearview mirror while his face once again took on a calm rosy exterior, his mind returned back to its ignorant cradle of worriless, wealthy Mewnian peace. He drove around-about the fountain and began to head away.

"A pretty lady like yourself needs to take a bit better care not to become overwhelmed. It is lovely though, isn't it, Mewni at night? It could easily make someone less accustomed to traveling faint just from the sight."

He had noticed her collar, and began to head towards the concubine district, presuming that the market square was all new to her, and that she'd been sorely out of her element.

"You like a water, miss?" he asked, pushing a button on his console before awaiting a response.

An armrest lowered itself next to her. The top portion of it drew back into itself, a small hidden platform elevating up a more than ample liter bottle of clear, cold water. Within the bottle was a single frost-glow orb, resembling a golf-ball-sized blue marble that constantly emitted an icy chill while wet, fading in and out with almost breathing neon light.

She shyly took hold of the glass bottle in her hand. It misted over her face and hands when she cracked the top open to drink. As she sipped the refreshing liquid, she realized just how much she truly was grateful for it, wiping a bit of sweat from her brow. The large bottle continued to spill a foggy vapor out the top even when she had stopped drinking.

"Thank you," she said.

The heartbeats in her ears finally began to slow down as her breath did the same, looking out the window and seeing that the night had indeed come on rather quickly. The marketplace was so far in the distance she felt she could let her nerves relax just a little.

But in the absence of adrenaline her thoughts began to take over, hissing sentences from the depths of her mind as if they slithered out from the mouths of the nameless people in the square, and all at once. They were demanding answers, shouting with countless fingers pointing her way, volleying doubts against her back while they clawed at her resolve.

How could you leave your caretakers that loved you so? Look at your fine dress, your collar, your headband. How could you ever leave your only friends behind? Willow's heart will break. Can you live with knowing they suffer in silence as you go free? Don't you know your place?

Worse still, she wasn't sure where her new place would be. Concubines had keepers or served in the pleasure palaces. It was wholly unacceptable in society for a concubine to live on their own.

The voices persisted: Why are you so selfish in thinking that there is a better life than what you had? What are you even good for?

She pushed through her reservations, through the newfound fear that was making her fingers tremble; they clutched the water bottle harder. Did she really deserve anything better or should she have just been thankful for what she had, especially since she would now lose everything she'd ever known?

She refused to go back. There was only forward, no matter the cost, or where it led.

It was all Star could do to keep her head against the limousine's window, trying not to allow the quiet rumble of it to allow those thoughts to enter in again. A slight line of light passed over her, waking her from her troubled reverie. The arc gate scanner had passed through the car, signaling their entry into the concubine district.

"Wait, driver? Can you take me to," she hesitated, leaning forward in her leathery seat; she knew she couldn't ask to be dropped off just anywhere, and especially not directly on the outskirts of Mewni; instead she offered, "erm, to uh, the industrial district?"

"The industrial district? Are you quite all right, miss? What would a pretty thing like you be doing down in the industrial district?"

"Oh, it's where my uh, client is I need to see."

The driver narrowed his lips, remaining quiet a while before tilting his head back to speak, without taking his eyes from the road.

"Forgive me, my lady, but you're not exactly dressed for being in that district, if I may be so bold to say."

Star knew he meant to say something regarding the lower classed workers not being able to afford a concubine of her caliber, but to his credit he did rephrase the question in a way that was palatable for the ears. She played the game.

"Well, this is a very special occasion for one of the factory owners. It's his retirement party."

"Ah, my apologies! Say no more," he said with a knowing wink.

Star had never even come close to descending into lower Mewni. She was used to being able to see the sky overhead, with its wispy clouds and occasional advertisements, the colorful array of birds that sang cheerfully in the gardens, and the lush planted trees and shrubs dutifully placed all around for decor. But as the driver drove she saw less and less of the sky, fewer instances of green and other bright colors. The open air and pretty sights of upper Mewni were slowly replaced, covered over by pillars and support structures, multiple bridges and stonework, all completely enveloping everything overhead.

The vehicle drove down the many sloping layers of Mewni that squeezed out natural light, heading deeper and deeper into the lower parts of it. As Star watched out her window she was confused and amazed at how different the worldview became, and how surrounded she was by architecture on all conceivable sides. The wealthy of Mewni simply built their world on top of the former, poorer structures, lower Mewni serving merely as the elite's groundwork, forgetting and ignoring the downtrodden, literally concealing them from sight.

They continued on for the better part of an hour until they arrived at the industrial district's arc gates. The vehicle hovered along the roadway which became less fancy of inlaid flagstone and instead more like cobblestone. The buildings in the district, even though roofed-over by other buildings and roadways above them, were far taller than any of the grand manors Star had been used to seeing, which said a lot. Even though the factories were meant for the inventing of future aether-tech, their lofty exteriors were spotlessly clean, like palaces that hadn't yet been adorned by splashes of color from an artist's brush. Their outsides were lit all around and gave off a very sterile, almost medical building vibe. Smokestacks coiled around the exteriors and rose upwards, disappearing into the city's framework beyond Star's visibility. Somewhere higher in upper Mewni they emerged, spewing various colorful plumes out that, during the daylight hours, would appear as if they were manufacturing rainbows.

When they had gone far enough down, Star signaled the driver to let her out in front of one of the factory buildings. She had chosen one that looked both a bit more regal, but which also had the least amount of people milling around. Luckily, even though the laborers worked at all hours, designing and developing twenty-four-seven, there were fewer workers around during the dinner hour.

At least she would have that as an advantage, she thought, as she got out of the vehicle and tipped the driver with the few pieces of silver she had left in her small handbag. As the vehicle hovered away she sighed at the emptiness in her purse, then started the long walk through the industrial district, keeping her head down and trying not to attract anyone's attention.

The industrial district was the last vestige of what would be considered proper Mewni. Wealthy Mewmans wanted as much separation between themselves as the poorer Mewmans, and the factory buildings served as a suitable buffer zone between those that could afford aether-tech, and those that could not. Going further was something inconceivable.

Quietly, she followed along roadways that crept ever downward.

Eventually the factories began to lessen in stature and number, the cobblestones giving way to flat grey cement, devoid of any character or warmth. The further Star traveled on its drab surface, the more pock-marked and fissured it seemed to get with lack of upkeep or care, and the more out of place she appeared among the changed landscape.

There wasn't a single road in the Mewni she was acquainted with that wasn't bathed in aether light; but in this strange subterranean Mewni, there was a shortage of streetlights and lights coming from the very buildings themselves. The sparkling gauges covering every surface were not present. Any light at all came from fogged windows from the insides of the buildings. Instead of fine marble and well-maintained clay, the buildings were crafted from bricks and mortar, left almost forgotten by time, covered with cracks and grime.

"So dark," Star whispered to herself. She wasn't used to nighttime not being lit up enough to compensate for daylight, especially in a place completely enclosed with buildings that didn't feel the touch of the sun. "Well, everything should look better by tomorrow," she hoped, finding comfort in her own thoughts as she slowly followed what little light she could see until it cast her shadow long behind her. The light steadily increased as she got closer, finally coming up to a gateway of a kind she'd never seen before. She could only guess which type of gates they were, presuming them to be aether-driven due to their incessant glow, with a hue like cherry blossoms.

The aether-gates were large expanses of humming, pinkish light that stretched like a rippling transparent barrier, as if water could be controlled and held in a wall-like vertical plane so thin you could see through to the other side, albeit murkily. The barriers were wide enough to allow the width of a car, like arc gates, but it wasn't simple light beams that scanned passengers going through. The forcefield was a solid plane of magical current preventing all physical entry unless the field itself was disabled by the guards.

She'd only heard whispers of their existence, which prevented lesser-classed Mewmans from passing into zones meant for higher-classed citizenry… by force. The rumor was that touching the forcefield beam meant instant debilitating shock which would render the victim unconscious, or worse. A solid wall was built high enough on either side that they were load-bearing to the many countless floors higher above. There was no way to get further below in Mewni except by aether-gate access.

Star stood there, transfixed by the swirling patterns reaching from one side of the gate to the other. It was a pretty light, and stood out as much as her attire compared to the drab, crumbling surroundings.

There was a guard posted at each end of the beam, and a panel inset on both metal pillars behind them that cast out their portion of the glowing aether-shield. It wasn't long before the pinkish barrier-light caught her gown and sent a dazzling display of sparkles into the dull eyes of the guards, stealing away their attention. They locked onto her, their chuckling words cut off mid-sentence. Confusion from both sides kept the silence in the air palpable for a lengthy minute, before one of the guards finally spoke.

"You there, miss!"

Star visibly shuddered from the shout, bracing for further word impact. She scrambled for thoughts on how to convince the guards to let her pass. To her dismay, the guard that had spoken softened his tone and ushered a hand wave for her to come forward.

"Come, come. Don't be shy."

Star didn't want to appear as if she had the backbone of a mouse, so she stiffened her spine and walked forward with intent. She made a conscious effort to keep her chin up and her footsteps purposeful, her eyelids not overly wide as if she would bolt at the first sign of her pan unraveling.

"Not often we see a beautiful woman like you in these parts," the guard said. "This gate will take you down into the Alleys. Is that where you're headed?

Star had never heard of the Alleys, but she acted like she'd been there countless times.

"Yes, of course."

"You have the Gate Allowance?"

At this she hesitated, looking to the other guard, who offered, "The Pink Slip," which didn't help her one bit towards acknowledging whatever it was they wanted. She looked through her empty purse for the imaginary pink slip that she was pretending should be within. Her fingers ruffled the bag's interior aimlessly while her mind sought for excuses, her heartbeat starting to put an edge on her nerves.

"Ehh, you have it?" the first guard asked, his eyes captivated more so on her chest and dress than the charade she was desperately attempting to pull off, looking through her bag.

"No, I'm sorry. I must have left it in my other bag. Could I still pass? After all," she quickly chuckled, "I wouldn't want to be here if I didn't have a reason."

"I dare say not!" the guard laughed. "But, even so, if you got business down there, I need some sort of ID."

She fumbled and stopped looking through her purse, turning her eyes up to him.

"I don't really have anything other than the pink slip… it had everything on it I needed." She looked down, fluttering her eyelashes and sighing as if she might cry. "But it took a while to get down here. Don't make me go back all that way back just for the slip. I have business I have to do and will get in trouble if I don't get it done."

The second guard shook his head. "We can't let you pass without it. I would, and he would, but it's our jobs on the line, sorry."

Star looked past the guards at the control panels behind them. There was no way for her to run behind one guard, hit whatever button it was to remove the forcefield, and then get through. The button had to be pushed at each panel at the same time, by each guard.

"I insist you let me through. If not, perhaps your jobs will be more at stake than you realize."

She felt her nerves gather up like a cat on the hunt, all pretense towards acting pitiful dropped, as she debated such dodgy actions. She realized it would be foolhardy to try, but was prepared for a last ditch effort. She took a few bold steps towards the aether-field.

"Hold on, there." The first guard stepped away from the panel.

Her eyes took note of the gap, the opportunity she could capitalize on.

Slowly, the guard reached out towards her. Her first reaction was to shy away, but she didn't, still putting on the front that she was supposed to be there and not illicitly trying to get into lower Mewni.

His crusted, fingernailed hand brushed the hair aside from her white neck, meaty fingers tracing along the collar.

"Who sent you down here?"

"My caretakers; who else?" she replied, matter-of-factly, gauging the distance between the guard and the panel, and the secondary guard and his panel across the way. Her stance widened ever so slightly.

"And who might they be, miss?"

The first guard's eyelids rose, his hand stopping in a shocked fashion as his eyes saw the engraved seal on the fine collar which belonged to Aage and Aagil. He quickly stepped back towards the panel.

Star's heart sank as she saw the window of escape closing, but the guard hit three buttons on his control panel, giving a hand signal to the other who, after a hesitant pause, did the same.

All at once the glowing barrier sucked back into itself on both sides, leaving the way open to her.

"Sorry about that, miss, but I have orders. You understand."

Star blinked, uncertain what had just occurred, while her feet carried her numbly forward. It took her a moment but she said, "Thank you," as if the exchange she'd just had never carried with it the least bit of concern to her.

The second guard walked over to the first to discuss what that all was about. There was a questioning look on his face as he immediately pulled a small monitor and keypad device from his pocket and finger-punched a bunch of buttons.

"Wait a second," he said.

But Star didn't wait, pretending not to have heard them. She scanned the area for where to go next, and quickly. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and the guards as possible before they realized anything was amiss. She took as many turns around bends she could, easily losing her own sense of direction as she sought mainly to get away.

The second guard had pulled up an image of Star. In moments, they sprang into action.

When Star thought it was safe to slow her pace and regain her breath, she heard the thunder of a pair of heavily boot-clad feet pounding towards her direction. The guards were yelling for her to stop.

She did the opposite, taking a deep breath and pushing her legs harder.

"We found her," one of the guards was yelling into a communication device on his wrist. "She's heading to the lower jurisdictions!"

The place she was in was hardly enough of a labyrinth, but finally she came across a single door without a handle, a grubby light fixture alighting it in a hazy glow as if it was a focal point of the area. There didn't appear to be any other place to go. Even the walls seemed to funnel her towards it.

The door automatically slid back into the wall to give her entrance, a ping sound buzzing dolefully in her ears. It was a type of elevator, she knew, but this one was walled in on all sides and only had one direction to choose from – down. There weren't even floors to select. The type she was used to would hover to their destinations, enclosed by sheer panes of glass you could see through on all sides, and were not limited directionally; and as she stepped into the belly of the box awaiting her, with no other choice, the claustrophobic atmosphere creeped over her shoulders like a cape of foreboding gloom.

She saw the two guards down the wide hall. They caught sight of her the same moment as she did them. They stormed forward, but couldn't cover the distance fast enough before the elevator door slid closed.

The interior was greasy, every surface covered in an unknown stain from an unknown source, each splotch competing against the other for maximum coverage as they crawled up the walls. The floor was metal and long since scraped to a perpetually dirty state, caked in sticky grime. The slight rank of ammonia also filled Star's nostrils while the single green light inside flickered like a dying lightning bug.

The box lurched her downward fast on creaking cords, her stomach keenly feeling the effects of the janky travel. Thankfully though, the ride wasn't long. She was grateful, for fear at any moment the box holding her would come to a screaming halt due to the guard above hitting any switches to trap her inside, but it never occured. It bounced a couple times, as if deciding whether to continue, or perhaps to return back upwards, and it made her stomach sea-sick.

Then the box hit the ground like a giant falling on its rear.

The doors opened after what felt like an eternity. Star practically jumped out of it and into the open.

Even the air was different in lower Mewni. It wasn't crisp and clean but almost had a taste to it Star couldn't quite identify. It was like oil mixed with dirt. She could practically feel it adding another layer onto her bare skin.

Unlike the last place she'd been, this was an area full of decrepit buildings and streets she could easily get lost in.

The few cars there were no longer hovered but drove on tires that touched the ground; and they didn't have steering wheels, two long stick-levers with handles replacing them. Smoke and steam billowed out from pipes as they drove by, making her cough when she accidentally inhaled it. She almost didn't recognize that they were cars at all, so different they were in appearance to the sleek, flawless elegance of the limousines she was used to. They were haggard, broken down sheet metal things held together with gears, rivets, and possibly even prayers to the Great Stump.

There were only a few people around, but they were enough to raise the hairs along the back of her neck whenever she met eyes with them. Their faces seemed always to have a smear of dust while their bodies were noticeably gaunt, so scrawny and thin they couldn't possibly be eating three meals a day.

And the way they dressed, if she even considered it 'dress,' was nothing like she had ever seen before. Men and women tended to wear fingerless, knitted gloves with loose threads poking out every which way, while their shirts and coats were so age-worn she wondered if they were the only coats they had ever owned in their lives. Shoes were not polished but were scuffed, dresses were ruffled but tattered and patched, no stocking had a lack of ladder-like runs, and their hair was unkempt as if a perpetual wind had blown them out of place, or perhaps they didn't even have combs.

Star had heard rumors that the poorer Mewmans didn't have aether-tech, but she never believed such wild stories. How anyone could live without it, her brain couldn't even fathom. Yet, she saw only gearworks and pipes, steam-powered locomotives and devices she couldn't put any sort of name on. Nothing at all glowed of magic.

"Not all technology has to be magic. I can do without… I think."

While she walked aimlessly, spinning around as if a visitor in a foreign land, or perhaps even another dimension, out from the alleyways crept a few gloomy figures. The evening had drawn on and even though Star wasn't immediately aware of it, the streets had emptied of the few citizens that had been milling around, leaving her quite unattended.

The shadows watched Star like a pack of wolves, sizing her up as they would their prey. The dress she wore caught their fancy first, its glistening sapphire drawing their eyes like hypnotized moths to flame. There were no bright colors in the lower part of Mewni, since it was covered in neutral, cheerless tones, typically spattered in soot. The flash of blue made her garment stand out as if she were the only color against a backdrop of blackened coal. From her glittery headband down to her shining shoes, she was untarnished even from walking along the dirty pavement. Her skin hadn't a stain, and the collar around her neck was a flawless red gem, making them lick their lips with greed.

Star didn't pick up on the fact that she was being followed right away. The sights distracted her, each glance this way or that bringing her even more insight into the abysmal, claustrophobic world that poorer Mewmans were forced to live in. It appalled her to the core with each passing second she took it all in, her nose wrinkling from the dust in the air. So much of the stories she had heard through haughty whispers had turned out to be true after all. Seeing it come to life, she wished it weren't so.

Along a row of tightly packed buildings, while she peeked into some windows so caked-up she couldn't even see through, she thought she caught movement from the corner of her eye. Something, or someone, had darted back around a corner. There wasn't enough light anywhere for her to see by, so she wasn't completely sure if she'd actually seen something or not. Too much of this Mewni was covered in darkness.

"It's all right, Star," she whispered to herself. "This is fine. Your mind is just playing tricks on you. Not used to all this dark is all."

Star had never known true nightfall. She only knew a Mewni bathed in so much light that night was relatively equal to the day. She hadn't known that darkness could have its own ominous feeling to it either, except maybe in bad dreams or somewhere in her distant memories. But where she tread now, even the darkness seemed to have a skittering life of its own, and she didn't enjoy feeling the crawling threat of it simply due to a phenomenal lack of lights.

She knew she needed to find some place to stay for the night. Some place safe.

Her shoes clicked against the cement as she carried on with a bit more speed in her step. They almost echoed against the squished-together buildings, the streets were so narrow and vacant; that, or another pair of footsteps mimicked her own, she couldn't tell.

"I can do this. No biggie, just dark, and I'm not afraid of the dark. I can do this, chin up…"

One building crushed right up against another, leaving very little space anywhere between. They all looked fairly the same, save one in particular that stood out from the rest, tucked in-between two ramshackle houses. She couldn't tell if it was a business or a house, since there didn't appear to be any district separations to keep the two zones apart, but it was larger than the others, and more well lit inside.

The structure had two stories of multiple windows along the sides, glowing a warm amber in the evening, full of fine reddish drapes with black fringe. It even had small white pillars out front and a modest matching staircase, leading up to wooden double doors more well kept than the rest of the building. It was the most welcoming thing Star had seen yet and she headed its way. If nothing else it was familiar, in a stylish kind of way.

"You look a might bit lost."

Star visibly jumped from the voice that sidled up suddenly behind her. She whirled around to see a woman of maybe twice her age, but whose face was as lean as all the rest, the wrinkles of stress and poor diet adding more years other than were true. Her dirty-blond hair was covered in a threadbare shawl, hooding over it to keep it in place.

"Uhm, well, I am a bit new around here," Star admitted.

"A bit new indeed," the woman replied between a few chipped teeth.

Star wasn't sure of the scrutinizing look on the woman's face, but the way in which she repeated her own words set her more on edge than before.

"Yeah, getting a little late so I'm just looking for a place to sleep for the night."

"Ahh, looking for a place…"

The woman squinted and looked her over as if studying a machine to find out what makes it tick, enjoying the exterior of it all the while. Her eyes seemed to flit between Star's dress and her collar, requiring a force of will to meet eyes with Star's own.

"You're not a girl from these parts."

It was a statement, and spoken with a gleeful jeer. Star wanted nothing more than to get to the building.

"Just visiting, yep. Taking in the sights, and it's getting late sooo..."

"You're from up there, aren't you," the woman continued to speak, not a hint of question in her voice. "You're a long way from home, lass. Someone surely is missing you… someone who would be willing to pay dearly to get you back."

Star didn't know where to turn. She took a few steps backward, excusing herself with a nervous chuckle. "I'm sorry, it was nice to meet you but I'm very tired and I really have to be going."

"And so nice to meet you too!" she whined menacingly as she kept pace with Star, edging forward. "Say, you said you wanted to find a place to stay for the night, yes? I can help with that bit. Why not come with me? I have a right nice place for you."

"Thanks, but actually I'm heading over to…"

"To where, my finely dressed lady? Wouldn't want anyone to hurt you out here. That trinket around your neck must be worth more than most people's homes out in these parts. Such a thing could feed a family for weeks! Shame to see it stolen… shame!"

Star's feet backed up more quickly, despite her trying to maintain her composure.

"Sorry, I have to go!"

"Oh lassie, there's really no hurry. Come with me, I insist!"

Star backed up to the end of the walkway curb. When she stepped into the street, a pair of feet thunked heavily out from the shadows to cut hers off. Her back slammed into the chest of a large someone that was twice her height and almost as hard as a wall. The burly gentleman shed backed into latched onto her shoulders with two huge weighty palms.

