Nutty the Slightly Unstable Dwarf

The ramblings of a Nut who should be doing something else - Adelaide, South Australia. Ao3: Gumnut | FF.net: Gumnut | nutty.gumnut.net

[gumnut-logic]

A quick guide to Nutty’s blog

Hi, everyone, new and old to this blog.

Been meaning to write this up for some time. Finally just sat down and wrote stuff because it needs to be done since I’ve recently been posting a few more things in one topic and a few less in others.

This blog started off as a fandom blog. It still is. You will see fanfic and art from the amazing Thunderbirds fandom, both mine and others posted here regularly. Along with prompts, discussions, challenges and other shenanigans. Love da Thunderfam.

If you haven’t already worked it out, Virgil is my fav Tracy brother, but love them all really and write them all to varying degrees.

However, I also post art and craft here, so you will see some of that. Some of you may have followed me recently for this reason. If so, welcome!

One handy thing to know is that I’m a librarian and this blog is tagged within an inch of its life. So with a little fiddling with Tumblr, you can follow/block any tags of mine you want to, or don’t want to see.

Another thing - everything you see here is made by a human. This blog is an AI-Free zone.

So here is the key to my blog :D

For the Thunderfam:

Nuttyfic is where you will find all my original posting of my fic (except the very early ones - it took me a bit to clue on that I might want to find my stuff one day.

Nuttyfic reblog is where I reblog my previously published stuff at a whim or because I wanted to at some point. These are all repeats and formatted differently from my new fics. you can block this one if you find them annoying.

thunderbirds fanfiction and thunderbirds fanart are basically what they say. Everyone’s, including mine, blogged, reblogged, whatever. If you are looking for a particular person’s work on my blog, all work reblogged by me has the artist’s name tagged to the post. For example, tracybirds, gaviiadastra, soniabigcheese, thatkidwholikesthunderbirds, etc

Flyboytracy, our amazing gif-maker, I plead guilty to reblogging a lot of their stuff (though likely only a fraction of what they have done - find them at @flyboytracy )

TBDailyDose is my tag for all my screen shots. So if you are looking for art reference, this might be a great place to start. Admittedly, you will discover how often I reuse favourite shots, but there are a lot of headshots in that pile. I really should capture more.

I’ve also tagged for character content - Scott Tracy, Virgil Tracy, John Tracy, Gordon Tracy, Alan Tracy, Grandma Tracy, Kayo Kyrano, Hiram Hackenbacker, Jeff Tracy, Eos, Penelope Creighton Ward, Aloysius Parker.

Bro combos - earth and sky, fishtank, astroturf - not a complete list this one and many more recent than some of the other tags.

There are some relationships tagged as well - virgil/kayo, scott/em, scayo, virgil/brains, gordon/penelope (pen and ink) - if you are not a fan of romance, I’ve have been tagging for that for about the last year, so it can be blocked if you desire.

I have also tagged all my major series, but you are probably better served by visiting my Ao3 account where everything is in order. But since I’m here...Kermadec AU, Supermen AU, Steampunk AU (and Where there be dragons AU), Callisto, Marks and Wings, Warm Rain, Gentle Rain.

And then there are some of the challenges held in Thunderfam - fanartam, fabfivefeb, irrelief, sensorysunday, nuttys fandomversary, fluffember.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff.

For those of you not into fandom:

nuttybeads - all my crafting, which tends to be mostly beading, but does include crochet and micromacrame as well as whatever else catches my eyes and my wallet :D

nuttyart - admittedly this does include some fanart, mostly Thunderbirds, but from time to time, I do other stuff - like I should be doing :D

I’ve also recently started a palette challenge, for however long it lasts - you can find it tagged nuttypalette.

There will also be geeking out over nature topics and the occasional piece of photography usually of beaches, sunsets or critters.

And that is pretty much it in a nutshell (a very big nut in my case :D)

I hope you enjoy whatever you end up following here.

Nutty

(off the edge, but learning to fly)

[janetm74]

🎤 Give us a whump fic rec of your choosing (shout out or self promo, dealer’s choice!)

Oooh this is soooooo hard!

So…my go-to authors for whump are, in no particular order:

@loopstagirl @the-original-sineater @mariashades @tsarinatorment and @gumnut-logic

There are many, many more!!!

But my top five fics that I’ll continuously read are:

Loopsta: Never Too Late

Sineater: Tensile

MariaShadow: A Good Man

Ms Hobgoblin: Mind Games

Tiylaya: Weathering The Storm

[gumnut-logic]

Guides and Sentinels in Thunderbirds

Guides and Sentinels (platonic) trope in Thunderbirds.

I’m think Scott Sentinel with Virgil as his Guide.

Or is it the reverse? Thoughts?

What other brothers possess these skills? Do they pair with anyone?

Nutty

(Currently reading some Stargate Atlantis fanfic 😁)

[gumnut-logic]

Just adding extra info - this is a cross-fandom trope that originated from ‘The Sentinel’ TV show and spread across fandom in various forms.

