#today at work i was cutting glow sticks in half for our craft and i was not wearing any gloves so i got minor chemical burns <3 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

staandreamteam · 4 years

Text

“YO, SOMEONE CLIP THAT!” (1)

Excitement

a feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness.

"YES! I WENT TO THE SECOND STRONGHOLD, HA HA!"

(In this Minecraft fanfiction, you actually spawn INTO the game of Minecraft, and feel pain and damage, adding to the tension.)

"Hey, you lovely degenerates! Star here, and today we're going to be playing Minecraft Manhunt, based on the ever-popular YouTuber Dream, along with his friends! No, I don't have anyone to play with, so today, it's Minecraft Youtuber vs. Terminator! Woo-Hoo!" The chat erupted into claps, or well, saying claps as you adjusted the (favorite color) headset on your head. It wasn't normal for them to get this much attention, more or less 700 viewers on their stream. You gave a small chuckle at it, as you loaded up the famous Minecraft screen, the soft glowing of the screen illuminating your (skin color) face as you gave your most signature grin. Loading a random world and updating some of your other platforming games, you found yourself in a mushroom biome, one of the rarest biomes in the games. No trees, which meant that you had to make a literal break for it after you spawned the terminator in.

Pulling up the chat, everyone was spamming "RUN" "GO" or something along those lines. Giving a small chuckle, and flirting your (eye color) eyes around the surroundings, you found that there was a shipwreck, maybe 100 blocks off from the spawn.

"You guys ready?"

Spawning the terminator in, you found yourself quickly running off towards the shipwreck, while you heard heavy footsteps behind yourself. Moving towards the mushroom biomes, you took the time to actually get some of the mushrooms from the ground and giant ones above, making sure that the terminator was always one step behind you as you took off towards the water. Dirt sounds were being built as you dove into the water, the small bubble of airs popping in front of you as you swam your way towards the shipwreck. Thankfully, it was on land, so you didn't have to worry about swimming all the way down towards the bottom of the ocean in hopes of trying not to drown.

Seeing that it was capsized, you quickly got onto the ship, searching around for the chest. Enchanted leather boots and helmet, iron and gold ingots, and some emeralds. Not a good find, but at least it offered some protection in the ways that you could protect yourself from the terminator.

"Oh boy.. I need wood."

Mumbling to yourself, you didn't realize that you were way behind on your normal schedule and that the terminator was getting closer than you had expected. Collecting only two pieces of wood from the shipwreck, you dove back off, but nothing was around. Seaweed and everything else yes, but nothing was really around for you to get past this guy without having to go and try to fight him off. You knew he did about 5 hearts of damage, so a combo on yourself would definitely kill you right here and there. You couldn't fight him off with a stick, no less than you had enough iron nuggets to only make two ingots.

Thinking about it, you started to realize you heard dolphins. Dolphins, by the shore? Well, that was a bit surprising. Seeing the dolphin to the side, you swam quickly up to the shore, seeing that the dolphin had already given you the effect of fast swimming. Letting out a chuckle, and flipping the terminator off, you swam off quickly, and in a little of given time, you were very far away from them, the dolphin finally leaving you as you made your way to shore. Grabbing some of the sand and throwing it into the water after you hauled yourself from it, you made your way through the birch forest, grabbing whatever you could to make a crafting table and an iron sword for protection. Making some gold ingots as well and cutting down some more leaves for apples, you decided to check in on your chat, and boy were they going wild.

THEY DID A DREAM SFKDLSAJFKDAS DREAM IS LITERALLY QUAKING ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT DREAM'S ALTER EGO, BECAUSE-

Literally, all you could do was laugh, trying to convince them that no, they weren't Dream's alter ego, and two, it was just pure luck, not a Dream move. If they hadn't noticed the shipwreck earlier, you wouldn't have even made it this far in the game. Now knowing that you had at least a crazy lead on him, and you can respond to some of the donations (which you literally told them not to, but thanks anyway for the crazy donations) and pulled them up, starting to get to work on how they should get to the nether while mining in a cave.

"Since we're so far ahead, let's go ahead and read some donations from our lovely degenerates! Fluffy123 says 'That was such a dream move, poggers', with 5 dollars! What have I told you guys about donations up to 5 dollars?! I don't need it! But thanks anyways Fluffy, I didn't know I can pull off such a Dream move!"

"DreamTeamSimp says 'When are you going to collab with Pixel again?' Well, after a bit! She's currently moving into her own house, so maybe in a week or so, you're going to see some more Minecraft and Fall Guys collabs with us! And 3 dollars! Thank you so much!"

"TommyPoggers says 'If you could have any wish, what would it be?' for 4 dollars! Thank you, and to answer your question Tommy, for us to stop having COVID-19. I don't REALLY want everything to go back to the way it was, but if I had to choose, it would be that, even though the earth does well without us, and it's beautiful anyway!"

"DreamWasTakenToMars says 'Would you actually do a collab with Sapnap if you could?' for 99 cents! Awww, thank you! And yeah, I would! Y'all, he even said 'Baka' on a stream, causing all of us weebs and geeks to go wild, so heck if I could, I definitely would if I could!"

After reading the donations, you continued to talk with your chat, making sure that everyone was doing okay before you started to go back to concentrating on the game at hand, yelling a small yes in triumph as you found diamonds, RIGHT above the diamond level.

"well, at least I'll die happily!"

"POGGERS! LET'S FREAKING GO!"

You had knocked the terminator in the void, and right before you could fall in too, you placed a water bucket on the end stone above you, climbing up the water before quickly grabbing it back into the bucket. Running back to where you had the beds ready, you dodged the nearby endermen as you placed down the water in the small end hole, blocking yourself with stone as you placed the final bed. Watching everything unfold, your viewers had grown from 700 to at least 1,000 in the span of the 3 hours you were playing.

The bed blew up, the dragon unleashing a growl of pain before exploding in a nearby light, causing you to look down as the portal below you showed the purple glowing of the end, as you fell through. The end of Minecraft, as you found yourself back in the real world, watching your chat say so much loving stuff you couldn't help but laugh. Donations were flooding, hearts were booming, people were actually subscribing as you gave another laugh, adjusting the microphone in front of your mouth, giving your favorite viewers a salute.

"Pog. We did it, we beat Minecraft, with a literal robot on our tail. Poggers! And thanks to everyone that donated during the stream, I hope I read all of yours! Now, let's get to naming some of the last donations that actually happened during the final moments!"

"Jason says 'that was absolutely incredible! Dream has competition.' Jason, no. I will never be as good as the Minecraft speedrunner himself, but thanks for saying that! Oh! And thank you for the 2 dollar donation, it really means a lot!"

"SappyNappy says 'don't you just love it when you get to the end' with a TEN DOLLAR DONATION?! HOLY MAN, YOU'RE LIKE THE TOP DONATOR! THANK YOU! And yeah! It's the feeling of you ending out of that relation that makes it feel so good!"

Everyone was still celebrating in the chat as you read the chat to them out loud, laughing, smiling, fussing, whatever came your way, you would try and answer it as quickly as possible to get to the next person with a question. You had gone by Star for at least a month now, gaining some sizable attention for playing Minecraft colorblind like George, half the world was missing plus blocks had gravity like Sapnap and Minecraft Manhunts but with some special twist on them like Dream. You didn't mean to accidentally copy what they were doing, you were just doing it for fun, for your viewers, and for your enjoyment!

"Alright alright, you lovely degenerates! That is it for this stream of "Minecraft Youtuber vs. Terminator! As always, poggers, simps, and everyone else in between have a lovely day, and I'll see you, IN THE NIGHT-TIME SKY!"

You gave a small wave, with a closed eye smile before going offline, many people saying bye before you closed down your twitch stream. Now, to any of you wondering, yes you do have a twitch account, with at least 1k people who are really much the best people you could ever ask for. You found your phone buzzing on your bed, as you pulled up the shut down button for your computer, seeing that your phone was going absolutely bonkers.

Giving a small groan, you got up, and just flopped on your bed as you looked at your twitter, and boy oh boy, it was going INSANE with clips of you outsmarting a computer once again, and again, and you had to chuckle at everyone, throwing your phone to a nearby charging station, and flopping into your bed, you silently started to doze off, the fan above you slightly moving your (hair color) (hair length) hair as you snored slightly. You never did really check all of your messages though.

WiblurSoot: Damn, Dream has competition now, do we?

DreamWasTaken: Stfu @WiblurSoot, you bully your Minecraft fans in your bird videos.

5.1 pages, 1,760 words

#dreamteam dreamsmpwar dreamsmp dream sapnap xreader genderneutral georgenotfound wilbursoot fanfiction hi

3 notes · View notes

crystaljins · 5 years

Text

Sweet danger

Characters: Seokjin x reader

Word count: 1.9 K

Synopsis: 4. mafia!au + 3. meet cute + 17. “ hold your fire! ” [drabble game]

Notes: This one took a long time because I have to admit, mafia aus are too dark for me. I get too scared to write them lol. Like how do I write something romantic about a character who does all the nasty stuff associated with an organised crime ring? And then I thought “Huh but what if they don’t do that” and thus this drabble was born. Also I know you requested quote 19 (which is really popular for some reason???) but that’s already been done so I chose my own one. And I picked a member too. Enjoy!!

Eatjin’s bakery is a pleasant sort of place. It has rosy pink walls and the air smells of vanilla and sugar. The tables are pure white with carefully crafted edges that looks like vanilla frosting on the edge of a cake. The entrance, a simple glass door that lets passers-by peer curiously into the interior, is protected from rain by a bright pink and white striped awning. On either side of the white door are two carefully kept flower beds, with brightly coloured flowers lovingly chosen by the owner. And in the centre of the glass door is gold calligraphy proudly proclaiming the name of the bakery, ones that match perfectly with the elongated golden door handle. The metal is cool as you shakily wrap your fingers around it.

A bell chimes brightly as you push the door open. No one else is inside, currently, which is exactly what you need. You don’t need anyone else to witness your current state. You’d managed to wash the dirt and grime out of your hair, and a thick layer of makeup conceals the dark circles under your eyes. So you look presentable, at least. As presentable as you can be in your current situation.

“One moment!” A warm, friendly voice calls from somewhere in the back of the bakery. You want to cry that you don’t have a moment to spare, but you suppose it’s a good opportunity to gather your wits and composure before meeting the owner of the voice. Because said voice belongs to the owner of the bakery you now stand in, the only person in this world who can help you- retired head of the mafia and formerly the deadliest man in the world, Kim Seokjin.

“You’ve come at the right time!” The man himself cries as he steps into view. He’s handsome- warm eyes and carefully combed hair. It’s dyed purple, an odd choice that clashes a little with the pastel pink button down tucked into pure white trousers he is wearing. However, when coupled with the white soda-jerk-hat with bright pink outlines, he looks perfectly at home in the bakery. Surrounded by cupcakes and the smell of freshly baked cookies, no one would never guess at Kim Seokjin’s past. You, in particular, have walked past this bakery on numerous occasions and never even spared a thought to the who the owner might be. “Yoongi just finished a fresh batch of our famous raspberry and white chocolate cookies. The recipe is to die for.” He’s looking down, dusting flour off his fingers, and when he looks up, he offers you a warm smile. The warmth and kindness of his expression is in direct contrast to the sudden sharpness of his gaze and the way he seizes you up, however.

“You look guilty for being here.” He says abruptly, stepping up to the counter and leaning against the glass display. “Let me guess- you’re breaking a diet. Don’t worry. I’m here to help you.”

He steps out from behind the counter and begins to walk up to you. You aren’t expecting it and take a few panicked steps back. He pauses, surprised at your skittishness, and arches an eyebrow.

“No need to be afraid. I was just trying to say that the cupcakes in this display happen to be called the ‘diet-breakers’.” He explains, gesturing to a case full of cupcakes decorated with perfect icing flowers in various colours, not unlike the flowers in the pots on either side of the entrance. He tilts his head and smiles strangely- it sends a chill down your spine, the way it is both charming and practiced but somehow eerie and a little mean. “Unless it’s not the cupcakes you’re afraid of… but me?” He suggests. You swallow and take another fearful step back. He’s hit the nail on the head- you’re terrified of him. In the last 36 hours you have witnessed all the atrocities the mafia is capable of and Kim Seokjin used to be the head honcho. The pastel pink walls and smell of vanilla can’t cover up the underlying stench of bright red blood that no doubt used to stain his hands on the regular.

“You’re Kim Seokjin, aren’t you?” You say, and your voice is hoarse and shaky. He frowns and nods.

“Well, I am, but most of my customers call me Jin.” He admits. “Which makes me think that maybe you aren’t here to try my white chocolate mudcake.”

You hesitate. He’s absolutely right- you aren’t here for the baked goods he has to offer. You’re here because 36 hours ago your parents were killed right in front of you for reasons you don’t understand yet. And your father had told you with his dying breath that the only chance you and your little sister had at surviving was to find Kim Seokjin, former head of the mafia. And he’d slipped a USB into your hand and begged you to run before blood gurgled up between his teeth and the life drained from his eyes. And you’d tried your best to run like he’d told you to, you really had, but you’d failed. They’d taken her, your little sister and you don’t know if she’s dead or alive and Kim Seokjin is the only hope you have.

“I’m here because-“ You finally gather up the courage to say, but he stops you by holding up a hand.