"What should I do with her?" he grumbled dumbly.

"You take her with us, obviously, you dolt!" Her voice became shrill and high-pitched. It was grating, and it stung the ears when she yelled. But in the same breath she dropped her tone in a sickening fashion, crooning towards Star.

"Oooh, this necklace of yours."

Her cold fingers began touching the collar, working to find a clasp to undo it. They curled uselessly around the exquisite silver edges, trying to yank it off.

"Stop!" Star resisted, feeling the nails scratching hard into her neck as they tried to loop around the band. "It-It doesn't come off! It belongs to me!"

"It belongs to us now, so let us have it! Now, lass!"

The woman didn't interpret the meaning of the collar 'belonging' to its owner, and there was no use trying to explain as the two hands gripped harder in Star's shoulders, broken fingernails digging into her dress to hold her still.

"Watch it! Don't damage the goods!" the woman yelled. "That dress'll fetch us a good price too!"

She snatched the small handbag attached to Star's wrist, opening it and creasing her brow at the emptiness found within.

"What's this, nothing here?"

"Give that back!" Star yelled, and loudly, the sensation of being captured by Aagil still a fresh memory in her mind. Again she felt a heat rising in her face; but she remembered her reflection in the mirror, didn't want to tap into the part of herself she had experienced before, but her limbs began to quake.

"Time for you upper class to give back a little I'd say, girl," she said without concern for Star's force of words.

"Let me go!"

She elbowed the overhanging gut of the man holding her and jammed her heel deep into one of his grubby boots.

The man roared, his palms releasing as he hopped off his injured foot. Star saw her opening, this time making a break for it without hesitation, though her graceful shoes were not made for running.

"After her! Don't let her get away!"

The woman was surprisingly spry for being such a scrawny figure. As she shouted, she bounded after Star, managing to grab a fast hold of her wrist before she could get even three yards away. Star tried to break her bony grasp, but her hulking sidekick recovered quickly, his leg lashing out to trip her from behind. She was sent hard into the concrete, allowing the woman to regain a hold on her.

"Nice try, little princess!"

The word 'princess' gave Star pause. It was another moment when something deeper within herself was triggered, only she had no idea why or for what purpose. Somehow, even though the witch-like face had spoken it with spitting malice, it sounded right to her ears, as if it was originally part of her name.

She was literally shaken from her thoughts, a set of fingers yanking her up by her hair until her shoes barely touched the ground. A cry of pain burst from her lips, having never felt something so harshly done to her before. She didn't know if sections of hair were being pulled from her skull, but it felt likely they were. And for the first time since she could remember, she was hurt, and in several places, the skin of her knees and elbows grazed and bleeding.

The female grabbed the sparkling headband as it slipped down her face.

"Pretty, so pretty," she murmured, transfixed by the beautiful thing in her hands.

"Let me go!"

The henchman held the squirming Star out far from his body as fright flooded her senses. She flailed uselessly around, grunting and trying to kick any part of anyone she could connect with, all the while trying to free her hair with her hands. The thick-chested thug was simply too strong a force, his fist like the jaws of a clamped crocodile. She wasn't used to feeling agonizing pain and she didn't know what else they would do to her. The glaring image of Ginger's lacerations flashed across her mind.

"URGHH! Release me!" Her voice gave way to desperation.

With the opportunity at hand, the woman snatched hold of her thrashing feet. She clenched them tightly under an arm and wrenched both shoes clear off their now-ripped stockings.

"You won't be runnin' away again, lass!"

"What're you going to do with me!? You dregs!"

The woman sneered, then back-handed Star across her mouth.

"You'll be our um, guest, until some of the uppers come looking for you. I'm sure their pocketbook will hold more than yours!"

She tucked the headband with the shoes covetously against her chest and barked at her cohort. "Now let's get out of here before someone hears her crying and tries to steal our prize!"

Two bright beams of light cut through the blackness around the group. With a grunt of sound, the man holding Star stiffened, his pupils becoming tiny pinpricks against it. The woman instinctually tried to hide the stolen goods behind her back. Star continued to dangle, partially dazed, unable to see past the light freezing them all to the street nor the dots of sparkles still littering her view from being struck.

A calm voice reverberated around them, sounding amplified somehow, and larger than life.

"Release the girl and put your hands in the air."

The next thing she knew, Star was dropped to the ground, the pavement coming up to meet her like a second filthy slap to the face. The man didn't need to be told twice.

The woman shouted, "Run, you nitwit!" already running away. "If the police catch you, I'm not coming back to save you!"

The man took off in the opposite direction as fast as his feet would carry him.

Star reached a hand up to shield her eyes from the floodlights. Suddenly a siren sounded. She saw colors of red and blue flashing all around. The twin beams grew larger as the growling sound of an engine increased with intensity and speed. Whatever vehicle it was accelerated towards her as if to mow her down.

She wouldn't have been able to roll out of the way fast enough if she tried, but the machine drifted sideways just as it reached her sprawled form, forcibly stopping. The lights no longer blinded her but the maneuver kicked up a cloud of street debris, and the exhaust fumes made her gag.

Her attackers had fled.

Mercifully, the driver shut down the blaring siren. She could only hear the softer rumble of the engine issuing out from the many pipes along the undercarriage. She knew it was some form of law enforcement car, but it wasn't anything she'd seen before. The front of it had only one large rubberized wheel while four smaller gear-like wheels in the rear were covered in thick metal treads, a pair on either side of a window-less carriage.

Her eyes adjusted slowly as the figure from the vehicle opened the squad car's door. Star saw his shoes first as they stepped out onto the ground. They weren't scraped-up like all the others in this downtrodden version of Mewni, but highly polished and looking new. He was tall and slender, but not from lack of eating, and his skin was a pale grey-green. Atop his head rested perfectly brushed, slick black hair that ran down to his shoulders.

His tail shut the door behind him.

Her eyes went immediately to his butter yellow spheres as the man knelt down beside her, extending a hand.

"My lady, are you all right?"

"I…"

It was her nature to take an outstretched hand, so she placed hers into his, allowing him to pull her up. At first she thought he had only three fingers but, when she did a double-take, saw that he had all four.

"I-I think so."

"I am officer Toffee," he said gently. "And you are? Hmm… not from around here, I see."

Star smoothed her dress with her hands and tried to straighten her abused hair. She still felt the pain of the pull throbbing against her scalp. She grabbed one of her sore elbows with a hand and embarrassingly looked down over her tousled clothes.

"I'm Star."

As she absently swept her long hair away from her neck, no longer having a headband to keep it held back in place, Toffee's eyebrows raised in surprise. The red heart gem of the collar reflected in his widening eyes like a mirror. He was momentarily held captive by it like so many before him. The finery that Star wore made him realize exactly where she had come from, and what she was.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Star," he said pleasantly. "This is no place for a lady such as yourself. Please, let me take you back to the station so we can write up a report."

"I don't really want to cause any trouble. I can just… uhm, be on my way."

"Nonsense. No trouble at all for you, my lady. Those derelicts accosted you, and did they likewise steal your things?" His eyes had already taken her all in, and she caught them glancing down at her feet. "I presume you didn't walk all the way from home without shoes?"

"Well I… no."

He cocked an eyebrow, a smile disarmingly gracing his long face as he guided her towards his vehicle.

"Come. You will be safe at the station. At least we can tend to your injuries. I'll get you something warm to drink, something for your feet, and after we file the report you can be on your way, if that is your wish."

Star had become confused with knowing what exactly her wish was, not having planned very much past getting away from the manor and every aspect of the Mewni she knew. She wasn't used to making her own decisions. But, Toffee's suave demeanor and soft spoken words soothed her like a warm blanket, easily sliding her worries away and leaving her feeling comfortably sheltered. His uniform was well tailored, and his badge glistened with authority.

She was still in shock from the mugging, not thinking her clearest, or even caring, past the desire to get safe. She found herself allowing the Officer to lead her into his car.

He opened the door for her and held her hand to assist her in, giving a gracious bow like a valet.

"My lady."

Star had to almost climb into the vehicle, so lifted off the ground it was by the treaded wheels of the rear. She sat in the passenger seat besides Toffee as if she were his partner, the back part of the squad separated by thick plexiglass and iron-barred windows. She noted there was room enough in the back to seat up to four people sitting across from each other. Shackle-like devices hung from the sidewalls at the ready, attached to the interior frame.

"Those are called handcuffs. I know you've probably never seen them where you're from, although they have something similar… stronger of course. Don't worry, you're up here with me, not back there with them."

She gave a small chuckle.

The corners of Toffee's lips turned upwards into a smile, murmuring a small laugh. His eyelids just partially lowered over his eyes, giving him a charming countenance.

He slid into the driver seat and closed the door, immediately pulling two of the many levers inside with his hands. The long metal bars went down into the floor and connected with the frame and engine out of sight. The vehicle spun as if in place, making a zero-turn in the street.

Star watched out her window as the one building she had been heading towards was quickly fading into the distant night and getting lost among all of the other ones crowding in around it.

For a while, the pair was quiet. Star began to feel her bruises pulse as she sat back against the seat. A light fog of steam from a pipe exiting the vehicle's hood started to puff against her windowpane, the droplets picking up the outer coating of grunge along the car's surface and running down like grey rivers against the glass. Star's mind drifted as she watched the beads.

When she looked over at Toffee she saw in him, and in his impeccably-kept outfit, someone she felt she knew.

"You have been to, uhm, where I'm from?" she asked, as shyly as a child asking a question she feared might cause unease.

Without turning his head, Toffee's eyes drifted to Star then back on the road.

"Yes, I used to serve as a… factory worker."

"Oh," she whispered. She knew none of the working class personally, and there was no way she'd have ever been in contact with them.

Again Toffee took a quick glance at her. He thought to keep the questions one-sided.

"Yes, I left, same as you I presume? If that is what you intended to ask next."

"No-no-nooo, I just thought maybe you were someone I ran in to at some point. I don't mean to be nosey."

"Someone as ravishing as you, my dear Star, I would have certainly remembered, and I would have made sure you'd remember me."

A rosy color filled her cheeks. The air was subdued between them, but not awkwardly so. He went on speaking, his words becoming lighter, more reassuring.

"Star, may I ask why you decided to leave?"

"I just…" she trailed off, looking down and seeing that her fingers had gathered the folds of her dress in involuntary fists. She opened her hands quickly, letting go of the fabric. "I just didn't like…"

"It's all right. If it troubles you, you need not say."

The desire to speak her mind to someone rose like a small fire within herself.

"No, it's ok. I just thought I could be… meant for better things?"

"You feel like you didn't matter there. The people you lived with saw you as nothing more than property."

She found that when he'd given her space, she couldn't stem the surge of words that wanted to stream from her mouth, and wasn't entirely sure of everything that came out once it started. His question-like statements fed the growing fire of emotion within her like tinder, and once started, the blaze had to burn.

"They loved me. They said they loved me. But they acted the complete opposite. I had a good life and I loved them, like if they were my parents, I mean. But… they only saw what they wanted to see in me. I was their doll to dress up, and I allowed it. They did things to me I didn't want, and I allowed that too. They kept wanting more and more until I felt like nothing at all but a thing. Don't I have a say? Am I wrong to want my own say? Can't I say 'no' to being just… just a…"

"Slave?"

"A plaything."

Toffee raised an eyebrow on the side not facing Star, noting her side-step of his bold word, and how she downgraded it into something she could more easily swallow. He listened, fascinated with the strange woman seated next to him that gave him an awkward vibe. Her pitch became louder and broken with tiny sequels at the peaks.

"They only saw what's on the outside. That's all that mattered; not how I felt inside, only what I offered and what I could give, or they could take! I ran away and don't even know if I did the right thing. I left everything I knew behind… my only family and my friends. I don't know where to go. I don't know what I even want because I've only ever given others what THEY wanted. I don't even know myself."

Her chin dropped as she turned back towards the window, shielding her face from his by the barrier of her golden hair, preventing him from seeing the tiny tear that escaped down her face.

"What if I was wrong?" she sniffed quietly, watching the steam drops dance against the window.

Toffee could sense the mild sobbing and sought to rebuild her prior confidence.

"I have only known you a few minutes and already can tell that you're remarkable. Your leaving was no mistake at all. They didn't appreciate you, Star, and that was their mistake." He handed her a handkerchief from one of his many vest pockets. It was embroidered with a lower Mewman symbol for the letter 'T'. He held it out for her and waited until she took it, to dab at her eyes before continuing.

"You know, it takes bravery to break away from everything and take control of your own life. So few have the strength to be anything but a follower. Oh they all say they want to be individuals and stand up for themselves, but in the end most of them just cower like sheep. You're not alone in wanting to find your own way outside the flock."

"There are others like me?"

He spoke more slowly, carefully choosing his words.

"Well, not quite of the same class as you, but a few, yes, that have escaped over the years and come to this place to start over in obscurity. Look at me. I am an officer now, not some worker in an aether-tech factory known only by a number, building the toys that only the wealthy can enjoy. I think you'll find this part of Mewni to be a good place to disappear."

"And remake myself, you're right! Like, a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly!"

"Yes well, one step at a time, Star."

The officer gave her a light smile and returned his focus to the road. Star was uplifted by the support of his words, and even though it was dark and bleak outside, the lights of the vehicle skimming over lower Mewni and making random alley rats scatter, she had a more positive feeling than before.

Star was staring out the window. While her eyes had been seeing the word going by, she only briefly took it in, her eyes staring blankly as the world went by. She allowed her thoughts to take precedence over her vision, wondering what the next day would bring and how she'd get started in this underworld of new experiences. Then, Officer Toffee shook her back into the moment.

"Would you care for a snack or drink?"

"Uhm… sure," she said.

He reached over to her side of the car and tapped the dash. He did it twice, as the dash didn't immediately respond, unlike the luxury vehicles with their holographic screens and buttons you'd tap in the air. He simply tapped the dash itself. With a slight grunt of annoyance, he nudged the part of the dash that opened but not all the way.

There was a compartment within the dash that held a few odds and ends of police business paperwork and set over them was some kind of wrapped candy bar and a very small bottle of water. It did not have an ice orb in it and didn't particularly look appetizing, and she wasn't really peckish, but she didn't want to seem ungrateful. She thanked the officer and took the candy, slowly unwrapping the shiny paper from the chocolaty insides.

"Mmm, thank you," she said while swallowing. "What is this?"

"That? That is a Snookers bar. It's the great equalizer… sold to all classes in Mewni."

"It's pretty good."

As she took small nibbles of the candy she realized how thirsty it was making her, and decided to go ahead and take the offered water as well. Officer Toffee nodded his approval while his hands turned the levers. Outside the window the world all looked the same despite being new to Star. It almost seemed as if they were driving in circles.

She had become dizzy. And tired. Her arms felt difficult to raise. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open. It had come upon her so quickly it brought along with it a sense of dread. Something was wrong.

She looked over at Officer Toffee, who had a tiny smirk playing in the corners of his lips, looking at her from the sideways glance of his eyes. She thought she heard him chuckle, but maybe she imagined it, or saw something not there. Her eyes were blinking more than usual, her head lolling slightly when she turned away.

Her head and eyelids became heavy like her arms. The anxious fear that had taken hold was like a dull background pulse that wasn't fully connected to her body. It was there, crying out to her every sinew to make her move, but she couldn't muster the energy. Sleep felt inevitable, the fight too great.

Finally her resistance drained. It was impossible not to shut the lids that wanted to seal her eyes and the world around her away.

When Star's eyes fluttered open, as the sleepy haze wore off, the strong scent of something itched inside her nostrils. It had tickled her out of the blackness of false slumber.

A heavy blanket had been draped around her shoulders. She had been nestled into it, and was no longer in a moving vehicle but a wooden chair. The fabric was almost comforting, were it not for the fact that she immediately found her arms and wrists held down by thick leather straps.

She awoke relatively quickly, the dulled fear she recalled having only minutes prior surging back into her veins like a spirit retaking its body.

"Ah, wonderful to see you awake."

It didn't take her semi-glazed eyes long to find Toffee. He stood before her, a pleased expression painting his maw. In one hand he had been holding some kind of small stick that was broken in half. She could smell the intense spice of it until he clasped his hands behind his back along with it.

"Before you decide to panic, let me make you aware of a couple points, shall I?" he asked, but continued on without waiting for her answer. "You're safely tucked away beneath the police station. No, you're not in the jail, nor are you under arrest, but you're in my… custody. As long as you cooperate, perhaps we can come to certain agreements."

"I-I thought you wanted to take a report," she muttered, trying to maintain her composure.

"You're right, Star."

Toffee spun on a heel and walked to the desk directly across from her. He sat briskly and immediately began to prick at a strange keypad device before him while looking at a glowing screen. His eyes skipped from the computer monitor to her, then back again, as his reptilian fingers danced across the Low Mewman letters. He seemed to delight in Star's amicable reaction to her capture.

Star didn't pay as much attention to his glances, unaware that his eyes often fixated on the collar about her throat. Her own eyes kept staring at the only thing in the room besides the table: the strange computer gadget lying on top, box-like and full of gears and small mechanical lights. On its front was a flat console screen, and in front of that was a touchable keyboard. There were computers where she was from but they looked so drastically different that Star almost felt like she had entered another time. Mewnian computers didn't require screens, displaying the images within the air from a console. One would touch the airborne symbols rather than physical keys on a board, like the difference between the fancy limousines and Toffee's dashboard.

Toffee was apparently recounting the evening while Star sat watching the interlocking gears turn, hearing the very faint murmur of a motor buried somewhere within that kept the computer alive. Within herself, her adrenaline was choking her throat, but she decided not to try her bonds or appear too stricken by her situation, trying to play along.

"So, you do this for all of your rescuees?"

"I beg your pardon?" he said, still distracted with the paperwork.

"You bring them here and make them comfortable, tying them to a chair?"

"No, it's not standard procedure, and a bit regrettable. I'm pleased to see you're taking it well."

She tilted her head to the side and gave a snarky attitude.

"I try to go with the flow."

"A wise decision."

There was the clacking of more typing as Star stared down Toffee. Without turning her eyes away she casually glanced about the room to get a look at the place. It wasn't filled with many objects besides cabinets and tables, mostly sterile, and not just in scant furnishings. The room was immaculately clean from floor to ceiling and painted white. It seemed medical in nature, and gave her an all new rush of fear when her eyes saw a metal tray with several needle-like apparatuses and tubes placed on it.

She broke the silence as much to keep herself calm as to find out more about Toffee.

"Why did you rescue me?"

"I am an officer. It's my job to stop the criminal element. I only allowed those two to run because taking care of you was my first priority. They are petty, short-sighted criminals and won't be on the loose for long when I get on their case."

"Uhm… that's not quite what I meant."

"You are asking why I rescued you and then brought you here, only to tie you up, I know."

The computer was making an annoying whirring noise, filling the stagnant air as his statement lingered within it, unnecessarily long.

In truth, he would have preferred not to have begun with her being restrained, but he'd sensed in her something different. Whatever it was gave him an uneasiness he wasn't accustomed to. He was not a man to let precautions slide.

He cleared his throat, looking up from his work.

"I also know you're used to a life of extravagance. It's a sheltered and entitled life. Your handlers kept you naïve to many things. But it's no wonder. Only the most prized concubines are dressed as you are and wear such a fine 'feature' about their necks. It's hard for you to understand how the real world works because you've never known otherwise."

Her blue eyes went wide with shock.

"Y-you knew all along?"

"I used to serve the wealthy elite, after all."

"As just a factory worker, you said."

"Yes, well," he brushed it quickly aside, "Regardless, I am well aware of those collars and the station one such as yours represents."

She pictured the magically sealed, smooth surface of the crimson heart that she often blindly toyed with. She'd made a motion as if you reach up and touch it, forgetting that she was prevented from so doing. It was so much a part of her that his continual staring at it made her feel exposed. She re-adjusted her legs as one of her bound hands fingered the blanket draping down off her shoulders.

"You said we all can make a new life for ourselves. I don't have to be what this collar says I am, and I don't plan on it."

"You were a slave before. Now, you're free."

She stretched her neck in an overstated manner to look at her still leather-strapped arms. "As free as free can be."

"And," he snorted a mild laugh as he smoothed back his hair, "if you'd like to remain that way, I can be of great service to you. Conversely, if you decide on the wrong choice…"

He stood and, rather casually, walked to the front of the table just inches away from her. He leaned against it, looking down into her eyes as she sat with bated breath. She had pulled her feet up off the floor and was sitting with them tucked up beside herself, wrapped in the blanket. Without shoes, her stockings did little against the cold of the concrete.

Toffee raised an eyebrow as he gradually maneuvered his tail. It slithered up underneath the blanket and against Star's legs. He could feel them shiver at his scaly touch.

Star felt the tail creep along, the tip of it tracing along the crease of her pressed legs like a finger trying to make its way northward. She remembered Aagil leisurely trying to train her, as if the pace at which the unwanted touch came had anything to do with her acceptance of it.

The flexible green limb didn't stop until it slithered its way over her arms, teased at her throat, and the end of it caressed at her cheek.

Her body stiffened, revolted, drawing away from Toffee while clutching the blanket. She averted her eyes sharply; that's when she caught from the corner of her eye something sparkle off Toffee's belt. He had several keys.

She yelled, trying not to look at the keys, as if Toffee would follow her gaze. "If you think I'm going to become YOUR concubine, you're making a big mistake!"

His calm demeanor belied his hidden desires, having fun with her fears. He didn't even bother to hide the smirk that crossed his lips. Swathed in the blanket Star appeared so frail, and yet was more beautiful than any female he had laid eyes on in quite a long while.