Full detail here -

Sentinel AU - Fanlore

[gumnut-logic]

Guides and Sentinels in Thunderbirds

Guides and Sentinels (platonic) trope in Thunderbirds.

I’m think Scott Sentinel with Virgil as his Guide.

Or is it the reverse? Thoughts?

What other brothers possess these skills? Do they pair with anyone?

Nutty

(Currently reading some Stargate Atlantis fanfic 😁)

[soniabigcheese]

Todays Facebook memories

Apparently called 'Whale Song'

Tagging @gumnut-logic as this vaguely sounds familiar to one of your fics

[thundergeek59]

Ooh I love your pic! I think the fic is "We'll be home for Christmas" by @gumnut-logic when Virgil is injured and they have to get home by boat and meet whales it's one of my fave fics 🐋 🐳 🐋 🐳 🐋 🐳 💚 💚 💚 💚 💚

[gumnut-logic]

💚💚💚

[gumnut-logic]

Kiwis please stay safe this weekend ::all the hugs::

Nutty

(Watching the weather forecast)

[gumnut-logic]

Decided to re-read Gentle Rain…it has been a while…

For the love of god, will you bloody well sit still!”

Kayo frowned.

“I need to-“ Scott. That was Scott.

“If you don’t stop moving, I will knock you out, you hear me?” It was a threatening tone. Kayo attempted to force her eyes open. They moved, but flickered closed again.

“Please, she’s my sister.” That sent alarm bells ringing. What the hell? Scott’s voice hurt. “Virgil...” Virgil! She struggled against the weight drawing her down. Virgil? Where was Virgil?

There was dust in her nose.

“Your sister is okay. It is you who you should be worried about. Sit still.”

“But-“

“What do you think your sister will do to you if you haemorrhage attempting to get to her? What do you think she will do if you go and die on her simply because you’re being a stupid ass and won’t sit still?

There was no answer. Scott? Virgil?

Her eyes opened only to encounter blur. Grey blur. “S-Scott?” That was her voice?

“Kayo!”

“God damnit, if you undo what little I’ve managed to do, I’ll kill you myself!”

Gentle Rain

[gumnut-logic]

Thunderfam opinion

It has been suggested that the rockets are secondary to the eyebrows.

Thoughts?

Nutty

(🤣)

[idontknowreallywhy]

Be honest, Thunderfam.

The ships and idealistic future and the family feels are wonderful but if it wasn’t for the eyebrows would you REALLY care?

[womble1]

Also never noticed that Scott's are actually the biggest. I strongly believe that he had an epic mono brow in his teens

[idontknowreallywhy]

Headcanon accepted.

Altho… the only reason they are the biggest is because Virg spends hours shaping his. When the hair is that pristine he wouldn’t be happy with rogue brows messing up the look…

[womble1]

Headcanon 2.0 accepted , amendments to be published before close of business.

[sailing-on-a-puddle]

There's definitely a fair bit of eyebrow shaping going on. Look at Gordon's in particular.

Maybe the rockeys can somehow be controlled by the eyebrows and the two are deployed simultaneously?

[gumnut-logic]

Eyebrow shaping gives me the concept of eyebrow shears…like hedge clippers.

This may be proof of my long work day.

Hubby suggested that the rockets could be powered by the eyebrows.

This could be interpreted as ‘powered by eyebrow clippings’ or ‘powered by eyebrow kinetic energy’.

I may need a holiday.

Or some eyebrows 🤪

[katblu42]

I also had the thought that if the power of the eyebrows could somehow be harnessed then the rockets would have environmentally friendly energy to burn!! (So to speak).

There's definitely an entire language to be explored in the various deployments of the Tracy eyebrows.

I also can imagine if any of those boys were to have an errant eyebrow hair growing wild there would be no shortage of siblings volunteering to (sneakily, and without warning) pluck the offending hair.

(My hubby used to be able to sprout a single eyebrow hair that would grow in completely the wrong direction compared to all the rest, which would appear seemingly overnight at twice the length of all the others! Whenever I noticed it I would tell him, he would tell me to rip it out, then he would yelp in pain when I did.)

[cttagverse]

Be careful with all this eyebrow talk. @flyboytracy has some history with eyebrow displacement of horror and hilarity.

[gumnut-logic]

Perhaps proof of concept would be if they fall out of the sky without their eyebrows.

Could Virgil still fly Two when his were burnt off?

Hmm, that’s a fic that needs to be written…though poor Scotty would have some kind of seizure.

Also, @flyboytracy has all da skillz. They be like Johnny and terrifying if they go darkside 😁 We should tremble in terror lest they wield the eyebrow clippers with dark purpose.

Nutty

(Considering fic today)

[flyboytracy]

[cassidy-tag-hyperfixation]

this came up on my dash board. i am. scared.

what. is. that.

