When she scooped up her clothes, opened his door, then snapped her fingers for a guard down the hall, Wroth watched like a bystander. “Pssst. Minion. I need these laundered. Very little starch. Don’t just stand there gawking or you’ll anger my good frenemy General Wroth. We’re like this.”He couldn’t see her but knew she was twining two fingers together.
The father and daughter made their way north, through unknown sylvan paradises where only the owls and skunks know their way around. The hard work of paddling non-stop for many hours had long since stopped being difficult for Saweyimew. In spite of her beauty and grace, her back had grown strong and sinewy from years of canoe trips. She reveled in the exhilaration it always brought her, after the first few hours left her body insensible to pain or discomfort. Warm and tingly, lulled into peaceful contemplation by hours of the rhythmic paddling, the smell of the water, exotic blooms, animal musk. It all combined as one to make her feel so alive. Especially when it rained, and her body steamed against the cool drops, feeling invincible against the elements. The mountain of her father's back was like a rock against anything nature could throw against them. The stream of fragrant pipe-smoke still flowing from his lips, regardless of any obstacle. She felt at that moment, nothing would ever stop her father's pipe from smoking. Nothing, not death, not any force of the living or spirit world, would ever still her father's heart. Rain cleansing her to the core, she was a spring of raw power and self-reliance, paddling against all adversity--their master completely. Her father's daughter. At times like that, when it rained, she entirely understood and shared her father's outlook on life.
Aidan from the past: He took her hands in his bloodied, callused ones. “Accept me?” His eyes glowed, his lashes spiked from rain.Declan in the present: He gripped her nape. “I fuckin love you, Regin!” Rain spiked his lashes as he gazed down at her, commanding her, “Love me back!
He's like six hundred years younger than you are. I refuse to be the moral compass of our cell! Most weekends I have an intoxispell bong attached to my mouth like a respirator. I love scatological humor, and I list 'pranks involving nuclear waste' and 'making demons eat things' as my hobbies.
You're still... Declan?"----Voice hoarse, he said, "Aye, it's me. I will never be your perfect Viking, Regin! I've made unforgivable mistakes. I've no family or friends, and my men hold no love for me. I'm scarred inside and out. And I'm bloody askin' for you anyway!
Valkyrie, I will get answers from you one way or another. Either through this painful exercise in futility, as you believe, or through a civilized conversation.""You call this civilized?" She strained against her cuffs, leaning in to whisper, "Psst, Chase. The sexual tension between us is grueling.
What'd you want to talk about?""Just to commend you on your revenge last night. It must have been fiendish. Of course, I can only imagine since there wasn't a mark on Chase this morning, only residual bliss.""He heals fast! I whaled on his face. Must've been thirty hits."Natalya's lips quirked. "You're glowing like a Lite-Brite.""Shut it, fairy.
You do not mind my humor?”“Not at all. I’ve not laughed like this …” His brows drew together. “I think I’ve never laughed like this.”“Usually I exasperate people. And I jest at inappropriate times. Such as during executions. Freya says ’tis my gift and my bane to frustrate others.”“I like your manner, Reginleit. Life is long without humor.
I'm told the effect is cumulative--it will continue to worsen." Though outwardly calm as he explained this, his face had paled even more. "But if you tell me about the Valkyrie's weaknesses, I'll administer the antidote.""Weaknesses? So many. Foremost, we're ... ticklish.
Just hear me out. While you were napping, I was busy chatting up our allies. Didn't you know--your woman's a golden-tongued ambassador! My sisters always said I graduated from the shock-and-awe school of diplomacy, but joke 'em if they can't take a fuck, right?
..., It'd taken her several seconds to react to the sight of them together. She'd been almost hypnotized by the scene as Lothaire drank. Chase's masculine face had been tense, his gray eyes focused on the ground. Lothaire's face had been starkly beautiful, his pale blond hair brushing Chase's shoulder.Light and dark. One terrible, one t
He can learn things about me through your blood. Can learn about my sister!" She briefly covered her mouth. "He can see everything we've done! I don't want that leech to know what we do in private."Lothaire strolled up, making a scoffing sound. "As if I don't watch you two live from a distance.
