#interlude 2

[dinodivider]

So funny for Taravangian to become Odium and then IMMEDIATELY decide to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps like 24 hours later. Thank you Mr. Definitely-The-Good-Guy, very cool

[numerousbees1106]

CARRION DAWN FOR VULTURES - INTERLUDE II

The two of them were silent as they watched the pirates drag Anakin away.

Obi-Wan waited one minute, two, three, before he finally let his calm demeanor slip away, the nonchalant façade he had been projecting falling, and he turned a glare he knew was as sharp as a dagger on the other prisoner in the cell.

“If we were not cuffed together under watch and reliant on each other for escape, I would beat you to death with my bare hands,” Obi-Wan informed the Sith, a poisonous calm to his voice. “The moment we get out of here, I will stop at nothing to bring you to justice for what you did to Anakin.”

Dooku regarded him with a surprised but thoughtful look.

“He told you?” The Sith asked, tone equally measured. “He told you what I did to him?

Obi-Wan allowed his face to turn stormy and his fists to clench as a flash of very non-Jedi-like rage coursed through him.

“He didn't need to,” Obi-Wan growled. “I saw the state you left him in.”

Obi-Wan was certain that, for the rest of his days, he would never be able to forget the sight of his precious Padawan, the dear boy he raised and trained and cared for for over a decade, cuffed and muzzled and collared, naked in a Separatist cell, clothing torn and discarded around him, bruised and battered and trembling and afraid, refusing to speak about what happened, a secretive and ashamed air about him as he had redressed with shaking hands-

No, Anakin hadn't needed to tell him what had happened.

“You,” Obi-Wan continued, seething, “-are vile, disgusting, unworthy of any title other than monstrous. I struggle to comprehend how a demagolka such as you trained a good man such as Qui-Gon Jinn.”

Dooku didn't speak Mando’a, but he didn't need to to understand the gravity of the curse - Obi-Wan’s venomous tone gave it away. The Sith Lord bristled, puffing up in anger at the mention of Obi-Wan’s deceased Master.

“You have no idea of what you speak of,” Dooku rumbled, eyes a putrid yellow as he glared at Obi-Wan.

“I don't?” Obi-Wan challenged. “I found my  Padawan aboard your ship in a horrendous state, a state I will never be able to forget, and you tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about?” 

Dooku narrowed his eyes.

“Has it perhaps occurred to you that your beloved Padawan is not all he seems?” The Count questioned. “That perhaps, he is keeping secrets from you? That you don't know him nearly as well as you think?”

“And you do?” Obi-Wan hissed. “You have the audacity to- to assault my Padawan in the worst of ways, and you dare to try and tell me you know him better than I do?!”

“I,” Dooku seethed, “-did no such thing. Skywalker is little more than a pitiful animal-”

Obi-Wan didn't think twice - he reeled back and swung his bound-together fists like a club at the Sith, the older man so surprised by the sudden act of violence that he couldn't dodge in time, Obi-Wan’s fists slamming right into the side of the Count’s skull, sending the man stumbling into the wall. 

Obi-Wan stood, panting and shaking with fury as the guards rushed into the cell, apparently having seen Obi-Wan attacking the foul Sith.

“What the kriff?!” One of them shouted, pulling Obi-Wan away as Dooku regained his composure, sulphuric eyes narrowed dangerously. “I thought you Jedi were pacifists!”

Obi-Wan and Dooku glowered at each other from across the cell, both heaving with rage, a rage that Obi-Wan was desperately trying to release into the Force with minimal effect. 

“You,” Obi-Wan snarled as the other pirate separated his and Dooku’s shackles, “-are sick, deplorable, depraved-”

“I did not touch that boy!” Dooku snarled back. “Skywalker is not all that he seems, Kenobi. He is a trickster and a fraud, a beast masquerading as a Jedi-”

Obi-Wan threw himself at Dooku again, tackling the elderly Sith to the floor, but this time Dooku was prepared, raising his arms up as he kicked at Obi-Wan as Obi-Wan spat curse after curse in every language he knew, the pirates wisely scampering out of the way of the brawling Force-users as they rolled across the floor of the cell, kicking out at each other even as they used their shackled-together hands to pull the other closer, to keep them from splitting away and ending the fight. 

