#white lake canal
Video
Algoma Innovator, Canal Park, Duluth 9/15/22 by Sharon Mollerus
#Canal Park#Algoma Innovator#Great Lakes#monochrome#North Pier Lighthouse#b&w#shipping#port#Duluth#bulk carrier#departure#black and white#Lake Superior#Minnesota#MN#flickr
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
National Floral Design Day
Unleash your creativity and bring nature's vibrant beauty to life through stunning arrangements that captivate the senses and evoke joy.
It’s time to stop and smell the roses! Flower Design Day is all about showing appreciation for floral design as a unique and creative art form. Since flowers have been enjoyed and admired throughout the world since the beginning of human history, it just makes sense that the design of flowers should have its own day to celebrate.
History of National Floral Design Day
It all started with the idea to create a special way of celebrating the birthday of Carl Rittner, who was the founder of the Rittner School of Floral Design in Boston back in 1947. As a pioneer in floral art education, Rittner has shared his wealth of knowledge in the floral industry and had a marked impact on thousands of students from all throughout the world.
Some people don’t realize that National Floral Design Day was officially proclaimed by the Governor of Massachusetts. William F. Weld, in 1995. Since that time, floral design has been celebrated on this day each year.
History lesson aside, today is an excuse to go wild about flowers and let that inner creativity spark. There are so many things that can be done with flowers – the sky really is the limit. National Floral Design Day is the perfect time to display that innovative and original side when it comes to making the world more beautiful with floral creations!
How to Celebrate National Floral Design Day
Show some love and appreciation for everything related to flowers on National Floral Design Day! Get started with some of these delightful ideas:
Make Some Floral Design Creations
In honor and celebration of National Floral Design Day, show off that floral talent and create a spectacular floral design with flowers – whether real, dried or silk. Draw pictures of floral designs and it might even be fun to get the kids involved. Guys can get in on the fun too. Why not arrange an impressive floral bouquet for that leading lady or to take in and share with the folks at the office?
Learn Some Benefits of Floral Design
When National Floral Design Day was declared by the Governor of Massachusetts in 1995, the proclamation included a number of reasons that were listed about why this art form is important. Here are some of the main reasons for setting the day aside in celebration and honor of floral design:
Floral design fosters creativity and develops perceptual awareness as an art form.
Floral design allows individuals to express themselves and their emotions in celebration of a variety of holidays and life events such as births, deaths, weddings and more.
Floral design utilizes natural media as a unique art form that includes aspects including line, color, balance, structure and much more to create visual pleasure.
Take a Floral Design Class
One excellent way to get on board with celebrating National Floral Design Class might be to sign up to learn more about the craft. Those who have never been involved with floral design before can take a beginner class that allows them to learn the basics about this art form. For those folks who have a general idea of what they are doing but could improve their skills, sign up for an advanced class at a local community center or floral design school.
Create a Floral Themed Playlist
Celebrating National Floral Design Day can be loads of fun with the right tunes to go with it! Build a playlist on Spotify, Apple music or another online platform to support the theme of the day with the best songs to jam out to while designing some beautiful floral arrangements.
Check out some of these fun songs with a floral theme to get a playlist started :
Everything’s Coming Up Roses (1959) by Ethel Merman
You Don’t Bring Me Flowers (1978) by Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand
Bed of Roses (1993) by Bon Jovi
Supermarket Flowers (2017) by Ed Sheeran
Source
#Venice Canal Historic District#Los Angeles#New York City#Chicago#USA#National Floral Design Day#NationalFloralDesignDay#28 February#travel#original photography#Columbia River Gorge#landscape#cityscape#White Mountain National Forest#Mellanfjärden#Zorinsky Lake Park and Recreation Area#Omaha#Sweden#I don't wear patterns often#Bangor#Stephen King's House#vacation#Arches National Park#Whistler#Canada#Omak
0 notes
Text
Coquette Christmas
🎀 to wear: pale pinks, baby blue, icy white, leg warmers, uggs with bows, sweaters with skirts, cable knit cardigans, cashmere scarves, earmuffs, mittens, pearl bobby pins, velvet scrunchies and bows, berets with pearls, sparkly earrings, pretty brooches on your winter coat, glossier birthday balm, becca pearl highlighter
🎀 bake heart shaped stained glass sugar cookies or gingerbread people with bows piped on <3
🎀 enjoy peppermint white hot chocolate with mini marshmallows while cuddled up under a blanket
🎀 read hans christian andersen fairytales
🎀 see a ballet like swan lake, the nutcracker, or gisele
🎀 visit the swans! in the northern hemisphere swans migraine during christmas so go to a canal or lake to watch then glide by
🎀 make your skincare routine different! skin tends to get drier in winter so use a richer moisturiser, do sheet masks (love lapcos sheet masks), use vaseline or a lip mask overnight (klavuu does a great one), put some glycerin or lotion on your feet and hands before putting on your socks and gloves, and remember to still wear spf! carry a good handcream and lip balm (fresh rose lip treatment is soo good) in case you feel dry while out. and obviously drink lots of water
🎀 ice-skate holding hands with someone special <3
🎀 light lots of candles! there are some great wintery scented one like gingerbread, frankincense, winter berry and mulled wine. I also like yankee's rainbow cookie in winter even though it's not strictly a winter scent. vanilla is always a good idea too
🎀 eat lots of marzipan, sugared rose petals, crystallised fruit, nougat, turkish delight, and caramelised nuts
🎀 practice self care with a warm bubble bath, a face mask, and a rich body lotion afterwards. put on silk pyjamas and fluffy socks that have been wrapped around a hot water bottle so they're already warm and cozy afterwards
🎀 to smell christmassy: layer scent by using a peppermint shower gel followed by a vanilla body lotion
🎀 decorate your space with figurines of swans, shepherdesses, angels, nutcrackers, and holiday barbies. and put bows on your xmas tree
🎀 watch: love actually, anastasia, little women, classic disney movies, white christmas, ice princess, harry potter and the sorcerer's stone, bridget jone's diary, barbie in the nutcracker, the chronicles of narnia, dead poets society, and any hallmark movie
🎀 write christmas cards in glitter pen and decorate with angel stickers and a spritz of vanilla perfume
🎀 to feel luxurious at night, spritz on some body spray, wear a flowing nightgown and do yourself in a clara style (half up with satin ribbon)
🎀 make snow angels!
🎀 make an emergency kit for those days when you come home miserable because of the cold and dark and have no energy, plans, and need some alone time. include things like a candle, a small box of good chocolates, some sheet masks, a perfume, your favourite tea, a book that comforts you, fluffy socks, a cozy blanket, paper and a pen to journal your thoughts, a photo album of your favourite people, old love letters, or anything else that you can easily keep at hand that will comfort you
🎀 listen to a pretty wintery playlist with genres like classical, jazz, and celtic/nordic traditional (mine is below <3)
#coquette aesthetic#coquette#winter aesthetic#winter moodboard#winter#christmas#christmas aesthetic#dream girl#it girl#girlblogging#dream girl journey#luxury aesthetic#luxury#that girl#that girl aesthetic#cosycore#cosy academia#pink blog#life aesthetic#pink pilates girl#pink pilates princess#just girly things#just girly posts#just girly thoughts#pinkcore#coquettecore#balletcore#dollcore#doelette
34 notes
·
View notes
Text
Presenting my first fanfic in 17 years. Just a fluffy little story about Sonic and Tails during the rainy season in the Mystic Ruins. This is the first part. I might continue it.
Please note that no part of this is intended to come-off as romantic in nature. SonTails really isn't my thing. I view them as brothers.
"Remind me to look up the weather forecast before we go shopping"
If one stood by the Mystic Ruins train station during this one rainy day, they'd have seen a cerulean Hedgehog and a golden orange Fox with two tails running through the deluge carrying numerous shopping bags. The Hedgehog kept a decent lead but the Fox was not far behind, each of them kicking-up moisture from the drenched ground with every step.
Barely a minute had passed when they reached the sole building apart from the station for miles around - A laboratory with two levels. Electricity-generating mechanisms swirled in a small brick pool, providing the only sound other than the pitter-patter of incessant rain. There was a dome covering one half of the building with a small circular platform atop it, an apparatus for holding a telescope being its only feature. The rest of the upper level was taken by a small house with a chimney and a single window.
Sonic and Tails stepped through the lower door to the hangar, Sonic immediately dashing off to the bathroom to grab towels for him and his friend. Both were drenched head to foot.
"Brrrrrr!" said Sonic as he took each of his quills in his hands and twisted them to wring-out the rainwater they had absorbed. He shook his entire body to rid himself of residual moisture. "That was sort of refreshing in a way" he added, dabbing his body with his towel.
"I thought you didn't like water?" Tails asked curiously, mimicking Sonic in shaking himself off. His fur immediately became bushy, his twin tails looking no different to a pair of white-tipped orange feather dusters. Sonic tried not to laugh at the sight.
"Rain is....tolerable I guess. But miss me with a lake or swimming pool. Totally not my thing"
"Here" Tails said, holding his hand out for the towel, his own tucked under his other arm. "I'll dump these in the laundry basket. Can you go light the fire in the upstairs lounge Sonic?"
"Sure thing!"
~ ~ ~
A single strike of the ferrous rod and a blaze of orange and red erupted within the fireplace. Feeling the warmth rush over him, Sonic outstretched his palms to dry his gloves and warm his soaked hands. The heat was soothing and most welcome after the deluge he had been subjected to outside.
"Hey, come over here Tails! The fire feels great!"
"Not right now" the Fox child replied from the lab, fishing around in his toolbox now having put away the shopping. "The Tornado seems to have a blocked fuel line"
"You're gonna catch your death of cold if you don't dry-off fully 'lil bro!"
The young Fox just shrugged and continued looking in the toolbox. Sonic gave a sigh.
"Very well. I'm gonna continue reading my current book. Already reached chapter 12 y'know"
Tails just gave a nod in response, evidently having found the tool he had been looking for.
He sat on the couch and reached for the book on the coffee table titled "RUN ON THE EARTH", turning to the page where a bookmark had been inserted. Reading during the rainy season was one of his favourite pasttimes and was generally preferable to running outside in the pouring rain. Having torrential rain pelt his eyes when moving at superspeed was not a pleasant experience.
Crossing one leg atop the other, he placed the book atop them and traced the text with a finger in order to find the place he had left off on.
