tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865Urban Fantasy Homesteadingcreating a self sufficient fictional lifestyleUrban Fantasy Homesteading2016-06-10T05:27:29Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:44195Jack(addendum to December 15 for yukie)2013-12-16T22:01:18Z2013-12-16T22:02:14Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br />"M'lady?" Rajani whispered into the darkness. She appreciated the peace and quiet after all the shouting and panic she remembered from her master and the others, but it seemed as if she'd been here for a long time.<br /><br />She walked forward, if it walked and forward were words that could be applied to the way she was moving through the endless velvet. She wasn't even really sure she was moving.<br /><br />There was a quiet snap that cut through the silence and then a single point of light. Rajani squinted and went to shield her eyes, pleased to confirm that she did, in fact, still have eyes to squint and arms to shield them with after all. As she adjusted to the light she realized it was a single candle, though a moment later it split as another candle was lit from it. In the candlelight she saw two faces, with skin dark as hers but white hair that caught all the available light. Both men smiled to see her and she thought they must be brothers.<br /><br />"Welcome back, sister," one of them greeted her as he lit more candles.<br /><br />"Would you like some tea?" the other asked, already pouring. <br /><br />She seated herself on a divan that hadn't been there a minute before and accepted the tea gratefully. "But I don't think I had brothers..."<br /><br />"We're all the Lady's children here," one said as he sat on her left. The other slid onto the cushion to her right, reminding her more of a cat than a person. She felt warm, and safe, and the tea smelled so delicious.<br /><br />"It's good to be home," she closed her eyes, content.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=44195" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:40303JackEscalation2013-06-10T08:26:10Z2013-06-12T00:57:39Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><b>Notes:</b> <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://shipwreck-light.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://shipwreck-light.dreamwidth.org/'><b>shipwreck_light</b></a></span> requested a story with Chenek remembering his favorite kill.<br /><br />Experimenting on the humans was more of a hobby than a serious study by then, but <a name="cutid1"></a>Chenek and the others needed to do <i>something</i> to keep themselves occupied, didn't they? They were entitled to it. And it wasn't as if the humans mattered. It was just something to do while they waited for the planes to align so they could make their exits. Then their servants and children could have what was left of the place and that would be the end of it.<br /><br />But someone got impatient. Or perhaps self-righteous. Chenek couldn't be bothered to pay enough attention to differentiate. He only knew that he had walked in on Wodinaz standing over Tzymir with the blade while Wiljon and Wehaz held him down. Chenek hadn't been fond of his brother, exactly, but this sort of thing from their creations? It could not be tolerated.<br /><br />He waited patiently for his revenge. He let them take their humans away from the Mu base, use Tzymir's stolen blood and bone and magic to build civilizations that they called Atlantis and Lemuria.<br /><br />Chenek walked among them, then, disguised as a man. He brought his sisters, Kaana and Oc Ha and Takin, and they spoke to those their creations cared about. It took years, but they had missed their window to leave thanks to Wodinaz and the others. Chenek had time to push the humans just a bit, this way and that, an illness here and a lust for power there.<br /><br />And he had time to savor it when civilizations collapsed, when Wodinaz was exiled to wander by his own pets, when Wehaz was bound for his troubles, when Wiljon was taken prisoner. He sat with his sisters and toasted the destruction of everything their creations had worked for, and they laughed and thought their brother avenged.<br /><br />Of course, it was more complicated than that, but though the centuries, very little else would feel as satisfying. Killing one man or even a hundred didn't compare to killing civilizations.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=40303" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:35021JackPick a Card...2013-03-11T08:56:31Z2014-10-06T16:59:22Zpublic7Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><b>Notes:</b> Now here's something a little... okay, maybe a lot experimental? It was loosely inspired by <a href="http://thelinesoflearning.dreamwidth.org/8493.html">this card draw</a>: A saturation in the form of a card reading using a divination deck that exists in-universe. (It also exists here, in that I got a bunch of cards printed off and am teaching myself meanings for them. If you're into that kind of thing, let me know, I'm happy to try reading for other people with it.) Each section starts with the the name and meaning of the position, then the name of the card drawn, the prompt associated with it, the reader's statement of interpretation to Robin, and then a brief scene illustrating what's being discussed. Probably overcomplicated. I'm posting anyway!<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a>"What can the cards tell you, boy?" Today she'd set up along the promenade, across from the university. She dressed the part of the fortune teller, in colorful robes designed in old-fashioned styles, and though she was young, many people thought she looked wise. <br /><br />She hoped looks weren't too deceiving. She might not make a lot of money at this, but she wasn't aiming to defraud anyone, either.<br /><br />Her first customer of the day was a man who crossed the street from the university to find her. He was Anglo, and nervous, and slipped the fee into her hand before she even spoke.<br /><br />"A classmate of mine said you're good."<br /><br />She pocketed the money and nodded.<br /><br />"My... my lover just made a huge decision, and I need to know how it will turn out."<br /><br />Sticks, coins and cards all sat on the stone bench beside her, and she asked him to choose which he would use.<br /><br />"Um. I've never seen someone read with cards. Can I? I want to see how they work."<br /><br />1. The Bloodline - the ancient past, the building blocks of the current situation <br />The Dragon (<i>10. role</i>)<br /><br /><i>In this position, the Dragon could indicate multiple things. It could be a statement about your actual bloodline, or it could indicate someone you know who's done a great deal to shape who you are.</i><br /><br />Robin looked sideways to see if Jian was paying attention.<br /><br />If he was, though, Robin couldn't see it. Not that that meant he wasn't. Robin was pretty sure that the less attention he <i>seemed</i> to be paying, the more he was actually using.<br /><br />He'd been trying for weeks now to get Jian's to notice when they ran into each other. No matter what he did, though, Jian was always following Tai, and Tai was getting in Robin's way. <br /><br />Robin knew he would just have to try harder to get his attention.<br /><br />2. The Unguarded Smile - the positive energy impacting this situation<br />The Soldier (<i>3. lesson</i>)<br /><br /><i>You've followed orders diligently. You've earned your reward.</i><br /><br />"Do the form again."<br /><br />Robin nodded. His leg muscles burned from maintaining the low, solid stances that the form required, but he knew he couldn't disappoint Jian. <br /><br />3. The Broken Promise - the negative influence impacting the situation<br />The Artificer (<i>7. skill</i>)<br /><br /><i>This isn't a card I see often for negative influences. I wonder if you're working too hard? Don't let machines take the place of people.</i><br /><br />"Robin, stop ignoring me."<br /><br />"I'm not ignoring you! I'm just working."<br /><br />"You've been working for hours. Come out and play, Robin."<br /><br />"I'm almost done, Jian, I promise."<br /><br />"Come out now or I destroy all of it. Being my apprentice means doing as you're told."<br /><br />4. The Budding Flower - the present moment, captured for inspection<br />The Lion (<i>2. friend</i>)<br /><br /><i>Oh, you must be quite happy right now! This is good luck, blessings, happiness and a long life.</i><br /><br />"I still can't believe it, sometimes."<br /><br />"Believe what?"<br /><br />"That I'm lucky enough to have you."<br /><br />5. The Messenger - a positive influence or good news that's coming soon<br />The Doppelganger (<i>4. resource</i>)<br /><br /><i>This card usually means that you have to worry about undermining yourself, but it looks like even your subconscious is rooting for you.</i><br /><br />"Norton, I don't want to play this game anymore."<br /><br />"Oh, this isn't a game. I've been deadly serious the whole time. Still..." he hesitated. "I decided you were right about Jian. I haven't given you a fair chance."<br /><br />6. The Inspector - a negative influence or event that is coming soon<br />The Chaoskampf (<i>5. education</i>)<br /><br /><i>This is the balance between forces in the universe. Everything has to stay in balance. When you've been having a lot of good luck, balance means, well...</i><br /><br />"Mortals break so easily, Jian. Or had you forgotten?" Chenek gave a predatory smile. "I'll be happy to remind you."<br /><br />7. The Open Door - what change can you make<br />The Ratha (<i>6. tool</i>)<br /><br /><i>The Ratha is the mount, one who is the host for a higher power. In this position, I think she means that your best bet is to learn to ride, not to simply be ridden.</i><br /><br />"I am the last of my line. I rejected immortality. I gave up my inheritance. I've spent my whole life walking away from responsibility, and I guess this is my line in the sand."<br /><br />"Robin, this isn't necessary."<br /><br />"Yes it is, Jian. I'm not going to lose you for a third time."<br /><br />8. The Fox Wedding - hopes, dreams, what you're seeking<br />The Higher Self (<i>1. ally</i>)<br /><br /><i>You're looking for your own best self. You need to make a partner out of that piece of yourself. Remember, you both have the same goals.</i><br /><br />"I am my father's son, and also my mother's. They both gave me... gifts. They may not look like it to other people, but they <i>can</i> be gifts. Even madness has a time and place."<br /><br />9. The Orphan's Tears - fears, temptations, what keeps you from your goals<br />The Mouse (<i>9. method</i>)<br /><br /><i>You fear being powerless, overlooked. But stealth can be a great asset, and one persistent mouse can destroy an entire library or cause a famine.</i><br /><br />"Blaser? How did you- But- That's not possible!"<br /><br />10. The End of the World - the ultimate outcome if no great effort is taken<br />The Order (<i>8. component</i>)<br /><br /><i>Order means systems, rules, patterns. It's neither good nor bad, except that you make it so. In this case, I think it would mean letting those negative influences cast you in a role you don't want to play. This is</i> your life<i>. Make your own choices, don't wait until they're made for you.</i><br /><br />"Play the game, Robin. You'll be good at it. And when we get to go, the world will be yours for the picking."<br /><br />It was tempting. There was a time... but Robin shook his head. <br /><br />"I'm not interested in being a lapdog, Chenek, no matter how comfy the lap."<br /><br /><i>Did that help?</i><br /><br />Robin looked up at the card reader, so shaken that the illusion on his face blurred and shifted like an old movie. She didn't let her surprise show; Shengao had many talented people, and very few of them liked to draw attention.<br /><br />He stumbled over some thank yous and good byes as he dropped several coins on her table. Did he forget he'd already paid her? <br /><br />She smiled and pocketed it anyway, considering it a tip. He didn't look like the kind of customer who'd be back, but he did look like the type that would recommend her along. That, and the coins in her pocket, were good enough for her.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=35021" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:29095JackAnother Kind of Beginning2012-10-29T23:53:00Z2014-03-05T06:46:58Zpublic1Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><i>Tlalli, for the record, is the new name for Eden.</i><br /><br />"Did you honestly just send those children off on a <em>quest</em>, Tlalli? They're teenagers, how can you put all that weight on them?"<br /><br />"I needed them out of the way," Tlalli said simply. She waved one more time as Remy's car turned out of sight and then turned and stalked back toward her small cabin. "They'll be fine fighters eventually but they're a little young for ascension." <br /><br />Cozamalotl blinked. "Out of the way?"<br /><br />"Of course. I don't want them in danger when I start the really serious work the portents are showing me. You've known those boys well enough to know they'd follow me into the hells and back if I asked them." Tlalli rolled up her sleeves. "Do you want to help, my dear Coza?"<br /><br />A smile spread across Coza's face as her words sank in. "Oh, yes, absolutely. I don't think I've done anything reckless since before we... oh, I don't even remember." Tlalli couldn't help notice the way her eyes sparkled.<br /><br />"I know you're good with herbs. Can you find me a few things?" Tlalli made a quick list on her pad and tore the page out, handing it to Coza. As she hurried off to find the plants, Coza smiled, feeling younger than she had since her husband died.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=29095" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:21130JackBurning2012-09-07T00:39:00Z2016-06-10T05:27:29Zpublic1Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><i>He returned to the princess<br />saying, I am but a traveling man<br />but here is what you hunger for.<br />The apple was as smooth as oilskin<br />and when she took a bite<br />it was as sweet and crisp as the moon.<br />Their tongues met over such a dish.<br />His tongue lay in her mouth<br />as delicately as the white snake.</i><br /><br />Annie was outside when Joseph drove up, silhouetted against the red and purple sunset as she embraced the branches of a tall ironwood tree. As he got closer, he saw that she was pulling down one of her looms. She waved as he pulled up.<br /><br />“You caught me just in time,” Annie said with a smile. “I was planning to leave for the Burning Market tonight.”<br /><a name="cutid1"></a><br />“It’s time again already?” He’d noticed the nights were getting shorter, but lost track of the desert months.<br /><br />“Yep. Do you want to drive with me? I think there’s room for your bike in the back of the pickup.”<br /><br />“Thanks,” Joseph nodded. “I brought you a few things.” He dragged the overstuffed duffel off the back of his bike. The ride from Sedona had been hard and awkward with the extra weight, and he hoped it was worth it.<br /><br />The fabrics were easily bartered over, especially because she’d already offered him a ride, and that was worth gas and the wear on his bike. They’d done this every couple of months for almost two years now and neither of them was interested in haggling or pressing an advantage.<br /><br />“I didn’t make much for you this time.” She looked almost shy. Not much meant three pairs of socks, but that was enough to make Joseph smile.