Facebook symbols bear claw

For one i hate my body and im not the weight i want to be but every time i look in the mirror i see the stretch marks on my stomach and those bitches looks like bear claws and i gain so much self confidence it’s awesome lol #selflove 😗

Automatic Livestock Feeder
Design Requirements
Objective: Ensure the internal systems of the machine meet the functional requirements effectively for proper operation.
Main Components:
Feed Delivery System:
1) Feed Bin:

• Bin:
  • Withstand impact during feed loading.
  • Support the required feed weight.
  • The inlet to the feed delivery mechanism must prevent feed blockage.
• Inlet Port:
  • Allow easy feed loading into the bin without causing excessive vibration to the bin.
• Mixing System (if applicable):

Agitator:
· Provide sufficient mixing force to prevent feed from caking.
2) Auger Feed Delivery Mechanism:

• Feed Trough:
  • Compatible with the feed bin connection.
  • Withstand the weight of the feed and frictional forces during movement.
  • Have a shape suitable for the feed delivery rate.

· Auger Shaft:

• Match the shape of the feed trough.
• Support the weight of the feed in the bin.
• Withstand the torque when the motor pumps feed into the mixing system.

· Motor System:

• Provide sufficient torque to drive the auger shaft, moving the feed at the desired rate.

3) Connecting Devices:

• Load Cell:
  • Withstand the weight of the feed bin.
  • Easy to install.
• Coupling connecting the discharge port of the feed system to the mixing system:
  • Match the size of the feed delivery system's discharge port and the mixing system's inlet port.
  • Prevent feed leakage.
  • Easy to install.

Feed Mixing System
Bin (Same as above):

• Withstand impact during loading of all ingredients.
• Support the required feed weight.
• The inlet to the feed delivery mechanism must prevent feed blockage.

Agitator:

• Provide sufficient rotational force to evenly mix all ingredients.

Drive System:

• Provide sufficient torque to mix all ingredients.

Feed Inlet Port:

• Compatible with the size of the feed delivery system's discharge port.

Feed Discharge Port:

• Compatible with the size of the feed delivery system's inlet port for feeding into the trough.

Connecting Devices:

• Coupling connect the discharge port of the feed delivery system to the mixing system and Coupling connect the inlet port of the feed delivery system to the mixing system.
  • Compatible with the size of the discharge port and inlet port of the respective connecting systems.
  • Prevent feed leakage.
  • Easy to install.
• Level Sensor:
  • Have the required accuracy for the application.

Feed Delivery System to Trough
Pump:

• Provide sufficient torque to pump feed with the desired dwell time.

Piping:

• Have a size compatible with the feed pump.

Feed Trough:

• Withstand the weight of the feed.
• Withstand the impact caused by livestock during feeding.

Connecting Devices:
Coupling connecting the feed delivery system's inlet port to the mixing system.

• Compatible with the size of the feed mixing system's discharge port.
• Prevent feed leakage.
• Easy to install.

Machine Maintenance System
Tank Cleaning System:
1. Water Pump:

• Provide sufficient water pressure to remove stubborn dirt and debris from the tanks.

2. Piping System:

• Route water to all areas that require cleaning in the tanks.

3. Wash Nozzles:

• Work together with the pump to generate sufficient spray force to remove dirt and debris.

Fault Monitoring System:
Components:

• Speed Sensors (3.1, 2.1, 1.1):
  • Measure the rotational speed of critical machine components (e.g., auger shaft, agitator, pump).
  • Detect deviations in rotational speed that may indicate faults.
• Position Sensors:
  • Determine the position of moving parts in the machine (e.g., doors, valves).
  • Detect deviations in position that may indicate faults.

Control System
Programmable Logic Controller (PLC):

• Use a PLC with a sufficient number of inputs/outputs to connect to all sensors, actuators, and other devices in the system.
• Select a PLC suitable for a wet and dusty operating environment.
• Program the PLC to perform the desired control functions, including:
  • Feed delivery system control
  • Feed mixing system control
  • Feed delivery system to trough control
  • Fault monitoring and alarming
  • Operational data collection

Pneumatic Hydraulic Valves:

• Select pneumatic hydraulic valves with the appropriate size for the system's connection ports.
• Use pneumatic hydraulic valves that are water and dust resistant.

Auxiliary Parts
Assembly details for system components:

• Connecting hardware (bolts, nuts, screws, pins, clamps, etc.):
  • Withstand loads and vibrations during operation.
  • Withstand the working environment, including humidity, dust, chemicals (if applicable).
  • Precise dimensions to ensure a secure connection.
• Base:
  • Support the weight of the mounted component, including the component's own weight and operating load.
  • Appropriate height for connecting other system components.
  • Material suitable for the working environment.
  • Flat and stable base surface for system balance.
• Structural frame:
  • Support the weight of the entire system, including the weight of components, raw materials, feed, etc.
  • Ensure rigidity and stability to resist vibration during operation.
  • Size and shape suitable for the layout of system components.
  • Have holes, slots, or brackets for mounting other components.
• PLC protection cabinet:
  • High IP rating (IP65 or higher) for water, dust, and insect resistance.
  • Electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding to protect internal electronics.
  • Good ventilation system to ensure heat dissipation for internal devices.

· Electrical wires:

• High current carrying capacity suitable for system operating current.
• Withstand harsh working environments, including humidity, dust, chemicals (if applicable).

Machining Requirements
Technical Requirements:

• Meet product technical requirements:
  • Size and shape: Conform to the technical drawing, ensuring high accuracy.
  • Accuracy: Achieve the required accuracy level according to the design, ensuring product functionality.
  • Surface roughness: Meet the aesthetic and functional requirements of the product.
  • Hardness: Achieve the required hardness according to the design, ensuring the product's load-bearing capacity and durability.
  • Material requirements: Use appropriate materials for the intended use, ensuring durability, load-bearing capacity, corrosion resistance, etc.
• Use an appropriate machining process:
  • Select a machining method suitable for the product's shape, size, accuracy, and material.
  • Use high-precision machining equipment to ensure efficient machining.
  • Apply the machining process according to technical standards to ensure consistent product quality.
• Ensure inspection and measurement capability:
  • Utilize accurate measuring tools to inspect product size, shape, accuracy, surface finish, and hardness.
  • Implement product inspection throughout the machining process to guarantee that quality meets requirements.

Machining Capability Requirements:

• Compatible with existing technology:
  • Choose a machining process compatible with the available machinery and equipment in the workshop.
  • Ensure the machining staff's skill level meets the demands of the chosen process.
  • Secure the ability to provide materials, cutting tools, and other resources necessary for machining.
• Utilize advanced technologies (if applicable):
  • Implement advanced machining technologies to enhance product quality, reduce production costs, and increase machining efficiency.
  • Consider using Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software and Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) simulation software to optimize the machining process.
  • Invest in training programs to elevate the machining staff's skill level.

Economic Requirements:

• Secure financial resources:
  • Precisely determine the product's machining cost, including material costs, labor costs, tool wear costs, machinery and equipment costs, management costs, etc.
  • Develop a machining cost estimate and ensure sufficient financial resources to execute the project.
  • Explore solutions to optimize machining costs and minimize production expenses.

Safety Requirements.
· Hazardous moving parts:
o Must be guarded or protected by appropriate safety devices, such as:
§ Guards
§ Barriers
§ Safety doors
§ Safety interlocks
o Guarding devices must be properly designed and installed to ensure operator and maintenance safety.
· Hazard warning and alarm devices:
o The machine must have hazard warning and alarm devices to alert operators to potential hazards, such as:
§ Audible alarms
§ Warning lights
§ Warning symbols
o Warning and alarm devices must be easy to identify and understand.
· Machine surfaces:
o Must be smooth and free of burrs, sharp edges, or other hazards.
o Protruding parts must be rounded or guarded to prevent collision.
o Slippery surfaces must be coated with a non-slip material.
In addition:

• The system must have an emergency stop system to stop operation in case of an accident.
• Regular maintenance must be performed to ensure the system operates safely.
• Applicable occupational safety regulations must be complied with.

Many Sources

My ex and I split up about 5 months ago after a 6+ year relationship. Our final years together were complicated: she spent all of 2022 going through treatment for a totally unexpected cancer diagnosis, and after miraculously getting back to good health, she informed me that she wanted to explore polyamory, which I learned — after a year of trying — is not for me.
The relationship ended amicably, with the key feature of the split being an agreement to share an 8-year-old dog: I would get him one week, and she would get him the next, and so forth. I agreed to these terms taking into account (1) the therapeutic value he would provide her, (2) the fact that he loves her and she takes good care of him, and (3) that it’s convenient to have a reliable sitter in the event that I have to travel during the weeks I’m supposed to have him.
Here’s the thing: I got the dog at 8 weeks old and solely took responsibility for training and caring for him until my ex entered our lives around the time he turned 2. While he thereafter became “our dog,” I have since continued to bear primary financial responsibility for the pup. I thought at first that sharing him was the right move, but my life is beginning to feel a bit empty without him, and seeing my ex at each weekly transition is proving to be an impediment to me moving forward with my life.
AITA for wanting to claw back this agreement?

Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 217] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 219 June 11 or see the next chapter now on Patreon]
The Fractured Song Index
Discord Channel Just let me know when you arrive in the server that you’re a Patreon so you can access your special channel.
***
Ginger makes an offer to Lakadara. The rest of Telkandra's remaining brood discuss the fate of their allies.
“Not good?” Sara asked as Helias strode into the tent and made his way straight to the bottle of wine.
“Not good,” Helias muttered.
Sara nodded woodenly. “Privacy spell?
The tauroll waved his sheathed Fangroar and after pouring himself and his wife a drink, sat down. “We’re safe. Oh Galena, this is really not good.”
“How dead are we?” Sara asked, her tone light.
“We’re not dead. We’re just in a lot of danger and even if we somehow force the humans to retreat, we’ve lost this war,” said Helias.
“Explain.”
Helias drank deep, noting that Sara was also drinking deep as well. “Thorgoth is going after the humans. That part of the plan is as good as it gets. We’ll be attacking them, and using the dragons, whilst our forces hold off Titania. Our objectives are also well-chosen.” Helias buried his head into his hands and let out a deep groan. “But winning this doesn’t change anything.”
“If we can defeat the humans, why won’t that change anything?” Sara bit her lip. “Unless it renders us unable to beat Titania?”
“Yes. Even on the chance we beat the humans we won’t be able to invade them, we won’t be able to defeat Titania. We’d be at a stalemate and both armies would have to withdraw.” His hands dropping to the table, Helias stared at his wife. “And we don’t have any reserves left. We’re going to lose the war, even if Thorgoth lives.”
“If we defeat the humans—”
The general shook his head. “By defeat, I mean we’ll hurt them but we can’t prevent them from withdrawing. We might kill a few of their leaders, their important mages and Otherworlders, but they will still have soldiers. After coming so close, they won’t surrender. They’ll keep attacking until they kill enough of Thorgoth and Berengaria’s supporters that nobody will help them, or until both of them die.”
“Alright so, what do we do?” Sara asked. Helias looked at his wife, noting how still she sat. Her wings were clamped tight to her back and her lips were drawn tight.
“Sara, I don’t have good answers.”
Sara steepled her trembling fingers as best she could. “They’re going to be better than mine. I don’t know anything about war.”
“Right. Well, you need to surrender to the humans if you are captured. Present yourself as a non-combatant. Cry, scream, anything to declare that you don’t mean any harm,” Helias said.
“Why not Titania?” Sara asked.
“She has every incentive to kill you off and far less compunction about doing so. Killing our family off would allow her to have more land to give away to her loyalists. In contrast, the humans have Erlenberg troops fighting with them along with those of the Lightning Battalion. They’re going to be far more friendly to Alavari civilians,” Helias said.
Soft hands, grabbed onto Helias’s waist with a surprisingly firm grip. “What about you? I can get away, but how are you going to survive this?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“Don’t you dare! Our daughter needs her father and I need my husband!”
The general stared at his wife. “Sara, I can’t surrender to the humans if we win. They want me dead.”
Sara refilled Helias’s glass. “Then you need to help Thorgoth defeat them.”
“Then what? We’re never winning this war. Thorgoth is going to be invaded and—”
Cutting him off with the clink of her goblet against the table, Sara hissed, “And what? Why think that far? We can plan for that after this battle, so long as you are still here and with me.”
Letting out a breath Helias pushed his hair back and allowed himself a sigh. Reaching across the table, he took his wife’s hand.
“Sara, you’re right, but you know you can escape this if Thorgoth is defeated.”
The harorc placed her other hand on top of his. “We’re partners. I need you. We need you. So promise me that you’ll do your damndest to live.”
Helias closed his eyes and nodded. “I promise. First things first, before we turn in we need to talk to the dragons.”
***
Fennokra stalked slowly toward the camp. This wasn’t the collapsed side-passage where she and Yolandra had some privacy. This was the main camp where Thorgoth and their army were preparing for what had to be the final battle.
It was also where her siblings were swallowing the last of what seemed to be a side of salted pork.
“Velkandra, Makentra, we need to talk.”
Their second-eldest sister licked her lips, her neck rising to Fennokra’s level. “I am assuming you mean in private?”
“Of course.” Fennokra could see Velkandra’s haunches tensing to raise herself higher. Her sister was trying to look down on her. Allowing her head to dip, she held her height.
“Alright.” Velkandra flicked her tail and Makentra, licking his lips, followed them.
Since their enemies had set up their siege camp behind them, the Alavari camp had been reduced in size. Still, there was the alcove of the collapsed tunnel. Whilst couriers and soldiers crossed across this natural cavern to the defenses on the other side, they kept a good distance away.
Yolandra was waiting for them, scratching something into the cave wall. Fennokra let out a rumble in her throat and her sister turned from the wall suddenly, shaking her head.
“Velkandra, Mankentra—”
Velkandra puffed a cloud of smoke out. “What’s this all about?” she hissed, lips drawn back to show teeth.
Fennokra took a step away from her sister to take Yolandra’s side, her eyes narrowed. “Are you joking? Do you not think we should at least discuss what is going on?”
“And what would be the point? It is a bit late to be having this discussion. The course of the winds have been chosen,” said Velkandra.
Yolandra rose to her full height on her four legs, but even so she was still shorter than the silent Makendra. “The winds can be fickle, Velkandra, and where we are is proof.”
Velkandra pursed her lips, eyes for the first time, looking toward the ground. “The survival of our family is tied to that of Thorgoth. To abandon him would be death by the hand of the Stormcaller and her allies or by his hand.”
“Besides, if we were to abandon Thorgoth’s cause, that would be dishonorable. We promised to assist him,” said Makendra.
Fennokra blinked at her brother’s tone. It was quiet and yet there was a touch of a deep growl to his voice. His claws were ever so slightly digging into the ground.
“We are dragons. We can think and make decisions for ourselves. We are allowed to consider other options, are we not?” Fennokra asked.
Velkandra’s tail flicked violently side to side as her neck turned to her younger sibling. “Then why does it sound as if you wish to follow in the wingbeats of our elder sister?”
“Who we killed. I was there. I lost a claw striking her down!” Fennokra raised one clawed hand, flexing the remaining digits.
“On that, why did we have to kill Lakadara?”
All golden eyes fixed on Yolandra, who held the gaze of her siblings with a contemptuous scowl.
“Lakadara betrayed us,” said Velkandra, almost growling.
“I’ve been thinking over what happened. Lakadara said nothing about betraying our mother. She merely was questioning if Thorgoth was trustworthy,” Yolandra said.
A scowl flaring his nostrils, Makentra growled. “He fed us, trained us in how the humans and their allies fought. Hid us from their eyes—”
“And now Caldra is dead!” Yolandra exclaimed.
“Which is why we must kill the Stormcaller and her friends! So we can avenge him and our mother!” Velkandra almost completely unfurled her wings. Only the tips slapping the stone forced her to pull them back.
“Then what?” Yolandra asked.
Velkandra frowned. “Then what? We’d have our revenge—”
Yolandra’s tail cracked against the ground. “Then what? You all must have heard of what Thorgoth is capable of. What he’s done to others.”
Makentra rolled his eyes. “Sara’s story is just a story. She might have been just trying to turn you.”
“She was honest and she is not the only tale I’ve heard. You must have heard rumors of what Thorgoth did to his own son, Teutobal,” said Fennokra.
“Propaganda,” Velkandra hissed through her gritted teeth, while smoke wafted through the gaps. “In any case, we have no other option. We fight or we die.”
Fennokra, her claws grinding against the floor, had had enough.
“Velkandra, Makentra, have you ever considered that Thorgoth is perhaps using us for his own goals? We have not even considered what he might do to us after we’ve destroyed the humans and their allies. How do we know the Stormcaller and her allies might treat us better? Besides in the first place, she never intended to kill our mother—”
Fennokra blinked. She was flying backwards, something hard was bearing her into the wall. Dizzy as if struck by one of the Stormcaller’s spells, she realized that the force was the foreclaws of her elder sister. Mad rage lit those golden eyes that were the exact same shade as hers. Horrified, Fennokra tried to throw Velkandra off, but her sister was larger and heavier than her.
“Say that again. I dare you to say that again—ARGH!”
Velkandra rolled off, forced off of Fennokra by the Yolandra shoving into her side. As the elder dragon recovered, the smallest of Telkandra’s brood hissed, “It’s the truth! You are a fool to deny it!”
An ugly sneer on her lips, wings quivering with fury, Velkandra snorted. “The truth? Oh right so we are speaking the truth then. Well here’s the truth. Our kind is doomed!”
Makentra blinked. “Sister?”
“Of course Thorgoth is going to get rid of us or try to after this campaign. He has to, but right now he needs us and that’s what we need to rely on until we gain more strength. Of course, whether he wins or the Stormcaller’s allies win, how can we expect to survive in a world dominated by these lesser species hm? How could they ever not see us as a threat?”
Velkandra stalked toward the wide-eyed Fennokra and Yoandra. Her head turned side to side as she fixed her sisters with wild wide eyes.
“Well? Tell me Fennokra. Speak the truth Yolandra. Or are you both too afraid to admit that our kind are doomed and the only thing is to live as long as we can and hopefully avenge those that hurt us as we do so.”
“You’d have us fly to our deaths?” Makentra asked.
The stammering voice brought Velkandra around. Extending a wing, she touched its tip to her brother’s. “I would at least have us fly together.”
Fennokra shook her head. “We’d knowingly fly with a murderer of children and someone who would want to kill us after we’ve stopped being helpful to him.”
“And we have no other options,” said Makentra. Letting out a breath, he rose to his claws and walked away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sisters.”
Velkandra, without another word, turned for the exit. “You know it’s true, Fennokra, Yolandra.”
Fennokra closed her eyes. Yolandra, though, narrowed hers. “Doesn’t change that Lakadra’s blood is on our claws.”
Velkandra flinched and left. She strode away so quickly she nearly stepped on Helias and Sara as they came to the cave. She gave the pair no acknowledgement other than a growl.
“See you tomorrow, General,” said Makentra, his tone curt. “We will talk to King Thorgoth ourselves for the plan’s details.”
“Of course,” said Helias. He bowed as the pair left before turning to Yolandra and Fennokra. “I believe we missed something important?”
“Be honest, General Helias. Even if we succeed tomorrow, your king has no use for us after we help him kill the Stormcaller, am I correct?” Fennokra asked.
Sara and Helias didn’t say anything. Their slight move to stand closer so they could hold hands was enough.
“I thought so,” said Fennokra. She let out a sigh and glanced at Yolandra, who nodded. “We will be on the battlefield tomorrow. Where are we going?”
“You’re going with me. We’re attacking the forces sallying from Kairon-Aoun. The plan is that you dragons breathe flame over their army to soften them before we attack.
“Understood. Any questions Fennokra?” Yolandra asked.
Fennokra shook her head. What could be asked anyway?”
Yolandra flashed the pair a joyless smile. “For what it is worth, you two have been good caretakers to us. Even if it was to preserve your own lives.”
Helias didn’t bow. Instead he extended a hand. Yolandra stared at him, but Fennokra, recognizing the gesture, extended a single talon.
“May you always be able to see the sun.” At the dragon’s blink, Helias smiled. “It’s an Alavari saying. It may come from when we used to be enslaved by the Goblin Empire. It means good luck.”
Yolandra nodded and Fennokra found herself smiling.
“Our mother taught us a saying as well. May you never fly alone. I wish that for you both,” said Fennokra.
“Thank you,” said Sara in a quiet voice. She curtsied and the two dragons dipped their heads. They watched Helias and Sara leave with placid smiles.
Then, when nobody was looking, they turned from the entrance to hide their bulks as best they could. The gloomy light of the alcove their only curtain of privacy.
***
Frances slowed slightly as they approached Lakadara’s enclosure. However, Ginger did not slow down.
“Hold on, Ginger, what’s the plan?” Frances asked.
Adjusting her new crown mid-stride, Ginger said, “I’ll show you. I’m certain it’ll work, though.”
Frances’ eyebrows rose. “Is that crown getting to your head already?”
The new Queen of Erisdale flashed a slightly nervous grin over her shoulder. “Yes actually, but I think that’s a good thing in some way. Don’t you?”
Frances found herself nodding. It was strange to see her friend even more confident than usual and so comfortable in the regal crown that she wore atop of a standard Lightning Battalion light blue uniform. Yet she rather enjoyed the new gait that Ginger had.
“I do.” Frances smirked. “Your Majesty.”
Ginger rolled her eyes. “Fuck you.”
Giggling, Frances stopped herself as they drew even closer to Lakadara. The dragon was drawing herself up, placing her massive foreclaws over each other.
“Lakadara. I am Ginger, the new Queen of Erisdale. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The dragon coughed, blowing out a puff of smoke. “Greetings Ginger, Queen of Erisdale. I’m sorry for your predecessor’s demise.” Lakadara’s golden eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”
Ginger dipped her head. “Thank you and as to why I’m here. I have a proposition. If you accept it, I will grant you and your kin, the domain of the Erisdalian mountains marked by the Kwent River Valley, Freeburg and Athelda-Aoun as your home in perpetuity, so long as you do not attack humans unless in self-defense.”
“I am unfamiliar with human geography. From the Stormcaller’s expression, I assume that is a lot.”
Frances swallowed and closed her mouth, but she didn’t question her friend. Ginger, still smiling slyly, nudged her. “It is. Frances, can you lend me a hand here?”
Nodding, Frances closed her eyes and imagined a rough map of Erisdale and its territories. With a wave of Ivy’s Sting she created an image of Erisdale, highlighting in red the expanse of the mountains that bordered Alavaria and Erisdale. The area that Ginger had described sketched a rough red triangle between the three points. It was a fairly sizeable area with a low and Alavari human population.
“My husband is in negotiations with Queen Titania and I’ll have to talk to Frances and Prince Timur, but we are quite certain that Athelda-Aoun will also be included in this area,” Ginger said.
Lakadara’s golden eyes were flickering as she examined the land. Suddenly, she turned, long neck arching toward the Erisdalian Queen. “And what must I do? Fight on your kingdom’s behalf?”
Ginger shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“Nope. If you would like to do so we can renegotiate the agreement, but my husband and I fully intend to grant you this land.”
The dragon’s tail lifted up as her eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself and the favor you seek. This is far too generous.”
“Let me explain myself first. If what I’m told by my experts is correct, you can lay eggs by yourself without a mate, but it takes time right? A few decades?”
“Yes. Still, that doesn’t explain—”
“Here me out. This war is going to end. We may lose, but if we win, banishing you to the north is making you Queen Titania’s problem and she’ll have more than enough problems to deal with. You might just end up coming south again and we know how that ended. I’d prefer to avoid that so that means we need to make an agreement. You need a new home and I need peace for Erisdale. If the kingdom has to give up some poor agricultural land then I’m all for it.”
The dragon nodded. “I see, but why so much land? Why not just give me a cave? Or request my service as Thorgoth did?”
“And how will you eat? Hunt? Where will your grown children go? I’m making an agreement that will last for decades, not just a few years. As for service? I was tempted, but you wouldn’t agree to that anyway and why should you? We haven’t given you any reason to agree.” Ginger gave Frances a wave to dispel the map. “Maybe in the future we can work something out, especially if the dragon population increases. Your service in return for more food, but again, I want to start us off on the right path, not the left path.”
“Left path?” Lakadara asked.
“Erisdalian expression. It means the wrong path,” Frances said helpfully.
Lakadara nodded slowly. “You still ask for a boon, though.”
Ginger nodded. “Yes. I want you to speak to your siblings. Before the upcoming battle starts, tell them of my deal with you. So long as they choose to accept that deal and defect, then I will have it so our forces will not hurt them. After that, you may leave. I will not request you to fight with us.”
“You want me to show myself to Thorgoth? To the siblings that tried to kill me?” Lakadara asked, mouth agape.
Ginger stepped closer to the dragon, who lifted her head away from the queen. “I want you to save your siblings. I want you to save yourself from becoming the last purple dragon in existence. I would rather you not be alone, stewing in hatred for my kingdom and our allies who brought down your family, even if we had just cause. I want peace. What do you want?”
“How do I know I can trust you?” The dragon suddenly grimaced. “Ah, right, you want a lasting peace. You have every reason to want peace.”
Ginger, arms crossed tapped her foot. Frances could see how stiff her friend was, but the action was also comforting. That her magic-less friend had such control over the situation, despite being faced with the dragon was rather…badass.
Letting out a puff of smoke that slowly drifted into the cavern, the dragon pondered the queen’s proposal. Frances held her breath and yet the dragon remained silent, only her tail moving from side to side.
Ginger waited, still content to wait for the dragon’s answer. Frances couldn’t. The tension coiled in her chest, waiting to explode.
“Lakadara, what do you want for your future?” Frances asked.
The dragon glanced at Frances, golden eyes wide. She turned back to Ginger, who continued to stand tall, awaiting Lakadara’s answer patiently.
“I accept your offer, and your promise for the future,” said Lakadara, dipping her head.
“We are glad that you wish the same as we do,” said Ginger. She extended her hand and Lakadara, took her claw and put the tip of it on the queen’s palm.
*Author’s Note: Queenly Ginger was really neat to write 😀 *