[gumnut-logic]

I cast the eyebrowless Virg and ask you to read all the comments 😁 Much hilarity is had 😁

[gumnut-logic]

Sweetapple

This is the first part of an answer to a @flyboytracy​ ask that I can’t directly answer on Tumblr without spoiling the plotline. So please bear with me. There will be more. Also, credit goes to @flyboytracy​ for the premise, because this is all them :D

Many thanks to @the-original-sineater​ for the read through and support ::hugs you::

I’m exploring more fun with an outsider POV so we have a new OC who I am building and finding somewhat amusing at the same time.

I hope you enjoy :D

-o-o-o-

“Oh, god, is that coffee?”

Alex tried to free up a hand to grab the steaming cup in front of his eyes, but almost dropped his computer. He had to fumble madly or risk blowing this opportunity of a lifetime.

A large hand reached over and caught the device just as Alex missed that one last chance of it not falling and smashing all over the office floor.

He looked up into a pair of chocolate eyes. Dark, almost black eyebrows were frowning down at him. “Are you okay?”

Was he okay? He had to be. This was one in million chance where he was going to get to speak to the head of Tracy Industries…in person…to discuss his Siliwrap idea.

He really should have never let Erica name the project. One cast off line and suddenly he was the creator of Siliwrap the Silicone Solution to Seepage.

But regardless of the name, and despite his newness to the company, the mere mention of an idea that could help International Rescue had sent him up here to the President of the Board’s Office. Scott Tracy, himself.

And here was Alexander Sweetapple being his usually clutz self and possibly volunteering to be one of those rescuees.

The man leaning over him was well built. Jeans and a light shirt didn’t leave much to the imagination and the tiny part of Alex’s brain that wasn’t going into meltdown, couldn’t help but admire the scenery.

“Umm, yeah, thanks.”

A small smile and his computer was handed back to him.

Alex stared at it a moment, his brain blanking as he took it on automatic. “Uh, good catch.”

“I’ve had practise.” His saviour had a deep and warm baritone.

Keep reading

[sailing-on-a-puddle]

So it is March … of the OCs and, inspired by a conversation with @idontknowreallywhy I’m reblogging the start of one of my favourite creations. We’ve had many new people in the gandom who may never have stumbled on the joys of Alex. Alex will stumble for you 😁

Alex isn’t mine, though I borrowed him a few times. He belongs to @gumnut-logic.

This does get shippy further down the line so if m/m romance is not your thing I’d stop after the Sweetapple story.

[gumnut-logic]

🥰🥰🥰

[gumnut-logic]

Daily Dose of Thunderbirds

Earth & Sky cos I can :D

[igneousbody]

"In the 1960s, after his seminal work on barn owls, Roger Payne switched his attention to whales. In 1971, he published two historic papers. (...) The second showed that fin whales—the second-largest animals after blue whales—make extremely low-pitched calls that can be heard across entire oceans. It nearly destroyed Payne’s career.

That controversial paper was born of the Cold War. To listen for Soviet submarines, the U.S. Navy installed chains of underwater listening posts in the Pacific and Atlantic. This network, known as the Sound Surveillance System, or SOSUS, picked up a deluge of oceanic noises. Some were clearly biological. Others were more mysterious. One especially enigmatic sound was monotonous, repetitive, and low, with a frequency of 20 Hz—an octave below the lowest key on a standard piano. This hum was so loud that people doubted it could be coming from an animal. Did it have a military origin? Was it produced by underwater tectonic activity? Did it come from waves crashing on some distant shoreline? The actual source only became clear when Navy scientists started following the sounds to their sources, and often found a fin whale at the end.

Human hearing typically bottoms out at around 20 Hz. Below those frequencies, sounds are known as infrasound, and they’re mostly inaudible to us unless they’re very loud. Infrasounds can travel over incredibly long distances, especially in water. Knowing that fin whales also produce infrasound, Payne calculated, to his shock, that their calls could conceivably travel for 13,000 miles. No ocean is that wide. Together with oceanographer Douglas Webb, Payne published his calculations, speculating that the largest whales “may be in tenuous acoustic contact throughout a relatively enormous volume of ocean.” The response was brutal. Leading whale researchers told him that his paper was pure fantasy. Colleagues hinted that critics had been questioning his mental health behind his back. “When you get to distances like that, people just refuse to believe that it’s true,” Payne tells me.

Payne’s work made a more positive impression on Chris Clark. A young acoustician and former choirboy, Clark was recruited by Roger and Katy Payne to be a sound technician on a 1972 trip to Argentina to study right whales. It was a thrilling and formative time. Camped on a beach beneath the Southern Cross, with penguins bumbling past and albatrosses wheeling overhead, Clark began listening to whales. He placed hydrophones in the water to eavesdrop on their songs and found ways of assigning specific recordings to individual whales. He went on to compile libraries of whale calls, recorded all over the world, from Argentina to the Arctic. And all the while, Payne’s idea of giant whales talking over oceans stuck with him.