"I left because I didn't want the same path I had before! If I have to fight you like I had my caretakers, I will! I'm not about to let you-"

"Yes, you certainly will," interrupted Toffee, using his tail like an extra hand, tilting her head to both sides before pulling it back. "I can almost see the fire in you! Your bloodline hasn't completely lost it. Excellent."

She squinted slightly, confusion stopping her tongue from flying out further defensive statements. "What?"

"I am sure once we get better acquainted, you'll change your mind, in time, and see that my plans can mutually benefit us both."

"I don't plan to be here long enough to get better acquainted, so you better be the one to change your mind. Let me go, before I'm forced to hurt you too."

He chuckled as he cocked his head, reclining against his hands gripping the table's edge behind him. He continued with a tender, yet patronizing, tone.

"Forced to? Oooh my, you are quite the catch. But, why don't we take a step back and have a realistic chat, hmm?"

"Maybe we could have… if you didn't drug me and tie me to a chair."

"Relax. You certainly are stunning, but If I'd wanted to have my way with you, I'd not have woken you up with the smelling salts."

He acted as if he hadn't heard her sarcasm, reaching over his desk and proceeding to hit a couple of keys on the keypad. Then, he turned the screen to face her. Over the flat surface she could see images of Aage and Aagil, information written in higher Mewman, and an image of herself, and the collar.

"They are offering an obscene reward for your return, Star. I don't need to tell you that the sum would be utterly life-changing for anyone this side of Mewni. But as an officer, I am even more so obligated to bring you in."

"But you won't… right?" She tried to appeal to his sense of camaraderie. "I mean, you and I share escaping lives we didn't want. We wanted the same thing."

Toffee took a very deep breath. "I was free to leave any time. I wasn't anyone's property. A worker goes missing, there are plenty more to fill the gap. You, however, can't just disappear. That collar can't be removed except by your keepers, and so you'll forever stand out down here. You need my level of protection. I brought you here to protect you."

Star hovered between fear and hope, her eyes quivering from not blinking as she watched Toffee's expressionless face, unable to read it.

"But… you won't take me back?"

"I could be persuaded to break the rules on your behalf…"

"…If?"

"You disappoint me," he grinned with a sardonic smile. "You should know I'm not exactly a fan of the upper crust, having left there myself. Of course I sympathize with your plight."

"Then, if you don't want a concubine, why are you keeping me here?"

"You are from the uppermost city. You're one of the few Mewmans that's permitted to see the sky."

The sound of Toffee's thinly disguised resentment began to soak through his words, feeling like an obvious warning to her ears.

"As such, that makes you of particular interest to me. You see, my dear, the most privileged Mewmans have a particular lineage. They have done their best to keep the classes apart for many reasons, not all of which is political. Those criminals that mugged you saw value in keeping you alive not out of kindness, but because a kidnapping meant the potential for more money. Others might have killed you on the spot and just stolen your things, or tried to sell you."

"And you're different because…?"

Toffee's voice was low, almost barely audible, his eyes squarely resting on Star. "We all have our hungers, but my eyes are not so short-sighted. You are more precious to me alive than dead."

Toffee pulled away from the desk, instantly making her flinch. But rather than putting his hands on her, he instead turned and went back behind the computer.

"You need me to survive down here, and I need you for some… tests."

Star looked at the metallic tray cradling the implements she assumed were for what Toffee was implying.

"No."

"Just a small request, really. I would like to take a sample of your blood. Let me run it through my computer. If my theories are correct, your higher Mewman blood will-"

"Why would I allow you to do that?"

"Simply put, because I am asking… not ordering. I could have already taken your blood, just as I could have taken you, remember? You're merely tied as a safety measure while we can sort out a deal."

"I don't want a deal. I want you to let me go!"

Toffee's lips shrank into a small slit, his eyelids half closing with irritation.

"Think this through. You're a smart girl. The only way I'd let you go is to send you home and gain that reward. And as I've said, that's a pittance compared to what we can gain together using science and a little bit of your DNA."

"No, I'm not going back home."

"Ah, I knew you'd see things my way and come arou-"

"No!" her voice rose, feet stamping to the floor for emphasis, though they only made mild slaps from her stocking feet. Her loudness echoed through the nearly empty space around them. It turned her bold once again, as she had been when facing Ginger. "I'm not becoming some kind of lab experiment for you! Not to you or anyone else!"

Toffee narrowed his eyes. "You sound like you've made your choice."

Her chin lifted defiantly. "I have."

"Well then…"

Toffee rose and clasped his hands behind his back. He strode around Star, saying nothing, until she diverted her eyes from his pacing lanky form for just a moment.

CLICK!

It was a pitiless sound that slapped the memory of receiving her collar back to the forefront of her mind. She felt hard metal against her arm and jumped, looking down to see the handcuff-like brace that Toffee had locked near to her elbow. It snapped onto the armrest of her chair.

She flashed her eyes upwards, directly meeting his just inches away.

"Why're you-"

"I'm too tired to argue. Now, I'm not asking."

There was no time for a whimper. He pinned her wrist firmly against the chair and grasped one of the needles from the tray. Even though she struggled, he seemed not to need to apply any kind of force to fight against her resistance.

Toffee merely waited while he held her down, allowing her to expend her efforts futilely. She thrashed and kicked around for a good minute, her blond hair whipping teasingly around his long, amused face. What kicks connected he simply took.

She arched her back to break free, and even tried to lean over and bite him, but it was useless. She was reduced to a breathless, drained mess, her muscles trembling with both fear and exertion.

The blanket had completely fallen to the floor. Her kicking and jerking at his body had left her limbs spent. She tried to catch her breath.

"Finished?" he asked, with an utterly sweet ring to his voice. "I commend you for trying. It was a valiant effort. I especially enjoyed it."

He seized his opportunity and plunged the needle into her arm before she could muster any rebound strength.

Star cringed back a painful gasp, gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes to the point she could see sparks behind her eyelids. She felt the violent rush she had had with Aagil in the bedroom, sizzling her nerves, making her cheeks hot. She didn't want to break the needle in her arm. It was painfully tearing her skin with each fruitless attempt to pull away.

The tongue in Toffee's mouth slid over his teeth as his lips parted, allowing himself a heavier breath as he got a strong scent of her. His tail wrapped itself, snake-like, constricting around her legs to hold them back against the chair, like a free hand without fingers, enjoying his complete control.

"Nnurgh! Toffee stop!"

"Just relax, my gorgeous princess. I will be gentle." He was steadily drawing back on the plunger, pulling her blood along with it. He stopped once enough of the crimson fluid had reached one of the scratched markings along the side of the syringe body.

Again, the word 'princess' sounded so familiar, yet she hadn't a second to dwell on it. She yelped a groan as she felt him lean forward into her. There wasn't a moment where the tension on her wrists relaxed enough to let her slip free.

He removed the metallic clamp that clenched her arm, then withdrew back to the computer with the vial. The small hole he'd left in her flesh beaded with a growing red droplet.

"Now, for the real test," Toffee mumbled, inserting the end of the vial into a hub at the back of the computer's box-like body. A bulb of light flashed from orange to green, and even more, smaller gears within the contraption started to spin.

With all the eagerness of a child opening a surprise gift, Toffee scrambled into his chair, leaning forward to study the screen as rows and columns of symbols appeared, trailing down it like raining blue text. Star was used to seeing the reptile predominantly without much expression, but now his eyes widened, pupils shrinking. The light and letters of the monitor reflected off the wet surface of them; he gobbled them up as soon as they hit the screen, his snout beginning to bare a wicked smile of teeth.

"I knew I was right about your bloodline, Star," he said happily, but then his brows pinched together, his lips puckering as whatever was being revealed to him changed from something amazing to something perplexing. "Hmm, interesting… rather interesting."

"What is?" Star growled, wanting to know, but at the same time snapping vengefully as if she didn't care. "Something the matter with your little machine?!"

"That would not be the case. My machines are highly calibrated. I leave no margins for error. No, this is something… within you, my lady, that is completely different than anything I've come across before."

"Do you plan to fill me in or just keep going on with your delusional rantings?"

He quirked a smarmy brow her way, smoothing back his oiled hair.

"Hardly delusional, but I suppose since you'll be here a while it's worth having a companion to talk to, or argue with – as the case may be – whether you understand these things or not. They do somewhat concern you."

She gave an over the top, overly cynical smile as she tilted her head like a cherub.

"I need to perform a second test. Don't worry, I can see on your face already you're itching for another fight, but I can still use the same vial."

Mere moments later the light on the gearbox computer went back to orange, then to green, making a steady, tripping sound like a ticking clock. Toffee's attention was so enthralled in his work that Star was completely safe in her ambitions to map out the room, focusing on the only door. As she did so, she squirmed her left arm. A thin sheen of sweat was all that was needed to help her squeeze her hand out from under the leather bindings. Using the part of the blanket that remained closest, she hid what she had done and began to work on her other wrist.

Toffee narrowed his eyes as the screen blipped. The results had proven Star's blood to be pure, which was very rare and yet a result of which he guessed, but pure to the extent it was surprised him. Not only was it without non-Mewman contaminants generationally, but it had another material intertwined with the DNA. Not a contaminant, but an RNA trace element of radiation, to a small but potent degree.

He whispered beneath his breath, "Amazing…" He questioned if it could possibly be a magic residue, trying to contain his quickening pulse. Certainly, now he would need to keep the girl as his secret prisoner, for the untapped potential alone and not just her pure blood. Not even he could determine how much power could be eked out of her veins. If she had any magic at all, it was a find beyond his imagination.

"You see, Star," he managed to tear his eyes away from the screen and stand up once more, hands a bit jittery, behind his back to keep them stable.

Star quickly hid the fact that she was half-way through breaking loose of the second leather strap, seeing his belt keys on his hip as she tossed her hair, feigning disinterest.

"…nobody is happy here in Lower Mewni. Forced to never smell the clean air or have sunlight on your skin will do that to you over time. I decided to correct this, which is why I was planning to enlist your help."

"I already said I-"

Toffee's chin went to his chest, his hand stretching out and ordering her silence. "I will have your assistance, willing or not. Using the purest Mewman blood I can find – yours – I can synthesize a drug that will temporarily relieve them of their dour moods, of all of their unhappiness, and all at a reasonable enough price point. I've experimented with other synthesized compounds and the effects were not as addictive or dynamic as I'd like. But with yours, the purity on your blood will drive these poor Mewmans out of their minds. Something that will make them forget their own miseries entirely. It will be society-changing. Imagine! Every Mewman wanting, no – needing – a taste!"

"So you're not just a kidnapper, but crooked officer dealing drugs as well?"

"I am no petty drug dealer, Star," he rumbled dangerously. "This would be well beyond the type of measly drugs on the market, in a class all its own. It's not so much a drug as a revolutionary medical treatment… a part of daily life like eating or drinking. The reason it's crafted from DNA is so that it bonds to the DNA of the users, at least in part. Once they use it once it will become a part of them, something they won't just crave, but need to survive off of, at the cellular level. It's genius!"

"I-it's mad!"

"Mad like the rulers in Mewni? Or Queen Omnia? The wealthy own the world, Star. You'd be wise to side with me. I may seek a little personal gain, but I'm a scientific philanthropist! Every Mewman will be happy again in this world, because of me. It will change all of Mewni, the poor and even the wealthy."

"You-you'd use fellow Mewmans like that? For your own sick profit? For power? By turning them all into genetically addicted slaves? That makes you no better than those who keep other Mewmans as concubines or erase the people down here from their sight! Maybe you shouldn't have left after all. You belong up there!"

The fire in her cheeks returned, becoming an even hotter sting as she tried to turn her head to break from his burning gaze. His sharp teeth threatened her as, instead of anger, he met her rage with a grin, taking a couple stalking paces forward.

"You have no idea how much I'd love to see their faces again when I rise back to the top! And all I need is you to elevate me there!"

At that moment a large sound erupted from an area above and the entire building shook. Dust and grains of cement crumbled down from the ceiling like powder. Toffee stopped, looking up at the grit which landed over them.

While Toffee's eyes were towards the ceiling, Star lunged, getting her second wrist free and reaching for the belt of keys.

She was hit by something hard; a slash of green whipped across her face. His tail sent her reeling as she slammed into the desk.

A fraction of a second after, another blast rocked the building, sending both Toffee and Star into different directions.

A sharp, high-pitched noise rang in Star's ears. She opened her eyes to find herself on the ground with a cloud of cement dust all around her. The desk had overturned and the computer, with all of its gears and lights, lay exposed and scattered in several parts about the floor. The vial was shattered. She had only blacked out for a moment, having mercifully landed on the blanket.

Slowly, the whine in her ears subsided and instead let in the muffled sounds of chaotic panic from dozens of shouting voices above.

"It's the resistance!"

"They broke through to the prison cells!"

"Are they in the basement?!"

"Get the steamhounds! Don't let them escape!"

Star coughed and looked around, seeing Toffee's body just a few feet away, sprawled next to the broken chair she had formerly been strapped to. A chunk of ceiling had come down over it leaving a gaping hole above, along with tearing down cabinets from off the walls. The tray and syringes were missing, replaced by plaster rock and broken glass.

Cautiously, she dragged away the chair as she reached Toffee's body. When she got closer she could see that he'd been badly injured. A large piece of wood had splintered off from the chairback and was sent deeply into his side. Ironically, he had probably protected her from it, having just bashed her aside when the explosion occurred. The wood was lodged just under his arm and through his ribs, blood pooling on the floor from the ugly wound.

Toffee appeared to be unconscious, but alive.

Star looked to the single door. The panel next to it was still intact.

Around Toffee's waist was her means of escape. Star grabbed for the keys, quickly figuring out how to undo the belt clasp. From there it was easy to pull them from the loose leather. She jumped to the door and got to work using the multiple smaller keys, trying to work them into the hole she figured was meant for one of them. Keys were more of an antique decoration she was used to seeing but not using, and her shaky hands hampered her efforts.

After what felt like minutes trying not to cough from her scratchy throat, and selecting key after key to pry into the slot, one of them made a satisfying click. A blue bulb illuminated through the dusty air over the panel. The door slid into itself, but when she stepped into the elevator, which was far more narrow than any she'd been in before, it didn't close behind her. It didn't move at all.

She looked for a listing of buttons or anything that would give it a command, but found none. Instead, against one wall was a large gear inset into the wall, with two thick ropes on either side.

"What the?"

She grabbed one of the ropes and pulled, the elevator slightly lifting. It was a dumb waiter style, requiring physical effort, the mechanics relying on a hidden system of pulleys within the wall. She learned fast. The elevator bucked into life with her ardent tugs.

She heaved until the box hit a stop. A black and blue bruise had started to throb on her forehead but the adrenaline prevented her from feeling it in full. The door creaked and slid once again into itself and opened to the turbulent ground floor of the police station.

A blackened fog billowed in over her along with the incoherent yells of people filling the air.

While stepping over and around chunks of wall debris, spilled office equipment and stacks of paper strewn all around, she dodged the other officers that were trying to get their bearings. They were tremendously focused on whatever rooms were nearby, so she kept afar back, hiding behind whatever she could find as she sidestepped around. She strove not to make a single sound of her own, even when her stocking feet stepped on hard concrete bits jetting into her soles.

Nobody so much as paid her attention, and she easily snuck out from the heavily damaged, smoke-filled building, camouflaged by the powder and soot covering her. When she was a good distance away she could see the extent of the damage. A large portion of the outside brick looked like it had been blasted away.

As she disappeared into the last remaining pieces of the night, Toffee was roused in the basement by a smaller officer shaking him.

"Toffee?! Toffee! You alright?" He called upwards into the air, "It's Toffee! I found him! He's down here!"

With a wince of pain, Toffee blinked and sat up. Noticing his wound, he tore the wood from the gash in his side, panting as it immediately began to enclose and heal. It left his uniform annoyingly torn, and worse - stained. He stood somewhat shakily and looked down at Laar.

"What happened, Toffee? What were you doing down here!? Toffee, the rebels - they were trying to break in, and you were in here doing… what!?"

Toffee growled as he buckled the leather, then brushed down his pants calmly, hiding any semblance of concern for being somewhat caught in his secret basement lab. There wasn't much anyone could make of it being such, however, a point he immediately noted with repressed ire.

"Go after her."

"What!? Who her? Toffee, didn't you hear what I just said!? The rebels-"

"I will handle the others. Go after the woman wearing the collar and blue dress that was just here."

"One of the rebels? You found one in the basement? In a dress?!"

"Do as I say and stop asking questions!"

"But Toffee!"

He shot the gnome-ishly short man a thunderous glare. "Need I remind you of rank?"

"N-no, but…"

"Then go! And do not disappoint me!"

The agitated and confused officer took off through the debris field.

It wasn't long until the new morning began, but the first beams of dawn that would've started to filter down over Mewni's wealthy metropolis did not so much as touch the dilapidated sector of Mewni. Star had been awake and on the move for longer than she'd known before, in a place that seemed forever too dark. So much of her was sore, tired, and completely spent from all she'd been through just fleeing from one bad situation to the next.

As the people began to wake up and go about their business, Star realized it must have turned morning. There was very little other way to tell that morning had indeed come, all of the lights being cheaply-made forgeries of those from Upper Mewni, and nowhere near enough to compensate for true daylight. Everything looked pretty much the same as it did during the nighttime hours. Lit only enough to dimly see by.

The streets were beginning to fill. She knew she needed a safe place to hide as far away from the police station as possible. She had to quickly duck around corners whenever she saw or heard a squad car motor past.

"At least they're all distracted," she muttered to herself. For the moment she was thankful that she looked as grubby and filthy as all the rest. Nobody turned their head to give her a second glance, keeping their own heads down as they went on with their own daily drudgeries.

She had wandered in many circles, easily getting lost multiple times. She felt trapped in a concrete maze. There were few, if any, street signs and the landmark buildings all looked as equally squalid as the next, without any truly distinguishing features. Finally though, she found the one building she sought. It was the same building she had laid eyes on when she had been mugged.

She headed for it as if it was an oasis in the center of a vast desert.

Star nervously approached the somewhat gaudy house. The stairs led up to a covered porch with small pillars on either side. It reminded her of a miniaturized but antique version of a mansion from her district of Mewni. At least it was somewhat familiar-feeling.

"I guess I have to at least try."

She reached forward, then tentatively knocked on the door.

The voice that answered from within belonged to a female, and it was deep and gravely, yet also sweet-sounding.

"We are closed until the evening hour, dear, but please come again later!"

"I'm not here for business, uhm, I'm," she wasn't sure what to say, because she didn't know exactly what kind of business the double-leveled house could have. She could only assume it was a hotel of some sort. "I-I'm just looking for a room. I'm sorry, I don't really have money to pay but I can trade, maybe?"

There was silence. Star struggled to find more to say.

"I'm so sorry. I'm very tired… and hungry. I wouldn't want to be any trouble and I wouldn't stay long. Please? I just need… some help."

Several locks were undone on the other side of the double doors. She could hear metal siding through latches, nothing at all electronic or magical sealing the door shut. And when the last bolt was slid one of the heavy mahogany doors creaked open. An older woman stood on the inside, her hair done up in a bun beneath a short-brimmed, feathered hat. She wore a deeply red, floor-length gown that was rather form-fitting, and looked to be around fifty years old.

"I am Madam Lovelace. Come in out of the streets, child."

She took Star's hands and pulled her in.

The place had a large living room lounge with couches and gaudy lamps all about, and a bar full of bottles of various liquors. She was welcomed by the warmth of it, and the perfumed scent that found her nostrils was so inviting compared to the outside that smelled of steam and wet aged grime. It was like lilacs in the summer. All of the windows were draped in red silky fabrics trimmed in black fringe. A staircase spiraled up on the left-hand side, leading to an upstairs portion with multiple hallways and rooms.

"Is this a hotel?" Star inquired.

The older woman beamed, perhaps finding her innocence amusing.

"Oh child, this is a place of temporary stays, yes, but not quite of the hotel sort."

She didn't know exactly what that meant, but just dropped her shoulders and gave up. "I just need a place to sleep a few hours. But I can only really offer you this dress as payment."

The Madam eyeballed her from head to toe, even walking all around her.

"Well, the dress seems mostly intact and not worse for wear, other than needing a cleaning. Can probably fix a few of those cuts, though those stockings have certainly exceeded their lifespan. And where are your shoes, child?"

When the woman spoke to her it wasn't at all in a demeaning way. It made her feel relaxed, even safe somehow. Maybe she was simply too exhausted to make up a story but she felt the last ounces of her guard slip away, and decided just to be straightforward.

"They got stolen."

"I see. That would happen when you wear such fine things out here." Her eyes seemed to linger on the collar. "You're not from this part of Mewni, are you?"

"No, ma'am."

"I know quality craftsmanship when I see it, despite it being covered in soot. You're a runaway concubine from one of the higher levels?"

Star looked up in surprise, then nodded sadly, grabbing an elbow with one hand and looking away again, ashamedly. "…Yes. Please don't try to take me back. I'm not going back."

The woman smiled in a genuinely heartfelt way as she took Star's hands into her own lacey, red-gloved ones. She led her to one of the couches.

"I wouldn't dream of it. I believe in doing what you can to survive, but that also means finding your own happiness."

She sat Star down and rang a small bell that sat atop a table next to a statue of a naked woman riding astride an overly-muscled warnicorn. A woman with wildly purple hair came down from the upper floor in response.

"Yes, Madam?"

"Beatrix, might you be able to scrounge up some of the dinner leftovers from last night?"

"Of course, mum, right away."