~ ~ ~
About an hour and a half had passed. Tails was underneath the Tornado on his wheeled mechanic's creeper, tinkering away. Sonic was fully invested in a chapter about the water Kingdom of Soleanna and was fascinated by its article about the Festival of the Sun, a national ceremony. Though he hadn't visited this place before, viewing the photos of the canals, the castle town and the dancers beneath the fireworks felt oddly reminiscient. It was a bizarre feeling, one he couldn't quite put his finger on.
All of a sudden, Tails sneezed from under the biplane.
“Bless you” said Sonic without looking up from his book, largely consumed by this strange feeling of familiarity.
“Thanks Son…A-tishoo!”
The Hedgehog glanced up from the page he was reading with mild concern to see the young Fox had emerged from beneath the Tornado on his creeper and was sniffling and rubbing his nose with his fist, eyes scrunched tightly.
“You ok little bro?” Sonic enquired, one eye ridge raised. “I hope you're not coming down with a cold”
“Just a tickle” Tails replied, sniffling harshly. If Sonic didn’t know any better, he’d swear he could see the cub’s nose streaming slightly. He got up from the couch and approached him, looking a tad worried.
“Here. Use my handkerchief” he said kindly, putting the book down, getting up from the sofa and walking towards Tails whilst pulling the white fabric from the inside of his glove cuff. He always kept a clean one on him due to his hay fever and had many to spare after the events of a previous adventure. The azure Hedgehog gently wiped his little nose, pressing more tightly when his breath suddenly began to hitch.
“Heh…he…heshoo!”
Sonic grimaced slightly, quickly turning to a sympathetic smile as Tails sniffed, eyes teary. He sounded quite congested.
“I’be sorry Sodic *Sniffle* I don’t doe why I’be suddenly sdeezig like dis”
“No worries” he replied gently. “Just blow your nose. You really sound like you need to“
The little Fox obliged, producing a surprisingly loud honk as Sonic wiped his nose thoroughly.
“There you go” he said as he removed the handkerchief and tossed it onto the wet towels in the laundry basket. He removed one of his gloves and placed a bare palm on his forehead, brushing the trio of bangs to the side as Tails blinked confusedly. Though the surrounding fur was still damp, the Hedgehog could easily feel considerable heat emanating from his brow.
“Hmmm…. you feel a little too warm." Sonic mused, one brow furrowed. "Why, I do think you’re coming down with a cold Mr. Prower” he remarked in a lighthearted imitation of an upper class gentleman, putting his glove back on and guiding Tails to the sofa.
"You need to rest. Lie down here and I'll make some tea"
The Hedgehog grabbed both of their empty mugs and took them to the kitchenette.
"I can't get sick right now! I have things that need working on!" Tails exclaimed, sniffling lightly.
"Bud. Your health is your priority. Not your inventions." the Hedgehog replied firmly though not unkindly as he walked from the kitchenette to the cupboard, kneeling and taking a small folded throw blanket from the bottom shelf and a box of tissues from atop the drawer. He wrapped the young Fox in it, leaving only his head out. He placed the tissues on the coffee table beside the globe.
"They'll still be there when you're better"
The sick cub gave an annoyed growl under his breath as Sonic walked back to the kitchenette and filled the kettle with water.
"I said you'd catch your death of cold if you didn't dry off completely" the Hedgehog muttered darkly as he placed the kettle on the lit stove, attention focused of fixing-up some hot drinks for him and his friend. He placed a tea bag in his own green mug and a thick slice of lemon, half a teaspoon of ground ginger and a tablespoon of honey in Tails' mug.
The young Fox pouted, holding his throw blanket tighter to his body. Before he could do anything else, he felt the tickling sensation in his nose and sneezed again.
"Gesundheit" remarked Sonic, glancing over to the sofa as Tails plucked a tissue from the box and wiped his nose with it.
"*Sniff* Thanks"
Sonic placed the two mugs on the tray and carried it into the lounge. He placed it atop the coffee table and handed Tails his mug.
"Here you go. It's lemon, honey and ginger. It'll help with that cold"
The Fox took a sniff of the hot drink. Though his nose was very much stuffed-up and he couldn't really smell any of it. Taking a precautionary sip (Since Sonic was certainly not a wiz in the kitchen. As previous experiences had taught him), he could at least detect the spiciness of the ginger on his tongue. He took a gulp and was soothed by the sweet yet spicy hot liquid as it went down and warmed his chest.
"Dis is really gudd"
"I'm glad you like it" the blue Hedgehog replied with a smile as he took a sip of his own tea, Spagonia's finest blend with a bit of milk and two spoonfuls of sugar. Just the way he liked it.
"That drink always makes me feel better when I'm under the weather" Sonic added, taking another sip of his tea and savouring the flavor.
~ ~ ~
TBC.
74 notes
·
View notes
Text
Grand Palace and Ravkan Royal Family
Siege and Storm- Chapter 12
Ordinarily, the royal family would have spent the hot months at their summer palace in the lake district. But Os Alta was more easily defended, and they’d chosen to hunker down behind its famous double walls.
...
... Os Alta, the Dream City, its spires white and jagged against the cloudless sky.
...
“I thought you’d be in Caryeva for the races.”
...
We crossed the wide canal and left the noise and tumult of the lower town behind. I noticed that the bridge’s gatehouse had been heavily fortified, but when we reached the far bank, it seemed that nothing in the upper town had changed. The broad boulevards were spotless and serene, the stately homes carefully maintained. We passed a park where fashionably turned out men and women strolled the manicured paths or took the air in open carriages. Children played at babki, watched over by their nannies, and a boy in a straw hat rode by on a pony with ribbons in its braided mane, the reins held by a uniformed servant.
...
... we reached the golden gates of the Grand Palace.
...
When we reached the double eagle fountain, Tolya helped me from my horse. I squinted up at the Grand Palace, its gleaming white terraces crammed with layer after layer of gold ornament and statuary. It was just as ugly and intimidating as I remembered.
Vasily handed the reins of his mount to a waiting servant and headed up the marble steps without a backward glance.
...
Inside, the halls of the palace were silent as we passed from room to glittering room. Our footfalls echoed on the polished parquet...
...
A long, pale blue carpet stretched the length of the room. At the end of it, a group of elegantly dressed courtiers and advisers milled around a raised dais. Above them all sat the King and Queen of Ravka, on matching golden thrones.
#Grishaverse#S&S Chapter 12#Ravka#Grand Palace#Os Alta#Lantsovs#Caryeva#writing reference#grishanalyticritical#Siege and Storm#Grisha trilogy#V#books#quotes#Leigh Bardugo
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
Memorising governorates of Egypt with a mind palace
Image source
There are 27 governorates in Egypt. Here's how I memorise them:
Alexandria, Aswan = Alex in a swan costume in entrance
Asyut,Beheira = someone dippin their but in a lake by the phone shop
Beni Suef, Cairo = ben ten with a sword (sef in arabic) in cairo by the garage
Dakahlia, Damietta = white lady eating feta cheese by the pharmacy (dakahlia's capital is mansoura, which is famously full of "white" egyptians, damietta sounds like an egyptian brand of cheese)
Faiyum, Gharbia = a tree shade (Fai) to the west by the building
Giza, Ismailia = Ismael on top of pyramid by the tech store
Kafr El-Sheikh, Luxor = a sheikh in statue form (luxor famous for temples) by the bakers
Matrouh, Minya = king mina being kicked out of the lab
Monufia, New Valley = dad (from monufia) climbing a valley by the veggies seller
North Sinai, Port Said = a poor guy holding a sign high by the kiosk
Qalyubia, Qena = a tv turned upside down by the orphanage
Red Sea, Sharqia = a guy choking (sharaq) on red water by the corner
Sohag, South Sinai = horny dude holding a sign low by the school
Suez = a canal in the ruins of a building
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
People’s Flag Wars 2: Round 3, Bracket 4
See the symbolism below.
The unnamed flag was made by eth317.
City flag of Syracuse, NY titled The First Light flag is the official flag of Syracuse by Eric Hart.
Symbolism: “Through the use of simple color and shape the First Light flag shares a complex story of our people and personality, our geography and weather, our past and future, and our relationship to our surrounding area.
Six-Pointed Star: Symbolizes the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee, of which the Onondaga Nation plays a central role. It symbolizes the six historical names by which Syracuse has been known: Salt Point, Webster's Landing, Bogardus Corners, Milan, South Salina, and Cossits' Corners (not incl. Corinth). It is the sun, a guiding light. Its central placement on the flag marks Syracuse's central location in New York State.
Mirrored triangles: Symbolizes the hills of Onondaga. The word onoñda'gega' means, "people of the hills" in the Onondaga language. The left triangle is the hill westward toward Hiawatha Lake. The right triangle is the hill eastward toward Thornden Park. The space between the triangles is the Onondaga Valley.
Star set between triangles: Symbolizes the sunrise over the Onondaga Valley.
This is described in a line from Syracuse University's Alma Mater, ". where the vale of Onondaga meets the Eastern sky." Represents a new day, a bright future, and good fortunes ahead.
Orange Star on White: Symbolizes our history of using the sun to pull white salt from our salt springs. It also represents the sun warming us during our cold, white winters.
The Chevron: Symbolizes the Roman numeral "V" indicating the five Syracuse Common Council Districts. It also represents "The V-Sign," international symbol for peace and friendship.
Three Distinct Triangles: Symbolic of the city's past, present and future. The left triangle points to the past. The central triangle points to the present. The right triangle points toward the future. It represents Syracuse across the ages. Syracuse: for now and forever.
Orange Symbolic of: The Sun, Regeneration, Restoration, Courage, Passion, Creativity
Azure Blue Symbolic of: Onondaga Lake, the Erie Canal, Perseverance, Intelligence
Navy Blue Symbolic of: The hills of Onondaga, Trust, Loyalty, Industriousness
White Symbolic of: Salt, Snow, Peace, Purity”
Kairouan, Tunisia is a flag proposal by Gargari.
Symbolism: “It shows a camel with the city's name calligraphically written on it. I made this choice because the name literally translates to caravan, or military column. The colours green and yellow are taken from the current coat of arms of the city. Also taken from there is the dome of Kairouan's great mosque, which also represents the camel's hump here. The additional colour purple is used for lines not part of the calligraphy but vital for making it look like a dromedary. The colour represents the wealth of the history of this noble and old city.”