i'm working on a novel and would like to know if anyone could tell me any improvements i could make to the first chapter and prologue
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.

Hello everyone, it's me again. I have promised that I'll be remaking RWBY semblances and I'll starting with Ruby Rose
Ruby Rose Semblance: Wild Roses Her semblance gave her the ability to move swiftly as she turned herself into compressed rose petals dashing foward. She can perform dash attacks around the target. Her semblance is more than just speed, she can separate herself as a for of both offensive and defensive and she can make herself intagible incoming attacks as she can used this as a way to make parts of her body intangible while the others still tangible.
Her semblance has a wild side as when she awakens her true potential that is dormant inside of Ruby, causing her semblance to evolve and a powerful force unleashed. Above her, emerging a powerful beast resembling wolf howling ferociously formed by crimson rose petals with the glowing silver eyes. Ruby was in a berserk state and she became extremely strong in her awakened state and the Crimson and Silver Eyed Wolf that is towering above her was a companion was able to unleashing wild and devastating combos for the duo. She can also separate with the wolf in order to deal with the other side while the is dealing on her side. She can unleash tornado of crimon rose petals tinted with silver, sucking all the things around her and all of the rose petals tear anything inside that tornado except herself. Her capabilities during that form, she is capable beating a powerful giant grimm that can even wipe out a city, and straight up massacre a horde of goliaths on her own.
Ruby in her post-awakening, she can now unleash crimson rose petals claws formed whenever she attacks when wanted to. She can also summon the wolf only to maul down the target. She can also unleash a storm of roses similarly to how she perform her dash attacks mixed with the ability separate parts her as she transformed into rose petals and intangibility for incoming attacks.
Ruby can also create domain after learned a technique from her biological father, she can transform herself resembling a grim reaper, with the crimson cloak and silver eyes. Unleashing a powerful attack as she swung her semblance manifested scythe cutting down even the likes of a Nuckalavee Grimm, Grimm Commander, and even scarring one of the Witch's generals who is here to track her down.
Nature of her semblance: Her semblance is basically her heritage of both her mother and her biological father but of course, her semblance represents her nature as a character and role through out her life, the rose petals is a symbol for her heritage of her mother's side. The wolf during her awakening and post awakening represents her opportunistic and cunning side as both a huntress and outside her work and at the same time the ferocious side of her semblance maybe a representation of her inherited nature of her biological father, who had experience a harsh life with his sister before meeting with her mother Summer and her adoptive father Taiyang.
Inspiration behind her semblance: Ruby's wolf, is an inspiration of the Big Bad Wolf where her allusion as the Little Red Riding Hood, but the large towering stature of the beast is inspired from Fenrir of Norse Mythos. I got this idea in the past, and what I can say is that I had the idea of Ruby transforming herself into a gigantic wolf is what I can remember right now while the rest has been forgotten. The intangbility is based on from Logia fruits ability to phase through attacks, and as for Ruby performing dash attacks, I don't freaking remember how I got the idea from.