“No.” He says simply. You blink a few times, before attempting to explain further. He merely cuts you off again. “Listen. If you’re in the know enough to seek me out and call me by my full name despite the fact that you’ve never once set foot in the bakery before today, then you should know this: If it isn’t about my delicious baked goods or a complaint about Yoongi swearing at you when he worked the counter the other day, then I don’t want to discuss it. It’s on the sign.” He tells you, jerking a thumb forcefully at what is indeed a sign bearing that exact sentiment. “If you don’t want to talk about cupcakes we don’t want to talk to you” is what it boldly declares in a shimmery gold that almost mocks you. He steps up to you, close enough that you can smell the scent of freshly baked bread from his clothes and makes shooing motions at you. “Buy a cupcake or leave, please.” He tells you dismissively.

He manages to shoo you about halfway to the door before you dig your heels in. You whirl around and grabs his hands pleadingly. That catches him off guard, and he leans away from the way you crane your neck to try and meet his gaze.

“Please.” You say, and your voice cracks. You’re in agony. You haven’t slept in a day and a half, you’ve witnessed your parents death and your sister, a mere child, could be out there suffering or dead. You need this man and his absurd bakery to help you, to listen to your story, anything. You just need somewhere to go from here, instead of constantly running, fearing that every person who walks passed with their hands in their pocket is concealing a gun or knife. Fearing that in the next moment your phone will ring with a call to inform you that your sister is dead in a ditch somewhere. “I need your help, Seokjin. You’re the only hope I have.” His gaze softens at your obvious desperation and vulnerability, and he’s gentle as he pulls his hands free from your grip.

“I’m sorry. You’re obviously quite young, and if my guess is right, you’ve gotten in a little over your head in that world.” He says. “To which I say, you can still walk away. Turn your life around, friend. That’s the only help I can offer you.”

He turns slowly and it is only because you are staring at his back in despair that you see it- the glowing red dot against the pastel pink of his uniform, centred right over where his heart should be. You’ve been shot at enough now to recognise that a sniper is taking aim at Seokjin.

“Get down!” You screech, throwing yourself bodily at him just in time for the display window to explode and send glass shrapnel spraying across the shop. The mirror hanging on the wall that Seokjin had been standing in front of mere moments before is cracked, what is unmistakeably a bullet lodged in its centre. You peel yourself off where you have plastered yourself protectively over Seokjin’s back and settle so that you are on all fours, hovering over his prone figure. It allows Seokjin enough space to roll over and stare incredulously at his ruined bakery from beneath you.

You’re about to scramble off the former mafia boss when, for the fourth time in 36 hours, you feel the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed to the back of your head. You stiffen in fear and Seokjin groans, staring at the person standing behind you.

“Hold your fire, Yoongi.” He pants, winded from the way you essentially tackled him. “It wasn’t her. Whoever it was, they’re probably miles away now. I know I wouldn’t stick around after missing a shot at the infamous Kim Seokjin.”

The sensation of cold metal vanishes and you sit back on your heels, sighing with relief. You turn your head to find another man with the same pastel pink uniform as Seokjin, though distinctly crueller looking and with a gun pointed directly at you. His eyes hold all the sharpness that Seokjin’s do, but with none of the kindness or warmth.

“I told you we shouldn’t have cut costs and skimped on the bullet proof windows.” The man, probably Yoongi, says, without shifting his gaze from you. Seokjin sits up as well, attempting to shake the broken glass from his shirt without cutting himself.

“I think we’d be the laughingstock of the whole city if anyone found out we installed bullet proof windows in a bakery.” Seokjin says with a sigh. “Although Bullet Proof Bakery does have a nice ring to it.”

Yoongi holds out a hand to you to help you up. You gratefully accept and take stock of your injuries. A few minor cuts from the glass but otherwise you think you’re ok. Seokjin follows suit and gets to his feet. He stares despairingly at his bakery for a moment.

“I retired from the mafia business because I wanted to run a bakery in peace.” He says with a long, burdened sigh, and he looks like he might cry. He turns to you. “Still, despite the trouble you’ve brought to my doorstep, I’m not an ungrateful man. You saved my life, so in return I’ll give you a chance to explain: Why do you need my help and why did I just get shot at?”

You stare around at the ruined bakery, and at the way the windows are open to the street outside. At any moment, any one could walk by and attack you. And as far as you know, Seokjin is the only person you can trust to help you now, so any eavesdroppers would definitely be detrimental to your cause.

“First,” You say slowly. “Why don’t we go somewhere more quiet?” The weight of the USB in your pocket feels like a thousand pounds and you feel like it is burning your skin. “It’s a long story.”

One that you don’t have all the answers to yet, but hopefully the man in front of you does.

He’s your last hope, after all.

#seokjin x reader #kim seokjin x reader #jin x reader #bts scenario #drabble game #writing

65 notes · View notes

everlarkficexchange · 5 years

Text

By the Book

Author: @hutchhitched

Prompt 94: Smut. Hot, sweaty, passionate, loving, smut. Everlark has to be married and it can only be the 2 of them. No three-somes or switching partners. [submitted by anonymous]

Rating: E

Summary: Peeta’s an author away on a book tour, and his wife Katniss misses him. When he returns, he finds Katniss has been reading a smut book during his absence.

“Oh my God, Peeta! Listen to this.”

“Kat, sweetheart, I’d rather talk to you.”

“Shhhh! This is fantastic. ‘Esmerelda groaned as he parted her and slid inside, splitting her in two with his girth. She didn’t want to beg, but she couldn’t help it. She needed him to quench the burning fire in her loins with his drenching juices.’ What the fuck? That’s not even worth the dollar I paid for it.”

Peeta chuckles and shakes his head. “You’re right. That’s terrible. Don’t ever let me write something that bad, and stop buying books at garage sales thinking you’re going to find decent literature.”

“Deal,” I agree and throw the book onto his side of the bed. I hate that it’s empty, and I cannot wait for him to get home to me. “How’s the tour going?”

“It’s good. Really good,” he says. “I miss you, though. Wish you could have come with me.”

I roll my eyes and grin when he sticks out his tongue. “You know I can’t. I have a job. We have bills. We just bought a house. It would have been irresponsible of me to chuck it all and follow my husband around the country watching him sign books.”

“You’re just afraid you’ll punch one of the women you’re convinced is in love with me,” he laughs. “They’re not, you know. Besides, I only have eyes for you.”

“They’re not,” I scoff. “Bull. Shit. Bullshit, Peeta James Mellark. You are gorgeous, you write gorgeous books, and women fawn over you wherever you go. The last thing I want to do is rile up your fanbase. We need the income from your illustrious career, and having your wife on your arm doesn’t help sell books.”

“No, but it’d help me not have blue balls every night,” he grumbles. I pout at the phone screen for a second, but he’s not amused.

“Well, in that case…”

After carefully propping the phone of the bureau, I cross back to our bed and turn to face him. I pull on the tie of my robe, and it falls open to reveal the lingerie I bought after he left. It’s lace, sheer, and his favorite color—a lovely muted orange that glows against my dark skin. I know I’ve made the right choice when he stills and releases an elongated moan that makes me shiver.

“Oh, yeah,” he breathes, and I wink at him before crawling onto the bed and getting on all fours.

“I know you’ll be home on Friday, but I thought maybe this might tide you over for the next three days.”

He just nods as I arrange myself and pose for him. By the time we hang up for the night, I’m positive he doesn’t have blue balls, and I stay up half the night reading Esmerelda’s story and envying her for being in the same space as her lover.

****

“Yes, Prim, he’ll be home in a couple of hours,” I repeat into the phone for what seems like the fifteenth time. “We have dinner plans with his family, so I don’t have time to see a movie tonight.”

My younger sister chatters into the phone, but I’m not really listening to her anymore. I’m too busy imagining what’ll happen when dinner with the in-laws is finished, and I have my husband to myself back at our place. Despite mocking the smut book on the phone with Peeta, there were a few things near the end of the work that have inspired interest in learning some new techniques. I mean, really, I’m helping my husband with his craft. It’s a service to the world of literature what I’m planning to do to him.

I’m leafing through the final pages of Esmerelda’s sexual awakening when I hear what sounds like a key jiggling in the front door and immediately cut off Prim. “I’ve got to go. Someone’s here!”

With Esmerelda and well-endowed partner raised in my right hand as a weapon, I sneak toward the entry and screech when Peeta jumps around the corner and yells, “Surprise!” Startled, I throw the book at him, and he yowls when it hits him on his neck.

“What the hell, Katniss?!”

“I’m so sorry!”

He bends down and picks up the book. His brow furrows when he sees the cover. Raising it up so I can see, he’s incredulous when he asks, “You threw smut at me?”

We stand staring at each other for several seconds, and I have no idea how to recover from the surreal nature of his return. There’s clearly no other way to handle this, so I throw myself at him as well and kiss the red welt that’s sprung up on his neck. Dragging him to the living room, I disentangle myself long enough to lay down on the couch and bite down on my index finger.

“No, I threw the book at you. You should be punished,” I tease, and he suppresses his laugh. Before he left town, we did a little role playing with me as a policewoman handcuffing him for lewd talk and attempting to bribe an officer of the law.

“What are you waiting for?” I demand and pull down the collar of my t-shirt to expose the tiny amount of cleavage I have. “Get inside me. We’ve got limited time, and I’ve been waiting for you all day.”

He leans down and bites my earlobe causing a groan to fall from my half-open mouth. He shivers when my breath caresses his cheek, and I tug him toward me, anxious to feel his hardened length.

His stamina just pisses me off sometimes, and today is one of those days. He doesn’t give in to my rush. Not even close. Instead, he pulls me to my feet and backs me against the wall where he cages me in his arms. When I’m steady, he flips the button of my jeans open and slowly works his hand against my belly and under the fabric that separates me from him.

My knees weaken as the tip of his middle finger grazes my swollen lips. I choke on his name when he parts me to slide into the wetness there. He dips and strokes, incessantly, sweetly, softly, until I want to scream. When I finally do, he finds my clit and rubs it—feverishly slowly—until I’m trembling against him and promising him so many dirty things, I’ll be stained for life.

I’m dizzy with need and desperate for the feel of him inside me when he drops to his knees and presses his lips to the skin just above my panties. He breathes on me, searing my skin, and tugs the fabric past my hips and down to my knees. I pull my right leg free, and he palms my calf and pulls my foot to his shoulder. When I’m balanced, he pushes my knee against the wall and dips his head between my legs.

“Oh, hell,” I moan and close my eyes.

Peeta’s mouth moves against me, tasting and sucking, licking and nipping, burrowing deeper and deeper until his tongue’s inside me, touching my core. He growls the way an animal does when it eats something that sates its hunger, but mine only grows.

In and out. Mind-numbingly amazing. And then he mimics what he’s doing with his hands. His lips close over my clit, and heat scorches my insides. My hands tear at his hair, grasping his curls, frantic and greedy for all of him.

I’m incoherent when I climax, swearing and begging simultaneously. I can’t tell what’s from me and what’s his own saliva when he pulls away and looks at me. His mouth is slathered with moisture and his eyes hooded with lust. I’m so turned on, I can’t stay upright, so I slide down until I hit the floor.

“I want to fuck you so hard,” he murmurs, and my eyes flutter shut at the thought of it. I hear rustling, and I force them back open to see him naked and sprawled on the floor. His cock is rigid and weeping, thrusting upward from a thatch of dark blonde hair he grooms just the way I like it.

I know what he wants, and I can’t wait to give it to him. In seconds, I scramble over him and hover a few inches above his chest. Lowering my head, I trace his mouth with my tongue and grin at his choked response. I clean his face and savor the taste. He coaxed that from me, and I want to enjoy it again. His hands grip my hips, and I shift until I find his cock. I reach between us and rub his tip through my slit, covering him until he’s lubed enough to slide right in. I want to go slow, but a little voice gnaws at the back of my mind. We don’t have the luxury of time today.

“We have to meet your parents in thirty minutes,” I remind him right before we join. He groans, and I laugh at the way pain mixes with pleasure—sexual gratification combined with the reminder of familial obligations.

“Dirty move,” he grunts, and I agree. “Dirty…”

“You like it when I’m dirty.”

I rear back and ride him, and he can’t talk anymore. I know what he likes, and that’s what I give him. It’s hard, bruising, and definitely not something we can discuss at dinner later. When he’s almost there, I scramble off him and grab his balls. His cock twitches, throbbing and angry at the sudden exposure. Contorting myself, I lower my head to take him in my mouth while fingering him with my free hand.

He yelps and thrashes, but he loosens just enough for me to penetrate him before his hips jerk violently and he blows. I gag and choke as the mixture of his cum and my saliva slithers in rivulets to puddle against his pelvis. When I pull back, he strokes himself, fluid squeezing between his fingers and over his hand.

“If you’re done, you better get in the shower.” I don’t want him to stop. There’s something soothing about watching him rub his dick, but we need to get ready if we’re going to make our reservations on time.

“I’m canceling,” he insists and fumbles for his pants. He pulls his phone free and unlocks the screen. He dials his dad and mouths to me, “Take off your shirt,” as the phone rings.

“We can’t cancel,” I hiss, but he ignores me.

“Hey, Dad. I’m sorry for the late notice, but Katniss caught a bug today at work. She’s not feeling great. Can we raincheck?” A grin slices across his face, and he wipes his soiled hand across his chest. The smear of his ejaculate on his pecs is too much for me.