9 notes
·
View notes
Note
Can I perhaps request a short fic about the Ravens and the Golden Garden/Targent for PL4 Day (I love those crazy kids)? I had this somewhat odd idea that Swift just adopts any kid with a bird name because he's quite literally a mama bird in my eyes...(Crow, pack your bags, lmao).
((Thank you for the request! I’m sorry this is a day late and it’s kind of open-ended but it was already longer than intended and I needed to finish it.))
Title: The Raven and the Swift
Description: The Black Ravens aren’t giving up the Golden Garden without a fight. Swift is sent to infiltrate Misthallery.
Set: After PL4, but before Miracle Mask and Azran Legacy
Spoilers: For PL4
Warnings: Referenced character/animal death, Swift carries a knife
Swift— dressed in white trainers, khaki cargo shorts, and a red floral shirt— made his way up to the Golden Garden.
While his ‘tourist’ disguise was intended to portray a casual demeanour, he admittedly (and ironically) would have felt more at ease in his Targent uniform. His face felt particularly exposed without his scarf and his sunglasses, but his dark brown contact lenses would have to do for now.
His targets were all too familiar with Targent’s appearance in Misthallery.
Swift was here under strict, classified orders from Commander Bronev. The mission he had been given required the upmost stealth and sagacity.
If Swift was recognised, he would be denied access to the Golden Garden, and the Azran site would remain out of Targent’s control.
Thus far, Targent’s best efforts to secure the garden had been impeded by a gang of ruffians wearing white bird masks and ragged black robes.
Despite Swift’s suggestions to deploy the assassins, Bronev had insisted that it was to be a bloodless, clandestine infiltration.
They didn’t want to alarm the local residents or the authorities… unlike Jean Descole, with his ridiculous attempt to demolish Misthallery over a year ago.
Had this ‘Black Raven gang’ been hired by Descole? The Ravens’ costumes certainly resembled Descole’s, with their white masks and billowing dark attire…
Not to mention, the Ravens had Descole’s ‘Spectre Robot’— with which, they had managed to drive Targent out of Misthallery so far…
Bronev was right; Targent couldn’t just invade the garden, guns blazing. Then their agency would look no better than Descole or his underlings.
Someone needed to take the garden right from under the Ravens’ noses. Someone like Swift.
Swift frowned as he joined the queue of visitors waiting to enter the Golden Garden. They were all being corralled like cattle along a canal, which had been emptied of water along with the reservoir.
Apparently, the giant lake-dweller that had once inhabited Misthallery had destroyed the flood gates and uncovered the entrance to the Golden Garden.
The creature had given her life, and (as rumour had it) allowed a sickly young girl to recover with the garden’s pure air.
Why should the residents of Misthallery alone be able to capitalise off the Golden Garden? The gifts of the Azran should be shared with the world!
The majority of these people, like Jean Descole, would have no respect for the Azran’s legacy; just lookat how they had treated the aquatic creature— the last of an ancient species. (They were known as “Lagushi”, in the ancient Azran language.)
If Targent had arrived in town before Descole, they would have temporality captured the creature, ensured her safety while they studied her, before releasing her back into the Golden Garden.
Swift would have made sure of it—
“Get your very own Loosha, right here!”
Swift raised an eyebrow at the salesperson hollering from a wooden stall on the bank of the canal. The person, along with their two colleagues, were all sporting Black Raven costumes.
The Ravens were gesturing to the blue ‘Loosha’ toys and other mechanise out on display. It seemed they were profiting off Loosha’s sacrifice. (How tactless…)
One red-haired woman purchased a T-shirt from the stall. She ran past Swift, whooping.
Reluctantly, Swift left the queue to approach the Ravens’ stall.
“Greetings, curious traveller!” called the Raven who had been hollering earlier. (They actually sounded quite young, now that Swift considered it.) “May I interest you in a Loosha friend?”
Swift hummed, perusing the wares with a sceptical eye. “Is that really what ‘Loosha’ looked like?”
The speaker replied, “‘Course it is—“
“We saw her up close,” a slightly taller Raven bragged.
“Did you now?” Swift drawled.
“Yes! We helped her open the flood gate—“
“That’s enough,” a third Raven hissed. They shuffled to the front of the stall to stare at Swift. “If you’re not gonna buy anything, then buzz off!”
“I will buy… this,” Swift said, pointing to a glittering grey-blue stone supposedly from the Golden Garden. He removed a £50 note from his wallet. “And I’m after some information, please.”
He placed the money on the stall counter. The Ravens snatched it up, resembling the scavenger birds they were named after.
“How can we help you, Sir?” the third Raven chimed, all traces of rudeness vanishing from their voice. Their associates observed Swift curiously.
Swift put the stone in his pocket, carefully pondering his next words. He gestured to the Ravens’ robes.
“What was the inspiration behind your… Black Raven apparel?”
The Ravens hadn’t expected that. The trio glanced at each other— engrossed in some silent discussion Swift had no part in. After a moment, the third Raven (the apparent leader) nodded.
The leader asked Swift, in a conspiratorial tone, “Have you heard about the Bird of Illusion?”
“Perhaps…” Swift hummed. He had read about that particular Azran legend, but how much could he reveal without raising the Ravens’ suspicions? “Is it linked to the Golden Garden, by any chance?”
“Indeed! The bird was said to lead people into the garden— but only those rare few who proved themselves worthy!”
“Worthy?” Swift snorted. Anyone could enter the Golden Garden these days…
Looking back at the visitors’ queue, Swift was annoyed— albeit, unsurprised— to see his space had been taken. At this rate, the garden would be closed before Swift could get inside!
He huffed. Behind him, Swift heard muttering from the Ravens.
Then, the lead Raven said, “Lost your place in the line?”
“Obviously…” Swift rolled his eyes back to them.
The leader whispered, “What if we could offer you a private tour of the garden?”
“Really?” Swift’s eyes narrowed. Was this a scam? Or an attempt to catch Swift off guard?”
“Really, really!” the leader breathed. “For £100–“
“I already gave you fifty,” Swift grumbled.
“Seventy, then! That’s my final offer,” the leader bargained. They offered Swift their long flowing sleeve.
Swift shook it.
“Meet here at midnight,” the leader muttered.
-
Swift knew he could very well be waltzing into a trap.
The Black Raven may have been inspired by the Bird of Illusion… but Jean Descole was familiar with Azran myths too. It would be in keeping with Descole to make an imitation of such a myth— like he had done with the spectre.
Consequently, Swift wasn’t going in unarmed.
The mist might not have been as bad as it was during the ‘spectre’ attacks, but it was still thick enough to cut with the small knife Swift carried in his shorts’ pocket. Really, he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it…
Still, his hand hovered over his pocket as he crept up the hill to the former-reservoir.
He had left early— intending to arrive before his ‘guide’— but there, waiting next to the canal, was the Black Raven.
The Raven was wielding a lantern, which they lifted upon Swift’s approach. Swift felt like he was about to be led into the afterlife by a ghostly guide…
No. Whatever happened tonight, Swift was going to walk away from it in tact.
“Finally,” the Raven snorted. It was the leader from earlier. Once again, Swift was struck by how youngthey sounded— no older than sixteen, surely.
Swift shrugged. He gestured to the entrance in the dam wall. “After you…”
The Raven gestured back at him.
“No, please— after you…”
Slowly, Swift turned towards the entrance. Swift sensed the incoming attack. He ducked as the lantern swung over his head. Spinning on the ground, Swift kicked the Raven off their feet.
The Raven cursed and landed on their back.
When Swift glared down at them, he saw their hood and the bird mask had come off. A boy with dark blonde hair was blinking up at him, with one dark eye not concealed by his fringe.
The boy wheezed. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“Do you work him?” Swift demanded. He had removed his knife and was now pointing it towards the youth. “Jean Descole?”
“What?” the boy gasped. It was almost a pained laugh. “‘Course not! That nut-head tried to destroy our town—“
“Then explain why you still have his machine,” Swift hissed.
“Uh…” The boy struggled to sit up. “D’you mean the Spectre Bot? We nicked it from him—“
“And you’ve been using it to fight my associates ever since!”
“Well— yeah…” Frowning at Swift, the boy clambered to his feet. “Did you really think we’d let some other nut-heads take the garden? After Loosha died for it—?”
“My… organisation has no quarrel with you or your little gang,” Swift reasoned. He lowered his knife. “All we want is to ensure—“
“You just attacked me!”
“In self-defence after you attacked me!”
The boy huffed and crossed his arms. “So… what now? Are you gonna kill me?” Under his bravado, Swift could see he was shaking slightly.
“…No,” said Swift. He pocketed his knife. “What would be the point in that?”
Relief flashed through the boy’s one visible eye.
Swift turned his head towards the dam wall and the garden beyond. “Instead, I have a mission for you and the rest of the Black Ravens.”
“A mission?” The boy’s tone was still guarded, but Swift detected a hint of curiosity.
“For now, my agency will leave the garden alone— trusting that you and your friends will guard the site from Jean Descole.” Swift smiled and held out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
“Do I have a choice?” the boy muttered.
“The only other choice is that I will send in reinforcements to secure the garden,” Swift warned.
The Black Ravens’ leader sighed. He quickly shook hands with Swift.
“I’ll throw in three hundred pounds for your troubles,” Swift added.
Bronev wouldn’t be pleased about the price— but wasn’t it worth it to know the garden would be under watch, and Targent wouldn’t have to get their hands dirty?
And what if their agency could gain some new recruits along the way?
The boy hummed, before he agreed, “Deal… Erm, what’s your name? Just in case we need to get hold of you—“
“It’s Swift,” Swift answered. “Yourself?”
He smirked. “Crow.”
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
An Oasis of Green in Senegal
About 5,000 years ago, global sea level was higher and water covered the Senegal River Delta. As time passed and the ocean retreated, rivers remade the surface of the newly exposed landscape, moving sediment during floods and scouring channels to create an intricate network of lakes, lagoons, floodplains, and islands.
The delta wetlands became an oasis amidst the mostly barren desert landscapes of northern Senegal and southern Mauritania. The mixture of fresh and salt water, and dynamic seasonal floods, attracted many species of birds, and the wetlands became a nesting, wintering, and stopping point for a range of migratory and resident birds on the East Atlantic Flyway.