In the 1990s, with the Cold War over and the threat of Soviet subs diminished, the Navy offered Clark and others a chance to observe real-time recordings from their SOSUS hydrophones. Amid the spectrograms—visual representations of the sounds that SOSUS picked up—Clark saw the unmistakable signal of a singing blue whale. On his first day, Clark saw that more blue whale vocalizations had been recorded from a single SOSUS sensor than had been described before in the entire scientific literature. The ocean was awash with their calls, and those calls were coming in from enormous distances. Clark calculated that one individual was 1,500 miles from the sensor that recorded it. He could listen to whales singing in Ireland with a microphone situated off Bermuda. “I just thought: Roger was right,” he says. “It is physically possible to detect a blue whale singing across an ocean basin.” (...)

Although blue and fin whale songs can traverse oceans, no one knows if the whales actually communicate at such ranges. It’s possible that they’re signaling to nearby individuals with very loud calls, which just happen to extend further afield. But Clark points out that they repeat the same notes, over and over again, and at very precise intervals. A singing whale will stop calling when it surfaces for air, and come back on the beat when it submerges. “That’s not arbitrary,” he says. It reminds him of the redundant and repetitive signals that Martian rovers use to beam data back to Earth. If you wanted to design a signal that could be used to communicate across oceans, you’d come up with something similar to a blue whale’s song.

Those songs might have other uses, too. Their notes can last for several seconds, with wavelengths as long as a football field. Clark once asked a Navy friend what he could do with such a call. “I could illuminate the ocean,” the friend replied. That is, he could map distant underwater landscapes, from submerged mountains to the seafloor itself, by processing the echoes returning from the far-reaching infrasounds. Geophysicists can certainly use fin whale songs to map the density of the ocean crust. But can the whales do so?

Clark sees evidence in their movements. Through SOSUS, he has seen blue whales emerging in polar waters between Iceland and Greenland and making a beeline—a whaleline?—for tropical Bermuda, singing all the way. He has seen whales slaloming between underwater mountain ranges, zigging and zagging between landmarks hundreds of miles apart. “When you watch these animals move, it’s as if they have an acoustic map of the oceans,” he says. He also suspects that the animals can build up such maps over their long lives, accruing sound-based memories that lurk in their mind’s ear. After all, Clark recalls veteran sonar specialists telling him that different parts of the sea had their own distinctive sounds. “They said: If you put a pair of headphones on me, I can tell you if I’m near Labrador or off the Bay of Biscay,” says Clark. “I thought that if a human being could do this in 30 years, what could an animal do with 10 million years?”

The scale of a whale’s hearing is hard to grapple with. There’s the spatial vastness, of course, but also an expanse of time. Underwater, sound waves take just under a minute to cover 50 miles. If a whale hears the song of another whale from a distance of 1,500 miles, it’s really listening back in time by about half an hour, like an astronomer gazing upon the ancient light of a distant star. If a whale is trying to sense a mountain 500 miles away, it has to somehow connect its own call with an echo that arrives 10 minutes later. That might seem preposterous, but consider that a blue whale’s heart beats around 30 times a minute at the surface, and can slow to just 2 beats a minute on a dive. They surely operate on very different timescales than we do. If a zebra finch hears beauty in the milliseconds within a single note, perhaps a blue whale does the same over seconds and minutes. To imagine their lives, “you have to stretch your thinking to completely different levels of dimension,” Clark tells me. He compares the experience to looking at the night sky through a toy telescope and then witnessing its full majesty through NASA’s spaceborne Hubble telescope. When he thinks about whales, the world feels bigger, stretching out in space and time.

Whales weren’t always big. They evolved from small, hoofed, deer-like animals that took to the water around 50 million years ago. Those ancestral creatures probably had vanilla mammalian hearing. But as they adapted for an aquatic life, one group of them—the filter-feeding mysticetes, which include blues, fins, and humpbacks—shifted their hearing to low infrasonic frequencies. At the same time, their bodies ballooned into some of the largest Earth has ever seen. These changes are probably connected. The mysticetes achieved their huge size by evolving a unique style of feeding, which allows them to subsist upon tiny crustaceans called krill. Accelerating into a krill swarm, a blue whale expands its mouth to engulf a volume of water as large as its own body, swallowing half a million calories in one gulp. But this strategy comes at a cost. Krill aren’t evenly distributed across the oceans, so to sustain their large bodies, blue whales must migrate over long distances. The same giant proportions that force them to undergo these long journeys also equip them with the means to do so—the ability to make and hear sounds that are lower, louder, and more far-reaching than those of other animals.

Back in 1971, Roger Payne speculated that foraging whales could use these sounds to stay in touch over long distances. If they simply called when fed and stayed silent when hungry, they could collectively comb an ocean basin for food and home in on bountiful areas that lucky individuals have found. A whale pod, Payne suggested, might be a massively dispersed network of acoustically connected individuals, which seem to be swimming alone but are actually together."

- Ed Yong, An Immense World : How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

[mariashades]

@gumnut-logic

Immediately reminded me of some of your stories!

[gumnut-logic]

Cethair (Bit 6)

Óen | Cethair - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 | Bit 4 | Bit 5 | Bit 6

Wherein we learn some more about Scott in this universe.

I promise to get back to Gordon shortly. Scott just needed some background sorted out.