“What do we do about this?!” One of the pirates shouted, ducking out of the way as they rolled towards him. Obi-Wan managed a solid hit on Dooku's groin, the Sith letting out a pained wheeze before resorting to slamming his skull against Obi-Wan’s, The two of them finally letting the other go as pain spidered throughout their bodies. 

Obi-Wan coughed as he rose to his hands and knees, one of Dooku’s hits somehow managing to catch him in the ribs, while Dooku stumbled to his feet, though he was undeniably limping, hunched over slightly with pain. 

Obi-Wan forced himself to his feet, the two of them glaring at each other once more.

Is this really how the war with Dooku will end? Obi-Wan wondered. With us, beating each other to death in a dingy cell, held hostage by pirates? 

Just as he wondered that, the lights went out.

The pirates clamored and stumbled about, Obi-Wan drawing on the Force now that his connection wasn’t weakened by the electro-shackles, and he only had a moment’s notice to brace himself before Dooku sent a Force-push his way.

“Anakin Skywalker is not all he seems, Kenobi!” Dooku snarled, drawing back only to send a second, stronger Force-shove at him that sent Obi-Wan stumbling into the wall before finally, the Sith retreated, brilliant blasts of Force-lightning splitting the darkness as the pirates screamed in agony, the stench of burning flesh and ozone filling the air.

Obi-Wan heaved as the pressure pinning him to the wall released, and for a moment, he contemplated chasing after the Sith. But, with a shake of his head and deep breath, he centered himself in the Force. Without his lightsaber, he’d be forced to utilize a mixture of hand-to-hand and Force combat, the former they were evenly matched in despite the Count’s age, and the latter the Sith had an advantage in due to his Sith lightning and other such Dark techniques.

No, Obi-Wan thought sullenly as he exited the cell, turning to go the opposite direction. My best bet is to find Anakin and get out of this dreadful place.

We’ll get out of here and confront Dooku some other time, he reassured himself.

I just have to find him first.

[icing217]

[𝗧𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘𝗥] 𝗘𝗡𝗛𝗬𝗣𝗘𝗡 - '𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗜𝗡: 𝗩𝗔𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛' 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝟮

🔗: https://youtu.be/FE2XPxza-MI?list=RDFE2XPxza-MI

[18catsreading]

Brennan, Lou, you guys are giving me the shudders. Adventurers, you HAVE to take care of your feet. Wet feet or injured feet will absolutely disable you and/or kill you if they are not treated or addressed quickly.

Oh and he's dehydrated too. You might be hot shit in the city but the wilderness will absolutely devour your bones

[awindandtruthliveblog]

[Wind and Truth: Interlude 2]

Odium is definitely taking over Taravangian. But does he still have different intelligence levels?

He wants to interfere directly, perhaps to help innocents. But it's very much authoritarian, and he's gonna have to learn some lessons on how humanity works. It won't work the way he wants, and he'll hate that.

Cultivation recognizes guidance, and lets people grow into what they would be, naturally. She provides the support they need to be the best they can be. Odium is the police state that cracks down on aberrant behavior, removing true free will, and appeals to emotion for "the greater good".

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Interlude 2 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

There were very few things, in Victoria Dallon’s estimation, that were cooler than flying.  The invisible forcefield that extended a few millimeters over her skin and clothes just made it better.  The field kept the worst of the chill from touching her, but still let her feel the wind on her skin and in her hair.  Bugs didn’t splat against her face like they did against car windshields, even when she was pushing eighty miles an hour.

I mean, there's a reason why people objected to Victoria being the MC of Ward way back when. Her first introduction really doesn't jive with the rest of Worm's general tone, sets the mood, etc. Collateral Damage Barbie and all.