Construction of the Diama Dam about 22 kilometers (14 miles) north of Senegal’s historic city of Saint-Louis in 1986 changed the seasonal rhythms of the delta’s waterways. The dam stored fresh water for farmers in the region, but it stopped tidal flows of salt water during the drier months that helped sustain some wetland areas. The freshwater reservoir that pooled up behind the dam would have flooded Senegal’s Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary, established in 1971, without the construction of a network of embankments, sluice gates, and canals that regulate how much water flows through the bird sanctuary and reservoir.
Sections of this water management system are visible in satellite images. In the image above, captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, embankments appear as relatively straight lines surrounding green areas. The reservoir and surrounding wetlands appear mostly green because thick communities of aquatic vegetation thrive in the shallow water.
Diawling National Park was established in Mauritania in 1991 after the construction of the Diama Dam, partly to restore a more natural flow of water to areas west of the reservoir. Seasonal water releases have helped rehabilitate mangroves and other wetlands that had begun to wither after the construction of dam.
Every year, millions of migrating birds pass through the sanctuary and national park, temporarily joining populations of resident birds. Ducks, sandpipers, flamingos, pelicans, spoonbills, herons, cormorants, garganeys, pintails, and ruffs are all commonly found in this area. More than 10,000 pelicans typically nest on a flat, triangular area of rock found in the bird sanctuary. The nesting rock likely appears white in the Landsat image compared to the surroundings because of the high density of white birds and guano stains.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story and photograph by Adam Voiland.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Lake Journal #1
The canal is significantly more overgrown than you remember. Getting a boat in and out of it will be difficult until something is done about all the muck and weeds.
——
You remember when you were younger, a friend told you to keep a jar of lake water on your nightstand. Something about keeping away bad dreams. You’ll keep that in mind, should you ever find a jar.
——
At the other side of the lake, opposite your home, you can see a distant light, glowing defiantly in the foggy darkness of the early winter morning. Someone must live over there.
——
You heard footsteps on the roof last night. When you went to go investigate in the morning, the only thing you found that was out of the ordinary was a large shard of bright green glass.
——
Lying in bed, the comfort of sleep evades you. It’s well past midnight. You hear the sound of a train passing in the distance, somewhere out in the woods. There hasn’t been a train since you were young. And there still isn’t. Ignore the sound. That’s no train.
——
When you woke up this morning, there was a shiner swimming around in the jar on your nightstand. There was just water and some riverscum in it when you went to bed last night. You’re wondering if you should give it a name.
——
You look out the window of your bedroom. It was still early in the morning, so the fog was unsurprising, slowly pouring from the surface of the lake out into the trees. It was much thicker today then you’d seen in the past though. That didn’t bode well.
——
Your exploration of the woods around your home was cut short this afternoon. You saw an old refrigerator sitting out in a clearing, completely overtaken by foliage. Almost immediately after you laid eyes on it, you heard the thunderclap of a shotgun from somewhere not too far off, and retreated back home.
——
You heard a loud splash from the canal last night. Scanning over the water with your flashlight didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary, though. Regardless, you decided it was for the best to practice caution while out near the water from then on.
——
Today, your exploration of the mountainside brought you to an old watermill. The place was so old and rotten, it leaned precariously to be side, looking as if it would fall over at any minute. As you approached however, you heard quiet whimpering and snarling from within.
——
You weren’t careful enough. You got caught out in the storm last night. You saw the clouds darken and swell, but continued exploring anyway. You were completely drenched, and struggled to even make it back inside when you finally got home. And now you’ve caught the Rain Sickness. How stupid you are. Stupid, stupid thing. You’re gonna lie in bed, sweating yourself dry, shivering till your teeth fall out, with those markings all over your body, like rain running down a window. You might even die. You might even die! And then none of this will have mattered. Lovely.
——
Five days have passed. The Rain Sickness has finally started to abate.
That was probably the worst you’ve ever felt in your entire life. With nobody to take care of you, all you could manage to do in your brief hours of consciousness each day was shuffle around aimlessly, cull your hunger with a dirty carrot, potato, or handful of blackberries from your meager garden, and try not to collapse on the way back to your bed.
But it seems like it’s over now. You’ve stopped sweating and trembling, and the marks have begun to fade. Look at you. Still kicking.
Not bad.
——
Come morning, you were surprised to see a twine basket covered in pale brown cloth sitting out on the porch, right next to your door.
Bringing it inside, uncovering the basket revealed bunches of strawberries and blueberries, homemade bread, and some sort of jerky wrapped in thin white cloth. It all smelled amazing, but you were cautious. You didn’t wanna get sick again, immediately after your miraculous recovery. A quick look around outside didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary.
You bit into the bread.
It was the best thing you’ve tasted in a long, long while.
——
Last night, there was a choir in the canal.
It was singing to you as you tried to sleep. Annoying, and even eerie at first, but relaxing the longer you listened to it.
Wonderful singers out there, in that canal.
——
Early in the morning, out on the lake, through the dense blanket of fog, you thought you saw something. A blink. A light? A light from a boat? It looked kind of like a window. A houseboat, maybe?
…Is there someone living out on the lake?
——
You’ve been out here for…a year?
You’ve been out here for a year.
Huh.
You can’t sleep. Outside is near silent, but something tells you this is cause for celebration, and you don’t know why.
You stand out on the porch. No. Further.
You walk out to the dock.
The very end of the dock.
You look out upon the lake. Upon the fog.
You shout. You clap. You jump and stomp.
You made it. Made it? Somewhere? Maybe not. But you did *something.* For a year.
You celebrate for a bit longer, then go quiet, exhausted.
Hands on your knees, you breath slowly.
You do this for a while.
Then
Then
Your joy is echoed by someone else. Out there.
And then again.
And then again.
And then again.
In that moment, you heard dozens of different flavors and accents of joy, like you had never heard before.
And then there were lights. Lights!
Stars against the distant fog, shining defiantly.
And their joy continues. Amplifies.
You try to muster up that joy again, but your throat hurts.
But they heard your joy. And they returned it.
You don’t know them, and they don’t know you.
But you’re all here. Around this lake.
And you’re here.
And that’s enough.
A whole year.
You smile.
You hear an engine approaching from the fog.
——
Here again. Lying awake in bed.
The air in your room is cold, but your quilt is warm, and your mattress is comfortable.
You sigh. The choir in the canal is singing proudly tonight. At least someone’s having a good night.
You turn on your side to face the window, going half-deaf as your ear presses into your pillow.
That branch is tapping at the glass again. It usually does this. Sometimes it doesn’t, though.
You blink slowly.
“…Tell me something?” You ask.
Tap tap, tap tap. It answers.
“How so?” You ask.
Tap scrrtch. Tap tap. It answers.
“That sounds nice.” You say.
Scrrrtch tap scrrrtch. It confirms.
“I envy you.” You say.
Tap. It responds.
“What’s your name?” You ask.
Silence
Hm. Oh well.
Must be shy.
You turn onto your back again.
You stare at the ceiling.
An hour passes.
Finally, you can hear the quiet pitter-patter of rain begin to pick up outside.
You’ve found that recently, nights where it rains are the only nights you can sleep well.
You’ve been wondering if it has something to do with rain sickness.
That man in the boat you met on that celebratory night was able to tell you had caught it at some point, which was interesting.
As far as you could tell, there were no visible signs the illness has left on you. But he knew still.
Maybe he could help you? He seemed like a well-learned fella.
Quite handsome, too. You’d like to see him again, just in general.
You smile, and clasp your hands over your quilt.
The rain gets louder.
Tap. Scrrrrtch. Tap.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Copenhagen Travels - Part III
A bout to the cemetery the other side of the island is the morning plan.
Sunny day. Buoyant sanguine Spring sunshine that pangs off the canal
Water and sparkles that and sparkles the bikes stacked up in their hundreds
By the streets as you dally. You need a fridge magnet for going back home.
Heading off into the hub of the city centre looking for a souvenir store you
Pass the corporate shops with the famous international names. On broad
Windows are splashed the adverts for cosmetics and perfume with these
Supermodels pouting their pulpy lips. And unfortunately there are the
Fast food branches with their sickly logos, mixed in with the fashion stores,
The shoe shops with their lady leather boots erectile through the screens.
On each restaurant MENU that you pass it’s all either meat or fish.
The coins are a bit confusing in Denmark and when you find a magnet you
Like you give the girl at the counter too much change.
After the store you head into this new park with a little lake inside it
All amazed by the light of the sky in simmering in pure reflections.
Swans and ducks mosey about, about as careless as water birds can be.
You come out of the park and onto the bridge that crosses the main canal
Leading off the island and on the brinks of the bridge are the bloody flags
Of Denmark again. Shortly after the crossing you come upon a basketball
Court. Surrounded by buildings smothered in graffiti. The courts of the
Playing field make you wish you had a ball to bounce there, to throw up
At those orange lurking rings … and you can’t discern much of the graffiti
Letters on the walls, nor understand the artwork spattered between the
Raw inscriptions, but they work in the rash urban zeal of the scene.
The scenery quickly changes into a charming district of florists, bakeries,
Bike hire shops, ice cream parlours. Shame you can’t really appreciate
Any of the cuisine, for personal ethical reasons (ha).
In close time you reach the cemetery.
Hans Christen Andersen is buried there. It is odd how a field full of
Skeletons underneath the soil can attract so many free people a day.
Free of charge you can go and see the tombs of dead folks and maybe
Tingle at the nuance of their bones under the flowers and grass that
Align their patches. Above Hans’ tombstone they’ve put Daffodils
And tulips, looking like any Easter Card decoration. Born in 1805,
Died in 1875. Snow queens, angels, goblins, elves, storks, teapots
And ugly ducklings don’t seem to have anything to do with this pretty
Graveyard. But it gives you a bit of momentum, a bit of inspiration,
To try and have achieved something before you perish yourself.
Maybe try and do something before you die to perhaps have your own
Bones nestle in a similar place somewhere on this sublime continent?
…
You figure you might try a museum next. And there’s a castle along
The way so you can see that too.
Heading along in that direction you come across a bunch of kids
Out playing on the street. Are they high school kids? They play
With basketballs and footballs and they shriek and shout with that inner
Value of youth. It’s a week day after all and so they must be on their
Lunch break from the school. Do you wish you were as young
As them? Not really because you remember the agony of adolescence.
And yet, these days when you look across at the car reflections in Europe
You see your white hair and your tired face and you’re always on your
Own and thus you don’t really feel young anymore: and all the folks
In the hotels you stay in are either way younger than you or far older,
And thus you don’t seem to belong to a particular age bracket.