Peeta ends the phone call before I have my shirt off, and he whistles as I slowly bare my chest. I didn’t bother to put a bra back on after I changed out of my work clothes, and my nipples harden under his gaze. Suddenly, I’m disgustingly glad my husband’s sex drive is so healthy.

“Table?” he suggests, and I nod. He helps me up and kisses my neck as he backs me toward the oak slab that graces our dining nook. He helps me perch on the edge of the wood and moves between my legs. He’s limp now, but I know it won’t take long for him to recover. Until then, he has plans, and I’m happy to let him fulfill them. I bend my knees and lock them over his hips. I can feel his heat against my pussy when I wrap my arms around his neck.

“I think I can get three inside you tonight.” His voice is husky, and it does things to me.

“I don’t think you can,” I challenge.

There’s just enough space between our bodies for his hand. Long, tapered fingers stroke me, and I catch my breath when one slides inside. His hips pulse along, mimicking what he’ll do when he recovers.

It doesn’t take long before I beg him to fill me tighter. He adds another finger and then a third. I want him deeper, but he curves inside me until I squeal. Sucking sounds mingle with panting, and I relinquish control and let him drive me past the brink as many times as he can. My eyes roll back in my head, and I slump backward onto the table. I can’t tell when he replaces his hand with his cock, but he must at some point.

I’m beyond reason when his pace quickens. He leans over me and drives upward, lifting me off the table with his thrusts. I know we’re loud, but I don’t care. We answer each other; our conversation in a language we only speak together.

I’m filthy when we finally finish. He pulled out and spilled on my stomach just for variety, and the sticky substance pools in warm puddles in several places on my body. He grins and traces patterns on my ribcage until it dries, crusting against my warm skin as a mark of his hold on me.

“And Finnick said we’d never have sex again once we got married,” he scoffs. He shakes his head and kisses both my nipples before finding my mouth and slipping his tongue inside to meet mine.

“If you tell Finnick you painted me with your cum, I’ll divorce you,” I tease and bite his lower lip. “I know he’s your best friend, but that information is off limits. He’ll never let that one go.”

Peeta heaves a gargantuan sigh. Huffing with faux frustration, he agrees to my condition. “Contrary to what you and your lady friends think, men don’t kiss and tell nearly as much as you think we do. I’m positive you’ve shared more with your BFFs than I ever have with Finnick.”

I snort in disbelief. My husband knows I hardly share anything with anyone but him. He’s posturing, and it’s highly amusing.

“You know what I want to share right now?”

“What’s that?”

“A shower. I am disgusting.”

“Disgusting? Covered in my cum? I am offended.” Peeta’s mock outrage makes me laugh, and I drag myself off the table.

“Get your ass in the bathroom, sir. I can’t take this anymore.”

I’m already under the spray when he joins me, and I laugh when he tickles my sides and kisses me on the neck. I love being married to him, and I really love the feel of his artistic hands washing me clean.

“I love you,” he murmurs against my lips, and I repeat his words.

I’m sated and limp when turns off the water, picks me up, and cradles me against his chest. He kisses my temple and carries me to our bedroom where he places me on the bed. He turns off the lights and lights the candles I keep on our bureau before slipping under the sheets and cuddling me to him. His legs intertwine with mine, and his palm grazes back and forth over my breasts.

“I can’t believe you canceled on your parents,” I yawn and close my eyes. I’m worn out, but I know he has more planned for us. I have more planned for him, too, but it seems he’s on a roll. My ideas might have to wait. Esmerelda will understand.

“We’re newlyweds.”

“Still…”

His hand moves from my chest to my stomach, and he trails kisses along my neck and shoulder. I’m soppy and tingling when he finds my slit again. He doesn’t push or rush, but he’s persistent. There’s just enough contact that I can’t quite forget I’m naked with my husband who can’t get enough of my body.

“They want grandkids, eventually. I bet they’ll forgive us,” he jokes, and I hiss as his thigh rubs against my crack. He’s teased me from behind before, but I rear against him. For some reason, the thought of him working me open makes me hotter.

“What I’m thinking about won’t result in kids.” My voice is deep and throaty, and he groans his approval.

Our mouths fuse together for several minutes. We’re skin against skin; connected only as we can be. When he pushes, I pull. When he asks, I open. When he thrusts, I take. When he backs away, I bring him closer. Sweat covers us. My back slides and sticks against his chest. His pelvis smacks my ass repeatedly. His fingers stroke in time in time with his cock, and I can feel him swell inside me.

“Oh my fu—” he groans, and I hold him as tightly as I can. He used to beg me to help him stay together, and he needs me right now. He clenches around me, and I won’t let him go. I fight my climax, but I’m too close. I warn him, but it rips through me and splinters into a million pieces.

It’s several minutes before I’m cognizant again, and the weight of my husband’s body feels delicious. He shifts and pulls free, and I bite my lip as another groan rips from my throat. Every nerve ending screams in the aftermath of our coupling.

“I’m never leaving you again,” Peeta grumbles and drops a sloppy kiss on my chest.

“Ooooooooor, you could go away all the time and come back to this.”

When he chuckles, it rumbles through my torso. He nuzzles under my chin and holds me as his breathing returns to normal. My eyelids droop, and his fingers glance over my rib cage and raise goosebumps on my skin. I love him more than I know how to say, so I don’t. Instead, I curl into him and fall asleep in his arms. I have only good dreams.

#Springtime Edition 2019 #submission #hutchhitched #prompt 94

90 notes · View notes

ofcloudsandstars · 6 years

Text

✧ . 🌸Beltane Solitary Rituals🌸 *✧

Bluebells are popping through the freshly sprouted glass, blossom petals litter the streets and flowers burst open to bloom on every lawn and ceramic pot as we approach the pinnacle of Spring. The time of the Spring Crossquarter, Beltane, is upon us! It's time to re-pot house plants and give them plant food, sow seeds in the garden, sow seeds of intention and give back to nature. Beltane is nested perfectly within the earthly season of Taurus and near Earth Day and I feel like it's a second earth day for pagans and witches.

Beltane is the sabbat that mirrors Samhain, though it's celebration is completely opposite (fertility and life vs death and the end) it has the same intensity of the Halloween festival. Instead of spirits, it's the fae that is out and about, mad with excitement at the stirring earth, causing pranks, confusion, hayfever and mischief to their victims as pre festival activities as they prepare for their grand fairy queen ball. With other witches I've celebrated this by dressing up as a fairy or spirit of nature which felt a lot like a halloween yet more etheral and mysterious than spooky, yet this post is for solitary witches that don't have their own community to do a whole fairy ball with.

A lot of witches practice alone and have our own solitary rituals for each sabbat that we observe (or the ones we’ve created just for ourselves that we observe alone!) Like any solitary eclectic witch I do things my own different way but some of these things might line up with others practices. I do refer to some of the equinoxes/solstices/crossquarters by their celtic sabbat names but I celebrate them in a secular animist way and treat the wheel of the year I celebrate as more of an agrarian cycle and celebrating nature. I use sabbat names as a point of reference and also people that do celebrate these witches sabbats more traditionally might find value in my personal practice! Here is my personal correspondences post and my personal Beltane tag!

When I am alone and casting spells a lot of it is visualization/intent so my solitary rituals are more like activities I like to do then specifically casting a spell. If I am doing a spell with an activity based on it a lot would be listening to music to get in the mood and focusing on a candle while visualizing for a period of time! Eves are also important to my celebration as I like to stay up until midnight to cast a spell then!

Spring Crossquarter’s Eve

Monday, April 30th 2018

Clean litter around your area This is a great excuse to go on a nature walk and enjoy the wonderful spring weather, yet also please the spirits of nature and make our green spaces more enjoyable and safe for the beings that live in it. Wear some gloves and help clean up!

Enjoy snacks while doing crafts like green pepita seeds, red radishes, gummy worms, pixie sticks, chocoshrooms, unicorn inspired anything, fairy floss, kale chips etc!

Watch Fairy Films while doing crafts There are some movies I hardcore associate with this sabbat. Those being: Strange Magic, Thumbelina, LABYRINTH, fern gully and stardust. They help to get you in the spirit!

Make LED flower lights If you are feeling creative and want to cover your space in glowing flowers you should try this craft! If you can get fabric tulips I think the process would be easier and quicker since you wouldn't have to layer.

Flower tealight bowl If you still want flowers but don't have too much time for crafts, get a bouquet of flowers and cut their stems off. In a wide glass bowl, fill it half way with water, and float the flowers on top. Add tealight candles to light up the piece.

Make paper flowers I have so many of these DIYs saved and they are super pretty. You can add LED's inside too and have large paper flowers glowing in your space! ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 )

attach them to a branch! ( 1 , 2 )

make garland

Hang chimes! Enjoy the fairy festivity by hanging twinkling chimes! It’s a low energy activity that can make the space feel wonderful. Open the windows to let in some sweet spring air and have the chimes twinkle.

Make Flower Water! Simmer lavender petals or rose petals in a pot of water. If it's edible you can use the water in cooking but if not you can use the water as a cleansing wash and to elevate the energy! Get a perfume bottle to put rose water in and mist the air in your space.

Midnight

This night is known as witches night and often has been an evening for ritual dancing and witches flight. It's also a good night to do attraction magic

Bloom Focus on what you'd want to bloom and grow further in your life. Whisper your wishes to the flowers outside and sprinkle full moon water on them as an offering.

Attraction Magic This time of the year things start to speed up and it's easier to get certain outcomes, people or resources to come to you. Use this evening to do spells to attract what you need to create an ideal summer. Candle magic (Bonus if it's floral ) would make a great attraction charm especially for the element of fire on this festival and that you can carve your wishes onto it.

Sex Magic This is a festival of fertility and deep fiery creative manifesting energy. It can pull on the lower energy pools of the body. If you are comfortable with that part of yourself you can tap into that energy and the energy of the stirring earth with masturbation and using it to manifest what you want. Before hand meditate and visualize what you want to manifest. While climaxing focus your energy on that and you will release powerful energy towards that spell while orgasming. You can also charge charms and sigils this way. You can use safe tumbled crystal eggs and 'massage' wands (I always stick to quartz based minerals or glass products since those don't dissolve in water), anoint yourself with oils, burn rose incense, take a self indulging floral bath with flower petals to seduce yourself before hand, light candles, there's a lot of magical tools and magic in general to incorporate into this ritual. It's very self indulging and all about making yourself comfortable and using your own unique energy (plus orgasming on the midnight of Beltane is a great way to bring in the festivity while alone haha).

Spring Crossquarter's Day

May 1st

Dress like a fairy or in florals I love to dress in florals or in flowery lace on this day. If possible you should dress up like a fairy or spirit of nature but if you have to be a functioning human in modern society not many places might accept that so a quieter way would be to dress floral. Wear a flower crown! Make a ribbon wand. Use your own colorology/color correspondences for the ribbons you pick. Tie ribbons in a braid in your hair for knot magic. Wear rose oil or any floral fragrance oil that is your favorite (I am obsessed with hyacinth).

Flower Essences A wonderful form of flower magic is flower essences. It's a gentle way to heal and transform your energetic and emotional body. Is there something you want to let go or manifest within yourself? You can look that up like (thing I want to do + flower essence) and the internet can give you a thorough list. (Examples can be resentment, anger issues, responsibility, courage, feeling loved etc). There are a lot of books on it but flower essence knowledge can be expensive to obtain which I personally find unfair since they can be helpful. A good book if you’d want to invest in it would be the flower essence repertory but google (for now) is free and you can just keep track of flower essence powers in your grimoire and google the ones you need. Find the flower ally that speaks to you the most, order that essence (Bach is the best company) and start today as the first day to take it and note your journey in your book of shadows.

Play fairy-like music I have instruments and music I associate with each sabbat and for Beltane it's harps. They sound graceful like fluttering wings and falling blossom petals. Here are a few soundtracks ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ), fill your space with ethereal music!

Repot plants It's easy to get caught up in life and forget about your green best friends but I like to remember this day as a day to repot your house plants. They will love you and grow bigger and leafier due to it, it definitely honors the spirit of nature within the home and it's helpful to take time to remember to do this!

Make a butterfly feeder Butterflies have come out and about! Make butterfly feedersso they have get a tasty treat!

Make seed bombs Make bombs of local wild flowers (especially the kinds butterflies and bees need) and throw them around in empty grassy lots!

Do fun fairy inspired activities Such as making enchanted bubbles (add a teeny pinch of mica to make them sparkle but not too much or else they won’t hold and add floral fragrance to them) and blow them in a park, play pranks on people you don’t like such as stealing their shit and hiding it in some obscure place, eat sweets (bonus if it’s floral like rose, jasmine or lavender), read poetry and riddles.

Make delicious floral treats The easiest would be to make teas like rose, lavender, hibiscus or jasmine, you can make rose lattes as well (with a milk wand and hot milk with a dash of rose water) or steamed floral milk (pairs best with plant based milk like coconut, macademia or almond). Make floral buttercream to sandwich between cookies or decorate flowery cupcakes with. Enjoy flowery macarons if you don't have time to bake or add gelatin to floral teas on the eve (bonus if you have flowery cake molds to pour it into) to enjoy today.