<br /><br />“I was hoping,” he said. “I wore the heels out in the first pair you made me.”<br /><br />“Let me see them,” she said, and he dug them out of his saddlebag. Annie studied them for a minute and pronounced them fixable, depositing them on the pile he was trading her.<br /><br />When they were done, Joseph carried the stack of blankets over to the airstream and piled them on the bed inside. She was picking up the bag as he came out.<br /><br />“What else do you have?” she laughed. “You holding out on me?”<br /><br />“No,” he answered, closing the door behind him. “That’s a gift.”<br /><br />She reached in and pulled out the other bottle of sweet apple wine. Most of the chill had worn off, but she smiled.<br /><br />“You want me to get that?” he asked, unfolding the corkscrew on his multitool. He reached for the bottle and their hands met for a minute. He tensed and looked up at her. Annie smiled and squeezed his hand a little, and he smiled awkwardly as he opened the wine. She retrieved two empty glasses and one full bowl from the carefully arranged kitchen next to the fire.<br /><br />“I already ate,” she explained, pouring the wine as he took a few bites of the stew. “I’m glad I can use up the last of it, I hate having to heat it up again.”<br /><br />They sat together, watching the stars come out and sharing the wine with few words between them. Joseph had heard plenty of other peoples’ stories from Annie, but neither was ready to tell their own yet.<br />As the desert air cooled, she inched closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. He tensed and then relaxed against her warmth. This was nice, he told himself. Sitting, watching the night come up without worrying about where he was going in the dark, there was an appeal to that. He thought he understood what Annie saw in it.<br /><br />Unlike most people eking out a living in the desert, Annie migrated only seasonally. She’d explained to Joseph that the effort of rearranging her equipment wasn’t worth it if she did it too often, and the seasons were reliable. She kept a regular schedule, moving ahead of the monsoons and staying out of the worst of the heat and cold, visiting the same camps and towns every year. She said that people couldn’t come to her if they didn’t know where to find her.<br /><br />“You ready to hit the road?” she asked when he finished the stew. It was true night now, with only a few lights from the nearby town distracting from the stars overhead.<br /><br />The heat of the day was bleeding out rapidly and Joseph hurried to get gloves and a scarf on before he left his bike in the back of her truck. Both were items she’d made him.<br /><br />Annie tucked the last of the large loom pieces in around the bike and made sure everything was tied down securely while he attached the trailer to the hitch. By midnight, they were ready to go.<br /><br />“Full tank,” Annie said as she started the truck. “One of the guys in town sells without a permit.”<br /><br />“I’ll remember that.”<br /><br />Even before the crash, the Sonoran and Mojave deserts had more than their share of survivalists, lone artists, and others getting by. Sure, most of the state was in Phoenix, Tucson or Flagstaff, but there were plenty of small towns and ranches where life hadn’t changed since white men got there, and life hadn’t changed much after. These people were happy to buy from Annie and others like her, even if some of the wilder desert life made them nervous.<br /><br />Then there were the people on the edge of the Phoenix valley who knew both sides of the coin could be spent – they let Ballentyne keep their lights on and their water running, but sold propane, kerosene, ethanol or plain old food and water to the sand rats, the gangs, and anyone else who could pay for it. Ballentyne didn’t care, not really. They had their hands full keeping civilization running in Phoenix and Vegas, Sanfran and Seattle, and keeping the glass desert from expanding.<br /><br />“Should be an easy drive,” Annie noted as they sped along the highway. “No gangs tonight, they’re probably already out at the Market. And we won’t be close enough to Vegas to have to worry about security personnel.”<br /><br />It was still dark when they crested a desert hill and saw the Burning Market spread below them. Fires burned in colors natural and unnatural, lights flashed, and a sea of vehicles and tents as large as some of the towns Annie regularly stopped at greeted them. Like desert flowers after a rain, the city blossomed overnight when the season arrived. Districts appeared as groups with similar philosophies or crafts huddled together, but there was plenty of traffic and a minimum of violence. The Market meant too much to too many people for them to let it degenerate.<br /><br />The Burning Market was, according to the old-timers Annie knew, entirely changed and exactly the same as it had always been. Joseph had tried to imagine what it must have been like before the crash, but he couldn’t understand what the need for it would have been.<br /><br />“There was no need except art,” Annie tried to explain. “That was what made it beautiful.” She found a space to park her trailer next to a young Navajo woman who was laying out traditional blankets and modern tapestry art. Across the way, a man fought with his llama while arguing in Spanish with an older woman about yarn.<br /><br />While Annie settled in around the fire with her current knitting project and plenty of company, Joseph went wandering. There were never enough metalworkers to go around at the Market and pretty soon he was getting waved down by a woman he recognized.<br /><br />“Good to see you, Joe, my boy.”<br /><br />“Good to see you too, Key.” Key was four inches taller than him to begin with and her afro added another three, so she towered over him as she directed him toward her camp. She was a displaced Angel from the glass desert who said no city was as good as Los Angeles so she wasn’t going to bother with them anymore. She was a seer and a good one, always in demand, and last time he’d seen her she’d been driving a little electric car with solar panels mounted on top.<br /><br />“Need your help. I traded up to a bigger model, but I just can’t get the power generating right. Can you take a look at it?” She gestured to the equipment on top of a late-model Prius. Peeking inside, he could see that the back seat had been ripped out and replaced with a mattress and all the makings of a cozy little camper.<br /><br />“Why the trade?” Joseph asked as he took the cover off the wiring and started examining it.<br /><br />Key smiled. “Needed a hacienda for two. This here’s Locke.” He looked up. Locke was tiny, almost fae-looking, with violet hair and a smile innocent enough that he knew she was dangerous.<br /><br />“Nice to meet you,” he said, nodding his head to her. “Do you do…” he hesitated, looking for the word, and settled for waving his hands in the air.<br /><br />“Magic? Sometimes. Mostly I look after Key. Would you like some tea?”<br /><br />“Thanks,” he said, taking the offered cup and drinking half of it in one swallow. “I think some of your connectors are loose. Let me go get my soldering equipment and I’ll see if that fixes it.”<br /><br />“Much obliged,” Key nodded, looking him over. “You still know the lady who made those gloves of yours?”<br /><br />“I came here with her.”<br /><br />“You tell her I’m looking for a coat, and she brought it for me, and I’d be much obliged if we could reach an agreement about it, okay?”<br /><br />Joseph nodded. He knew intellectually that Key saw things, in some nebulous way, and that Annie made things for people she hadn’t met yet. That didn’t mean he understood how it worked.<br /><br />Joseph was on his way over to Annie’s trailer with the offer from Key and Locke when he spotted her still sitting around a fire with several other men and women, all of them knitting or spinning or sewing. He started to come up behind her but hesitated at the edge of the firelight.<br /><br />“Curse or not, a sweater’s not the greatest labor of love for a knitter.” Annie’s voice carried. He didn’t want to interrupt her and didn’t know how she’d feel about him giving her Key’s message. “Socks are.”<br /><br />“No way!” argued a woman with flashing needles a few feet away. “Sweaters are bigger and more complicated.”<br /><br />Annie shook her head. “Complicated depends on the pattern. Socks mean hundreds of tiny stitches in fine yarn. But there’s more to it than that.”<br /><br />“Heels?”<br /><br />“Use.” She held up her own project, a sock pulled over a darning egg. Joseph recognized the socks he’d handed her the night before. “You make socks knowing they’re smaller and not as impressive as sweaters or scarves or clever hats, knowing someone can probably still trade for mass-produced ones in Vegas, knowing they’re going to get abused and overlooked in ways gloves and sweaters don’t, and the most you can hope for is that the person you’re making them for will like them enough to wear them out. You have to love somebody to make socks for them.”<br /><br />Joseph looked down at his feet. He couldn’t see the new socks she’d given him, of course, but he could feel them, warm and soft and dry against the hard desert below his feet.<br /><br />He nodded to himself, then stepped into the light. Her smile when she noticed him was as warm as his socks.<br /><br />“I’ve got a message for you,” he told her, and she stood, leading him back toward her trailer.<br /><br />He waited until they were away from the circle to ask. “Did you mean that?”<br /><br />“What?”<br /><br />“About socks?”<br /><br />She looked down at her darning egg and smiled. “Yeah, I suppose I did.”<br /><br />“I don’t-”<br /><br />“You don’t have to.”<br /><br />“Are you sure?”<br /><br />“If you want to stick around, I’d like that,” she said, picking her words as carefully as she picked her yarn. “I enjoy it when you’re here. But your work isn’t the same as mine, and I know that.”<br /><br />“Okay.” He opened the trailer door and went inside, looking behind him to make sure she was there.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=21130" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:18221JackWelcome to the Homestead2012-08-29T08:21:30Z2013-07-07T22:02:37Zpublic2Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png' alt='[community profile] ' width='16' height='16' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/'><b>commonplace</b></a></span> is the Dreamwidth-based home of a sprawling original fiction project referred to as Lost the Sky. <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://ambersweet.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://ambersweet.dreamwidth.org/'><b>ambersweet</b></a></span> and I are working on it together. Feedback, comments and questions are welcome. Joining the community is encouraged.<br /><br />The short version goes like this: A couple thousand years ago, an extradimensional exploratory vessel landed on an island in the Pacific Ocean and started observing, and then experimenting on, the native populations. They also produced children like themselves, who had their own games to play with the spirits of the planet.<br /><br />Eventually, the humans and nature spirits who had been misused rose up against their creators with the help of their sympathetic children. Their ship, and the island Mu that it rested on, were destroyed, and the extradimensional scientists were stuck here until a rescue would be triggered automatically.<br /><br />Of course, the original project was scheduled to last three millenia, give or take. They had some time to kill, some naughty children to punish, and some humans and spirits to take their anger out on.<br /><br />Over the years, the bloodlines of their children have spread far into the human population - in many peoples, the strains are weak, but they're now common. The spirits that allied themselves with humanity have shifted their opinions pro and con dozens of times. They have almost always come down on the side of helping humanity, bonding with individuals to throw their hands into the course of events. Lately, humanity has pushed ever harder - powering their toys with the very blood of the gods and enslaving the spirits that once worked alongside them.<br /><br />As 2012 approaches, no one realizes what they were waiting for all along - the Mayan calendar had a very specific end date. The day an extraction team arrives to take the ones who started all this home - and they're not going to worry much about whether the playground is left when they're done with their toys.<br /><br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><br /><br /><br /><b>Heaven Coming Down</b> - Jin’s story<br /><i>Science, cults, politics and other hobbies. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.</i><br />1935: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid1">Musing</a><br />1941: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid2">Inspired</a><br />1948: Burning Bridges <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid3">01</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid4">02</a><br />1949: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid5">Out in the Field</a><br />1950: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/8391.html">Piety</a><br />1952: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid6">Auspices</a><br />1952: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid7">Communing</a><br />1952: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid8">Remade in Her Image</a><br />1962: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid9">Recriminations</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/14071.html">Retirement</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/8856.html">Relocation</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/9132.html">Breadcrumbs</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/9308.html">Where the Wild Things Are</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/12690.html">Opening Salvo</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/12841.html">To Master Feng Wei Long</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/14428.html">Coming to Terms</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/8507.html">Shifting Gears</a><br />1970: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/10189.html">Calling in the Deal with the Devil</a><br />1995: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/18944.html#cutid10">Endings Like Dark Chocolate</a><br /><br /><b>Beauty in the Breakdown</b> - Kether’s story.