Hey there!
I’m a 24-year-old woman and I've never been in a “real” relationship. I’m not unattractive. I’m 6’1”, curvy, brunette, and I care about my appearance. People often say I look like a main character with my styling and dressing.
Background information: (Bear with me, you’ll see where I‘m going with this ...)
When I was 13, I met someone online (he was also 13), and we started dating. At school, I was getting bullied, and my “online” ex was my escape, my safe space. I never told him about the bullying because I wanted to enjoy our time together and keep it positive. I loved him, but after 6 years together and meeting once, we grew apart.
In 2021, I had bariatric surgery and lost 130 lbs (60 kg). I gained a lot of confidence and self-esteem.
Three years ago, I started dating someone I met in GTA V RolePlay (he was 25 at that time and I was 21). We spent nights talking , playing games, would motivate each other to go out for walks or hit the gym, shared playlists to listen to the same songs at the same time (while me liking every single song that he chose even though it’s not my taste but because knew he liked it so I loved it even more uncontrollably), watched movies and series while on calls playing and pausing at the same moments
Would look up at the moon at the same time remembering we’re looking at the same moon and hundreds of miles basically can’t separate us, no distance is so far, no time is so long, believing our two hearts were meant for each other
But there were some not-so-pretty aspects of our relationship.
He’d throw tantrums, accuse me of cheating and lying, and try to control my life. He’d contact people around me and in the game to find out “lies,” bring up the past to make me feel guilty, and project his behavior onto me. I always tried to fix it and explain myself but the problems got even worse overtime. (Btw: Been to his city where he lives and wanted to say hi, turns out he‘s never lived there, or another instance: He‘d send old pictures claiming he was at Coachella and his friend uploaded the same pic on facebook on which they tagged the location, they were on another small festival in the UK and definitely not Coachella) I guess he‘d even lie about small things expecting me to be the same as him.
I've been in therapy for three years now. I started therapy to fix myself in order for our relationship to work. After six months of dating, endless calls, and never meeting in person, we broke up.
The idea of him, us, and our future was too beautiful to let go, and I lost it after.
Also, my dad has always been emotionally unavailable, and my mom overly protective. My siblings and I were her therapists from a very young age.
My therapist is a genius. Through many sessions, they helped me realize that love was what saved my life back then and that I’m always seeking love to fill a void (that‘s why I have him the chance to manipulate me). They emphasized the need for self-love instead of seeking validation from others.
I know it’s trauma, but how?
I lost my virginity after the last break up. I’ve tried dating again. I kinda realized most of them define me by my looks, by my curves and wanting just sex. I feel like most of them can‘t imagine a relationship with me beyond that. Like I‘m not good enough for a relationship. I’ve experienced men talking to me in different stages, until we end up having sex, and from that moment on they would only call me when they feel down bad.
Now, I’m ready for a real relationship. I’m ready to fall in love again, for the honeymoon phase, for that limerence. But it just doesn’t happen when I meet someone. I get the ick so fast. I don’t feel a spark or motivation to reply, and I can’t let things evolve.
I’ve asked myself... Do I miss my ex? I thought I did until he messaged me after his breakup, and I realized I don’t miss him at all (even ghosted him lol). I’m cool with both my exes.
I also asked... Is it because I haven’t met the one yet? Or do I need someone to chase me to develop interest? I thought the right person would come someday. But even when someone treats me right, giving me the attention I need and actually chasing me, it’s the same situation after a few weeks.
I recently got diagnosed with ADHD and BPD. I don’t think they’re stopping me because it worked with both my exes.
So what is it? I want to love again. Why is my unconscious blocking it?
I’m not pressuring to find that one person. But I’m desperate, feeling like I can never love like I did before, losing hope that I’ll ever be capable of being in a relationship.
What do you think about this situation? Have you ever been in a similar situation? I‘m still continuing therapy btw. Things take time. This topic is pretty much complex and I guess reading from people who can relate is a form of therapy as well. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for bearing with me, guys. Thanks for reading and taking the time. I truly appreciate it.

So, I'm struggling to make a list this edition so far, so I wanted some opinions on this. This is a total work in progress, so please bear with me!
CSM (2000 points)
Chaos Space Marines Strike Force (2000 points) Renegade Raiders
CHARACTERS
Chaos Lord (90 points) • 1x Daemon hammer 1x Plasma pistol
Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour (95 points) • Warlord • 1x Combi-bolter 1x Exalted weapon
Master of Possession (95 points) • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Rite of Possession 1x Staff of possession • Enhancement: Mark of the Hound
BATTLELINE
Legionaries (160 points) • 1x Aspiring Champion • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 9x Legionary • 8x Astartes chainsword 9x Bolt pistol 9x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon
Legionaries (160 points) • 1x Aspiring Champion • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 9x Legionary • 8x Astartes chainsword 9x Bolt pistol 9x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon
OTHER DATASHEETS
Chaos Bikers (70 points) • 1x Biker Champion • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Close combat weapon 1x Combi-bolter • 2x Chaos Biker • 2x Bolt pistol 2x Close combat weapon 2x Combi-bolter
Chaos Land Raider (240 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 2x Soulshatter lascannon 1x Twin heavy bolter
Chaos Land Raider (240 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 2x Soulshatter lascannon 1x Twin heavy bolter
Chaos Terminator Squad (370 points) • 1x Terminator Champion • 1x Chainfist 1x Combi-bolter • 9x Chaos Terminator • 1x Chainfist 5x Combi-bolter 2x Heavy flamer 2x Paired accursed weapons 6x Power fist
Havocs (120 points) • 1x Havoc Champion • 1x Astartes chainsword 1x Flamer • 4x Havoc • 4x Close combat weapon 2x Havoc autocannon 2x Havoc lascannon
Possessed (250 points) • 1x Possessed Champion • 1x Hideous mutations • 9x Possessed • 1x Chaos Icon 9x Hideous mutations
Warp Talons (110 points) • 1x Warp Talon Champion • 1x Warp claws • 4x Warp Talon • 4x Warp claws
Exported with App Version: v1.15.0 (43), Data Version: v397
Honestly, I thought about Veterans of The Long War or Fell-Hammer instead. So far, I'm having trouble since my main opponent runs 2 ctan and 3 doomstalkers in Canoptek Court. Terrain is the main issue since we don't have much, but what do you all think?
Keep Raiders, or should I switch it since most of the time I feel like I'm dying to shooting more than anything.

I am reading A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman and she said that coats of arms began as individual and essentially a right to bear arms, but developed over time as a status symbol to the point a knight might show up to a tournament with over 30 to distinguish themselves from “lesser” nobility. I believe this section was addressing France unless I am mistaken. I completely understand a coat of arms functioning as a right to bear arms. I’m less clear of how exactly their function developed into a status symbol. How did one earn additional coat of arms? Would the hereditary coat of arms be the primary and then others added on for certain honors? Was the accumulation a way of differentiating among the lower nobility I.e. landed knight vs higher nobility I.e. a baron? Today, we see a single listed hereditary coat of arms for noble families, so what happened to all the spares?