The woman was about the same age as Willow, Star thought, but more thin. She wore what might be considered an elegant styled dress for Lower Mewni, but it was very revealing of her figure, especially around her breasts, the dress sitting off the shoulders. The woman also had a very simple black lace collar with a large silver ring on it around her neck.

Star's face fell immediately into a pout. It hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Don't worry, child." The Madam gracefully set the small bell back down on the end table, facing Star. "I will not pretend anything with you. You'll find I am very direct. This is a pleasure house, much like the palaces they have in Upper Mewni. But all of my girls are not my slaves. They work for me, at their own will, and they get paid for their work. They can spend it however they wish and can leave whenever they want. Their collars are mere costume-ware to make the patrons feel a bit more… empowered compared to their lot in life. They remove them at the end of their shift."

"Really?" Star was confused. She couldn't immediately believe that anyone would choose to work in such a way when they were free to go, and to do anything else they wanted, not having masters that bought and paid for them.

"Yes, of course. All of my girls get room and board as well as a wage. I treat them fair, and you are welcome to speak with any of them. I could even take you on as a hire. That is, if you should change your mind."

Star's eyes widened with a note of apprehension.

"In time, I mean, child. You are quite young and beautiful, and would do well for yourself with me. It looks like you've been treated a bit roughly so far, judging by that bruise on your head and those knees. But know there is no pressure here. You are free to choose."

The older woman stood and went to the bar to jot some notes into a log book by hand. She used a feathered black quill, and Star's eyes were hypnotized by it as she saw it flutter over the page. She was dizzy, famished, and sleep was starting to make her limbs heavy.

"In the meantime," continued Madam Lovelace, "I shall have Beatrix prepare a room for you. I accept your trade offer and will take your gown as payment for say, two week's stay with full kitchen privileges. You can eat and drink however much you want, come and go as you like, have access to the bathing rooms, and have clean linens daily. I am sorry I cannot possibly offer you a truly fair trade for the dress. Even with those minor tears it's above my paygrade. This is the best I can offer you."

"Thank you. It means a lot to me."

"And who is 'me' child?" she smiled, stopping the feathered pen from its writing.

"Sorry, I didn't say earlier. My name's Star."

"Star, how lovely. Well Star, I am happy to have you with us for however long you wish to stay. And, if you decide to continue on here, we can come to another arrangement of course. Ah, Bee-Bee, please show Star to our dining room."

Beatrix had appeared from a side room carrying a plate of food, something looking like mashed potatoes with maybe a couple strips of meat laid over them, smothered in gravy. The scent of it immediately made Star's stomach grumble, waking her up just enough to stand and follow.

After she had scarfed the meal down, hardly allowing the food enough time to settle on her tongue for taste, Beatrix showed her to a room. It was a quarter of the size of her former bedroom at the manor, with a smaller wardrobe, smaller dresser for clothes, and a bed only large enough for one comfortably. The curtains had already been drawn for the night but it was already a darkened room. Nothing at all was white and bright like within the manor; the walls and flooring were composed of dark woods, covered with red and black matching rugs, wall-hangings, and bed furnishings, making it so much darker inside. There was one light with a lantern-like glass shade over it, its small flickering flame dancing from the tip of a fabric wick within. Due to the number of mirrors placed all around the room, the single light was surprisingly effective at keeping the interior aglow with a warm, cozy feeling.

"Beatrix?" Star looked to the girl that had shown her the room, and who was quickly making an exit.

She stopped in the doorway. "Yes? Anything else I can do for you?"

Star had questions in her head, and her tongue so wanted to ask them, but seeing Beatrix's soft green eyes, her mouth seemingly unable to frown, her attitude so upbeat, she decided to hold back. Rather than the heavier things she'd intended to ask, instead trickled out idle pleasantry.

"Thanks for showing me this great room."

"Ah, no bother! Mum decorates all the rooms but if you decide to stay you can change it however you like."

"You call her mum, is she… your mother?"

Beatrix chuckled a little. "No, no, that's just what all us girls call her. Most of us are from orphanages. Mum finds us in all places and offered us a chance at a new life. We all look up to her as a mother… of sorts."

Star held her tongue again, choosing not to inquire about the concubindome of Lower Mewni. Her body ached for sleep. The bed looked lumpy and misshapen, yet totally inviting.

"I'll bring up your clothing. When you're ready, just leave your dress and things beside the door and I'll fetch them later. You look pretty beat, best you get some sleep before tonight."

"W-why? What happens tonight?"

"Ahh, you know… the gentleman callers. It can get loud sometimes and lot of people coming and going."

"...Oh."

"Ahh," Beatrix shrugged and snickered again, "It's not as bad as it sounds! Don't worry. Most of us sleep during the day anyway."

Star crawled atop the bed. It sank in under her weight, a bit too much so, causing her to literally fall into it.

"You get some sleep, ok?" Beatrix smiled. "You can leave your dress near the door and I will fetch it later, and will leave you the new dress mum is going to get for you."

Star awkwardly rose back up from the bed which almost devoured her whole, breaking into a giggle herself. She was too used to her former bed, which was rigid and hard by comparison.

"Thanks again," she said. And when Beatrix closed the door she slid in under the sheets. The long broken-in bed springs hardly bothered to support her weight. She removed her dress and stockings, tossing them flippantly to the floor, and accepted the bed that acted more like a pillow. It was admittedly the most comfortable bed she'd slept in.

Later that afternoon Beatrix burst into her room. Star was still fast asleep, oblivious to the commotion as Beatrix snatched her dress and stockings, until the girl jumped into the bed with her, stuffing the dress down at their feet beneath the blankets.

"What's going-!?"

"Shhhhh! Police! Just play along!"

Her eyes went wide, her adrenaline instantly prompting her heart to beat into her throat. The sudden invasive awakening kicked Star's adrenaline into overdrive. Beatrix was on top of her underneath the covers, and embracing her tightly.

Star opened her mouth to speak again but the bedroom door flung open with a rough bang, and Beatrix planted her mouth onto hers, stifling her to muffled noise while adding in her own. The sound of crunching mechanical parts like footsteps, and sniffing hisses like steam vents, came into the room, as well as two other voices.

"Police! Just running a missing persons search, people, you can… ugh, continue," Laar grunted, seeing the struggling forms beneath the bed blankets and snorting, quickly averting his eyes with disgust. "Why can't Toffee do his own dirty work… he's the one that enjoys places like this."

Star was paralyzed in fear. Whatever was sniffing was taking long echoey breaths, edging closer.

"I thought Lovelace's didn't open until six of the clock?" the other officer grumbled, stepping ignorantly past Laar with a push into the room.

The sounds of the ratcheting metal was directly next to the bed, seeming to tower over it.

Star couldn't see through Beatrix's lavender locks draping over her entire head. It seemed that the concubine did so on purpose. When the officer spoke, Beatrix simply grunted harder, almost angrily. Star didn't so much play along as she remained stunned to the bed, wearing nothing but a bra and panties with the other woman groping her hands all around her in no particular fashion, being loud and obnoxious with her lips pressed against her.

The metal clanked like steel against steel, like teeth sharpening themselves. Star's body flooded with a rush of unknown heat, beginning at her cheeks.

The officer barked again, "I said, Lovelace's doesn't open until-"

"Until six, you're right, officer."

The voice came from the Madam herself. It was deep and without a hint of worry.

"Please, if you don't mind," she directed Laar and his partner away from the doorway, "I do allow for VIP clients to arrive two hours beforehand for special attention." She called out to Beatrix and Star, "My apologies for the intrusion, please feel free to help yourself to a sauna later, courtesy of the house."

Laar narrowed his eyes and took one last glance over at the bed, then sharply whistled. Whatever had made the mechanical noises bounded away, moving on multiple legs. The Madam closed the door and Star could hear the voices of the trio as they walked down the hall, followed more slowly by the grinding of gears.

"You certainly can check all of our rooms here but I assure you, no new girl has shown up in recent days, as a new hire or a client."

Laar persisted. "We just need to conduct the search room by room, regardless of what you say."

"I understand, but do so without barging into the rooms and questioning my clients. Do not disrupt my business whilst you conduct yours."

The voices faded away as they entered other rooms down the hall.

Beatrix finally unlocked her mouth from Star, sweeping her long hair away and leaning back, still straddling her.

"Whew, close one."

Star's eyes darted around Beatrix. "Whaaaaat just happened?" She wasn't yet ready to allow her muscles to relax. She stayed pinned beneath her, questioning what was about to happen next.

"That was the police looking for you. They asked about a girl wearing a beautiful gown and an irresistible heart collar, with long, flowing, amazing looking blond hair. Ring any bells?" she laughed lightly, a rosey blush flooding her cheeks hard.

"Did… did they use those exact words?" Star stammered, trying to break the tension with a sarcastic, yet nervous smile.

Beatrix could only laugh.

Awkwardly, Star looked up at Beatrix while she looked down at her. The moment seemed to last far longer than natural.

"Are you going to let me get up?" Star asked slowly.

"Oh! Ahh yes, sorry!" Beatrix hopped off of Star. "Stay here until they leave, all right? They still have the steamhound."

"Steamhound?"

"Yeah. That's why I couldn't hide you. I had to… ahh, improvise." Her cheeks flushed red as ever. "If I hid you anywhere else in here it would have seen you. Easier to turn you into a client since they'd expect two people in a bed, heh. It can see in the dark and where people are hiding. And when it finds what it's looking for it snaps its jaws down and you can't break that clamp. You'd never get away."

"Oh!"

"That's right, you're from Upper Mewni. Don't need no steamhounds there. Well, they're like a walking computer that looks like a huge dog, sort of. They're brutal machines. Fast, and unstoppable. You must be very important to someone because they don't send the dogs out except for like, the resistance members."

"Resistance members?" Star swung her legs over the side of the bed, covering herself with the blanket.

The motion of Star shielding herself made Beatrix suddenly realize Star's modesty. "By the way, I have the dress mum wanted to give you."

Beatrix walked over to the small dresser and pulled out what might have been considered a very nice dress for Low Mewni standards, but it wasn't quite what Star was used to. It was short, to the knees at most, and only had two spaghetti straps to hold it up once on the shoulders. There weren't any ruffles or lace except for the lacework along the spine, to keep the bodice attached. But, it was blue, a pleasant fading shade of dark indigo, and came with clean white stockings.

"It's lovely, thank you," Star grinned. She was sad to see the beauty and elegance of her old dress go, but happy she would be able to fit in.

"Mum figured you'd enjoy the blue, your other dress being blue and all."

"She's very thoughtful."

"Yes, you will love her, you'll see. You won't wanna leave."

"Uhm… well, I-"

Before Star could complete her sentence, they heard footsteps coming towards them in the hall. Beatrix immediately sprang to cover Star.

The door of the bedroom opened. It was Madam Lovelace, alone.

"It's all right girls, it's just me."

"Oh madam, so glad it's you!" Beatrix removed herself from her hug of Star and set the clothing on her lap for her to get dressed.

Star was left wondering just a little bit more about Beatrix, but she shook her head to clear the thought from her mind, beginning to slip on the dress so that she could express her thanks once again to Madam Lovelace directly, while being clothed. The fabric felt a little more course than silky but she was impressed how well it did fit her slender curves. Beatrix quickly moved to lace up the corset in the back without her needing to ask, while the older women walked up to them both.

"I keep having to thank you, madam." Star said with a slight bow. "The dress fits me perfect and it's so colorful."

The madam smiled gently. "Star, we both know it doesn't compare to what you had before, but I thank you for your desire to thank me just the same. Just don't pander to me, child, I can only tolerate so much flattery."

Were anyone else to speak such things, Star might find them to be too boldly assuming, but the way the older woman sweetly confided, with so soft yet authoritative of inflection, made her feel more like a sympathetic equal.

As Star grinned sheepishly, she continued. "It appears that you had a run in with the police."

"Yeeeeah, about that…"

"You needn't explain, child. You're a runaway from Upper Mewni. No doubt your former owners are seeking to get you back."

"Er, yeah, something like that. Listen, I gotta thank you for standing up for me, and… and not giving me away. You didn't have to do that and it means a lot-"

"Stop thanking me already, Star. Treat my place as your refuge. We all have to stick together sometimes against such… oppressions."

"Than-I mean, uhm, I will."

"Good girl," she said, seeing Star's quick compliance and brushing the back of he gloved hand along her cheek. "You're stronger than you know, Star."

She was unsure why the madam has said that. "What?"

"I thought I saw something on your cheek there."

"Yeah, me too, under the blankets," Beatrix admitted. "Thought I saw something."

"Wha-huh, what something?" She rose a hand to her cheek but didn't feel anything but a slight tingle.

Madam Lovelace took her hand away and stopped examining her skin. "Nothing, child, I don't see anything there but a pretty young face. Must have been just my eyes as I'm getting older. The light hits your skin and really brings out your glow."

"Yeah," Beatrix breathily sighed.

"Bee-Bee?"

"Yes, mum?"

"Go help the others prepare for tonight."

The girl gave a mock pout and rolled her eyes. "Yeeees, madam."

"And Star? We all like to have a large meal right before we open, so you may join us in the dining hall. I can introduce you to the other girls."

*****

Almost the full two weeks had gone by, feeling like a fast-forwarding through time for Star. She came to know all of the working girls in the brothel, even helping out Madam Lovelace around the house as a courtesy. If any of the girls needed new linens she would quickly be there to get them washed, and even washed dishes after meals. She kept the place as tidy as she had for Aage and Aagil's manor. It was what she knew, and she felt good being able to fall back into a role she was used to and assist those that had helped to keep her safe and hidden.

Although it initially went against her better judgment, pricking her own sense of moral right to help out a place that she basically had just run away from, in speaking to the women she found none of them to be at all unhappy with their positions. On the contrary, they usually did far better in making a living for themselves than others in Lower Mewni, though Star didn't particularly think that was a good or noble thing. She thought that the amount of money somehow made it right in all of their minds - the self-employment, and the empowerment that came with it - but she figured it wasn't her place to complain when they were happy and clearly not slaves.

She had made good friends with Beatrix, though at times she felt that the concubine wanted to get closer than just friends. Beatrix was definitely more free in her sexuality, as many of the other women were, but Star found herself awkward in such situations. Her reservations against exploring some of the things Beatrix seemed to want to with her presented a challenge that only made Beatrix want to pressure her slightly more into what she termed as 'self-discovery.'

Nevertheless, they were close, as close or perhaps closer than she had been with Willow. She was starting to feel like she had found a new home, and was debating requesting a maidservant position with Madam Lovelace to work for her keep.

But as her two weeks were coming to a close, trouble was not too far behind chasing at her ankles, stomping her back under the bootheel of reality.

Lovelace's place served a great many customers from all corners of the bedraggled belly of Mewni. Some had positions of relative power like police or politicians, while others were their polar opposite: the seedy folk the police were tasked to chase down, or the well organized criminals. One of Madam Lovelace's more prominent attendees was a known mob boss, whose influence often swayed judges to rule in his favor, or simply paid off the police. Many were in his pocket. It was unwise not to give him his way.

He was the largest man Star had seen in Lower Mewni, where most of the citizens were getting by on scraps. Most ate too little to gain any fat, so his size was a definite mark of his status below. She'd seen far larger though, in Upper Mewni, even Mewmans that couldn't walk under their own power anymore due to their scale. They got around instead on wide hoverchairs.

She was busy tidying up the lobby before the evening began in earnest, when he walked in without so much as a knock. Two bodyguard-like henchman came along with him at either side, and his arm was wrapped around the shoulder of a red-haired teenage boy Star's own age.

Lovelace was always the portrait of calm even under pressure, and the rude entry did little to change it. She simply directed herself towards the pudgy-faced man with her usual flourish and good-natured hospitality, ignoring the ignorant intrusion.

"My, it's been a time since I've seen you and your boys. All work and no play, so they say," she smiled, "will get you into too much mischief!"

The boss was a great smile from ear to ear, the flab of his cheeks rippling to the sides. He wobbled a bit on his feet, with words somewhat slurred.

"We're here to create some mischief, not take a break from it!"

He was dressed as if he was about to fine dine, with a very clean-cut black suit. His thick hands were adorned with equally large rings that looked impossible to remove, like sausages overly wrapped too tight. His shoes weren't polished like Toffee's had been. They were scuffed and scrapped. A hefty gold chain was draped around his neck that ended in a small glowing white stone shaped like a demon horn. It could only have come from Upper Mewni. Such a thing reeked of expense.

"Lets not break any of the lamps or beds this time, alright?"

Madam Lovelace could get away with painting a criticism in with a compliment. Star enjoyed hearing her as she managed her affairs with total confidence.

"Do take into consideration you don't need to hustle my girls the same as you do your clientele. They will readily give you whatever your desires. So, how may we serve you this evening? The usual?"

The boss shook his head, then looked at the youth he was holding tightly against his side, shaking him a little until he likewise smiled, albeit sheepishly.

"This is my son, Maximus. It's his birthday today. The big eighteen."

"Ahh, well congratulations, Maximus. Finally come of age to enjoy all of the sundry adult entertainments."

His father spoke on his behalf. "Yes! Got him a bit loosened up and ready to go for ya girls."

The boy gave a gentle laugh, and when Star briefly met his eyes she saw his locked onto her. She didn't know how long he'd been watching her, but the sensation of his eyes immediately pricked her nerves. She decided to clean elsewhere, heading upstairs.

The boy's eyes followed her every step of the way.

The Madam rang the bell from the end table a certain way and called up to the working girls. Those that were not already with clients quickly came bouncing down the stairs and lined up beside her, holding their skirts with coy little smiles and winks at the men in the main lobby. They had done this lineup routine before.

Beatrix and the others bowed and did some twirls while the mob boss pointed and elbowed his son, distracting his eyes away from where Star had gone off to. His father made him look at the bawdy delights set before him.

"Now, which one do ya like best? Personally, I like this one here with the purple hair… she knows some special tricks with her tongue!" he laughed. "Oh but this one is also amazing! How she bends her body in all the right ways! If ya want more than one, that's OK too, but not too many. Ya'll get too worn out and we have more bars to hit up tonight after ya become a real man!"

Maximus observed the girls with a half-hearted air. He touched the hair of Beatrix between his fingers, then moved on to another, feeling along her breast, finally spanking a third just to hear her squeak.

"They aren't like limos, boy. Ya can test drive as many as ya want and not have to keep them, or make payments!"

The Madam's lips pursed into a purposefully drawn smile, her eyes twinkling, but hiding disdain.

"Take your time choosing. They are all highly gifted and each have their own flavor, but are all here for your tasting."

The birthday boy analyzed each in turn, then spoke with a lofty, arrogant tone.

"What about the one with the heart collar? Why isn't she here?"

Lovelace was taken slightly aback, but she didn't miss a beat.

"That is the help staff. She is not one of my service providers."

"Well that's the one I want," he said matter-of-factly. "Bring her to me."

"I'm sorry, but she is not for hire. Please, choose any of the others."

The girls standing there continued to suggest themselves, batting eyes and touching their bodies as if allergic to their clothes, and they needed to soon come off. Beatrix in particular tried to put on a more fierce presentation, turning around and bending as she adjusting one of her long to-the-hip stockings.

"That's the one I want."

His father stepped in, at first taking Lovelace's side, only to falter mid-way through. "Max, ya want a trained girl that knows her way around charming ya snake. Ya sure that's the one?"

"I'm sure."

Madam Lovelace began to protest, but the boss interrupted.

"If she's the one he wants, then that's his choice. Can't talk no sense into young kids these days," he chuckled. "So go fetch her."

"She is not hired for that."

"She's got a collar and a gash between her legs. What more does she need? My son's no fool. He can figure it out."

"I must disagree. She's-"

The bodyguards took a few steps closer to the Madam at the flex of the boss's shoulders, his arm dropping off his son's back at long last. His face went from wrinkles of good humor to a scowl of intimidation.

"She's the one my son wants, and the one he'll have tonight."

The girls in the line became more jittery, having trouble sustaining their sexy poses. Their eyes frequently went to Lovelace's face to read her. She remained firm.

"Choose another, and I can make it complimentary for you and your men for the entire night, open bar and sauna."

The angry father predatorily approached Lovelace, continuing to draw closer and speak softer until he was right up in her face, their noses almost squarely touching. But she didn't even tilt her head an inch back.

"I believe my son made it clear, but I can make it more so. You wouldn't want me to break anything."

"If your son has a bad time with an inexperienced girl, you're liable to do that anyway."

"Why test me on that? I could have your building burned to the ground. Where would ya girls go then, hmm? Do ya have enough saved up to build another place? I think not, especially since the prices of permits will go up if I speak to the Building Rep."

"You have the power to buy the clout to do that, but you won't put me out of business, even if you did torch the place."

"I'd not like it if I had to do that, mess up this nice place… or ya girls. Black eyes and missing teeth don't make for pretty faces for the customers, now, do they?"

The older woman lowered her head for the first time, the threat of violence to her girls a step too far. She was silent for agonizingly long seconds while he breathed his boozed-up breath in her face, until she looked up once again.

"Come with me, Maximus. I can't promise you she'll be willing."

The son stuck out his chin and gave a sly grin. "Who's asking? I get what I want, just lock the door behind me."

Lovelace and Beatrix exchanged nervous glances as she led the teen past the other girls and headed for the upstairs bedrooms. She knew Star was likely in her own room.

The pair began to mount the stairs, each step a slog through shame. Lovelace looked over the railing, seeing the bodyguards start to unwind at the bar with the ladies distracting them. She shook her head when Beatrix attempted to follow her up, leading the boy towards Star's room.

Her eyes begged a 'don't do this' stare, but Madam Lovelace's were ashamedly settled on their course.