Have a picnic under a flowering tree The weather is finally wonderful which makes this day a perfect day to celebrate under a blooming tree in a park. Bring spring picnic foods with you like cucumber sandwiches, radish salads, kale chips. Connect with the blossoming trees and do energy work with them. Charge yourself on a carpet of fallen petals on the ground laced with tree roots. Leave some food as offerings to the spirits of nature as well. Let bees and butterflies drink from your bottle cap.

Venture into the realm of nature and plants Massive disclaimer about psychadelics, if you don't know yourself well or don't trust yourself you should avoid them at all costs, but shrooms is incredible and the most wonderful experience if you use them only for sacred and spiritual practices. It attunes you to the realm of plants and the fae, trees will have messages to give you, you can see the earth breathing, the world is alive and we are all connected to this planet. You will remember people you love and you will feel loved, your ancestors will be surrounding you, you can hear the gossip among the fungi, you can feel the stars and planet's gravitational movements in the heavens. As wonderful as it can be, it can be dangerous though to people unfamiliar with it which leads me to say I'm only making this suggestion to the witches that have experience with it and understand it. Beltane is a day a lot of witches "travel" and often sometimes with the use of more intense tools way more complex and dangerous than mushrooms, but anyway on a day to honor blooming nature and the thriving earth, shrooms is an ideal tool to help you access that realm if you have a day off so you can be in a park under a flowering tree and cry over how beautiful tulips and moss are.

Walk barefoot on the earth If the weather is nice, take a walk in a grassy park or in your yard barefoot. Feel the fertile ground charging your body with energy. Do a grounding ritual and some energy work!

Flower magic Like all plants, flowers are also kind and our allies and are wonderful to do magic with. Learn about the various flowers and what magic they are good in helping you with. Make friends with them, offer them water and sing to them. I made a post a while ago about flowers for love and friendship spells. You don't have to pick the flowers, it's best if they are kept alive or if you grow them. But if you happen to pass a florist or have them already picked, then you can use them in your physical spells as well!

Evening

Feast Cook yourself something lovely to celebrate the pinnacle of spring! A great and simple dish is artichokes since they are a lot to pick apart and eat and are a beautiful savory flower that pairs well with delicious salad dressings and vinaigrettes to dip into. Other wonderful dishes can be beet soup, roasted beet hummus with radish + cucumber and asparagus to dip, white asparagus, literally anything with black truffle on it, chive bread rolls, oyster mushrooms, snails with chive and garlic butter, chopped red cabbage salad, adirondack blue mashed potatoes, truffle risotto, something simple and leafy like a tossed spring salad with radishes and purple lettuce. Endives with chopped boiled eggs and roasted beets nested inside, duck with sugar glaze and fresh edible blossoms. Most countries don't have a midspring feast holiday so many people might not be familiar with midspring food ideas but there are a lot of beautiful and flowery dishes in season this time of year to enjoy alone! Not to mention the desserts! Lemon and lavender pound cake, rose meringues, floral parfaits, rose buttercream cakes, violet and chocolate brownies, lilac sugar dusted cookies, candied rose petals, sakura jellies etc. Bake yourself something wonderful and magical for dessert! Also if you like to drink while celebrating, try creme de violette mixed with anything whether it be rose prosecco, plain soda water or a light wheat beer. There are other wonderful cordials too such as elderflower (St. Germain) that you can mix with a white iced tea (or an elderflower iced tea), and rose and lavender syrups you can mix with soju and sodawater. If you love wines you should try a dandelion or rose wine or steep edible flowers in a light wine over the day to infuse!

Leave offerings to nature Leave a bowl of flower water outside, sprinkle native wild flower seeds, mist the plants or sing to the trees. Let earth know you still love and honor her. Leave any extra food you made to your guides that care about you.

#I hope everyone has a lovely beltane!#Beltane #spring #pagan #witchcraft #solitary witch #solitary #spring crossquarter #sabbat #beltane sabbat #activities #magic #spring magic #beltane magic #rituals #solitary rituals #solitary witchcraft #alone #blog beltane

331 notes · View notes

sanderssidesstuff · 6 years

Text

Hecate's Fate - Chaper 4

Summary: Patton's Chapter! He gets his weapon and you get understand how his powers work. Plus actual plot!

Warnings: Food, weapons (tell me if I missed anything)

Words: 4,037 (I didn't even realize it was this long)

Previous Start Next

Tags: @kitsuneprideleader @captainswan618 @freepaperie081 @migraine-marathon @lexboydfandompanda (can't tag you? Contact me) @what-even-is-thiss @bubblycricket @hamilspntrash

Notes: Uh so like I'm friends with a lot of optimistic people so Patton is like the easiest to write, also like side characters are great

Patton woke up the opposite of Logan. When he awoke, the entire cabin as up getting ready. Patton was in a set of grey silk pajamas that one of his new siblings gave him. His new glasses were on a little nook by his bed, the colors threatened to overwhelm him, before he put on the glasses. Patton stretched and got off his bed with a smile. Last night flashes through his mind, getting claimed was interesting, but the colors disappearing was amazing. He never thought of seeing the colors as a curse, but they did tend to overwhelm him sometimes. He silently thanked his mom for the gift and got out one of the Camp Half-Blood shirts and tan pants that he was given yesterday. He looked around for somewhere to change and saw nothing.

"Hey!" Someone above him shouted, "Patton, right? Are you looking for somewhere to change?" He nods and the person jumps down, "You can either change on your bunk or in the bathroom. We have two so take your pick. I’m going to look for our head councilor, bye." The person grabs a blue bracelet along with a white beanie and walks into the crowd of kids getting dressed.

Patton finds the bathroom empty and changes. His face still looked like it had on makeup and his hair was perfect despite the fact it almost always looked like a rats nest when he wakes up. He takes off his glasses and stares at the blurry shape that is him.

Without his glasses, Patton is legally blind, the main reason for that is the colors. The colors, or auras as they are more commonly called, had been in Patton's life as long as he could remember. No one else in his family had this power and no one but his mom knew that he could see the colors. After a few years, Patton figured out what the colors were and how to use them as an advantage.

The colors were what people felt, most people had red, blue and yellow on a daily basis. He saw pink sometimes with couples and black with people who had depression. Patton figured most of it out himself, but some colors still confused him, colors like gold, sliver, and periwinkle specifically. After that major revelation, he had quickly learned he could influence other people’s emotions. Patton didn’t do it often, he just made people happy, but the cost of changing their emotions was great. He’d get whatever he’d change, if he gave someone happiness, he’d get the sadness. He only changed emotions in moderation, and the emotions he changed were ones he could deal with. Staring at himself, Patton saw no colors, he knew that he couldn’t see his own emotions, but he still hoped he could, eventually.

Knock! Knock! Knock!, "Hey hurry up we’re heading to breakfast soon." Patton quickly put back on his glasses and changed his shirt. He walked back to his bunk and put the pajamas back in the chest he was given. Looking at the chiton in the chest, Patton thought about his new mom. Aphrodite didn’t have the best stories about her, she was often jealous and only really had relationships because of lust. Having two moms wasn’t a surprise to him, his mom is pan, but his mother falling in love with such a women like Aphrodite was new. His mom looked for kind women and looking at all the people around him, which totaled to about 15 kids, he didn’t think that it was the type of person he wanted to be related to.

"Hey Patton," someone says, snapping Patton out of his musings, "You good?"

His smile was back on when he answered, "Yes, of course. Did I send mixed signals? Do I need to change the channel?"

"Ok, most half-bloods have a hard time adjusting to having a nice bed and food all the time. I don’t know your living situation, so I had to ask. Oh I’m Gretchen by the way, CC said I could lead you around today. I’m using they/them right now, but that could change so just ask if you have any questions." Gretchen held out their hand and Patton shook it. "We have breakfast first, after we will get you a weapon. You have to have a weapon, before you say anything. Monster will find you and kill you if you don’t kill it first. Now let’s get to breakfast." Gretchen leads Patton to a table and leaves him with the rest of his siblings. Gretchen runs off to another table and kisses a person with glasses. Their aura turns pink and spreads to to other people, then some one pushes them over and says something to them that Patron can’t hear. Gretchen walks back over, still pink, and sits next to Patton.

"Who was that?" Patton questioned after they had sacrificed some of their food to the gods.

Gretchen glances in the direction of the person they kissed and blushed, "Oh yeah. That’s my boyfriend, Joseph. People have been shipping us for years before we got together, he just makes my life complete." Their pink aura grows pinker and Patton realized something. He could see the aura with his glasses on.

"Whoa, you’re pink! How cool!' Patton squeals, "Is it because you love him so much? Because that is sooo cute!"

Gretchen looks down at their hands, "Sorry, usually I can reign it in. Yeah, downside of our mom is that, when I experience extreme emotions, I glow. I can control it sometimes, but I guess Joseph distracted me today. Is that all you’re eating?"

"That’s usually what I say! Does it drive you bananas? Did I catch your grape?" Patton grabs an apple along with some eggs. With the two new things added to his plate, the oatmeal he’d been eating looked small.

"Good." Gretchen musied his hair, then sighed, "Forgot about Aphrodite's blessing. For the next two days up to a week, you won’t be able to mess any of that up. Mine lasted three days and it was terrible. I hate having my hair styled. How about you?"

"It was weird to not wake up with my hair in my face, but I look so pretty! I how the eye shadow makes my eyes pop! And the fact that mom mad my freckles glow! Did you see that yesterday? These new frames also match up perfectly with Logan's! This is all so cool!"

"Wow, I don’t think anyone has said that about their first day of camp. Most are still scared and really want to leave." Gretchen had finished eating by now and was messing with a knife that had appeared out of no where. All around people start to stand up and walk back over to the cabins.

"Is breakfast over?" Patton questions as Gretchen stands up.

"Yep." The p popping. "Now to get you a weapon, judging by your build and height. I think you’d be good with a small weapon, maybe a short sword or a dagger? You’ll know your weapon when you see it. Follow me." Gretchen leads Patron towards the cabins and behind a grey building to a small shack. They open the door to show weapons lining the walls. Bows were near the back now, swords were near the front. Looking at all of them, Patton attempted to grab a spear that glowed sliver. Gretchen stretched out their hand and stopped him.

"Not that one." Their eyes wetted a little, but no tears fell, "That belonged to a brave man and I can’t see anyone else, but him wielding it."

"Who?" Patton stared at Gretchen as a dark blue light started to radiate from them.

They wiped their face and the glow recedes, "No one that you need to worry about right now. Anyway let’s get you a weapon. How about this one?" They point at a sword that was shaped like a leaf. Patton shook his head no and kept looking. After a while of Gretchen pointing out different weapons and Patton saying no, he saw it. It was bronze with a leather hilt. On the side was some writing,

"Loloi" Patton read.

"It means there is always love. It’s fitting for you, as a son of Aphrodite, we always try and find love everywhere." Gretchen translates.

"I love it! This is my weapon. I’m sure of it." Patton looks over at Gretchen who’s face showed that they didn’t think it was the best idea.

"It is a nice dagger, but if you were to fight, you’d have to get in really close to your opponent. You’d have to be quick and agile. Are you sure you want it?"

"Yes." Gretchen sighs and gestures Patton to walk out the door. "

"Put that in the sheath that it came with and strap it to your pants, you got it? Ok, let’s go back and see what the rest of the cabin is doing. Only the Athena cabin really sticks to a schedule, the rest of the campers just go wherever.

Patton stares at everything as they walk over to the basketball courts. He sees some fields in the distance, a few kids making the strawberries grow and goat men playing what looked like a bunch of sticks tied together. Some campers were playing volleyball and Patton saw Roman with a sword, fighting a person with two swords. Roman was not doing well and fell. Patton winced as the sword Roman was holding, cut his arm slightly. The other person stopped automatically and gave Roman an arm to help him up. Gretchen was getting father away so Patton couldn’t see the rest of the exchange. Patton thought he saw Logan talking with Joan when they passed the building that Thomas said was the crafts hut. Gretchen waved at a little girl who was tending to a fire in the middle of the he cabins and led Patton over to Big House. Gretchen stopped suddenly and turned around.

"Oh right! Sorry I forgot I was taking you somewhere." Gretchen says nervously and touches rubs their wrist. "Uh, guess I’ll do my thing later. Let’s go find the rest of our siblings and stand next to me, I get a little scatter brained when I’m left with my thoughts."

"Are your thoughts that a-maze-ing?" Patton asks.

Gretchen snorts, "No it’s more along the lines of… uh. I don’t know what I was going to say, lost my train of thought."

"It fell off the tracks?" Patton giggles while Gretchen just sighs, smiling.

"Are you known for your puns? No don’t answer that, I love puns. I’m not very good at them though." More people pass by and Patton hears a sound, "Looks like it’s time to rotate." The person who checked Patton over yesterday walks by and Gretchen asks him a questions, "Hey! Will, do you know where the Aphrodite cabin is supposed to go?"

"Uh I think you are learning first aid today? Wait Patton, why aren’t you wearing the brace I gave you? Did Aphrodite make it vanish? Here wear this for the next few days," Will pulls out another brace out of nowhere, "if you don’t I will find you and force you to wear it." Patton nods and puts on the brace. "I think Austin will be teaching, with the new kid, other Roman. Unless he’s pouting, he’s really mad that he can’t use a sword. He wants to attack, but his build makes him a perfect archer."