Also, off screen, poor Virgil is a mess, so we will be getting back to him soon, too.

@onereyofstarlight claimed I was a meanie after her readthrough. She's probably right. Sorry Scotty. ::hugs both of you::

I hope you enjoy this bit.

-o-o-o-

When Scott O’Treasaigh was born, his father lost his dragon.

It was a family tale around the fire, usually related by his father with much laughter. He could see that fond spark in the Flaithri’s eyes, how proud he was of his eldest son.

He would relate how Óen fell for the boy the moment he was born. How the dragon ignored Jeff and wandered around the village following the toddler.

Scott, of course, loved the great night fury. Earnest toddler conversations with a silver and black head paying attention to every word.

As Scott grew and his brothers appeared in the tale, he couldn’t deny that he loved Óen with everything he was.

But Óen was his father’s dragon.

When Virgil brought home an injured young rumblehorn and nursed it back to health, it was obvious his younger brother had found himself a dragon. And Dá was everything Virgil could dream of. Under his care and that of the family, Dá recovered well and grew ever so strong. She eventually became the biggest rumblehorn ever seen, her iridescent green hide glittering with health.

But Scott didn’t find a dragon. He had Óen.

But Óen was his father’s.

When John was honoured with the Matriarch’s child, everything changed. Their uncle proved bitter and wrong, and before long, they were fleeing across the sea.

Scott was young at the time, far from his manhood still, but he remembered the long stretches of ocean, the beat of Óen’s wings, his warm breath beneath him.

His father holding him tight.

It had been a slow journey. Dá had still been young, as had Virgil, and had not the strength of the older dragons.

But they made it, and ventured into a whole new world full of strangers and strange customs.

This new land did not know of dragons and there was fear, but his father was strong, as was their grandfather and grandmother and their new people grew to love the dragons as much as they.

Scott grew up and into his own strength. He flew with Óen as often as he could, but it wasn’t until Scott was taken that the decision was made.

He hadn’t been with Óen at the time, and his father blamed that fact for all that followed.

As a member of the ruling family he had martial duty to the clan. Scott took to the initial training like a bird to the sky. He did his family proud, winning the tustles and tourneys enough to take the lead in prowess and skill.

But this was not without opposition. While out on a distant patrol, he was targeted by the dishonourable and betrayed into capture.

They took him far away and held him for too many days. It was there he was taught the ill in the world and he still bore the scars of that teaching.

It was Óen who retrieved him.

His father often related the chaos the dragon created when Scott did not return that night. The night fury was inconsolable.

Of course, the family took to the air. Dá and a determined Virgil discovered the tracks and traced the culprits to a valley on the far side of the Island.

His father was both proud and a little exasperated at what happened next. He had gathered his men, prepared to attack, their party nestled under a ridge halfway up the other side of the hill.

But Óen had left them all behind, taking flight without command and disappearing into the valley.

Running through the damp foliage after him, their father told of the bright flashes as he reached the crest of the hill. The yelling, screaming and the roar of an infuriated dragon.

Óen returned shortly, a weak and injured Scott in his forearms. The dragon’s whimpers breaking every heart that heard them.

Scott was taken home and Máthair Chriona saw to his long road to wellness again.

But their father always, always, recited what he saw once he reached the place where his son had been held.

There was nothing. Nothing more than burnt bones and rubble. Whatever had stood had been destroyed by fury.

From that point on, Óen was Scott’s dragon. His father made sure of it.

Scott had often protested that the Flaith needed his dragon and that this wasn’t right, but his father would not bend.

Óen was Scott’s dragon.

Óen seemed to agree. But then Óen apparently had decided Scott was his human anyway.

As for Scott, it felt ever so right…and so wrong. Óen had saved his father from the Great Western Sea. If Óen hadn’t then, Scott would not exist.

The dragon thwapped him gently across the head whenever Scott mentioned it.

But it was now, here in the darkness of illness, that the truth fought with him.

If his father had been in the sky with Óen, not on the ground, standing between Gaat and John, then Gaat wouldn’t have had such an easy target.

His father would not be…

And Gordon wouldn’t have had to…

If Scott had been there…

But he hadn’t and neither had Óen.

Because Óen was Scott’s dragon.

-o-o-o-

TBC

[gumnut-logic]

Aha! @sofasurf There was more…I’m just pathetic at linking things 😁

I really want to write more of this….::whines::

Nutty

(Not writing at the moment ::pouts:: )

[gumnut-logic]

Cethair (Bit 3)

Óen | Cethair - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3

Glossary (contains backstory spoilers)

This is going ever so slowly, but here, have some more.

I hope you enjoy it.

-o-o-o-

Virgil’s heart was weeping.

With both grief and terror.

The night air was bone cold and sucked the heat from his body through the many layers he had piled on, but fortunately the wind had died down leaving the darkness calm.

Dá’s massive wing strokes were reassuring in their steady strength as she supported her glide towards the beaches.

On their left, Scott was silent and almost invisible in the dark. Óen’s flight was ever silent, the lack of moon leaving the frail starlight inadequate to outline the night fury.