Really, Ward may take place after Worm, and may be in the same verse, etc, but it's not a sequel in the conventional sense. it's not telling the same story, the theming and narrative is wildly different - plus, Worm is 1.6 Million words long. 1.6 Million is over 3 times longer than Lord of the Fucking Rings. That's not a Book, that's a series. Ward isn't a sequel to Worm, it's a new series in the same world, after the previous series. Which is definitely a thing.

Granted, this is nitpicking, but Ward sucks, so fuck Ward.

Anyway - this opener for Vicky here does set a tone for her. I know she 'gets better' even within Worm itself, etc, but at this point, all the reader really knows (bar spoilers) is that some heroes are apparently dicks, and some villains are apparently halfway nice people. I'm going to guess one of the main purposes of this interlude (since, if I have picked up things right, is an instance of Amy healing another one of Vicky's victims) is to further the case, to the reader, that the heroes aren't all bright and shiny.

(To be clear, based on my fic reading/wiki walking/reddit thread reading, I am actually a fan of Victoria Dallon overall)

She stayed in that kneeling position for just heartbeats, letting her platinum curls and the cape that was draped over one of her shoulders flutter in the wake of air that had followed her descent.  She met the eyes of her quarry with a steely glare. She’d practiced that landing for weeks to get it right.

We see her reveling in her power in a way Taylor never does, never wants to. We also see her being an overdramatic teenager, but then, If I'd had that sort of power when I was her age (17? 18?) I'd also be overdramatic as fuck, so I'm not blaming her.

“I didn’t do anything,” the man snarled. “Andrea Young!” Victoria raised her voice.  As she shouted, she exercised her power.  The man quailed as though she’d slapped him.  “A black college student was beaten so badly she needed medical attention!  Her teeth were knocked out!  You’re trying to tell me that you, a skinhead with swollen knuckles, someone who was in the crowd watching paramedics arrive with an expression bordering on glee, you didn’t do anything!?” “I didn’t do nothing worth caring about,” he sneered.  His bravado was tempered by a second look over his shoulder, as though he’d very much like to be elsewhere right that moment.

I mean, no one ever accused Neo-Nazis of being smart, but you do know who this is, you little shit, right? You may not care, but she does, so keep on denying it. It won't work, but you have to at least try.

God, his stupidity almost offends me more than his racism.

  For just a moment, she contemplated slamming him up against a wall.  It would have been fitting and satisfying to shove him hard enough against the brick to crack it, then drop him into the dumpster that sat at the wall’s base.

Intrusive thoughts, entirely understandable.

“I think it’s a safe bet to say you’re a member of Empire Eighty-Eight,” she told him, meeting his eyes with a hard stare, “or at least, you’ve got some friends who are.  So here’s what’s going to happen.  You’re going to either tell me everything the triple-E’s have been up to, or I’m going to break your arms and legs and then you’re going to tell me everything.”

Well. Not a great look, even as an empty threat, Victoria. Not a great look at all.

“Fuck you, you can’t touch me.  There’s laws against that shit,” he blustered, staring fixedly over one shoulder.

Okay, so I know police brutality still happens on Earth-Bet, so does this guy really think this will work?

(also, why is it in superhero fiction superheroes always seem to be better regulated and more likely to actually be punished than cops? Apart from author fiat, I mean? Probably Police Unions are a huge contributing factor, tbh)

Her body thrummed with current – waves of energy that anyone in her presence would experience as an emotional charge of awe and admiration.  For those with a reason to be afraid of her, it would be a feeling of raw intimidation instead.

Ah yes. The Aura. Nothing ethically dubious about this. Aura Theory may not be true, but really, wtf Vicky. Don't go running this thing like it's Candy Crush on a boring Thursday Night.

Was Candy Crush around in 2011? Does Earth Bet have Candy Crush?

He was utterly for still for long enough that Victoria had begun to worry that he’d somehow snapped his neck or broken his spine as he’d rolled.  She was relieved when he groaned and began to pull himself to his feet. “Ready to talk?” she asked him, her voice carrying down the alley.  She didn’t move  forward from where she hovered in the air, but she did let herself drop closer to the ground.