But, meh, oh well, whatever. You’re still alive and that’s what counts.
On the upper scores of the buildings are random chunks of letters
That resemble steampunk videogames from the 1990s, or graphic novels
From the 1980s: and it’s remarkable how those concepts will have influenced
Such phenomena in modernity, right there, illegally splayed on the roofs
Of the city centre houses. …
You get to the castle. There are spike gates in front of a long meadow
Leading up to the building. In the foreground of the fortress are a band
Of soldiers in boots and fancy hats, playing music. A big brass band.
Pumping out crowd-pleasers with their fat drums, trumpets and blushed faces.
They seem to be performing to nobody in particular save the gabble
Of tourists picking photos from 200 yards outside the gates.
But they still do the music pretty well. Have to hand it to them.
The other side of the street there are a couple of Danish men getting drunk
On one of the benches. They drink from green cans and have sweaty faces
And the bigger man sings something to you as you pass. Not intimidating,
Though: only merry rather than offensive. … …
Okay so here’s the museum. History museum. With a mix of cultural and artistic
Regalia from within Denmark and across Europe and northern Africa.
There are respectable ladies at Reception.
They give you a key to stack your bag, and then you head upstairs, going to
The top floor. As you ascend, the light diminishes and all grows dark, and
As you head unto the showrooms, it’s like being a kid again going on a school
Trip, when you’re in a new environment, and it’s humid and there are these
Glass boxes blooming in the darkness. … Maps, diagrams, histories of warfare,
Ancient coins, ancient knives and pistols. They’re all real and so you wonder
Whether they ever killed anybody.
There’s a whole region dedicated to Islamic history. The empires that ranged across
A mammoth wedge of two continents, that spanned between Spain and Persia.
And so you read the snippets of writing under each display. They all seem to
Acknowledge violence as the cursor for history????????????????????????????????
When you go downstairs you see the other floors. They are filled with Danish
Pottery, in milky whites and blue, these china pots and plates that you would
Fear dropping on the floor if you ever held them. … Whilst you’re walking
About, a woman with a museum uniform on comes and asks you to tie your
Coat around your waste. “Okay, that’s fine,” you say. … You explore the rest
Of the floors. Then you figure to head back to the hotel.
Whence outside of the museum the clouds have overtaken the sky and there
Seems premonition in the grey dyes of them.
Head back to the hotel for just now and perhaps a night walk later on?
#writeblr#creative writing#writers on tumblr#tumblr writers#poems#travel writing#denmark#copenhagen#spilled ink#travelling#thoughts and feelings#diary
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Chapter 12: Encounters
Prologue | Chapter 11 | Chapter 13
Chapter 12: Encounters
The system’s Gateway is intact, but currently not operational. Due to its orbital position at the edge of the system and a significant distance away from Nephaas, we will be investigating it closely before attempting to leave. That being said, we currently do not have high hopes. At the moment, it is tumbling through space, little more than a large asteroid composed of shinier-than-average metals, crystals, and composites in far orbit from the primary star; it is giving off no more heat or other emissions than we would expect from a rock of its shape and composition. Finding it took significant effort, as it has shifted somewhat from its original orbit, apparently from a gravitational encounter with one of the outer planets.
We can only hope that we will find something there that might help us understand what has happened.
~o0O0o~
Raavi ava Laargan
We continued down the length of the canals, speeding along in the winter night, slowly making our way up the length of the kingdom towards the White Mountains. We were almost out of Fia’s duchy, although, ironically, we’d be reentering it later on further to the west due to the winding paths of the canals. We were starting to get into the foothills of the mountains now, and the terrain was becoming more and more rolling. Forests were becoming more common too, rather than just the tamed orchards and groves of the lower plains. That was both good and bad, as it meant that we had shelter when we stopped, but the trees also blocked the wind, so our speed dropped to ‘only’ about fifteen miles an hour. Which, as Stylio pointed out, was still faster than a horse could sustain even in full summer. And the clear and relatively straight path of the canal also helped channel what wind there was, so that helped too.
Then, up ahead as we cleared a cut through a hillside, I saw light.
Up on the top of a hill in the distance, a fire glowed.
“What’s that?” a few people chorused, and the rustling of paper came from Yufemya as she unfurled the map.
“Uh… it’s the… um…”
There was more rustling of paper and Zoy’s voice came a moment later. “It’s the ‘Starkwaldhuugel Shrine’.”
“Wait, really?” I blurted. “Prepare to pull the brakes!”
“Raavi—” Fia started to say.
“It’s famous, and given, well, everything, I figure asking for some help can’t hurt!”
There was a pause, and Fia, sighing and chuckling, said, “All right. Let’s take a break and Raavi can go give some offerings.”
I tried not to hear that as indulgent, but instead focused on the light ahead as it drew nearer and nearer. In a matter of minutes, we arrived at a small artificial lake jutting off of the canal; numerous docks, sized for the standard canal boats, stood empty and waiting in the night. Stone steps set into the side of the hill were mostly swept clean of snow—by the wind, judging by how the drifts lay in the corners on the leeward side. The steps themselves were not made of the same hardwearing stone that made the stairs down to the caverns in my town, and had visible dips and wear from feet climbing up and down them.
“I guess we’ll make camp and you’re going up the hill?” Fia asked. “Who do you want to come with you?”
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“Raavi, there are roving bands of revenants at large in this kingdom and we’re in the area where they’ve been operating. What happens if you run into a group of them up at the shrine?” Fia responded as she hauled the tent out of the back of the Lynx.
“Oh. Uh… that’s a good point.” I considered. For a moment, I almost said Zoy, but, well…
The Dormelion Empire had tried to destroy or profane my people’s shrines after they’d conquered our lands, and forced us to worship their gods. It felt… wrong to bring one of them up to one of the holiest sites in the entire kingdom.
“Oksyna? Feel like coming with me? If we run into any revenants, you’ll be able to talk with them.”
She grinned. “Sure.”
I smiled back and grabbed a pouch of sandwiches and a flask of beer from the supplies, and stuffed them into my coat pockets. With that, the two of us started up the stairs.
While I was sure that in the summer they were easy and comfortable footpaths, in winter they were more than a bit treacherous, and our progress was slow. Around us, trees rattled and whispered, mixing with the sounds of the chimes and bells hung among the branches. It was beautiful and peaceful, and as we reached the first landing on the stairs, we paused just for a moment to listen.
But the moment passed, and we started up the second flight of stairs. Part of the way up, Oksyna commented, “This place must be gorgeous in the summer, all green and alive.”
“Oh, definitely.” I looked around; the stairs were bordered by carved stone railings, and even though they were obscured by snow, I could see that they were beautiful works of art. It was a little hard to tell, because the stone itself was also a near pure-white, probably from the White Mountains. I knew that they were named for the color of the rock. In the monograph I’d read that had inspired me to build the Lynx, I’d found that there were mountains around the equator of the world that were covered in ice and snow year-round, and the first explorers who had gone there had thought that they were just more of the same geology as the White Mountains here. Finding that they were covered in glaciers was a shock to them.
Reaching the top of the stairs and feeling a bit winded from the climb, I blinked. What I had assumed would be another landing was instead a wide setback that appeared to encircle the entire hill. It was a good twenty yards wide and filled with ornamental trees, and what I guessed were planters of flowers, judging by the hummocks of snow between the trees.
“Pretty,” Oksyna said approvingly. “So what would people be doing here anyway? Or can you not say?”
“Generally? Bringing offerings, praying, giving thanks to the spirits. But I don’t know the specifics; you have to be an inducted member of the local circle to learn that.”
“Amazing. And your people managed to keep it all going, despite the Empire’s best efforts.” She dragged a hand through a pile of snow, revealing the remains of some flowers; I’d been right on that count. “It’s… nice.”
Confused, I gave her a glance as I started towards the next set of stairs. “Nice how? I don’t understand.”
She sighed. “So my homeland is right next to the Empire’s homeland. From what I’ve read, before they came and conquered us, we venerated the Sun, the Moon, and the Night-Light. But that’s all gone now, beyond what some scholars wrote down.”
I nodded. “The only reason we managed to keep our ways is because we hid our wise men and women in the caverns specifically so they could pass down what they knew.” As I put my foot on the first step, I turned and looked at her. “Does… does the situation with the Sacrem in the Empire…”
“Bring me any joy?” she asked, and shook her head. “No. But that’s a talk for another day. Come on. Let’s pay homage to your people’s ways, and not talk more about others.” She started up the stairs, and we again fell silent, trying to avoid slipping. A single handrail in the center of the wide stairs was the only security we had against falling on the omnipresent ice.
Even so, it only took a few minutes to reach the top, although we were both out of breath by the time we got there.
But we were both speechless for a different reason.
I stared.
Eight arches of shining braided metals made an open dome reaching at least a hundred feet in the air, if not more, suspended over a terraced bowl in the center, with a central raised altar at the nadir. At the very top of the dome, suspended hundreds of feet above the altar below, was the bowl of fire that we had seen in the distance.
“Wow…” Oksyna breathed.
Nodding was the only reaction I could make, even as part of my mind tried to determine the stresses and tensile strengths of the arches; I knew that this place was thousands of years old—as old as the King’s Tower, really—and had remained standing for all of that time.
Then my eyes narrowed.
“Look.”
“What?”
“There’s no ice or snow inside the dome.”
She did a double-take of her own, and her eyes widened. “How? It’s open.”
“Let’s go look.”
Together, we went across the open space—the top of the hill, aside from the shrine itself, was flat and paved with stones—and then we reached the edge of the dome. There was a distinct line between inside and out, between snow and bare… stone? Metal? What was that material? I couldn’t tell.
I shared a look with Oksyna and we both took deep breaths together and then stepped over the line.
“Well… that was anticlimactic,” she commented when nothing happened.
“Yeah. I don’t feel any difference in the wind or anything,” I said, and then crouched down. “But there’s no snow on here. You’d think a bowl like this would be full of it…” I shook my head. “The ancients sure knew what they were doing.”
“That’s for sure.”
We went down the terraced steps; looking around, it was fairly obvious that it was intended for thousands of people to be able to sit and see the central altar. At the center, the floor flattened out into a ring around the altar. It was a single piece of crystal, with a bronze bowl mounted on top of it.