Star was inside, sitting on the bed and stitching together a couple pieces of fabric where a hole had torn in one of the girls' hand gloves. Lovelace stopped just before her door, turning away so as not to look at her as Maximus quickly went forward. He entered the room like his father had the brothel, as if it and everything within was his own.

Once he slammed the door, the Madam regretfully pulled out her master keys. Her eyes didn't want to see what her hands had to do. She felt the key snap the lock into place.

The walls were crafted of thick wood, but it didn't keep down much noise, and hearing the goings-on in the quarters was an unsettling yet altogether familiar experience for everyone inside; but this time the sounds were rougher that the usual; combative; not the typical outbursts of excitement. The teenager that barged into the room immediately demanded for its occupant to undress.

"Uh, maybe you have the wrong room?" Star questioned.

"I don't. I've chosen you as my girl tonight."

"I don't work here. I mean, uh, I do… but not like that. You've made a mistake."

"That's funny. I don't make mistakes," he said as he rushed over to her and forced his mouth against hers.

She fought to pull herself away while his hands groped around her, grabbing a hold of the fabric and trying to tear off whatever pieces he could. She could taste the alcoholic burn in his mouth and tried to smack him away.

Madam Lovelace could hear the situation quickly escalating. She couldn't bare a moment of it, heading back down the stairs at the same time Star had broken free, running to the door. It was locked. No amount of jiggling the handle wretched it open. Everyone could hear the resultant bangs as fists hit against the door.

"Hey! Let me out!"

Maximus wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her waist away. "Get back here!"

Star found her fists balling up. Her anxiety began as a cold shiver that turned into sweat. Her chest tightened and her face flushed.

Her voice screamed out. "Someone open the door!"

"Not until we're done!"

Star's hand had reached out, and without even feeling her knuckles make contact to his jaw, the man toppled slightly, colliding with a mirror and shattering it. She repeated herself more vehemently, with gravel in her slowly deepening voice, as if a darker force was speaking for her and she didn't want to stop it.

"Let… me… go."

"Bitch, stop fighting me!"

He slapped a hand across her face and she fell backwards into the bed. He removed his belt.

As her blood raced, Star could hear it thudding in her ears, along with the voice she had heard whispering once before. It was faint, calling to her like her heart's pulse, insistent and undaunted, stinging her cheeks.

After the telltale clank of the belt, she heard the frightful sound of a zipper.

The unexplained fire that she'd felt before seemed to burn hotter in her veins. Without knowing fully what had possessed her, she gripped the tie of the boy as he hunched over her and tried to hold her down, one hand holding her arm back and the other pressing down her collar.

He laughed when her hand pulled the tie, bringing him closer. His scrappy pants fell to his ankles. The sound of his belt clicking in her ears was like the last ticks of an explosive grenade.

"I like this foreplay!" he grunted animalistically as his shoulder muscles trembled to keep her pinned.

But when he finally fastened his eyes to hers, what he saw therein made the blood flee from his face, his anticipation turning to terror.

She blinked hard as the inferno deep inside intoxicated her. The sapphire pigment of her eyes shifted to pure luminous white, so bright not even the blackness of her pupils could be seen. They were so full of light that they brightened the space around them both, the tie scorching in her fist and strangling him with a noose of fire. As he gargled out a scream, his hand that was placed upon her neck likewise burned.

"I SAID-"

But the young man didn't get to hear her finish.

She felt the anger surge into her every sinew. From the tips of her fingers and toes to every place in-between, it scorched within like the blistering of lava pushing up inside a pressurized volcano, climbing higher and higher still, into her fiery cheeks. Heart-shaped marks appeared on her face, searing with white-hot light.

She could see the snarl over the bridge of the gentleman's nose twist and contort, his eyebrows turning from hard downward angles to upturned distraught arches of pain. He had moved both hands to grip her by the throat in a vain effort to make her stop; connected to the collar, he found that he couldn't remove them. The power from Star's own body had conducted into it and his hands were completing a circuit between them, bubbling his flesh from the scorching heat.

Grinning from euphoria, Star's energy erupted. The man began to spasm wildly like an electrocuted puppet, his voice becoming shrill and piercing. The collar was melting the flesh from his fingers, the gemstone heart a blazing crimson as the man's fingers became bone.

A small white slash fractured across the gemstone heart's surface like the reaching arms of a snowflake. In a moment fermented in the man's final screams, everything around her exploded with shining pure light. The man shredded apart as if ripped by a spiraling internal tornado; the collar severed free from her neck; the exterior walls of the room opened to the outside.

Star had levitated, then collapsed to the floor, the exertion having pulled almost every bit of strength from her body. How long she had been unconscious, she didn't know, but it couldn't have been long. Madam Lovelace was the first face she saw when she was lifted up by her hands.

She was greeted with multiple pairs of eyes that looked on her not as much with worry as that of dread. Even Star herself, recalling the memory of what had just happened, wasn't sure how she had done it, or why she'd allowed it. She had murdered the mob boss's son in a moment of vengeance, utterly reveling with the power.

The voices of the brothel women came in at all angles, jumbled up in her head like the incoherent voices of hysteric starlings fighting to be heard, one over the other as they filed into the room. Then men's shouting, brutish and large, yelled over them somewhere behind.

They were charging up the stairs.

"Bee?" Star asked as she came out of her stupor, looking for her purple hair. "W-what happened?"

"I'm right here," a small voice said. Beatrix was not one of the women who had helped her to sit up, instead choosing to hang back behind the others, only darting glances towards her. She continually averted her eyes, looking from the broken wall, to Star, then at the burn marks all over the floor.

All at once the mob boss barged in, then halted, his inhaled breath hanging in his throat. His eyes searched the room, seeing the women piled together on the floor, the burn marks on the carpet, the drapes. The mirrors were shattered, and it was hard to miss the exploded out wall. But his son he didn't see.

His bodyguards burst in and were likewise aghast, looking to their stupefied boss for direction.

Star whimpered, the spent energy leaving her emotionally compromised. Seeing Beatrix, of all the brothel girls, afraid to touch her or even to go near her, was more than she was ready to handle.

"What happened Star?!" one of the other girls asked in a flurry. "How did your cheeks… glow?"

"Where is his son? He isn't here?" asked another.

"There was light, and an explosion. What did you do?"

One of the goons stomped forward. "The little tart killed him!" He pulled something that looked like a polished wooden stick wrapped in coiled wire from his belt holster. The second followed suit. They both pointed the weapons towards the women and they all squeaked with fear.

The boss began to heave his breaths, growling as his fists balled at his sides. Sweat on his brow ran down the sagging fat of his face.

"One of ya had to have seen something. Tell me! Now!"

Madam Lovelace protectively wrapped her arm around Star. "He must have ran. You saw as much as we did, and he's not here."

The father was on the verge of monstrous rage. The willpower it took to restrain himself left him visibly shaking. The veins of his neck raised out, skin thinning around tightening knuckles.

"If none of ya tells me what happened here, I'll make sure to find out, one finger at a time, one wrist at a time, one eye at a time!"

He grabbed Beatrix, who was the farthest from the pack, yanking her back by the hair and forcing her down at his knees. The guards stood by, ready in case she tried to resist.

"So help me, I will snap her neck right now!"

"Beatrix!" Star shouted. "Stop! Let her go!"

But it was Beatrix that spoke, in a coughed, tearful whisper.

"The man melted. I saw it. I saw it all myself. He's dead."

Star's head throbbed and her heart went through a myriad of emotions. The conflicted feelings besieged her while she looked down at her shivering hands, staring at them like illegal, deadly weapons that might activate and kill them all, being unable to stop it, or even worse - to enjoy it.

She saw the glint of the collar lying between her knees on the floor. She slowly touched the heart lock of it, which was cracked and broken, split down the middle; then, she pulled back her hand to feel at the skin left bare on her neck. She barely noticed the Madam's hands wiping the tears off her face with a handkerchief.

The words faltered from her mouth, but her body stood up on shaking though adamant legs.

"I didn't mean, I mean… it was an accident."

"Accident!?" the boss roared, several of the girls jumping back from the outburst. "Ya killed my boy! My boy!"

Anguished, Star could only repeat herself as she bent to pick up the collar. The brothel girls stood quickly, instinctively backing against the side wall away from the men and her. No one tried to reach out and grab back Star's arm, like she almost hoped they would. Not even Beatrix.

"I didn't mean to kill him."

The mob boss watched her with eyes glazed over, nearing the point of frenzy, ears no longer hearing any of her sniveled-out words. Then he gave the order.

"Tie them all up!"

The women began to scatter around the ruptured room screaming as the two henchman corraled them with their weapons. Only Madam Lovelace refused to resist. The boss himself grabbed her harshly by the elbow elbow and pulled a lose cord from a back pocket, lashing her wrists behind her back.

"I'll start with you."

"As well you should." She was proud even though defeat was closing in.

Star was frozen in what felt to her like a time bubble. The women were shrieking around her, being beaten and tied up by the men. Their motions swam around her in a horrific blur.

They were placed on their knees and lined up next to each other, weeping and pleading, until only Star herself remained, the broken-out wall at her back and everyone else before her.

She caught eyes with Lovelace, uttering an "I'm sorry" under her garbled breath.

"I am the one who needs apologize to you. He got what was coming to him. You did nothing wrong, child."

At those words the Madam shut her eyes, knowing that as she finished it would be the last thing she'd say. The boss drew his own firearm, pressed it to her temple, and pulled the trigger. A steel bolt inside the chamber of the barrel imbedded into her skull before instantly withdrawing, painted in her blood.

"Burn the place… burn it all!" he commanded over the women's terrified screams. "And take this one!" He side-swiped his gun against Star's forehead, causing her to reel almost out of the gaping hole in the wall. "I want to kill her slowly!"

Star was the last one not bound, and both of the goons focused their attention on her. But they hesitated awkwardly, as if waiting for the other to move first.

"What are ya waiting for!" the boss yelled, leveling his gun into the back of Beatrix's orchid locks.

Neither of his men wanted to touch Star, unsure of her power, or how she'd killed Maximus. While they mustered up the courage, Star could see the boss's finger pull the trigger.

The sound of wet bone tore Star back into the reality of the moment; seeing Beatrix's body slump to the floor triggered her reflexes to flee, like a racehorse that heard it's bell, the release gates opening to allow it to run.

She turned around and dashed for the crumbled brick hole. She leapt out of it, almost without seeing, grabbing hold of a fire escape ladder barely clinging to the side of the building on rusted hinges.

Ths boss barked for one of his men to exit through the front of the building and beat her to the street, ordering the other to light the place up. As Star's eyes filled with warped vision from overflowing tears she could hear the sound of glass bottles breaking, the whoosh of flames and crackling tinders. She heard the bolt-gun fire again and again as the ladder creaked beneath her weight.

The ladder allowed her to finish descending into the alley before it unhinged, bringing another slab of wall down with it. More debris crumbled off the building, the plaster and lathe giving way like a loose scab of skin over the bricks.

She heard the goons shouting whoops and hollers as the flames reached higher and engulfed the beautifully sad building. They knew her only route was towards the main street. She'd have to face them eventually and they knew it, waiting her out as if smoking out a hare from its rabbit hole.

But something was still calling to her.

As she kicked along the broken ground, she listened harder to the tugging in her mind and heart, holding the last trinket she had from her former life in her palm. The beautiful slave collar reflected her face a dozen different ways in the surrounding firelight, due to the cracks running across its surface. She would miss her friends: the childishness of Willow and free-spirited nature of Beatrix, even the callous sarcasm of Ginger. She'd have to leave it all behind.

"I have to."

She found a gaping sewer drain with edges heaped over with trash, snot-colored sludge dripping down into an unknown abyss. It was there she let the collar slip free from her fingers, allowing it to fall into the depths, forgotten.

She prepared to head into the main street, her heartbeats pulsing in her throat as she faltered in the alley. The thing that was drawing her stole her attention, as if her awaiting assailants were mere annoyances by comparison to it's pull. That thing began to call harder.

She was distraught, but followed the feeling until she staggered back a step in surprise. She suddenly saw a large man, not one of the well-dressed goons, covered in a thick blanket of rubble on the ground. And several feet in front of him there was a satchel, purse-like and splayed open, ripped along a seam. Out from the bag and laying on the ground, like a brand new sparkling toy, was a wand.

She bent down, the voice in her mind hypnotizing her to reach for it, screaming into her heart as if she was meant to –

She couldn't resist the voices anymore and so she proceeded to pick the wand. At that instant her fingers locked around the handle of the wand.

#star vs the forces of evil #stvfoe #pillars of magic #star butterfly #toffee #fanfic

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highvoltagearea · 4 years

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Artist Uses Lego Bricks to Make Lifelike Sculptures of Animals

Making a career out of building with Lego bricks sounds like a dream job—just ask any kid (or many adults, for that matter). But it’s the real deal for Sean Kenney, who turned his childhood hobby into a full-time career. For more than 15 years the New York City-based artist has been creating masterpieces using Lego bricks as his medium of choice. His creations—from towering skyscrapers to portraiture—have been featured at museums and zoos around the world, inspiring people of all ages.

His latest project, “Nature Connects: Art with Lego Bricks” is one of his most ambitious endeavors yet. Currently on tour at a number of zoos, botanical gardens and arboretums across the United States, including the San Antonio Zoo; the Denver Zoo; Flamingo Gardens in Davie, Florida; and the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, the traveling exhibition, which launched in 2012, showcases a collection of life-size and larger-than-life replicas of plants and animals.

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly(Flickr user Carol VanHook)

Like most kids, Kenney spent his free time playing with Legos. As he got older, he honed his artistic skills as a cartoonist, studying visual arts at Rutgers University. Upon graduation he worked as a graphic designer, often incorporating Lego bricks into his work. Living in New York City, he drew much of his inspiration from the bustling city surrounding him, creating renditions of the Empire State Building and Greenwich Village among other familiar sights. It wasn’t until a botanical garden in Iowa approached him about making replicas of some of its flowers and plants that he made the natural world his subject. His work began touring to other institutions across the Midwest and proved so popular that zoos began commissioning him to make reproductions of some of their animals.

“Over the years I’ve been continually growing this body of work, and I keep on building,” Kenney says. “I literally just made three flamingos that are now on display at the Denver Zoo.”

Snow leopard(Flickr user Linda De Volder)

Add that feathery flamboyance to a growing assortment of more than 150 animals, including lions, polar bears, buffalo, snow leopards, peacocks, butterflies and ducks, and you have a menagerie of Lego sculptures that look surprisingly similar to the real critters. But getting them to appear lifelike is no easy task.

“One of the biggest challenges is trying to get the softness of [an animal’s]features and the expressiveness of the face right while using what is otherwise a very blocky, low-resolution medium,” he says. “To me, that’s one of the most fun things to overcome. When you’ve done it, you’ve really done it. You step back and are proud of it.”

Kenney recalls a woman at one of his shows turning to see his sculpture of a snow leopard crouched down like it’s on the prowl. She actually jumped back, thinking it was alive. “Knowing that I got the face right means I did it right,” says the artist, “and that’s why the challenge is worth it.”

Mallards (by Sean Kenney)

To pull off this feat, Kenney collaborates with a group of artists who work together in teams of two or three to create each sculpture. Most pieces start out as rough sketches on paper, which are then transferred onto graph paper or computer models to plan out the basic shape and size of the animal. Kenney likens these to “Pixar characters.”

“We gather source photography and other information online,” he says. “Sometimes we watch YouTube videoes to see the subject in action.”

The artists then use these blueprints as a point of reference as they click together Lego bricks to build a prototype. Once Kenney has a prototype he likes, the team begins building the final piece. From start to finish, a single sculpture can take thousands of bricks and many months of labor to complete. The largest sculptures can take up to nine months to construct. Builders glue each and every brick together as if they’re building a brick wall. A lion, for example, took 474 construction hours and 48,248 bricks to build.

“There’s still a lot of stuff that we do the old-fashioned way, like when we’re adding facial features or we need creatures to interact with each other and show emotion,” Kenney says. “We’ll grab all the funny-shaped Lego pieces like circles, triangles and slopes, and bricks that look like wheels and windows and coffee cups. The real fun is trying to figure out how I’m going to make [an animal’s]eyes look real by using circles and arches.”

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Kenney is quick to point out that he only uses bricks that are available to the general public. “None of my sculptures are made with special Lego bricks,” he says. “I use the same ones that children play with.”

As Kenney has perfected his ability to capture the essence of different species, he’s expanded his reach to focus on animals that are either extinct, like the Dodo bird, or endangered. A piece called “Deforestation” features an incredibly rare Formosan clouded leopard found in the mountains of Taiwan. The species’ habitat is being threatened and it was believed to be extinct until the leopard was spotted by several witnesses in 2018.

Polar bears (Flickr user Linda De Volder)

“We placed the leopard so that it’s looking back at an excavator that’s destroying its habitat,” he says. “We first designed this for a local audience in Taipei but realized there’s a global story there. It’s since been on display in the United States and Europe.” It’s slated to be on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum in the fall.

Kenney’s pieces are proving popular with audiences not only because they continue the conversation about conservation, but also for their sheer craftsmanship. Hope Roth, who is the vice president of marketing at the San Antonio Zoo, which has a newly opened drive-through zoo that’s been a draw during the Covid-19 pandemic, says that “Nature Connects” has helped “elevate the experience” the zoo offers. The exhibit features 30-plus sculptures, which will be on display through the end of the year.

Jumping Koi (Sean Kenney)

“Every summer we try to bring in an exhibition that’s going to give more value to our guests, and his pieces do this,” Roth says. “His work is amazing and so impactful when you see it in person. We placed the majority of the sculptures where they’re visible when driving through the zoo. You can really see the artistry.”

While the Denver Zoo, Flamingo Gardens and North Carolina Arboretum don’t offer drive-through options, Kenney’s Lego creations are outdoors and interspersed throughout the sites’ grounds. All three locations, as well as the San Antonio Zoo, are following strict safety measures during Covid-19, encouraging guests to keep enough distance between one other and mandating that visitors where face coverings.

Fox Chasing a Rabbit (Sean Kenney)

While Covid-19 may have put a damper on traveling, it hasn’t stopped Kenney from creating new Lego sculptures. For 2021, he’s dreaming up a “colorful, punchy and playful” exhibition called “Nature POP” that gives the natural world a new spin.

“Imagine a lawn full of giant bunny rabbits in polka dots and stripes, or a neon-blue woodpecker on a lava-lamp tree trunk,” he says. “All built with hundreds of thousands of Lego bricks. It’s going to look amazing!

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source https://highvoltagearea.com/artist-uses-lego-bricks-to-make-lifelike-sculptures-of-animals/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=artist-uses-lego-bricks-to-make-lifelike-sculptures-of-animals

#highvoltagearea #HVA

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call-me-motte · 6 years

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Rant

I need a place to vent.

I haven’t use this site in literal years, so I figured it might be a good place. This will be long and if you don’t give a shit about me or don’t want to read a novel just unfollow me or scroll past. I don’t really care.

Life fucking sucks.

The last few years have been an absolute roller coaster. With a lot of those just-a-little-too-steep declines that make you seriously too aware that you’re moving downhill. They’re the ones that are just ever so slightly too steep to where your stomach flips and you feel like you might die. You know the ones. The last month I’ve been stuck on such a slope. Hell, the last year.

Last November-ish (the dates are honestly all blurred at this point): I was lonely and sought companionship.

Found a girl through work at the time who was nice. We became a “thing” for a month. Very new, honeymoon-period relationship. We shared life, laughs, and our bodies. It was nice. It was fun. The sex was good.

I was distant. As I always find myself to be after a certain amount of time. The last straw was Thanksgiving. I disappeared all day for family and apparently she couldn’t take it. We broke up.

Fast forward a month. Christmas time. The happiest time of the year.

She’s pregnant.

Are you?

“I’m late. Test said yes.”

Can we go to a doctor?

“I’ll go by myself.”

Can you show me proof?

“I was so good for you, I can’t believe you left.”

“I am pregnant.”

I offered to work this out with her. I offered to put aside my entire life to make sure whatever happened, it would be taken care of. The entire time all I heard was how I was so stupid for ruining the relationship. No shred of concern from the woman about the fact that a CHILD might be inside her.

“The doctor said it’s too soon to tell.”

That’s great. We won’t have to give our lives away.

“I lied. I didn’t want you to worry. I really am pregnant.”

What the fuck?

“I’m not pregnant.”

I was destroyed. Absolute ruin.

Everything about my life had been torn apart. I had confided in my oldest brother about this. Asked him for advice. His thoughts, opinions. He was loving, kind, and caring. Gave me genuine advice; walked me through this situation. He had been there before.

It passes over. I move on. I return to my introverted self. I don’t talk to my brother much, similar to how the last 10 years of my life had been. I don’t talk to anyone. He excommunicates me, for “only coming to him when I have problems.” I lost my sanity. My peace of mind. My trust for others. My brother. All over some girl. My life was destroyed.

I will never trust anyone again. There’s no worth in trust anymore.

I spend the next couple of months shut in my room. Only leaving for work. My relationship with my parents degrades. They start to complain (with genuine concern) that I don’t see them much even when I live with them. I just shrug it off.

I dive headfirst into depression.

No amount of friends, games, alcohol, sex, drugs, anything. No amount of anything was able to fix this.

I turn to working out to try and vent frustrations and try and feel better about myself. I have two friends with me on the path to fitness. It helps, I start to feel better. Back to being myself.

2 AM. I’m at the gym. Phone rings. It’s her.

She’s drunk. I step outside of the gym, leaving my friends inside.