There is a reason Vicky's detractors (and even some of her fans) call her 'Cop' as a middle name.

Like, character doing torture in fiction happens, and in a story like Worm, might even still be an overall good person, but someone like Glory Girl really shouldn't fucking be doing this shit. Not with New Wave's whole schtick and her whole general... vibe as a superhero.

Then again, that she's doing this despite that is probably the whole goddamn point of the interlude.

What was this asshole thinking?  That she would just let him go?  That, what, she would just bend to his witless lack of self preservation?  That she was helpless to do any real harm to him?  To top it off, he was going to insult her and try to walk away?

Shards, Shards, my dudes. my guys - DON'T GIVE TEENAGERS THIS SORT OF POWER

This time, he didn’t get up. “Fuck,” she swore, “Fuckity fuck fuck.”  She flew to him and checked for a pulse.  She sighed, and then headed to the nearest street.  She found the street address, grabbed her cell from her belt and dialed. “Hey sis?  Yeah, I found him.  That’s, uh, sort of the problem.  Yeah.  Look, I’m sorr- ok, can we talk about this later?  Yeah.  I’m at Spayder and Rock, there’s this little road that runs behind the buildings.  Downtownish, yeah.  Yeah?  Thanks.” Victoria returned to the unconscious skinhead, checked his pulse, and listened intently for changes in his breathing.  It took a very long five minutes for her sister to arrive. “Again, Victoria?” the voice disturbed her from her contemplations.

Again.

One word. Conveys so much character and worldbuilding, doesn't it?

“Use my codename, please,” Victoria told the girl.  Her sister was as different from her as night was from day.  Where Victoria was beautiful, tall, gorgeous, blonde, Amy was mousy.  Victoria’s costume showed off her figure, with a white one-piece dress that came to mid-thigh (with shorts underneath) an over-the shoulder cape, high boots and a golden tiara with spikes radiating from it, vaguely reminiscent of the sun’s rays or the statue of liberty.  Amy’s costume, by contrast, was only a shade away from being a burka.  Amy wore a robe with a large hood and a scarf that covered the lower half of her face.  The robe was alabaster white and had a medic’s red cross on the chest and the back.

Like, I've seen people give Wildbow grief for describing Amy's outfit as like a burka, and it wasn't a great choice of words, but is evocative.

He really should have picked another term tho.

Also! AMY! AMY! My Poor Borbo Sopping Wet Babygirl Little Meow Meow Who Did Nothing* Wrong! Finally she appears! Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie!

*As a necessary clarification for people who are Wildbow or who otherwise don't understand Fandom and/or tumblr Humor, yes, Amy of course did so fucking much that is wrong. I really shouldn't have to clarify this, but this fucking fandom (and this fucking Author)

“Our identities are public,” Amy retorted, pushing the hood back and scarf down to reveal brown frizzy hair and a face with freckles spaced evenly across it. “It’s the principle of the thing,” Victoria replied. “You want to talk about principles, Glory Girl?” Amy asked, in the most sarcastic tone she could manage, “This is the sixth – sixth! – time you’ve nearly killed someone.  That I know about!” “I’m strong enough to lift a SUV over my head,” Victoria muttered, “It’s hard to hold back all the time.”

Yes, but that's also why you don't... like... do those things, Vicky? If you can't be sure you will hold back, then don't do a thing where if you don't hold back, you leave a guy like this. At least if it's not an actual life and death situation.

Amy's not wrong here. Six fucking times is a lot, for a girl who hasn't had her powers for more than a few years.

Carol? Carol?! Who said you could let your teenage wrecking ball patrol around like this unsupervised? Caaaarol!

(God, Carol is just... the worst fucking mother all around, isn't she?)