Feeling grossly inadequate all of a sudden, I gently placed the bottle of beer and the sandwiches into the bowl before stepping down from the altar and onto the flat ring around it. Going to one knee, I gave thanks.
“Spirits of the land, we thank you for your blessings, your help, and your insights into our journey. While we have little to offer, know that whatever assistance you can muster will be received with gratitude.”
There was no answer, but I still felt better for having made the offering here, in this sacred place.
Oksyna came over to me a moment later. “We should get going. But thank you for sharing this with me.”
I rose and smiled at her. “Of course. Now… I don’t know about you, but I’m tempted to try to slide down the hill rather than risk those stairs.”
She grinned. “Sounds great!”
#
Zoy
The sobbing scream jolted her awake; palming a knife on reflex, Zoy leapt from the waystation’s bed. Landing in a crouch, she scanned the dark room that she was sharing with Yufemya and Oksyna, and quickly pinpointed the source of the sound.
Yufemya was moaning and babbling in her sleep as she thrashed in the blankets; despite the near pitch-blackness of the room, Zoy could see beads of sweat on the other woman’s face as she grimaced and contorted in her sleep.
Summoning up all of the sympathy she could from years of being Stylio’s ward, Zoy went over to Yufemya. “Hey,” she said softly, touching Yufemya’s shoulder with her free hand. “Hey, wake up. You’re having a nightmare!”
Yufemya didn’t rouse, even though her babbling turned more coherent. “No, no… you can’t… it won’t work… everyone’s going to die…”
Zoy grimaced, and set her knife aside before putting her other hand on Yufemya’s other shoulder, as the woman mumbled something about “hubris” and “ambition”, her tone sounding accusatory.
“Is she all right?” Oksyna’s voice came from the side; she sounded sleepy but concerned. A candle hissed to light from nearby, apparently spontaneously, which would have been intimidating if Zoy hadn’t already seen Oksyna perform the same party trick several times now.
“She’s having a nightmare but I can’t get her to wake up,” Zoy said, and secured her hands on Yufemya’s shoulders. “Hey! Hey Yu! Wake up!” she said a little louder, giving Yufemya a small shake.
Yufemya’s eyes bolted open and she gasped before grabbing Zoy in an embrace, flinging her arms around her as if she was drowning and Zoy was a piece of driftwood.
Awkwardly, Zoy patted her on the back even as Yufemya heaved for air. “You all right?”
Wordlessly, Yufemya shook her head, her hair brushing against Zoy’s face.
“Sounds like it was quite the nightmare.”
In a croaking voice, Yufemya replied, “It was.”
“Want to talk about it?”
Again, Yufemya shook her head; the motion made the crystal die hanging from her necklace bounce against Zoy’s chest.
Glancing down at it, Zoy said, “At least it wasn’t a prophetic dream, right?”
“Wha—?”
She motioned to the die. “I haven’t seen you use that in the whole time we’ve been traveling together. So you’re not getting prophetic dreams. So whatever it was that you saw, it’s not going to happen.” Zoy tried to smile reassuringly at Yufemya with this; everyone knew that overuse of forecasting ran the risk of uncontrolled prophetic dreams. Some people looked at that as a positive, and it was certainly an occupational hazard for career seers, but Zoy had seen too many people turn to drink to try to forget what they had seen to think of it that way.
Slowly, Yufemya nodded. “You’re right. Yes.” She swallowed and slowly let Zoy go. “Yes.” She swallowed, the sound harsh and painful, before leaning back onto the bed and tucking her knees up under her chin and putting her arms around them. “Yes. It won’t happen. It was just a dream.”
Giving Yufemya an encouraging smile, Zoy patted her on the knee. “Yeah. Try to go back to sleep. We’ll be getting back onto the Lynx in a few hours.”
Yufemya nodded, the tension in her face and neck starting to fade. “Yes. You’re right.” She took a deep, bracing breath and let it out slowly. “It was just… quite horrible.”
Oksyna spoke up. “If you want to talk about it, we’re willing to listen.”
“It… it was… I saw people dying. So many people dying… because I… because we weren’t fast enough. Because we made some mistake… and they all paid for it.” She swallowed harshly. “The bodies… they filled the streets, rotting… nobody buried them, because there was nobody left alive…”
Zoy grimaced. That was a bad one. Reaching out, she put a supportive hand on Yufemya’s shoulder. “And it won’t happen. You’re just tired and stressed and your brain is playing tricks on you after all of the stuff we’ve seen. I know that I’m feeling uneasy about that seeress from where we picked up Oksyna. The stakes are high, but we’ll get through it.” She put a smile on her face, and even though it felt as fake as anything, Yufemya seemed heartened by it. “Besides, between Stylio and Fia—and Raavi—do you see anything getting in our way?”
“What about me?” Oksyna asked with a chuckle.
“You’re just scary in a different way,” Zoy said honestly; while the younger woman was certainly affable enough, there was no question that if she wanted to, she could cut a swathe of destruction with ease. A lot of the stories Zoy had heard about the old tyrant Nightshade were making a lot more sense now that she’d met an actual necromancer and seen her at work. And, sure, Oksyna said that she didn’t want to kill anyone directly, but the obvious loophole of ‘make their clothes disintegrate and let the elements kill them’ stood out to Zoy. But that honestly made her trust Oksyna more, as she could have easily killed the townies back when they’d first encountered her. The fact that she’d held back from that was a major point in the ‘won’t go crazy and kill us all out of boredom’ column.
Oksyna grinned. “Thank you. Coming from someone with that many knives on them, I’m taking that as a compliment.”
“Wait, you can sense them?”
“With my eyes, yes. Also Raavi told me.”
Yufemya gave a watery snort at that. “It was quite the moment.”
“I bet.”
Zoy coughed and turned the conversation to safer waters. “So… you and Raavi?”
Oksyna gave her a sidelong look. “What about him?”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time together, that’s all,” Zoy said innocently.
With a sigh, Oksyna said, “He’s nice, and I adore how he doesn’t treat me like a walking murder threat. Also giving me some ideas on how to use my abilities with even more panache has been a treat.”
“He’s certainly a clever young man,” Yufemya said softly, and slowly released her knees from where she’d been hugging them. “I don’t think that more sleep is on the table for me, though.” Slowly and shakily, she stood, and stretched.
Zoy considered as well; she was probably past the point where she’d be able to get to sleep easily at this point. “I’m done too. I’ll nap on the Lynx, I think.”
Yufemya glanced at her with an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry for waking you.”
“It’s all right.” Zoy stretched as well, and, aware that the other two women were watching her, deliberately overstretched, touching the back of her head with her pointed toes as she stood on one foot.
“Show-off,” Oksyna said, and rolled over in her blankets. “I’m going back to sleep. Take the candle with you when you leave.”
Zoy grinned and did so after throwing on a few more clothes. Candle-holder in hand, the two of them went out into the waystation’s common area. A few people were out and about, but the room, which was sized for the crowds of canal-barge crews that would be coming through in the summer, felt mostly empty. The comparatively small waitstaff were mostly dealing with their own local crowd and a few couriers coming through with reports of more raids.
“I’m glad we shifted from making camp to using waystations,” Zoy said, casting about for something to talk about as they sat down at a table.
“Probably saved us time, and definitely saved us resources,” Yufemya said in agreement. “Resources that we’ll need when we cross the White Mountains.”
“Have to agree there,” Zoy said, and leaned in. “So… I’ve been wondering.”
“About?”
For a moment, Zoy considered just flatly asking why Yufemya was here with them, what her motivation was. Zoy’s was easy—Stylio was here, and where her mentor and guardian went, Zoy followed. There was also the whole impending apparent cataclysm issue, and as someone living in the apparent blast radius, Zoy took exception to that happening without trying to stop it.
But why was Yufemya here?
However, rather than ask that, Zoy changed direction. “So you’re an amazing shot with the bow. Like when you nailed that one man’s hand. How long have you been training with it?”
Yufemya relaxed visibly. “Since I was a little girl. How about you and your knives? I saw you deal with the Duke’s men; two trained guardsmen and they didn’t even see you coming.”
Zoy exhaled. “Also since I was a little girl. You know how it is in the Kasmenarta underworld.”
Yufemya winced. “I do. Were you with one of the gangs?”
“I was.”
Silence, awkward, painful silence, before one of the waitstaff blessedly came over, bringing a tray of some waking foods and drinks for the two of them.
As they started to eat, Yufemya asked, “So… how did you get out?”
“Stylio. I followed her out.”
With a nod, Yufemya exhaled softly. “That makes sense. She’s… she’s quite something.”
“She is.” Her head bobbing in a slow nod as memories replayed behind her eyes, Zoy repeated, “She really is.” She spooned up some of the porridge and ate it before pointing the spoon at Yufemya. “Look. Can you promise me that you don’t mean her any harm?”
Yufemya nodded as she took a bite of her own food. “I can promise that. I’m here to help as best I can.”
The two of them sat and ate in companionable silence after that, and then Yufemya nodded towards one of the walls. “Care for a round or two while we wait on everyone else to wake up?”
Zoy turned and saw what Yufemya had gestured towards. Turning back, she nodded with a grin. “You’re on!”
Putting their empty dishes back onto the tray, the two of them headed over to the small alcove where a series of gaming tables and other equipment were waiting for players.
“What to play, what to play…” Zoy mused as she looked around; there were felt-covered tables for cue games, a pockmarked set of wooden targets over by one wall with a rack of small throwing knives, and some more esoteric equipment for other games.
Yufemya went over to the throwing knives and held them up. “Interested?” she asked with a grin.
Smirking, Zoy went over and claimed her set of four knives. “Loser buys the next round?”
“Given that we’re getting all of the food and drink for free based on those royal papers, I don’t know how that would even work,” Yufemya pointed out.
“Hmm. Point. So, Breath or no Breath allowed?” It was a standard question for these sorts of contests of skill. Someone suitably skilled with Breath—like Stylio—could enhance their abilities games of dexterity to absurd heights, but of course it came with a cost of pain. That was taken as a feature for some varieties of games, where it wasn’t just about the skill of the player, but their ability to maintain focus.
“I’d allow it,” Yufemya said. “I’d love to see what you can do.”
Zoy grinned and, stepping back behind the line that was thoughtfully set into the floor, hefted the throwing knives. She had better ones herself, but this set wasn’t bad; the leather of the grips was well-worn with long use, but the balance was decent, and the points were sharp enough to get into the wood of the targets.