His brother shouldn’t be here. He should be in bed. But Virgil didn’t bother to waste his breath because he knew that Scott had to be there.

They all had to be there, for good or ill.

This was why John on Cóic, equally silent on his right, held young Alan, dressed in warm flight leathers far too big for him. Unlike Óen, Cóic caught all the starlight and reflected it back into the night, every feather glittering, her vast wings dwarfing both Dá and Óen.

But it was Virgil and Dá who carried the most precious and fragile burden.

Gordon was wrapped in healer’s cloth and sheep’s skin, strapped to Virgil’s strength. In the darkness, his mortally wounded little brother was more ghost than alive.

Virgil treasured every breath against his neck. There was terror that Gordon wouldn’t make it to the beaches. There was terror that he would.

There was no changing Scott’s mind. The injured and newly made Flaithri was steadfast and willing to do anything to save their little brother. John had been reassuring, Cóic warbling encouragement to Virgil at his questions.

There had been an answer. One of the sea had answered and it was wildly appropriate and felt determined by fate considering Gordon’s love of the water.

But the sacrifice was an unknown that terrified Virgil. A dragon willing to give its life force to heal another was fantastic myth and made a great story around the evening fires. But those myths all ended in tragedy and loss.

But what choice did they have?

Scott’s voice had been pain itself.

Dá warbled quietly and banked to the right, gliding down towards the waves. She back-winged ever so elegantly and touched down softly on fine pebbles.

The sea hissed at them.

Cóic landed at a distance, giving them room, while Óen did the opposite, expertly diving in close, likely to save his rider from walking too far.

Virgil and Óen had a long-standing agreement where the dragon’s rider was concerned, and Virgil couldn’t help but love the night fury for it.

So, of course, it was Scott who reached up to help Virgil dismount with his burden.

Virgil grit his teeth but didn’t say anything. He did his best to not place strain on his eldest brother, yet dismount without hurting his cherished burden.

Fortunately, John soon arrived, taking over from their limping brother.

The slice in Scott’s thigh was the only reason he wasn’t holding Gordon. Every screwed up muscle in the man’s face begged to bear his little brother’s weight in this, but Virgil wouldn’t allow it.

Scott wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to lose any more family.

Once Virgil had both boots on the ground, Scott stepped in close and peeled back the healer’s cloth from Gordon’s face.

Even in the darkness, the burns scarred their little brother’s visage. Each breath was strained. He was mercifully unconscious and limp in Virgil’s arms, the contrast between his active and boisterous self ever so heartbreaking, emphasising the reality of what they could, were likely, to lose.

Scott’s forehead briefly touched Virgil’s.

“There is hope.” It was whispered.

Please, let the gods be merciful to his little brother.

So it was Virgil, with his brothers beside him, who stood holding Gordon to his chest and confronted the unending waves as Cóic bellowed a call into the darkness.

TBC

[sofasurf]

Oh this is visceral.

The description of the dragons in flight, the terror of the brothers. I actually loved the image of John holding a too small Alan- it just emphasised the response to the threat, they unite to face Gordon's fate together.

Gordon unconscious and the hope from the sea but the price...Nutty!! What is the price????

[sofasurf]

Ah Nutty. @gumnut-logic rewatched httyd over Christmas and just stumbled on this for a re-read. Brilliant as always!

[gumnut-logic]

@sofasurf I fell head first into HTTYD fandom over Christmas as well!

Ahhh, the price…the price is Gordon can never leave the sea. Not for long. He must always return.

That complicates everything 😁

Also….::tackle hugs you to bits::

Nutty

(Who can’t see anything Irish or HTTYD without thinking of the Tracys 😁)

Also…haven’t I written more of this or was that a day dream?

[gumnut-logic]

I stitched my first bargello piece 😁 Designed on the fly so I’m happy with the result😁

[justsomegeek]

I'm struggling to picture what Virgil's hair looks like when it's not styled... Anyone have opinions?

Also, I have to decide how he'd opt to maintain it without the luxury of modern hair products...

[thebirdfantasy]

I’ve seen a lot of people headcanon that his hair is curly when he’s got no products holding the locks up together, and I’ve adopted that one myself.

As for shaving, I reckon he probably has to deal with it every day considering how his dark hair would make a small stubble stand out in contrast to his fair skin.

[katblu42]

Something like these?

(I mean, mostly the left one, but with sides like the right one.)

[thebirdfantasy]

Honestly, I’m not sure… I know @gumnut-logic has some of the most imagery in their fanfics when it comes to the idea of his curly hair though…

[gumnut-logic]

It was a fun idea for Virgil to have curly hair under the hair gel 😁

Thoughts on Virgil’s hair that I have used on various occasions:

It is naturally curly…and he dislikes the curls for some reason so is rarely seen with them. Scott misses them sometimes.

As a teen/college student he went through ALL the hairstyles including punk and various shaved designs. He also had it dyed purple at least once. There were also various piercings. Scott watched in horror but let him be. There was relief when Virgil finally settled on his current style.