“Look, can you just fix him?” Victoria pleaded. “I’m thinking I shouldn’t,” Amy said, quietly. “What?” “There’s consequences, Vicky.  If I help you now, what’s going to stop you from doing it again?  I can call the paramedics.  I know some good people from the hospital.  They could probably fix him up alright.”

I mean, on the list of things that's weighing Amy down, all the people that she's healed for Victoria is probably a bit lower down, but it doesn't help.

Don't help her Amy. I know you will, and I love you anyway, but don't. Please don't. You're right. Vicky does need to learn.

“I know you’re not keen on the superhero thing, but you’d really go that far?  You’d do that to us?  To me?”

Look who took guilt redirection classes from Mommy!

(Not that this is like, some horrible sin revealing Vicky as a garbage person, teenagers learning moral lessons from their parents is inevitable, and Carol, again, suuuuucks. Bad mom, bad superhero, bad human. All my homies hate Carol.)

Amy pointed a finger at her sister, “That’s not me.  It’s not my fault we’re at this point.  It’s you.  You’re crossing the line, going too far.  Which is exactly what people who criticize New Wave are scared of.  We’re not government sponsored.  We’re not protected or organized or regulated in the same way.  Everyone knows who we are under our masks.  That means we have to be accountable.  The responsible thing for me to do, as a member of this team, is to let the paramedics take him, and let the law do as it sees fit.”

Again. She's really not fucking wrong. If Vicky makes a bad first showing for a work like this, Amy makes a really good first showing.

“My adoptive family,” Amy mumbled into Victoria’s shoulder, “And stop trying to use your frigging power to make me all squee over how amazing you are.  Doesn’t work.  I’ve been exposed so long I’m immune.” “It hurts,” the man moaned. “I’m not using my power, dumbass,” Victoria told Amy, letting her go, “I’m hugging my sister.  My awesome, caring and merciful sister.”

Being exposed to a mind altering power so much that you're 'immune' is still not the sort of thing a person should really be going through at all, you get that, right? Vicky? You do get that, right?

Are you really not? You sure? Because you just did lose control of your other power (super strength) a few minutes ago.

Aura Theory isn't true, but the Aura is still 17 kinds of bullshit, Vicky.

Amy frowned at Victoria, “I’ll heal him.  But this is the last time.”

Amy, I love you, I love you to pieces and to the moon and back, and I wish for nothing but happiness for you, but you and I both know this is not the last time.

Amy leaned over the man and touched her hand to his cheek, “Slingshot break to his ribs, fractured clavicle, broken mandible, broken scapula, fractured sternum, bruised lung, broken ulna, broken radius -“ “I get the point,” Victoria said. “Do you?” Amy asked.  Then she sighed, “I wasn’t even halfway down the list.  This is going to take a little while.  Sit?”

Vicky, you're really not sounding like someone who is getting it. You really should be hearing Amy's whole list.

Like, I get that Vicky's probably not supposed to be coming off great in this scene, and if so, task fucking successful.

“Better than ever, physically,” Amy replied, “I grew her new teeth, fixed everything from the bruising to the scrapes, and even gave her a head to toe tune-up.  Physically, she’ll feel on top of the world, like she had been to a spa and had the best nutritionist, best fitness expert and the best doctor all looking after her for a straight month.”

Powers.

Are.

Bullshit.

“Yeah, yeah.  Not can’t.  Won’t.  It’s complicated and I don’t trust myself not to screw something up when I’m tampering with someone’s head.  That’s it, that’s all.”

This isn't the (only) reason Amy has this rule, of course, but it's a damn fucking good one.

As far as she was concerned, Amy was doing herself a disservice by not practicing using her powers on the brain.  It was only a matter of time before her sister found herself in a situation where she needed to do some emergency brain surgery and found herself incapable.  Amy, for her part, refused to even discuss it.

...On the other hand.

Vicky's not wrong. Holy shit, is she not wrong. And not just for reasons stated, but for a bunch of other reasons Vicky doesn't know about.

The problem with rigid rules, and pinning your entire sense of morality to them is that if you break one, and you made it so rigid it's brittle, the whole moral edifice falls down.