Taking a deep breath, she focused her Will and started to hum. A faint and thin stream of blue-white Breath began to stream from her nose and mouth, wreathing her arms in a filmy aurora.
Then, moving quickly, she threw the first knife, quickly followed by the second, third, and fourth, knocking down all four targets in a rapid clatter.
Yufemya clapped as Zoy ended her spell; her body was aching slightly, but she’d had worse from catching that one man back in Raavi’s town.
“Well done! My turn!” Yufemya said, and set the targets back up again; Zoy smugly noted that she’d managed to get nearly dead center on each of them, with the knife blades being a good inch deep into the wood.
Yufemya threw her own knives, and while they all hit their targets, only three of them were hit hard enough to be knocked over, and none of them were as accurate as Zoy’s hits.
Making a face as she picked up the still-standing target, the knife having buried itself in the lower quarter of the wooden block at an angle, Yufemya said, “Well, later we’ll have to have a rematch with hay bales and bows.”
Zoy snickered. “Want another round?”
“Maybe later. Come on, let’s try something that you don’t have such an overwhelming advantage at.” She motioned to the felt-covered tables, with the racks of balls and sticks waiting for someone to play with them.
They set up the balls and wooden pins quickly, and with a smile, Zoy let Yufemya break first.
Yufemya exhaled, and hit the black-and-white ball into the hexagon of white and black balls, sending them scattering. One of the white balls rolled into a side pocket, barely missing the four wooden pins standing guard around it.
“Looks like I have black,” Zoy said with a grin.
Yufemya nodded, her forehead creased with focus, and moved around the table. “I… I think… can I…?” She leaned over, exhaled, and hit the black-and-white cue ball into a cluster of three other balls, two white and one black.
The two white balls rolled off from the impact, one of them going into another pocket with an odd spin that made it curve as it went—clipping a wooden pin on its way in, but not knocking it over—and the other standing in a prime spot to be sunk on a subsequent hit.
Zoy whistled. “Impressive, but you know that you’re supposed to call it!”
“Well, I wasn’t sure if I could do it, and besides, if I’d said that I’d be able to do it, you wouldn’t have believed me!”
With a snort, Zoy said, “True enough. All right, it’s still your ball.”
Yufemya nodded, and sank the ball she’d set up on the previous hit—calling it this time—but her next attempt knocked over two pins and didn’t manage to get the ball into the pocket she’d tried for.
Smiling, Zoy took her turn, and managed to sink four balls before giving Yufemya an unenviable setup with her last hit.
“You’re a sadist, you know that?” Yufemya said, scanning the table.
“Nah, just a pragmatist. I don’t enjoy hurting people; I’ll just do it if I need to.”
Yufemya glanced at her and took a deep breath. “I can understand that,” she said softly. “Black ball four, side pocket,” she announced, to Zoy’s disbelieving scoff, before sending the cue ball scurrying across the table, knocking into the number four black ball, which, to Zoy’s astonishment, bounced off of the side bumper and sailed cleanly into side pocket.
Staring for a moment, Zoy shook her head and said, “If you’re ever back in Kasmenarta, I have some taverns for you to go hustle. We could clean them out.”
“Well, I don’t know if I can keep that up,” Yufemya said with a shy smile.
Zoy motioned with her stick to the table. “Well, it’s still your turn.”
Yufemya grinned, and looked across the table with an analytical glean to her eye. “Black ball seven, corner pocket.”
An hour or so later, with Yufemya having won four out of their six games, Zoy was still struggling with her disbelief. Most of Yufemya’s calls had paid off, but some had clearly been too ambitious for her.
“What’s this?” Stylio’s voice came in from the side, her voice filled with amusement.
“Relaxing before hearing that screee noise for hours on end,” Zoy said, watching Yufemya lean over and prepare to strike.
“White ten in the corner pocket,” she called, and sure enough, despite Zoy’s disbelief, the white ball in question slid into the corner pocket, neatly avoiding the wooden pins.
Stylio whistled, impressed. “Well, finish your current game; we’re making preparations to continue on. The others are awake and eating.”
“Well, I guess I might want to just call it now,” Zoy said. “Even if I won this one,” she motioned to the table, where eight of the ten black balls stood starkly against six—then five—of the white ones, “I would still be a game behind.”
“Consider it a learning experience in humility,” Stylio said.
Before Zoy could respond, a commotion broke out at the front of the room, as a familiar accent boomed across the room. “She should be in here!”
Zoy saw Stylio’s eyes go wide at the sound of a Dormelion man shouting orders. Crouching low, she looked out of the gaming alcove to scan the rest of the room.
“We’ve got… ten… no, twelve men,” she reported in a hushed voice. “Hunter squad, I think. They’re not wearing uniforms, but they’re moving like they’re military. They’re all armed with swords and batons. Fia, Raavi, and Oksyna are at a table near the wall. Fia is watching the men carefully and speaking to Oksyna and Raavi. The waitstaff are angry, but standing back; most of the other people are upset.”
“Can’t blame them,” Yufemya muttered.
“It is rather blatant, given that this is another sovereign kingdom,” Stylio said, “and probably making the Kalltii think of some old history.”
“They’re coming this way. They’re sticking together rather than spreading out,” Zoy said, watching the men sweep the room. They clearly had training; two men were standing by the door with their weapons out as the rest went around in a show of force, checking the patrons one at a time.
She wondered who they were here for. It had been years since the last hunter squad had tried to track down Stylio, but it wasn’t out of the question. They were tenacious and took their high success rate as a point of pride; Stylio having slipped out of their fingers was undoubtedly a personal insult to them.
Well, it probably wasn’t Oksyna. Given how the Dormeli people felt about necromancers, they would have come in much larger numbers and with many more weapons if she was their target. And not Raavi, because of the specified gender.
That left…
Well, Fia, as a former pirate, Stylio, with all her history, Yufemya, who had admitted to killing someone from the upper ranks of Imperial society, or Zoy, as Stylio’s ward.
She caught Fia’s eye, and saw Fia hold up four fingers.
Zoy cocked her head. Four what?
Then Fia curled in a finger.
Ah.
“On the count of three, apparently,” she said. “One… two… three!”
To Zoy’s utter joy, she saw that her earlier guess had been dead on accurate, as the hunters’ clothing all disintegrated, unraveling, rotting, and in a few cases, bursting into sudden brief gouts of flame, even as their weapons corroded in their hands.
There was an abrupt sound of many, many chairs being pushed back as the other patrons rose, fury in their eyes.
Half an hour later, Zoy and her group were back outside by the Lynx. The Dormelion unit had been taken into custody by the city’s mayor, who had been none too happy to find a group of Imperials trying to arrest someone on his doorstep. And even if he had been inclined to accept their arrest warrant, it had crumbled to ash from Oksyna’s spell. Despite getting a beating from the assembled patrons, they had refused to identify their target, but Zoy had seen their eyes follow Yufemya and Stylio, which was good enough for her purposes.
“How did they know where we’d be?” Raavi asked as he checked the Lynx for any damage or surprises that the hunter squad might have left.
“That part is easy,” Zoy said.
He looked up over the side of the ice-boat. “Easy if you know it already. I don’t know these things, remember?”
She shrugged. “Point. Hunter squads like that have a commander-seer; he wouldn’t have followed them in, so he’s somewhere around here, but it’s his or her job to do forecasts to find out where their target will be.”
Raavi grunted as he ducked back under the Lynx. “Well, they won’t be able to catch up now.”
“They won’t need to; they’ll know where to wait for us to pass by,” Stylio said. “Not that it will matter much more. We’ll soon be up by the Gehtun, and I doubt that the hunters will be willing or able to follow us over the mountain passes.”
“And if they’re waiting on the way back, then we’ll deal with them then,” Fia said. “We good to go, Raavi?”
His hand emerged from underneath and he hauled himself up. “I think so. I don’t see any damage.”
“Good, let’s get going, then.”
Getting the Lynx in motion was second nature by this point, and Zoy found herself pondering as they pushed it up to speed.
If they had been here for Yufemya…
Who had she killed?
<<<<>>>>
Questions! So many questions! ^_^
As usual, please share this around if you're liking it, and consider subscribing to my Patreon!
Prologue | Chapter 11 | Chapter 13
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
Map of some important locations in AMC IWTV (no spoilers)
Orientation
Lakeside (towards Lake Pontchartrain) is towards the top of the map; riverside (towards the Mississippi River) is towards the bottom of the map. Upriver (“above”) is to the left; downriver (“below”) is to the right. North is in the top right.
Locations
Vieux Carré / French Quarter: Historic centre of New Orleans. Limits at Rampart, Canal, the river, Esplanade. Unmarked.
1132 Royal Street: The Gallier House, an eclectic 1857 townhouse (now a museum operated by Tulane University) that Lestat, Louis, and Claudia live in. Marked in red.
Jackson Square: The park by St Louis Cathedral where Louis and the gang like to sit on that one bench. Marked in lavender.
French Opera House: Foremost opera house in NO until it burned down in 1919. Uptown lakeside corner of Toulouse and Bourbon. Marked in magenta.
Fauborg Tremé: Prominent then-middle-class integrated neighbourhood lakeside of the Vieux Carré (French Quarter). From the 1840s on it was mostly populated by free, mixed-race Creoles. Limits at Canal, Rampart, and Esplanade; continues north above the map. Outlined in green.
St Augustine Church: The first Catholic church in the US built to serve a predominantly POC (though ultimately integrated) congregation, founded for the free Creole population of Tremé in 1842. (Fun fact: the fairly wealthy free mixed-race population got together and bought pews on either side of the aisles for Catholic slaves to sit in.) Uptown lakeside corner of St Claude (now Henriette Delille) and Hospital (now Governor Nicholls). Marked in orange.
De Pointe du Lac family home: Probably near the church, riverside of Marais. The house itself is the Derbès mansion, which is a fair bit further north, but Louis says they live about half a mile away from him and Lestat, which places them around the 3rd precinct of the 6th Ward. (Fun fact: this is also where Homer Plessy lived in the 1890s). Unmarked.
St Louis Cemetery: Where the de Pointe du Lac family tomb is. The family has been in the city long enough that they’re probably buried in the old cemetery on Basin and St Louis. (My headcanon is that the Louis of the books, born in the 1760s, is AMC Louis’ great-great-grandfather, probably by Yvette, in a different timeline where Lestat futzes about in Europe for 150 years longer.) Unmarked, but labelled.