"Ah, where are we going to be, you know the girls will want to sit outside." Gretchen replies helping Patton to make sure the brace is on properly.

"I know, that is why you are learning by the strawberry fields. Austin knows and is waiting. I just dropped off the supplies." Will looks directly at Gretchen and smirks, "You are learning how to treat burns."

"You are such a gorgon. Come on Patton, I’ll show you the strawberry fields." Gretchen walks briskly away from Will and Patton, after he waved goodbye, follows, practically running to catch up with them.

"Why are you so mad about burns? What did they ever do to you?" Patton questions once he catches up with Gretchen.

"They made me miss three weeks of practices and it still hasn’t healed. I walked with a limp for about 18 of those 21 days. I know how to treat burns and Will knows it." They mumble some words that Patton would never repeat. They give Patton an apologetic smile and start to speak, "Sorry, it’s just embarrassing to think about how I got my own burn." They lift up their leg and point at a part of their leg that was discolored. "We’re not going to discuss this ever unless I bring it up. Ok? Coolio, Let’s go!" Gretchen led Patton to where the rest of the Aphrodite cabin was next to the strawberry fields.

Patton focused some what on the lesson, but mostly he was focused on making sure he was smiling. He knew he had a problem with feelings, despite the fact he couldn’t see his own feelings, he would always bottle up the 'bad' feeling of sadness and anger and only feel the one he though were good. He didn’t do it in purpose, he just hid his feelings. When Virgil, Roman, and Logan found out, they had an intervention. They would help him learn to actually express his emotions, and he would tell them if he had a bad day. The only thing was now that he was at this new place, surrounded by all theses new people, he was sure if he could. Emotions were never his strong suit and, despite his wonderful mom helping him, he still wasn’t sure what he felt half the time. He was snapped out of his thoughts when someone tapped him on his shoulder. He looked up to see Gretchen telling him something.

"Whatcha say, Gretch?" Gretchen’s face darkens and they pause for a second.

They growl back, "Don't call me that. That is not my name and no one calls me that." Patton shrinks back and Gretchen realizes what they just say, "Sorry, that is not my name. If you want to call me by a nickname, Goober is a good choice. Anyway time for lunch come on."

"Okie Dokie, then! What are we having for lunch? I hope pizza! I’m a vegetarian, but I love cheese pizza! Are there going to be cookies? Also what are we doing after lunch, anything special?"

"We are going to sit and talk about our feelings for the next hour." Gretchen said with a straight face.

"Well, I’m gonna need a lot of cookies then." Patton started to mentally tally how many cookies it would be, however before he got to one he heard laughter.

"Sorry, dude. Wait are you cool if I call you dude, bro, brother, man, or anything stereotypically masculine." Gretchen looked concerned for a second.

Patton answers with a smile. "I’m ok with it, kiddo!"

"Ok, good, gotta ask. Anyway, do I need to work on my sarcasm again? I thought I was getting better at it. To actually answer your question, we have the crafts hut, lava wall and/or training then a break before dinner. We might not have cookies at lunch, but I know a guy who can get us some." They wink and hand Patton a cookie that they made appear.

"Amazing! You should always eat a cookie when you get stressed, and when your are super stressed," Patton whispers in their ear, "eat a second cookie."

"Whoa, slow down there getting a little excited. Let’s go and eat." They lead Patton to the dinning area and sit down. To Patton’s delight there was pizza and it was vegetarian! Patton at two slices before he got too full to eat.

After the lunch he ate, Patton was ready to sleep, however it was time to go to the craft huts and he was inspired to make some art. The entire Aphrodite cabin walked as a group, gossiping about who’s dating who and the newest fashion trends. Patton focused intensely on everything they say. Apparently, Thomas and Joan were really close friends, but most people thought they were dating, the thing is Talyn and Joan were also being shipped together, so some wars were happening (what boats had to do with people, Patton had no idea). Some kid named Connor, son of Hermes, had a crush on a girl named Katie, daughter of Demeter and Chiron was considering reinstating three-foot races. Patton tried to keep track of each name that was mentioned and decided to figure out what name went to each face. One of the boys, Micheal, kept pushing Lacy to ask out a girl she said she liked, but Lacy just wanted to go slow. Lacy pushed Micheal back and asked him why he wasn’t asking out Karolin, apparently the girl he was obsessed with. CC, the head-camper, put the two of them on opposite sides of the group (somehow they ended up right next to each other again and gossiped some more).

Eventually they made it to the crafts hut and everyone split up to do their own projects. Patton floated to and from each group to see what they were doing. Korbin was painting a portrait of his dad, a famous actor that Patton had never heard of, and Sam was making a clay sculpture of a dragon, she giggled the entire time she painted it (purple, white, grey, and black). Patton saw everyone working on their own projects, so he walked around staring at all the different types of materials that went into each masterpiece. Patton eventually walked over to a desk full of art supplies that no one was working on. He sat down and started to draw, he didn’t know exactly what he wanted but that didn’t matter, he’d find someone to give it to.

He heard a sound that was similar to the conch he heard last night. CC tapped him on his shoulder and directed him towards the exit. She stuck her left hand out, put out her index finger and rubbed it with a fist, her face scrunched up in a questioning expression. Patton gave her a confused look and looked around at everyone else, hoping for someone else to explain. CC sighed and grabbed the closest person to her. She pointed at Patton and moved her hand away from her face, her index finger hooked. Korbin nods, looks at Patton and starts the speak.

"Do you want to climb on the lava wall or do you want to train with your dagger? Sorry, we forget that not everyone knows sign language."

Patton nods energetically, "I’ll train! That’s so cool! Does everyone know sign language here? Or is it just this cabin?"

CC laughs and Korbin answers, "Everyone knows enough to talk to her, but all of us knows more than the rest of the camp so we can talk to her without her staring at out lips."

"Amazing!" Korbin directs Patton towards the arena where someone was stabbing a dummy with a sword that was glowing gold, "Who is going to teach me to use Loloi?"

Korbin pulls out a sliver dagger and slashes at a dummy that wasn't being used, "I am. We'll start with the basics and then go on from there. Let’s start with holding it, first you…" Patton focused on everything Korbin taught and quickly got down the basics.

By the time the conch sounded, Patton was tired and just wanted to sleep. He walked with Korbin back to the cabin and saw Gretchen was grabbing something off their bed.

When they saw Patton they put on a smile, "What’s up? Did you have a nice day? Sorry I had to disappear after we got to arts and crafts, I just needed to do something. He/Him by the way."

"It’s cool, kiddo! I made something really awesome in crafts, I can’t show you it yet, it’s a surprise." Patton’s voice had dropped when he said that last part. "What about you? Doing anything interesting?"

"Nah, just practicing." Gretchen faced Patton and stared before speaking, "You look dead on your feet. Sleep, someone will get you up when it is time for dinner." Gretchen pushed Patton on to his bed and tucked him in. He also took off Patton's glasses and put them on the nook by his bed.

He quickly fell asleep and dreamt about something weird. In his dream, a young lady stood over a cauldron whispering something in a langue that Patton couldn’t understand. A second lady, who looked to be pregnant, came over and put something in the cauldron and waved her hands around it, speaking in the same langue as the lady before her. An old lady came over and did the same as the one before her. The three ladies looked over at Patton and spoke in unison.

"Young one beware, your gift will be needed soon and you must be prepared."

The younger one spoke, "The path my son chose will not be easy, do not despair.

The old lady spoke next, "You and the others will play an important factor in the battle." The pregnant one disappeared and the other two looked worried, "The mother has gone missing and you must search for her." The old lady explained

The two spoke together, "Chiron will get the news in a fortnight and you must be a part of the quest. You will be given time to train, use it wisely. Now wake and warn my son, the son of Athena, and the son of Apollo. Wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP!" Patton snapped up and hit someone in the forehead.

"Ow!" The person exclaims, "Patton, man, you are so hard to wake up." Patton searches for his glasses, his eyes shut so he doesn’t overloads his brain. He put them on and opened his eyes to see how he hit.

"I am so sorry, Lacy! You surprised me! Is it time for dinner?" Patton asks stretching.

"Yes! I’ve been trying to wake you up for the past ten minutes, you kept whispering something about a missing lady. Are you ok?" Lacy looked genuinely concerned, but Patton pasted a smile on his face.

"I’m okie dokie! Let’s eat dinner!" Patton hoped out of bed, thanking Aphrodite for her blessing, making it easier to leave the cabin quickly.

"Ok? Dinner already started, but if we hurry, we can still get some good food." Lacy spoke, leading Patton to the mess hall. Patton keeps the smile on his face despite the inner turmoil. He guessed the lady was Hecate, he also knew that Vigil would freak out if he told him, Roman would want to rush off and do the quest, and Logan would want to analyze everything that Patton saw. He was conflicted, if he said something, he’d ruin any joy that the other three had found, but if he said nothing, he’d mess up any advantage that they would have. Gretchen must have noticed something on Patton face, because he sat next to Patton and stared.

After a few minutes of staring Gretchen spoke, "Patton, something is wrong. What is it?"

Patton mentally debated wether or not to tell him anything, "I had a dream and now I’m worried. I have no idea what to do and it’s stressing me out."

"Ok, what was the dream about? Most half-bloods have prophetic dreams, is the end of the world happening again? That would suck, we just finished a war like 6 months ago."

Patton's eyes widen, "Nope, not saying anything. Please stop asking." Gretchen looked at Patton surprised, but didn’t say anything. Patton stood up and walked to the cabin, determined not to tell anyone till he needed to. When everyone came back from dinner, he pretended to be asleep. Someone poked his shoulder, but he didn’t respond. Eventually the chatter died down and everyone went to sleep. Patton fell asleep and didn’t have any dreams like .

#patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #ocs #pjo au #angsty boi #i love my sons boi #smart boi #extra™ boi #food #joan writes

26 notes · View notes

crystallinekingdom · 7 years

Note

"Are you scared? ... Then why won't you look at the screen?" (Prompt)

hey this got a little long… also im sorry it took 2 days

Movie Night

Taako’s sprawled out on the couch in their suite, painting his nails a shimmering blue and watching the world below through the now-exposed porthole that makes up most of the living room’s floor, when his Stone of Farspeech starts ringing where he left it on the coffee table.

He had expected this to be a quiet day. Apparently, in the aftermath of saving the world, nobody cares if you take a few extra days off work - Merle was planetside visiting his kids, while Magnus had gone to spar with Killian and Carey.

Whilst attempting to grasp for his Stone with semi-wet paint all over his nails, Taako drops the bottle of polish onto the counter, and the device is suddenly covered in tacky blue sparkles. He curses three different gods as he brings it up to his ear, inwardly praying that the person at the other end isn’t Brad ready to lecture him for thirty minutes about his use of expletives and how it isn’t beneficial to a teamwork environment.

It’s not. His sister’s voice crackles through the speaker, muffled by bad reception but still audible, and a grin spreads across his face.

“How’s it hanging, dork?” Lup asks. Taako can hear gravel crunching under her feet as she walks.

“Just chilling up here. What are you and the nerd up to, do-gooding in some random village again?” Lup and Barry had not been as blasé about the aftermath of the apocalypse as him and the boys - every day they were assisting a cleanup effort somewhere, trying to get areas that had been hit hard by the Hunger back in working order.

“Not today, actually, and that’s why I called. We aren’t scheduled to be in Goldcliff till Wednesday morning, which gives us, like, a day and a half free. Figured we’d drop by the moonbase and say hi. Want to hang out, or do you have better things to do?”

“No can do, sis, I’m busy curing cancer and making shoes for orphans - of course I’m down to hang out, who do you think I am? What time are you gonna be up here?”

“I just summoned a sphere, so.” The audio crackles a bit as she pauses, presumably to check her watch. “Around six, give or take?”

“Hell yeah. I’ll be in the suite. See ya then, goofus.” Taako puts the stone in his pocket, taking care to cap the bottle of blue polish on the table before hefting himself off the sofa.

The glass face of the clock on the wall has a large crack down its middle, but he can still make out a time that’s somewhere around 4:50 p.m. Enough time to whip something quick up, he thinks as he makes his way over to the kitchen.

Taako is halfway through mixing a bowl of dough for a yet-unfinished batch of glazed lemon cookies before he hears a light knock at the door. It’s much earlier than the ETA Lup had given him, but he trudges over, leans against the wall with one batter-sticky hand, and looks through the peephole.

In the hallway is Angus, newsboy cap slightly askew and clutching his wand to his chest. Taako is momentarily taken aback until he remembers what day of the week it is. Oh, shit. Monday is magic day.

He unlocks the deadbolt and pushes the door open with a flourish, feigning ignorance as to why the kid is here. “Hey, Django. What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“Hello, sir!” Angus shifts from one foot to the other. “Uh, I’m sorry to trouble you, but I was just wondering if our magic lessons are, um, still a thing that’s happening? I mean, I totally understand if you’re busy, or if you’re finished training me now that I’m done being a Seeker and not really useful to you guys anymore, or-”

Taako cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Sorry, kiddo. Don’t think we’re going to be able to do a lesson today.” Angus’s face falls and he opens his mouth to say something, but Taako continues, “Lulu and Barold are coming up for the day. Want to stick around and ask them all those nerd science questions you’ve been asking me? Might even be some baked goods in it for ya.”