It is styled the way it is because between the boots and the hair he is taller than Gordon. In his head, because he is actually just a little bit shorter. Scott has noticed and bit his tongue. Gordon doesn’t appear to have realised and Virgil rues the day he does. Gordon does know, but like Scott has decided to let Virg have his fantasies 😁

I may or may not have too much of a fascination for Virgil’s hair 🤪🤪🤪

Nutty

(I even have a fic called ‘Hair’)

[gumnut-logic]

Scott was refusing to look at him.

His big brother carefully and gently wrapped each of Virgil’s fingers one by one, blue eyes focussed ever so intently on the task.

No words were said.

None had been said the last time Scott had changed the bandages.

None had been said at the hospital.

None that Scott knew Virgil had heard. There had been the fog of anaesthesia, but he could have sworn he had heard his brother crying.

Virgil’s heart clenched at the memory.

“I’m sorry.” The words were out before he could think better of it.

Scott’s hands stilled a moment.

Those blue eyes looked up at him.

Lips moved as if to say something, but tightened almost immediately as his brother swallowed and went back to securing gauze.

But Virgil had had enough. “Scott, please!”

“What?!” He straightened, taking a step away from the infirmary bed. “What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me you’re okay.” A swallow. “That we’re okay.”

Scott’s shoulders dropped just a little. He grabbed the mitten that protected all the bandaging and fastened it over Virgil’s swollen hand. “Virgil, we will never be anything but okay.” He turned away and began packing medical supplies back into their storage box.

With both hands swaddled in various layers of cotton and non-stick dressings, there was little Virgil could do to grab his brother’s arm, so instead he hooked a long leg with a boot. “Talk to me!”

“So you can argue with me? Tell me it was the right thing to do?”

“Yes!”

“You’re wrong, Virgil! It was the wrong thing to do! I had a plan.”

“You were going to die!”

“I didn’t!”

“Because I saved your ass and you know it. That’s why you don’t want to talk, isn’t it! You thought you had it worked out, but it went south and I got hurt. That’s it, isn’t it!” He desperately tried to pin his brother with his eyes, but the man was still refusing to look at him.

Deep and forceful. “I. Had. A. Plan. You should have trusted me.”

“I do trust you. But you were going to die, Scott. And I refuse to let that happen.”

“So you decided to sacrifice yourself.”

“That’s what you were trying to do. At least doing it my way, we’re both alive to yell at each other.”

“But…” And Scott’s eyes fixated on Virgil’s hands. “At what cost?”

Virgil blinked before straightening. “Bargain basement.” His voice broke on the last syllable, but he meant it with everything he was.

His hands were burnt…badly. The rod had been that hot, it had melted through his heavy-duty gloves. There was question of scaring, possible movement loss and nerve damage. “I won’t lie to you, Scott. I’m scared.” He stared down at the swaths of white. “But nowhere near as terrified as I was of losing you.” He held his hands up. “This I can handle. With you here.” He let his hands drop gently into his lap. “Without you…” He sucked in a breath and, straightening up again, caught his brother’s wide eyes. “Without you, the world just doesn’t work anymore!” He glared at Scott. “And I will do anything to prevent that from happening!”

Blue eyes stared at him for a full moment before shifting away, wandering, and latching back onto the medical supplies like a raft in a storm. “That doesn’t sound very healthy, Virg.”

Virgil shimmied off the infirmary bed, onto his feet, and pushed himself into Scott’s personal space. His brother had always been taller than him, but Virgil didn’t need height. “You listen to me. You are integral to this family. You are the damned guiding light of this organisation and I will not see you sacrificing yourself if I can prevent it. You are my brother!”

Scott closed the lid on the medical box and looked down at Virgil. “And you are mine. So how can you expect me to watch you get injured like this for my sake.”

“Because the alternative would have hurt me more.”

Scott opened his mouth as if to rebut, but slowly shut it again.

Virgil continued to look up at him and if the pleading bled into his expression, he couldn’t help it. “Please, Scott?”

His big brother stared at him a moment, his eyes growing glassy until he had to blink.

Virgil tentatively reached out a bandage-covered hand and brushed it against his brother’s arm.

And Scott grabbed him, pulling him in, holding Virgil ever so close and tight. Bandaged hands fumbled and stuck out in awkward directions, but Virgil’s cheek found Scott’s shoulder and he clung the best way he could.

This was better.

Oh, so much better.

Virgil blinked a few times, but held on as if his life depended on it.

“I’m sorry, Scott.” Quiet, an attempt at reassurance.

Something was mumbled into his flannel shirt.

Virgil just hung on tighter.

-o-o-o-

[coco9728]

Not the HANDS!!!!!!!

Nooooooooo!!!!

😭

I love these bros so much.💚💙

[thunderbirdgirl-82]

I love these two as well!!! :'( :'( <3 <3

[gumnut-logic]

Whump warning!

-o-o-o-

“Why do you do this?”

The voice was familiar, but not. Or rather, it was a familiar voice that was warped by pain, hoarse and hurting.