Regin!" He leapt up from a bunk."Well, well, the gang's all here." Nix must've given him Regin's whereabouts. Again."I'm going to get you out of here," he said, his green eyes aglow.She snorted. "Let me know how that works out for you, Job MacBangup." Seeing Brandr here just brought her situation into stark relief. "It's curious though--you don't usually show up until it's time to bury him.
I give you a week, maybe two, before you're driven to bite someone.""I don't know how to... to bite or drink! But you could teach me.""And what could you possibly do in return?" Lothaire waved a negligent hand. "Play football for me? Break in my jeans really well?
You see, that's the thing with you detrus," Chase began in a contemplative tone. "Your bodies are abominations. If I severed your arms--"Lothaire yawned loudly."--you'd merely regenerate from the injury. You might experience pain, but you wouldn't suffer the horror of permanent loss, not like a human."Lothaire grew increasingly bored by this. "When I get free, I believe I'll show you your spine. I'll hand it to you so casually, politely even, as if expecting you to remark upon it.
Lothaire briefly gazed heavenward. "Chase is clearly a reluctant sharer. Which should incite her curiosity about what's going on in his head. She's a disgustingly self-righteous Valkyrie, filled with the need to fix things, to right wrongs. If anything needed fixing ..." He waved a hand to indicate Declan from head to toe. "As wrong as he can be.
You could run, and I could stay to fend them off," the vampire offered. "For some reason, I feel amazingly refreshed." He swung an amused look at Declan that made him grind his teeth. "And it seems I'm quite handy against them."----Natalya tossed away her busted TEP-C. "So, Lothaire, you're going to fight them out of the blackness of your heart?
Wouldn't be surprising. Most immortal females behave like they're in heat."Her brows rose. "You are the one who taught me about pleasure." ... "And now in another lifetime, you ridicule me for missing it? Come on, Chase. Take me to where you live. Scared I'll find some footy pajamas? A fleshlight? I want a bath almost as much as you need to watch me take one. I get so much more talkative when I'm clean. Loreans are really fastidious, you know.
Regin to Declan:"Lemme guess," Regin said. "You had your introductory spiel all planned, but rational thought deserted you when you saw me stroll in braless."----"For the record," She continued, "it's not my fault I came in here looking like Chesty LaRue. You caught me on laundry day, so I have no undergarments on. Though I will cop to a little extra spring in my step for your benefit.
My father saw him one time. We live in mexico, on the farm, and Father went to feed the horses. At night. Little man was standing there giving hay to the horses. And Father watch and he came and he told Mother, 'Jedushka Di Muvedushka feeding the horses'. He don't get scared, nothing. In the morning we go look, the horses' hair all braided. So Beautiful! All their hair braided.
Stories which have failed either to become popular folk lore or to be embalmed in old newspaper files are in great danger of oblivion. If they are saved, often it is by the merest chance. And that chance may well depend upon one individual with a treasure-story bent and a retentive memory.
Unlike its human counterparts, an army of zombies is completely independent of support. It will not require food,ammunition, or medical attention. It will not succumb to panic, desertion, or out-and-out mutiny. Like the virus that gave it life, this undead force will continue to grow, spreading across the body of this planet until there is nothing left to devour. Where would you go? What would you do?
Legend of the Cryptids card (Tragic Maiden Wotan adv.)Lore: It was the knowledge of love that brought solitude. It was the knowledge of love that brought despair. That was why Wotan made the decision to become detested rather than adored. "O cursed crown, grant me my desires!
Warped and bigoted with preconceived illusions of justice, freedom, and consistency, they cast off the old lore and the old way with the old beliefs; nor ever stopped to think that the lore and those ways were the sole makers of their present thoughts and judgments, and the sole guides and standards in a meaningless universe without fixed aims or stable points of reference.