As the sun kisses the horizon and the River Sal whispers its timeless melodies, The St. Regis Goa Resort proudly unveils Riverside, an epicurean sanctuary nestled on the tranquil banks of the river. Riverside pays homage to the rich tapestry of Pan-Asian flavors while celebrating the essence of unhurried riverside dining.
Perched elegantly on the banks of the meandering River Sal, Riverside offers an enchanting rendezvous with Pan-Asian delicacies in an ambiance that exudes serenity. Guests can luxuriate in picturesque river views from the breezy patio or immerse themselves in the culinary spectacle indoors, where skilled chefs craft tantalizing Asian delights.
About the Menu
Riverside invites diners on a sensory journey through the bustling street markets of Southeast Asia, offering an array of delectable dishes. Among the menu highlights are the Spicy garlic edamame, where each pod bursts with flavour, the indulgent Butter garlic Sichuan tiger prawns that will transport you to the streets of Chengdu, the irresistible Pan-seared char siu pork bao that marries traditional flavours with a contemporary twist, Riverside signature chicken clay pot, a sumptuous masterpiece that reflects his passion and expertise, and to round off your meal, indulge in the refreshing Homemade wasabi yuzu sorbet, a palate-cleansing delight that leaves a lasting impression. Every dish tells a story of gourmet mastery and cultural richness, inviting guests on a sensory journey through the bustling street markets of Southeast Asia.
"Through Riverside, we aim to transport our guests on a gastronomic journey across Asia, showcasing the diverse flavours and traditions of the region. Each dish is crafted with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring an unparalleled dining experience." - Pawan Singh, Director of Food & Beverage.
Design element
The Riverside embodies the unhurried rhythm of the gently flowing River Sal, with an artistic ode to the rising sun symbolizing the dawn of a new dining experience. The restaurant boasts chic white interiors with a lofty louvered ceiling and an outdoor terrace, perfect for alfresco dining under the stars. The ambiance is relaxed yet refined, allowing patrons to savour the passing fishing trawlers while being attended to by warm and hospitable hosts.
"Riverside epitomizes the essence of leisurely dining amidst the serene beauty of the River Sal. It is a testament to our commitment to offering our guests unforgettable epicurean experiences that reflect the vibrant spirit of Goa." – Satish Kumar, General Manager.
Embark on a delicious voyage and discover the joys of unhurried dining amidst the tranquil beauty of Riverside at The St. Regis Goa Resort.
Timings: Operational Hours: Lunch: 12:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Dinner: 7:00 PM to 10:30 PM
(Closed on Mondays)
Contact: Restaurant Manager: Abhishek Deshpande
Email: [Abhishek.S.Deshpande@stregis.com](mailto:Abhishek.S.Deshpande@stregis.com), Phone: +91 829 693 4603
Address: Riverside, The St. Regis, Goa Resort, Mobor Beach, Cavelossim, Goa 403731
For reservations or inquiries: Call +91 91756 81087/ +91 832 662 1234 or mail [sr.goixr.reservations.goa@stregis.com](mailto:sr.goixr.reservations.goa@stregis.com)
To stay updated, guests may follow us on Instagram @stregisgoaresort
Please visit The St. Regis Goa Resort, for more information
Media Contact
Sandhya Sharma
Associate Director of Marketing
Contact: +91 901 912 4202 / [Sandhya.Sharma@stregis.com](mailto:Sandhya.Sharma@stregis.com)
About St. Regis Hotels & Resorts
Combining timeless glamour with a vanguard spirit, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts is committed to delivering exquisite experiences at more than 50 luxury hotels and resorts in the best addresses around the world. Beginning with the debut of The St. Regis hotel in New York by John Jacob Astor IV at the dawn of the twentieth century, the brand has remained committed to an uncompromising level of bespoke and anticipatory service for all of its guests, delivered flawlessly by the signature St. Regis Butler Service. For more information and new openings, visit stregis.com or follow Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. St. Regis is proud to participate in Marriott Bonvoy®, the global travel program from Marriott International. The program offers members an extraordinary portfolio of global brands, exclusive experiences on Marriott Bonvoy Moments and unparalleled benefits including complimentary nights and Elite status recognition. To enroll for free or for more information about the program, visit marriottbonvoy.com.
Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and encompasses a portfolio of nearly 8,900 properties across more than 30 leading brands in 141 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the world. The company offers Marriott Bonvoy®, its highly awarded travel program. For more information, please visit our website at www.marriott.com, and for the latest company news, visit www.marriottnewscenter.com. In addition, connect with us on Facebook and @MarriottIntl on X and Instagram.

About Marriott Bonvoy®
Marriott Bonvoy’s extraordinary portfolio offers renowned hospitality in the most memorable destinations in the world, with 31 brands that are tailored to every type of journey. From The Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis to W Hotels and more, Marriott Bonvoy has more luxury offerings than any other travel program. Members can earn points for stays at hotels and resorts, including all-inclusive resorts and premium home rentals, and through everyday purchases with co-branded credit cards. Members can redeem their points for experiences including future stays, Marriott Bonvoy Moments, or through partners for luxurious products from Marriott Bonvoy Boutiques. To enroll for free or for more information about Marriott Bonvoy, visit marriottbonvoy.com.

There's enough wolves, lions, bears, etc. out there. What kind of animals or symbols that aren't often used do you think would be cool for heraldry of the noble houses in a fantasy world? The one that stands out to me are elephants. Having an elephant as your house mascot goes so hard.

The black dragons have a similar chapter symbol of a dragons head to the thousand sons symbol of a circular dragon biting its tail reminiscent to the Norse world serpent. This explains the mutation of horns and claws because of the thousand sons flesh changing and the huge size as both the salamanders and the thousands sons are renowned for their large stature.

Chapter 4
Aria's heart hammered against her ribs as the cultists closed in, their blades thirsting for her blood. The avatar's crimson eyes bored into her, stripping away her defenses, her will, until she felt like a fly caught in the web of some abyssal spider.
But even as terror threatened to overwhelm her, Aria's gaze darted desperately around the chamber, seeking some means of escape. There! A narrow alcove, half-hidden behind a drape of moth-eaten velvet. If she could just reach it...
Summoning every shred of courage, Aria lunged forward, ducking beneath the grasping hands of the nearest cultist. She wove between the shadows, her cloak billowing behind her like the wings of a desperate bird. The cultists howled in outrage, their footsteps pounding after her, but Aria did not dare look back.
She flung herself into the alcove, pressing her back against the dank stone. The cultists raced past, their cries echoing in the vaulted chamber. Aria held her breath, not daring to move, hardly daring to think.
But then a hand clamped down on her shoulder, and Aria nearly screamed. She whirled, her heart in her throat... and found herself staring into a familiar face. Liam.
"What in the hells are you doing here?" Liam hissed, his eyes wild beneath his hood.
"I could ask you the same thing!" Aria shot back, her fear boiling over into anger. "Liam, this is madness. These people, this... this thing they worship... can't you see it's evil?"
Liam's gaze flickered, and for a moment, Aria glimpsed a profound terror in their depths. "You don't understand," he whispered. "The Crimson Abyss... Khor'zul... he sees into the very heart of you. He knows your darkest desires, your deepest shames. And he promises to fulfill them, to elevate you. All you have to do is give yourself to him, utterly."
Aria shook her head, horror and revulsion knotting in her gut. "Listen to yourself! This isn't you, Liam. You're not some... some thrall to a bloodthirsty god. You're my friend. And I'm going to get you out of here, away from these... these monsters."
But even as the words left her lips, Aria knew it was futile. The look in Liam's eyes, that fevered, fanatic light... it was the gaze of a man possessed, body and soul. The friend she had known, the bright, vital boy she had grown up with... he was gone, devoured by the insatiable hunger of the Crimson Abyss.
Liam's grip on her shoulder tightened, his nails biting into her flesh even through her cloak. "I can't let you leave," he said, his voice quavering. "You've seen too much. Khor'zul demands a price for your trespass. You must be... consecrated. Anointed in blood and shadow."
Aria wrenched away from him, bile rising in her throat. "No. I won't let you drag me into this nightmare. I'm leaving, Liam. And if there's any shred of sanity left in you, you'll come with me."
She turned to go, but Liam's hand shot out, seizing her wrist in an iron grip. "I can't let you—"
But his words choked off as Aria drove her elbow hard into his solar plexus. Liam doubled over, wheezing, his grip slackening. Aria did not hesitate. She bolted, plunging back into the main chamber—
And found herself face to face with the avatar of Khor'zul. The towering figure loomed over her, robes reeking of blood and shadows. Those crimson eyes flayed Aria to her very soul, and she felt her will, her very identity, beginning to unravel like a skein of mouldering yarn.
"Foolish girl," the avatar hissed. "Did you think you could escape the gaze of the Blood God? All who look upon his Crimson Majesty are forever marked, forever... his."
The avatar's skeletal hand shot out, faster than thought, faster than fear. Aria tried to twist away, but she was a minnow caught in the jaws of a shark. Those fingers, cold as the grave and strong as iron, closed around her throat, lifted her off her feet as easily as a child's doll...
Aria kicked and thrashed, black spots exploding across her vision. She clawed at the avatar's wrist, but it was like gouging at marble. Her lungs screamed for air, and she could feel her pulse slowing, her struggles weakening.
Through the closing tunnel of her darkening sight, Aria saw the obsidian blade rising in the avatar's other hand. The edge glinted like the blood-drenched fang of some eldritch beast. It hung suspended for a moment that stretched into eternity... and then, almost gently, the avatar lowered the tip to the skin of Aria's chest, directly over her thundering heart.
A shock of cold, so intense it burned, radiated from the point where the cursed blade touched her flesh. Aria convulsed, her mouth opening in a silent scream. The shadows seemed to coalesce around them, thickening into a cloying, syrupy miasma that poured into Aria's nostrils, her lungs, her pores.
"Now," the avatar intoned, their voice resonating from the very walls, the very foundations of the earth, "you shall be consecrated in the Blood of the Abyss. You shall bear the Mark of Khor'zul, and through the Curse of Crimson, you shall be irrevocably bound to Him."
The blade pressed forward, parting skin, drawing forth a beading of blood black in the guttering torchlight. And as the first drop welled and fell to anoint the stones, Aria felt something within her shatter, a wall crumbling, a floodgate opening to allow the eldritch tides of Khor'zul to come pouring in...
She was drowning, she was burning, she was being flensed and flayed and filled, the blood of the Crimson Abyss replacing her own, the tenebrous thoughts of the Blood God entwining with the fibers of her being. The Curse etched itself into her marrow, her mind, her soul, branding her irrevocably as Khor'zul's own.
When the avatar released her, Aria crumpled to the floor, shuddering, retching bile and shadows. She lifted her shaking hands and saw, to her uncomprehending horror, that her veins pulsed with a bloody, eldritch light. The Mark of the Maw burned on the skin over her heart, pulsing in time with the slowing thunder of her pulse.
"Rise, Aria Vorn, Chosen of the Crimson Abyss," the avatar commanded. "Rise and take your place among the faithful. For you belong now, body and soul, to Khor'zul... and His Hunger shall be sated."
And though every fiber of her being screamed in silent horror and negation, Aria felt her blood-soaked body rise, an awful sense of purpose, of dark exultation, flooding her hollowed mind and heart...
For she was Chosen, anointed and awash in the blood-tides of her God's glorious purpose.
And that purpose would drown the world.