<br /><br />1978: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19333.html#cutid1">Leave</a><br />1979: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19333.html#cutid2">Beauty in the Breakdown</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/22171.html">Paint You In Silver</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19333.html#cutid3">A Sort of Reunion</a><br />1995: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/6654.html">Watch the World Burn</a><br /><br />Intramural Corporate Espionage/Battle of the Bands/Acid<br /><br />Acid: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/16924.html">Prologue</a><br />1991: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19681.html#cutid1">Gimme Shelter</a><br />1997: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19681.html#cutid2">Under Pressure</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/10695.html">Friday Night</a><br />2010: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19681.html#cutid3">Raid</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/10996.html">Another Scene About Moving</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/5771.html">Proposal</a><br />2011: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19681.html#cutid4">Subversive Elements</a><br /><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/2013/07/07/puzzles.html">Puzzles</a> - Robin and Jian's story<br /><br /><b>Blood Runs Neon</b> - Zhenya’s story<br /><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/2458.html">The Ghost of Shanghai</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/3052.html">Perspective</a><br />Making an Omelet <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/8138.html">01</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/10281.html">02</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/25414.html">Time Out</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/25688.html">Standing On the Edge of Nowhere</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/26088.html">Distil</a><br /><br />Individual Stories<br /><br />Ancient History: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/22698.html">Singing, Dancing, Burning</a><br />~1300: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/5530.html">Resolution</a><br />~1400: Black Forest: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/23138.html">Returns</a>/<a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/22855.html">Priorities</a>/Melanosis <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/24350.html">1</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/24603.html">2</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/23744.html">2.5</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/24877.html">3</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/25119.html">4</a>/<a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/23298.html">Dawn</a><br />1880: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/9631.html">A Passing Fancy</a><br />Clockwork Emperor: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/16271.html">1</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/19772.html">2</a><br />Wingspan: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/6998.html">Recruitment</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/11029.html">Evacuation</a><br />2036: Terms of Engagement/<a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/3330.html">Less Than Perfect</a>/<a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/24018.html">Downsizing</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/4175.html">Nobody Gets Off In This Town</a><br /><a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/4431.html">Apart</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Side Stories: <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/tag/forgotten+city">the Forgotten City</a>, <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/2013/07/07/eschatology.html">Eschatology</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=18221" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:17334JackHey, Guys?2012-08-28T15:49:02Z2012-08-28T15:49:02Zpublic5Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br />I want to do some locked posts in here, but almost none of y'all are actually members, just subscribed. If you want to see <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/16924.html">this</a> or <a href="http://commonplace.dreamwidth.org/16271.html">this</a>, frex, you need to join.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=17334" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:16681JackFashion Forward2012-08-26T11:13:30Z2012-08-26T11:13:30Zpublic7Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>“Robin, can you come here a moment? I need to ask you something.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” I replied, setting down the soldering iron and walking out into the living room. “What do you nee-Jesus Christ, are those leather pants?” </p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>It was not at all unusual for Jian to look good – good enough that I still caught my breath looking at him sometimes, and I’d been interacting with him since I was a teenager. His eyes still shone like amber, his hair hung long and straight and soft, and dressed neatly despite my best attempts to explain “casual” to him. However, he usually wore loose trousers or, lately, jeans. Leather pants were a new look on him, and he looked good enough that my brain needed time to reboot before I trusted myself to say anything that wasn’t idiotic.</p>
<p>“I believe they are leather pants, yes,” Jian answered with his usual unperturbed tone.</p>
<p>“When did you buy leather pants?”</p>
<p>He pointed to a small stack of cardboard boxes near the door. “Those were delivered this morning. There’s a note from your mother with them about cleaning out your room.”</p>
<p>“So those are <i>my</i> old leather pants?” Looking more closely at the leather and less at his butt in the leather, I could see the wear marks from the boots and chains I used to wear. I’d almost forgotten about that phase.</p>
<p>“Do you want me to return them?” </p>
<p>I didn’t even have to think about it. “Haha, no, I don’t think I could get them on. I haven’t worn those since I was seventeen. Besides, you look better in them than I ever did.”</p>
<p>“I was hoping you wouldn’t mind. I find them somewhat more comfortable than the jeans you bought me.”</p>
<p>“You can wear those <i>all day long</i>, believe me,” I said before my brain caught up to my mouth. “Oh, geez, Jian, pretend I didn’t just say that.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Because I sound like a perverted old man?”</p>
<p>Jian laughed. “And what does that make me? The innocent young man you’re corrupting?”</p>
<p>“Something like that.” I had to laugh at the absurdity of the image too. I certainly was not going to be making Jian do anything he didn’t want to do any time soon. “I don’t suppose I could lure you back to the bedroom with candy?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Never mind,” I told him. I looked him up and down one more time, wondering again how I’d lucked into such an amazing boyfriend. “I changed my mind, though. You probably shouldn’t wear those every day.”</p>
<p>“Why is that?” Jian asked.</p>
<p>“Because I can’t <i>think</i>, you look so good in them. I’d either be staring at your stupidly or dragging you into the bedroom every time I caught sight of you.”</p>
<p>“Is that so bad?”</p>
<p>“It is when it’s every day, yes.” I considered. “Yes, definitely should not be wearing those. I’d better get you out of them right away.”</p>
<p>Jian smiled smugly at me. “Well, if you think it’s for the best, I’ll go in the bedroom and take them off.”</p>
<p>I let him go past me, admiring the view of him in the pants one more time, then hurrying after him. “Wait! I’ll help!”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/26/fashion-forward/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=16681" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:16637JackOld Dog, New Tricks2012-08-26T09:19:55Z2012-08-26T09:22:09Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>I was about to run down to the electronics store for parts, but my new skateboard wasn’t where I’d left it by the door. I’d only had the thing for a week or two, in the hope of getting back in the habit of riding before the summer got hot.</p>
<p>A quick look around the apartment and I found it on the kitchen table, where Jian was apparently studying it.</p>
<p>I watched him poke at the wheels for a minute before interrupting. “Are you done with that?”</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>He stood up straight, and I almost thought he was embarrassed that I’d seen him. “I’ve seen people flying around on those wheeled boards, Blaser. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”</p>
<p>“Uh, yeah. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. Had to relearn it once or twice, but at one point I was good enough to enter competitions.”</p>
<p>“There’s a sport you’re good at?”</p>
<p>“Very funny.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t intend it as an insult. I was just surprised.”"</p>
<p>“Apology accepted. Can I have my skateboard now?”</p>
<p>“Only if you promise to get one for me.”</p>
<p>I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Jian’s face remained serious, however.</p>
<p>“I mean it. I wish to learn, since you seem to consider it practical as well as something you’re skilled in.”</p>
<p>“Was skilled in,” I corrected automatically. “But if you want me to get you a board, yeah, that can be arranged.”</p>
<p>That was how I found myself at the skate park north of our apartment the next weekend. The place made me feel out of place – I’d come here when I was living in San Francisco the first time, and very little seemed to have changed since I was twelve or thirteen. There were plenty of kids half my age, though there were also some who were older. Very few looked like they might be near my age.</p>
<p>I set my board down and watched as Jian set his beside it.</p>
<p>“Do you want to watch?”</p>
<p>He nodded, his eyes glancing over the skate park crowd. I took off, trying to put all my hangups out of my mind – my age, my leg, and the fact that Jian was watching. That last was the hardest.</p>
<p>After a few minutes of ups and downs, though, that started to fade. I really had forgotten how much I enjoyed this. Skating in the park was very different from getting around on the skateboard – I spent less time anxiously watching for traffic and more appreciating the movement of the board. I started out slow, but before too long I was doing kick flips and loosening up.</p>
<p>It had been a long time since I tried most of these moves, and I didn’t accomplish everything I went for, but it came back faster than I’d expected.</p>
<p>When I made my way back over to Jian, I noticed a look on his face that bordered on admiration. </p>
<p>“I’m impressed,” he said with a smile.</p>
<p>“I’m glad you liked it. I wasn’t perfect, though.”</p>
<p>“Perfection isn’t necessary. It was good to watch.”</p>
<p>“Ready to try it yourself?”</p>
<p>We spent most of the afternoon at the park as I taught him to skate. The balance came naturally to him, though he had to get used to the way the board moved. I explained the physics of some of the easier tricks, and between my explanations and watching the other skaters, he picked them up pretty quickly.</p>
<p>By the end of the afternoon, you’d have been hard pressed to convince an observer that he’d just learned. He wasn’t brilliant yet, but I thought he might be if he wanted to be.</p>
<p>“So is this like a second childhood for you?” I asked him when we got home. He, of course, was fine, had even enjoyed himself.</p>
<p>“A second childhood?”</p>
<p>I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy myself too, but I was stiff in muscles I hadn’t used in too long. I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to get my shoulders to unclench.</p>
<p>“When an adult goes back and tries to do the fun things he missed the first time around, or recapture something from when they were small, it’s called a second childhood.”</p>
<p>“Ah.” Jian came up behind me and slipped his hands in under my awkward pushes. His hands were small but strong and his fingers felt really good as he rubbed my neck and shoulders. So good I almost missed what he said next.</p>
<p>“By modern standards, I’m not sure I had a first childhood.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“I all but grew up in the temple. There was not a lot of… we played, but it was very different from what you’ve described as your childhood. I approach this with a sense of abandon I never had as a child.”</p>
<p>“Well, I can help with that,” I told him. “People keep insisting I never grew up.”</p>
<p>“You grew up quite nicely,” he said, his hands drifting lower on my back. “I should know, I all but watched you.”</p>
<p>“It’s going to be interesting, watching you grow up,” I told him, relaxing into his hands. “I’m looking forward to it.”</p>
<p>“I’m looking forward to watching myself grow up as well.”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/26/old-dog-new-tricks/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=16637" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:16063JackPicking Up Where We Left Off2012-08-24T05:54:53Z2012-08-24T05:54:53Zpublic9Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><div>
<div>It had been a long day of dealing with Dr. Sharpe, and then with Melanie on the way out. I decided to walk home in an effort to clear my head, but the only thing that sank in was how miserable walking home by myself was.
<div></div>
<p>How long did I have before Melanie went ballistic and said something? Or before Dr. Sharpe figured out why Melanie was interested in me? How long could I pretend to be a functional adult? Because I sure wasn’t feeling like one.</p>
<div></div>
<p>When I finally got to my apartment, I kicked off my shoes and flopped onto the pull-out bed. I stared at the wall for fifteen or twenty minutes, hoping I could fall asleep and forget it.</p>
<div>
<a name="cutid1"></a></div>
<p>No such luck. Eventually I dragged myself back off the bed and started peeling off my work clothes. If I wasn’t going to get a nap, the next best thing was a shower.</p>
<div></div>
<p>Despite my best efforts at waterproofing, showering was still occasionally a fraught activity. I took off my leg easily enough, but the wiring for my eye and hand was too difficult to remove, so I had to do my best to keep them from getting too wet as I sat on the edge of the tub.</p>
<div></div>
<p>The hot water felt good, though, and I felt my back start to unclench. Instead of running in the same tight circles, I let my mind wander through distant topics. Sure, it kept circling around to the question of who to listen to at work and how to handle them both, but it slowed down and took longer to get back to it.</p>
<div></div>
<p>For a moment, I thought I heard footsteps outside, in my apartment.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Hello?” I called, but no one answered.</p>
<div></div>
<p>I figured I must have imagined it and went back to my shower. I stayed there under the showerhead until the hot water finally ran out.</p>
<div></div>
<p>When I turned the water off, I didn’t hear anything. I stepped out of the shower and toweled off, then changed into a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. I still didn’t hear anything, but I smelled rice cooking and wondered if I’d started dinner in my half-asleep haze.</p>
<div></div>
<p>I stuck my head in the kitchen to check and about jumped out of my skin when I realized someone was standing at my kitchen counter.</p>
<div></div>
<p>And okay, maybe I screamed like a little girl. Just for a second.</p>
<div></div>