Amy, babygirl, please. Someone needs to get this girl into at college level ethics course, STAT. She needs a moral worldview that she didn't inherit from Carol that isn't so black and white and rigid yet brittle.

“I… sue you, he gasped out, then managed an added, “Whore.” “Try it.  I’d just love to see a skinhead with a few broken bones go up against a superheroine whose mom just happens to be one of the best lawyers in Brockton Bay.  You know her, right?”

Aaand back to the Police Brutality analogues.

“And erectile dysfunction,” Amy said, just loud enough for the thug to hear her, “You fractured your ninth vertebra.  That’s going to affect all nerve function in extremities below your waist.  If I leave you like you are, your toes will always feel a little numb, and you’ll have a hell of a time getting it up, if you know what I mean.”

Always the best way to get to a guy poisoned on the kind of hypertoxic 'masculinity' that fascism and adjacent ideologies fill their supporters with: Go after what they love most.

“I have an honorary medical license,” Amy told him, her expression solemn, “I’m not allowed to fuck with you about stuff like that.  Hippocratic oath.”

Amy Dallon, Bullshittter Extraordinaire :rofl:

“This guy, Coil.  Don’t know what his powers are, but he’s got a private army.  Ex-military, all of ’em.  At least fifty, Kaiser said, and every one of ’em has top notch gear.  Their armor’s better than kevlar.  You shoot ’em, they’re back up in a few seconds.  ‘Least when you shoot a pig, you can be pretty sure you broke a few ribs.  But that’s not the fucked up thing.  These guys?  They’ve got these lasers hooked up to the machine guns they carry around.  If they don’t think bullets are doing it, or if they’re after people who are behind cover, they fire off these purple laser beams that can cut through steel.  Tear through any cover you’re standing behind and burn through you too.”

Aaaah Thomas Fuckface Calvert. First introduction of what is probably the closest thing Worm has to like a real 'main villain'. Jack Slash is a close second, but it takes too long for him to be relevant for that to count. Calvert looms over the entire narrative from midway through Arc 2 until he dies in what... I'm going to guess from what I know is somewhere in Arc 20? 21?

The skinhead laughed, then winced, “Are you dense, girl?  Everyone’s going to make a play.  It’s not just the major gangs and teams that are looking for a slice of the pie, there.  It’s everyone.  The Docks are ripe for the taking.  The location’s worth as much money as you’d get downtown.  It’s the go to place if you want to buy black market.  Sex, drugs, violence.  And the locals are already used to paying protection money.  It’s just a matter of changing who they pay to.  The Docks are rich territory, and we’re talking the potential for a full scale fucking war over it.”

Nature abhors a vacuum, and that's one reason you have to be careful about taking out whole gangs.

He continued, “You want to know my guess?  Empire Eighty Eight is going to take the biggest slice of the Docks, because we’re strong enough to.  Coil’s going to stick his thumb in just to spite us, ABB is going to hold on to some.  But you’re also going to have a bunch of the little guys trying to take something for themselves.  Über and Leet, Circus, the Undersiders, Squealer, Trainwreck, Stain, others you’ve never heard of?  They’re going to stake out their ground, and one of two things is going to happen.  Either there’s war, in which case civilians get hurt and things get bad for you, or there’s alliances between the various teams and solo villains and shit gets even worse for you.”

Chatty (and surprisingly insightful) little shithead, isn't he? Where were all these brains earlier when he was Mouthing Off to Alexandria Jr?

 “Try it.  My sister just healed you… most of you, with a touch.  Did you ever wonder what else she could do?  Ever think, maybe, she could break you just as easily?  Or change the color of your skin, you racist fuck?  I’ll tell you this, I’m not half as scary as my little sister is.”

Does Vicky realize how true this is? Like, really, truly, how easily her sister could become an S-class threat?

Also, just once, it would be funny as fuck if Amy did make a member of E88 black. Horrifying implications, but funny as fuck.

“I’ll be good.  I’ll be better,” Victoria promised as she dialed with one hand. 