“I really need to talk to you. In person.”

I’ll give you 5 minutes. You come to me. FIVE minutes. That’s it. Then we are never speaking again.

She arrives.

We exchange American greetings. You know the ones. “How have you been?”, “What have you been up to?” That bullshit.

“I really was pregnant. I had an abortion.”

I don’t believe you.

“Why?”

You toyed with me. Went back and forth. I heard 6 different answers.

“I was pregnant. I had an abortion. I didn’t tell you because I saw your Snapchat stories and thought you were happy.”

Are you fucking serious? This is something that’s OUR problem. Not yours. I made that clear.

“I was so good for you.”

At this point I lost it. I started hyperventilating. The hardest breaths I’ve ever taken in my 21 short years. I get the urge to hit something. Coming from a family of anger issues, it’s a bad habit. Thank whatever God may be out there my parents taught me how to not aim it at other people. I put a dent in the roof of my car. (Still there to this day, a cruel reminder.)

I tell her to leave.

Never contact me again.

At this point I don’t care what happens. I didn’t trust her. I didn’t believe her. If anything had happened I didn’t care. If I was hit with lawsuits or whatever. It didn’t fucking matter. I was going to end it all.

I attempt suicide.

It didn’t work.

Still not sure if that was a blessing or a curse. I’ll let you know if I ever actually find out the answer to that one.

My parents start to push me out.

I had just landed a better job with FedEx. One that paid enough for me to sustain my own life. They didn’t do it wrong. They made sure I was okay and “nudged” me out. To live in an apartment with my other brother, Evan.

Everything is okay. For a time. We get along decently well; he’s helping me adjust to apartment life. We split everything 50/50 and it’s decent for a while.

A month goes by. I get a Snapchat message from the girl’s little brother. We used to be pretty tight. We worked together as well. He was under 18 at the time and I used to hook him up with cigarettes. He asks me for my phone number. I don’t think about it at all. Dude might just need something or have a question about work. I give it to him.

She’s drunk. She calls.

It starts to escalate. My voice turns into that of a monster. Something I never knew I had inside me. I start to get angry. That voice warps into something hostile. Something pops into mind.

If I ever have a child, it will NOT be with somebody like you.

Not good words to ever say to anyone you’ve ever been with. I don’t care how much you dislike them. It’s not a humane thing to say.

I start crying. She’s crying. We’re having probably a Guinness-record-winning yelling match over the phone. My brother hears me, knows something is wrong, and comes out and forces the phone out of my hands.

I cared about her. So much. It wasn’t easy to deal with this. It didn’t feel good to act how I did.

I’m sitting in the fetal position outside on our patio. Digging my fingernails into my arm. So hard that I draw blood and leave scars. Trying to make the feelings stop. Trying to find a reason to be alive. I can’t escape.

Thank God for Evan. He tells them to never talk to me again. If they do, he’ll call the police. Tells me he’s never seen me this upset before and he was ready to go fight someone if he had to. What a guy.

He hangs up. Throws my phone somewhere I can’t find it for the night.

The next morning.

I wake up to death threats from her little brother. Saying he wants to fight me, and that if I don’t he’ll kill me.

I call my dad. My extremely religious, ex-pastor father. I tell him everything. Out of concern. They know where my parents live. He assures me he’s well armed and that it’s nothing to worry about.

A few months pass by, I land a new job at the same company Evan works for. It pays extraordinarily well for my qualifications. Only bad thing is that there’s an exam. Pass, you work. Fail, you don’t.

My life is comfortable. I can afford anything I want.

I’m still just as alone as ever. But as I was told multiple times: I have no right to be upset or sad about anything. I have money and comfort.

What could go wrong?

I get comfortable with the job. I study hard. Everything is looking good.

I fail the exam.

No amount of studying could have prepared me for that test. I could not pass it.

So I leave the exam center and head back to the office. Hopeful that with my high metrics scores and positive attitude that they’ll find a position for me somewhere in the company. Windows rolled down, smile on my face, music blasting. It will all be okay. It will be okay.

A mile from the building. My car starts to stutter.

Oh it’s probably nothing. Just a weird, one-off thing.

Nope. Radiator literally explodes. Smoke starts to emerge from under the hood. A lot of smoke. Like I threw five steaks onto a pan with the burner turned a bit too high. Enough to worry even a fire department. The car shuts off. I pull over. I start losing my mind.

I’m crying. On the side of the road next to my busted car. In freezing weather with no jacket. I call my dad.

Dad, what do I do?

Find out about the job. The car doesn’t matter.

I wish it was that simple.

I manage to get the car running well enough to pull it into the office lot. I park and walk inside. Security guy gives me the same friendly greeting as he has for the last two months. It really will be okay.

I take the elevator to the 6th floor. My supervisor sees me walking in. He smiles at me, and catches up with me as I walk towards his desk. I show him my score. His face goes blank. He walks me to the copying machine and makes a copy of the scoring paperwork.

“It’s been a pleasure working with you. I’ll walk you to the elevator.”

I step outside. Light up a cigarette. I’m still smiling.

I sit down on the pavement at the smoking area. I text all my close friends.

Hahaha, hey guys, I got fired.

Then I remember: I don’t have a car anymore.

I call a couple of people. Nobody answers. So next on my list is my friend Katie. We have kind of a weird past but she’s still one of the few people I have left that I can trust.

She answers, “Hello?”

I start to talk.

Hey Katie, can you give me a ri-

It all kind of dawned on me.

I’m alone. I have no job. No car. I won’t be able to afford rent next month. My life is over. I can’t go back to my parents. No, I won’t go back to my parents.

I break down. Tell her the story. She has to work in an hour but she can make time to take me to my apartment. Thank God.

That brings me to now. I went a little over a month without a job. I have rent covered to the end of this month, February. I accepted a job offer that doesn’t start until the 25th. My car is repaired, but I owe my dad over eight-hundred dollars. My credit card bills are due. My bank account is empty.

I’m just as alone as I’ve ever been.

I started hanging out with an old friend the last few weeks. We hit it off really well. But my stupid head decided to catch feelings. I told her. She politely declined and we agreed to keep our relationship as that of friends. It was fine.

Then I got drunk and sent a text that I regret ever conceiving. I haven’t heard from her since.

I lock myself in my room in this cramped apartment. I act like I’m happy and alive to the people I interact with. But I really just want to die. The hardest part of my life is just now starting. I have a feeling it’s going to be worse than anything else that I’ve ever dealt with. I still think of ending it all on a daily basis. I’ve compiled a list of different ways to do it. Ranked them by effectiveness and level of impact. I genuinely think it might be detailed enough for me to be locked up in some ward somewhere. But I know that I’m too much of a wimp to ever do anything. So whatever. If I disappear one day, don’t be surprised. That’s where I’ll leave this.

To any of you I know still follow me, if you use this site:

I hope you’re doing well!

This was all over the place and misses a lot of details that should probably be in there but it’s almost 6:30 in the morning. I can’t be arsed to go back through and add anymore. If you read this, thanks for your patience. I know it’s probably cringe-y and stupid to read. I just had to get it out somehow.

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sciencespies · 4 years

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Scientists took Mentos and Coke to the top of a mountain, for science

https://sciencespies.com/physics/scientists-took-mentos-and-coke-to-the-top-of-a-mountain-for-science/

Scientists took Mentos and Coke to the top of a mountain, for science

Adding pellets of Mentos mint candy to carbonated beverages has been a science fair staple for years. While most ten-year-olds can tell you why it spews up a geyser of foam, certain microscopic features of the reaction haven’t been so easy to figure out.

A chemistry professor at Spring Arbor University in the US joined forces with a Colorado high school teacher to map the reaction right at the crucial moment, revealing intricate new details on the sizes of bubbles that generate the fountain of fizz.

To do it, they went a little farther than the gymnasium or teachers’ car park. This experiment took them almost literally to the ends of the Earth, from Death Valley in California to the tip of Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains.

Thanks to its simplicity, safety, and low cost (not to mention popularity on early social media), the Mentos and Coke activity is a classroom perennial for demonstrating a variety of principles in chemistry and physics.

At a basic level, the explanation behind the reaction is fairly straightforward: carbon dioxide is dissolved into Coke under pressure. Cracking the lid on the bottle changes the pressure, allowing some of the gas to fall out of solution and dissolve into the atmosphere according to good old gas laws.

Exposing more of the solution to the surrounding air allows more gas to escape (for example, if one were to shake the bottle); a Mentos candy just speeds this process up in a dramatic fashion.

Previous studies have shown that tiny pits in the candy shell provide the perfect traps for tiny air bubbles, so when one of those white discs sinks into the drink, its surface provides an expanse of air for dissolved carbon dioxide deep inside the bottle to rush into and fill.

Until now, the exact size of those tiny nucleation bubbles could only be estimated based on micrographic images of the candy’s textured shell.

It’s not a trivial question, either. For carbon dioxide to leave the solution, each bubble needs to provide the right amount of surface area for plenty of gas to flow.

Theoretically they need to be bigger than one micrometre across, but larger bubbles also take up more room, reducing the number of nucleation sites and potentially affecting the overall flow rate.

Since there’s no easy way to capture the moment visually, solving it demands some clever use of key relationships in physics, which means putting numbers to variables such as pressure and volume.

Spring Arbor University chemist (and self-proclaimed Mentos and Coke fan) Thomas Kuntzleman had noticed the reaction is far more dramatic when carried out at high elevations.

Back in 2018, Kuntzleman had a father’s day present he was keen to take advantage of. He had permission from his family to take his favourite experiment out on a country-wide road trip to run trials out in the real world.

Mentos and Coke at different altitudes. (Kuntzleman & Johnson, Journal of Chemical Education, 2020)

“To do so, we carried out the experiment in many places around the US at altitudes that ranged from below sea level in Death Valley to over 14,000 feet (4,300 metres) at the top of Pikes Peak,” Kuntzleman told the science blog Improbable Research.

“We had an absolute blast.”

Meanwhile, he roped in his science teacher buddy Ryan Johnson to conduct his own trials on the slopes of a mountain in Colorado. (You can see how much fun they had in Kuntzleman’s YouTube clip below.)

youtube

They found that air pressure alone couldn’t account for their observations, leaving room to deduct finer variables that contribute to the foaming action.

Combining data from variations in air pressure with measurements on the mass lost by degassing, along with comparisons between different candies, Kuntzleman and Johnson soon had a pretty good idea of why Mentos is a prime choice for this kind of activity.

Their equations suggest those nucleation sites are between 2 and 7 micrometres across, a size that provides a fairly good compromise between bubble size and density of nucleation sites across the candy surface.

Their conclusion is also a relatively close fit for micrographic pictures of the pits in the candy’s shell, building on existing models explaining the famous demonstration.

No doubt the results are great news for the Mentos marketing team as they come up with future slogans. But the real winners will be teachers looking for data to use in training their budding chemists and physicists.

We can’t wait for the next generation of Mentos and Coke science fair posters!

This research was published in the Journal of Chemical Education.

#Physics

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sburbian-denizens · 7 years

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Land of Hollow and Sinkholes

Land for an Anonymous Prince of Void

A Land covered in scary forests and bottomless pits. The planet is covered with trees, ones that have died and whose trunks have been hollowed out by some creature, some have been filled with valuable treasure, while others house terrible beasts. The planet itself has also been hollowed out, the surface is merely a fragile shell, one held up by the hundreds of mighty pillars that connect it and the planet’s core. The Consorts have taken to building their homes upon the edges of the pillars, kingdoms built upon the sides of the impossible towers that serve as the literal foundations of the Land.

The planet harbors, not only the usual Underlings and Consorts, but also various Umbral Creatures, ones that stalk the silent forests upon the surface in search of their next meal. Usually a Consort that has wandered to the surface world. They are incredibly silent and stealthy, such that their prey would rarely notice them until it is too late. They are incredibly sensitive to sound, allowing them to find prey through their heartbeat from miles away quite easily, but they are also very sensitive, such that they would flee from loud noises. The Consorts have taken to repelling the Creatures through this, making sure that their kingdoms are loud to ward them off, for they would surely invade the kingdoms otherwise. This method has kept the Consorts safe for quite some time.

Then the Denizen arrived, and the Land is falling Silent at his arrival.

He has spread an encroaching Silence upon the planet, allowing the Creatures to slowly find their way to the Consort kingdoms, and to hunt them in their very homes. As he has claimed the very Center of the world as his Palace, the Silence has been spreading outwards to the surface, going through the hollowed parts of the Land to spread from the sinkholes. Leaving the kingdoms for last.

Disturbing Silence

The Silence brought by the Denizen is spreading throughout the entirety of the planet, allowing the Umbral Creatures, beings of night, shadow and dead sound, to spread out of control. The Silence is a double edged sword for the Creatures, for while it negates their greatest weakness, it also negates their prodigious senses. The Silence negates all sound within its area, creating a completely soundless environment that is quite disturbing. Abilities that rely on sound, such as battle cries, speeches, and most Sonic Specibii Weapons, are completely negated. The Silence seems to deliberately leave the Consort villages for last, only coming for it once the settlement has been completely surrounded by a soundless zone.

Most Consorts stuck in the Silence use inexplicably accurate signs in order to communicate, and writing based communications, such as Pesterchum, still work. It is advised that the Player put all their stuff on vibrate, for while they won’t be able to hear alerts from their electronics, they would still be able to feel them shaking.

Miracle of Sound

The Prince must figure out how the Silence works, and that means going into it to figure out how it ticks. Prime locations for research include the Soundless Forests upon the surface, and the Deserted Stanchion, Pillars consumed by Silence and left behind by the Consorts. Both of these places run the risk of encountering the Umbral Creatures. In their search they shall find the pieces of an Instrument, one that could banish the Silence with its Song.

Of course, the Silence always comes back. The only way to banish the Silence completely would be to go to its very roots, in the very core of the planet, and play the Sonorous Song. Only then shall the Silence end, and the Umbral Creatures shall return to their forest.

Once the Prince has destroyed the Silence, the Consorts shall celebrate with an endless party. One with loud music and excited chattering, for they wish to cherish the miracle that is sound and music.

Locations

Ascension Platforms - At the center of every Pillar lies a set of a dozen Ascension Platform, the device by which the Prince may travel through it in a horizontal fashion. An elevator, in other words. Each of them are quite spacious, easily capable of transporting several houses. They are. The Platforms stationed upon a Deserted Stanchion are infested by Umbral Creatures, the Prince must battle them while they are traveling through the Dungeon.

Pillar Kingdoms - A gigantic pillar, one strong enough to support the surface of the planet. Each of the inhabited pillars are dotted with windows and balconies, making them seem like monstrously gigantic skyscrapers. The innards of the Kingdoms are quite spacious, the floor slopes and circles around the center of the Pillar ever so slightly that most would not notice their descent until they find themselves below their original floor. The Consorts are quite lively, having a deep appreciation of sound and song, and a deep seated fear of silence. In the hierarchy of the Consorts, the lower on the Pillar you live, the higher your position in society is. The leader of the Consorts, be they King or President or Pope, sits at the very base of the Pillar, right next to the Gates required to go into the planet center.

Soundless Forests - The surface is completely covered in a Forest, one consisted of twisted trees with hollow trunks, and dotted with massive bottomless sinkholes through which the SIlence seeps. The Forests are infested by the Umbral Creatures, living shadows with red eyes whose entire beings can be disrupted by sound-waves, they would hunt anything that sets foot within their territory. The sinkholes creates a zone of Silence around them, nullifying any and all sound that reach into it. These zones could be as large as a few miles, to as small as a house. When not in a zone of Silence, the Creatures could track anyone through the sounds they make, no matter how minuscule, however they are hurt by any sound louder than normal speech. In a zone of silence, they are away from their greatest weakness, but cannot use the sound to track their prey.

Deserted Stanchion - Once one of the Pillars have been surrounded by zones of Silence, they shall become Silent themselves, and it is then that the Umbral Creatures strike. These Pillars have been abandoned by the Consorts and are considered lost by the other Kingdoms. None but the Umbral Creatures live there, for the rest have either fled, or eaten. Each of these Pillars would look no different than regular Kingdoms, if not for their dead lights, silent atmosphere, and the horrible state everything in it is in. It is quite likely that pieces of the Grand Instrument could be found within these abandoned settlements.

Center of Silence - The very core of the Land, it acts both as the very root of the Silence and as the Palace of Harpocrates. It is here, at the very heart of the Silence and the planet, must the Sonorous Song be played, for it is here that all in the Land could hear its Sound. Of course, the Prince must go through the Denizen before they could play their Tune.

Denizen

Harpocrates, the Silent Child - Greek God of Silence. He has made the very Center of the Land his Palace, and had his Silence take root there. Harpocrates could negate the abilities of the Grand Instrument, therefor his interference must be prevented. How this is to be achieved depends on the Prince, for it is their Choice.

#homestuck #land analysis #land quest #prince of void #void #void aspect #harpocrates #land of hollow and sinkholes

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entirebodyexercise · 5 years

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Altitude Training: How To Live High And Train Low

All runners ought to think about altitude training however exactly how vital is sea degree training if you stay in the mountains?

The Boulder Facility for Sports Medicine lies at the western side of town, in the shadow of Flagstaff Mountain. It is considered as one of the leading centers of its kind in the USA.

A look at the newspaper cuttings uploaded in the waiting space informs site visitors that first-rate joggers, cyclists and also triathletes darken the BCSM's doors as commonly as hipsters in slim pants wander right into the Starbucks on Pearl Street. At 9 a.m. on a Monday, the location is already active, with clients ranging from middle-aged individuals in cycling garb to elderly citizens steering about on crutches. The BCSM is as a lot a rehabilitation establishment for the masses as it is a sanctuary for endurance studs.

I am welcomed by Rob Pickels, among the exercise physiologists on staff. Pickels leads me to the area where he invests the majority of his day, a huge open space filled with various exercise tools and secondary tools.

"That's where many of the action is," he claims, gesturing toward a men sittinged on a bicycle and being addressed by one of Pickels' coworkers. The biker is being custom-fitted to make certain maximum performance and also power when he trips outdoors. Pickels, the Ithaca University record owner in the 400-meter hurdles, is himself is on crutches, having actually fractured his hip two months earlier in a bicycle accident. It hasn't dampened his interest. He leads me to a far corner of the room, where an unpretentiously common treadmill sits.

"This is it," he claims. He raises a clear face mask, familiar to anybody that's ever required oxygen in a rescue or similar setting, from its housing. "We cut holes in it to ensure that people can take a breath a lot more effortlessly." The mask is connected to tubing that vanishes into a console on the adjacent wall surface that holds a flow-rate meter and also stopcock. "This links to a general oxygen supply in the building. We established the flow price at 15 liters a minute, they choose the speed and also they excel to go."

The deal is this: Stone does not offer itself to a real real-time high/train low system. 5,300 feet is small by high-altitude requirements, obtaining below 4,000 feet implies varying a lot farther than many individuals have the time or disposition to seek. Instead, when it comes time for the high-speed reps or tempo runs runners have to mix right into their training in order to shield their racing fitness, they come to the BCSM and also make use of additional oxygen to mimic sea-level problems. It is, essentially, the inverse of exactly how people who live mixed-up degree as well as rest in hypoxic tents deal with their training company.

I ask Pickels if non-elite joggers take advantage of this setup. Yes, he tells me. Not a wonderful numerous, however greater than a couple of. I remind myself that I'm in Stone as well as go down the idea.

At this point I have a great deal of questions concerning elevation acclimatization generally. Pickels' co-worker Adam St. Pierre-- an additional former hurdler and a participant of an altitude seminar at the American University of Sports Medicine annual conference in Denver the previous week, where Pickels offered a lecture-- joins the discussion, which currently includes 3 New Hampshire transplants.

Pickels has actually currently discussed to me, via e-mail, that runners who train solely at high elevation do experience a dramatic boost in sustainable strength when they contend at sea level, but are at a disadvantage compared to sea-level runners that are made use of to training at that intensity. Get in extra oxygen, which not just combats this impact however makes these joggers more potent high-altitude rivals as well-- useful for irreversible locals of high-altitude places who do most, otherwise all, of their racing in hypoxic conditions.

Pickels claims that even marathoners require a certain amount of far-faster-than-race-pace work to be at their finest, so they make use of the center, though maybe not as often as track runners. I agree with him, as my fastest marathons were all preceded by a minimum of a modest amount of track and roadway work at 3,000-meter race pace or faster.

On the other hand, two-time Olympic marathoner as well as exercise physiologist Pete Pfitzinger claims, "marathoners could attain their best at an elevation of 1,500 to 1,800 meters [about 5,000-6,000 feet] because they could still do their marathon-pace runs and other tempo performs at the intended pace." He adds, this technique also functions well for Olympic range triathletes, since they race their 10K run leg at around an elite jogger's fifty percent marathon speed. He also claims that strides (near-sprints) of not than 25 seconds are excellent for turnover preservation since they do not lead to the buildup of lactic acid.

Lize Brittin was a four-time Colorado senior high school state champ and also a two-time Kinney (now Foot Locker) finalist who won the Pikes Top Ascent at age 16, establishing a program record at the same time. She's additionally thought to be the initial person to run to the top of Mount Elbert, Colorado's highest optimal. Today, she runs practically solely on sloping tracks. It's unlikely that any kind of fast runner is much more aware of hypoxia than Brittin. I asked her if she ever before thought she was at a disadvantage racing girls at the Kinney finals in San Diego.

"I only ran a handful of races at sea degree and also didn't actually notice anything subjectively different in regards to rate," Brittin states, "but my train and also I had actually gone over the truth that I would possibly be at a downside in regards to leg turnover. It did appear much easier on my heart and lungs."

Chances are, nevertheless, that Brittin and various other long-lasting high-elevation locals would certainly see a drastic decrease in their track times if they spent four or 5 weeks doing high-intensity honing and also racing mixed-up level.

In the next installation of this collection you'll obtain all the details you want then some regarding the certain effects of altitude training and just what to anticipate from it.

#exercise #fitness #fitness center

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miobambiino · 7 years

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The Sun in Morocco

The avengers take a vacation after a dry-spell in villainy, and a not-so-dry-spell in weather in New York. Steve and Tony get to know each other a little more intimately.

The levels of super-villainy had been very subdued of late, which for once, actually kinda sucked.

Don't get them wrong, it wasn't like they wanted civilians in danger, it was just that they were so, so bored.

Their job wasn't exactly consistent, and now even Tony who had a company on the side, had given the majority of his role to Pepper. Being a superhero did take quite a lot of time away from the office - when they were under threat, that is.

Which they hadn't been for almost a month now. It wouldn't have been so bad, had New York not currently undergoing a typhoon, as Clint labelled it. Relentless onslaughts of hail and rain had poured down over the city, dragging the days and nights on into one grey, gloomy block of time.

The inhabitants at Avengers tower moped around the place, almost begging for something to happen. Once a police siren had sounded a few blocks away, and half of them hand sprinted through the rain to see the situation. A man had stood on the bonnet of a patrol car, and received a wall of pent-up adrenaline from Captain America.

Clint had been in hysterics at the guy's face, doubling over in the middle of the sidewalk.

After that escapade, Fury had informed them he'd received word from local authorities that Avenger intervention for menial matters wasn't necessary. Basically, a polite way of saying Kindly piss off next time.

So they stayed at the tower, watching episode after episode of f.r.i.e.n.d.s, which was exciting for all of half an episode. It was just on for the sake of it now, they were starting to think. Their session of mulling in the gloomy weather was disturbed by Sam suddenly kicking his legs out in frustration - not unlike a toddler about to throw a major tantrum, and whinging out a frustrated groan.

"Oh, come on! Why the hell are we just staying here?" The man threw himself to his feet, clapped his hands, and turned to face Thor, who was taking up an entire sofa to himself, Jane sat haphazardly on his hip. "You - where haven't you been yet? Statue of Liberty? The MET - oh! Empire State Building?"

Thor just smiled and shook his head, "I'm afraid I have, Sam,” he God’s expression was soft and apologetic, “Jane and I have explored New York many times, now," Sam threw his hands in the air, slumping back into his spot on the sofa in defeat with another groan.

"I think he was actually stood on the roof on the Empire State Building last battle? Conducting lightning or whatever it is you do, buddy-" Tony supplied, legs thrown over the back of the chair as he dangled off the edge of the seat backwards. Steve cringed at the sight when Tony moved too fast, seeming as though he might land on his neck and snap it or something stupid and not unlike Tony.

"Aye, a month ago now, that was," Thor sighed, throwing his head back into the fluffy cushion it was resting on.

Sam sat up again, eyes lit up, catching their attention. "C'mon, we have a jet - a fucking jet - we can literally go anywhere, right now-"

"Oh, can we make a trip of it?" Nat supplied from her spot on the rug, legs thrown over Bruce's lap. "If we're needed anywhere we'll get there in a flash, I mean, New York isn't the only place that needs defending-"

"-I don't know, have you seen every disaster movie, like, ever-?"

"-lets go somewhere where it isn't pissing it down, take a break," she enthused, raising an eyebrow at them all as if to emphasise her point - decidedly ignoring Clint’s input.

"A vacation? God, I'm so glad to hear you saw those words" Clint moaned, already getting up and talking to the elevator.

"Where're you going?" Sam called after him.

"I'm gonna pack! Just choose somewhere hot and I'm down - I wanna be out of this shit-hole before dinner, thanks!”

"Hey! This shit-hole was build personally for your use, you ingrate!" Tony hollered after him.

Bucky looked over at Steve, mouth in a casual frown and shrugging nonchalantly. The blonde nodded, considering, and stood up next to Sam.

"Alright, alright - we're going to Morocco, I'm putting my foot down-"

"Hold up, we didn't even get a vote-!" Tony piped up. Around him, the others were excitedly jogging off to their quarters, presumably to pack their things.

"Do you have a problem with Morocco, Stark?" Steve asked, brows drawn together tightly.

"He doesn't have a problem with Morocco," Bruce supplied, patting Tony on the shoulder as he walked past them to the elevator. "He has a problem with you being the one to decide,"

"Oh for god's- don't be such a baby-!"

"I'm not! I'm just saying its not very democratic of you-"

Natasha pinched Tony by the ear as she strolled past the pair, holding on to the smaller man as she went, ending the discussion from heading any further.

Steve watched after them with a fond smile playing at his lips, before striding over to join them.

They were going to Morocco.

The villa they were staying in was buried amongst the rows of beautiful homes alongside the coastal line, overlooking a wonderfully deep blue sea - glittering droplets of golden sunlight off it's gentle surface. The air was thick and warm, filled with an ambient buzz of vibrant lifestyles and comfortable laughter. Their home for the fortnight was half dipped in cool shadow, the top blanketed in an orange glow from the setting sun to the left of the building.

It was absolutely beautiful.

Inside, the floors were coated in intricate tile details, some forming mosaics. Flourishing plants potted in glossy ceramic pots were littered around the space, which wasn't huge, but large enough for all ten of them. The rooms were open plan, save for the bedrooms, and draped in rich colours. The curtains at the windows were delicate, wisps of a sheer fabric that was slightly transparent, swaying in the soft evening breeze from the sea front a short stroll away.

There was a dining room in the centre of the place, which was laid out in a kind of cross design. The entrance hall pointed directly to the dining room, which then branched off to the left into a lounge area - which had a balcony overlooking the quant street below, since the place was raised off the sloping gradient of the hill. The next room directly ahead was a recreation area. The ceiling fan hummed from its spot overlooking the centre of the room, which was adorned with a cocktail bar, stools, wicker furniture, and a plush love seat. The large balcony from that room greeted them with the sight of the sea, stretching endlessly towards the horizon.

Finally, to the right, a smaller room upon raised floor was home to a spiral staircase that lead upstairs to the bedrooms, followed by an archway that extended the wing into a moderately sized kitchen.

Following up the staircase, it opened up onto a landing which branched off into four bedrooms, with enough space that each of them would have a double bed to themselves. Thor and Jane claimed one for themselves, while Tony lunged into one of the large rooms he was sharing with Bruce and Rhodey. Bucky slung his bag off his shoulder into another room, which he, Steve, and Sam decided to bunk in together, leaving Natasha and Clint to fight over the bed closest to the balcony. Clint won, surprisingly, only to realise Natasha was smugly sat on the bed he then realised was closest to the ensuite. Damnit.

Steve and Bucky were still gaping at the place, which Tony had organised last-minute. By the time they'd all settled into their rooms, luggage tucked away, they'd joined downstairs to investigate the place a little more closely.

Steve almost flushed when his stomach unleashed an unceremonious growl, causing a few head to turn.

"Guessing we should eat?" Sam mused, looking expectantly at the others.

"Sounds like a plan," Tony drawled, already headed upstairs, "Meet down here in twenty, we'll head out someplace down by the sea," and with that, they departed to go freshen themselves up.

Fifteen minutes later, Natasha emerged in the entrance hall in a beautiful white sundress, dark blue pumps, and a large sun hat - the brim extending enough to almost cover her shoulders.

"I think I know that hat - that hat abducted me, it did things to me and now I can’t have children!" Clint said, stood in his obscene purple flip flops.

“You have children, stop recycling stupid jokes from sitcoms,” Clint squealed when Natasha landed a solid punch to his shoulder, earning a deep rumbling laugh from Thor as he and Jane joined them.

Thor was wearing a tasteful Hawaiian shirt - as tasteful as a Hawaiian shirt really can be, though, which isn't very tasteful - accompanied by Jane who had a simple pair of loose fitted trousers and a clean button up shirt.

A few minutes after, Steve, Bucky, and Sam jogged down the steps in similar attires - short-sleeve shirts and shorts in varying colours.

"Decided not to go for the hot pants in the end, huh, Sam?" Clint quipped, settling his hands on his hips.

"Whatever, you straight-up look like a Dad from the suburbs, man - purple flip-flops, really?"

“I thought the birds around here were pretty? These ones just keep squawking,”

“If I wasn’t afraid of losing my shooting arm, I might slap you for that, Natasha,”

Bruce trotted down a few seconds later, looking no different than normal except for his shirt sleeves being pushed up to the elbows and his shoes looking slightly more ventilated. Rhodey emerged looking as similar as Steve and the others had, and Tony showed up dressed in a white shirt with the first few buttons popped open, revealing granted skin underneath. His pants were a light grey, and hugged his form nicely - causing Steve to become suddenly very interested with the floor.

That evening, when they returned from their night out, Thor had boldly declared he would start mixing drinks at their bar. This shortly turned into a mixology competition between himself, Clint, and Rhodey. Rhodey was victorious, ending in a greatly put out Clint and a ton of concoctions they all challenged them selves into finishing.

Before one in the morning, Clint and Rhodey had drunk each other under the table - funnily enough, they were also passed out under the table - while Natasha and Jane danced childishly with Bruce, who was more or less merely being caught in the fray. Thor's intoxicating laughter filled the room as he watched his Jane, usually more subdued, dance without a care in the world.

Sam and Bucky were staring each other down, trying not to laugh as they threw back shot after shot of tequila.

Steve watched the scene with a warm buzz from the balcony, having used Thor's mead as a mixer for most drinks just to feel the effects. Tony skunk in beside him, his head rolling back in a hysteric laugh at the scene before them. Steve jumped suddenly when Tony seemed to lose his footing, easing them both into the cool tile floor as Tony continued to giggle to himself.

"Do I need to cut you off?" He laughed, feeling the flush of alcohol on his cheeks. He felt looser, as if his actions were just rolling off of him in their own accord. Which is why his arm wound its way over Tony's shoulders, he told himself, nothing more.

"No! No, no, no, no, no - I'm perfect right now, perfectly fine, I could pilot the suit to prove it-"

Steve yanked the smaller man back down with a hysterical laugh of his own, feeling his smile crease the corners of his eyes. Tony flopped back onto the floor next to him, snorting loudly before humming contently. Tony looked over at Steve, a playful glint in his eye.

Reaching into his pocket, Tony pulled out a carefully wrapped spliff, and placed it between his lips languidly. Steve let his eyes linger over his friend's mouth, lips parted around the joint, and bobbed his mouth wordlessly.

Okay, so he wasn't oblivious to the tension between him and Tony. Everyone knew about it - they were like hot and cold, they bickered relentlessly, started shouting matches only every week it seemed, and had a very complicated past when it came to each other, extending prior to their actual first meeting. But the tension had started to dissipate into something more... interesting? Was the best way Steve could describe it.

It seemed none of the others had cottoned on to the shift in their dynamic, but slowly the bickering became some odd form of flirting, the the shouting matches - which, granted, were far less frequent now - left them both leaving for air, feeling hot and tense, fisting their hands by their sides to stop themselves reaching out and just grabbing for one another.

After those encounters, Steve wasn't ashamed to admit he either retreated into a cold shower, pound the hell out of the lunching bags, or perhaps as on one occasion, take his problem into his own hands... not just figuratively.

Tony looked up at him from underneath his dark lashes, sending a wave of electricity down Steve's spine.

"Light?" He mumbled round the blunt between his lips, and Steve moved his hand into his pocket, suddenly very aware of his own tongue. He cleared his throat and pulled out a lighter, holding it to the joint at Tony's lips.

Tony send a huff of smoke out downwards, peeling his eyes off of Steve's face. Offering it to Steve, the blonde took in a deep breath, held it in his mouth, and released slowly, feeling the warm flood of relaxation seep into his veins.

They sat there for a few minutes, smoking together, passing the item between them tenderly. It was intimate, and usually Steve would have slipped away by now, back to the safety of his other teammates; but Tony... Tony was intoxicating. The knots that had formed in his stomach felt eased under the buzz of alcohol and steady mull of weed. Steve mouthed the end of the joint each time he brought it to his lips, as if trying to taste Tony. It was sensual, and Steve felt himself lean towards Tony - and amazingly, Tony was leaning towards him too.

"How long have you two been hiding that from us?!" Came a loud and very undignified shout from Clint, catching the attention of the room. Sliding over, Clint joined them on the floor, and took a long drag after Tony offered it out to him.

"Oh, my god - I haven't done this since I was sixteen, fuck, that's good," the archer drawled, laying back against the tiles on the floor. Natasha crouched down next to Steve with Rhodey following closely behind her.

Tony pulled out another joint, passing it to his friend, who grinned devilishly. "I hear that, must've been just after college we last did this, Tones," the man grinned, lighting the end of the joint.

"Oh, please, we've done it at least every year on your birthday, honey - don't act like a patron saint-"

“Yes… but in a dignified way! With tumblers of good scotch and leather armchairs - not slumped on the floor like a bunch of teenagers on their first vacation,” He laughed, shaking his head and earning a snort from Tony, who looked as out of it as Steve felt. God, he just wanted to touch his lips, feel the crook of his chin in his hands...

"Cap actually looks pretty out of it, oh, my god - you corrupted Captain America, you heathen, Tony Stark-"

"He ain't never been righteous, pal," Bucky drawled, joining them on the floor. "He's been picking fights and doin' joints longer that you've been a moron".

Bruce let out a low whistle, "that sure is a long time..." He added innocently, chucking at Clint's protests.

"Aw, come on, Bruce! I thought you were the nice one!"

"Yes, I am - but you're still the annoying one".

The rest of them slowly joined them, and they lead under the stars of the Moroccan sky, feeling lighter than any of them had in a long time, and it wasn't just because of the pot.

The next morning, a couple of them were nursing considerable hangovers, and stumbled their way into the lounge, basking on the cool surface of the tiled floor. Bruce was cooking up a monstrous amount of bacon, eggs, and sausage, while Steve pottered around the kitchen scouring together mugs of tea, coffee, and juice for Rhodey - because he was healthy like that.

Tony shuffled downstairs, coming to lie on the sofa next to Rhodey, who grunted a greeting in response.

"Do you reckon we're starting to get too old for that shit?" Rhodey groaned, shielding his eyes from the sunlight that was slowly basking the room in an orange glow from where it peered over the horizon, already enticingly warm.

"Honey-bear, I think we were too old for that kind of thing about a decade ago," Tony snorted, wincing when his headache kicked back at him in protest.

"Well, seems there are some things you're not too old for," Rhodey mused, a pointed look on his face. Tony's expression was hopelessly blank. Rhodey let out a long suffering sigh.

"I saw you last night - acting like a lovesick teenager the way you were drooling over him," he nodded towards Steve, keeping his voice low, as the blonde set down a tray of drinks in the middle of the room. Natasha's hand emerged from the pile of blankets she was absorbed in, fishing out a cup of herbal tea - by some freak of nature knowing exactly which was her mug - without so much as peering through the mound she'd occupied herself in.

Tony stares after her, bewildered and disgusted at how efficient she was even hungover, before Rhodey snapping his fingers together to get his friend's attention back.

"How long have you...?" The man waved his hand around ambiguously, trying to find the right choice of words. Tony sighed, knowing of all people, he couldn't hide anything from Rhodey.

"Couple of months-"

"Months-?!"

"Hey! Keep it down - listen, I don't even know if he even likes me, let alone... You know..."

"...Wants to sleep with you?"

"...more or less, I suppose..."

Rhodey took a deep breath, considering for a few moments, leaving Tony in anticipation of whatever Wise Words his friend was about to offer.

"Well, from a practical point of view, don't get your hopes up - hey, no, don't give me that sad face, I mean, he was drunk and high last night... But, he was definitely interested - more than interested, it looked."

Tony's head snapped up, before he schooled his excited expression into one something more neutral. As if Rhodey couldn't see right through it.

"I don't know what changed, all of a sudden it was a tension that needed to be beat out in a punching-bag, and now it needs to be beat-“

“-Please don't finish that sentence until I don't feel nauseous anymore, Christ,"

Tony grinned devilishly, though they both knew it was genuine. Tony had loved hard and fast for as long as Rhodey had known him, almost always getting himself hurt. Rhodey always found himself picking up the pieces.

God help Steve Rogers if he became one of those people to hurt Tony - there wasn’t an unproductive bone in James Rhodes’ body when it came to his friend.

"Wait! I lost my flip-flops!"

"No you didn’t," Natasha called over her shoulder as they strolled down a steady slope towards the beach, "I threw them off the pier when you went to get sunblock,"

"Tasha!" The archer squawked, looking offended as he scurried down to catch up with her, ignoring the snickers coming from Bucky and Sam from beside her.

"T'is true!" Thor called from in front of them, Jane wrapped up under one of his arms.

"She tied them to a rock, too - those things are long gone," Jane looked mildly apologetic over her shoulder, just as Clint through his hands up in the air.

"Relax, Clint!" Tony called from Rhodey's shoulders - the reinforced frames around his legs giving him more strength to support the weight, "I'll buy you a new pair!"

"Really?"

"Fuck, no! I found the fucking rock to tie them down with!"

With that, Clint surged down the rest of the slope - Rhodey having already dropped Tony after the archer came sprinting at them - as the brunette scrambled back up in the sand, running from the archer cackling madly.

Steve watched as Clint scrapped Tony, tossed him over his shoulder as he waded out into the shimmering waters, and threw Tony under the waves.

They all settled along the beach, it's sands a beautiful golden white, palm trees looming overhead offering patches of shade. They set up chairs and towels next to a cluster of smooth rocks, which Thor was immediately climbing to the top of. The edge of the rocks smoothed out and overlooked the water, extending a go distance from the shore to offer space to jump into the waters below.

The others watches as Clint sprinted out the waters, almost crying with laughter as Tony spluttered to the surface - clothes sticking to him like a second skin.

"It's like a hundred degrees right now, Tones, you really not getting in the water?" Sam asked, plonking himself down on the towel next to Tony, who was watching the others toss each other over into the waves.

"I already have, thanks to Clint," he said without much heat.

The others had all stripped down to their bathing suits - even Bruce, usually more reserved, exposing an impressive amount of chest hair.

And then there was Steve, the Adonis himself. His skin was smooth and water glided off of his chest like silk, and despite his skin being on the paler side, he looked absolute radiant. His golden hair had been plastered back on his head, beautifully exposing his strong features which were pulled into comfortable smiles and laughter. Tony's heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, but instantly felt a pang of hurt at being stuck on the sidelines.

Tony was led back on the beach, having discreetly slipped out of his wet clothes and into swimming trunks and a t-shirt with sleeves that finished at the elbows.

Tony had never been body conscious before in his life - plenty of scandalous articles from his adolescence speak for themselves. But, since the reactor had buried its way into his chest, he was reluctant for anyone to get a good look at him. Not only did it expose a chink in his infallible armour, but, in his opinion, was an ugly, grotesque reminder of the man he used to be.

It was his penance, and he deserved every stretch mark, scar, discolouration, and mutilation the device projected onto him. It was freakish, he knew - Pepper, bless her heart, had never mentioned it save for the situation where she had to stick her hand through his chest.

Ah, memories.

The other members of the team hadn't seen it. Tony hadn't let any photos be leaked of him shirtless after Afghanistan, which was actually rather easy, since he barely took his shirt off at home, let alone in public. Quite frankly, Tony preferred it that way - he already felt like he was the weak link of the bunch, the liability, in some ways. He didn't need to give them all another reason to think less of him. He wouldn't be able to stand that look on Steve's face.

Tony's attention was snapped back to reality when Natasha came to loom over him. He peered at her over the rim of his sunglasses, eyebrows raised in question.

"Miss Romanoff, can I help you?"

"C'mon, join us, Shellhead," she said without preamble, extending an efficiently manicured hand towards him.

Tony shifted uncomfortably, pulling at the fabric covering his battered chest. If Natasha noticed - which she certainly did - she didn't say anything.

"Uh, I don't know, the water makes my hair funny - it the salt, y'know',

"Sure, sure... I could sort it out for you afterward if you like?" She said, playing along with his game.

"People might judge - it's not pretty,"

"We don't care, there's nothing wrong with you or it, Tony,"

"You haven't seen it,"

"I don't need to,"

Sam stared back and forth between the pair at the exchange, eyes narrowed in speculation.

"...I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark here and guess you aren't talking about his hair," he deadpanned.

Natasha tossed him a look that screamed really, and crouched down next to her friend. Sam took it as his cue to get back in the water, muttering something about thinking this kind of thing would be over after high school.

"Since when have you cared what we think?" She questioned, arching her eyebrow at the brunette.

"Well, it's not so much you guys its..." He waved his hands around as if trying to will the answer, "...an individual,"

"Oh?" Nat schooled her expression and glanced towards the group, who were currently lifting Bucky in the air and throwing him into the water while he cursed them.

"I guess it's not me, since you're talking to me, and it can't be Jane, because Thor's strangled you before - and I think he'd break your neck," Tony rolled his eyes, and Natasha continued, more gently this time.

"Kotonyok, he won't care - whoever he is, and if you tell anyone I said this I'll just deny it, but you are a very beautiful guy,"

Tony flashed her a dazzling grin, mischievous glint in his eye, "Nat, I'm flattered, really, but-"

"Oh, for the love of- I regret being nice to you already," She got up and went back to the sea, and this time, Tony followed her.