<p>Then I realized who it was.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Jian?”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Yes, Blaser?”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“What are you doing in my kitchen?”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Slicing cucumber, at the moment.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“In the slightly more abstract sense.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Making dinner. The selection in your icebox left something to be desired, by the way.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>I sighed. Every reason I’d left came crashing back. And yet I couldn’t fight the feeling that I was glad he was here.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“How did you even get in? It’s not like I left my keys under the mat.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Elemental masters and dragon lords don’t generally stress over <i>locks</i>, Robin, and you know I can fly when I choose.” He began arranging the vegetables on a plate. “You were a lot more excited to see me last time I appeared from nowhere out of concern for you.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Yeah, well, last time I was in the hospital. Everything was more exciting. Are you hunting me down or something? Why are you here?”</p>
<div></div>
<p>Jian set two bowls of rice on the table along with the vegetables, which I was forced to admit was pretty much the entire contents of my kitchen. The bowls didn’t even match.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Sit.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“That’s not an answer.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Eat.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“That isn’t one either.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>I sat down anyway, telling myself that it was just because it would be a waste of food if I didn’t. Jian had set the soy sauce bottle next to my bowl and I watched him as I emptied an unhealthy amount into the rice. I watched his face as I did it, and I was rewarded with a tiny smile. I risked a smile back.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Nice to know some things don’t change, even out here,” Jian said, picking up his own rice bowl and digging in. “I came because I had the impression you were in trouble. I thought I might help.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“I- How did you hear that?”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“I have kept an eye on you, Robin. I respected your choice to leave but that didn’t mean I stopped caring about you.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>I nodded. “Why now, though? This is just… office drama.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“There are greater forces than you are aware at work here. I would not see you taken advantage of.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Ah, there’s the imperious, possessive dragon I fell in love with,” I said, grabbing a snow pea off the plate.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“I do believe that’s the heedless young man I fell in love with,” he answered.</p>
<div></div>
<p>We ate in silence for several minutes while I waited for him to say something. Nothing was forthcoming, apparently, but it gave me a chance to think.</p>
<div></div>
<p>When I’d left, I’d done it because his nothing land had been driving me crazy. It wasn’t because anything had changed between us. And that was precisely the problem – the fact that I’d grown to hate it there didn’t matter to him. His days went on pretty much uninterrupted by me, his routine unchanged, and he didn’t listen when I told him what I needed.</p>
<div></div>
<p>Smug dragon knows best and all.</p>
<div></div>
<p>But I missed him. And if he was willing to come here, well, that had to mean something. Either he genuinely missed me or he really believed I was in great danger. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Either was, I figured I could give him a chance.</p>
<div></div>
<p>I was about to say so when he started talking. “I had a lot of time to think when you left. Regardless of any power imbalance between us, I can’t treat you like a vassal and expect you to like it.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>I nodded, not wanting to interrupt.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Besides which, the power imbalance is much smaller than I thought.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“When you left, I realized I missed you. You have more power over me than I like to admit. I would like the…” He hesitated. “The opportunity to make up for my mistake.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>Well. That wasn’t something I’d heard before.</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Why now?”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“When it came to my attention that you were in danger, I understood that I couldn’t just wait. I needed to act.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“I appreciate that.” I hesitated, wanting to choose my words carefully for once. I flexed my off hand, feeling the pull of skin against metal and soothed by it. “Nothing about how I feel for you has changed. I’ve changed, though, and I think how I feel about myself has changed.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Yes, it seems like every time I turn away for a moment, you’ve changed.”</p>
<div></div>
<p>“Us mortals tend to do that.”</p></div>
<div></div>
<div>There was another long silence as we ate. I was surprised how quickly it was slipping from awkward back into comfortable.</div>
<div></div>
<div>“I will… no. Do you mind if I stay with you, Robin?”</div>
<div></div>
<div>“No,” I swallowed hard, “I don’t mind.”</div>
<div></div>
<div>“Good,” he said, standing up and picking up the now empty plate. “In that case, I will make myself at home.”</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/23/picking-up-where-we-left-off/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=16063" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:15644JackYou Found Me2012-08-22T08:19:33Z2012-08-22T08:24:15Zpublic10Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>For once in my life, it was Jian who found me. It was his touch that was almost desperate, his fingers reaching out for my skin. In this case, well, they mostly found gauze bandage, but I recognized it when I saw it.</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Why what?”</p>
<p>“Why did you come here?” I meant, to me. But I gestured uselessly at the hospital room anyway, as if I thought the scenery might be what had drawn him. It wasn’t bad as hospital rooms went; I’d certainly been in worse. But the view from a bed where you’re practically tied down by IVs and other tubes is never a scenic one.</p>
<p>“If you would prefer me to leave, Blaser, that can be arranged.”</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>I almost leapt off the bed, IVs be damned. “No! No. No leaving, please. Just tell me why.”</p>
<p>Jian grabbed me and steadied me, getting me back on the bed. He sighed at me. He expected me to know the answer already, I was sure, but I wasn’t any good at reading things. All I knew was that he was the stable center of my universe at that moment.</p>
<p>“Because you almost died,” he said finally. He walked around the bed, </p>
<p>“Well, duh.” It came out of my mouth before I could think what I was saying.</p>
<p>His facial expression moved into full anger and almost I expected him to lash out at me. I was on enough painkiller that I probably wouldn’t mind. He didn’t, though. He’d never hit me. One of the few, it seemed like.</p>
<p>“How bad is it?” Jian asked, finally, when he was calm.</p>
<p>I reached over with my good hand and poked at the bandages. “The one in my side didn’t hit anything that won’t heal. I lost two fingers. Nerve damage in the rest of my hand and wrist, which will make fine work slow to impossible until I figure out a way to work around it. Which I will. Compared to when I lost my eye and my leg, it’s not that bad, really.”</p>
<p>He nodded.</p>
<p>“And the one who shot you?”</p>
<p>“I got a call from Detective Lopez about an hour ago. She mentioned he died under… confusing and suspicious circumstances a few hours ago.”</p>
<p>“Not exactly tragic.”</p>
<p>“Jian, did you-”</p>
<p>He smirked. </p>
<p>“…Did you eat him?”</p>
<p>“Most of him was left intact. He wasn’t exactly delicious.”</p>
<p>“That’s… that might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me, Jian. It was certainly closer to “romantic” than anything my so-called boyfriend’s managed lately.”</p>
<p>“Boyfriend?” He got very still.</p>
<p>“Ex-boyfriend now. We broke up somewhere around Chicago. I’m over it.”</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“Truth be told, I think I was ready to break up with him before I even left California.”</p>
<p>Jian nodded slowly. “I don’t like the idea of you having a boyfriend, Robin. I’ve gotten quite attached to you.”</p>
<p>I blinked at him. “That’s… nice? You don’t really get a say.”</p>
<p>“No?”</p>
<p>“I respect you as a teacher and all, but if you’re not dating me, you don’t have any say in who I’m dating.”</p>
<p>“And what if you were my boy… my boyfriend?”</p>
<p>I had not been expecting that. I pulled away like I’d been shocked, and only the painful tug of the needles in my arm kept me from going further.</p>
<p>“Is the idea that distasteful, Blaser?”</p>
<p>“Not distasteful, no. I just didn’t think you felt that way about anyone, and if you did, it definitely wasn’t me.”</p>
<p>“You assume too much,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. This time I didn’t pull away, even when he put his fingertips on my chin. “When I discovered you’d been almost killed a second time, I was forced to admit certain things to myself.”</p>
<p>I nodded, not daring to interrupt him.</p>
<p>“I love you, my boy. I want to take you with me and make sure no one harms you ever again.”</p>
<p>“I love you too. I’ve loved you for years.”</p>
<p>“I know. I should apologize for making you wait so long.” He leaned forward and kissed me, and I thought my heart would explode. This couldn’t be real. It was too good. </p>
<p>The frantic beeping of the monitor next to my bed made it clear that I was definitely not dreaming, however.</p>
<p>“I’d best go before someone answers that,” Jian said, glaring daggers at the machine.</p>
<p>“You can take me with you,” I told him, “as soon as I’m discharged.”</p>
<p>He smiled at me. “You’ll see me soon enough, then. It sounds as if there is time I have to make up for.”</p>
<p>He stepped away from the bed and disappeared, leaving only a fine mist behind, just before one of the nurses rushed in.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” she asked, checking first me and then the machine.</p>
<p>“Fine,” I told her. “I just… got excited.”</p>
<p>She laughed. “That’s enough excitement for one day, then.”</p>
<p>I smiled like an idiot at her. “Guess I’ll just have to look forward to tomorrow.”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/22/you-found-me/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=15644" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:15551JackOn The Wagon2012-08-21T07:52:39Z2012-08-22T05:13:50Zpublic10Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>I wouldn’t have asked him. Never. I didn’t even think it was possible. I assumed, instead, that he would ask me to join him.</p>
<p>If he’d asked me right away I would have said yes without hesitation. As I studied with him, I started to waver. Buddhism was not easy for me to grasp, but even I could understand that immortality was right out unless you were enlightened and hanging around to help other people, and I was not the bodhisattva type.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>There was karma, and the wheel, and all that stuff Jian had explained to me. Immortality just didn’t seem right, put up against all that.</p>
<p>“Are all elemental masters immortal?” I was seventeen when I asked him, just a few weeks from leaving him for the first time, though I didn’t know it. Immortality seemed impossibly abstract.</p>
<p>Jian nodded. It looked like I’d caught him in an explanatory mood. “The first characteristic of an elemental master is his ego, Blaser. Otherwise we could not control the powerful beings that make us what we are. And what person of sufficient ego to master this path wouldn’t think himself important enough to the grand scheme of things to stick around a few hundred years? Feng’s monks believe in the wheel, but we believe we are above the wheel.”</p>
<p>I remembered that for a long time.</p>
<p>Even after I left and he found me in San Francisco, years later. Even after he told me I was welcome…</p>
<p>Even when he finally took me into his bed.</p>
<p>He never asked, and at first I worried that he wasn’t going to keep me around long enough to care if I was aging and he wasn’t. Then I thought maybe he wanted me to figure it out on my own, like it was some kind of test. I thought about nanotechnology, but I worried he might think that was cheating. I studied some alchemy, trying to get a sense for what was out there.</p>
<p>Slowly I started to realize that I didn’t want him to ask me.</p>
<p>In the end, what triggered it was me making some joke at my own expense, about what people would think about our ages – I was almost thirty, and he was still in his late teens. People were looking at me like I was the cradle robber in the relationship.</p>
<p>Jian stared at me for a long time before he spoke, long enough that I wondered if I’d upset him with the joke. “That… that’s true. I lose track of time in this place, Robin. Here, fifteen years might pass without my noticing.”</p>
<p>He hesitated. “Have I truly known you half your life?</p>
<p>I nodded.</p>
<p>“Do you wish to be immortal, Robin?”</p>
<p>I bit my lip. “If you-”</p>
<p>“No. Not what I want. Answer the question.”</p>
<p>“…No.” I’d failed him again, chickening out after all the work he’d put into me. I almost cried. “Part of me wants to so badly, Jian, but there’s things. I mean. After everything about Ragnarok and the worst of the end of the world, I’d feel like I was undoing it all. And there’s the wheel and the cycles and that’s important, right? You were the one who taught me that was important.”</p>
<p>I waited.</p>
<p>He nodded, slowly. “I’ve known people, Robin. Even some I loved. I watched them age and pass, or I watched them learn to resent me for not aging. I don’t know that I can do that again.”</p>
<p>I waited for him to say that he was sending me away.</p>
<p>“When I’m with someone I… care for, I like to leave my nowhere and rejoin the world so that I might appreciate each day for a few years. We will go somewhere you choose, and I’ll catch up on what I’ve missed in the last twenty years or so.”</p>
<p>I nodded stupidly.</p>
<p>“And assuming you’re not tired of me, I’ll release the Dragon and resume aging along with you.”</p>
<p>“… What?”</p>
<p>“Were you not listening?”</p>
<p>I forced myself to breathe.</p>
<p>“You- are you doing this for me?”</p>
<p>“Would it be so strange if I was? We have not been together for all of it, but I’ve known you fifteen years. How long is enough?”</p>
<p>“I just, it’s surprising.”</p>
<p>“You don’t think you’re worth it?”</p>
<p>“Kind of, yeah.”</p>
<p>“You are, boy. But if it makes you feel better, I’ve wanted to do this anyway. I’m tired of being an immortal lord of a nowhere land. Time is slippery there; I feel I’ve been waiting far more than a century. But I would rather die here, where people actually live.”</p>
<p>I blinked stupidly.</p>
<p>“Would you like to join me for that, Robin?”</p>
<p>“I. Yes. Oh god, yes.”</p>
<p>“I thought you’d say that,” he smirked, and a whole new future opened up in front of me.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/21/on-the-wagon/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=15551" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:15269JackReaction2012-08-21T07:18:36Z2012-08-22T05:13:56Zpublic7Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>I sneezed, dropping my screwdriver again and sending the tiny screws rolling across the tabletop. I sighed.</p>