Saenger Theatre: Popular cinema and stage theatre built in 1927 (it’s also where the opera scenes in episode 2 were filmed, though they were set at the French Opera House). Downtown lakeside corner of Rampart and Canal. Marked in cyan.
Storyville: NO’s red-light district from 1897 to 1917. Limits at Robertson, Customhouse (now Iberville), Basin, St Louis. Outlined in a yellow box.
Frontages on Liberty Street: Where most of Louis’s Storyville businesses are. Marked in blue.
Frontages on Basin Street: Where the most profitable Storyville businesses are. (The most profitable block is labelled 124 here. Thomas Anderson owned the saloon on the corner of Basin and Customhouse; Lulu White, a mixed-race madam who should have been in the show, owned the brothel on the corner of Basin and Bienville.) Marked in red.
Azalea Hall: 202 Villere Street (if I’m not mistaken). Approximate location marked in violet.
Black Storyville: Segregated Colored red-light district that would have been created by Ordinance 4118 in March 1917. Limits at Robertson, Cleveland, Liberty, Canal. Outlined in a red box.
Ward boundaries: They don’t come up in the show, but they’re a fairly important part of NO culturally and geographically, so I’ve included them.
3rd Ward: Predominantly Anglo and White. Now the central business district. Upriver of Canal Street.
4th Ward: Upper part of French Quarter. Limits at Canal and St Louis.
5th Ward: Central part of French Quarter. Limits at St Louis and St Philippe.
6th Ward: Lower part of French Quarter. Limits at St Philippe and Esplanade.
7th Ward: Predominantly Anglo and Black. Downriver of Esplanade.
If anyone is interested to know where anything else is (or might be) or has any corrections, please let me know!
If you need floor plans or anything for Louis and Lestat’s townhouse, the Gallier house is extensively documented. I’ve included the floor plans below (the approximate location of the incinerator is marked in red; toilets are on the other side of that gate in the privy), but much more can be found here.
#i speak#amc iwtv#iwtv#if you happen to be writing a fic where lestat goes into politics#like i may or may not be doing#1st precinct of 6th Ward is riverside of Bourbon#2nd precinct is riverside of Rampart#3rd precinct is riverside of Marais#4th precinct is riverside of Claiborne
43 notes
·
View notes
Text
Most.
Magickal.
Evening ...
So I was just down by the barge canal on Lake Champlain, Burlington VT, observing a new magickal ritual of guerilla plantcrafting where I put in a mix of ruderalis and white widow seeds to bring a little wonder joy and magick back to sites like that that have been poisoned by human greed (its I think one of the few Superfund toxic cleanup sites in Vermont.) It;s just turning from sunset to twilight, and I put in the last seed of the evening and look up to see the full moon. LITERALLY at that exact moment ...
*honk*
...
*honk honk*
...
I couldn't see the Canada geese in the dimming sky, but could hear them fly over, so I honked up at them in greeting.
Next thing I half-saw in the twilight was the ripples lapping shore at the water's edge as at least one swooped silently in and landed, again absolutely literally, on the mirror-still dark quicksilver water ten feet from me.
And then honked back.
Once.
Don't tell me there ain't no magic left in the world. I've always been one of the faerie children, so I would have just quietly gone on knowing what I know anyway, but after this?
Anybody denies that magic, that wonder, that dream are alive and well in the world, I'm afraid I'll be discourteous enough a faerie knight as to openly laugh in their face
(btw the guy in the picture isn't me, that;s a stock photo from the Burlington Free Press local newspaper story here:
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/picture-gallery/life/2021/11/27/pine-street-barge-canal-burlington-vt-legacy-timber-industry-superfund-poison-beauty/6284898001/
but the GENERAL location is right (barge canal stretches along about two - three miles of the southern main corridor leading out of town (or rather, along Pine Street which is the street next closest to the lake FROM the main southern corridor)
#magic#haunting#atmospheric#hauntingly beautiful#canada geese#lakeshore#magic is alive#magick is alive#oh hell so's everything and nothing else
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
what a butcher's shop needed a mannequin in its storefront window for, those who milled up and down the underground couldn't surmise. at the very least, it was a pretty thing. pleasant enough to turn heads and draw glances out of the corners of odd - shapes sockets for a second glance. not many wanted to out - right stare at it, however, no, for it seemed to do enough of the staring on its own. a sentry in the window of seraphina's shop, its head cocked at an angle that must've been possible, yet appeared impossible with the crook of the doll's neck; what was it looking at, what was it looking for?
a white shard of sunlight slashed across its still face. one eye glittered like a lake on a sunny day; the other was a pit in the doll's face. neither the light or the heat seemed to bother it very much, as it simply continued to stare out the window and down the alley - way at a store slotted into the BRICK AND MORTAR three doors down and across the way.
the shop was an eatery of some sort, styled in the newly fashionable style of an east asian restaurant or café. charlotte had yet to identify never mind understand what particular kind of curiosity owned the shop. she'd seen them only a handful times, but only ever under the heavy cover of night. here was her chance to observe them in the day. three of them were standing in the shade of their storefront with the front accordion style folding door pushed wide open. they were arguing about something.
charlotte couldn't quite hear them through the distance, sunbeams, and the glass keeping her cool from the coming summer heat. though she doubted it would do her much good even if she could hear more than the sheer volume of voice; the family spoke in their native tongue, an uncommon dialect of chinese charlotte might've been able to put her finger on, but certainly couldn't hope to comprehend. so, she simply watched. with one eye in sunlight and the other shadow, she took note of their expressions, the shape of their mouths as they grimaced, the graceful, almost violent motion of their limbs as they performed their drama. high emotion could be felt in the glass' vibrations, the subtlest of which charlotte could still feel through the bone and cartilage of her knee, pressed against the pane for balance.
@saintvampe / DON'T BE RUDE.
the saint was in her usual spot, poised and reverent behind her counter. priceless gore before her, currency at her side, and an air of heady pleasure hanging about her head and shoulders like a bride's veil. yet when she spoke, her voice rung like a bell inside the canal of the vessel's ears, as though she had spoken right into her mind, the hush that followed almost leaving a fog of breath on the window. or perhaps that was charlotte's own little gasp. without shifting anything besides the eye - balls that rolled sorely within bird - bone sockets, charlotte looked away from the scene for just a moment.
seraphina's reflection was the ghost of a ghost in the sunny glass. she saw a dark stretch of red and the gleam of something silver. the glint of a controlled gaze. it was a good thing charlotte had stopped fearing gods and saints a long time ago. she smiled and returned her attention to the drama unfolding. a fourth had joined in. " It's fine. I could just say I was checking the tall - ish one out. He is kind of cute. Besides, they're always staring at me every time I walk past. This is only fair. "
she gave a chuckle as three of the talking heads suddenly whipped around to stare at the smallest of the bunch, a young woman by the looks of it, standing at the top of the store steps with her arms crossed over her chest. " Oh, she just said something none of them liked the sound of, " she remarked, amusement as bright as the day itself colouring her voice. " Can you understand what they're saying? Is there going to be trouble? "
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Day 8: favorite arc
My favorite Arya arc would be the current one; of her time in Braavos.
Throughout the series, we have seen this 9 year old girl suffer unimaginable horrors. Forced to flee into the streets of KL- Arya has known what it is to starve. She learns that in a world that only knows need and hunger, she would be killed for the boots on her feet and the cloak on her back. She realises that for those who live beyond the walls of a castle, life doesn't bring them a knight from a song. Because when these iron clad men do come; they come to rain fire, death and destruction...tearing them apart like a pack of wolves or like a pride of lions.
Arya has tasted death; she has bit into maggot filled apples that grow between hanging men and perhaps even drank from lakes that have become watery graves to bloating bodies. She has heard the screams of those who have been violated- used as a commodity only to be killed when met with resistance.
Arya has lost her kin, her home, her friends.
So even if her Westerosi arc is filled with powerful moments; I prefer the Braavos one.
Mind you that by this I don't mean to indicate that her time with the FM is a flowery field; she is in a constant peril of losing the tether to her identity. But even so I love it as she once again gets to play at being a 10-11 year old.
There is something almost beautiful in getting to see Arya freely interacting with people again. In getting to see her appreciate the "pink and blue" dawn and the "sharp and salty" air that blows over the canals. She isn't constantly looking over her shoulder to see if she being chased by the bloody mummers or by Lannister men and what's more is that she is not starving anymore:
Supper was her favorite time. It had been a long while since Arya had gone to sleep every night with a full belly.
I feel like these lines have both literal and figurative significance:
Westeros has been ravaged by war- a vision of which Dany was shown in the house of Undying. While the powerful sups on swan meat and makes provisions to arrange luxury parties at the onset of winter, the common folks suffer not only the misfortunes of the season but they also have to deal with being collateral damage in the play of politics. The result is a kingdom full of rot, hunger, starvation, stagnation, death and misery.
In Braavos though, Arya gets to witness the life a commoner leads when it is untouched by war. It is not perfect, nor is it without its danger, but still somehow it carries a hope of a future. It allows one a moment of serenity, it allows its young lovers to frolic in peace.
Brusco's daughter Brea meets a boy on the roof when her father is asleep, she thought. Brea lets him touch her, Talea says, even though he's just a roof rat and all the roof rats are supposed to be thieves.
It also allows a confluence of cultures (which in turn hints at trade and a relatively steady economy) and a laugh to be shared among friends
She liked the sailors too; the boisterous Tyroshi with their booming voices and dyed whiskers; the fair-haired Lyseni, always trying to niggle down her prices; the squat, hairy sailors from the Port of Ibben, growling curses in low, raspy voices. Her favorites were the Summer Islanders, with their skins as smooth and dark as teak. They wore feathered cloaks of red and green and yellow, and the tall masts and white sails of their swan ships were magnificent...
Cat had made friends along the wharves; porters and mummers, ropemakers and sailmenders, taverners, brewers and bakers and beggars and whores. They bought clams and cockles from her, told her true tales of Braavos and lies about their lives, and laughed at the way she talked when she tried to speak Braavosi.
Hence why is the Braavos storyline my Favourite out of all other Arya arcs.
74 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
revistageni
Revista Geni
pluginfuture-blog
Plug-in Future
kimun-s
~F o f i~
muskymanwich
My Collection
marlymarent-blog
Untitled