“Why do you have to push just that little bit more?”

And it was quiet, little more than a whisper in the dark.

Scott shunned it and skittered away. It hurt to hear the hurt in that voice.

“It’s Dad.” The words were barely there and Scott had to strain to hear it. “I know it’s Dad. And sometimes I hate him for it. Because of what he does to you.”

That forced his attention. Hate Dad? How could the voice possibly hate Dad? The voice loved Dad as much as Scott did. So, so much.

“I know you won’t listen. Probably won’t even understand. Deny it if you do.” A sigh. “But you are scaring the shit out of me, Scott. You’re doing all of this for Dad as if he is some goddamned messiah or something. And each time, you’re risking more.” There was a strangled sound. “I’m trying to keep up…god, I am trying…to keep one step ahead of you, but I can only save you so many times and then one day…”

A rustle of fabric.

“Please don’t do this to me.” That was almost a sob and it had Scott clawing at the darkness, desperate to reach his brother and provide the reassurance needed.

But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. His brother needed him, but he couldn’t respond.

The voice stopped after that for a long time. There was sound, but it was just more fabric and muffled breath that was more distress than anything else.

It made Scott struggle harder. What happened? Why couldn’t he move?

What had upset Virgil? Because it was Virgil sitting beside him. Each shaky breath he heard, proved that.

Virgil, please.

“I can’t do this without you, Scott. I don’t want to.” Another wretched breath. “Please…stop. Please.”

Scott realised he had a hand, because suddenly the grip on it was tight. Rough calluses, familiar with warmth, were clinging to him.

He tried to grip in return, but nothing.

What the hell was wrong with him?!

Hair brushed his fingertips. It was soft and slightly damp, a familiar texture lacking the usual hair product. It was enough information for Scott to visualise his brother post-shower, hair drying into the soft curls Virgil hid from the world.

His forehead touched to the back of Scott’s fingers.

Virgil.

Scott realised he must have been injured. Probably a rescue. What rescue was information he could not recall, but the thought did prompt him to locate the rest of his body.

He encountered medicated fog. There was muffled pain in his left leg. Hell, all down his left side.

Virgil was on his right.

Virgil was always on his right.

John on his left.

His younger brothers behind.

He was the eldest. Their leader.

But not right now.

Right now, chances were he was in hospital, injured, and more a source of worry for his family than anything else.

And he still couldn’t move. Couldn’t reach out to his brother to reassure him that everything was going to be okay.

“You know, sometimes I wonder what Dad said or did to you that inspired such loyalty and sacrifice. What set you on this hell-bent mission to be so much like the great Jeff Tracy.” A rough swallow. “He’s Dad, Scott. Our father. He’s not you and you’re not him. You will never be him!” The words were spat out. “I don’t want you to be him! I want you to be you.” An exhaled breath. “I want you to be happy.” An inconsolable sound. “To be safe.”

The fingers wrapped around his twitched a little tighter.

“Mr Tracy!”

Scott startled. But it became immediately obvious that the Tracy being referred to was Virgil as soft shoes hurried over.

“You are not supposed to be up. You put too much weight on that injury and you could do further damage.”

There was a groan from the side of the bed. “I just need to sit with my brother.”

“Your brother is healing and no doubt would not want you injuring yourself further on his behalf.”

“Please…”

The pain in Virgil’s voice had Scott clawing at the darkness.

“Sir, the doctors were adamant, not to mention your grandmother. You are lucky to be alive and they would like to keep you that way. Now back to bed.”

The hands holding Scott’s tightened enough that if it wasn’t for whatever medication was in his system, he’d be feeling that enough to yell. His fingers were rammed up against that forehead again, hair teasing their very tips.

Virgil.

He did his best to return that grip, to let Virgil know he was heard. To reassure a distressed little brother. But nothing…nothing! He wanted to scream. It was his job to look after his brothers and being able to hear but unable to help was the stuff of nightmares.

“Mr Tracy, your brother is very ill, but he is improving. He will get better. Please, look after yourself, if not for you, then for him.”

There was hot breath against the back of Scott’s arm as the smallest of whimpers tickled the hairs on his forearm.

And then his hand was gently placed back on the sheet and let go.

No.

Don’t leave me.

The thought escaped before he could countermand it.

Virgil was obviously injured. The groan at the scrape of a chair and hurried footsteps told him that much. The nurse muttered gentle encouragement as his brother grunted with obvious effort.

A bed creaked.

Virgil was safer in bed.

But Scott was left by himself, unable to move or speak or even open his eyes, and the combination of fear for his brother and fear for himself and the inability to do anything for either of them set his heart racing. Panic began to set in.

“Rest, Mr Tracy. Everything will feel better for sleep.”

Soft footfalls stepped efficiently on linoleum, and came closer to Scott. His heart thudded in his ears.

There was a tug at his left arm and a soft tut-tut from the nurse.

Something cold crawled up his arm and wrapped around his heart and his thoughts, disconnecting them. He lost the feeling in everything and oblivion took him.

-o-o-o-