<p>“百岁,” Jian said from the other side of the apartment.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” I answered automatically as I tried to gather up the screws. I just wanted to get the plate back on the robot before I managed to drop it or sneeze inside it or something and do even more damage.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>“Why are you apologizing? I thought it was expected that one says something after another person sneezes.”</p>
<p>I blinked at him, barely aware I’d said it. “I, oh, it’s nothing.”</p>
<p>“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t be turning that shade of red,” he pointed out.</p>
<p>“Just… Xiu He used to complain when I made noises like that. She thought it was gross because, you know, bodily functions and all. So I got in the habit of apologizing all the time.” I turned away, focusing <i>very intently</i> on the tiny screwdriver and the tinier screw and resisting the temptation to look back at Jian again. </p>
<p>“That is not acceptable.” He was nearly yelling, and I rarely saw him angry. I still didn’t want to look. I could practically feel his anger peeling off like heat from a sidewalk. I flinched.</p>
<p>Behind me, I heard nothing. He stopped moving.</p>
<p>“I’m not upset at you,” Jian said. His voice was quiet. “I’m upset that it happened. That I didn’t stop her more thoroughly to begin with.”</p>
<p>“That’s not… you weren’t even there, Jian, you couldn’t have…”</p>
<p>I turned to look at him finally. He was glaring out the window.</p>
<p>“Jian, if I hadn’t met her, I never would have met you.”</p>
<p>He didn’t answer me right away, so I turned back to my robot. The last screw was nowhere to be found, and I muttered something about gnomes stealing things before I gave up and took another one out of the kit. </p>
<p>I turned the robot on and noted with satisfaction that it booted up without a problem. The motherboard replacement had everything working smoothly again.</p>
<p>Well, almost everything.</p>
<p>“Jian.” He hadn’t moved while I finished the work. He still had a way of disconnecting sometimes, as if he forgot that time passed; I guess it’s hard to get out of the habit of being immortal.</p>
<p>I stood from the desk and walked over to him, running my hand down his arm and taking hold of his wrist. He didn’t jerk away, but I did feel his muscles soften under my touch.</p>
<p>“No regrets,” I told him. </p>
<p>“But she-”</p>
<p>I pressed a finger against his lips. “None. I’m here with you now. I’m happy. That’s enough for me.”</p>
<p>He frowned more heavily, then his expression softened. He must have decided it wasn’t worth arguing about.</p>
<p>“As you wish.”</p>
<p>“I do wish. Or, I guess I don’t. I don’t need to wish for anything.”</p>
<p>I sneezed again, ruining the moment, but he smiled. I smiled back. And in that moment, it was true. I didn’t really want anything to be different.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/21/reaction/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=15269" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:14984JackDream House2012-08-20T08:35:18Z2012-08-22T05:14:03Zpublic8Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>I didn’t tell him what I’d been up to. If Jian had noticed the phone calls and the disappearing act for an hour or two every few days, he didn’t say anything. I hoped my boyfriend didn’t suspect something sinister.</p>
<p>“I want to show you something,” I finally told Jian over the phone. I knew Jian was between classes and wouldn’t have time to argue. “I’ll meet you on campus at noon, after your classes, alright?” Jian agreed, and I could hear the curiosity in his voice.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>Having freed up my entire afternoon for this process, I had nothing better to do but walk up to campus and wait for him. I ended up pacing outside of the classroom for a good fifteen minutes before Jian came out the double-doors. </p>
<p>“I could see you from my classroom, you know,” Jian remarked. “You’re making <i>me</i> nervous just watching you. What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>“Nothing’s wrong,” I answered, a little too quickly.</p>
<p>“Somehow I don’t believe you.”</p>
<p>I shook my head. “I just… want to show you something. Can I show you something?”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p>“This way, then, it’s a bit of a walk,” I said, starting off across the lawn. “So how are your classes going?” Jian was in his second semester and acclimating pretty well to modern American life. I never got tired of seeing him walk around in jeans and t-shirts, his long hair pulled back in a careless ponytail. He described his Modern English Literature classmates and their hangups in some detail as he followed me to a building about ten minutes walk from campus. </p>
<p>It didn’t look too different from any other building near the UC Berkeley campus: at street level, it had a barber shop that had been there for years and a trendy crepe restaurant that would probably last six or eight months. It stood three stories tall, and you could guess from the street that the upper levels held student apartment rentals.</p>
<p>“You said you wanted to get an apartment near campus, someplace you could bring friends,” I told him. “I think you’ll like this one.”</p>
<p>“You’ve been apartment-hunting?” I saw the old Jian again for a minute, his eyebrow cocked like he couldn’t believe I thought he would live in <i>student housing</i>.</p>
<p>“Hear me out. Or rather, hear her out.” I gestured to the middle-aged woman in a well-tailored brown business suit. </p>
<p>“Nice to meet you. Mr. Blaser said you’ve got the final say in the place,” she said, holding her hand out.</p>
<p>“And you are?” Jian asked.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Blaser’s real estate agent.”</p>
<p>“My mom recommended her,” I explained. Jian still looked unimpressed, but he seemed resigned. </p>
<p>“To start with, you’ll note the two business spaces downstairs,” she began, completely ignoring Jian’s attitude with the finesse of a woman who deals with the obnoxious every day. “One established business with a regular rent income. The second has higher turnover but that allows you to charge higher rent.”</p>
<p>She lead us upstairs, pointing out the occupied apartments on the second floor and the additional income they provided as well, then opened the door to the third floor.</p>
<p>“This apartment is currently unoccupied. Mr. Blaser suggested you might be moving in?” </p>
<p>“Robin… It looks…” I could see what he was looking at. The hardwood floors needed serious cleaning to return them from black to brown, the walls needed to be painted, the layout left something to be desired, the kitchen was ridiculous. </p>
<p>“It looks like the sort of apartment you could bring people to, and pretend you’re a college student in,” I told him, anticipating the argument. “We could spiff it up some, no problem. It doesn’t need a lot of work. It has… charm.”</p>
<p>“Charm.” </p>
<p>“It does! I’ve watched enough HGTV to know what charm looks like.”</p>
<p>The realtor chose that moment to interrupt. “And of course there’s the final requirement Mr. Blaser had.”</p>
<p>“And what was that?” Jian asked.</p>
<p>I smiled. </p>
<p>“The basement. Come along.” The took of smartly down the stairs, and Jian and I both followed. In the back alley, she led us to a door with a Fallout Shelter sign above it, though Jian didn’t seem to notice it.</p>
<p>If she’d thought my request was strange, the realtor hadn’t argued. I suppose that was normal when you dealt with clients like my mom. If I wanted to see places with bank vaults and other impregnable structures, she would do her best to fulfill my request.</p>
<p>“The shelter was designed to be earthquake resistant as well as able to withstand nuclear detonation,” she explained, going into detail as to the thickness of the concrete and the various reinforcements as understanding dawned on Jian’s face.</p>
<p>“Can you give us a minute?” I asked her, and she left for the sunlight of the alley.</p>
<p>Jian just looked at me for a minute, and I was afraid I had completely miscalculated.</p>
<p>“You found me a lair. A space worthy of a dragon’s lair. In <i>Berkeley</i>.”</p>
<p>I nodded.</p>
<p>“You never stop surprising me, Robin.”</p>
<p>He pulled me close, leaning in to give me a soft kiss on the side of my jaw, and followed with a whisper. “I can’t wait to break this new apartment in.”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/20/dream-house/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=14984" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:14782JackSalt Lake City and Beyond, April 20132012-08-19T08:20:13Z2012-08-22T05:19:18Zpublic3Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>The banging on the door woke me up. It startled me, and I didn’t remember where I was right away, or what I was doing there. The memories sorted into place, slowly, interrupted every few seconds by more banging.</p>
<p>Eventually Janie came out from the bedroom and walked past me to open the door. </p>
<p>“Good morning, Doctor.”</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>Oh, right. She’d said the doctor would be around today. Little late, though.</p>
<p>“Good morning, Janie. Missus Morris across the street said you had some trouble yesterday.”</p>
<p>That was a very genteel way to describe it. I thought about Saul, immediately forced it away. There was company. I knew how to act in front of company.</p>
<p>“My sister came; you remember Lacey, don’t you?”</p>
<p>I looked over and smiled my best polite smile. I did remember him, now that I got a look. He’d been our pediatrician as long as I could remember, with a tiny office attached to his house. It didn’t surprise me that he was taking care of everyone.</p>
<p>“Hello, Doctor,” I said, walking over to the door. I didn’t think I was shaking, though I was sure I still looked a mess. I hadn’t had a chance to change out of the stained dress.</p>
<p>“Good to have you back, Lacey. Something you need me to take a look at there?” I told him I’d been shot and done my best to clean it. I didn’t go into the exact circumstances; it felt like I’d been shedding parts of myself the whole way here, details left strung across the desert. All I had left was who I’d been before I left here. </p>
<p>He told me my stitches looked good. “What about the fellow Missus Morris saw you carry in?”</p>
<p>“He died.” I was surprised how flat my voice was.</p>
<p>“We buried him right away, same as you had me do with Mom and Dad. He was hurt pretty bad, didn’t even look like plague. And Lacey’s not showing any signs.”</p>
<p>The doctor nodded. “You know the rules, though, Janie.”</p>
<p>“But…” She looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. The doctor gave me some more advice for looking after my shoulder, and he left. I heard banging again on the porch.</p>
<p>“Quarantine,” she told me. “It’ll be a couple of weeks. Nobody’ll come around, and we can’t go out.”</p>
<p>It should have bothered me, but it was easy to stay put with Janie. I didn’t have to explain anything to anyone, and she didn’t care if I broke down crying. Sometimes she broke down too. There was food my parents had put up, and there was a semblance of order in Salt Lake. But I’d grown up in those halls, and after a couple of days I started to feel them closing in on me.</p>
<p>Janie and I had forgotten how to talk. What could we talk about? </p>
<p>“So what happened after I left?”</p>
<p>“Well, I made the varsity cheer squad at school, and dad told me I wasn’t allowed to do it…” she trailed off. She always trailed off when she started talking about mom or dad, or everyday life.</p>
<p>I re-read all the old books in my bedroom – my horse books, Black Beauty and Misty and the others. The Little House books. Nancy Drew. Janie had her sketchbooks out all the time, and she drew people I recognized – not just mom and dad, but family friends, too. People I didn’t know, who must have been from school. And once, Saul as he’d looked lying on the couch. She gave that one to me, and I hung it up in my bedroom.</p>
<p>We talked about everything except our past, but we were surrounded by it.</p>
<p>I thought I’d shed everything I didn’t need in the desert, gotten down to my base self, but I was starting to think I’d just found another shell.</p>
<p>One morning I stood at the back door, staring into the yard. Waiting, and knowing nothing would happen. That’s why I’d been in such a hurry to leave the first time.</p>
<p>“Lacey?” She was still bleary-eyed with sleep when she found me.</p>
<p>“I can’t stay here anymore, Janie.”</p>
<p>“But- the quarantine. We have to.”</p>
<p>“They can’t stop us if we just drive.”</p>
<p>“I’ve never been further than Provo, Lacey. Where would we go?”</p>
<p>“Someplace nobody knows us. I want to see who I am when no one else is around. I think I met her in the desert. I think I liked her.”</p>
<p>Janie looked around the kitchen. “Let me pack?”</p>
<p>An hour later, we were throwing her pristine pink luggage in the back of the truck. She grimaced at the dried blood in the passenger seat, but climbed in anyway. </p>
<p>I saw Missus Morris across the street, watching from behind her curtains. When she saw me look at her, she disappeared in a rustle of fabric.</p>
<p>The part of me that cared waited on the porch of my parents’ house. The rest of me started the engine and drove away.</p>
<p>“Where do you want to start?” I asked Janie as we reached the main street.</p>
<p>“How about Las Vegas?”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/19/salt-lake-city-and-beyond-april-2013/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=14782" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:14428JackComing to Terms2012-08-16T18:58:37Z2012-08-22T05:19:08Zpublic2Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>Eden didn’t feel like Salome had. She reminded me of someone else altogether, and it took me weeks to figure out it was Ka’ana herself. I naturally fell into orbit around her, just as I had to Ka’ana and to my muse before that.</p>
<p>I felt the need to check on her, just to make sure she was okay. Nine times out of ten, when I called out to her, she turned and smiled and announced that she’d just been thinking she needed me.</p>
<p>Today was that last time, when she scowled, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. She folded the letter she’d been reading and stuffed it back into its envelope. It was as if there was a cord fastened tight inside my chest, and she held it tightly. Unlike Ka’ana, unlike my muse, she seemed to hold it unknowingly.</p>
<p>“What are you?” I asked her. She was already in a bad mood; surely I couldn’t upset her much more.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>“Don’t.”</p>
<p>“You pull on me.”</p>
<p>“Jin, please, don’t ruin this.” Her eyes were black as coal and shiny with tears.</p>
<p>I shook my head. “I don’t want to ruin anything. But I don’t understand why this happens. I can’t find the common thread.”</p>
<p>“Common… wait, what are you talking about?”</p>
<p>“You’re the third woman I’ve known in my life who had this kind of pull on me. It’s not- I’m not in love with you. I mean, I think I could be. But it’s not love, this pull. It’s something else.”</p>
<p>“Who were the other two? Your wife and…?”</p>