If I'm Amy, I'm thinking 'You mean that now'.

But again. What 17 year old doesn't say "i'll do better" and, even when they mean it, sometimes fail?

“Amy!” Victoria laughed, hugging her sister with one arm, “Weren’t you just saying you weren’t going to mess with people’s heads?”

She said she wouldn't mess with their brains.

(Not that this shithead racist fucker seems to have many of those)

Overall, fucking love this Interlude, and even if I didn't have Amy Dallon Brainrot™ as a pre-existing condition, I think I would anyway.

But ooof. So many fucking oofs, given where I know the story is going.

[madibyrd]

[ @manojoaquin ]

Avoiding Joaquin wasn’t the hardest of jobs. Madi wouldn’t have normally bumped into him, so it was more of a “noticing Sisco in the distance and making sure to go the other way” than anything else. She felt a bit guilty over it, she did promise to bring him some coconuts, but the way he was subtly trying to convince her she was fire attuned, Madi just didn’t want to listen to him.

And then when the truth finally sank in, Madi kept avoiding him, because she didn’t want to admit that he was right. That he saw the truth right from the beginning. It was childish, yes, but it felt like she could still hold onto hope that none of it was real despite the fact that she couldn’t ignore the way her skin was constantly hot anymore, of the call of the fire when she past a simple campfire.

She couldn’t ignore the truth for too long, though, and today finally she got up and decided to go look for him. She got a couple of coconuts from a tree, cut up one of them and put a couple of mango pieces inside (the closest she could get to a coctail, she just hoped he also liked mangoes), and then headed off to find Sisco.

It took her a good hour before she came upon him, and she stopped for a moment in the distance - this was the last time to turn around and as stupid as it was, Madi considered it for a moment. But she needed to learn how to repress that power, how to shove it so far down that it would never hurt anyone. So she took a deep breathe, let it all out and walked up to him.

“Hello there,” she greeted with a smile, genuine, but also wary - not of him, of their conversation, of what she’d have to admit to him out loud, despite him already knowing everything. “Like I promised - thank you coconuts. With some extra, surprise mangoes, hopefully you like those, too.”

[tamyrawilliams]

[ @sagetomashardy ]

The pond wasn’t at all high on Tamyra’s list of bodies of water to go to if she wanted to either soak herself or go for a swim. The ocean was right there, vast and had a never-ending feeling to it which she’s always loved, and then if she just wanted to soak, there were the hot springs, they were much better for that purpose.

It was still a body of water, though and since Tamyra noticed that something was off with it, it was bothering her. First she thought it was just some kind of bad animal dying in it and that reacting badly to the water and its environment. Sometimes things happened and Tamyra didn’t always wanted to poke her nose into it.

But it didn’t clear out, it didn’t get better with time, and when she walked past it for maybe the fourth or fifth time, she watched a small bird dare to go near it (it was also strange, Tamyra could have sworn she hasn’t seen any of the farm or the wild goats go near it since the pond changed and got all stinky), dare to take a few sips from it and then once it started flying off, the bird’s until now perfectly working wings just gave out and the bird to fall right into the pond. It struggled for maybe one or two moments before it got sucked down below, and Tamyra couldn’t even have time to react or do anything, the next thing she knew, a pool of blood appeared where the bird was mere seconds ago.

She would not deal with this alone.

Granted, for a moment Tamyra didn’t want to deal with it at all, but it kept bugging her, kept creeping into her mind, so by the time she noticed Tomas and headed over to him, already talking. “Hey! Did something happened with the pond? Somebody used it for some kind of goat sacrifice or something? Or some kind of monster moved in there? Because I just—I am not even sure what happened with the bird, one moment it was drinking, the next it went—what the fuck has happened to you?” Tamyra couldn’t hold the initial shock back the moment she’s properly seen Tomas’ face. She was up in front of him in just a few strides, cupping his chin into her hands to be able to look at his face closer. “Who did this to you? Why would anyone do this to you?”