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Chapter 169 – A moment of truth. A moment to lie.
Shida exhaled slowly as she flew in a parallel line along the massive, slowly rotating hull of the Sun. The near true-black surface of the enormous ship loomed ominously next to her, tricking her brain into the impression that it was somehow trying to pull her tiny little hunter into it like a black hole or some shadowy portal. Though obviously, that was just a literal trick of the light.
Activating her frontal thrusters yet again to slow the momentum of her flight, she just barely noticed the movement on the hull next to her as something adjusted to the now slowing movement of her cargo. A moment later, a harpoon much like the one she herself had fired into the lump of molten material that had solidified around the still dutifully pinging black box shot against the precious debris, latching onto it and connecting it to the larger ship.
With the press of a button, Shida's own harpoon then automatically shot off its tip before her hunter reeled in the connecting cable as well as the remaining rod. Almost as soon as she was detached, the Sun's harpoon already began to reel the black box lump in as well.
It admittedly took a bit of time and finesse, but this process was still much easier than trying to somehow land with the barely controllable lump of hull-slag still attached to her ship.
Rubbing a hand over one of her hears, Shida released a mild huff before then firing her engines up again as she adjusted her course to fly around the ship and find her way into the dock.
Once the slightly precarious maneuver of flying through the relatively narrow, rotating tunnel that was her entrance was overcome, the feline turned her hunter onto 'life support' mode as she sat back, since she would have to wait for the atmosphere in the dock to be reinstated before she could even think about getting out.
Suddenly, a comm came in for her, making her ears twitch as she listened up.
“Please move your ship to the corner of the dock and stand by, Lieutenant-Commander,” the voice from her radio informed her briefly. “The dock will be needed for the landing of an urgent shuttle. Atmosphere cannot be reinstated before it has landed.”
Blinking slightly, Shida stared at her console for a moment. Shuttle? Why was there shuttle flying around in a situation like this?
Luckily, it didn't even take a full second before her brain fired up again and she quickly reached for the button to activate her own microphone.
“Copy that,” she said before quickly starting her ship up again, just enough so that she could slowly roll it into the dock's corner. Once there, she activated her microphone again. “Standing by,” she announced before leaning back once again.
She released a long exhale as she stared at the wall that was now right in front of her. And as she sat there with nothing to do but to think while she was surrounded by an airless room, she slowly began to feel that something was wrong.
Not with the situation, no. Even if she still wondered why the hell a shuttle was dicking around out there just after an active combat situation, that wasn't what was irking her. Though, admittedly, she also didn't really know what was. Was it something about herself? Not really. She felt fine.
Though, after a few more moments of being alone with her thoughts, it slowly began to hit her. Why did she feel so fine?
Not that she had expected to be totally broken up by a combat situation, even if it was sudden. She was trained for that much, she sure would hope that she wouldn't let it get to her too much. However, while not being too stressed out was one thing...why wasn't she angrier?
The last few times she had so much as heard about an attack, she had been absolutely livid. Blood-boilingly so. And that didn't even come close to how she had felt when she saw the victims of the attack on the detention center...
But now? She was calm. They had just been attacked out of nowhere. She had been dragged into a sudden battle. So many people, both foe and friend, had died today. And she was sad about that. She felt the remorse about the people who had been killed here. She even felt the aftereffects of pulling the trigger herself down in her stomach. But apart from that? Nothing.
What was different now? Where was that fire? And more importantly...was it good or bad that it was so suddenly gone?
Prooobably something to bring up with Dr. Nasution once she got an opportunity to attend her next session, which would probably be quite soon given current circumstances. It had been a while with everything that was going on, but she figured there was at least a good chance that their 'pleasure cruise' would not be continuing after everything that had occurred.
It seemed that the coreworlds were even more hostile ground than they had imagined.
About a quarter of an hour later, the announced shuttle had finally settled down and all hatches were sealed shut while air was slowly funneled back into the room. It took maybe a minute or two more before a specialized sensor in her ship informed her with a glowing light on her console that the surroundings were once again breathable, meaning she could safely open her hatch.
Pressing the corresponding button, the hatch of her ship sprang open, releasing a slight hiss as the seal was broken and air-exchange with the outside took place for the first time since she had closed it.
Once it was open, Shida could already hear some commotion as a large group of people came immediately flooding into the room as soon as it was safe to do so, and once she had climbed out onto the wing of her ship, she could see that they had come bearing large bags as they hurried towards the shuttle, which was currently in the process of lowering its ramp.
Resisting her urge to stand and stare to see what was going on, Shida climbed off the wing in order to go and properly announce her return.
However, almost as soon as her feet made contact with the dock's floor, she suddenly felt how she was almost taken off her feet by another body crashing into hers, startling her so much that her claws were already coming out as her arms raised to meet her sudden tackler – though a combination of a familiar scent and breathing luckily soothed her nerves long before her aware mind could catch up to who had run into her there.
Instead of sinking their claws in, her hand laid flatly down on James' broad back as her arms wrapped around him to return his sudden hug. As she held him, she could feel that he was quite unsteady on his feet, and she subtly supported him to not loose his footing as they embraced for a long moment.
A bit of a purr started up in her chest as she leaned her head against his. She didn't say anything, worrying that it may come off as mockery if she did, but she could feel that he had been worried about her. And although she obviously didn't like making him worry – especially since she knew how much that stung after having to worry about him way too often recently - she still couldn't deny that she always appreciated getting to feel just how much he cared about her so directly, and a warm feeling spread throughout her as her purr intensified.
Though admittedly, she could've done without the firm kiss he pressed onto her cheek after a moment. Still, she knew that it was an important expression of his care to him, and so she simply closed her eye on the kissed side and endured it for a moment before he finally pulled away.
Looking at his reddened face, she could read right off it that he wanted to say something like 'Don't ever do that again' or anything in that vein, but obviously he also knew that she was just doing her duty, and so he held his tongue.
His mouth opened a bit, presumably to say something else, however the chaotic and from this distance slightly incoherent shouting of the group that had rushed in earlier now meeting with the crew of the shuttle interrupted him, catching both of their attentions as they looked over.
As they did, Shida's eyes widened slightly once she realized what the chaotic scene she was looking at there really was. A stretcher carrying Admiral Krieger was wheeled down the shuttle's ramp, surrounded by medics and doctors working on her on all sides.
Her skin was a ghostly white, far more so than even her usual pale complexion, and fully on display as the remains of her uniform were under her in tattered, cut-open rags, leaving her almost entirely exposed except for her most private area and her right leg, which had been covered with a white sheet. Every other inch of her skin seemingly had to remain free as the medical personnel worked on it from all angles; sticking her with needles or attaching cables, tubes and electrodes to her as she was rolled along. Two blood bags were already dripping fresh life into her at that point, and by the look of things, a third one was soon to follow.
Still, the almost body-horror-esque sight of the doctors trying to preserve her life was by far not the most gruesome one the scene offered. That honor belonged to her uncovered left leg. Or at least...what was left of it...
Shida's ear twitched as her concentration on the scene was briefly interrupted by a soft voice speaking right next to her.
“Mama...” James mumbled aghast, causing Shida's eyes to widen slightly.
It was one of the few words from his native language that the feline actually knew. “Mom”. And hearing it out of James' mouth was an almost bizarre experience. James never called his mother mom or any similar term of endearment. In fact he made it a point not to.
Granted, in this case, it was unlikely that he had consciously made the choice to do it in this case, however the sheer fact that it would slip out of him like this spoke volumes of just how deeply the shock of seeing her in that state reached.
Not that Shida didn't understand, of course. Familial bonds or not, the Admiral was...well, of course they both knew that she wasn't untouchable by any measure. Far from it. She was just a person like anybody else in the end.
However, knowing that she could get hurt and actually seeing it were two very different things, apparently.
In the corner of her vision, she noticed how James suddenly began to move in the direction of the ongoing rescue, and she quickly jolted forwards to stop him, wrapping her arm around him firmly as she held him back from getting in the way of anything.
Luckily, apart from a brief push that only lasted for as long as it took him to realize that he had been stopped, he didn't resist her as she restrained him from approaching any further, and so the both of them just watched as the stretcher was rolled along and ultimately out of the dock.
“That was meant for me...” James mumbled, clearly thinking aloud as he kept staring at the door even after it had closed again.
Immediately, Shida pulled him in firmer, side-hugging him as she pressed her body up to his.
“She wouldn't have traded places with you if you tried to force her,” she assured him while pushing her face against his shoulder. She knew that the relationship of those two was rocky to say the least, however she still knew that much to be true. Whether she was the motherly type or not, if anything, the Admiral was just as stubborn as James was, especially when it came to duty.
James stood frozen for a bit, seemingly not exactly knowing what to do with his feelings in his current state. Shida could only imagine how much ethanol was still flowing through his veins at that time, mixed with a cocktail of all kinds of different hormones and endorphins. With all of this added back-and-forth stress, she couldn't blame him for struggling to hold onto a single thought at that time.
“Oh, James!” a new voice suddenly joined the fray, whipping both of their attentions around yet again as even more bodies emerged from the shuttle, having presumably stood back to make room while the rescue efforts were ongoing.
But now that the coast was clear, so to speak, two familiar large forms came lumbering down the shuttle's ramp.
Moar and Congloarch looked...rattled...to say the least. With Moar, it was understandable. She probably didn't have all too much experience of standing right next to a dying person as every thinkable thing was done to them to keep them alive, so Shida wouldn't have thought twice about it had it just been her.
However, the tonamstrosite was a...different story. His four eyes didn't scan the room or focus on different things at all. All four of them were pointed straight ahead with only very loose seeming focus on the people he was approaching as he walked.
His mouth hung slightly open, and he seemed to push his tongue out just a little bit while the fleshy muscle twitched up in place before settling down again, over and over, making it appear almost as if he was subtly retching.
James' stormy mind seemed to immediately latch onto the the possibility to focus on anything and went right along with a wave of his usual compassion as his eyes fell onto the to giants. This time, Shida didn't hold him back as he hurried in their direction.
“What in chaos' name happened?” he asked once he was just a few steps away from them, though even in his now focused and concerned state you could clearly tell from his gait that he wasn't quite all there.
“Oh James...” Moar repeated, struggling to speak as she shuddered in place where she stood, both of her clawed hands firmly hooked into her long fur as if clinging on for dear life.
Releasing a deep groan, Congloarch shook himself so heavily that a grinding sound came from some of the plates along his body.
“There was an attack,” the large reptile then said the quite obvious before shaking again. “There was...an invasion-” he kept describing before pausing abruptly, turning his head away as his tongue pushed itself up again, causing him to clearly struggle to suppress whatever urge overcame him at that moment.
Shida's ears and tail sank deeply as she watched those two. She could only imagine what could've occurred to have even Congloarch so broken up. And she could see it on James' face that his heart sank just as much, even if less outwards signs clearly showed it.
Slowly, Shida began to walk up to Moar at an even pace. As she did so, she gently nudged James in the direction of the other giant while passing him, knowing that he had the better relationship to the tonamstrosite out of the two of them.
Taking the hint without issue, James walked up to the enormous reptile and placed his hand on the highest part of the man he could reach while Shida leaned up against Moar's plushy leg comfortingly.
“It's alright,” James then said softly, patting his hand against Congloarch's armored skin gently while also leaning his face against the side of the giant's body. “You don't have to talk about it right now. You can take some time.”
The reactions of the two giants were very different, but at the same time equally appreciative of the soothing contact.
Moar leaned down as one of her hands unclenched from her fur to reach for Shida, reciprocating the gentle touch through an innate social drive. Seemingly on instinct, her hand went right for Shida's hair, seemingly seeking the contact with fur since that is what another rafulite would provide, and so the old lady simply petted through Shida's hair in gentle strokes while the feline pressed up against her.
Meanwhile, Congloarch seemed to simply relax in place as James leaned against him, making no effort to initiate any form of contact himself as his eyes slowly closed.
It even went so far that it seemed like he needed to put in a conscious effort to not lay down right then and there, which would've probably been inappropriate in the middle of a dock. In fact, all of this was probably inappropriate for this place, but sometimes what had to be done had to be done.
Still, with James being only somewhat in-commission right now, Shida eventually felt it to be her duty to coax everyone out of the dock once she felt that things had calmed down enough to move so they could continue this at a calmer, more private location, where the two giants could truly focus on processing everything that had happened.
–
A gentle humming filled the air, stirring her awake as light uncomfortably shone through her twitching lids while she struggled back and forth between a conscious and unconscious state.