<p>“Not her. The goddess she spoke for. And before that, when I was a boy in Japan, there was a guardian spirit who lived in the temple.”</p>
<p>Her voice was measured. “What do you think I am?”</p>
<p>I looked for a scientific explanation. It was hard, to fight through the irrational response to her, though it was easier with her than the others. Something I owed thanks to Ka’ana for, I supposed.</p>
<p>“Not a goddess yourself, or you’d know you were doing it. A bloodline, then?”</p>
<p>“My grandmother had a word for it, and my teacher had another, but it doesn’t really matter, Jin. What matters is what you do about it.”</p>
<p>“What <i>I</i> do?” It didn’t occur to me that I could do anything about this. I never had before.</p>
<p>Eden looked me in the eye. “We’re both going to be here for years, Jin. I don’t want to spend the next ten or fifteen years with someone who’s going to be comparing me to his first wife, or some goddess.”</p>
<p>“That’s not-”</p>
<p>“Once we’ve sorted out our pasts, then we can discuss a future.” She forgot the letter when she walked away. I let myself drift close to it… close enough to see the return address in Mexico, and the name of the sender. I came to my senses before I picked it up, though, and went back to my lab.</p>
<p>It didn’t matter in the long run. The pull of her gravity was irresistible, and she seemed to mind it less as we spent more time together. She didn’t really remind me much of Salome, or of Ka’ana, once I got used to the feeling of being around her.</p>
<p>Instead I learned to appreciate her for herself – she smiled when I baked fresh rolls as the sun rose, when I hadn’t slept, and she made coffee and chatted with me and sent me to bed after. She seemed to know when I needed her as well as I knew when she needed me – something Ka’ana had never done.</p>
<p>When the first of my projects was stillborn, Eden took it and held it like any other child while I cleaned up it’s mother.</p>
<p>“Comfort her,” Eden whispered. She disappeared with the body of the infant.</p>
<p>I held the girl while she cried, not sure if it was comforting but doing it anyway. I knew how it felt to lose a child, and how alone I’d been. I didn’t want her to be alone. And somehow in that, I found a purpose in running the school beyond what the government wanted.</p>
<p>These girls, young and unwed and shunned, they needed someone to give a damn about them. If that someone had to be me, well… it was a shame there wasn’t anyone better, but I was better than noone.</p>
<p>In some ways that night was a dam breaking. I’d held everyone at arm’s length since arriving in Applegate, even Kether, but that wasn’t a solution.</p>
<p>In the next few weeks, I felt younger than I had since the kids were born. I was jogging, just for the hell of it, and I started teaching Kether the martial arts I’d learned in Japan to give myself something else to do with the energy. I’d have to teach our little projects eventually too, so I told myself it was good practice.</p>
<p>I felt more alive next to Eden than I ever had next to Ka’ana. Maybe it was as simple as her having her own body. Maybe it was the fact that she spoke to me as an equal.</p>
<p>One day I spotted her watching us as we finished sparring. I told Kether to go inside and start on lunch.</p>
<p>“Can you teach Kether?” I asked her. It was a risk, but I’d seen her with her new charges. They were true orphans and not related to my work, but they seemed like good kids and I saw plenty of them. And I liked to think I still knew magic when I saw it.</p>
<p>“I can, if he has the aptitude.”</p>
<p>“I certainly hope he does.”</p>
<p>“I shouldn’t have to tell you, Jin, that bloodlines matter in this work.”</p>
<p>“Oh, he has more than enough of it in his line.”</p>
<p>“You don’t-”</p>
<p>“I did, once. I had it burned out of me. But they can’t change my genes.”</p>
<p>“You can tell me that story sometime when we’ve both had too much wine over dinner,” she nodded slowly. “I want something in exchange.”</p>
<p>“What’s that?”</p>
<p>“Teach my children to fight as well. I’ve had… some training, but you’d be a better teacher, I think.” It seemed a reasonable enough request, and I thought it would suit Kether to have sparring partners closer to his height.</p>
<p>After that, they all got up early to meet me on the lawn, and Kether went obediently to Eden’s cabin for lessons with the orphans. He seemed to enjoy having a real peer group for a change; he never seemed comfortable with the handful of local children.</p>
<p>Eden taught him well, very well indeed. He picked it up quickly – but then, he came to it from both sides of his heritage. I let Eden teach him the basics, because you had to see and feel those to pick them up.</p>
<p>Once he understood it, I pulled him aside.</p>
<p>“Kether, show me what Eden’s been teaching you.”</p>
<p>I already knew what the show would be; she’d been keeping me updated the entire time. But I watched him go through the motions, and I thought maybe he was ready.</p>
<p>“I want to teach you something else. Another style of magic.”</p>
<p>He looked at me with wide eyes. “You do magic?”</p>
<p>“No, of course not,” I heard myself say, and his face fell at the bitterness in my tone. How could I explain it, though? Later. When he was older.</p>
<p>“Give me your hands.” He offered them up. I took his left hand in my right, brushed my fingers along the tendons in his wrists. I tried to remember what that had felt like when my teacher did it to me, the way you pulled on the energy.</p>
<p>I felt nothing, of course, but Kether’s arm stiffened and I knew he did.</p>
<p>“Eden’s style is very good, no doubt, she burns like the sun when she pulls the threads. What I would teach you is much quieter, more subtle. The calm act of weaving, one thread after another, rather than her macramé. What do you think?”</p>
<p>“I want to learn all of it.”</p>
<p>“Good boy.” I smiled at him. “This comes from inside you rather than around you. Practice pulling it out like thin strands of taffy. You must use it sparingly.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“It comes from inside you. That means there’s only so much to pull out.” That was not a lesson Eden could teach him. As best I could tell, she radiated magic like the sun gave off light, naturally and without effort. Even when I’d had the talent for it, it had been work. Pleasant work, like baking or working out equations – work that had something to show for it at the end – but work nonetheless.</p>
<p>Blind as I was, I saw the light in her. It was a wonder to me that no one else did.</p>
<p>She caught me, finally, on a night when the children were in bed and I had been too busy with the birth of my second project to make it to dinner. I was tired but satisfied that both would survive, and the infant was showing all the right signs, and Eden had dinner for the two of us waiting when I came downstairs.</p>
<p>“Is Kether…” She didn’t finish the question, but I knew what she meant.</p>
<p>“Not to quite the same degree as the children here. But the ideas for the… modifications came from Ka’ana originally. And Kether is her son.”</p>
<p>“Was that before you lost your magic?”</p>
<p>I laughed a little, and I was surprised how brittle the noise sounded in the late-night quiet. “Long after, I’m afraid. I was in college when it was burned out of me.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“I betrayed my family and my government. It wasn’t unexpected, though I thought my handlers might protect me. They didn’t realize what they were dealing with. Not until it almost killed me.”</p>
<p>She nodded. </p>
<p>“It should have killed me,” I continued, dropping the volume. “You don’t just <i>survive</i> that.”</p>
<p>“But you did survive it.”</p>
<p>I emptied the wine glass, thinking how little I’d let myself drink since the weeks after my wife’s death. “I did.”</p>
<p>“Do you know why?”</p>
<p>I shrugged.</p>
<p>“My teacher told me, years ago… he said there were larger forces at work in the world, and the best we could hope to do was keep them from affecting us and the people we care about.”</p>
<p>“Do you think that’s true?”</p>
<p>“I think there’s more to it than that. There has to be.” She refilled our glasses and continued. “You’ve seen surfers, haven’t you? In the movies? They don’t hide from the waves. They ride them.”</p>
<p>“You think we’re meant to ride these forces?”</p>
<p>“I think we are. The work you do is dangerous; it seems perilously close to letting your goddess loose in the world. You’ve been tossed around on the waves, probably your entire life. You’re neck-deep in these forces and drowning.”</p>
<p>“And what do you propose I do about it?” </p>
<p>“You’re trying so hard to put Kether in control of his own life – I know you’re teaching him too, Jin, I can see it. But it’s not too late for you to take control of your own as well. You don’t have to build these soldiers for your goddess or your government.”</p>
<p>“Of course I do. I’m under contract.”</p>
<p>She laughed. “This is so much bigger than contracts. This is the fate of the world.”</p>
<p>“If I had a fate, I lost it with the rest of my birthright.”</p>
<p>“Keep telling yourself that, then, and I hope you see the truth before you drown.”</p>
<p>Eden surprised me by kissing me, gently, on the corner of my mouth. I hadn’t expected her lips to be so soft; I hadn’t expected that I missed touch so much. She left me with the bottle of wine. </p>
<p>If anyone noticed in the morning that I was late, they must have chalked it up to the work the night before.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/16/coming-to-terms/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=14428" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:14095JackOutside Salt Lake City, UT2012-08-13T01:25:46Z2012-08-22T05:19:01Zpublic4Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>Saul slept through most of the drive from Provo to Salt Lake City. I could hear him breathing, barely, but he was in no place to distract me from my thoughts.</p>
<p>If Provo looked like this, what was the point of going on to Salt Lake City? Would that be any better? I supposed that as long as it was standing, it couldn’t be much worse. And Saul needed… a doctor, probably. To get out of the damn truck and washed up, for sure.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>I wasn’t sure what was going on in Salt Lake, but if my family was still alive, presumably they would. I figured the sooner I got Saul out of the truck, the better, so I took the earlier exit for their suburb instead of going straight into the city.</p>
<p>The town itself was eerie in the same way Antimony had been, silent and echoing. It looked almost the same as the last time I’d been here, when I told my parents I was dropping out of school to get married. That day it had been stiflingly hot, with the streets full of children and dogs and sprinklers.</p>
<p>I pulled up to my parents’ house, fighting off the sick sense of deja vu. I parked and turned off the engine, but I couldn’t bring myself to open the door for a long breath. </p>
<p>Saul coughed in his sleep, and I remembered that this was about more than just my issues. I opened the door and went up to the house, took a deep breath and knocked on the door.</p>
<p>“Who’s there?” I thought it was my younger sister’s voice, but I wasn’t sure.</p>
<p>“Mailman,” I answered, an old joke between us.</p>
<p>“Lacey?” she threw the door open. “Lacey! Is it really you? What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“Long story,” I told her. “Where’s Mom and Dad?”</p>
<p>She got quiet.</p>
<p>“Oh, god, no… Janie, have you been here alone?”</p>
<p>“Some of the neighbors check on me. I’m not the only one, and a lot of the other kids are worse off. I’ve been okay. We have lots in the pantry for one person.”</p>
<p>I bit my lip, thinking of the argument I’d had with my dad the last time I’d been here. He said I was abandoning God and abandoning my family. Maybe he’d been right, but there wasn’t anything I could do to fix that now.</p>
<p>“I need your help, Janie. There’s a guy in the truck, he helped me get here. We were attacked, and he got hurt pretty bad. Can I bring him inside? Is there still a doctor or a clinic working around here?”</p>
<p>“There’ll be a doctor round tomorrow,” Janie said as she started toward the truck. “What happened?”</p>
<p>“We were trying to get gas outside Provo.”</p>
<p>“I heard Provo’s pretty bad.” She opened the door and Saul nearly fell out on top of her. She screamed, caught off guard, and I dove forward to catch him before he hit the ground.</p>
<p>The door across the street opened and a middle-aged woman looked out. “Jane, is that you? You okay?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine, thanks!” she called back. The woman didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t go back inside, either, just watched as the two of us did our best to carry Saul up to the house and inside.</p>
<p>We got him onto the couch and I pulled one of grandma’s afghans over him. He was more pale than I’d thought. It didn’t look good.</p>
<p>“I should start dinner,” Janie said. “Can you get some firewood from out back? I’ve had to rough it for cooking, I ran out of charcoal and there’s no stove.” She pointed toward the kitchen. I passed through on my way to the back door and admired the BBQ grill she’d turned into a fire pit. There wouldn’t be room for a lot of the wood, I figured I just needed to grab one or two pieces.</p>
<p>When I went out back, I noticed there wasn’t much left in the wood pile. Good thing we didn’t need much. What stopped me, though, was the pile of dirt in the far corner of the yard. Janie had rigged up two crosses at the far side of it. </p>
<p>“I should have warned you,” she said quietly, coming up behind me.</p>
<p>I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have left you all. Dad was right.”</p>
<p>Janie put her arms around me. “Maybe you’d be dead too, if you’d been here.”</p>
<p>“Maybe,” I told her, but I didn’t believe it.</p>
<p>When we got inside, Saul’s breathing was ragged and he was shaking under the blanket. I suspected then that it was a lost cause. I got a fresh washcloth and started to clean the wound again, but by this point I could see the angry red lines of infection darting across his skin. I put a cold compress on his forehead and he calmed a little.</p>
<p>“He’s not going to make it,” Janie said, matter of fact.</p>
<p>“He saved my life,” I told her. “The least I can do is sit with him.” She nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. I heard the backdoor open. An hour later, she came through again, told me she was going to bed, wished me well.</p>
<p>I stayed with him through the night, changing out the cold compresses and trying to soothe him as much as I could. In the big picture, though, it didn’t make a difference.</p>
<p>The sky outside the window was starting to lighten when I realized I couldn’t hear him breathing anymore. </p>
<p>I went out the back door for some air and realized what she’d been doing out here last night. A second grave waited next to our parents. I went back inside, exhausted, but too wary of his infection to wait. Maybe I’d already been exposed, maybe it was a regular infection and not plague. But there was nothing to gain from waiting.</p>
<p>Instead I brought him out into the lightening back yard and lowered him into the hole as gracefully as I could manage. Janie had left the shovel nearby, and I took my time filling the grave in, saying as many prayers as I could remember from funerals I’d gone to, and then reciting whatever came to mind.</p>