He leaves the door open and turns around to retreat back into the kitchen, catching Angus’s “Th-thank you so much!” and the sound of the door shutting, then small footsteps following him inside.

“Now that you’re here, bubbeleh, I’m gonna have to put you to work. Child labor isn’t illegal if it’s on the moon,” Taako says, lightly clapping Angus on the back. “Want to go grab me a half tablespoon of vanilla extract so I can add it to this sick batter?”

Lup and Barry open the door an hour later to the sight of cookies left to cool on the stovetop and Taako sitting on the couch with Angus, teaching him some particularly nasty Fantasy Yiddish curses.

After a bout of small talk (considering the twins have fallen back into their old habit of constantly keeping tabs on each other for blackmail material, there isn’t much catching up to do) and a brief trip back to Lup and Barry’s makeshift moonbase quarters, Barry lays out a stack of old DVD cases on the kitchen table in front of Angus.

“It’s my movie collection from back on the Starblaster”, he explains. “First thing I salvaged once we got the ship back up here. We haven’t seen any of these in at least a decade, so take your pick, kiddo.”

Angus takes his time opening each plastic case and reading the blurb on the back. By the time he’s done, the other three are in an angry debate over the Fantasy Star Wars prequels (“They give context for episodes four through six, you uncultured swines!”), and Angus has to throw the case he’s chosen at Taako’s head to get their attention.

Taako looks at the case - Fantasy Alien. He briefly questions whether the whole chestburster thing is too frightening for an eleven year old boy, until he realizes that said eleven year old boy has fought eldritch abominations and been thrown off the back of a moving train. So much for childhood innocence.

“Good choice, Agnes,” he says, twirling the case in his hand.

Twenty minutes later, the lights are off and they’re all piled onto the couch under a knit throw covered in yellow embroidered ducks. Barry’s got an arm around his girlfriend and is staring at the screen with an expression of childlike wonder, Lup is whispering suggestive comments into Taako’s ear between mouthfuls of cookie, and Angus…

As the characters onscreen argue about what to do with the young halfling lying on the operating table with a squid-alien-thing on his face, Angus’s eyes are anywhere but on the action. The blanket is wrapped tightly around him up to his chest, and he’s staring directly into it.

Taako wrestles his right arm free from where Angus had pinned it while leaning on him and uses it to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Are you scared?” he asks softly. Maybe Angus is more squeamish than he’d thought.

“Oh, no, sir! If this were a real mission, they would have listened to containment protocol and prevented all this from happening. This whole situation could have been avoided if not for the sake of dramatic irony!” Angus responds, without looking up from his blanket cocoon.

“Then why won’t you look at the screen?” Taako lightly noogies him, then tugs on Angus’s piece of the blanket.

Out falls a small spiral-bound notebook with blue and silver trim, hitting the floor face-up with a small thump. Honestly, Taako doesn’t know what else he expected - he reaches down to pick it up, and surveys the page it opened up onto.

Below some indecent Fantasy Yiddish phrases (he’s both proud of the kid and terrified Lucretia will come after him once she hears Angus using said phrases in conversation) is a detailed sketch of a spacecraft. It’s surrounded by liner notes, detailing the workings of each part of the craft, its name - SS Nostromo - and physics equations describing what looks to be its capability for interstellar travel.

“Woah, is this the ship from the movie?” Taako asks.

“Yes, um. I’m sorry for not paying attention, I just thought it was a really interesting concept and-”

“Angus. It’s really dang good. Consider me thoroughly impressed.”

“Thank you!” Angus grins. “I’m just wondering, I know the Starblaster was made for hopping between dimensions, but did it have the raw power required for regular-old third dimensional travel on a larger scale like in this movie? Like, interstellar spaceflight?”

Lup, who has apparently been paying more attention to this whisper-conversation than Taako would have thought, turns towards Angus and wipes a few stray crumbs off her face. “See, the thing with bond energy is that because it’s freakin’ everywhere, it only takes a small core to process a huge amount of it. That’s how we could use such a small exploratory vessel. Of course, traveling in five dimensions takes a lot more power than in three, but if you factor in gravity and antimatter-”

Taako cranks up the volume on the television just as Barry shifts to face them, presumably to point out some obscure law of astrophysics. Adorable. They should set up their own little think tank. Taako smiles fondly at them as they continue their conversation, his face lit by the dim glow of the screen, then turns back around just as the alien bursts out of the halfling’s chest.

By the time the credits roll, both Angus and Barry are out cold - Angus holding his notebook and curled up against Taako’s chest, Barry clutching a throw pillow with a picture of a corgi on it. Lup has extricated herself from the cuddle pile and is raiding his pantry, and Taako is trying to figure out the best way to reach for the remote without waking up the two nerds asleep on his couch.

“You know,” Lup calls out from the kitchen, “I still feel kinda bad about blowing up his macaroons. He’s a good kid. You think it’d be cool if I made it up to him by baking him some more?”

Taako looks down at Angus, takes off his glasses, and places them on the coffee table. “I think he’d like that a lot.”

#taz #the adventure zone #taako #angus #lup #jules.txt #also this is self indulgent as fuck lmao

6 notes · View notes

ecotone99 · 5 years

Text

[FN][SP] Grandma's Pantry

My Grandma loved to bake. She could make anything and everything, from sweets and chocolates to cookies and cake. Anything She made was always unique, always amazing, and always superior to anything you could find at the store. It was so good that Grandma never had an issue gathering friends and family during the holidays and, sometimes, had to tell her children and siblings that they didn’t have to come a week early for every holiday; there would be plenty for everyone and to save their “we just want to help you prepare” stories. No one was ever allowed to be in the kitchen when Grandma was working on her craft. Except for me, one time, on the last birthday we would ever spend with her.

As her only grandchild at the time, I always had some special privileges. For one, I would always get special treats made only for me. I remember when I got there that morning and She handed me a small, smooth black sphere and looked at me expectantly. I was amazed at the darkness of sphere, thinking that it looked wrong and that it was apart from reality. That notion quickly disappeared along with that black ball, and, to this day, I still can’t describe the taste properly. I’ll try for you though: it tasted like Everything and Nothing had a child named Anything who fell in love with Something and all four lived in that little dense sphere. I didn’t say it would make sense to you, and it took me a very long time to even begin to understand what I was tasting, but that’s the best I can do. Anyway, I remember Grandma’s warm smile lighting up the room when I was done and asked her what She was making today. A simple question the breached a wall built of complexity meant to hide the incomprehensibility on the other side.

“I was thinking of making my Apple Pie today. Would you like to help me?”

Of course, I was dying to help her, but what the heck was apple pie? I nodded eagerly, unable to speak from the shock of being asked and my mouth still full from my treat earlier. Swallowing quickly, I breathed out a confident “yes” and She smiled again.

“Let’s see. How do you make an Apple Pie?”

“What is apple pie Grandma?”

That seemed to confuse her and She looked like She was far away, thinking intensely. She remained like that for a moment, seemingly in a deep conversation with herself, until She simply said,

“Sit down child, and I’ll show you.”

I quickly and eagerly sat down on a stool in the kitchen, ready to see her secret and eat whatever this was before anyone else showed up.

“The very first step in making Apple Pie is to grab a little bit of everything. See child, how I pick a little bit from here, a little from there?”

Grandma was picking what seemed like nothing but thin air in front of her as She walked around the kitchen, but upon more careful observation, I saw a little sphere rolling in her fingers quickly growing in size. Grandma kept playing with the sphere, adding something here, removing something there, shaping it, and forming it. Finally, She seemed satisfied with it.

“The next thing we have to do is take all of this and make it really small before we stick in in my special oven.”

She started rolling the sphere, squishing it down until it was about half its size. Setting it on the stove, She started heating it up while rolling it, squishing it even more. Eventually, I could no longer see it but She kept toiling away for what seemed like hours. Finally, She stopped and motioned for me to follow her to the pantry. We walked in and I saw a door at the end that I’ve never noticed before. She had taped a handwritten sign that read: Dangerous, please keep out. She opened the door and we were no longer in her kitchen or anywhere recognizable. It was like that little family of four moved out of their treat house and into wherever we were; Everything and Nothing, along with Anything and Something, got bored of being inside that sphere so they expanded out. Or maybe we condensed in? Grandma speaking jolted me out of trying to understand just what the heck was happening.

“We’ll just set this here. We have to let this get very hot before we can continue making the pie.”

“How hot does it have to get Grandma?”

“Hotter than anything you’ve ever seen before! We’re almost there now, look child!”

Suddenly, I felt a change. It seemed as though there was a slight vibration emanating from the sphere and permeating the fabric of the space we were in, weaving itself into the folds to grab hold. All of a sudden it became very hot, very quickly. Before I could ask what was going on, the little tiny sphere Grandma made started growing with increasing speed, anchored by tendrils of energetic vibrations released moments earlier. Little spheres started emerging and began zooming chaotically, sometimes disappearing when they touched each other and sometimes sticking together. I barely noticed how rapidly everything was cooling down while watching these little things interact, zooming across this immense space that appeared. The dust and gas dissipated, allowing us to see to the continually growing ends of this space. Now I could see that there were other little things zooming around, seemingly identical to the first ones but fundamentally inverse and much harder to see. For some reason, the coupled “lighter zoomers” started settling down in clumps of “darker zoomers”.

“Now we wait child.”

And wait we did. For the longest time, we waited. It seemed that everything had stopped and it had gotten very cold, very dark, and slightly orange. I started to get bored as the pale orange glow faded, but Grandma motioned for me to look more carefully. That’s when I noticed that those clumps of zoomers were moving towards nearby clumps, as though they were drawn to each other. After some time, the zoomers formed what seemed like massive clouds, eventually condensing and shifting and separating to form immense structures containing countless sources of light which almost immediately exploded spectacularly in flashes of color. The explosions affected the zoomers, creating variations and new ways to connect together and settling in every corner of this new space.

Larger and larger structures started to form, and within them there were circular objects of varying size and composition. Some were solid, some were liquid, some gave the illusion of solidity, and some seemed to attract all others nearby and eat them. Different things were happening everywhere and it was impossible to keep track of it all. Grandma and I started slowing down, stopping in the edge of a spiral-like structure with one of those hungry, dark spheres in the center.

We watched as dust and debris coalesced over time, forming a very pimply rock that spouted fire from its innards. We watched different sized rocks hurtled into it and how the refuse from those collisions formed into a much smaller companion. We watched as that fire was partially quelled by deep blue water forming everywhere, how the heat allowed little tiny animals to form deep under the surface. We watched as the waters receded to expose land, empty and lifeless contrasted with the evolution of more complex animals in the water. We watched as the barren land turned green and brown all while breaking apart from itself multiple times. We watched as the entire landscape turned white, then green again. We watch as creatures emerge from the waters to make the land their home, as they grow bigger and bigger until they dominate the rock for a very long time. We watched as fires consume the lands after a massive collision, and how ice quickly covered the surface. We watched as it came to the brink of barrenness, and how it quickly overcame extinction. We watched as millions upon millions of different creatures emerged, how a small subset of them learned how to grab and hold while swinging from trees. We watched the trees disappear, leaving the creatures vulnerable in the tall grasses until they stood up. We watched how, in the blink of an eye, those creatures had formed larger and larger groups and built settlements, which turned into villages, which turned into towns, cities, and metropolises. We watched them disappear in droves as it became hotter, as the land receded. We watched as it all stopped.

Grandma started moving towards the surface of the rock with me following closely behind. I was in awe! I’ve never heard of this before. Quickly, we touched down on the little bit of land remaining in the area. Looking around, we found a few trees with colored orbs in them.

“Hurry child, pick a few of the red ones. We don’t have much time left.”

We filled our bags with the orbs and left the surface, heading towards the pantry door. As we gained speed, the space around us started condensing at a rapid rate. I noticed everything around us was gone except for those gigantic, dark spheres, and even those were growing smaller before popping out of existence. Eventually, we reached the door and turned around to see Everything, Nothing, Anything, Something had returned. Grandma picked the marble-sized sphere up and placed it in her apron pocket. We stepped through the door and back into her kitchen where She immediately began cutting up the orbs (apples, as She called them) and working her magic until finally, She sat down with a steaming sweet-smelling pie. I couldn’t help it.

“I’m so confused Grandma!”

Grandma looked at me for a moment, startled at my outburst, before standing up and asking me to go with her. Silently, She headed down the hallway I’ve been forbidden to explore all my life. At the end, we reached a door She unlocked with a key She fished from her pockets. The door swung open, revealing a study with many exotic objects, books from floor to ceiling, and many other treasures. Walking over to a chest by the window, Grandma took the little marble out of her pocket and opened the chest, revealing many just like it.

“Before your Grandfather moved on, we worked together to create unlimited resources. Each one of these realities was created for a specific purpose. In fact, one of your Grandfather’s inventions is what made our family royalty among the Creator people. This was long before your time, when Creators were everywhere. Now, it’s just our little family. Soon, it’ll just be you child. We could never perfect the concept, as each self-contained reality developed a fundamental flaw somewhere along the way, but maybe you can. Your grandfather experimented with many concepts, some working better than others.”