Though once she finally pushed herself far enough into awareness to gain control over the motion and slowly forced her eyes fully open, even if she still had to squint heavily against the light from above, she glanced around through her blurry vision, instinctively searching for the source of the increasingly familiar sound of the hummed song.
She recognized the melody. It was the 'Ode to strange suns', a very old and very famous song that first emerged back in the early days of Earth's interstellar travel, when traversing light-years to reach another star-system was still a daunting endeavor. It was often sung by those in the primitive ships, often called 'tubes', to give them hope during their bleak journey. A melancholic song about giving up your life just to see what's out there – and one day push your people so far beyond what they had once been.
So far, they hadn't quite reached the lofty goal that the song set for humanity, since it spoke of mapping every star and finding eternity too short and infinity too small for their ambitions. According to the song, the day would come when 'no more strange suns rise'. What an idea that was...
Still, even more so than the song itself, she recognized the soft voice that was humming it, and her heart lifted at the implications of hearing it. She felt soft sheets rustling underneath her head as she slowly turned her face towards the sound, and the corners of her lips slowly lifted into a smile as her eyes, which were gently tearing from the harsh light biting into them so suddenly, fell onto the scene before her.
Nia sat slightly leaned against the headrest of her bed with her eyes closed, the room's white light gently playing over her dark yet soft features as she turned her face in the Admiral's direction while softly swaying her head to the rhythm of her humming, not moving it more than a centimeter with each tilt so her gentle dance wouldn't interfere too much with the work of James' hands. He sat behind her with both hands behind her back, gently holding her hair as he weaved it into long braids with practiced motions. There was a clear 'weakness' to Nia's movements, and the way she sat strongly indicated that she likely lacked the strength to completely hold herself up on her own.
And yet despite that, her humming was cheerful and content as she had her hair braided by her brother. She seemed...at peace.
After simply observing the scene for a few long moments, feeling like she could get lost in the sight if she wasn't careful, Admiral Krieger then tried to push herself up a bit, however the attempt was short-lived as a searing pain shot through her right shoulder as soon as she put any pressure onto that side of her body, forcing her to flop back down almost immediately. And as soon as she did, the pain quickly dissipated into a mellow numbness that was all too familiar to her.
She was on some strong painkillers, she could tell. Therefore, if it still hurt like that when she attempted to move, moving was probably a bad idea. Not that she couldn't have borne the pain if it was necessary, however the sight of her children like that told her that it very clearly wasn't. Whatever other challenges and battles the future may have had in store for them, this was a moment of peace, and she should use it for her recovery while she still could.
Meanwhile, her movement and brief hiss of pain had naturally not gone unnoticed. Once her eyes were no longer closed from the brief jolt of pain, she saw that Nia's eyes had now also opened. Her humming had stopped as the sweet girl's face lit up upon noticing that the Admiral was truly awake and had not just shifted around in her sleep.
“James!” she exclaimed, trying to move so suddenly that she accidentally pulled on her own hair that was still firmly in her brother's grasp, before he could react and adjust to her movements. Uncaring about the brief discomfort that surely caused, Nia excitedly lifted her hand to point at the Admiral, however James already had a knowing look on his face.
“I saw,” he replied, clearly far less focused on the braiding process than his demeanor would indicate from the outside. He quickly finished up the in-process braid between his fingers and fixated it with a small, golden, tube-shaped clasp before letting go of Nia's hair, thus allowing her to freely move her head around again.
Nia then looked over at her while James slowly stood up and moved to the corner of the room.
“How are you feeling, Sophia?” Nia asked in a gentle tone that did nothing to hide her happiness, her eyes gleaming slightly in the light as tears began to well up within them.
The Admiral released a long exhale as she settled into the sheets, though her eyes never left Nia's face – apart from a very brief moment of them following James to see where he was going. Nia looked slightly messy with her hair half-braided and the light-blue gown she wore all crumpled up, however just like her earlier humming, that messiness had a certain peace to it that allowed the Admiral to relax.
“Just how I look, I suspect,” she replied, the smile on her face returning. “I'm glad to see you awake again.”
“Hey, that's my line!” Nia jokingly complained with a mild chuckle that audibly got very close to shifting into a soft sob at one point.
At this point, James had returned from the corner of the room, walking up to the side of Nia's bed opposite to the one he had been sitting at previously. And with him, he had brought a large wheelchair.
Briefly, he turned his head towards his mother, the look on his face rather unreadable. For a moment, his mouth twitched, and it seemed like he wanted to say something. However ultimately, he pulled his gaze away again before anything was said.
Without complaint, Nia allowed her brother to lift her out of the bed and into the wheelchair, before he slowly pushed her over to the side of the Admiral's bed.
Almost immediately once she was within reach, Nia's hand found hers, holding it gently while James was once again on the move, this time towards a bedside-drawer that stood in between both of their beds.
Opening it, he briefly rummaged through it before pulling out an arrangement of small items, with which he then sat down next to the Admiral as well.
Leaning down, he gently reached for her face in a gesture that could've been mistaken for tenderness, had his fingers not reached to pull her lids open a bit with gentle force right before he shone a bright light directly into her eyes. Despite the uncomfortable nature of the action, Admiral Krieger didn't resist it in any way, physically or otherwise.
After he had ensured her pupils worked properly, James then gently grabbed her by her chin and moved her face around so that she looked straight 'ahead', which in this case meant right up to the ceiling while he got up a bit to loom over her.
“Aaaaaah,” he then ordered while holding a clear, plastic tongue-suppressor close to her mouth.
Following the order without hesitation, the Admiral opened her mouth widely, though she forewent the actual saying of 'aaah' in the process. Soon enough, her tongue was uncomfortably pushed down by the plastic item while she could see some light leaking out of her mouth in the corner of her vision.
After a brief moment of inspection, the pressure was already relieved and she could close her mouth again as James moved away from her, checking some of the monitors of devices that were attached to his mother in various ways.
The Admiral couldn't help but gently chuckle at the professionalism he clearly very deliberately employed as he dealt with her waking up. It was a nice act, however, she was smart enough to know that, since he didn't call anyone in to do it, he likely had asked to conduct these precautionary examinations himself instead of calling a doctor in for it, likely promising to call in someone more professional than himself should he find anything actually worrying.
But, based on his reactions, it seemed like everything was in working order. At least the vitals she could see on the monitors herself certainly were. Not exactly 'healthy', of course, but also not directly concerning for someone who had just gone through the wringer like she had.
Or, well...she didn't quite know how 'just' it had been. She was admittedly a bit too groggy to fully remember the exact date and time during which the attack leaving her injured had taken place, which meant even the clock on the wall was of very little help with determining just how long she had been out for.
“Do you feel anything strange?” James asked her, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Any pain? Nausea? Discomfort?”
Krieger shook her head.
“Nothing, apart from being high as a kite,” she replied before briefly glancing down at herself. Her body was almost completely covered by a white sheet, so she couldn't exactly see anything. However, she knew what was underneath. “Though I'm sure my leg would be in a lot of pain if I could actually feel it.”
In the corner of her vision, she both saw and felt Nia flinch as she was still holding her hand, her face darkening a little.
James' expression also seemed to turn more serious after her jokingly said words, betraying his usually not horrible pokerface.
Slowly, she released a long breath.
“It's gone, isn't it?” she suspected immediately. Not surprising after the state her leg had been in when she last saw it.
Nia's face just turned even more glum at that, however James sighed and nodded.
“Most of it, yes,” he replied honestly, knowing her well enough to cut any sort of bullshit. “Though you will be glad to hear that your usual 'precautions' worked without a hitch. Your body accepted the prosthesis and you should be able to walk again almost immediately.”
She smiled.
“I always told you, it pays to be prepared,” she said, lifting her unoccupied arm with a finger playfully raised in lecture. Though then, she moved her gaze over to Nia, reaching her already raised arm over to Nia's head and pulling her in a bit closer before gently caressing her cheek. “Come on, why the frown?” she asked, giving a gentle smile. “You heard what he said, I'll be good as new.”
A returning smile fought itself through Nia's tears at the caress, and she nodded meekly – before then suddenly throwing herself forwards, out of the wheelchair and onto the Admiral in a brazen embrace.
A sharp pain once again shot through the Admiral's shoulder as another body suddenly pressed down onto hers, however this time she did not care a single bit as she moved her arms around her daughter and gently petted along her back while Nia clearly did her absolute best to suppress the quiet sobs leaving her. Meanwhile James stood next to it all with a stoic expression, only his eyes betraying the obvious compassion he felt for his sister's happiness.
Once the embrace was enjoyed and a few soft words were exchanged, he aided Nia in getting back into the wheelchair wordlessly.
And the Admiral didn't need him to say anything. The mere fact that he had decided to be here told her more than enough – even if he would likely say that he was here to visit Nia when he would be asked about it.
A few moments later, the door to the room opened, with two new people entering in a visible hurry. Though, despite their haste, both Tuya and Shida froze when they fully processed the scene they had barged into, with neither of them seemingly knowing if they wanted to proceed or not.
Taking the decision off them, the Admiral lifted her hand and waved them closer.
“Come in,” she said invitingly, not at all opposed to their presence here. Not for nothing, she was more than happy with the partners that her children had found for themselves. She could hardly have wished for better ones.
Still seeming a bit hesitant, the First-Lieutenant and Lieutenant-Commander then continued their motion, even if much slower now.
James and Nia both had pretty unreadable expressions on their faces at this point as they watched their respective partners approach. They all exchanged a long gaze with each other, which clearly told her children something that she wasn't quite privy to yet.
James was finally the one to break the silence.
“What brilliant timing,” he sighed a bit as he turned around, quickly grabbing a remote from a nearby nightstand. With it, he turned up the volume of a running but up until now muted screen that the Admiral had only been tangentially aware of so far.
Though now that everyone's attention seemed to be pulled towards it, she didn't need to be a genius to realize that something important was being broadcast there. And so she got quiet and listened, her professional seriousness returning as he fought through her slightly hazy state to not miss a detail, especially so as she saw just who the cameras were pointed towards.
Leaving her enormous head to hang slightly, Apojinorana Audoxya Tua, High-Matriarch of the zodiatos and current Acting-Leader-Supreme of the G.C.S. had taken the stage behind what had to be a house-sized podium, even if it didn't appear like it on screen.
The Admiral suppressed any feelings she had towards that vile woman as she concentrated on listening to her words.
They had seemingly missed the beginning of the conference they were not tuning into, so hopefully they hadn't missed anything important.
“...firm the attack. One of the current Nahfmir-Durrehefren, previously known as Melvolhorron, used his command over several of our ships and the loyalty of crews that had been radicalized by the ongoing galactic tensions -both zodiatos and coluyvoree- to mount the attack. No outside influence on his actions from any third-party outside of the zodiatos territories has been indicated during the investigations. The black box that was discovered by the human forces and handed over to galactic investigations in full accordance to communal law and without any resistance brought some additional light to his motivations. Among the usual logs and data you would expect to find, it also contained a seemingly deliberately saved...letter of devotion to...none other than my own person. It seems that this...tragic event turned heinous crime was something that he saw as his best chance to advance his position to that of the true Durrehefren. He seemed to believe that my devotion and favor could be gained through a decisive strike against the humans, whom he believed I hated deeply – along with all other deathworlders, it appears. It also appears that he believed this hate would go far enough that I would approve of any methods to achieve this strike against them – even an attack on not only another coreworld, but one of our oldest and most loyal allies. It's-” she cut of briefly, releasing a distressed trumpeting sound before reaching her trunk up to run its ends over her many dark eyes. “It is, of course, hard for me. Not only to have such a crime committed ostensibly in my name, but also that this seems to be an image that I have imprinted onto my people. An image of hate and discord that has radicalized them to the point that they would stoop to such levels simply to see the 'opposition' suffer. And while it is no secret that the humans have been at odds with me, I would never approve of such a heinous attack, not only because...friends of mine...were lost in it, too. And I am not free of blame. I see now that I was so focused on sternly defending us from the accusations posed against us, that I entirely forgot to also show the compassion that is so necessary at a time like this. And I want to apologize for this. Deeply. Even as the attack was committed by a blinded individual, the zodiatos will take full responsibility for it. We are willing to pay any required reparations to each of the injured parties involved, and we deeply wish that our ties we have to those harmed can be mended, be they old or new, strong or tattered. We will gladly welcome any diplomatic outreach from the injured parties as well as all others who are concerned in hopes to not only aid in the recovery of our alliances, but also in the healing of our very own souls as we will take any effort we can to move away from the hate that has caused this tragedy. Our people will not become one of violence and terror, that I swear by all three of my names. And I hope that all others follow that example, so that this tragic event may become a part of our history that will never be repeated. Now more than ever, we need to remind ourselves of the values that this galaxy was built upon. I thank each and every one of you for your attention. Success to you. Prosperity for all. Unity in the community.”

Guys...I'm really seething with rage right now.
Two years ago, my abusive mother tried to reach out to me on social media in an effort to try to connect with me. I naturally wanted nothing to do with her with all the bridges she burned and how many times she was so close to killing me. I blocked her, and thought nothing of it afterwards. I want nothing to do with that woman, and I will never forgive her for the trauma she put my family and I through.
And you know what, she didn't stop there. She tried to reach out to me on Facebook through a friend's account, claiming she still loved me and needed to speak to me, which again, I blocked her, blocked her accomplice, reported them both and tried to move on. I was pretty damn livid throughout the day.
Well guess what, two years later and she tried to connect with me on my old Instagram account.
So, I'm pissed...My mother, like many subhuman abusers was a violent drunk and used to regularly trample, punch, scratch, whip, claw, kick, strangle and throw me and my older sister against the wall. My sister would bang on the window of our foyer crying for help whenever she broke out the belt. Sometimes we would hold each other to curl into a ball while mom stomped on us like a Sopranos extra.
She was stealing money from my father's bank account to support her drug and booze habit, right behind his back and was cheating on him, fucking a dozen other guys and to this day, she still hasn't paid child support fees. We're still waiting 20 years later.
Our parents agreed only to speak if it's important like the death of a family member or any legal fees, anything like reading my will, and my brother's will where he and I disowned her and she doesn't get a single penny out of our estate.
.................
I just...Don't have anything else to say about this shit.
Other than as much as it would be tempting to tell her to fuck off, eat ass and die and never speak to me again, I also don't want to give her the satisfaction of a response because she doesn't deserve it, she doesn't get it and she likely never will. Why bother negotiating with a monster?
She's nothing.
She's nothing.
She will never be less than anything.