<p>By the time I was done, my hands were numb. I went back inside, exhausted, and went through the living room. My old bedroom was just as I’d left it aside from the thick layer of dust on everything. I didn’t even bother to pull back the quilt, just fell on top of it and went to sleep almost instantly.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/12/outside-salt-lake-city-ut/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=14095" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:14071JackRetirement2012-08-12T22:38:48Z2012-08-22T05:18:54Zpublic9Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>“After the autopsy, they’re sending her body back east. Her family insisted.” </p>
<p>Jin nodded. It didn’t surprise him. </p>
<p>“I did manage to slip one or two things into my pocket, though.”</p>
<p>He looked up, confused, as Victor pressed something cold and hard into his hands. No, two things. </p>
<p>He knew before he looked – the smooth band of the wedding ring, the heavier engagement ring. He thought about how well they had matched as they sat on his ex-wife’s hand. Jin closed his hand tightly around the rings and looked away for a long minute, until he was sure he wouldn’t embarrass himself.</p>
<p>“Oh, one other thing. I put in my notice; I’m retiring.”</p>
<p>“You’re not even thirty five,” Jin snapped. Just when he thought he couldn’t be any more alone.</p>
<p>“I’ll stay through the move, but I’m tired of jumping when my boss snaps his fingers, Jin. I’m going into the private sector.”</p>
<p>“I don’t need you to hold my hand.”</p>
<p>Victor didn’t even look upset. He just shrugged and showed Jin the clipboard. “I need you to sign that you took possession.”</p>
<p>Jin grabbed the clipboard and fished the pen out of his breast pocket, almost tearing the paper as he scribbled his name. Victor handed him a second copy of the report on the “retrieval” mission and turned to leave.</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Jin muttered, but if Victor heard it, he didn’t answer.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/08/12/retirement/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=14071" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:13258JackProvo, UT, March 20132012-07-30T09:04:55Z2012-08-22T05:18:47Zpublic4Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>At first I thought it was just the sunset that made it look like Provo was on fire. Then again, I’d been trying to sleep through the pain the whole way up the highway and I was maybe a little drunk from the Jack Daniels Saul had given me when it was clear the two aspirin in the first aid kit weren’t going to do much.</p>
<p>There was a small knot of people standing alongside a van with its hood up. Saul pulled to a stop beside them.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>They stepped away as I rolled the window down with my good arm. </p>
<p>“Ma’am?” I called out. “Do you folks need some help?”</p>
<p>There was another silence before a single older woman turned toward us.</p>
<p>“We’ll be fine. Juan says he can fix it,” she said. “Where you folks headed?”</p>
<p>“We were thinking Provo or Salt Lake, but…” </p>
<p>“What’s going on?” Saul yelled past me.</p>
<p>“Keep going.” The woman shook her head. “Fire broke out this morning. Heard there were folks raiding from the south. They’d mostly kept everything peaceful here, but there ain’t enough firemen left to stop this.”</p>
<p>I studied the scene again, thinking about when I’d gone to BYU here. It seemed like a hundred years instead of just two since I’d left school to marry. I’d left a part of myself back in Antimony, and now another part was on fire here. Would I have any family left in Salt Lake?</p>
<p>Saul asked again if they needed any help, and the woman said no again. We decided to push on toward Salt Lake City, and she told us she’d heard there was more traffic in that direction.</p>
<p>I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but Saul seemed to think it was encouraging. We left them to their van and stayed on the 15, hoping we could bypass the whole town.</p>
<p>We were past the north edge of town when Saul pulled off the highway. </p>
<p>“Gas station,” he said as he drove down the exit ramp. “I want to make sure we can leave in a hurry if Salt Lake City’s as bad as this.”</p>
<p>I nodded, trying to focus as he drove toward the gas stations. He passed one, then another.</p>
<p>“What are you-”</p>
<p>“There.” He pointed to the solar panels on the roof. “Short of an old-fashioned gravity pump, we need some kind of electricity to get gas out of these pumps.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>The gas station wasn’t totally empty. The one nearest the highway had all the windows broken, but this one was intact except for the door forced open and hanging there. </p>
<p>“I’m going to see if I can get the pumps turned on,” he told me. “Do you want to wait in the car?”</p>
<p>I shook my head. “I want to find the bathroom and then see if I can clean this out. There has to be bottled water and maybe a fresh gauze or something.” I headed into the gas station as Saul set the truck up to start fueling.</p>
<p>The shelves had been picked over, but the tiny first aid section was still there. I found a few gauze bandages and some disinfectant cream. It promised to eliminate scars but I didn’t think that was likely considering I hadn’t even gotten the bullet wound to close. Thinking about that, I grabbed a sewing kit as well and headed into the bathroom.</p>
<p>Peeling off the makeshift bandage hurt more than I thought – putting up with the pain for hours ought to count for something, right? I guess not. I ran the water until it looked clean and scooped it up with my good hand, hoping that I was actually succeeding in cleaning the wound.</p>
<p>On the other hand, once I got over the fact that I was sticking a needle into my skin, the stitching wasn’t as bad as I expected. Then it was a thick layer of cream and the clean gauze. </p>
<p>“Hey, Saul, I’m done with-”</p>
<p>There were three guys crowded around Saul at the front counter. They were yelling and I could see that they had weapons – one had a baseball bat, and I saw something that caught the light, maybe a knife. I must have looked a sight in my ruined dress, blood stains over flowered print, missing a sleeve entirely. And of course I left my hunting rifle in the truck. I grabbed closest thing that looked like a weapon – the fire extinguisher – and hoped I looked menacing.</p>
<p>It slowed them down just long enough that I thought it might change their minds. When they rushed at me, I fired foam in the faces of the first two, then swung the extinguisher around and brought it down hard on the third one’s head. I hadn’t come this far just to die at a gas station outside Provo. With one unconscious and the other two spitting foam, I looked at Saul.</p>
<p>“Come on,” I told him.</p>
<p>“Go get the guns,” he answered. “I’ve almost got the pump on. We need it.”</p>
<p>I looked at the two men still moving and almost argued with him, but there wasn’t time. I ran to the truck and pulled out my hunting rifle. By the time I got back, one of them had gotten over the counter with a knife and I saw blood.</p>
<p>I thought about aiming for non-lethal areas, but that went out the window when the first recoil shot through my injured arm. Between the pain and the anger at seeing Saul bleeding, it was a lost cause. Instead I settled for praying as I fired.</p>
<p>The man with the knife went down with the second shot. I fired a third at the other man standing, but he was running away a minute later. I let him go.</p>
<p>“Saul?”</p>
<p>“Go open the gas cap and get it ready, then I’ll turn it on.”</p>
<p>Once again I did as he said, seeing how it was the best option to get out of there. Once the pump was ready to fill the tank, I waved to Saul and the gas started flowing. I expected him to come out while it ran, but he must have needed to hang around to turn it off.</p>
<p>When the pump shut off because the tank was full, I waited another minute for Saul. He didn’t come.</p>
<p>Cursing myself for not realizing something must be wrong, I made my way back inside. The man with the knife was still lying on the counter, now in a dark red puddle. </p>
<p>I didn’t see Saul at first, walking past the counter to see if he was behind one of the racks. When I turned, though, I saw him crumpled on the floor. I rushed over to him and tried to turn him over.</p>
<p>Only then did I realize that he was crumpled over another body, probably the actual owner of the gas station – and by the look of it, that man had died of plague. </p>
<p>I started praying for the second time in twenty minutes as I pulled Saul’s body away from the others. He had been stabbed deeply and there was plenty of blood soaked into his shirt but he was still breathing, so I assumed the knife hadn’t hit anything too important. I couldn’t do much if it had, so I had to hope for the best.</p>
<p>I had used up almost all the gauze on myself, but I used what I could find to bind him up, pressing paper napkins and hand towels from the automotive section into service. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing would be.</p>
<p>Strength was never my strong point, even when I didn’t have a hole in my shoulder. Dragging was the best I could do, and getting Saul back to the truck was slow going. I bundled him into the passenger seat and then scrambled into the driver’s side. It didn’t look like there was any hope of getting him a doctor here, but maybe if I could make it to Salt Lake City, maybe civilization still reigned there.</p>
<p>I could hope, anyway, and I could pray. That was all I could do.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/07/30/provo-ut-march-2013/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=13258" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:12841JackTo Master Feng Wei Long2012-07-27T06:32:58Z2012-08-22T05:18:40Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>My Dearest Master Feng,</p>
<p>For some time now you have been asking me to give up using my training in the service of governments, as your students did, and focus on loftier goals. While I cannot say that I’ve given up all government service, I do find myself in a position I think you will appreciate.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>I have been given a school. The circumstances are somewhat unorthodox, even by your standards, so I will not bore you with them. Suffice to say that there are a few whom I <i>must</i> teach and the rest are mine to do with as I will. In particular am charged to work with orphans. </p>
<p>I write you, then, recalling the conversation we had before I fled China. You despaired of the ability of those in America to find training in the ways of taming the dragon because so many of the native traditions were destroyed, or had become unwilling to teach outsiders. Of course I understand their position; my grandmother felt the same way. But I daresay I can offer a solution that will make your burden lighter.</p>
<p>I implore you to tell me how you find your young men and women for training, how you call us to you, that I might do the same here. I recall all too vividly how distant I felt between the passing of my grandmother and the moment I stumbled into your temple. Please give me your guidance that I might reach out to the god-touched in America the same way.</p>
<p>Most sincerely and humbly yours,<br />
Eden Santiago<br />
Matron, Applegate Home for Foundlings</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/07/26/to-master-feng-wei-long/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=12841" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:12690JackOpening Salvo2012-07-25T06:25:26Z2012-08-22T05:18:33Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>I wondered, at first, why Eden had turned up here. Of course there needed to be someone to care for our foundlings, but she’d been assigned just as I had.</p>
<p>“So how did you get this assignment?” I finally asked her as we drove into Medford to order the furnishings we’d need for the place, and to pick up the equipment I’d mail-ordered. </p>
<p>“I volunteered,” she answered in the same no-nonsense tone she always used.</p>
<a name="cutid1"></a><p>“Why?” I sputtered, wondering if I’d been projecting my own misery onto her. No, she’d complained about the location as much as I had. Maybe they hadn’t told her what she was volunteering for?</p>
<p>She was looking out the window when I glanced over. “It was the right thing to do.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure if we weren’t in the picture, these children would still be cared for.”</p>
<p>“That’s not what I mean.”</p>
<p>“Then what?”</p>
<p>Her voice was unusually bitter. “I’m sure a man of science like yourself doesn’t want to hear about a woman’s intuition.”</p>
<p>“For a time I was something of an expert in listening to women no one else could hear,” I told her, “and my work is unorthodox. Try me.”</p>
<p>She looked at me like she was trying to decide if I was worth the effort of explaining. “What do you know about magic?”</p>
<p>I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Her face closed up, and I realized how I must sound. “No, no, I’m sorry, I just… hasn’t anyone told you what the project is for?”</p>
<p>“‘You’ll do as you’re told,’” she said, her voice a perfect, cold mimic of the same OSS agent I’d seen ordering Victor around. “‘Explaining to you would be a waste of time. It’s not as if I need to find an excuse to get rid of a woman who doesn’t know her place.’”</p>
<p>“Eden, magic <i>is</i> what I do. Practical applications, yes, but…”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “That’s not…”</p>
<p>“I promise you, I believe in magic. I’ll explain later if you want me to. But tell me, why did you volunteer?”</p>
<p>“I knew I was needed. It simply happens sometimes, that I know. I suppose if you’re working with magic that makes more sense.”</p>
<p>I could have started laughing again. “You do what you’re told even without knowing why?” Could I really be so lucky? To find someone who understood?</p>
<p>“Because I have to- I’ve never tried to explain this before. Not to another person.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>She hesitated to answer, then broke the silence with a pointed finger. “Isn’t that where we’re going?”</p>
<p>It was easy enough to let her change the conversation, but I wasn’t going to let her get away from me that easily. After we had stuffed the car full of equipment and made arrangements for more to be shipped in the next couple of days, we stopped for dinner.</p>
<p>She made small talk while we ordered food, and I waited until the waitress had disappeared with the menus. I was so eager to talk about it that I cut her off in mid-sentence as she talked about plans for the school.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, it’s only… I haven’t had anyone to talk to about it since Salome left.”</p>
<p>“Salome?”</p>
<p>“My wife. It’s a long story. Everyone that understood left with her.”</p>
<p>I watched her eyes go to my hand, my bare ring finger, and then back up to my face. “So you’re married.”</p>
<p>“Widowed.” I reached into my collar, pulled out the chain with my wedding ring, hers, and the engagement ring.</p>
<p>“That explains what Kether said. And your wife, she understood your work?”</p>