Putting years of media training to use, and acting as if he didn't care, he shrugged of the shirt he was wearing, exposing his chest. Natasha turned to him smiling, but it quickly turned to a scowl when Tony ran up to her, and scooped her up in his arms, charging at the water.

She clawed at his back, laughing manically, before using her weight to throw them both under the waves.

Tony came up spluttering and laughing, momentarily forgetting about the reactor. He stood up, and realised he'd popped up right in front of Steve, who was staring at him. What's more, he was staring into his eyes, not his chest. His eyes were the most startling blue in front of him, despite being surrounded by the glittering waves around him.

Steve's gaze was interrupted by a beach ball colliding with with side of his face, and Tony winced as he saw the blonde loose his footing. Immediately resurfacing from the water, Steve lunged at Bucky and Sam, grappling them while Natasha, Clint and Bruce hooted.

"Wow- I've never seen the reactor before, only specs from your papers..." came Jane's voice from beside him, as she perched on Thor's shoulders. He gently put her down next to his smaller friend, smiling, letting her inquisitive nature get a better look.

"I can't believe you made it out of scraps, it's impossible - I had such a science-crush-thing on you when I read about it," Tony's gaze snapped up to meet Thor's, hand reflexively coming around his one throat to protect it. Thor's faux-storm gaze cracked into a large shit-eating grin, and he clapped the brunette on the shoulder.

"it is remarkable, my friend - though a grievous wound, no doubt," Thor finished somewhat solemnly. Jane seemed to register the emotional impact the device must've had on Tony's life, and flushed red.

"God- I'm sorry, your probably didn't want anyone saying anything, I get it, it's personal-"

"No, no, it's... It's okay, honestly I thought it would be weird, but..." Tony cautioned a look down at the scarred skin around the reactor, and felt a knot in his chest loosen faintly. "But I guess I prefer having it out there, rather than people speculating about it - it's not exactly something I, y'know, flash about," he finished lamely, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. Thor frowned at his friend.

"Tony, you should wear your wounds with honour, as James does, and Clinton does with his listening-devices - ‘hearing aids’, you call them?" He asked, looking down at Jane for confirmation, who nodded fondly, "They are not to be ashamed of, my friend, they honour you!" The God pulled an arm round the brunette, smiling fiercely.

Steve watched from the corner of his eye the interaction taking place between Tony and Thor, barely noticing Bucky toss seaweed over Sam's face.

Tony looked gorgeous under the beating sun. His normally perfectly styled hair was messy and plastered down his face, curling over his sparking eyes. His skin was golden and tan, and looked irresistible to touch- smoothly running down his muscular yet lean figure, which sloped gorgeously at his ass. Steve felt a wave of warmth run down his body, pooling in his gut, and he resisted the urge to break the distance between them.

The reactor was something else. The skin around it was scarred, pale in some places - similar to bolts of electricity, and in others an unnatural dark hue took to the veins. Palladium poisoning, be remembered. The skin puckered at the edges of the device, which glowed a soft pale blue that gently cast across his pectorals.

Aesthetically, Tony was absolutely beautiful. But in the past couple of became harder and harder not to notice the little quirks of the man's personality. He cared for those around him fiercely, it drove his ambition - developing ways to help them, to keep them safe. Contrary to his initial beliefs, the man was anything but selfish - he was selfless, and under the bravado, he cared frighteningly little about his own wellbeing.

Their gazes met then, for a few moments that felt like an eternity, living his stomach swimming wonderfully. And if Steve's touch lingered over Tony a little longer than anyone else's while they all shoved each other around playing volleyball, the brunette didn't seem to mind.

That evening back at the villa, everyone sat down around the dining table which was littered with poker chips and playing cards. Sam dealt the cards round expertly, and Steve grinned at Bucky who was sat towards his elbow.

Back during the war, he and commandos had played this game religiously. They were experts at poker faces, bluffing, and knowing the hands to play; and they were almost vibrating with excitement at being able to rub it in the others' faces.

An hour or so in, and Thor was out, having lost all his chips. Jane rubbed Thor's massive arm consoling while he pouted. Half an hour later, and Bruce had conceded , though he looked very amused and kept casting glances at Tony, who - fair play to the man - was exceptional. A few minutes later, Natasha also ducked out the game, an air of understanding between him and Bruce. Rhodey hadn't even joined in the first place, instead choosing to overlook the whole game with an observant gaze.

Steve seemed taken back by that, expecting more of a fight out of Nat - it usually took her a while to back down, she only did so if she knew she was going to be beaten. Steve couldn't help feeling rather smug - intimidating the Black Widow in a game of poker.

He and Bucky bumped their fists together under the table.

The other man then shared a glance with Steve, which to anyone else was unreadable - barely noticeable, to to Steve it read plain and simple: I've got a fucking good hand right now, we've got'em.

The pair weren't playing together, but found satisfaction in being the last two remaining. Steve suppressed a gleeful grin expertly.

"I'll raise you fifty bucks, Bucky," Clint grinned, tossing the chips in. They turned to Tony, who gave nothing away on his expression. Steve was practically hanging off the edge of his chair - if Tony fell in Bucky's trap of playing the hand off nonchalantly, Clint would be out, and Tony would be next to go. Tiny had played well, but he was average - managed to hold his own, sure, but certainly didn't stand out, Bucky noted.

"And you, Tony?" Thor questioned, looking intently at the game.

"Nah, I fold this time," Tony said casually, tossing his cards towards Sam. Bucky looked murderous, and Steve almost couldn't believe it - they'd made it look so sure that they were at a disadvantage, hung it in front of Clint and Tony's noses. Clint had took the bait, why the hell hadn't Tony?

Bucky brushed it off, marking it down to bad luck. "Read em' and weep, Barton," he declared slyly, placing his cards face-up on the table, "Full House,"

Clint swore, tossing his cards at the pair before throwing his arms up, exasperated.

"Aw, come on! Seriously? You bait me?" Bucky just huffed out an air of laughter, accepting his cards from Sam, who shook his head fondly, familiar with the two's antics. "Whatever, poker sucks, why aren't we playing Go Fish?" "Nah, c'mon, let's finish the game," Steve announced, clapping his hands together.

"Sure, okay," Tony said, looking at his cards. Tony looked up at them and gave them a shit-eating grin, before quickly schooling his expression into something neutral. It was the oldest trick in the book - a double-bluff, acting disappointed after pretending to be happy at a hand. Steve had to stop himself smiling - it was kind of adorable.

His hand was trash, then.

Steve loved liked Tony, but the man's poker face was awful sometimes. His media front was flawless, but when relaxed around his friends, his walls were down.

Which is why Steve almost crushed the hand of cards in his grip when Tony laid his hand down on the table.

Royal Flush.

"Triple-bluff," Natasha laughed.

"You son-of-a-bitch, Stark," Bucky muttered, folding his hands back against his neck in defeat.

"Gentleman, it was a pleasure-" Tony grinned, scooping his winnings into his arms. "So, just to get this right - each chip is an hour worth of you filling out post-mission paperwork, Steven?" The brunette asked innocently.

Those had been the others' terms to actually get them to play - Sam had let slip how good Steve was at the game, so the steaks had to be raised.

They all fucking hated paperwork.

"Aw, he looks so happy," Bruce commented, before casting a look at Natasha, "think we should tell them and spoil his fun, there?"

Bucky and Steve look up dubiously at the pair, before Bucky spoke up in a low, steady tone.

"Tell us what" He bit out - it wasn't a question.

"Tony can count cards," Nat grinned mischievously, and Rhodey hid his laughter behind his fist.

"I learnt that in our first year of college," the man laughed, just as Bucky set a murderous stare on Tony.

"Now, now - in all fairness, I can't actually help it-"

"You just failed t'mention, right?" Bucky said, voice eerily calm.

"...right?" Tony winced, before shooting out of his seat when Bucky lunged at him from across the table, much to Thor's delight, as he boomed with laughter.

Steve couldn't help but grin.

"You didn't have to do this, Steve," Tony said from the sink, scrubbing the last of the crockery. Steve looked up from where he was drying them with a dishcloth, and smiled shyly.

"Nah, it's fine, Tony," the blonde said, stacking the plate he'd been holding into the shelf beside him. "If you've gotta stay here n' clean while the others go out for your little poker-scam back there, I'll keep you company," Steve quipped, earning a snort from Tony.

"Wasn't like you and Barnes didn't have your own plans going on,"

"Well, our plan wasn't cheating, if that's what you mean - just tactics,"

"Mine was a tactic!"

"Counting cards is foul-play and you know it, Mister Stark!" The blonde laughed, eyes glistening.

"That's a matter of opinion - frankly, it's just an ability I was utilising... Like when we spar, you have super strength! Isn't that a tactical advantage?"

"I can't turn off the serum, Tony,"

"Uh, excuse me? Didn't I mention earlier I just naturally count the cards, or weren't you listening?"

"Oh, I was listening, alright, but I don't keep my abilities a secret to cheat-"

"Cheating is a dirty word, I prefer... Manipulating the situation to my advantage,"

"Which is an asshole-way of saying cheating, got'cha, Shellhead,"

Steve laughed at Tony's indignant squawk, before setting the dishcloth down and wandering out towards the balcony in the recreation room.

As punishment for his deception, Tony had been assigned cleaning duty for the remainder of the evening while the others hit the bars. As a good team leader which absolutely no alterer motive, no siree, Steve stayed behind to help, claiming he felt bad leaving Tony alone, even if he was a sneaky little shit.

Steve and Tony set down and drank by the balcony for a good hour, chatting idly about anything that came to mind. The others weren't coming back anytime soon, Steve knew; Tony was quietly watching the yellow hued moon above them, taking in the breeze that relieved them from the muggy Moroccan air. The hum of crickets filled their ears, along with the occasional shout from party-goers down the street - accompanied by mellow tunes of acoustic guitars coming from a lounge a few blocks away.

Tony looked beautiful, his eyes glistening in the moonlight, soft curls of hair stroking the nape of his neck and flopping over his eyes. He smelled of sea-salt and vanilla, his bare feet hung over the balcony as he sat in shorts and an oversized t-shirt that read The Runaways across the front.

Maybe it was the warm air surrounding them, or the alcohol swimming through his system, but Steve languidly curled an arm round Tony's shoulders. The brunette didn't seem to think much of it, as Steve suspected - it was a common way they all treated each other, it was friendly. Taking a hesitant breath in, Steve slid the arm down until it settled over Tony's narrow waist, and he resolutely looked at the sea in front of him - his stomach churning like the waves below.

Tony stilled, but after a few moments leaned into his touch, eventually laying his head down on Steve's shoulder. Steve bit his lip to stop himself grinning like a mad-man.

"I wasn't the only one who noticed the shift between us then," Tony said softly, chancing a steady smile at Steve. The blonde looked down at the smaller man, and tightened his grip.

"Not exactly," he breathed. God - he thought he'd made some progress in flirting since his first attempt with Peggy, but Tony made him feel simultaneously like he was a scrawny kid from Brooklyn all over again, and like he was on cloud nine.

"Y'know... I gotta be honest with you, Tony... When this first started happening, I didn't think much of it," Steve mumbled, barely able to hold Tony's gaze. "I jus' thought it was a step-up from being at each other's throats - bet then it just kept going up, and it still hasn't stopped," he wet his lips before continuing.

"Somehow, you make me feel not only like I'm that skinny kid from Brooklyn, but also like I'm on cloud nine... like, like I'm the most important thing in the room, yet so small and, and weak in the knees when you so much as smile, I don't know how you do it, Christ, you create this impossible... dichotomy-"

Tony had surged forward then, and firmly placed his mouth over Steve's, enticing a whimper from the blonde, who cupped the back of the smaller man's head and held him close. Tony's lips were soft and pliable, and he moaned gorgeously when Steve led him back against the cool tiles of the floor, swinging a leg over the brunette's hips, pushing him down with the weight of his muscular body and deepening the kiss.

Tony ran his hands desperately through Steve's golden hair, pulling at it gently, sending electricity down the man's spine. Tony hooked his legs round Steve's hips, rolling them over so he could press himself against the larger man's body, rolling his hips against the bulge forming under Steve's trousers.

The soldier breathed heavily, clenching a fist in Tony's hair, before kissing back enthusiastically. After a few intoxicating moments, Steve scooped Tony up into his arms, and pushed him up onto the bar, absently sliding the drapes shut and flicking the lights off as he went, while Tony mouthed on his earlobe menacingly.

The room was lit warmly by the light coming from the lounge and a few floor lamps, casting a peachy glow over the two men.

Tony caught Steve's lip between his teeth, sucking at it irresistibly, while Steve pulled Tony by the hips. The blonde then pushed Tony back against the surface of the bar, absently knocking shot glasses to the floor - oblivious to the way to crystal shattered against the tile. Steve climbed over Tony, running his hands over the man's body, mouthing at his olive skin.

"This isn't-" a wet kiss to the cheek, "-too much-" a bite on Steve's neck, "-too soon," a dirty kiss over the lips, "-is it?"

The blonde responded by lifting the brunette again, who cackled in delight, holding him up with one arm and stripping himself and Tony of their shirts, kicking the wicker armchair out the way and laying down against the dining room table. Their bodies glided over each other, slick with sweat and heat, feverishly kissing each other as if desperate for air.

Tony's hands made quick work of Steve's belt, cupping his groin and shimmying his pants over his hips. Manoeuvring off the table, which now had previously-neatly stacked cards scattered and crumpled everywhere, the two slammed against the wall on the entrance hall.

Tony sunk to his knees, running his hands down the length of Steve's gorgeous body, muscles flexing and tightening under the touch.

Steve swore when Tony took him inside his mouth, making him throw one arm over his face and another to the back of Tony's head. Steve pushed the brunette's head deeper, thrusting forward into the movement. Tony expertly got him off with just his lips and tongue, humming strategically, Steve barely able to stop himself sliding down the wall. He gripped at the handle of the banister, which gave way under his strength.

"Holy shit, holy shit, Tony," the man moaned, hips jutting forwards as if they had a mind of their own.

When Tony came off him with an obscenely wet noise, Steve hauled him up and carried him up the winding steel staircase - barely able to pull up his pants long enough so he didn't trip over them.

Steve pressed Tony against another wall just before the entrance of his bedroom - forgetting completely it wasn't just his right now - biting at the man's lips, sucking on his tongue, winding his hands through soft brown locks. Tony wrapped his legs round Steve's waist, rocking forward desperately, heaving in breathes between frantic kisses.

Steve pushed them off the wall, and kicked the door shut behind them one they were inside the room, sending a crack through the plaster of the doorframe. He led Tony down gently on his mattress, despite the passion of the moment, because ultimately this was special. This man drove him wild, and it had taken all the strength in his super-enhanced body not to jump Tony's bones the moment he had him under his lips.

They tossed their remainder of their clothes away, ignoring where they landed, so long as they weren't governing a strip of Tony's gorgeous body.

Steve kissed the reactor, feeling Tony still at the intimate gesture. Steve just carried on, delicately touching the edges while sucking hickeys into the skin around the device. Tony whimpered, and pulled Steve back to his lips, gave him everything.

At one point Steve had leapt off the bed towards his duffle bag, tipping out the contents of a toiletry bag before emerging with a discrete-looking tube and a brightly wrapped condom. He threw himself back between Tony's legs, laughing brightly, full of utter delight. God, he loved this man.

He worked the brunette slowly, so gently Tony felt his entire body flush, his heart skip a beat, moaning obscenely when Steve curled his fingers. Tony stroked Steve idly, with each pull earning a delightful moan from the soldier.

At some point, Steve was rolling his body against Tony's, turning over, running hands over each other and arching into the pleasure. The air was heavy and hot, interrupted only by a soft breeze from outside that carried waves of music and nightlife. Steve held Tony, rocking into him rhythmically, pressing their foreheads together, eyes meeting, lips ghosting over each other, immersed in absolute bliss.

It was three in the morning when the others stumbled out of the last karaoke bar, wandering down the cosy streets towards their home for the next week and a half.

Natasha and Rhodey had their arms around Clint, who was still singing horrendously, while Bruce and Jane babbled excitedly over absolutely anything - from the mixture of chemicals they'd been throwing back all night (save for Bruce, who'd stuck to juice and pot, thanks to Tony), to the sea of stars blanketing the night sky above them. Bucky, Sam, and Thor were running between the group like excited children, sparring casually and jesting.

"-Baby you got me like Gah-ah-ah-ahd, whoo! Gah-ah-ah-ahd!"

"-Clint, for the love of-!"

"-don't you stop-" belch "-lovin' me, don't quit lovin' me, jus'- fuck, oh fuck there's loads of saliva in my mouth, Tasha-"

Rhodey side-stepped out the archer's trajectory, missing the bile Clint retched up, while screwing his face up in disgust, though laughing wildly.

"You've been bested, Hawkeye!" Thor jeered, pulling Bucky into a firm grip round the man's shoulders. "I thought you would be wise enough to realise-!" another belch "-the mighty son of Odin cannot be beaten!"

"He drank you under the fuckin' table, man!" Sam cackled, swinging off of Thor's other arm.

"Ugh, whatever - if we played darts like originally planned, your ass would be kicked, buddy,"

They approached the steps leading up to the entrance of their home, when Bruce scooped what looked like a t-shirt off the cobbled road.

"The Runaways - why the hell is Tony's shirt on the street?" The man questioned, looking bewildered. Rhodey's eyes widened, and he resisted the urge to burst into laughter. Son-of-a-bitch actually did it. He kept his mouth shut.

Making their way through the entrance, they immediately were taken back by the scene in front of them.

"What the fuck? Were we robbed or somethin'?" Sam slurred, staring at the scene that greeted them. Shattered glass, knocked over furniture, hell, even cracks in the plaster.

Nat strolled forward, steadying herself on the table, before holding out another shirt in her hand.

"Nope. Not robbed." Bucky took the shirt from her hands, and furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Why is Steve's...?

Oh.

"Holy shit,"

"What?" Clint asked.

Bucky took the other shirt from Bruce's hands, and held the two up together, eyebrows raised. Realisation settled over the group like a thick cloud.

"Holy shit!"

Steve woke up his his head smushed in the same pillow Tony was lead on. His head felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton, but one thing was clear, his night with Tony was perfect.

Smiling, he felt the smooth curve of the brunette's hipbone under the plush covers, smiling into Tony's hair - breathing in its comfortable scent.

After a moment, the hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he pushed himself up from the bed from being led on his front. Turning over, he stopped abruptly mid stretch to find his teammates grinning devilishly from the doorway. Save for Clint, who was flat out howling with laughter.

"Oh - piss off!" He lobbed a pillow at the group, who all scattered with varying noises of horror and disgust at the projectile.

"Burn it! I don't even wanna think about what they did on that thing - fucking burn it!"

Steve just groaned, slumping back into the mattress. Tony's big dark eyes gazed back at him, bleary with sleep. He hummed in confusion, and Steve pressed a kiss against his forehead, salty with sweat.

"Go back to sleep, sweetheart,"

And he did.

When they descended the stairs into the kitchen in the morning, they were met by a sea of mischievous smiles.

Steve was clad in just sweatpants, while Tony had thrown on a pair of boxer shorts and a shirt much too large for him that it almost fit him like a dress. It was pretty adorable.

"I take it you've worked up quite an appetite?" Bruce asked with amusement light in his tone, as he played up two more omelettes.

"You know they did - you did see what they did to the place, right?" Clint laughed, while Rhodey stood in the middle of the room, despite their being plenty of seats.

"I don't know how you lot are doing it - eating off that table - I ain't touching anywhere until I know exactly whoever they've been," he shook his head, digging into his breakfast. The others all stopped eating, looking horrified by the suggesting, and distancing themselves from the breakfast island in the kitchen.

"We didn't do it in the kitchen!" Steve blurt out, dragging a hand over his face.

"Yeah, just the bar, the table, the walls, the stairs..."

"I will hurl this at your head, Tony," Natasha said mildly, twirling a fork between her fingers. Her eyes were sparkling though, clearly seeing the humour in the situation.

After the jokes settled down and they were all tucking into their food, Sam piped up again.

"Okay, I gotta know - how drunk did you two get to actually sleep with each other?" The man asked incredulously, earning a few curious looks from the others.

"I ain't never seen Stevie that drunk before," Bucky smirked, poking at his bacon.

Steve shared a meaningful look with Tony, who hid a smile in his coffee mug.

"Uh, actually - not that drunk," he added casually, immediately stuffing his mouth full of toast.

The following silence could be cut with a knife. Rhodey just smiled to himself, feeling oddly gleeful for his best friend; since coming downstairs, Tony had been deliriously happy, humming softly to himself.

"So... You meant to fuck each other?" Clint asked, and Natasha cuffed him on the back if the head.

“As eloquently put as always, Clinton,” Tony said sweetly, while fixing the archer with a devious stare.

They settled into a comfortable almost-silence, the sound cutlery scraping against crockery, the sounds from the street outside filling the room like music, while the occasional moments of chatter built up among them.

“Come on, really?”

The group paused their eating to look at Bruce, who had opened up the dishwasher to get another glass for the juice which was rapidly declining among them.

“What?”

“You had one job, Tony, and you didn’t even finish it - all you had to do was turn it on!”

“I did turn it on!”

“The dishwasher, Tony, not Steve,”

Bucky practically snorted milk out of his nose next to Sam, who was hiding a smile behind his coffee mug.

“Well,” the engineer said, casting his eyes up to meet Steve’s, which were dancing as wildly as his own were with joy and amusement, “You got me there.”

#stevetony #stony #fanfiction #avengers fanfiction #stony fanfiction #steve roger #tony stark #avengers team #i cba to tag all the characters

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