Grandma smiled as She picked up two marbles: a bright, white, cloudy one and a dark, red, and hot one. She explained that he tried making the perfect utopia in the hopes of producing high-quality resources, but it failed because perfect contentedness stopped progress in its tracks. He then created a fiery hellscape which led to a great quantity of valuable resources, though quality was extremely poor and they quickly fell apart. After millions of attempts, She explained that Grandfather had the idea of storing them in close proximity, hoping that their tendency to connect via organic strings would allow for a compensation of weakness. But, of course, that failed too. They always failed in some way. I looked at Grandma, unable to find the words to say. Then:

“But we had a success Grandma! We made Apple Pie from scratch thanks to you!”

Grandma looked at me and smiled. She looked at the marble and her hand before She placed it in there reverently and closed the lid.

“Let’s go eat child. Let’s go eat.”

submitted by /u/captured_by_al [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/2vmWBBs

#Blogger #Story

0 notes

antoniodias · 7 years

Text

A Craft Inspired by The Kingston Lobster Boat in Figure 59…

It’s been over forty years since I first laid eyes on this page in Howard Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft. While in boat school I built a half model, thirty-six inches long, of White Pine…. I even lofted the body plan.

I never did build one; but this design has continued to fascinate me. I still get a thrill every time I turn to the page….

“Figure 59 shows a later boat, measured at Duxbury in 1937. This plan shows the “improved” model, having a fishing schooner’s counter and the altered run in which the deadwood is planked and hollow garboards are used. The model was now more like that of a sloop-yacht of the late 1880’s.

Chapelle’s sober warning against excesses driven by fashion still rings true. This design does seem…, just a bit too much…. He’s right, but still….

It’s taken this long to attempt my own interpretation. I did loosely base the hull form of the Arey’s Pond Daysailer on these boats, but that’s not the same thing…. This time I wanted to stick as close to the original as I could. Try as one might to cleave to a source of inspiration, if, as we work, we’re honest about what strikes us as fitting, changes will creep in.

Here we have their lines superimposed.

I’ve seen a replica of Ransom’s boat. It’s all I hoped for. Severe as well as extreme. It carries a purposeful air. We can see how this lobsterboat was as much the pride and joy of its master as it was the locus of his many hours of unremitting labor. Pride shone in her form, rakish and confident. In its modest materials: oak and cedar and pine; finished in pine-tar and linseed oil, it glowed from a patina of wear and exposure that matched the lines and calluses on its master’s hands. This was no frivolous craft.

A design needs a reason. What mission will this craft take on?

Not an easy question although one that is commonly simply taken for granted. Developing a boat from a traditional type and imagining how it might fit into today’s world takes some effort. Too often, to my eye, this leads to a flurry of cut & paste. A traditional profile stuck between a contemporary underbody and rig. The whole intended to flatter everyone involved without challenging anyone to consider what we might actually learn from letting our selves be touched by our past.

My life-long fascination with boats has been fed by the power they have over us to bend us to their circumstances, get us to accommodate to their world. Step aboard any boat and we cannot help but have its needs and possibilities grab hold of us. This is true of any boat, something to do with the mortal immediacy of being afloat perhaps.

Albert Pinkham Ryder, Moonlight, 1887

What continues to intrigue me is the opportunity to channel our imaginations that this power to affect us gives us. Maybe not channel, so much as free…. Not free in the sense of being without restraints, a fool’s errand…. A boat we engage with as a choice; a boat we must then commit effort and sacrifice other demands to afford; such a boat transports us imaginatively.

This is not about acting out a fantasy. It’s not playing-at some thing. When a boat embodies certain values of integrity and puts us into situations that rhyme with and reflect the lives of those who came before us….

It’s best not to try too hard to pin this down. The important thing is that we be aware that this imaginative connection fills our every fiber as we tend to our vessel.

A replica has its own justifications and rewards, but to develop a new design, we must find a way for it to engage us differently.

One way to peer through these ephemeral wisps of intangibles, is to grasp the fundamentals. No, not hydro-dynamic theory, or material-engineering. What does a boat do? It holds us, carries us.

How will this boat transport us?

Twenty feet is an in-between size. We perch atop smaller boats. Larger craft carry us on their broad backs. On a small, open boat our every twitch brings a reaction. Large craft are indifferent to where we sit, windward or leeward. We spend a few hours at a time in small boats. We inhabit large craft for weeks, months, years at a time. This size of boat can be too much boat and not enough boat all at the same time. But if we approach it right this size can combine benefits found at both ends of the spectrum. Small enough to be responsive and relatively easy to deal with, yet large enough to give us some shelter and extend our range.

What is the smallest usable cabin? This design aims at an answer, providing a place to sit upright below and have room to lie out flat beneath a solid shelter, protecting us from the elements. Such a cabin can be squeezed into a boat under twenty feet. I’ve done it. Though I’ve always felt that unless some hard-and-fast, drop-dead limitation holds us to eighteen feet –

and not just a frantic wish to limit the cost! Length is not as great a controlling factor in this as we might think. In fact it can be more reasonable not to over-constrain length against other parameters in the long-run. We are most likely better-off if we let a boat be the length it needs to be. And a bit of lankiness brings its own rewards. Especially when we’re so close to a hard-and-fast limitation imposed on us by the un-scalability of the human body. We require about thirty-six inches of height to sit up straight. Around six-feet of length to lie down flat.

This cabin meets these minimum requirements. There is a bench seat across the after end under the companionway where we can sit under cover while working on something, or just gathering our thoughts. We can sprawl on the sole propped on cushions to read or nap. For a good night’s rest we can swing a pair of hammocks, port & starboard. They do take up the entire cabin, but then we only need to fulfill one of these functions at a time.

This cockpit is also a place of habitation. A deep space with room under the seats to stow gear and provisions. Room to sprawl and room to bring three, four, even five friends out for an afternoon romp.

“It’s not self-bailing….” We’ll hear that from just about everyone we meet even as they settle-in, arms spread wide on the coaming, stretching their legs, sighing from the rightness of the space.

“No, but….” We begin to answer, waiting for the realization to sink in that a wholesome craft does not have to have such a thing. Especially at this size. To force the cockpit upwards six, eight, twelve inches above the waterline to accommodate the drains? How much is enough? This is not a boat intended for an outside passage. A sump with a bilge-pump will handle spray and rain, and a cockpit cover protects the whole structure from sun and weather while on a mooring.

So, to get back to the character of the way this particular boat holds us we could say it is embracing and intimate. Enough, not less, not more. At least to venture upon the right sort of waters. In this case, looking back to her ancestor, the creek on which she was built leads into a series of bays nesting one inside the other, Kingston Bay, Duxbury Bay, Plymouth Bay. All within the grand embrace of Cape Cod Bay. These can be boisterous waters. The summer’s southwest breeze blowing twenty knots raises a square, four foot chop; but shelter is never too far off. Anyplace with comparable conditions would be a suitable base for our Vixen.

A quick note on this name.

“A few of the Kingston boats had some outside ballast; the Vixen, a Ransom-built boat, whose lines were taken off by Erismann, was one of these.”

Chapelle’s writings are full of these laconically specific notes, often followed by a pronouncement like this one,

“The quantity of weight carried in the ballast shoe seems small, and it is very doubtful if any marked advantage was obtained.”

And so closes the short section, a matter of a couple of pages, in which he gathered and preserved the record of one out of the hundreds of local types, spanning three centuries, he bound in American Small Sailing Craft. Along with his Elements of Yacht Design and The American Fishing Schooner, this volume has been a touchstone for my ruminations on our maritime cultural heritage. Old enough to have been my father, dying the same year and at the same age as my actual father, I’ve held Howard Chapelle close to my heart all these years.

So, from this little note, and a conflation of this other boat named Vixen in my mind with the design illustrated in figure 59, Vixen has always just seemed the right name for this boat. That foxes frequent the rippling expanses of marsh grass fringing Cape Cod Bay, on “my side” as well as on Ransom’s, seems fitting….

Beside the non-bailing cockpit, and if my experience at boat shows from Portland Maine to Mystic Connecticut and beyond is any guide, the most “problematic” aspect of this design, the thing you’ll likely expend the most breath trying to explain – at least until you learn to just smile and go on about the weather – will be the winged rudder.

I first developed it on the Arey’s Pond Daysailer mentioned above. The Kingston/Cape Cod connection is not the only reason it shows up again here. This short video of the AP Daysailer shows this feature’s astonishing effect on performance. It is particularly suited to relatively shoal craft. I do want to develop a related configuration for use on deeper and larger vessels at some point. You can read about the boat and my description of the concept in this back-issue of WoodenBoat Magazine.

Along with the cut-away dead-wood aft and a ballast shoe Chapelle would raise a bushy eyebrow over, this rudder is the most visible effort to build on developments made during the century I grew up in and the one we find ourselves in now. Others are more subtle: massaging the hull’s volume and form to generate the least drag-inducing wake and provide the most stable platform for rig and crew. In these I don’t follow any particular dogma. Traditionalists and high-performance techies alike may find much to disagree with in my approach, reflecting on aero- and hydro-dynamics and following my own intuitions as they have played-out in models and prototypes over the years. I’ve attempted to be open to new research while remaining mindful of the deep wisdom captured in centuries of incremental evolution embodied in the boats of our ancestors.

Starting out, and even today, if it hadn’t been for Chapelle, and a handful of other designers and historians willing to publish their lines plans, I would not have been able to find a way into the complexities of form depicted in what my wife Kay calls, “The Spaghetti!” These tangles of crisscrossing lines, a basket weave that captures a three dimensional form on a sheet or screen, are not just a record and repository of hull-forms. They provide a way to interpret and question the hull-form depicted. After years of staring, drawing, and staring some more, it’s possible to learn to think our way into a new form, learning to fit it to the water and the tasks we ask it to perform. This is why, as much as I feel the need to “protect my work,” I can’t not show at least a partial view of the lines at the heart of each design.

As well as being in-between in length this design has an in-between draft. Two foot three with a stub keel and a metal centerboard, for lift and to drop the center of gravity that much deeper, this boat could be shallower. The AP Daysailer draws 13″ and is only a bit smaller. But that is a pure daysailer while this one has accommodations to fit in below. Achieving sitting headroom and sleeping space, without going to a slab-sided high sheer line, requires a little more boat in the water.

In small open boats I tend to prefer not adding any ballast. In a tender boat with live-weight ballast in the form of a crew on the rail extra weight just adds inertia, slowing acceleration and increasing heeling force. Since the boat won’t stand-up on its own anyway, you just end up fighting against the ballast, hiking out more desperately to counter the excess heeling force resulting from the sails leaning to the wind instead of squirting the boat ahead.

Once a craft is too large to fit this type of sailing, even if, as in this case, crew weight to windward is still a factor in balancing the heeling forces, ballast is a necessity and the answer lies in finding the best mix of features, behaviors, and limitations that best fit the overall craft. We want every aspect of the design to express and add to the over-all character of the vessel we intend. In this case, this mix of moderately shallow draft with some inside and some outside ballast and a heavy centerboard, brings us an interesting, and in these days rare, opportunity to experience a boat that is both fast and comfortable.

When we talk of the potential performance of a boat we tend to ignore the two most salient factors: Good sails and a crew that stays awake and stays ahead of the situation, never falling into dull complacency; always willing to see if they can’t do a little better, meeting the demands of the moment and making winnable bets on how conditions might be changing. These life-lessons make sailing a unique crucible in which youth is transmuted, sparking sentience to life!

Vixen‘s rig is a high-peaked gaff sloop. The original Kingston Lobster Boats flew sprits’l cat-ketch rigs. I’ll be adding an open, half-decked version without the cabin with a cat-ketch rig, but I think that for this arrangement the gaff sloop is the best choice. These boats can be weatherly. BitterSweet, at 23 feet, walks away from high-performance Marconi rigged boats and refuses to be run down by anything under around forty feet! My own Little Cat, Harry, outpoints lots of boats that should be able to wipe the bay with him….

The key to powering a boat with more than minimal wetted surface and some extra heft is to have enough sail area. This rig does this simply and with low-tech materials. A boat with enough sail, and a straightforward method of reefing and taking in area as the breeze picks up, can ghost. It’s one of my greatest pleasures out on the water, to take whatever stray zephyr might hit the sails and watch the slightest ripples peel away from the hull registering that we’re making headway. Heel the boat down to leeward, sit still, and feel…, everything.

This brings up something else about the sails. These sails are cotton. Not Like-Cotton-Colored™ plastic. Cotton.

If you’re ever at Mystic Seaport on a summer’s day find a cool spot and just watch the Catboat Breck Marshall sail around for a time. His sails are cotton, a dull off-gray color from the effects of sun and rain and maybe just a hint of mildew. It’s easy on the eyes. No glare. Easy on the hands. The sailcloth behaves like…, well, cloth. Not boardy, woven-plastic. But the thing that caught my attention one particular day, watching her incredibly skilled and practiced skipper nose in and out of his berth, taking on passengers while single-handing in a crowded cockpit. He coaxes the Marshall, shooting straight into the wind and then tacking on an Indian Head Dime. Part of this is timing, and all that practice, knowing his boat. And part of it is the weight of a heavier displacement boat. But another part, something I’d never seen before, was the way the soft canvas seemed to caress the air, maintaining flow and lift in the fluky, fluttering backdraft off the lee of a nearby fish-house.

No Dacron sail can do that! I thought. It won’t. It can’t. Dacron is made specifically not to stretch, That’s good right?

Well, there might be another side to the question.

This glorious cotton catboat sail responds like the soft wings of an owl, catching and holding onto airflow in turbulent and marginal conditions, getting drive out of the sail when any more, so-called, efficient sail would just flap. Dead. That’s the kind of sail I want for Vixen. That’s the kind of sail that should work best with the blend of features and capacities this boat has on offer.

We haven’t touched on a few more oddities in this design. The biggest question left hanging might be, “Where’s the engine?”

This is related to the construction type specified and also to those large cotton sails….

See the twelve foot sweep in the Construction Plan? There only need be one. A couple of paddles would be nice at times.

We tend to see an engine on a sail boat as a “Safety Feature!” I don’t agree. What brings us the most security on the water is sound seamanship, an awareness of limits, letting go of any get-there-itis. People call for a tow today because their engine has failed – on a sail boat! They are not safer for having that engine. None of us are ever safer for breathing its fumes…. And even the warm and fuzzy aura of an electric motor comes with its price in industrial pollution and waste….

I can’t think of a more important and less addressed virtue for us to work on today than learning to adapt to limitations by using our wits and yes, practicing patience.

It’s not patience until we have taxed our willingness to wait, is it? Not having a motor, having to resort to the pleasurable exercise of pulling on a sweep or simply anchoring out and waiting for conditions to change, these can add to the satisfaction we gain from our time on the water.

Does that mean that sometimes we need to stay ashore? Maybe. Probably.

Patience!

What is the construction?

Chapelle tells us that the original boats tended to be strip-planked. White Pine, a local wood in southeastern Massachusetts, was often used. The frames and backbone were White Oak. The strips were beveled to a close-fit and then edge nailed together with galvanized, wrought-iron cut-nails. This made for a boat with a smooth inside that didn’t need closely spaced frames. They could be winched up the beach on rollers during stretches of bad weather and they would stay tight. It’s not a bad way to go even now. If you can get good wood and the right sort of nails….

We could go with epoxied strips, although at this size I’d also edge-nail them some. If so, then the backbone will need to be a wood compatible with epoxy, something like Douglas Fir instead of White Oak. Its acid and sheer strength and propensity to move when wet does not make for a good, lasting epoxy joint. I’d also avoid White Pine for the planking. Probably because the wood available now is fast growing, it’s my experience that White Pine is prone to fracture with little reason and no warning. Kind of like an epoxied joint….

I’d use more Fir for the planking. This boat can use the extra weight and Fir has a much harder surface than Cedar.

In the end I’d like to see the construction done as traditionally as possible. There is a quality to a boat finished in Pine Tar and Linseed Oil that is simply lacking in our lives today. Let’s leave it at that.

As a final provocation let me say that this boat would be a fine candidate for a minimal composting head, a cedar bucket, White Cedar, soft, with a tight-fitting lid. We’d carry a duffel filled with fragrant peat moss and stow it forward. The whole rig is quite suitable for a boat whose sorties are of short duration. Our bucket resides under a cockpit seat, lashed in place, sporting a hempen-line bail. Before and after each use a generous layer of peat moss is added. At the end of our short voyage, we take the bucket ashore and till its contents into our compost pile. Anyone who considers this to be beyond what their squeamishness will allow needs to try emptying a conventional porta-pot or attending the pump-out of a holding tank…. It’s not the waste itself, but how we treat it…. There’s nothing more telling than our lack of a relationship with our own waste.

You may complain that we’ve gone pretty far afield! Not so. I can still hear L. Francis Herresshoff entreating us, “Gentle reader…” to consider the joys of the cedar bucket before going on to suggest we carry a sounding lead, a good time-piece, and a slate with some chalk to help us navigate a coastal fog. Today we know it’s not prudent to pour our bucket’s contents into the bay. Those nutrients are better utilized elsewhere. But let us focus on what our boats are for. When we consider how they hold us; how they help form us; these questions strike to the heart of the matter.

I did think that it might be a stretch to consider this a boat for difficult times. Perhaps because I tend to expect such craft to have some further utility…. It appears to me now that this is very much a boat for our difficult times. Or, at least it could be. If while we build, tend, and sail her we hold these transformative capacities in mind.

Click on any image below for a slideshow.

Dimensions:

LBP 20′ – 3″

LWL 17′ – 6″

Beam 7′ – 2″

Draft 2′ – 3″/4′ – 3″

Displacement 3,700 lbs.

Sail Area:

High-Peaked Gaff Sloop:

Main 216 sq. ft.

Jib 73 sq. ft.

Total (Working) 289 sq. ft.

Genoa 95 sq. ft.

Total (Light Air) 311 sq. ft.

Construction is either strip or carvel.

Plans

Plans are available as .pdf downloads. Five sheets of drawings and a table of offsets.

Cost for amateur construction is $850 USD plus a $75 PayPal transfer fee.

Price includes permission to build one boat for personal use.

Commercial builders contact me to work out an arrangement.

[contact-form]

This is a challenging design to build. Not suitable for a beginner.

It is offered in the spirit outlined at the masthead of this site:

Design is a distillation of Craft

The best design is not a set of instructions

Good design inspires us to relate both to the materials at hand and our place in the world: physically, socially, and spiritually

Design provides a framework for Craft where we may develop our skills

Design is not a prison of intention

Design is a trellis

Vixen A Craft Inspired by The Kingston Lobster Boat in Figure 59… It's been over forty years since I first laid eyes on this page in Howard Chapelle's…

0 notes

mega2wheellife · 7 years

Text

Comfort in the stars...

Awake before dawn. Awake as mist once clinging to colder stones eases away from night. Awake and recognising smaller stones as unfriends that dug gently during this colder dark to create half sleep, thankful of them but wanting easier company in such distressed times. For amongst us is one who kills, one who ends for others their terror and dis-ease of time spent here in mouldered blankets. He comes quiet, I know it is he for I have seen him despatch misshapes before full light would expose such Samaritan aid. We are cowards here, clinging to life; sordid as such it is, for we have not the strength to finish the slide we started however and whenever we first toppled. He has spied my eyes before peering over damp blankets, knowing I know his business, yet can not, will not stop what he needs must do. Since that time he glances quickly, quietly in my direction whenever his work is discovered, his eyes reflect mine own in mute wonder that I say nothing of his handicraft, that I cannot stir to denounce horrors. I have learnt here to say nothing of importance, such irresponsibility leads to danger that only living cannot endure. Others, newer to these low places, arrive with hope left tucked into recesses of yet completely sodden brainstems, tucked amongst meagre possessions smaller still images of lives once led, lives that could still yet be resurrected, lives torn in all ways but for their clinging vainly to hope. In amongst these shadows hope is the worst curse amongst the potions that led us down, no drug, booze will tear a heart in the vicious cruel manner hope brings, hope will remind of what once was, hope rips into sleep and day dreams, creating pain where palliatives eased. Those of us with such knowledge avoid newer arriving blood; such taints are best avoided unless pain is needed as spur for higher violence. Violence is not new, we are past masters, taking the little left from another is no longer low, there is no low anymore in this place where to steal another's crumb creates continuance and another day of life. We are cowards for we will take these easier plumbed roads hanging onto grey cold rather than lay still to bring on end. He has struck again in this night, I saw his shape flit amongst the rags, stoop briefly and go, returning to his own bundle, silently, without dramatic stealth but quiet as such trade demands. He is looking at me now as discovery is made; meagre tarnished possessions shared and the body slipped into the river. I wonder if he knows, cares, that eventually inquiries will be made in the world above us, these things matter to those who exist in other places, where light, goods and continuing breath carries meaning. Those who guard their gaudy baubles will some time soon come to begin questions the origin of thin-skinned skeleton figures floating through to reminding of fate. Not that they will chase too hard perpetrator of such deeds, more to push away from their own areas those, he, who would do this. Ghostly reminders floating in the river create reminders for their masters of how life can be and nothing must, should, interfere with mirages created by wealth and hope burnished bright by breath suspending belief. Running dogs will arrive; sniff around, finding nothing obvious to cause such ghastly river ships and then will leave. Maybe they will find evidence of drugs amongst our ruins, one or two will be taken into custody, given charitable status: clothes, baths, hot meals, possibly tobacco or small amounts of cash. Such are death knell ownings, if they return before tobacco, money, clothing are gone, bartered, drunk, then fights will break out to take same. Shitty, nasty, little knife fights where the first blows are struck from behind or a lurching running trot to strike without fear of return blow. One will fall and others then swarm to take whatever can be clutched. They will and must return, knowing that this will happen but having nowhere else to go or future to create understanding that destiny wears many hoods. Maybe he wants these things to occur, part of crazed plan, created during wild night when wind howled to throw stench of humanity about. Possibly his hands can only destroy little and he wishes for the whirlwind return and convince others of wisdom in his plan. Such are wild guesses, taken by one who huddles deeper into blankets, observing tightly, avoiding own demise yet viewing all eyes another slipping into the final night. He ties a cloth, ligature, tight around throat, quickly, violently, strong enough that fingers cannot slip under to loosen, tight enough to disorient thought as they waken to die, struggling, choking for breath. Though too, older ones slip in sleep, a shudder gently shaking as breath stops and automatic reactions begin, no noise escapes in these final encounters. The ligature strapped against vocal cords, tightened to crush windpipe does not allow, only slight threshing sounds of stick thin bones against damp rag cloth. He appears not to notice, want such recognition of his craft, he bends, ties and is gone, it is only I open for observance. Day breaks: my blanket lofted on stick to allow air through, what little sun invades here to dry. Little mercies create sufferance in cold nights. My place now is to find cans, discarded cans of revellers from evening before, cans from younger people, eyes bright in glow of lust of each other, light dotted by reflected cigarettes and streetlamps as they kiss in darker corners. They cannot see me as I gaze upon them from below. I catch their antics: furtive couplings and groanings, bared flesh that once I too would have wanted to caress, roughly squeeze in lust, now my eyes follow bounce of cans thrown down as lust takes over, mind following to pick up in mornings. My round is short, stuffing sack with discards and anything else that appears sellable, tradeable. Intrusion, trading as care happens occasionally, these I rebuff; another's hope or dreams are more burden than any needs to bear. Once, Danny was taken up in a weaker moment by these offers, dressed in second hand sheepskin and old but newer to him boots. His family found, prodigal son scenes from family forgotten by need to hide pain. Dead. Two weeks. The good food and soft bed crippled him, arthritis hidden by damp flared in warmth and care. His family shamed by his finding, killed with kindness, Danny now in a marked grave to show spike of hope needed by another masquerading in kindness. All this not written on the lines in the newspaper blown in by colder winds. My cans I sell to the scrap merchant, enough for a day's bread, something to drink, herd out the cold. Occasionally, mainly after weekends there is enough for a hot meal, this taken out back of cafes where cooks slip on extra sausage, beans, bread: "To fill you up" I cannot finish these meals and instead slide sausage into pockets and throw them to the mob who wait my return, if they smelt instead of being thrown, my pockets would be slit further only my own knife could hold them back. Hot meals hold me for a day or two, round and large, radiating heat through gut. Creating unused to internal sounds. Feelings of grease, over satisfaction and slowness. Hot meals create danger. Today is one of those. My cans safe behind flattened tin junkyard wall, coins in pocket. The cafe has changed hands many times, though each owner appears to knows me, they jerk their heads back to tell me to go round the back, their nostrils flaring, customers wrinkling theirs at my appearance. I forget I smell to them, they smell to me of chemicals, kitchens and milk dried from puddles. Their view wins and I go out back, sitting on greasy buckets, forking in beans, eggs, gravy, anything the cook will spare, thinks I need. He stands hands on hips, once white pink and blood stained apron covering generous gut, smoking, blowing breath toward me, disgust etched into eye corners and mouth. " You're a fucking mess, whydontcha get a job?" After a while his energy slows, his eyes move to wary, shame at himself for jeering, he offers a coat, a shirt, shoes. I take them, finish my food and sell them just as quickly for a bottle. Their new owner peels old clothes there in the street, low sun catching his grey skin in shadows, hollows and translucence, he is pleased but now would like a nip back from the bottle> I glare and he leaves, too large shoes flip flapping on the pavement. I sit by the river, watching the traffic, ships, boats, pleasurecraft, sailors all. All shifting, weaving to and fro, goods shipped downstream, back up, then down and onto elsewhere again. Dizzied by bottle, noise, traffic speed and light, the day has passed before me. Back to below, the hidden river, stationed by the last dregs and watching newer cans tossed, catching the arc to remember landings for tomorrow, then back to blanket and troubled sleep. Stones digging, creating half sleep as darkness creates damper blankets. He comes for me, my lids half open, catch movement, thin shadow and then he is upon me. Rough cloth tightening around my neck, quick, sharp, choking. I am ready for him, quicker, jabbing with knife at his knees, arms, hearing cuts in exclamation. He tries to rise as I stab again, again, his arms fall, cloth tight around my neck loosening as my fingers tear it away. He stares, what little light there is showing white of eye: "how?" Others were gathering now, aware of a good fight, chance of spoils, action. Rags were lit and I showed him my neck, I'd tied small sticks together there forming armour against his attack, he rumbled for laughter, rolled over and the crowd after spoils took him to the river. Lying back, cool wind shifted showing stars, now I could find comfort there.

neil benbow

#poetry (c)NAB neil benbow #prose #alt lit #lit #short story #poets #writers #creative writing #alternative #urbane #english literature

0 notes