<p>“There were six of us working together. Patrick and I handled the science, did the work on the specimen. William and Iris were the folklore experts, they gave us the idea where to start. Salome, she did the talking for the goddess, and Irene was her second.”</p>
<p>“The goddess?” Now it was my turn to wonder if I’d said too much. How many people had we known, then, who would listen politely and then turn and sneer?</p>
<p>“There was… a goddess, yes.” I wanted to explain about William and Iris and how too much tequila had turned a book club into an archaeological expedition, but where would I start? Waking up in the backseat of their car, driving through the desert? In the dark, hearing her voice for the first time? No, another time. “The important part is that Salome was as much a part of the work as I was. Kether is as much the goddess’s son as he is Salome’s. Maybe more. My work here is meant to be a continuation of that.”</p>
<p>She studied her french fries very carefully and said nothing, so I continued.</p>
<p>“That’s why all of this. I start treating them when the girls get here. The government takes control of them once they’re born. They get every advantage I can manage to give them, scientifically speaking, and they grow up with your other orphans.”</p>
<p>Her fork fell from her hand and clattered against the plate. “And what’s the point?”</p>
<p>“The point? For me, I prove my theories, I pay back a little more on the debt I incurred getting out of Japan in one piece. For them, they get Ka’ana’s super soldiers.”</p>
<p>“Ka’ana? That’s your goddess’s name, then?”</p>
<p>I nodded.</p>
<p>“I think I know why I’m here, Jin. Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“To teach those children of yours to fight demons. To use magic properly. You can’t really teach them that, can you?”</p>
<p>“In theory, but- no. You can? You will?”</p>
<p>“I will.” She was looking out the window, far past the car parked outside, but her eyes were bright as sparks. “But you have to promise me something in return.”</p>
<p>“What’s that?”</p>
<p>“You let me do it my way. You trust me.”</p>
<p>“I suppose that’s fair.”</p>
<p>“And you let me teach Kether.”</p>
<p>“But he’s -”</p>
<p>“He’s going to need it at least as much as anyone else, if he is what you say he is.”</p>
<p>“He’s not just part of the experiment, though. He’s my son.”</p>
<p>“And I’ll keep that in mind. But you can’t leave him untrained much longer. He’s eight now?”</p>
<p>“Almost.” I sighed. Where had the time gone? “You’re right.”</p>
<p>“I’ll start with him this week. It’ll give him some structure, and we’ll be taking a few children from an overfull orphanage near Portland this week so he needs to be settled.”</p>
<p>“You’re good with kids, hm? Any of your own?”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “We should head back. You promised Kether we’d be home before dark.” I stood like a spell had been broken, left money to cover the meal, followed her out to the car. The entire rest of the drive, I waited for her to say something. I wanted the conversation to start again.</p>
<p>Eden was silent, and I was left to wonder about her a while longer.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/07/24/opening-salvo/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=12690" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:12336JackUT-502012-07-15T18:13:09Z2012-08-22T05:18:21Zpublic5Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p>I wasn’t really expecting trouble on the drive. I hadn’t seen anybody but Saul since my world ended, after all. But the road was blocked by ruined cars and impassible just before the junction to get on highway 50 and keep going north. </p>
<p>“Figures there was an accident at the one place on the whole highway you can’t just drive around,” I said, looking at the twisted guard rails and the drop on either side. It wasn’t deep, exactly, and we could go around, but something about it bothered me.</p>
<p>“I feel like I’m being herded,” Saul said as he threw the truck into reverse and looked for a good place to pull off. “You ready to use that rifle if you have to?”</p>
<p>The truck began bumping along the desert rock. I rolled down the window. “You think I’ll have to? What do you think’s out here?”</p>
<p>He didn’t get to answer before the first shot came through the windshield.</p>
<p>It missed, thank God, and Saul slid down in his seat and punched the gas pedal. I looked around desperately, hoping to find the shooter, but nothing stood out against the blank scrub.</p>
<p>I saw a flash of movement moments before the second shot came through the windshield. Enough of the glass was broken out that I could fire forward, and I aimed at the movement I’d seen. I took all four shots, my shoulder screaming in pain from the recoil, but it wasn’t until I went to reload that I realized it hurt more than it should.</p>
<p>“Grab my gun, it’s faster,” Saul yelled as I pulled the hunting rifle back. His was already loaded, so I swung it over his head and out toward the same spot. Nothing moved as we sped around and headed back toward the highway.</p>
<p>“Shouldn’t we go look?” I asked him.</p>
<p>He shook his head. “It could be another trap, and if you got them then there’s nothing we can do.”</p>
<p>“I want to make sure,” I told him. “If nothing else, I don’t want to leave him to die slow.”</p>
<p>“They would’ve left us,” Saul shook his head. “But you’re right.” Again he put the truck in reverse. There still wasn’t any motion, but as we pulled up, I could see that there was a rough shelter and an ATV carefully tucked behind the rock outcrop.</p>
<p>The shooter was dead- I’d only gotten two shots into him, but one went clean through the artery in his neck. There was a small array of luggage, presumably things he’d taken from the other people who’d tried to take the same path to Salt Lake City. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” I told him as I shut his eyes.</p>
<p>“Are you bleeding?” Saul asked. “Dang, Lacey, why didn’t you say something?”</p>
<p>I blinked at him, having almost forgotten the pain while I was distracted. “It’s not that bad.”</p>
<p>“Let me take a look at it,” he insisted, and I offered him my shoulder. He pulled at the torn sleeve of my dress, tearing a large enough hole to see through. </p>
<p>“Looks like he just grazed you,” Saul confirmed. He grabbed a shirt from one of the bags laying around and tore a strip from it to wrap my shoulder.</p>
<p>Just as he was finishing, I heard a buzzing noise in the distance. “More of them?”</p>
<p>“Let’s go,” Saul said. I raised his shotgun toward the sound, but they were far enough off that I didn’t think they could see much of us yet. We got in the truck and Saul sped back onto the highway. I winced at the rough road but knew we had a ways to go yet. </p>
<p>“Still think we’ll get there before dark?” I asked him.</p>
<p>“God willing, yeah. I’ll get you there.”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/07/15/ut-50/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=12336" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:12138JackOutside Antimony, Utah, March, 20132012-07-08T22:18:11Z2012-08-22T05:18:12Zpublic2Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p><em>Love is not the last room: there are others<br />
after it, the whole length of the corridor<br />
that has no end.</em><br />
-Yehuda Amichai</p>
<p>He wouldn’t let me back in. At first I thought he was just waiting some arbitrary period – 24 hours, 48, 72. Until he decided it was safe. I investigated the houses we’d left above ground; I looked for the neighbors.</p>
<p>If the neighbors were still alive, they didn’t seem to be answering any more than my husband was. I spent the first night in my old bed. The second day, I was hungry and I knew all the pantries had been cleaned out in the houses I had access to. There was still no answer when I knocked on any of the other houses. </p>
<p>Maybe we were the only survivors. Maybe my husband had been right, and everyone else was damned. </p>
<p>I grabbed my bike and rode toward Main Street. I ignored the long-cold car crash, resisting the temptation to stop and look at the bodies. </p>
<p>There was nobody visible in the Minit Mart or the grocery or the hardware store. The sliding doors of the grocery store had already been broken, and I stepped inside gingerly, looking out for large pieces of glass. I started toward the canned goods.</p>
<p>“There ain’t much left, but you really ought to ask before you take it.” </p>
<p>I panicked and froze as the barrel of a shotgun came around the endcap of the aisle, followed by its owner. I recognized him – Saul was one of the few who spoke to me kindly when my husband brought me back – but I wasn’t sure whether that was cause to relax.</p>
<p>“Lacey! Lord almighty, Lacey, I didn’t figure to see you here. I know your husband always bought plenty of bulk.” The end of the gun dropped toward the floor and he rushed toward her. “Did something happen? Are the kids sick?”</p>
<p>“As far as I know they’re fine. Lonely, I guess.”</p>
<p>“As far as you know?”</p>
<p>“They- he put me out. We wanted to see if anyone was left alive, but he won’t let me back in.” I didn’t understand why my voice was shaking so much. Saul put his arms around me, and I realized my hands were shaking along with it. </p>
<p>“Do you need company?”</p>
<p>“No,” I sighed. “I’m sure they’ll let me in sooner or later. They just want to wait and make sure I don’t have the plague. For the safety of the kids.”</p>
<p>Saul helped me pack up some cans and crackers and fruit juice so I’d be okay back at the house, and he told me to be careful and come get him if I needed anything else.</p>
<p>Back at the house, I checked the gun locker. I thought my husband had taken all the guns, but there was an older hunting rifle and some ammunition for it. I wondered if he planned to use it once it was safe, if it was ever safe.</p>
<p>I kept circling back around to the bunker, but I was waiting longer and longer between check-ins. The solitude had become a relief, though I couldn’t quite bring myself to admit it. I read books. I drank juice and grilled canned veggies on the charcoal grill until I ran out of charcoal.</p>
<p>I yelled for Saul first thing when I went back to the store. He didn’t answer right away, and I went to see if there was any charcoal left. </p>
<p>“Lacey, just the woman I wanted to see,” he said when he finally turned up.</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“I’m leaving town,” he said, and gestured to his ancient pickup in the parking lot. “I rounded up enough gas to get to Provo, maybe even Salt Lake City. Come with me. I could use someone to ride shotgun.”</p>
<p>I thought I was standing still, unsure what I wanted, but my body was moving and before I knew it I was at the edge of town, and then I was outside it. I felt like I could breathe again, in the passenger seat with the hunting rifle at the ready. I’d never driven so fast and I’d never felt so dangerous.</p>
<p>Not that it was really dangerous– I kept telling myself that. There was no one on the road. There was no movement at all. It was just the apocalypse, right? How bad could it be?</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/07/07/driven/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=12138" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:11816JackAntimony, Utah, February 20132012-07-06T02:33:56Z2012-08-22T05:18:05Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p><em>No use to weep inside and to scream outside.</em><br />
<em>Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.</em><br />
- Yehuda Amichai</p>
<p>We hid in the bunker for two weeks without even thinking about looking outside. We feasted on the perishables, prayed, read books and sang songs. But when the radio broadcasts stopped and we realized no one was coming, it got lonely fast. We waited for word to come – a week, two, three.</p>
<p>They don’t tell you what it’s going to be like when they sell you the giant cans of soup mix and the hand-cranked radios. We talked about what might be going on outside, keeping our voices down so that we didn’t scare the kids. We didn’t know if it was safe outside, we didn’t know exactly how much had collapsed.</p>
<p>The kids could tell something was wrong anyway. Emma wouldn’t stop crying no matter how much Ruth held her, and Micah screamed to go outside until I thought we would all be deaf. Joseph complained of headaches and wouldn’t stop hitting the others. Sariah talked to her dolls, but grew quiet when we spoke to her. I started to think that we couldn’t just stay here.</p>
<p>With even the radio out, our husband argued, there was every reason to believe most of humanity was dead. That the plague still raged, maybe even airborne…</p>
<p>In the end we took a vote. My sister-wives and I argued that the risk of dying was better than the risk of outliving the human race. He didn’t agree, and wearing him down was hard. In the end he conceded that one of us should go out first, and the rest would wait.</p>
<p>As the youngest wife, I was volunteered. It made sense, since I didn’t have any children yet, but there was still cold fear in my spine as I went to the door.</p>
<p>I stepped outside, and my husband slammed the door shut behind me. I didn’t know yet that I would never see them again.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/07/05/fallout/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=11816" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-10-01:650865:11637JackFirst Rain2012-07-03T20:51:36Z2012-08-22T05:17:58Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='finch' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://finch.dreamwidth.org/'><b>finch</b></a></span><br /><br /><p><em>The first rain reminds me<br />
Of the rising summer dust.</em><br />
-Yehuda Amichai</p>
<p>The storm rode in fast and hard as desert raiders, and Joseph was soaked through by the time he made it back to Annie’s trailer. The cookfire was nothing but an ash-dark puddle, and he could see that Annie had pulled her loom down from the tree. He paused, considering throwing a tarp over his bike, but it was too late to make a difference.</p>
<p>Lightning crashed across the sky as he opened the door and all but dove inside.</p>
<p>“Stop!” Annie yelled, and he froze in place. A towel landed across his head and shoulders, and he gratefully began drying his hair.</p>
<p>“All the damp things stay by the door,” she told him, but there was a hint of laughter in her voice. “The wool would recover, but I’d rather not have to deal with it.”</p>
<p>Joseph kicked one boot off and then the other, followed by his jeans and his dripping shirt. He checked the hand-knit socks she’d given him – his boots had kept them dry, somehow.</p>
<p>Outside, thunder cracked directly overhead and lightning flashed beyond the camper’s small windows as Joseph presented himself for inspection.</p>
<p>“Dry enough,” she told him, and smiled. She was knitting, of course, on the bed with a light blanket tossed across her lap. Joseph hesitated only a minute before joining her, curling up beside her. He was getting used to the feeling of skin on skin, and while he still shuddered at an unexpected touch, it no longer unnerved him. He knew Annie didn’t expect anything to follow.</p>
<p>It was enough.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://jackadreams.info/blog/2012/07/03/first-rain/" title="Read Original Post">Jack-a-dreams</a>.</small></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=commonplace&ditemid=11637" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments